Commons Sitting of 13 March 1912

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Staffordshire Potteries Water Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Great Western Railway Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow, at a Quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Keighley Corporation Bill.
Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence taken on the Bradford Water Bill, 1869, be referred to the Committee on the Keighley Corporation Bill.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Liverpool Corporation Bill,
Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
London Electric Railway Bill,
Edgware and Hampstead Railway Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Railway Bills (Group 1),
Sir Luke White reported from the Committee on Group 1 of Railway Bills: That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copy presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 4837 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
FOREIGN TRADE AND COMMERCE.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 12th March; Mr. Sydney Buxton]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 61.]
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Colonial Report No. 710 (Basutoland, Report for 1910–11) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
CROWN COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES.
Copy presented of Treasury Minute, dated 2nd March, 1912, dispensing with the Audit of the Accounts of Crown Colonies and Protectorates, by the Comptroller and Auditor-General [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Annual Report of Proceedings under the Acts relating to Sea Fisheries for the year 1910 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1858.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 29th February, 1912, approving a Statement relative to Appointments, &c, in the Establishment of the Secretary of State for India in Council [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
SPRING ASSIZES ACT, 1879.
Copy presented of two Orders in Council, dated 29th February, 1912, constituting Spring Assize Counties Nos. 2 and 3, for the purpose of the ensuing Spring Assizes [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
NAVAL AND MARINE PAY AND PENSIONS ACT, 1865.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 29th February, 1912, sanctioning the payment of certain allowances to a Royal Marine Officer to be employed at St. Helena [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
Copy presented of Fifty-ninth Report of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LAND JUDGE'S COURT (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "by counties, of the Estates now in the Land Judge's Court over which receivers have been appointed (in. continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 269, of Session 1911)."—[Mr. Ginnell.]
LOCAL CONTRIBUTIONS (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "of all Moneys contributed out of the Rates by the county council and other local bodies in each county in Ireland during the financial year 1911–12, for the purposes of Schemes under The Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 305, of Session 1911)."—[Mr. Ginnell.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  ROYAL NAVY.

    ALTERATIONS AND REPAIRS.
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state how many armoured ships, cruisers, and destroyers have in the last twelve months been taken in hand for alteration or repair within six months of the date of their first commissioning; and what is the total cost of such alteration and repair, and by whom is it borne?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The reply to the first part of the question is: four armoured ships, six cruisers, twenty destroyers. The total cost for alteration and repair amounted to £19,804, of which £1,591 was charged to contractors and the rest to the Crown.

    ARMOUR PLATE.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any knowledge of a ring of armour plate manufacturers; if so, whether their operations are confined to Great Britain or are international; and whether such ring is known to have penalised, by imposing prohibitive prices for armour plates upon British shipbuilding firms contracting for the building of warships who may be outside the ring?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The Admiralty are aware that certain price arrangements between armour plate firms do exist, but I am unable to say whether such an
    1076
    arrangement constitutes "a ring" within the meaning of the hon. Member's question or whether such prices are applied beyond Great Britain. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. O'GRADY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware of the fact that all the armoured plate for British war vessels has to be purchased from certain firms and that that constitutes a ring?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I know of no reason which makes its necessary that all the armour plate for British war vessels should be purchased from certain firms.
    Mr. ASHLEY: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that if there is any arrangement in reference to prices in Great Britain it extends to the United States as well?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I have asked the Civil Lord to make a most careful study of the allegations which are made on this subject, and it is a matter of the most extraordinary complexity, dealing with every kind of trade discount and trade arrangement. I think it will be months before he is able to express an opinion on the subject.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked whether there is any stipulation in the contracts for the building of warships for the British Navy that firms contracting shall purchase armour plates from certain firms manufacturing armour plates?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The reply is in the negative.

    THAMES SHIPBUILDING COMPANY.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked whether any conditions of management are laid down to firms contracting for the building of war vessels; and, if so, whether in the case of the Thames Shipbuilding Company, Limited, any exception was taken to the eight-hour day when the firm tendered for the building of any ships of war for the British Navy?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The efficiency of the management of a firm about to enter into an Admiralty contract is always considered at the time, and the conditions of employment of the workmen by the firm are laid down in the contracts in the terms of the latest House of Commons Resolution on this subject. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

    DESTROYERS (GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY).
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked how many destroyers have been completed for the British and German Fleets, respectively, since 31st March last; and how many in the same period have been removed from the effective list of these fleets?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Sixteen destroyers have been completed for the British Navy since 31st March last, and nineteen have been removed from the effective list during the same period. The corresponding figures for Germany are seventeen and nil.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how we have struck off so many and Germany so few?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Because of the dates on which the vessels were laid.

    SHIPS LAUNCHED (GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY).
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked what percentage of the completed battleships, armoured and battle cruisers, smaller cruisers, and destroyers in the British and German Navies, respectively, were launched subsequent to the year 1904?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The respective numbers of completed ships in the British and German Navies that were launched subsequent to 1904 are as follows:—

    Battleships—Great Britain, 16; Germany, 11.

    Armoured and battle cruisers—Great Britain, 11; Germany 5.

    Protected cruisers—Great Britain, 8; Germany, 12.

    Unarmoured cruisers—Great Britain, 5; Germany, nil.

    Destroyers—Great Britain, 68; Germany, 71.

    A comparison based on the percentages asked for is apt to be misleading; but I will circulate the figures with the Votes.—[See Written Answers this date.]
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is it the fact, in regard to destroyers, that the percentage of increases on the part of Germany is nearly double ours?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It is certainly much greater, but, of course, there is a certain number of our programme which will be completed in the near future, and with those which are going to be taken in hand at once the percentages will be greatly altered.

    SUBMARINES (GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY).
    Mr. ASHLEYasked, taking the financial years 1910–11 and 1911–12 together, what were the total sums voted for the construction of submarines for the British and German Navies respectively?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The figures asked for are:—

    Great Britain

    …

    …

    £1,174,252

    Germany

    …

    …

    1,467,710

    Mr. ASHLEY: What steps has the right hon. Gentleman taken in this year's Estimates to redress this considerable disparity?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I should like to have an opportunity of dealing with that when the Estimates are discussed, but I may say that the British lead in submarines is very largo indeed, and there is no item of the naval programme on which our position could possibly be more satisfactory.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: Could the right hon. Gentleman give similar figures for Italy, France, and the United States?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I could with the greatest precision if notice were given.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: Would it not be desirable in questions of this character to compare with all the naval Powers rather than with one particular Power?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I have to frame the answers to the questions. If the figures for the other naval Powers were compared and not shirked, it would materially affect the significance of the figures.
    Sir W. MENZIES: Is it desirable that these comparisons should be made publicly?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is for the House to say.

    HEAVY GUNLAYERS' TEST.
    Mr. ASHLEYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that in the heavy gunlayers' test of 1911 the average position occupied by ships of the "Dreadnought" type was 89.9 as compared with an average of 37.75 for the "Majesties," the oldest battleships taking part in a total number of 127 warships; and whether there is any satisfactory explanation of the fact?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The comparatively high average position occupied by the "Majestic" class is due to the results obtained with the secondary armament of 6-in. guns. The "Dreadnought" class are not so armed. Comparing the results obtained with the primary armament of 12-in. guns in turrets common to both classes, the average positions occupied, out of forty-one competing ships, are:—

    "Dreadnought" class

    16.91

    "Majestic" class

    30.37

    A result very creditable to the "Dreadnought" class.

    PROBATIONARY SECOND LIEUTENANTS.
    Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the first Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have published a memorandum asking for candidates as probationary second lieutenants for the Royal Marines; if so, whether he will state the number to be entered; whether the candidates will be examined by the Civil Service Commissioners; and what position officers so joined will hold with regard to Marine officers entered under the common entry system embodied in the Statement of Admiralty policy of December, 1905?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Regulations as to supplementary first appointments in the Royal Marines have just been issued, and I shall be happy to send the Noble Lord a copy. As regards the second part of the question, the number of officers to be entered at the next examination has not yet been decided. The answer to the third part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the fourth part, officers entered under these regulations will, after completing their training, be in the same position as Marine officers entered under the common entry system.
    Lord C. BERESFORD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is intended to join the Marines on the old system altogether, or whether they are going to be joined half as probationary second lieutenants and half under the common entry system?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, the Admiralty are pursuing the system of common entry which has been established, but in supplement of that we find it necessary to make these special examinations for a certain number of Marine officers on account of the shortage.

  ROYAL DOCKYARDS.

    NUMBERS RETIRED AND ESTABLISHED.
    Sir JOHN JACKSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will give the number of men in His Majesty's dockyards who have retired since 1st April, 1911, and the number of men who have been established since that date?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I assume that the hon. Gentleman refers to established men retired on pension. In the home dockyards 269 have been so retired since 1st April, 1911, and the number who have been established during the 6ame period is 336.

    TERRITORIAL FORCE.
    Sir REGINALD POLE-CAREWasked whether permission to serve in the Territorials has been refused to unskilled as well as to skilled labourers in the dockyards?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The limit placed on the numbers of dockyard workmen who are allowed to belong to the Territorial Force applies to unskilled as well as to skilled labourers.
    Sir R. POLE-CAREW: Do I understand that unskilled labourers are not permitted to join?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: They are permitted within a certain percentage. It would be obviously unwise to have the yards depleted in time of national emergency.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: How is it proposed, under present conditions, to have the yards filled with unskilled labour in case of emergency?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: We have said that only a certain percentage of the men shall join the Territorials.

  Morocco.
  Dr. CHAPPLEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information of the steps taken by France to declare a Protectorate over Morocco; and whether under the Franco-German Agreement the Sultan has the right to refuse to accept such protectorate?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): I understand that the French Minister at Tangier is proceeding to Fez in order to

  1081
  negotiate a treaty with the Sultan of Morocco. I cannot say what the precise definition of that treaty will be. As regards the second part of the question I can only refer the hon. Member to the text of the Franco-German Convention which has been laid before the House.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Sultan will be coerced in the event of his being unwilling to accept a Protectorate?
  Mr. ACLAND: That is not a question I can answer.

  Commerce of the Empire (Royal Commission).
  Mr. MACKINDERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that important Ministers are being nominated by certain of the Dominions for appointment to the promised Royal Commission on the Commerce of the Empire, he will now state what steps are being taken towards the appointment of that Commission and when it is likely to be appointed?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I cannot yet name a definite date, as the composition of the Royal Commission has not been finally, though very nearly, completed, but I hope to be able to make an announcement in a short time.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask whether there is any truth in the rumour that the hon. Member for Swansea is to be chairman?

  Hong Kong and Straits Settlements (Public Services).
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the new regulations which have been made by the Colonial Office excluding from the civil and police services at Honk Kong, the Straits Settlements, and the Federated Malay States all British subjects who are not of pure European descent on both sides, whether the Colonial Office has framed any rules to determine how many generations an Asiatic family must reside in Europe before it can acquire pure European descent?
  Mr. HARCOURT: No, Sir.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman has con-
  1082
  sidered whether these regulations would exclude from the services of the Crown in the Colonies of which he has charge certain of his colleagues on the Front Bench, who are as proud of their Asiatic descent as if they had been Plantagenets?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I should be sorry to exclude any of my colleagues from offices to which they might reasonably aspire.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to the Royal Proclamation of 1858, guaranteeing to the inhabitants of the territories previously administered by the East India Company that, so far as may be, of whatever race or creed, they should be freely and impartially admitted to offices in the Royal service the duties of which they might be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge, whether that proclamation applied to the inhabitants of the Straits Settlements?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I have nothing to add to what I stated in reply to my hon. Friend's question on 22nd February.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in that answer he said that the Proclamation did apply to the Colony at the time?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I think I answered the question fully on 22nd February, or, at all events, as fully as I felt able to answer.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Can the right hon. Gentleman for my benefit and for the benefit of other Members of the House, give a simple "Yes" or "No" to the question whether this proclamation did or did not apply to this Colony?
  Mr. HARCOURT: There are few things I would not do for my hon. Friend except giving a plain "Yes" or "No" to an involved question.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that in the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements, on the 9th February, the hon. Tan Jiak Kim, the only Chinese member of the Council, asked whether it was the case that a regulation, had been made excluding from the Civil Service of the Colony all British subjects who were not of pure European descent on both sides; and that the hon. Tan Jiak Kim also asked that the Government of the Colony should lay upon the Council

  1083
  Table all papers and correspondence between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Governor of this Colony dealing with the limiting of the class of persons qualified for admission into the Civil Service, and, in particular, Papers designated Eastern No. 67 (36,819/04), Secrstary of State's Despatch No. 283 of 8th December, 1904, Eastern No. 67 (12,160/08), Secretary of State's Despatch No. 225 of 23rd September, 1908, and Eastern No. 67 (34,270/10); whether he is aware that the local Colonial Secretary, in refusing to give the information, replied that the Secretary of State had already informed the House of Commons that he does not consider that it would not be practicable to publish any Papers on the subject; and whether he will cause to be issued to the natives of the Colony some explanation of the reason for the erection of this colour bar against them?
  Mr. HARCOURT: My attention has been drawn to a newspaper report of the questions asked by Mr. Tan Jiak Kim, who is a personal friend of mine, and the replies given by the Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settlements. As I have already stated, I should be ready to consider the question of British-born Chinese or Malays being admitted to the Cadet Service if there were any chance of such candidates being successful in the competition, and if there were a local demand for the concession.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are Chinese students who have passed very high in examinations, and does he throw any reflection upon the capacity of Chinese students to pass examinations?
  Mr. HARCOURT: There is no reflection.

  Assault at Siamese Consulate, Singapore.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now aware that on 24th October Captain Alexander Henderson Chalmers, senior boarding officer in the master attendant's office, Singapore, was fined 50 dollars by one of His British Majesty's magistrates at Singapore, namely, Mr. A. de Mello, for assaulting Mr. A. W. Gooneratne, a Ceylon man, who is chief clerk at the Siamese Consulate, Singapore; and whether the Colonial Office has taken any action with regard to the matter?
  Mr. HARCOURT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and the answer to the second part in the negative. I informed my hon. Friend privately a week ago of the facts of this trivial matter.

  Sleeping Sickness (Nyasaland).
  Dr. CHAPPLEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can state how many deaths have taken place from sleeping sickness, how many deaths from trypanosomiasis in domestic animals, and how many trade routes have been closed in Nyasaland since the Colonial Office was first advised to relax the big game laws in the interest of humanity and commerce; and whether, if he is not yet satisfied with the evidence that game is a reservoir and Glossina morsitans a carrier of the germ of the disease, he will induce the big game hunters to submit to a temporary sacrifice by yielding to a relaxation of the game laws in the interest of human life and British trade by the promise that the restrictive laws will be reimposed if game and tse-tse are proved to be innocent?
  Mr. HARCOURT: The total number of cases of sleeping sickness recorded in Nyasaland up to the end of 1911 was fifty-seven, of which twenty-one are known to have died. I am not in possession of any statistics to show how many domestic animals have died from trypanosomiasis, and I am not aware that any trade routes have been closed. My hon. Friend assumes that a relaxation of the big game laws is in the interest of humanity and commerce, that is to say, that the presence of the large wild animals, and of these alone, is prejudicial to human life and to trade, presumably by their bringing the tse-tse fly with them. But it has not been shown that if these animals were to disappear the fly would disappear also; and in any case many animals would remain on which the fly could feed. In the Island of Principe, where the fly abounds, there is no big game. The Governor of Nyasaland is in communication with Sir David Bruce, who is at work in his laboratory in the sleeping sickness area in the Protectorate, and I have instructed him to furnish me with definite recommendations as to preventive measures of any kind as soon as Sir D. Bruce is in a position to make them. I shall not hesitate to take any steps, however drastic, so soon as their necessity is proved.
  Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it will be possible to lay Papers on the subject on the Table of the House.
  Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir.

  Land Valuation.
  Mr. ROYDSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is aware, in consequence of the distinction drawn in valuations under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, between land subject to a perpetual rent and land subject to a ground rent, and of his promise on 8th May, 1911, to consider whether the law should be altered, that owners of such properties are hampered in dealing with them owing to the uncertainty of their fate; and whether he will now state his intentions with regard to an alteration of the law?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): I am advised that the hon. Member over-estimates the difficulties arising out of the distinction drawn between a perpetual rent and a ground rent. The question of amending the law is being considered, but I am not at present in a position to make any statement on the subject.
  Mr. ROYDS: Will the hon. Gentleman consider whether the expenditure of public money on site and other hypothetical valuations should now cease, and market values only be ascertained?

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    FEDERAL BILL, SWITZERLAND.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the result of the recent Referendum to the Swiss people on the subject of National Insurance?
    Mr. ACLAND: The Federal Bill for insurance against sickness and accidents was accepted by a majority of nearly 50,000 out of a total of nearly 525,000 votes.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he can say whether this has passed the Federal Legislature?
    Mr. ACLAND: No, Sir, I am afraid I cannot. I would ask the hon. Member to give notice of the question.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware whether the Swiss scheme is voluntary or compulsory, and also whether there are any Post Office contributors?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should put that question on the Paper.

    SICKNESS AND DISABLEMENT BENEFIT.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked what is the margin in respect of the sickness and disablement benefits provided by the statutory contributions under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The margin contained in the premium of 7d., according to the last Report of the Government actuaries, was .42d. for men and .53d. for women. The weekly contributions for sickness and disablement benefits were given as 3.17d. for men and 2.55d. for women. Treating the margins as applicable to these benefits, therefore, they represent additions of 13 per cent, for men and 21 per cent. for women.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that statements have been circulated widely that the margin is only 6 per cent., and, in view of this, will he take steps to give wider circulation to the new facts which he has stated?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am endeavouring to give through the Insurance Commissioners publicity to all accurate statements. What I have given to my hon. Friend now is a statement available to everyone, because it is contained in a Report laid on the Table of this House.
    Mr. CASSEL: Was that percentage arrived at on the assumption that the payment to the doctors was only 4s. 6d. per patient, and if the payment was what they ask would not the whole margin be then entirely wiped out?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The actuarial statement, as far as medical benefit was concerned, was an allowance of 6s. per head.
    Mr. CASSEL: Does not that include 1s. 6d. for drugs?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: There was no separation, I think, of drugs and doctors.

    VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTORS.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the fact that many persons of a certain age have the right for a limited period, under the National Insurance Act, to become voluntary contributors for its benefits, and that

    1087
    these persons are in danger of being misled into thinking their option valueless and of not exercising it, whether he will cause official advertisements to be issued widely directing attention to the value of the option exercisable under the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I realise the urgent necessity of bringing the value of this option to the notice of the persons affected. The Commission are endeavouring to make it as widely known as possible by means of lectures and by the preparation of pamphlets and leaflets.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: In view of the great value of this option to the persons concerned, have they any remedy against those who are circulating statements urging them not to take up the option?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not know what the legal position would be in those circumstances, but I hope that before June every insured person will be in a position to obtain accurate information.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sufficiently advertised without getting public money for it?
    Mr. CASSEL: Will there be any remedy against persons who represent the benefits as being greater than they are?

    MISREPRESENTATIONS.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take any steps, in the interests of persons eligible to become insured persons under the National Insurance Act, to stop misrepresentation of a measure passed into law by the unanimous vote of both Houses of Parliament?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Lectures have already been arranged throughout the United Kingdom in order to give information about the actual provisions of the Act, and pamphlets and leaflets will be almost immediately issued by the Insurance Commissioners with the same object. It would be sanguine to hope that the Commissioners will be able, with all their efforts, to stop "misrepresentation of the Act"; but certainly misrepresentation will prove less mischievous as their work of disseminating accurate information progresses.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the statement that the Act gives to insured persons only half the benefits which would be given for the same money by a well-managed friendly society had a great deal to do with winning the South Manchester election?
    Mr. RONALD M'NEILL: Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to withdraw from circulation a pamphlet with a preface by the Chancellor of the Exchequer containing misrepresentations which were exposed in this House?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have not seen any pamphlet issued by the Chancellor of the Exchequer which contains misrepresentations that were exposed in this House.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: To whom does the hon. Member attribute these misrepresentations to which he refers? Am I not entitled to an answer?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should hand that question in at the table.

    INSURANCE IN GERMANY.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked whether the sickness benefit granted under the German national insurance system is guaranteed by the German Imperial Treasury?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Imperial Treasury does not contribute anything to the sickness benefit in Germany, nor does it in any way guarantee that benefit.

    FRIENDLY SOCIETY BENEFITS.
    Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked if it is the case that a friendly society can give twice the benefits offered by the National Insurance Act for the same contributions; and if the Insurance Commissioners have made any calculations as to what the benefits are really worth to contributors entering at various ages?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I know of no case in which a friendly society can give twice the benefits offered by the National Insurance Act for the same contributions, and if a particular society can give the ordinary benefits for less than these contributions it will be entitled to utilise what it has so saved in giving additional benefits to its own members. With regard to the latter part of the question, the official figures are not yet available, but the following statement of the equivalent

    1089
    value of the benefits may be taken as approximately correct:—

    Age.

    Weekly Premium.

    s.

    d.

    16

    …

    …

    …

    …

    0

    7

    25

    …

    …

    …

    …

    0

    8

    35

    …

    …

    …

    …

    0

    9

    45

    …

    …

    …

    …

    0

    11

    55

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1

    2

    60

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1

    3

    APPOINTMENTS IN IRELAND.
    Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked whether, out of eight persons appointed by the Irish Insurance Commissioners as lecturers on the Insurance Act, only two are non-political appointments and the other six are persons nominated by or representing the Socialist-Nationalist party?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As the hon. Member will see by reference to page 10 of the White Paper, Cd. 6095, the Irish Commission have appointed not eight lecturers but twenty-five. All of these appointments are non-political. I have never heard of the existence of "the Socialist-Nationalist party" in Ireland."
    Mr. KERR-SMILEY: Is it not a fact that one of the persons appointed was a sister of the election agent of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin), while another—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should not introduce these personal questions.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALE: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to state that no political influence was exercised in regard to these appointments?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Certainly.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALE: Will the hon. Gentleman take the trouble to make himself acquainted with the facts in connection with the appointments?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not understand what facts the hon. Member means. As far as I am able to find out the political or religious convictions of the persons the appointments of the Insurance Commissioners in Ireland have been made equally in proportion to the population among Protestants and Catholics, or with a rather larger proportion of Protestants than Catholics, and equally in proportion to the population from members of Unionist and Nationalist sections.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALE: Is the hon. Member aware that I can furnish him with information that the statement which he has made to the House is absolutely not in accordance with the fact?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have not the slightest idea of what information the hon. Member is aware of.

    FRIENDS IN DISTRESS SOCIETY, NO. 309, GLAMORGAN.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Friends in Distress Society, No. 309, Glamorgan, has duly resolved to dissolve, and has lodged the necessary papers and fees with the Registrar of Friendly Societies, and that registration of the dissolution has been refused by the Registrar pending consideration of the effect of Section 72 of the National Insurance Act; and will he say how many other societies desiring dissolution have similarly been refused?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Friends in Distress Society, No. 309, Glamorgan, has duly resolved to dissolve, and has lodged the necessary papers and fees with the Registrar of Friendly Societies. Registration of the dissolution has not been refused, but has been postponed pending consideration of the effect of Section 72 of the National Insurance Act on the power of societies to dissolve. The registration of instruments of dissolution has been similarly postponed in the case of forty-eight other societies and two branches.
    Mr. CASSEL: May I ask on what principle registration is being made in some cases and refused in others?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think there is a circular being sent in every case. There was a circular sent advising each society to make itself familiar with the conditions under the Insurance Act, and later there has been a postponement owing to the necessity of obtaining the highest legal opinion as to the influence of Section 72.

    EXEMPTIONS FROM ACT.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked (1) whether nurses employed by the Poor Law authorities are or are not exempted from the National Insurance Act; and (2) whether civilian foremen and labourers employed in the Army Ordnance depots are or are not exempted from the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The question whether any of these categories of persons can be excepted in respect of health insurance under Part II. of the First Schedule of the Act will depend upon whether the terms of their employment are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness and disablement, on the whole not less favourable than corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of the Act. The Commissioners cannot give any certificate to this effect until they have been satisfied by an investigation of the facts relating to the particular category, that the conditions menioned in the schedule exist.
    Mr. CASSEL: Will that be determined by the Treasury or the Commissioners?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think it is determined by the Commissioners, and investigations are proceeding.

    APPROVED SOCIETY (QUALIFICATION).
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the difficulty which agricultural labourers and other workmen will experience in replying to the question contained in the official form of application for membership of an approved society as to whether the applicant is qualified to be an insured person, he will add for his information, as a footnote or otherwise on the face or back of the form, what constitutes such qualification?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: A footnote, giving in summary the information referred to, appears at the end of the form, and the Commission are taking other steps to give fuller information to persons affected by the Act.

    VILLAGE FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked how many village friendly societies there are still in existence in England and Wales?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The information in the office of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies on the subject is not in a form which enables it to be given in an answer to a question. But I shall be glad to arrange to give the hon. Member such information as is available if he will communicate privately with the Chief Registrar or myself.

    SANATORIA (SCOTLAND).
    Mr. FREDERICK WHYTEasked the Secretary for Scotland, whether Scotland's share of the sum available for the erection of sanatoria under Section 64 of
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    the National Insurance Act will be apportioned strictly according to the population of different areas; and whether he can give an assurance that necessitous districts in the Highland and Islands will not be allowed to suffer owing to the sparseness of their population?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The matter is now under the consideration of the Local Government Board for Scotland, in view of the terms of the section referred to, and my hon. Friend may rest assured that the varying circumstances and conditions of different localities in Scotland will not be overlooked.

  Site and Building Values.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether, in cases where both site and buildings are valued as on the 30th April, 1909, under Part I. of The Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, at a total value below their cost, and are subsequently sold for a larger sum than such total value, the whole of the excess is reckoned as increment of site value and charged with duty under the Act, or whether a proper allowance is made for the recovery which the sale price may show has occurred in the value of the buildings?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Where a site and building are sold at a price exceeding the total value as on 30th April, 1909, no Increment Value Duty is payable in respect of any part of the excess which represents a recovery in the value of the building.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: How is allowance for recovery made?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I must ask for notice of that question.

  Imprisonment of Debtors.
  Sir HAROLD ELVERSTONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the 8,198 debtors who were imprisoned to enforce judgments of the county courts in the year 1910 were summoned in respect of sums of £2 and under?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I have no information on the point, and the detailed examination of each of the 8,198 cases in question which would be necessary to obtain it would give the officers of the county courts more trouble than would seem to be justified.
  Sir H. ELVERSTON: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could give the information, say, for the months of April, May, and June?
  Mr. McKENNA: I will try if it can be done.

  COAL STRIKE.

    ALLEGED INCITEMENT TO MUTINY.
    Mr. MORRELLasked whether the Home Secretary can state on what ground criminal proceedings have been taken against the editor and printers of the "Syndicalist" newspaper; whether bail has been refused by the magistrates; whether the houses of the prisoners have been searched by the police and their private papers seized; and whether the Government have authorised these proceedings?
    Mr. McKENNA: My right hon. Friend informs me that proceedings have been taken against these persons for incitement to mutiny, which is both a statutory and common law offence. He is informed that the magistrates have refused bail, and that the premises have been searched and some papers bearing on the offence charged have been seized in accordance with usual practice on execution of a warrant of arrest. These proceedings have been authorised by the Attorney-General.
    Mr. MORRELL: May I ask whether it is not the fact that these proceedings are taken under the Act of 1907; whether there as any recent precedent for taking criminal proceedings of this sort against the editor of the newspaper; and, thirdly, whether it is the fact, as stated by the counsel for the prosecution, that these proceedings were taken in consequence of the coal strike?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am unable, without notice, to answer any one of my hon. Friend's questions.
    Mr. LANSBURY: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will inquire into the position of the two men who were arrested for being the printers of this paper; whether he will inquire into the fact that these are two workmen printers, and that the suddenness of their arrest and the refusal of bail means that their livelihood has been destroyed; and whether he will also inquire as to the kind of treatment meted out to criminals, real criminals in high places in connection with frauds on the public through company promoting, etc.?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

    "FORWARD" NEWSPAPER.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I wish to express my sincere regret to the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) that I did not give him notice of this question which appears in my name on the Paper. I assumed, from the appearance of the manifesto in a leading Scottish Labour newspaper, that it had been sent by the Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party with his approval. I wish to ask whether the Home Secretary's attention has been called to the current number of "Forward," a weekly journal published in Glasgow, in which is set out a manifesto purporting to have been drafted by the hon. Member for Leicester and issued by the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party, in which manifesto is an appeal to soldiers not to shoot strikers if ordered to do so; and what steps he proposes to take?
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Perhaps the House will permit me, in a sentence, to say, as my name is associated with this, that I did not draft the manifesto, that the manifesto was not issued by the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party, and that if my hon. Friend had done me the courtesy to ask me the question before, I could have given him the whole of the facts of the case, and not made it necessary to give full circulation to this report.
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. My attention has not been called to the passage in the journal referred to.

    ORCHARD COLLIERY (SHEFFIELD).
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked whether the Orchard Colliery, near Sheffield, was closed down last Friday on account of intimidation by a peaceful picket some 200 strong, and will remain closed down until the embargo is removed by the Miners' Association; and whether the authorities will afford adequate protection to the staff of that mine and to their dependents if it is desired to reopen that pit without the leave of the Miners' Association?
    Mr. McKENNA: The pit is a very small one, employing only fifteen men. The chief constable reports that it was closed on Friday by the owner after a visit by about forty Derbyshire miners, but that no threats were used, and that no request

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    has been made to the police for protection. If protection is required, the local authorities are primarily responsible.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: If it is desired to reopen the pit is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to see that the labourers are protected?
    Mr. McKENNA: The local authorities are primarily responsible.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take any steps to see that law and order are maintained?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir; every step would be taken to see that law and order are enforced, but I would remind the Noble Lord that it is impossible to give answers to purely hypothetical questions.
    Mr. CLAUDE LOWTHER: In view of the fact that the case in the question is only one out of hundreds all over the country, where the right to work has been forcibly interfered with, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will seriously consider the question of amending the Trades Disputes Act which deals with this erroneously called peaceful picketing?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question. The hon. Gentleman asks the Home Secretary whether he will amend the law of the land. That is a sort of question which cannot be answered on the moment; it requires consideration.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: May I ask whether it is in order for a Member of this House to cast aspersions on a body of men at a time when the authorities admit that there is absolute peace throughout the entire coalfields?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot stop an hon. Member from asking a supplementary question. All I can do is to request him to put it down in writing, and then I can see whether it is a proper question for answer.
    An HON. MEMBER: It should be stopped. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order."]
    Mr. O'GRADY: We will get order for you directly, if you do not shut up over there. [An HON. MEMBER: "Name."]
    Mr. McKENNA: As to the first part of the hon. Member's question, as he has stated that there are hundreds of cases similar
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    to that mentioned in the Noble Lord's question, I think I ought to have the opportunity of stating that I have no knowledge of those cases.
    Mr. CLAUDE LOWTHER: I should be very glad to give the right hon. Gentleman the information.

    ALIENS (SCOTLAND AND SOUTH WALES).
    Mr. GIBBSasked whether the Home Secretary has any information showing the number of aliens working in the coalfields of Scotland and South Wales?
    Mr. McKENNA: Exact figures are not available, but the number in Scotland is estimated by the Inspector of the Division roughly at 2,400. The number in South Wales is thought by the Inspector of the Division to be very small, probably under 100.

    SECRET BALLOT.
    Mr. CLAUDE LOWTHERasked the Prime Minister whether he will at once introduce legislation empowering the Board of Trade to ascertain by means of a secret ballot whether the miners of Great Britain desire any further continuance of the coal strike?
    Mr. McKENNA (for the Prime Minister): The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. CLAUDE LOWTHER: Arising out of the answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether a vote that affects millions of workers in this country is not, anyhow, as important as the election of a county councillor or a Member of this House?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must put his question down.

    SHIPMENT OF COAL.
    Mr. INGLEBYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that 1,380 tons of coal were shipped at the King's Lynn docks for foreign ports during the past week, and that the lighting of the town during the same period had been reduced by one-half in consequence of the scarcity of fuel; and what steps the Government have taken to prevent the export of coal during the present crisis?
    Mr. McKENNA: There is no power without legislation to prohibit the exportation of coal. The question of legislation was carefully considered, but the Government came to the conclusion that no substantial relief to the present situation could result from such a measure.

    RELIEF WORKS.
    Viscount WOLMERasked Minister whether the assist in the establishment of relief works in those parts of the country where great hardship is being caused by the coal strike?
    Mr. McKENNA (for the Prime Minister): I can at present add nothing to the answer which I gave the Noble Lord on Monday last.

    MINIMUM RATE OF WAGES.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked the Prime Minister whether, before announcing to the representatives of the Miners' Federation on the 29th February last the proposal of the Government to introduce legislation providing for the payment of a minimum wage to miners, he had taken any steps to ascertain whether the Federation would, in return for such concession, be prepared to refer the final settlement of a schedule of minimum rates of wages to the decision of the tribunals whose constitution he foreshadowed?
    Mr. McKENNA (for the Prime Minister): I must refer the hon. Member to the speech I made in the House on 4th March, in which he will find a full account of the negotiations, and to which I have nothing to add.

  Suffragist Outrages.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked if the London magistrates were advised by the Home Office or police authorities to sentence the prisoners connected with the recent suffrage disturbances to sentences of hard labour and not to discriminate between first and second offenders; and, if so, will the Home Secretary review the sentences, so as to apportion the punishment of these offenders in accordance with their individual guilt?
  Mr. McKENNA: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. With regard to the second, I can only say that no case has been made out sufficient, in my opinion, to justify interference by means of the Prerogative of Mercy with any of the sentences passed on these offenders.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked how many of the prisoners connected with the recent suffrage disturbances have been sentenced to hard labour; how many have applied for special treatment as political prisoners, and in how many cases has such treatment been allowed; and how many are in hospital and are being forcibly fed; and, if so, how many?
  Mr. McKENNA: The number sentenced to hard labour is seventy-six, who are not eligible for special treatment under Rule 243a. Forty-two prisoners have been sentenced to imprisonment in the second or third division, and of these thirty-three are receiving treatment under that rule. The others have either forfeited the privileges by misconduct or are in hospital. Of the whole number of suffragette prisoners, including those waiting trial, nine are in hospital. All the prisoners are taking their food voluntarily.

  Prison Warders (Pay).
  Mr. HUDSONasked whether the Home Secretary is aware of the dissatisfaction existing throughout His Majesty's prison service in consequence of the fact that the Prison Commissioners, in their circular of 29th February last, announce that they are unable to grant an increase of pay to warders in response to their petitions, more especially as the police throughout the country have received a rise of wages owing to the increased cost of living; and whether, seeing that the pay of prison warders has remained stationary for many years past he will reconsider the matter?
  Mr. McKENNA: I have no reason to any such dissatisfaction in the prison service as the hon. Member suggests. On the contrary, I understand that the important concessions which have just been made in the way of shorter hours and relief from night duty are much appreciated by the staff. I should have been glad, and so would the Prison Commissioners, if a case could have been made which would have justified the grant of a general increase of pay; but the pay and allowances in the prison service are already liberal, the allowance in lieu of quarters has been raised progressively in recent years to meet the increased cost of living, and only two years ago the maximum pay of warders and principal warders was increased, while junior officers were given automatic promotion after eight years' service to a higher scale of pay and increment.

  Income Per Head of Population.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the estimated income per head of the population in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively, in 1861 and in the last completed financial year?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: In view of the large amount of income that does not pay Income Tax I regret that the official information at my disposal does not enable me to answer the hon. Member's question.

  Public Service (Salaries).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the total number of persons in all branches of the Scottish and in all branches of the Irish public service, respectively, receiving as remuneration from public funds £100 a year and upwards, with the aggregate amount of their salaries and the aggregate amount of their expenses paid by the State in the financial year 1891–2 and in the last completed financial year?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The facts for which the hon. Member asks could only be obtained in a complete form by making a detailed analysis of the accounts of all Scottish and Irish Departments for the two years in question; but the published Civil Service and Revenue Departments' Estimates for those years contain a great deal of the information which the hon. Member desires.

  Local Government Board.
  Mr. BIGLANDasked the Prime Minister whether he will explain why, when the status of the Local Government Board was raised to the status of a Secretary of State office and the salary of the President was raised from £2,000 to £5,000, the salaries of principal clerks and of the class immediately below principal clerks were not also raised to the level which obtains in Secretary of State offices?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The scale of salaries assigned to the principal clerks and first-class clerks in the Local Government Board was fixed having regard to the internal organisation of that Department, which differs in some respects from the system prevailing in the Departments of the various Secretaries of State. The Local Government Board has, for instance, a far larger number of assistant secretaries than the other Departments, and consequently there is a practical equivalence between it and them as regards the aggregate number of highly-paid and more responsible posts.

  Welsh Disestablishment Bill.
  Mr. FRED HALLasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the intention of the Government to introduce a measure for the Disestablishment of the
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  national Church in Wales, he will call for a full and complete Return to be submitted to the House, showing the actual endowments of that Church, in order that Members may have an opportunity of forming an opinion as to the justice or otherwise of any proposals which may be embodied in the Bill; and whether he will arrange for a Return also to be submitted showing the actual endowments of religious denominations in Wales other than the Established Church, to enable the House to judge as to the relative degrees of generosity shown by the various sections?
  Mr. McKENNA: The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. The information asked for, as far as the Church of England is concerned, is given for 1906 in the Report, Memoranda, and Appendices of the Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies in Wales and Monmouthshire. I would refer in particular to a Return by Sir Lewis Dibdin on page 3, Cd. Paper 5432–1. Except for the Calvinistic Methodists, as to whose endowments some information will be found in Cd. Paper 5438, page 9. I have no detailed particulars of the endowments of the Nonconformist churches in Wales.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. DAWESasked whether it is considered that Section 5 (b) of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1911, is retrospective; and, if not, whether he will give instructions for the payment of pension warrants payable before 18th August, 1911, although not presented within three months?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The Statute precludes the payment of orders presented on or after 18th August, 1911, which are more than three months overdue. In these circumstances the second part of the question does not arise.
  Mr. GINNELLasked at what sum the Local Government Board for Ireland estimated the annual value of a room, clothing, and maintenance of an old woman in the country; and whether the Board would allow an old age pension to Mrs. Bridget Gilsenan, of Simonstown, Coole, who was over seventy?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): No hard and fast rule can be applied to these cases, as each case must be dealt with on its merits, having regard to the circumstances of the person or persons from whom the maintenance is

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  derived. Mrs. Gilsenan's claim was disallowed by the Local Government Board on appeal in January last, and the Board have no power to reopen the case.
  Mr. GINNELL: On what ground was the pension refused?
  Mr. BIRRELL: On the ground that, having regard to the value of the accommodation supplied to her, she was not entitled to a pension.

  Financial Relations (Great Britain and Ireland).
  Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, since the union of the British and Irish Exchequers in 1817, any Irishman has ever been called upon to pay heavier taxation than an inhabitant of Great Britain of similar income; whether all taxation has run concurrently in both countries during that period; and, if not, will he state what taxes have been charged in Great Britain at a higher rate than in Ireland, and what taxes, if any, have been charged in Ireland and not in Great Britain?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I am afraid this information is not available in a form suitable to an answer to Parliamentary question, but I may perhaps draw the hon. Member's attention to the Return moved for by the hon. Member for Salisbury on the 15th ultimo, which is now in course of preparation.
  Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the total amount expended in Army and Navy Votes since the union of the British and Irish Exchequers in 1817; and will he also state the total amount received during the same period from Ireland in excess of moneys expended there, and the proportion that such payments bear towards the total cost of the Army and Navy Votes during the whole period?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The information is not available in the form suggested by the hon. Member. I may, however, point out that the expenditure on Army and Navy Services will be found for the years to 31st March, 1869, on pages 148–151 of Part II. of House of Commons Return No. 366, I., of 1869, and thereafter in the annual Finance Accounts. As regards the remainder of the question, I may refer the hon. Member to House of Commons Return No. 313, of 1894, and similar Returns for succeeding years, the latest being 221 of 1911.
  Mr. STEWART: Will the hon. Gentleman, for the information of Members, produce some sort of balance-sheet about the old partnership before it goes into liquidation next month, to see how the old partnership worked?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I will consider if I can obtain any figures.

  Scottish Education Department (Voluntary and Board Schools).
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Secretary for Scotland whether the Government have taken any, and, if so, what steps to make good their pledge to the Catholic school authorities in Scotland with regard to the residue Grant; if not, is there any intention of reconsidering the position of voluntary schools in Scotland; and whether he is aware that an assurance on this point is of importance at this juncture, in view of the proposed superannuation scheme for teachers and other burdens imposed by the Scottish Education Department?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The voluntary schools have their full share in the new Grant made by the Treasury, as well as in the additional Grant to the Education (Scotland) Fund made in 1908. I am not in a position to promise any further Grant from the Treasury, and the only way, therefore, that the addition to the fee Grant could be increased would be by diminishing the expenditure upon secondary education, bursaries, and medical inspection, etc., in the benefits of which the voluntary schools share along with others. The figure anticipated by my predecessor did not refer to voluntary schools alone, but to all schools, and I am not aware that there is any general desire to diminish expenditure upon the objects I have named for the purpose of increasing the fee Grant.
  Mr. BOLAND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that an undertaking was given by his predecessor that in the case of the voluntary schools a sum of 6s. per head would be given out of the residue Grant?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am not aware of any undertaking made specially to voluntary schools.
  Mr. BOLAND: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to supply him with a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT which gives the promise?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Certainly.
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether those who were responsible for the framing of the superannuation scheme for Scottish teachers, when basing the scheme on salary, were aware that the salary of a competent class teacher under a school board frequently rises to £200 per annum or more, and that the salary of a competent voluntary school teacher of the same status is seldom higher than £100 per annum; and could the payment of the Government portion for each teacher, under Section 5 (2) (a) and (b), be made the average of 4 per cent, on all teachers' salaries for the year?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The answer to the first question is in the affirmative, and to the second question in the negative. I am aware that the salaries of teachers in the voluntary schools are, on the average, lower than those of teachers in board schools. The Government Grant is not made on the basis suggested in the question, and cannot be so made in terms of the Statute.
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether those responsible for the teachers' superannuation scheme intend making any arrangements whereby the pension of a Catholic class teacher, which on estimated salary may be £60 per annum, will be brought on a level with the pension of the board school teacher which on estimated salary will amount possibly to £120 per annum; and whether, in drafting the superannuation scheme for Scottish teachers of all grades and denominations, the Government intends taking status and service into account in giving pensions as well as individual salaries; and, if not, has he adverted to the handicap that will be inflicted on Catholic teachers of all grades?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am unable to accept the figures quoted in the question as accurate, and the answer to each of the three parts of the question is in the negative.
  Mr. PIRIEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in connection with the request for an allowance of Equipment Grants to ordinary primary schools towards the extra cost of an intermediate curriculum for specialised pupils, he will explain why county committees were urged to give special consideration to the claims of such schools in accordance with Section 1 (8) (b), of the Department's Memorandum of April, 1909, as to Section 17 of the Act, seeing that the possibility of
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  Grants under this Section has largely become a dead letter owing to shortage of funds?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I would direct my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that while the Department's Memorandum was issued in April, 1909, it was not until two years later that there took place the "unexpected and it is to be hoped temporary shrinkage in the sources whence the Education (Scotland) Fund is derived" of which the committee's were duly advised on 30th May, 1911.
  Mr. PIRIE: May I ask if the effect of the last answer from the right hon. Gentleman's Department was that no mention was made of the shortage of funds?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I hope my hon. Friend will recognise that I cannot possibly recall the last answer.
  Mr. PIRIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to see that the answers of the Scottish Department are given for the guidance of the public and not merely for the information of Members?

  North Ronaldshay Steamship Service.
  Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the fact that the Post Office provides a three days a week open-boat service (between the islands of North Ronaldshay and Sanday) which is unsatisfactory and affords no facilities for passengers and produce, he will inquire of the North of Scotland Steamship Company how many trips to North Ronaldshay from Kirkwall the company makes in the year on an average; and on what terms the said company would undertake a regular fortnightly service to North Ronaldshay from Kirkwall?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him on Monday by the Postmaster-General. The facts as to the inadequacy or otherwise of the existing communications are doubtless within my hon. Friend's knowledge, and I shall be glad to consider any representations he may wish to make.

  Rural Housing (Scotland).
  Mr. WATTasked the Secretary for Scotland whether it is intended to appoint a Commission to inquire into the condition of rural housing in Scotland; if so, will he say when it is to be set up; and whether women will be represented on it?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow on Monday last. I am considering the matters referred to, but am not yet in a position to make any further statement.

  Telephone Service.
  Mr. ASTORasked the Postmaster-General whether the solicitor to the Post Office has put forward a claim that debts owing to the National Telephone Company have, on the transfer of the undertaking to the Post Office, become Crown debts, and so liable to preferential payment in the liquidation of a company; and, if so, whether he sanctions such a claim being put forward?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The solicitor to the Post Office has not put forward any claim that debts owing to the National Telephone Company have become Crown debts. But the circumstances in which claims arise are often complicated, and it may be that in some instances a preferential right of payment may arise in relation to a continuing contract.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSONasked the Postmaster-General, whether he will move for or agree to the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the telephone system here and abroad, and the best means of increasing its usefulness to the community?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Such an inquiry would necessarily be of a highly technical character and, as at present advised, I doubt whether it could profitably be undertaken by a Committee of this House. Officers of my Department frequently visit other countries in order to study the telephone systems there, and the late engineer-in-chief of the Post Office has just been appointed Special Commissioner to investigate inter alia the telephone systems of the Continent.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Is there to be a Departmental inquiry at the same time?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Inquiries are continually going on as a matter of Departmental procedure. A considerable number of officers of my Department have been at one time or another in the United States, Sweden, Holland, and other countries to study telephone problems.

  Post Office Staff (West Central District).
  Mr. DAWESasked the Postmaster-General whether, having regard to the amount of overtime worked at the West Central District Office, he is prepared to recommend an increase of the staff equal in number to at least the holiday reserve?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I have already authorised the employment of a considerable number of additional officers at the Western Central District Office with the view of reducing the amount of overtime.

  St. Patrick's Day (Postal Delivery of Shamrock).
  Mr. BRADYasked the Postmaster-General what arrangements, if any, had been made by the Dublin postal authorities to ensure the prompt dispatch of shamrock packets for delivery in Great Britain on or before 17th March next; and is he aware that the arrangements last year were of such an inadequate nature that a number of shamrock packets were not delivered at their destinations in Great Britain until two days after St. Patrick's Day?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Special arrangements have been made, but their success is, of course, dependent on the provision of the usual railway facilities, which will, I fear, be more and more curtailed if the coal strike continues. I cannot agree that the arrangements made last year were so inadequate as the hon. Member suggests.

  Plague in India.
  Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Undersecretary of State for India, if he would give the latest Returns concerning the plague in India, the district most affected, and whether the death-rate, compared with the corresponding period of the previous year, is declining?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Lewis, for Mr. Montagu): The latest Return of plague mortality is for the month of January, 1912. The deaths were 49,229, against 91,434 in January, 1911. The areas most affected are in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Hyderabad State, and the Bombay Presidency. As far as can be judged at present, the disease is less virulent than in the preceding year, but there are still two months before the period of maximum intensity will be reached.

  Training Colleges (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked whether, at the first annual examination of the students of the two-years' course in the training colleges under the National Board of Education, Ireland, held in 1905, the answering of the students was judged and recorded by the inspectors by numbers or by words, such as good, fair, bad?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the inspectors recorded the merit of each student's answering at the examination referred to by means of numbers.

  Spanish Professor (National University).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that Miss Degani, professor of Spanish in the National University, had this year again refused to lecture in Spanish; if he would say what Spanish diploma, distinction, or certificate of proficiency in that language she held, and when acquired; at what fee the Attorney-General for Ireland appeared recently to maintain this professor in her position; and whether it was to be paid by the university or by the Crown?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Miss Degani was appointed by the university authorities, who were satisfied that she was fully qualified. I understand that there is no foundation for the statement that she has refused to lecture in Spanish. The Attorney-General has never appeared as her counsel.
  Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what Spanish certificate this lady possesses?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot say without notice.
  Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say who, capable of answering, represents in this House on behalf of the Government university education in Ireland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am not aware that any of our great universities have representatives here.

  Labourers' Cottages (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary if he was aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland, in pursuance of a circular issued by that Board last year, had not yet held an inquiry into a scheme of labourers' cottages adopted by the Mullingar District Council six
  1108
  months ago, though some of those to be provided occupy dwellings condemned as unfit for human habitation; whether he would have this inquiry held at an early date; and whether he would see that his undertaking that the sanitary grounds on which Parliament passed the Labourers' Acts were not, in practice, disregarded?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The council's petition for the confirmation of the scheme in question was only received by the Local Government Board on the 15th February, and the case must await its turn, having regard to the invariable principle of dealing first with those cases where the needs of the labouring classes in. the matter of housing accommodation are greatest. In the Mullingar rural district 782 cottages were erected and fifty-five others were in course of construction on the 31st March, 1911.
  Mr. GINNELL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered that part of my question with regard to persons occupying dwellings unfit for human habitation?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not know whether that is so or not. We have to proceed in the various districts according to the amount of accommodation already furnished, and I think Mullingar has done very well.
  Mr. GINNELL: Is it not a fact that the Local Government Board are sanctioning schemes on other than sanitary grounds?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not know whether that is so. They only sanction schemes in those parts of the country where the accommodation is wholly insufficient.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether any and, if so, what steps had been taken by the Congested Districts Board to acquire the Trinity College estate in the Cahirciveen rural district?
  Mr. BIRRELL: This estate has recently been offered for sale through the Congested Districts Board. The property will be inspected, and a decision arrived at regarding purchase as soon as practicable.
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary why the case of John Aldworth, Derry-given, a tenant on the Warden estate, who served a fair-rent notice two years ago, had not yet been called by the Land Commission; and could he state when the next sitting would be held at Kenmare?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No application to fix a fair rent under the Land Law Acts is pending in the Land Commission in the case referred to. A date has not yet been fixed for the next sitting of a Sub-Commission at Kenmare.
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether the inspection of the Colomb estate, near Caherciveen, by the Congested Districts Board had yet been completed, and, if so, with what result; and when the purchase negotiations would be completed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: This estate has been inspected, but I am not at present in a position to make any further statement in the matter.

  Poor Law Amendment.
  Mr. MacCAWasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that in the case of the death of a tenant of a labourer's cottage who might leave his widow and children destitute the Poor Law guardians were debarred from giving any relief to the family; and if he could see his way to effect such an amendment of the law as to remedy this state of affairs?
  Mr. BIRRELL: As the law stands at present, the guardians have power to give relief either in the workhouse or out of the workhouse to destitute poor widows who have two or more legitimate children dependent upon them. The occupation of over a quarter of an acre of land, however, disqualifies the occupier, and this would apply in the case of a tenant of a labourer's cottage with an allotment attached. I see no prospect of legislation on the subject.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Lord CHARLES BERESFORD: I desire to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty a question of which I have given private notice—namely, when the remaining portion of the Navy Estimates for 1912–13 will be presented to the House?
Dr. MACNAMARA: I hope they will be presented on Tuesday.
Lord C. BERESFORD: But the Debate will not take place before the whole of the Estimates are in the hands of the House?
Dr. MACNAMARA: The discussion on the Estimates does not at all depend upon the issue of this programme. The
1110
programme is not part of the Estimates, and is not voted by the House. It is merely a detailed appropriation of our proposals with regard to Vote 8, which is in the Estimates.
Lord C. BERESFORD: The right hon. Gentleman is aware that it is the allocation of the money. We cannot discuss the Estimates until we know how the Government propose to allocate the money.
Dr. MACNAMARA: The programme, which is an Appendix to the Estimates, is not voted by the House as a part of the Estimates. It may be necessary for information, but it is not part of the Estimates.
Mr. ARTHUR LEE: Are we to have the discussion before we have the information? Can the right hon. Gentleman say why, in this particular case, it should be impossible to furnish the information which has always been given?
Dr. MACNAMARA: The information will be furnished at the earliest possible date. What I have said is that the presentation of this Appendix is not contingent on the Debate on the Estimates. But there will be no delay. We shall issue it as soon as we can.
Lord C. BERESFORD: I think the House has a right to ask that the Estimates shall not be presented for discussion before we know what they are for.
Dr. MACNAMARA: The Noble Lord is really wrong. Members have the Estimates in the fullest possible form. This is an Appendix, and not a part of the Estimates. It is merely a detailed application of the money asked for under Vote 8, which is usually debated very fully late in the year.
Lord C. BERESFORD: Very unsatisfactory!
Mr. BONAR LAW: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the business for to-morrow. May I also say that we shall offer the most strenuous opposition to any proposal to discuss the Navy Estimates before all the information is available.
Mr. McKENNA: The latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's observations I will report to my right hon. Friend. To-morrow we shall take the Report of the Army Votes.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
  SYNDICALISM.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the growth of syndicalism in this country, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Ormsby-Gore.]
  CRIME IN IRELAND.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the extent to which undetected crime and intimidation prevail in Ireland, and to move a Resolution.— [Mr. Mackinder.]
  FAIR-WAGES CLAUSE.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the administration of the Fair-Wages Clause in Government contracts, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Bowerman.]
BILLS PRESENTED.
  INTERPRETATION BILL.
  "To re-enact The Interpretation Act, 1889, with amendments and additional matter, and for other purposes connected therewith." Presented by Mr. RENDALL; supported by Mr. Beale, Mr. George Greenwood, Sir John Jardine, Sir Brynmor Jones, Mr. M'Curdy, Mr. Radford, and Mr. Llewelyn Williams; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 76.]
  EDUCATION OF THE BLIND BILL.
  "To provide for the technical education, employment, and maintenance of the Blind." Presented by Mr. BOWERMAN; supported by Mr. Barnes, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Clynes, Mr. Gill, Mr. Goldstone. Mr. John Taylor, Mr. Wilkie, Mr. John Ward, and Mr. Tyson Wilson; to be read a second time upon Friday, 20th March, and to be printed. [Bill 77.]
  LICENCES TO DRIVE VEHICLES BILL.
  "To provide for the licensing of all Persons driving Vehicles in London." Presented by Mr. BOWERMAN; supported by Dr. Addison, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Gill, Mr. Lansbury, Mr. Stuart Samuel, and Mr. William Thorne; to be read a second time upon Friday, 29th March, and to be printed. [Bill 78.]

  PUBLIC OFFICES (SITES) BILL.
  "To make provision for the acquisition of a Site for Public Offices in Westminster, for the acquisition of land for the further
  1112
  extension of the Patent Office and for purposes in connection with the Record Office, to amend The Public Offices Sites (Extension) Act, 1908, and to make provision for certain other public purposes." Presented by Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN; supported by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Masterman; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 79.]

  CALENDAR AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the arrangement of the months under the Gregorian calendar; and for other purposes in relation thereto." Presented by Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT; supported by Mr. John Deans Hope; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 21st March, and to be printed. [Bill 80.]
  NURSES' REGISTRATION BILL.
  "To regulate the qualifications of trained Nurses and to provide for their registration." Presented by Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON; supported by Dr. Addison, Mr. Percy Alden, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Duncan Millar, Mr. Remnant, Viscount Wolmer, Sir George Younger, Mr. Ramsay Mac-donald, Mr. Field, and Mr. Kerr-Smiley; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 81.]

EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
Mr. JOWETT: I beg to ask for leave to introduce a Bill "to amend The Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906."
This is a very simple and a very short measure. It is a measure which is supported not merely by one section of the House of Commons, but by Members of all parties, as will be Keen when I read the list of names of Members who back the Bill. Last year, when I introduced an identical measure, formal objection was taken to it by some Members. I feel quite sure—and everyone I speak to is of the same opinion—that the opposition was confined to a very small area, and there was a general impression, so far as I can gather, that this measure should be added to the Statute Book. The report of Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the Education Department, is in itself quite a sufficient reason for the passing of this small Bill. Sir George Newman, in that report, mentions various experiments that have been carried out by the local authorities which show the need for the

1113
feeding of school children being continued during the holidays. Amongst the experiments is one that was carried out by Dr. Ralph Crowley, of Bradford, whose experiments showed that during the time that the children were on holiday, instead of receiving benefit they became actually physically less fit because they were not having the school meals.
Dr. Crowley proceeded in his experiment by taking a number of school children who were on the school feeding list, and taking another number of children similarly circumstanced in other respects, but not needing the school meals because the parents were well enough off to provide them themselves, and he weighed these two sets of children. During the first week of the feeding of the children who were on the school meals list the doctor found that on an average the children gained 1¾ lbs. in weight. In the second week, after such a sudden increase of weight, there was no increase. In the third week there was an average increase per child of 5½ ozs. In the fourth week the average increase was 4½ ozs. per child. A week's holiday supervened, and the children lost on an average during that week's holiday 1 lb. of the weight they had gained during the period of their receiving school meals. From that time onwards after the children went back to school they began to put on weight again, but it took them a fortnight to make up for the loss which they had sustained during the week's holiday. Later on a month's holiday was given to the children, who again lost weight. Instead of benefiting by their holiday they were actually in a worse position physically because of that holiday. The class of children who did not need the school meals put on weight during the holidays. Each of these cases prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the holidays, owing to the suspension of the feeding of the children, actually resulted in the deterioration of the children.
It shows the need for the school meals being given throughout the period. It cannot be said that the parents suddenly become wealthier or are in a better position to feed their children when a school holiday comes on. The parents are poor all the time. In the case of 1,800 children now being fed at Bradford by the education committee, the families represented are so poor that, with the exception of one or two instances, the income available for feeding and clothing after rent is paid only amounts to 3s. per head per week. In 55 per cent. of the cases the family, when
1114
the rent has been paid, has actually less than 2s. per head per week. It is absolutely impossible for a family to live on any such amount. Having regard to the extreme necessity of this good work being carried on throughout the holiday period, I trust that no Member of the House will take objection to the Bill, and that when the Second Reading comes to be moved that it will pass through without discussion. If, peradventure, there should be any Member who does take objection, then I hope—especially after the very kind remarks made by the Prime Minister last week—that the Government will give us the little time necessary to pass this measure, Which has only one single operative Clause, to empower the education authority to continue the school meals through the holidays and on Sundays, even if the school be closed.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jowett, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. George Roberts, Mr. Percy Alden, Mr. Aston, Mr. Charles Bathurst, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Chiozza Money, Mr. Mark Sykes, and Sir James Yoxall; presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 82.]

METROPOLITAN POLICE RATE BILL.
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

METROPOLITAN POLICE RATE BILL.

  CLAUSE 1.—(Alteration of Limit on Sum to be Raised for Police Expenses.)
  The maximum rate in the pound for the purposes of the proviso to Section twenty-three of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1829, as amended by Section two of the Police Rate Act, 1868 (by which enactments a limit is imposed on the annual sum to be provided for the purposes of the Metropolitan Police), shall be elevenpence instead of ninepence; and those sections shall, subject to the provisions of any subsequent enactment, have effect accordingly:
  Provided that in calculating for the purposes of paragraph (k) of Sub-section (2) of Section twenty-four of the Local Government Act, 1888 (which regulates the amount to be paid by county councils to the receiver for the Metropolitan Police district and charged to the Exchequer Contribution Accounts) the amount actually raised by rates from the parishes in any county, only such part thereof shall

  1115
  be reckoned as does not exceed the maximum amount which could have been so raised if this Act had not been passed.
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: I beg to move to leave out the word "eleven-pence" ["shall be eleven-pence instead of ninepence"], and to insert instead thereof the word "tenpence."
  When this Bill was under discussion on Second Reading stage I showed the House that, it was a Bill to enable the Home Secretary to raise no less a sum than £460,000 a year from the ratepayers of the Metropolitan Police area, and the position that I and my Friends took up on that occasion was this: we quite agreed that the Home Secretary was bound to take further powers to raise a further rate for the purpose of finding the money for giving the police their very well-deserved one day's rest in seven, and for the additional pay promised to them last August; and we also agreed that a case had been made out for raising a certain amount of extra money to make up the depletion that has been going on for some years in the balance of the Police Fund, which is at the disposal of the Home Secretary. But, while we all agreed about that, the position we took was that it was quite unnecessary for the Home Secretary to raise a rate of 2d. in the £. We contended that a penny would amply suffice, not only for the year 1912–13, but also for the year 1913–14, and still further for the year 1914–15; and as a penny would suffice for those three years, we contended that the Home Secretary ought not to be allowed by this House powers to raise the rate by twopence, and that the House would be ill-advised, in our opinion, if it gave Ministers these large powers of raising money from the ratepayers until they prove it is absolutely necessary to raise these sums of money. As was said in another place, so we said to the right hon. Gentleman, "Take your power to raise a penny, and if at the end of the year you want another penny, come down to the House and explain why you want another penny," because it is only by that means this House can obtain and maintain control over expenditure; and the ratepayers of London have a right to have their interests guarded by this House, which ought to be tender towards them under present circumstances.
  The House may think nothing of sums like £460,000 a year; it is so much accustomed to think in millions that it forgets
  1116
  the ratepayers have to think in pence and shillings, and sometimes in pounds. The House thinks in millions, and lightly put a penny on the rates; but that has a very prejudicial effect upon the industries of London, upon the housing of the people, and so on. I do not say the rates must not be raised sometimes. I say, and all my Friends agree, that the Home Secretary must have the power to raise an additional penny. What we are fighting about is whether it should be a penny or twopence, and that is the reason that I move the reduction of this amount from elevenpence to tenpence. I think the Home Secretary ought to accept that Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. No figures he gave the other day justifies him in asking to raise this rate by more than one penny. Since the Second Reading Debate the Home Secretary has furnished the London County Council, and we are grateful to him for that act of courtesy, with some new figures. These new and revised figures, although a little better from his own point of view, do not justify him in asking for more than one penny; and, indeed, I can show that a ¾d. rate for the year 1912–13 will provide him with all the money he requires and a penny rate for 1913–14 and a penny rate for 1914–15, and I think I shall show that not for the next three years would he require to raise the rates more than one penny. During that time all kinds of things might happen, one or two of which I will allude to. The right hon. Gentleman supplied the London County Council with figures: the Home Secretary says, "Payment in excess of receipts will amount to £82,500. Altogether we must raise an additional sum of £30,000 in order to give the one day's rest in seven and additional pay for the additional 200 men, and £172,500 is wanted for these purposes." Then the Home Secretary says, "You must also remember my balances have been very much depleted, and I must have them restored," and he asks for a sum of £108,000 to restore his balance, making in all £230,500. Well, £230,500 is just the produce of a penny rate.
  The penny rate produces £231,000, so that upon his own figures he would only want a penny rate for this year, and that would give him a most satisfactory balance and would leave him well in hand for the next year. I do not know why he should have all this £108,000 to restore his depleted balance in one year; it is not sound finance. The balances have been depleted

  1117
  through many years. Why build it up again all at once? If I were in charge of these financial matters, I would ask for the £172,000—that is, payment in excess of receipts—for the additional sum required for the one day's rest in seven and for the additional sum required for the 200 men, and I should only ask for £50,000 in the first year to put back to my balance, and I should take two years to restore the balance instead of one. That would be sounder finance. Then the money required by the Home Secretary in this year—that is, £172,500—would be produced by a ¾d. rate, so that upon his own figures he does not show that he requires more than a one penny rate.
  We come to the next year, 1913–14. There a penny would give him too much upon his own showing. The payment in excess of receipts is £75,900, in order to get one day's rest in seven £51,000, and then for the normal addition to the police £27,000. That makes £153,900. If he had taken a penny rate for 1912–13 and restored his balance by £108,000, which does not occur again, when you once restore your balance, he would only require £153,900, which is actually less than a ¾d. rate. I should propose to take £50,000 to restore my balance in 1912–13, and £50,000 in 1913–14. If that was done the amount required this year would be ¾d., and the amount next year which he would require would be £203,900. That is rather less than 1d. rate, but we should have no objection to his taking the whole penny, and if he took the whole penny that would give him a bigger balance than he ever had before. It would give him another £19,000 if he raised the whole penny.
  Then he would start a 1d. rate with a very large balance for the year 1914–15. According to his own figures, he wants £141,300 to meet payment in excess of receipts. As to that figure, I do not understand why there is such a jump from £75,900 of the previous year to £141,300 in 1914–15. That requires some explanation, and I hope we shall have it from the right hon. Gentleman. At all events, taking these figures, he wants £141,300 for payment in excess of expenditure. Then we have to add £54,000 to meet the expenditure in connection with the one day's rest in seven and £46,000 for normal additions to the force, making up a sum of £241,300. He would want £10,000 in 1914–15 in excess of what the 1d. rate would produce. But that is not for three years from now. How did he get that £10,000? By a 1d. rate in
  1118
  previous years my figures would give him a balance over and above that which he demanded, but the extra amount for 1914–15 might be met in several other ways. It might be met, if the Government were in a reasonable frame of mind, by a small contribution from the Treasury, and well the ratepayers of London deserve some additional Grants. We are now dealing with the year 1914–15. I presume that by that time the Departmental Committee which is now sitting to advise the Government on this great readjustment of Imperial and local taxation, so long delayed, would have reported, and that effect would be given to its findings before the year 1914–15. And I can hardly suppose that the findings of that Committee will not be to relieve the ratepayers to the extent of £10,000.
  Therefore I do not think we need alarm ourselves if there was a demand for £10,000 in 1914–15 over what the penny rate would produce. At all events, 1914–15 is a long way off. Let the right hon. Gentleman take power to spend the penny first, and if at the end of three years' time he is still occupying his present office let him come down to the House and say a penny is not quite sufficient. We should then have a chance of debating this question, and it is the only chance the ratepayers get of defending themselves, because all this police expenditure is buried away in mystery; no one knows anything about it, and no one controls it except the right hon. Gentleman. Whilst we do not grudge the police expenditure, at all events we think that those who have to find the money ought to have some means of making their voice heard when such demands are made upon them. The right hon. Gentleman will say to this Committee, as he said to the House on Second Reading, "I am only asking for power to raise this twopence; I am not going to spend it all." Yes; but when I was at the Treasury Ministers sometimes came to me and said, "Do give us a balance of £100,000; it does not follow we shall spend it." My experience was that when Ministers got this power they invariably did spend it, and I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Gentleman, now that he is Home Secretary, and no longer Secretary to the Treasury, if we put this £230,000 extra, in his pocket, will spend a good deal of it without ever coming to us or letting us know how he is spending it or why he is spending it. I prefer to keep the control, and I strongly advise this House to keep control in these

  1119
  matters. This is one of the few opportunities that do occur to the House to control such expenditure, and I hope to-day the Committee will take up a firm attitude, and declare that they do not intend to trust the right hon. Gentleman with anything more than power to raise a 1d. rate, because he has made out no case at all for anything more. After all, now that the proportion of what is found by the ratepayers and the Government is going so much to the detriment and loss of the ratepayers, the right hon. Gentleman might find a trifle more at all events towards this very large sum which is going to be raised.
  For forty years the proportion has been five-ninths by the ratepayers and four-ninths by the Exchequer, but look at the figures now! What is the amount for 1908–9, and what was the proportion then? In that year the ratepayers paid 51.8 per cent, and the Government paid 48.2 per cent. In the year 1909–10, the ratepayers' proportion was 54.1 per cent, and the Government reduced its contribution to 45.9 per cent. In the year 1910–11 the ratepayers' proportion was 55.3 per cent., and the Government reduced its contribution to 44.7 per cent. In 1911–12, the last year for which the figures are available, the ratepayers' proportion was 57.3 per cent., and the Government reduced its contribution to 42.7 per cent. That shows a continual falling off of the contribution on the part of the Government and a continual rise in the amount of the money which the ratepayers have to pay towards this fund. I think it is desirable that we should call attention to these matters, and I hope and believe that many hon. Gentlemen opposite on this occasion will be able to support us in our endeavour to do justice to the ratepayers. I know there are thirty hon. Members representing London who sit on the opposite side of the House, and I agree that on some occasions when I have raised such questions as this, I could not expect them to go into the Lobby with me upon Amendments to the Address, because that would have necessitated voting against the Government. Here, however is an occasion on which the Radical Members representing London really have an opportunity of joining with us when we are pleading the cause of the ratepayers, and when we are endeavouring to do something for their practical benefit. To-day hon. Members opposite might use their pressure and influence on the Home Secretary to reduce the power he is seeking, and thus mitigate
  1120
  the hardship upon the London ratepayers, who have borne these burdens so long with so little outcry against those who impose them. I hope the reduction which I have moved will meet with support from all sides of the House, and I trust we shall determine on this occasion to keep control of this vast amount of expenditure.
  Mr. REMNANT: I beg to second the Amendment. Before speaking I had hoped to hear some answer to the extremely clear case which has been put by my right hon. Friend to the House. I do not propose to go through all the figures he has given, for there is do doubt he has put the case accurately and fairly in all its details, basing his argument on the figures given by the Home Secretary when the Bill came forward for the Second Reading. I cannot quite understand the position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He admits in so many words that he does not want quite the total amount produced by a penny rate in the Metropolitan area, but he says he may do so. I do not think there is sufficient justification for throwing this huge burden, or this likely burden, upon the already over-burdened taxpayers of this great city. The other day, when this Bill was before the House, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that he was asking for exceptional powers, and he went on to say that those exceptional powers should not, and would not, be exercised so long as he was Home Secretary without the House having a full opportunity of criticising and discussing the request he might make for a further penny rate. That sounds all very well, but there is not much difference between that and bringing in another Rating Bill for adding another penny, providing he gets a penny rate to-day. The Committee knows perfectly well that there is a Departmental Committee already in existence dealing with the whole question relating to Imperial and local taxation, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not think that, pending the decision of that Committee, it is not a fair and reasonable request to make to the Government that, as to whatever is over, either on the penny rate or the twopenny rate, half of that shall be borne by the Imperial Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his speech when this Bill was before the House on the last occasion, said:—
  "I do not think it unreasonable that I should ask the House to extend the limit from 9d. to 11d."

  1121
  What does he mean by that? Does he mean the proportion of four-ninths to the Imperial Exchequer as against five-ninths by the Metropolitan ratepayer? If he does that would materially affect the question we are discussing, and if that is his meaning, does he mean to extend it to the penny which we are now discussing? If he did, I am sure he would be supported by every Member and every section of this House. It is only clear and reasonable that where large burdens are thrown upon the taxpayers of this Metropolis, not solely for Metropolitan matters, that those who derive services from the Metropolitan Police should contribute to the expenditure. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree to the Amendment which has just been moved by my right hon. Friend, because he must be aware that a large number of his own supporters are in favour of it. We do not want to divide on this matter, and if the right hon. Gentleman gets his penny rate he will get more money than he wants for the next three years, and even for him that ought to be sufficient.
  Mr. DICKINSON: On the Second Heading, I appealed to the Home Secretary to consider the advisability of limiting the operation of this Bill to the addition of one penny instead of the twopence suggested, and from the figures he gave then and the figures just given, I have seen no reason whatever to change my opinion, for they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that within the next three years the Home Secretary will be under no difficulty in carrying out the affairs of the police if he does limit the rate to one penny instead of twopence. The figures which have been given are conclusive. We were told that this proposal was made because the Home Secretary was very anxious to get back the balances which have already been depleted. Last year my right hon. Friend showed that on the Home Secretary's own figures the excess would very nearly be met by the additional penny. As far as I understand the figures which have been given they are based upon existing rateable value, and with the increase every year in the rateable value, in all probability it is practically certain that, at any rate for the next three years, one penny will be sufficient. Under these circumstances I think the House ought to pause before it gives to the Executive Government of the day the right to raise this rate. It is a very peculiar position. I
  1122
  know my hon. Friends are never tired of saying that precisely the same questions arise in the country, but that is not so. In the first instance, the provincial boroughs raise their own rate, and they are responsible for the control, but here the Government raise the rate, and when they come and ask this House for power to raise the rate from 9d. to 11d. I think we ought to proceed very carefully, and no such additional power ought to be given to the Government until a full inquiry has been made into the whole question of the Exchequer contribution.
  I would point out how the matter arises in this case. The Exchequer contributions for the last few years have been a failure, although years ago they were sufficient and they afforded a considerable amount of relief to the ratepayers. That relief has now disappeared, because things have gone from bad to worse, and even those services which are supposed to be paid for by the Government contribution to the police show a reduction of £40,000, and this burden now falls upon the ratepayers, although under normal circumstances it would be paid by the Government. If the system inaugurated many years ago by which the Government contributed four-ninths of the cost had gone on we should have been much better off, and as regards this additional £40,000, no one can argue that this money ought to be raised out of the rates, but should be raised by means of some new arrangement with regard to the Exchequer contributions. Therefore, I do urge that whatever we do now ought to be limited to the very narrowest dimensions. We ought not to go beyond the immediate necessities of the case. My hon. Friend says that many things may happen. Among other things, some change may occur in the control of the police. It may be necessary, but that 11d. rate ought to be raised by people who are responsible to the ratepayers. Here we have a rate raised by people who are not responsible to the ratepayers. It may be said the Government are directly responsible through this House—but even this House is not going to have any say. We are going to give a free hand to the Executive Government to raise the rate to 11d., whether it is required or not. I do not think my right hon. Friend can substantiate that position for a moment. I hope that in the interval between the Second Reading of the Bill and to-day he has had an opportunity of considering the arguments put forward not only by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but also

  1123
  by Liberal Members for London, who do feel that no sufficient case has been made out for a rate of 11d. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to satisfy himself with an increase of 1d.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I find myself in the not unaccustomed position of having to face a cross-fire. My hon. Friend behind me and the right hon. Gentleman opposite wish to cut down the powers in the Bill from 11d. to 10d. I can understand the attitude of my hon. Friend. He is frankly in favour of taking the control of the police out of the hands of the Executive Government and putting them under the control of the representatives of the ratepayers. That is not a view which I share, but I quite admit there is much to be argued in support of it. He is naturally very reluctant to give the Executive of the day what he would regard as an unnecessary power of raising the rate. Hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot take that line.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: I particularly said I did not take that line.
  Mr. McKENNA: I am saying so. If they insist, as they do, that the control of the police shall be in the hands of the Home Secretary, they must give the Home Secretary the power of raising the rate.
  Mr. REMNANT: Yes, within reason.
  Mr. McKENNA: I did not say without reason. I said the power of raising the rate. I said nothing of which any hon. Gentleman opposite can possibly complain. That is their position: that the Home Secretary ought to have the power of raising the rate. It is a very different position from that taken up by my hon. Friend, who thinks that the London police, like the country police, should be placed under the control of the local authority. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment began by saying the Home Secretary is asking for power to raise no less than £460,000 a year, as if he expected to create a sensation by the mere mention of those figures. It should not escape his attention that he already wishes the Home Secretary to have the power of raising close upon £1,500,000 out of the rates. That is a necessary corrollary to the policy that the Home Secretary should control the police.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Subject to contribution.
  Mr. McKENNA: He supports the policy under which the Home Secretary already raises for the expenditure on the Metropolitan Police close on £1,500,000 from the ratepayers. You must not take this figure of £460,000 by itself; you have to consider it in relation to the existing expenditure on the police of London, which is already raised upon the authority of the Secretary of State.
  Mr. REMNANT: Nobody is discussing what is at present raised; we are discussing what the right hon. Gentleman proposes as an addition.
  Mr. McKENNA: I am only referring to the original argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and the prejudice, I will not say which he desired to create, but which must follow from the bare statement that I was proposing to impose a burden upon the ratepayers of London of no less than £460,000.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: In addition.
  Mr. McKENNA: And he went on to say that a penny would amply suffice for the three years 1912–13, 1913–14, and 1914–15. Of course, it is quite obvious that the real burden of the argument turns upon the question whether it is prudent for those three years to confine ourselves strictly to the limit of 1d. That is the whole point of the argument. I have given the House the full figures of the estimated expenditure for each of the three years in question. Those figures show that, according to the financial views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham. I shall require a rate of ¾d. next year, 1d. the year after, and 1d. the year after that. That is to say, according to his view of right financial management, I shall require to exhaust my powers of rating in the year 1913–14, because he wants a surplus to make good his balance of 1914–15. The assumptions are that there will be no further decline in the Exchequer Contribution Account, an assumption which it is not safe to make; and, secondly, that I shall have no extraordinary expenditure to meet on account of labour disturbances. The House was very full at question time, and one or two questions were addressed to me by hon. Members opposite as to whether the Home Office would be ready to maintain order in all circumstances. One hon. Gentleman put the case to me that there were hundreds of instances now in which works

  1125
  were not kept going owing to intimidation by the workmen. That is the sort of forecast which hon. Gentlemen opposite present to me day after day, and they quite rightly press me to be prepared to meet any emergencies with all the necessary powers to enforce law and order. The figures which I have quoted make absolutely no provision whatever for any special charge falling upon the police in consequence of special disturbances.
  Mr. CARR-GOMM: Is the London ratepayer to pay for them?
  Mr. McKENNA: The London authority, like every other local authority, has to bear the cost of its police.
  Mr. G. D. FABER: Why should they pay for disturbances throughout the whole of the country?
  Mr. McKENNA: I am speaking of disturbances in London.
  Mr. G. D. FABER: No, you were speaking of disturbances all over the country.
  Mr. McKENNA: I said no such thing. I am speaking of London.
  Mr. MALCOLM: If the right hon. Gentleman does not mean "all over the country," what was the relevance of referring to my hon. Friend, who talked about works in the country which could not be kept going owing to intimidation by workmen?
  Mr. McKENNA: Because that condition of things which he described as being "all over the country" must apply to London. If hon. Gentlemen do not understand the point, let me state it clearly now. I am referring to possible cases of disturbance in London, and possible calls upon the police to maintain order. There is no provision in these estimates for any separate expenditure of that kind. Is it reasonable that the person who has the control of the police should have no margin whatever allowed him for the next three years to meet any special expenditure which may arise through causes of that kind?
  Mr. REMNANT: Has not the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that the one day's rest in seven necessarily increases by a considerable number of men the Metropolitan Police Force. Those men, in cases of emergency, will always be at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary.
  Mr. McKENNA: They have got to be paid.
  Mr. REMNANT: Yes, but you have more than allowed for them already.
  Mr. McKENNA: No. If these emergencies arise they have special work thrust upon them, and they have to be paid extra. There is no margin for that. I am surprised the hon. Gentleman, who has done so much to secure the police one day's rest in seven, should now suggest they should be used on the seventh day.
  Mr. REMNANT: The right hon. Gentleman has no right to say that.
  The CHAIRMAN: I would appeal to hon. Members to allow the Home Secretary to proceed.
  Mr. McKENNA: Nobody has taken a more active part in the efforts to secure one day's rest in seven for the police than the hon. Member for Holborn, and I am all the more astonished at his putting forward the argument now that the men who have been enrolled for the purpose of giving that one day's rest in seven should be used for the seventh day as well.
  Mr. REMNANT: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not misquote what I said. He said that in giving these figures to the Committee he had not made any allowance for meeting sudden emergencies like labour troubles. I asked him whether he had forgotten that the one day's rest in seven provided a reserve of men. He has allowed in his figures for one day's rest in seven, wages and everything else, and, when he says my contention is against giving one day's rest in seven, he is saying what is unjust, and I hope he will withdraw it.
  Mr. McKENNA: There is no imputation against the hon. Gentleman, but his argument is unintelligible, coming from an hon. Gentleman who has done so much to secure the one day's rest in seven. There is no allowance for a possible progressive decline in the Exchequer Contribution Account, and there is no allowance for a special charge being thrown upon the force on account of labour troubles. I am asked whether I have made allowance for a probable rise in the rateable value. Yes, the figures are founded upon the assumption that the present rate of increase in the rateable value of London, as a whole, will continue, but that again is a favourable assumption, because the rate of increase has been a declining one

  1127
  for a considerable number of years. While a penny, if there were no special circumstances, would probably be sufficient for the coming year, and even for the year after still, if I have got to meet these exceptional circumstances, I should have no margin at all. Nobody recognises more completely than I do, if any such power of levying a rate upon London or any other area is given by Statute to the Executive authority, the House of Commons ought to have power from time to time to review, to check, and, if necessary, to control the exercise of that power. I am the last man in the world to say that anybody should be trusted with an indiscriminate power of taxing other people. But I have shown here that, for immediate purposes, I require a penny. I have shown further that, under certain contingencies which no sensible man would leave out of account, a penny would not be sufficient. On the other hand, I recognise to the full the natural jealousy entertained by representatives of the ratepayers of London of power being given to the Home Secretary for the time being to levy even a farthing beyond what can be shown to be absolutely necessary. I have considered this matter, I can assure hon. Gentlemen, with the greatest sympathy with their point of view, and I should not have asked for twopence, or have gone a fraction over a penny, unless I had been absolutely satisfied, in my own mind, that the possible and even probable contingencies were such that a penny would not suffice even for two years. I hope it will more than suffice, but I have to take those contingencies into the reckoning. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will very likely say, "Take the penny, and if you want more come and ask for it." That meets, judging from the cheers with which they have greeted the statement, with their very cordial approval. I do not disagree, but perhaps we can all agree on the form in which I shall ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to give authority to the Home Secretary and Parliament to deal with this matter. Why should I have to go through all the stages of a Bill—First, Second, and Third Reading, Committee, and Report—every time I want to get a little extra money?
  Mr. W. THORNE: Let the other side do it next time.
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not, at any rate, consider it reasonable that I should be asked to do that. I know that hon. Friends
  1128
  take the view that I ought not to have the power at all, and that the representatives of the ratepayers alone should have a power of voting the rates. That is an intelligible view. But it is not reasonable to give certain powers to the Home Secretary and at the same time to say he shall not have the necessary money, and that for every penny additional he wants he must come to the House—and come after the event.
  Mr. REMNANT: Why not take off the limit altogether?
  Mr. McKENNA: For a very good reason. You do not take the limit off altogether because you want to be certain that at a certain period, which may not be reached for a year or two, the Home Secretary shall have certain powers; otherwise you may find yourselves committed to an enormous expenditure, which you will have no power of checking. Last year we were unable to make both ends meet, and, in view of the difficulty of getting a Bill through, we had to borrow. In the current year the same thing is happening. We got a Bill through this House last autumn, but it was rejected by another place, and we had to borrow again. If this Bill is not accepted, and if I happen to exceed the limit in 1d. in the course of next year, once again I shall have to borrow, and this time next year the Home Secretary, whoever he may be, may have considerable difficulty, owing to the exigencies of Parliamentary time, in getting a Bill through. It is not fair to make the Home Secretary come down to this House and pass a Bill for every additional farthing that he may require, so long as you insist in investing in him the power of controlling the Metropolitan Police Force. Is there no other way by which the representatives of the ratepayers of London can be guaranteed against expenditure authorised by the Home Secretary without any sufficient safeguard for control, by debate, criticism, and, if necessary, rejection? I would suggest that the Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend should not be pressed, and that in its place the Committee should accept my proposal. My hon. Friend behind me, who has also an Amendment down, might also be inclined to follow a like course. I shall be prepared to move to incorporate in the Bill, at the end of Clause 1, the following Sub-section:—
  "Before approving the issue of any warrant under Section 23 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1829, by the effect of

  1129
  which the annual sum to be provided for the purpose of the Metropolitan Police in any year will be for the first time increased above the rate of 10d. in the £, the Secretary of State shall lay before the House of Commons a Minute stating the reason for such increase, and if, within the next twenty days on which the House has sat after any such Minute has been laid before it an Address is presented to His Majesty by the House praying that such increase be not made, the said increase shall not then be made."
  Under that, I cannot raise more than 1d. without first of all laying a Minute on the Table of this House, and it will be open to any hon. Member to move that an Address be presented to His Majesty praying that such increase be not allowed. The Eleven o'clock Rule does not apply to discussions on such addresses.
  Lord BALCARRES: The discussion cannot begin before eleven.
  Mr. McKENNA: That is so, but at any rate there is the opportunity of discussion, and it is not a barren privilege which would have no substantial effect that I am offering. I hope the Committee will agree that this really and substantially meets the views put forward by the representatives of London. I limit myself to the 1d., which I have shown to be necessary, no matter what happens. I have to ask for powers to go beyond the 1d. in contingencies which may possibly arise, and I give every hon. Member of this House an opportunity of protesting against the additional expenditure and an occasion for debating it. If he has the support of the House the additional expenditure will not be allowed. I hope the Committee will accept that as an adequate solution of the problem.
  Mr. LONG: Before stating the view we take on the offer of the Home Secretary, I desire to protest, in the strongest terms I can use, against the course which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to adopt. I think it is a most unfair course—the most unfair that has ever been adopted by a Government in connection with a Bill of such importance as this. A Bill was introduced last Session. It was attempted to be rushed through Parliament by the Government. It was arrested in another place, not by the high-handed action of Tory peers, but by the abstentions of Members of the Government, who did not choose to come and vote for it. It was then introduced again this Session. The Opposition
  1130
  from the beginning have not attempted in any way to interfere with the Home Secretary's duty in providing for the police, who are necessary for the maintenance of order in London. They have done everything in their power to help the right hon. Gentleman to get the necessary men in order to enable those who are now in the force to have one day off in seven. They felt very strongly, and London felt very strongly, about it. London is suffering gross injustice by the action of the Home Secretary. Notwithstanding these facts we assented, on the petition of the Government, and in view of the exigencies of public business, to all the stages of this Bill being taken in a three hours' debate this afternoon. The hon. Member for North St Pancras urged most powerfully the view we hold on this side of the House, and this afternoon expressed his surprise at the Home Secretary remaining obdurate. Up till yesterday many of us anticipated that the right hon. Gentleman would make an endeavour to meet us.
  Mr. McKENNA: And he has done so.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. LONG: I will come to that presently. The right hon. Gentleman told us a great deal about what the Opposition desired to do, without attaining to any degree of accuracy in his descripton of our views. He then described his own views, and, at the end, in half a dozen words, he made the amazing announcement that, on behalf of the Government, he is prepared to introduce into the Bill a very important Amendment which he has not even had the courtesy to place on the Paper, so that we could make ourselves acquainted with it; and he has done this in face of the fact that we are committed by an agreement between the two Front Benches to give only three hours to the discussion of this Bill. This is a most extraordinary way of trying to carry a Bill through Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman took exception to my saying that he inaccurately described our views. His speech was an extremely clever one from the point of view of trying to divert the Opposition which came from behind him. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the London Members behind him share our views, and he has reason to believe that there is very little sympathy to be found for his proposal on that side of the House, except among hon. Gentlemen who do not represent Metropolitan constituencies, and who, judging by their interruptions, know very little of the way by which the rates of London are

  1131
  raised, and by which the expenses incurred in London are met. With the exception of those hon. Gentlemen the Home Secretary has no supporters. He tried to draw a distinction between the hon. Gentleman the Member for North St. Pancras and my hon. Friend on this side of the House. It is well known that the hon. Member for North St. Pancras holds the view that the control of the Metropolitan Police should be municipal in London as elsewhere, but not one single word the hon. Member for North St. Pancras used in his speech bore in any degree the interpretation which the right hon. Gentleman placed on it to-day. The argument of the Home Secretary that we advocate this particular policy with regard to 2d. and 1d. rates, and that the police should still be under the control of the Home Secretary is simply ludicrous. It is a red herring drawn across the path by the right hon. Gentleman with the deliberate intention of diverting the attention of the House from the real subject under debate. The policy of my hon. Friends is absolutely consistent, and has nothing to do with that. [Mr. McKENNA: "Oh, oh!"] I am sorry the Home Secretary cannot listen to my remarks with the silence with which I listened to him. He made several astounding statements that I should have been glad to have interrupted, but I did not, and I should prefer him to answer me, if he wants to, by making another speech. The position we take up is the one we have always taken up. The Home Secretary spoke as if it were not perfectly well known that the Metropolitan Police, subject as they are to the control of the Home Secretary, are paid for partly by the State and partly by the taxation levied upon London. It is that principle which, in the Bill we are now asked to pass, the Home Secretary is seeking entirely to ignore. Up to the present it has been recognised by everybody. I know the Home Secretary has come but recently to the discharge of his new duties—
  Mr. McKENNA: The Provincial Police are exactly the same, they are paid for by the State.
  Mr. LONG: That is an amazing statement.
  Mr. McKENNA: The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the Provincial Police are paid for partly by the State and
  1132
  partly by the local authority, just on the same principle as the London Police are paid.
  Mr. LONG: I know there is a Grant made in aid of the Provincial Police, some what the same as that which is made in aid of the Metropolitan Police, but I am bound to say that to hear the Home Secretary tell the Committee that, the conditions of the Provincial Police and the Metropolitan Police are the same—
  Mr. McKENNA: I did not say the same.
  Mr. LONG: What did he say?
  Mr. McKENNA: I said the principle under which they were paid was the same. The right hon. Gentleman argued that the reason for the Secretary of State's control was because the Government paid the Metropolitan Police. I reminded him that the Government also paid the Provincial Police.
  Mr. LONG: That shows how utterly irrelevant the right hon. Gentleman was. I was dealing with his argument. Apparently he wants to forget it. The charge the right hon. Gentleman brought against hon. Members on both sides of the Committee was that our view was an inconsistent view, that while we held that the police ought to be controlled by the State we had no right to complain of the exercise by the State of their powers in regard to taxation. We are not making any complaint of that kind. We are not complaining of the raising of the penny, we do not object to his proposal that for the requirements he has been able to justify he is entitled to ask for money. What we object to is what the hon. Member for North St. Pancras described accurately, and the right hon. Gentleman could not meet his charge, that the Bill which we are now asked to pass gives to the Executive Government the power to rate London before the necessity for that expenditure has arisen. The Home Secretary tried to make out that that power exists now. It is nothing of the kind. The power rests with the Home Secretary to control the police. The cost has to be met partly by the State and partly by the rates. What the right hon. Gentleman is doing now is asking for this extra power, to be exercised or not as he wants it. Upon what ground? It was on this point that I listened with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He began by saying that prudence demands that you should not ask for less money than you

  1133
  want. He went on to give the reasons why he wants this extra money. The first reason he gave was an astounding one. It is that the Government must have regard to the fact that the Exchequer Contribution Grants may decrease. Is that a justification for the Government coming to this House and deliberately casting upon the rates a burden which Parliament has already taken upon itself. This is not a new burden. Parliament has already—and both sides are committed to it by a series of Acts—taken upon itself a certain share of this expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman himself says that that share which Parliament has taken it may not be able to bear, and then he says that justifies him in not reconsidering the whole question and in not going to the Exchequer and demanding an increased Exchequer contribution, but it justifies him coming down to the House and asking for arbitrary powers by which he can put a further burden on the rates of London. A more astounding action on the part of the Government I have never heard of. The next reason was, if possible, worse. The right hon. Gentleman said, "I have been appealed to to maintain order. How am I to maintain order if I have not the men?" The hon. Member for Holborn (Mr. Remnant) pointed out that by the increase which he is to get in the form of new recruits under the one day's rest in seven, in an emergency he would have these extra men available.
  Mr. McKENNA: Are you not to pay them?
  Mr. LONG: The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to know the effect of his own Bill. He says, "Are you not to pay them?" Is he not taking the power under the penny rate to pay them?
  Mr. McKENNA: For six days, not for seven.
  Mr. LONG: The right hon. Gentleman has told us to-day, as he told us the other day, that the penny rate would give him enough for two years; and that it is only in the event of emergencies arising in the course of those two years that he will require more money. I come back to his second reason, which was that there may be emergencies calling for more men. The Home Secretary says: "Am I to come down to the House and run the risk of all the time that is taken in passing a Bill?" What has happened this year? What is all the time? There is no emergency this
  1134
  year; none of these difficulties have arisen. The Home Secretary has not come down and said: "I appeal for special powers in a case of emergency which demands special action." Everybody knows that any Home Secretary, to whatever party he belongs, coming down to this House and saying, with the responsibility of his position, that he required extra powers to deal with the conditions which had arisen and which threatened society, would get those powers, not in hours, but in minutes. What has happened this year? There is no such emergency. The Second Reading of this Bill went through in two or three hours the other day. To-day we are to pass this Bill in a three hours' Debate. There is no emergency, and yet the Home Secretary says he must have authority to levy a rate on London, without appeal or qualification, because it takes so long to pass a measure through Parliament, and he cannot afford to take the risk of delay either in this House or the other House. No reason so flimsy and so utterly unworthy has ever been given by a Minister asking this House for great powers.
  The right hon. Gentleman will not accept the Amendment. I confess I do not know why. He would have got his Bill in half an hour if he had made the reduction. The demand for it comes from every London representative, without exception. It comes, not only from those who are within the Metropolitan Police area, but from those who are outside the Metropolitan district. It is, so far as I know, the unanimous demand made by all those concerned. It is made by the municipal authorities responsible for the rates, who realise the injustice that is being done. But the right hon. Gentleman will have none of it. The alternative is that the Home Secretary is to come down to the House and place on the Table a Minute stating what he proposes to do, that we are to have a Debate, and that unless the House assents to the expenditure the Home Secretary is not to be allowed to levy the rate. I wonder how many hon. Gentlemen who listened to the solemn tones in which this proposal was made realise what it meant. I have been long enough in the House to know what these petitions mean. They come on after eleven o'clock. Who would be here to discuss it? The Government use their whole power to prevent anything of the sort from passing. Government Whips tell Members, who are only too anxious to go home to bed, to vote against this

  1135
  petition. It is a perfect farce. All that we ask is that the Government should come down here at a time when public business can be adequately discussed, that they should put their proposal on paper, as they have not done this time, and that if any circumstances arise of the kind to which the Home Secretary referred, of grave emergency demanding the provision of extra men, no matter what party is in office, there would be no opposition to the action of the Government, and they would get their extra powers as they cannot get them under the method proposed by the Home Secretary.
  I cannot advise my hon. Friends to accept the proposals of the Home Secretary. It does not deal with this difficulty in any practical or efficient form. It has only been in our possession for a few moments; it is not even now on the Paper. Even if it is only to mark our disapproval of the way in which the Home Secretary has dealt with this question we decline to take it now, and if we take it at all it could only be after we have reported Progress in order that we may see it on the Paper, as is the usual custom of this House for the proposal of the Government. I do not propose that we should take that course. I think the proper course is to adhere to the views we have expressed and the position we have taken up, a position which is justified by the opinion held throughout the whole of the Metropolitan district, and to register by our votes in a Division in support of my right hon. Friend's Amendment our opinion that the action of the Government is unjust and unfair to London, and that we have been given no adequate reason for the course they are pursuing. Therefore we shall vote for the proposal of my right hon. Friend, which will give the Government all the powers they want and which lays upon London as much of an additional burden as in the name of justice you can put upon it.
  Mr. CARR-GOMM: As a London Member I must express my regret that the Home Secretary has found it impossible to accept the Amendment that has been Moved. At the same time I do not think that anyone in this Committee can deny that he has made some attempt to meet the opposition, which has come from both sides of the Committee. Although it may be true that the Debate which will arise on the demand for extra money above a
  1136
  penny rate will come on after eleven, o'clock, if the matter is serious, as it is serious, I think London Members on both sides will attend and raise their voices to discuss the matter. I admit that is not in any way as valuable as the Amendment would be, and I am astonished that the Home Secretary is unable to accept the Amendment. The Home Secretary said that if he only had the power to raise the penny rate he would have to come to the House with a Bill every year. If this Bill had only been for a penny rate there would have been practically no opposition. It would have gone through almost as a matter of course, and the time taken up would not be of very great importance and it would not have interfered with other public business. But still, on the whole, I think we are forced to see that in this matter the Home Secretary has done his best to meet us. I think he has realised that the position of London Members is a peculiar one. After all, very often they seem to suggest that London is in the same position as provincial towns, and London questions always suffer in this House because we are in an absolutely different position from other boroughs. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the question of the future control of the London Police did not enter into the arguments or thoughts of Members who spoke from this side of the House, and who feel very strongly on the subject. We are simply concerned with the objects of this measure, and we will accept his concession because we feel that, although it is not all that we want, it does give power for the raising of a Debate if anything above a penny rate is required. That is what we are seeking, and we shall have to be content with what he has given us.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: I hope the Home Secretary will not think me discourteous if I suggest that the Amendment which he proposes verges on the ridiculous. Of all the paper safeguards that I ever heard of this is the most flimsy. I am sorry for the position in which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Carr-Gomm) finds himself. I understand he does not believe that the Amendment is much use to him, but as it has probably been drafted by the Patronage Secretary, even in his retirement, he is bound to support it. That may excite the sympathy of the House, but I do not know what his constituents will have to say. He will have to settle with them. So far as I know, an Address to

  1137
  the Crown is an unprecedented course in a financial measure of this kind. Addresses to the Crown are often suggested, and sometimes presented, in the case of schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts and various matters of the same kind, but I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman has any precedent for the suggestion he has made this evening. After eleven o'clock the thing would be a mere form. The Whips would have their numbers ready to support them, and the attendance would be very sparse. In fact, those who have a right to be heard would have very little to say in the matter. If the right hon. Gentleman had suggested that the second penny could not be levied without ascertaining the wishes and obtaining the consent of the local authorities concerned, that might have been another matter. This is primarily a London question, but it is not only a London question. It concerns the whole of those contained in the police area, and it is a matter of something more than a London concern. But still, even from the London point of view, we look on this as the culminating point of a very mountain of grievances under which we labour with respect to finance. It is not directed solely against him; it is because the injustice is growing day by day, and we cannot obtain relief. He has tried to effect a revolution in the principles upon which a certain part of our local expenditure has been conducted. He is disturbing a settlement forty years old; he is doing it in spite of the fact that when it was reconsidered at the time of the Local Government Board Act, 1888, the principle was never raised, and no suggestion was made to alter the proportion between the Exchequer contribution and the local account. That is a very strong thing to do. Now we know the Exchequer contribution has practically disappeared.
  I cannot argue on this Amendment whether we ought not to insist upon maintaining the present proportion between the Exchequer and the rate levied in different parishes of the county and the adjacent counties, but I should like to ask why it is that we are supposed to make up the balance which has been allowed to fall before there has been a reform of local taxation. If there is to be a readjustment of balances, let it come after a readjustment of local burdens. Why should these two years, in anticipation of the change that is going to be made, whilst a Departmental Committee is sitting, why should this new burden be added to the many that London bears, unfairly, as has
  1138
  been admitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, simply on the fiat of the Home Secretary? The deficiency, of course, has grown from very small things. It was only £12,500 in 1892–3, and we are going, because of the exigencies of the situation, on a basis that is admittedly unfair. We are going to be asked to make it up within one year, or, as my right hon. Friend thinks, two. I do not see why there should be a readjustment of the balance until there has been a readjustment of local burdens. Let it stand over. It would be far more just to the ratepayer and would give the right hon. Gentleman all he wants. I was sorry to hear this evening how he has to evade the issues and to use arguments which really would not hold water. When he introduced the question of the labour troubles, he must have been vary hard up for an argument. I heard him say he was only thinking of labour troubles in London. I suggest that was an afterthought. If he says so, I accept it, but there would be no pay for extra duty, unfortunately, that the police may have to perform within the Metropolitan area in dealing with labour troubles.
  I addressed a question to his predecessor on that very point in order to obtain something for the police after the hard work they had to do during the strike of the carrying trades last year. I was informed in reply that they got no extra, pay for extra duty, that it was part of their contract, that, like soldiers, they were supposed to give their whole time and such extra work as was involved was made up to them by way of extra holiday, but they got no extra pay. What does that argument amount to? The Home Secretary led the Committee to believe that in case of labour troubles there was a larger expenditure involved for extra duty, but there is no such thing. I think that tears in pieces the main argument on which he based his case. It is difficult to imagine that he could have have been serious in putting it to the House. May I ask him again whether it is fair that after this settlement arrived at has been dealt with, whenever there has been a reform of local government in this House without waiting for what is admitted to be a necessary solution in favour of London of the readjustment of local taxation, he should add this new burden to the rates? The President of the Local Government Board said the other night that this was a very prehensile Department. "Prehensile" means ready to grasp. His is not the only prehensile Department? The

  1139
  Government is rather prehensile, and the Home Office is just as prehensile as the Local Government Board. Because it is ready to grasp a little too much this evening, because it is asking for more than is fair and is only proposing a paper safeguard of the flimsiest kind for protection of the ratepayer, I shall certainly support the Amendment, though I should have liked to go much further and to say there should be no disturbance of the Parliamentary settlement as between the Imperial Exchequer on the one hand and the county of London and the adjacent districts on the other. We cannot have that, and at least I think we can register our protest against this new wrong to London, which the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to perpetrate in a very aggravated form to-night.
  Sir T. COURTENAY WARNER: Perhaps I shall suffer more than most people by this extra rate. I have to pay a very considerable amount of the police area rates. It is a very extraordinary spectacle to see the party of law and order fighting the Home Secretary because he wants to have more than enough to pay the actual outgoing of the London police. I do not think there is any question of economy, because the Home Secretary stated clearly that he does not mean to take the rate unless it is necessary; but the party of law and order, who are so very keen on the police interfering on every possible occasion, protest against the Home Secretary having power to take one single penny more than is absolutely necessary. I cannot agree with that. I think there are circumstances of possible necessity for extra police being required. One hon. Gentleman says, "You have the extra police, because you have extra men to do the six days instead of seven," but if these men are to work seven days they have to be given extra pay. It is quite true that the extra time was not paid for in the old days, but if you are going to ask them to do an extra day's work you will have to give them extra pay. There are one or two small things which will take up more police. Many of the outlying districts are calling out every day for extra police, and before three years are out that will have to be given, and it will mean more expenditure, and yet you are not providing for any increase at all. A very extraordinary remark fell from the right hon. Gentleman, that the Home Secretary was asking for the power to levy
  1140
  a rate in London without appeal. Is not the Amendment the Home Secretary has offered exactly an appeal? Is it not in every sense of the word an appeal? I do not think any appeal is ever given without being asked for.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: It is not an appeal to London.
  Sir T. COURTENAY WARNER: No, an appeal to this House. A Bill is not an appeal to London. The simple method of only giving an appeal when it is asked for has been offered by the Home Secretary, and yet the right hon. Gentleman says he is asking for a power of taxation without appeal. I do not think that is quite a fair statement. What surprises me is to see Members for London banded together with the party of law and order to try to prevent the Home Secretary having enough money to carry on the police.
  Mr. CHAPLIN: I represent one of the outlying districts of London, which feel the injustice done by this Bill quite as strongly as it is felt by London itself. I know that from my own personal knowledge, and I express this opinion at the request of those whom I represent. The right hon. Gentleman himself, by his own proposals, has admitted that there is injustice at present. If everything is all right, why did he make this proposal? If he, indeed, be serious in that view and proposes this as a remedy, why did he not put it on the Paper? I never was more surprised in my life that a Minister in charge of a Bill of this description, and making this fresh imposition upon the rates of London, had no reply to that question. I labour under a great disadvantage. I am afraid that, owing to advancing years and infirmities, I cannot hear very distinctly all that goes on. I would have given anything for an opportunity, after the appeal that has been made to me by my Constituents, of seeing this on the Paper and judging what it was worth. I agree entirely that the appeal offered by the right hon. Gentleman is not worth the paper on which it is written. The only course open to us is to vote, as I certainly shall do, for the Amendment. I feel the injustice as strongly as anyone in the world. Not so very many years ago I was obliged to take measures to appoint a Royal Commission on this very subject. I cannot recollect at this moment how much or how little has been adopted of the recommendations which they made in a most exhaustive Report. It was probably the strongest Commission that ever

  1141
  sat on a question of this kind. Anyone who refers to the names of the gentlemen composing it will agree with me when I say that. I will not enter into that question to-night. I only rose in order to say how strongly this grievance is felt, and how greatly disappointed those whom I have the honour to represent will be at the attitude of the Home Secretary and the Government. I will vote heartily for the Amendment which has been moved.
  Mr. W. PEARCE: My hon. Friend asked how it was that London Members were assisting in this cross-fire which is being directed against the Government. We have no desire to attack the Government if we can avoid doing so, and we particularly do not wish to attack the Home Secretary, who has just arrived in the office he now holds, but we do feel that during the last few years we have had occasion to point out the grievance which London suffers in the matter of Exchequer Grants. The complaints which have been made on that subject have been little attended to, and we think that we have now an opportunity of making a protest by for once voting against the Government. I feel that the whole of this situation has arisen through the Home Secretary asking too much. If he had asked a 1d. rate, I do not think we should have had any opposition to offer, for I do feel that if the occasion should arise when it will be necessary to grant an extra penny there would be a general consensus of opinion in favour of it. Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact, that we have had so little notice taken of our appeals in the past, and in view also of the fact that the Royal Commission which is sitting may report in such a way as to put things on a different footing altogether, I must say I regret that the Home Secretary has not been able to accommodate himself to what he must feel is the universal opinion of the London Members. We do feel that we have a duty to our constituents in this matter. I confess that I am in a dilemma. I do not want to vote against the Government, while at the same time I feel the necessity of bringing home to every Department of the Government, that the grievance in the matter of Exchequer Grants is deeply felt by London Members on whichever side of the House they sit.
  Mr. CASSEL: The Home Secretary stated that there were two possibilities which might make him require more than 1d. One was the possibility of the Exchequer contribution being still further
  1142
  diminished, and the other was the possibility that there might be labour troubles in London for which he might require more money. Assuming that the right hon. Gentleman was right, what has he to meet such contingencies? He has in reserve £160,000, and even with a 1d. rate he will be able to increase the balance by £108,000. In the first year all he requires is £122,500. A 1d. rate produces £230,500, so that in that year he will get a balance of £108,000 over. Next year he has a large balance over of £153,000. Assuming that during these two years there was an additional demand upon the available funds either through a diminution of the Exchequer contribution or through the occurrence of labour troubles, the very worst that could happen, if he did not come to the House at all for further powers, is that he need not increase his balance so much. He need not begin to diminish his balance until he has had additional expenditure. I emphasise this point, because I think the gist of the matter is expressed in the question: Has the Home Office proved a reasonable necessity for more than a 1d. rate? That is the whole issue that is really under consideration now. We have shown on the right hon. Gentleman's own figures that it is not necessary. The right hon. Gentleman says that if the contingencies referred to were to arise, he would have to diminish the additional working balance. He has been working on that balance for some years, and if he did not increase it in the next three years would that be serious? Supposing he increased it by £80,000 because of labour troubles, or because of diminished Exchequer contributions, is there anything very serious in that?
  Mr. McKENNA: Yes.
  Mr. CASSEL: The right hon. Gentleman says "Yes." He suggests that simply because there is risk of his not being able to increase the working balance by £100,000 we are to vote him an extra £250,000 to draw upon when he pleases. It is a blank cheque for £250,000 in three years, whereas without that all that could happen would be that he would have to borrow a little more, as he has had to do for some years. It is a proper business transaction to borrow. The money comes partly in August and partly in February, and if just before it comes in he runs short and borrows for a short period, the worst that could happen would be that he would have another £20,000 to borrow for

  1143
  a few weeks. Of course he knows perfectly well that if he came to the House for another penny, the whole House would give it to him at once. If he made out a case for an additional penny he would get it. He would have had it last Session in the other House, for they were willing to pass the previous Bill if the rate had only been a penny. This is a very important matter, and I hope all the London Members will have regard to the interests of their constitutents rather than those of the Government. This is of vital importance to London for this reason. London is in the peculiar position that the whole of the rate is levied on the ratepayers, while the whole of the expenditure is controlled by the Home Secretary. The whole additional expenditure falls absolutely upon the ratepayers, because the Government contribution is a fixed amount. When we ask the Home Secretary for information he refuses it. I asked him the other day how he arrived at the deficit, and he refused to give a single answer.
  I think it is perfectly right and necessary that the Home Office should have control of the Metropolitan Police. The amount required for the Pension Fund and the Police Fund ought to be produced by the fourpenny rate, but it is less because of the failure of the Exchequer contribution. If it cannot be increased, it ought not to be diminished. The whole of this additional 1d. or 2d. rate will fall upon the ratepayers, who have no say in the matter and no opportunity of asking how the money is being spent or in any way exercising any sort of control until the moment comes when the Home Secretary has to increase the limit. For eighty years this rate has never been increased by more than a penny at a time. It is an absolutely unique proposal to increase it by more than a penny. The fact that the Home Secretary has the whole control of the police makes it of vital importance that the ratepayers should see that the Government do not get more than the House thinks is absolutely wanted. What would the Home Secretary think if, on the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer came and said, "I only require £150,000,000, but I am going to ask for £300,000,000. I am going to ask double the amount of my Estimates, but I undertake that if I spend more than £150,000,000 the House will have an opportunity after eleven o'clock of moving an Address to the Crown." It is absolutely the same
  1144
  kind of proposal which the Home Secretary now makes to the ratepayers. He says, "Give me authority to take twice as much money as is justified by my Estimates, and if I spend more than the amount the Estimates justify I will give you an opportunity after eleven o'clock of moving an Address to the Crown." You are dealing here with the ratepayers' money, and I wish to know what the right hon. Gentleman would think if the Chancellor of the Exchequer came forward and asked twice as much money as the Estimates showed he needed. He says, "I may want more, and, if I do, you will have this very unsatisfactory opportunity of objecting to it." One reason why the London Members ought to support this Amendment is because it is the only opportunity they have of exercising any kind, I do not say of control, but any sort of supervision on the absolutely unlimited and unfettered discretion of the Home Secretary. Another reason why I think it would be wise to support the Amendment is that if we pass it the Home Secretary will be forced to come back to the House if he requires more money, and every time he comes back you will be able to insist on the Government redeeming the promises and pledges they have given to the ratepayers.
  Mr. McKENNA: That has nothing to do with me.
  Mr. CASSEL: The right hon. Gentleman says that has nothing to do with him, but it has to do with the Amendment. I think Members on both sides of the House would be well advised to insist upon the Amendment, because when the right hon. Gentleman did want more money he would have to come back to the House, and that would give an opportunity for showing that the grievances of the ratepayers ought to be dealt with. It is a grievance which applies not only to London, but to the country as well. But the grievance of London is greater than that of the provinces. We do not want to discuss those differences between ourselves, but I submit that we should not allow the Home Secretary greater powers than his Estimates provide, so that when the occasion arises we shall be able again to insist upon this question being dealt with and the Exchequer contribution increased, in order that the proportion previously existing may be maintained and even more, that the proportions recommended by the Royal Commission on local taxation may be carried

  1145
  out. The Royal Commission went so far as to advocate that the Government ought to bear half the cost of the pay, and that in the provinces they ought to bear half the entire cost of the police, a proposal which has not been quarrelled with in any part of the House, which was made so long ago as 1901, and to which consideration ought to be given. I support the Amendment because the Home Secretary has made out no case for being granted powers for more than the estimate actually provides, and because it is the only opportunity which the ratepayers have of obtaining even any kind of information from the Home Secretary.
  Mr. MARTIN: I regret very much indeed that the Home Secretary has not seen his way to confine the rate to 1d. in the £. I think that he is putting the supporters of the Government from London in a very unfortunate position in asking them to support a rate of 2d. in the £. So far as I am concerned I am not prepared to support it, and shall vote for the Amendment moved on the other side. I agree entirely with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher), and I think that all hon. Members must agree, in fact I think that the Home Secretary himself agreed, with the figures given and the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. But the Home Secretary says that while 1d. rate might be enough in ordinary circumstances, still we must consider that special circumstances might occur. It seems to me that there is just the point where it ought to be impossible to vote for this 2d. rate. We complain in London that we are unfairly treated by the Government in the matter of Exchequer Grants for municipal purposes, and by voting for the rate of 2d. we should agree that all this additional expenditure that the Home Secretary fears must necessarily come from the ratepayers in London. I submit it might well happen that unusual and unexpected expenditure would not mean a fair charge upon the ratepayers in London, but ought to come out of the Government Grant.
  The Home Secretary suggested that the opposition of London Members to this proposal partly arose from the fact that they were opposed to the Home Secretary having charge of the Metropolitan Police. My opposition is not due to that reason. I take the same view as hon. Gentlemen opposite and as the Home Secretary himself, that the Government should have control of the Metropolitan Police, be-
  1146
  cause Imperial questions may very often be involved, and the very reason why I think that the Home Secretary should have control of the police leads me to say that I am not going to admit by voting for the twopenny rate that all these extraordinary expenses should come on the ratepayers of London. If the expenditure is for what is Imperial and not municipal to London then it should come upon the general Government. The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to have this power in his hands, and does not want to come to the House of Commons, because it might be difficult to get a Bill through the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It is difficult; and that is the safety of the people—that Governments do have trouble in the House of Commons. If they have unlimited power they can do as they like, and no one can say anything to them. But if they are controlled by the representatives of the people, at any rate while the minority may not be able to stop what they are doing they can always criticise them in the House. So it does seem to me that that is an unfortunate reason to suggest. It is a very convenient one for the Government, but I do not feel inclined to give up my right as a Member to criticise expenditure, not after it is made, but when it is being proposed. If any unusual expenditure is required, as has been stated by other Members, and the right hon. Gentleman will come down to the House with a proper case to go against the ratepayers of London, then the Members for London and other constituencies will be only too ready to grant it when the time comes.
  The right hon. Gentleman rather admits that some case has been made against this proposal and offers a substituted Amendment. I join with hon. Gentlemen opposite in considering that the Amendment proposed by the Home Secretary is entirely inadequate and absolutely no use whatever. If there is one matter which is pre-eminently a question of want of confidence in the Government, it is the question of finance. No Member supporting a Government can vote against a proposal made by the Government in the matter of finance without voting a want of confidence in them, so that when expenditure is proposed that would be the very time when they would vote a want of confidence in the Government, and, if enough of them did it, the Government would have to go out. So it comes to this. The Government make up their mind that they are going to spend so much more money, at

  1147
  the 2d. rate. They come down to the House and say that that is their policy, and they lay their policy upon the Table. The right hon. Gentleman proposes as a remedy for the objections that we have to this 2d. rate that we should have the right of coming in here after eleven o'clock and voting a want of confidence in the Government if we do not think that they ought to spend that money. Well, that would never be done, because there are not enough Liberal Members. There are only thirty-one Liberal Members from London. The Tories will always vote against the Government on a vote of want of confidence, and even if the entire thirty-one Liberal Members representing London all went against the Government the Government would still be able to impose that on London. But there is an effective way which we will retain, if the right hon. Gentleman will confine himself to the 1d., that is by discussing the matter and considering in Committee now whether it is necessary, without necessarily voting a want of confidence in the Government. I think that any Liberal Member undertaking to meet the objections put forward as they have been to-day by hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to this 2d. rate at any public meeting in London would have a very hard time of it. So far as I am concerned, I do not propose to put myself in that position.
  Mr TOUCHE: I am glad to say that I find myself in agreement with the words of soberness and reason which have been uttered on this occasion by the hon. Member for East St. Pancras (Mr. Martin). I have heard a great deal from the other side of the House with which I am quite able to agree. Not least do I agree with one observation made by the hon. Member for the Lichfield Division (Sir Courtenay Warner) that we are fighting because the Home Secretary wants more than enough. That is exactly the position. We are not fighting because he wants what is necessary. We are not fighting, as the Home Secretary seems to think, because we do not think he ought to have the right of levying a rate. What we object to is that he should have the power of levying a much greater rate than is necessary. The Home Secretary in his observations took exception to the emphasis laid upon the circumstance that this enables him to raise £460,000 from the ratepayers of the Metropolitan area. We readily acknowledge that he has already the power of levying
  1148
  a rate, but what we object to is that he asks the additional power of raising £460,000 a year when he has made out no case whatever to establish the necessity for it. The right hon. Gentleman explained that he wants a large margin because of possible contingencies. The most he has been able to establish is the possibility of requiring a 1d. rate—that is, £230,000—so that in asking for 2d., or £460,000, he is indeed asking for a margin of no less than £230,000 a year because of possible contingencies, which are not likely to arise for some years and which may never arise even then. I think that everyone who has listened to the Debate to-day must recognise that it has clearly been established that there is no immediate case for requiring more than a 1d. rate.
  6.0 P.M.
  Even the case for the 1d. rate is somewhat doubtful, and no case at all has been established for requiring so much as a 2d. rate; but what we take exception to is the assumption on the part of the Home Office that any addition, whether immediate or contingent, must be borne by the London area. I do not think that that has been established. I do not think that it is reasonable. It does not follow the principle which has hitherto been observed, the arrangement of the past under which the Exchequer found 4d. and the rates found 5d., and I ask why should the spirit of that arrangement be permanently abandoned? The only explanation which the right hon. Gentleman gives is that the revenues assigned no longer produce the equivalent of a 4d. rate, but that does not touch the question of the merits, and it is no argument in favour of saying that whereas in the past the ratepayers have provided something like 55 per cent, in future they should find nearly 64 per cent. I do not wish to argue the question of division at any length now, but I do urge that there is a strong case for a much fairer distribution, and that if it is not feasible to make that fairer distribution now, it is not reasonable to enter upon legislation of this kind, which will inevitably prejudice the position of the ratepayers in the London area in the future when the matter comes to be dealt with. We ought to deal with this question in a temporary manner and not upon a permanent basis. It is very much a question of figures. I observe that the Home Secretary hardly quoted a single figure when he was making out the case from his point of view. He made his case very cleverly. The fact that he was not more convincing shows what a very bad

  1149
  case it must be. From the fact that the Home Secretary did not challenge the figures of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, I assume that the accuracy of those figures is established. That being so, it clearly shows that a 1d. rate is ample for all reasonable purposes for a considerable time to come. As the right hon. Member for Fulham showed, what was required was £122,500 a year. A ½d. rate would almost produce that amount; it would produce £115,000 a year, or within £7,500 of the sum required. The only justification for making the rate more than a ½d., or more than ¾d., is the claim of the Home Secretary that the deficiency, or perhaps I may call it the working capital of £108,000, should be made up. To make that up requires a total of £230,500, which is practically a 1d. rate. I am not convinced that, it is necessary to make up the whole of that £108,000, even distributed as the right hon. Member for Fulham proposed, over two or three years. This floating balance has been going on for a good many years. Why should the Home Secretary choose this time to make his demand, when the whole question of the readjustment of local taxation is under consideration. Why should it not be left a little while longer to temporary borrowings? We are told that it is a capital sum, but I ask you what commercial business would ever think it necessary to provide out of the profits of a single year for what is admittedly a capital sum, and not a recurring expense. Further, what commercial business would be so insane as to say, not only will we provide that capital sum out of the profits or the revenue of this particular year, but we will repeat the operation annually. That is what the Home Secretary proposes to do. He proposes to take annually a sum equivalent to the amount necessary to restore the balance, which is to be dealt with only once and for all. I will go further and say that I am not yet convinced that there is any need to provide for the maximum requirements in the way of an actual cash balance.
  It has been explained to us that it is only during certain times of the year, twice a year, that there is a large deficiency, and then the rate comes in and puts it right. It is very much the position of a mercantile company, or an importing house, which at certain times of the year finds its financial requirements rise to a certain point and then fall down and
  1150
  run off. It is absurd to say that they should have as liquid capital a sufficient amount of money to meet the whole of the requirements. The merchant uses his credit, and why should not the Home Office use its credit in the same way? Is it suggested that it will have no credit? It seems to me that a wasteful method is being adopted; it is not a business method, but is one which will put a wholly unnecessary burden upon the London ratepayers. I have not yet been able to understand why this sum of £108,000 which is required to clear off this amount once for all, should be raised annually, and should not provide a large margin for contingencies. If you take the figures of the right hon. Member for Fulham, the additional amount required in the second year is only £38,000—£21,000 only for the one day rest in seven, and £17,000 for normal additions to the Force. That leaves a big balance out of the £108,000. I do not quite follow the figures of the right hon. Member for Fulham in regard to the following year, but I understand that in the third year the addition in respect of the one day's rest in seven is only £3,000, and then there is a normal addition of £19,000, bringing the sum up to £22,000. So the position is that for the second and third years the additional expenditure is £38,000 and £22,000, making an additional £60,000 in the third year, and a total of £98,000 in the second and third years combined. But the right hon. Gentleman is going to have in addition no less than £216,000 to meet these sums out of the 1d. rate in the two years. We have not had any clear statement from the Home Secretary as to the figures, but whether the balance is as large as that or not, it is perfectly clear that for a considerable time there is going to be a very large available balance, so large that I can see no justification whatever for putting an additional burden on the ratepayers merely because of the possibility of having to meet some contingency later on.
  I am surprised really at the moderation of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham in saying that he is prepared to support a penny rate. I venture to think that no very strong case has been made out even for the penny rate. We are told that if we allow the power to raise twopence to be put into the Bill, opportunities for criticism will be given before the second penny is used. I have not been long enough in this House to be able to express an emphatic opinion upon

  1151
  the value of those opportunities. But we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand (Mr. Walter Long) a very clear account of what those opportunities mean, and also from the hon. Member for East St. Pancras. The conclusion to which they both come is that those opportunities will offer a very flimsy kind of protection. If they afforded a protection at all equal to the protection given by the necessity of coming here with a new Bill, the Home Secretary would not show so strenuous an objection as he does to our requirements. We have been told to-night that there has been no change in the rate for more than a generation. Will any one suggest that another generation is likely to elapse without a further increase if this power for collecting a second additional penny is put into the Bill? I am perfectly certain if that power is conferred it will very soon be exercised, and in the interests of the ratepayers of London we ought to put every possible check on extravagance, and every possible discouragement upon the spending Departments. We ought to do everything we can to prevent them from putting their hands into the pockets of the London ratepayers. We know that the London ratepayers have heavy enough burdens to bear already. Those burdens are constantly increasing from causes entirely beyond the control of the representatives of London or the municipal government of London. We London Members would be failing in our duty to our Constituents and to London generally if we did not give our undivided support to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Fulham.
  Mr. DAWES: The right hon. Member for the Strand (Mr. Walter Long) was rather liberal in introducing into his speech the word "astounding." I think he used it five times in connection with the Home Secretary's speech. I think, however, we have listened to astounding speeches made by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last and the hon. Member for South St. Pancras, who positively suggested that the Government should subsist on a system of borrowing. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pending the receipt of the Income Tax, acted on that principle, the very Members who bombarded him with questions were the very Members who this afternoon have advocated borrowing. A good deal was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member
  1152
  for the Strand to the effect that this Bill was rushed through at 2.50 in the morning. May I point out that it would not have been rushed through if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had not remained comfortably in bed while we were here. They do not like 2.50 in the morning; they do not like 11 o'clock at night, and they complain of the three hours' Debate this afternoon. After all, I do not say that the Home Secretary's Bill is satisfactory to us London Members. We should have preferred certainly that the rate should be reduced by a penny, but even then hon. Gentlemen opposite are not consistent. They say that if the Home Secretary had been willing to accept the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Fulham it would have been supported. I understand that the sole point is as to the relative proportion of municipal taxation to Imperial taxation. If so, why should they accept the penny at all? If they would say, "No, we want to raise the proportion of the Imperial contribution to the municipal contribution," I should be entirely with them. I think myself, assuming there had been that proposal, that alteration of the proportion should have been borne out now. But that cannot be done. Although, as I say, the Home Secretary's proposal is not particularly satisfactory, yet I think that what he offers is a sufficient safeguard. I have sufficient confidence in the London Members to believe that they will attend after eleven o'clock at night if it be necessary to petition against the extra penny. We should have preferred that the rate should be reduced by a penny, but as the Home Secretary tells us that he requires a penny, I do not think that, with this safeguard, we shall be justified in rejecting it.
  Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: I feel a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Member who has just spoken, because he finds himself in the very unpleasant predicament of having to swallow the Amendment of the Home Secretary, which he does not think to be at all satisfactory, but he is obliged, for some reason he has not disclosed to the House, to vote against the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, which he does consider satisfactory. Really that is a most unpleasant difficulty for any Member of this House to find himself placed in, but I hope, so far as the hon. Member is concerned, it will not be of frequent occurrence. One point on which the hon.

  1153
  Member laid some emphasis was the unsatisfactory character of the respective contributions by the Imperial Exchequer and the local authorities, and he made a very valuable suggestion as to the way in which those proportions might be altered. But his suggestion would have carried greater weight in the House if we had any reason to hope that, if it took concrete form on the other side, it would receive his active support in addition to his academic advocacy. I noticed that some financial purists on the other side of the House were very shocked at the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Islington with regard to the possibility of borrowing in an emergency. From the look of horror that passed over the Home Secretary's face when my hon. Friend referred to the possibility of resorting to this expedient, I should never have thought that it had ever been the practice of the Home Office to borrow money to carry on this particular service. I find that on the 16th December the Home Secretary in answer to a question, informed the House that it had been the normal practice of the Home Office for a series of years to borrow money for this particular service. Therefore the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Mr. Touche), which is only to be resorted to in a case of emergency, and which occasioned the right hon. Gentleman so much horror, has been the practice for a considerable number of years.
  I was very grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherhithe, I think it was, who stated that the question of the control of the Metropolitan Police was not involved in the present Debate, and that so far as he was concerned and the Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson) there is this afternoon no difference of opinion between the two sides of the House on this matter. I regret very much that the Home Secretary should have again attempted to cloud the issue by putting forward that suggestion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) was very emphatic on the Debate on the Second Reading in stating that neither he nor any of those who were acting with him either in this House or municipally were in favour of any change in the control. We ask, however, in the first place, that the representatives of the ratepayers should be given access to certain information, and in the second place we regard with great jealousy the transfer of the control of a large sum of the ratepayers' money from a
  1154
  representative institution to the autocratic power of the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite true that the London County Council does not wish to control the Metropolitan Police, but at the same time it does wish to see a representative body, a body democratically constituted like the House of Commons, exercise some control over the right hon. Gentleman's operations in that sphere.
  The hon. Member for Walworth (Mr. Dawes) made certain play with the fact that one of the reasons why we objected to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion was that it would come on after eleven o'clock at night. One very remarkable feature of the right hon. Gentleman's proceedings in this matter has been his predilection for discussing this Bill either very late at night, or very early in the morning. The Second Reading of this Bill was taken at half-past two o'clock one night last December, and the Committee stage was begun at half-past three o'clock on the following night. The right hon. Gentleman now suggests that in future we should be debarred from discussing this question until after the normal hour for the retirement of the House. I really feel very sorry for the right hon. Gentleman in his present position, because he appears to be without a case, and without friends on either side of the House in this matter. I think everybody will agree that my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham has clearly shown that so far as the right hon. Gentleman's requirements until 1914–15 there is absolutely no necessity for a larger sum being raised than 1d. The right hon. Gentleman based the whole of his contention on what would happen in the case of a sudden emergency. I must say for one moment he did draw a very serious picture of the possibilities of a case of sudden emergency, such as that of labour troubles or other contingencies which he mentioned. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that even in the case of sudden and temporary emergency he has got two very useful and quite adequate alternatives at his command. He has always got what he calls his working balance on which he can draw.
  Mr. McKENNA: Borrowed.
  Lord A. THYNNE: It is very unfair to say that. I was not referring to the borrowing, but to the £108,000 found out of the first 1d. There is no question of borrowed money there—it is the working balance you have actually got in your hand. I can only take the figures the right

  1155
  hon. Gentleman has given us, and he has told the House that £108,000 out of the first 1d. would go towards the normal working balance.
  Mr. McKENNA: The Noble Lord misunderstands. Every penny I take out of what he calls the normal working balance I have got to borrow.
  Lord A. THYNNE: I do not understand that either.
  Mr. McKENNA: That is the fact.
  Lord A. THYNNE: You have got a working balance which is made up from two sources. First of all, there is your balance from the previous year, and, in the second place, you have to the extent of £108,000 from the yield of the first 1d. rate.
  Mr. McKENNA: The working balance enables me to pay for the police force without borrowing up to 30th June and 31st December in each year. I do not get my rate money in until about six weeks later, so that twice a year for six weeks I now have to borrow in order to finance the police. If I reduced the amount of the working balance, I cannot even finance the police up to the 30th June and the 31st December, and I should have to pay for current expenses of the police before the end of the half-year out of borrowed money.
  Lord A. THYNNE: This position of affairs which the right hon. Gentleman has described is not peculiar to London. Every local authority in the country has to borrow money. [An HON. MEMBER: "No, no."]
  Mr. McKENNA: I do borrow, and I still should do as other local authorities do. I should still have to borrow from the 30th June until my money comes in from the rates, but if I reduced my working balance, I should have not only to borrow for that period, but for the period before the 30th June and before the 31st December, and that would be working on borrowed money.
  Lord A. THYNNE: What the whole thing comes to is, that the right hon. Gentleman would only have to borrow a little more if a particular crisis or emergency arose at two particular seasons of the year. Let me also point out that there is no absolute necessity for the right hon. Gentleman to borrow at all, because he has got another means, and as some of us think a far more suitable means, of meeting
  1156
  expenditure of this sort, and that is by Government Grant.
  Mr. McKENNA: How?
  Lord A. THYNNE: The right hon. Gentleman is sitting on the Treasury Bench not as Home Secretary only or as the representative of one Department, but as the representative of the Administration of the country. I quite admit that it is not the Home Office that would give the Grant, but the Administration in one of those emergencies of labour troubles or riots. London as a town is far less prone to the ordinary labour troubles and the ordinary labour disturbances than probably any other great city in this country, but we do suffer from a peculiar class of disturbance to which other great cities are not liable. I will give you an instance last week when we had the window smashing, which does not occur in Birmingham or Liverpool, or other cities, but which occurs in London because London happens to be the seat of the Administration, and therefore some misguided ladies felt that if they broke windows of certain shopkeepers in London that that would carry direct ocular demonstration to members of the Administration. I simply mention that to point out that a great part of the emergency of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks directly arises from the fact that London is the seat of the Government, and that therefore there is a special case for London receiving extra consideration from the Government in respect to the extra police that have to be kept for those purposes. It is clearly proven, I think, to the satisfaction of everybody on all sides, and even to the right hon. Gentleman himself, that not only is the 1d. sufficient for this year and for the normal requirements, but that it is also sufficient to meet any probable emergencies. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]
  The right hon. Gentleman bases the whole of his contention on the necessity of coming back again for a further penny in 1914–15. I would point out that this particular Bill was recommended in another place by a Minister of the Crown on the ground that it was purely temporary and provisional, and only introduced to tide over a certain hiatus until the Departmental Committee has reported. We have been told three times a year from the Treasury Bench that it is only a question of a very short time before the Departmental Committee will report, and the whole of the relations between the Imperial and the

  1157
  local Exchequers will be adjusted on a more equitable basis. Are we to conclude from the right hon. Gentleman's argument this afternoon that the Departmental Committee is not going to report until 1915? Are we to conclude that we are not going to get a readjustment of the relations between Imperial and local taxation until 1915—because it is surely obvious to anybody reading the Report on the Royal Commission that one of the very first points to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to turn his attention when the question of the readjustment of those relations takes place is that of the police, and that when that readjustment does take place that this particular Bill will have to become necessarily a dead letter. If there is any sincerity in the Government's constantly renewed promise that we are going to get this readjustment within the next twelve or eighteen months, then I say there is absolutely no necessity at all for us to give the right hon. Gentleman the extra penny which he asks. I can only reiterate what one of my hon. Friends has already said, namely, that to come to this House and to ask the House to give double the amount of money which he estimates he will require is contrary to all precedent and to the immemorial financial practice of this House. Our object, and our sole object, in opposing the granting of 2d. this afternoon is in order to keep the right hon. Gentleman's operations under the control of this House. We believe it is essential to the good administration of the Metropolitan Police, and in the interest of the members of the force themselves, that this House should have an adequate opportunity at a proper time in the evening to discuss the right hon. Gentleman's methods of administration.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: On the Second Reading of this Bill last week I pointed out the inconsistency of hon. Members opposite. If I held the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for West St. Pancras (Mr. Cassel) I should certainly vote against even a penny increase being put in the Bill. He drew a picture of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on introducing his Budget, asking for twice the amount he required for the year, and then taking power to spend it without the control of the House. He placed the Home Secretary in exactly the same position as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it is well known that the Home Secretary does not come down with his Budget for the London police year by
  1158
  year. He has full power to levy this rate. Therefore there is no comparison between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary. If Members hold the view put forward by the hon. Member for West St. Pancras they should insist upon the Home Secretary coming down each year and asking for power to levy a rate. The right hon. Gentleman for the Strand Division (Mr. Walter Long) charged some of us on this side—I do not know to whom he referred—with ignorance of the difference between the provincial ratepayers and the London ratepayers. There is a great misconception with regard to the powers of the county and borough councils in reference to the police. There was passed in 1910 an Act, promoted by Members representing London, compelling the local authorities to provide one day's rest in seven for the police. That Act will cost a certain amount of money. The county and borough councils have no control whatever over that. No provincial county council has any control over the police. They have a county police, but they have no control over them. Under an Act passed by the party opposite in 1888 there is a Standing Joint Committee, composed half of magistrates and half of members of the council, and that Committee has full control over the police. I have been a member of a county council for twenty-one years, and I have never known a discussion in the county council concerning the police, unless—
  The CHAIRMAN: I think this is going too far away from the subject. We are now concerned only with the difference between 11d. and 10d.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: The Debate has been rather general, and the allegation on the other side has been that the county councils have control over the police.
  The CHAIRMAN: It is true there have been in other speeches one or two references, but not more than a sentence or so, to the difference between London and other districts, but the question cannot be entered into in detail.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: Let me put it in this way. There is an executive Act, so far as London is concerned, to grant the police one day's rest in seven. That will cost a certain amount of money. The Home Secretary is asking power to raise money to carry that executive Act into operation. If this Bill is not carried into law, the one day's rest in seven will not be

  1159
  granted to the police. That, I understand, is the position. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] The Home Secretary has stated definitely that he is not going to spend beyond the penny, and that there shall be power for this House to decide whether the extra penny shall be voted or not. Therefore, you will have more power than the ratepayers in the provinces, because if the Watch Committee in a borough or the Standing Joint Committee in a county came forward with a rate under the Act of 1910 to grant one day's rest in seven, and ask for 2d., 3d., or 4d., the borough or county councils are bound to honour the demand without any say in the matter at all. Further, this House has placed upon the Standing Joint Committees the responsibility of carrying the Act of 1910 into force within four years, without any say on their part at all, because if they do not carry it into force by that time there is power to make an Order in Council. Indeed, I read a discussion at the last meeting of the County Councils Association, in which attention was called to this fact. Some of the county councils have had to raise, or have prepared to raise, money to meet this very expenditure. I contend, therefore, that hon. Members opposite are inconsistent in this matter.
  Captain JESSEL: Why does the hon. Member speak of Members on this side? Surely there have been similar speeches on his own side.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: We voted in favour of the Act of 1910, but we have not come whining to the House of Commons for assistance.
  Mr. WALTER LONG: The hon. Gentleman talks about whining. Did the hon. Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson) whine? Have other hon. Members on this side whined? Why make these offensive remarks?
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: Last week I alluded to Liberal Members for London as well as to Conservative Members. The fact is you are all alike. Everybody wants an expenditure of money, but nobody is prepared to pay for it. Whether it is on "Dreadnoughts" or whether it is local expenditure, you want Parliament to provide all the money.
  Mr. W. THORNE: Hear, hear.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: I can quite understand the hon. Member for South West
  1160
  Ham taking that view, because he is consistent; he believes that Parliament ought to do everything. But I do not agree with him. I believe there are certain responsibilities upon the local authorities, and that we have to do our share. But these continuous demands upon Parliament to find the money when hon. Memberes themselves are promoting the measures which entail the cost, I say, are inconsistent. It is inconsistent also when hon. Members opposite by their Act of 1910 place upon the local authorities or the Standing Joint Committees the responsibility of providing this extra expenditure without any Grant from Parliament and without any limit to the rate. As long as that continues we who represent provincial boroughs have as much right as London Members to demand justice at the hands of the Government, and if any concessions in the way of special Grants is made to London Members in this matter I hope provincial Members will demand the same treatment. Provincial councils are watching these discussions, and as a representative of a large town which is very heavily rated—to 7s. or 8s. in the pound—I contend that we ought to claim the same consideration at the hands of the Government as the London Members.
  Major ARCHER-SHEE: It is very refreshing to notice the extraordinary difference of demeanour on the Front Bench to-day, as compared with the last day of last Session. The right hon. Gentleman then wanted a weapon with which to attack another place, and the Press, which supports the Government, indulged in an orgy of misrepresentation, making out that another place had refused to pass the Bill, and were thereby stopping the police from getting their one day's rest in seven. It is a very peculiar thing that we have to-day heard several Members on that side supporting the views put forward by my hon. Friends. They have, in fact, entirely justified the action of another place in throwing out the Bill of last year, because they then offered a penny, but the right hon. Gentleman did not see fit to accept the offer. We all know that the increase in the Pension Fund, the grant of one day's rest in seven, the drop in the amount of the Exchequer contribution, and other causes go to make up a very large increase in the cost of the police, and the Home Secretary is obliged to find the money somewhere. But we as London Members object to the whole of this amount being thrown on the rates. That objection is, I believe, put forward by the borough

  1161
  councils throughout London. At any rate, I have a letter from the town clerk of the Finsbury borough council strongly urging that this heavy burden shall not be placed upon the ratepayers of London for the support of the Metropolitan Police, the duties of which extend far beyond the Metropolitan area. The hon. Member opposite said that the county authorities would hope to get exactly the same allowance in proportion as that, that might be granted to London. We are not discussing that question to-night; that is really a matter for the Committee now sitting. But everybody must see that the London police have duties to perform which do not fall upon any other police force. I think that that bears especially at the present time, because I have heard a very strong rumour that the Home Secretary sent a circular letter to the Chief Constables of Wales asking them not to call upon the military in the event of disturbances arising during the present labour troubles, but to call on the police.
  The CHAIRMAN: I do not think it is in order to raise that subject.
  Major ARCHER-SHEE: I am sorry that I did raise it if it is not in order. In any case, during the troubles that have arisen in the past the London police have been sent around, and we all know that it is not a fair charge upon the London ratepayers. London is, in addition, the seat of administration. It is not only the capital of this country; it is the capital of the Empire. Therefore the Imperial Exchequer ought to pay a great deal more than it is paying. It was in 1860 that this amount was first fixed, and repeated, I think, in the Local Government Act of 1888. Since then the Exchequer contribution has gone down, even during the last four years, by something like 5 per cent., as mentioned in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham. As this amount is dwindling, the time has come for London to receive a great deal better treatment than she is receiving from the Exchequer. Instead of that the Home Secretary coolly proposes to place the whole of the extra 2d. that he requires, or says that he requires, upon the London ratepayers. We offer him 1d. He says that is not enough. Surely 1d. ought to be enough, in spite of the statement he has made, until the Committee has reported, when we may expect that the Exchequer will be obliged to give more.
  1162
  After all, instead of having to pay 5d. out of 9d., if we give the 1d. it will mean 6d. out of 10d., so raising the amount to three-fifths of the total. I think that is very unfair.
  Mr. McKENNA: I rise only for the purpose of replying to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question. I can assure him that the strong rumour he referred to is entirely devoid of foundation. Nothing approaching any such letter has been sent out from the Home Office. One hon. Member argued that if we had troubles in London there would be no extra cost to be borne by the London ratepayer. Of course, in saying that, he was quite in error. It is true that no extra day is given to the police if, owing to special circumstances, they have to work the whole seven days in the week. But efforts are made to give additional days off at other times. If a policeman is engaged more than nine hours in the day he gets an additional allowance. Beyond that, one of the first steps we should have to take, if there were trouble, would be the enrolment of our Reserve, and that is a very expensive item. Hon. Members must understand that if I have to meet additional expense, consequent upon labour troubles, I could not go on enrolling additional police in order to provide for the one day's rest in seven. I should not have the money. I am, therefore, only asking to be allowed to have such an amount at call—an amount which I undertake not to spend except in the emergency I have named, and which I have undertaken not to spend without the House having the full opportunity of discussing, and preventing me spending it—if they think well. I ask, under those conditions, only to be allowed to have this margin. That margin becomes absolutely necessary if I am to give, the police the one day's rest in seven, and if, in the course of giving it, there should be any labour disturbance.
  Mr. W. THORNE: I was in the House during the whole of the time the Home Secretary was making his statement, and I was very much surprised that he offered no concessions to hon. Members opposite, who made a very strong appeal to him on the Second Reading of this Bill. It is very questionable, if we had known on the, Second Reading that he was going to take up the attitude that he has taken up this afternoon, as to whether the House would, not have divided. I was pleased to note that hon. Members opposite refused to be chloroformed by the statement of the

  1163
  Home Secretary. If they had agreed to that statement it would not have relieved the position in which we find ourselves at the present time. As a matter of fact, when this Bill is through it will eventually mean that an elevenpenny rate will be levied. The Home Secretary knows perfectly well that the police rate for the Metropolitan area will be the highest in the country, if not in the world. It will be an elevenpenny rate.
  Mr. McKENNAdissented.
  Mr. W. THORNE: Eventually it means that. What we are asking is that you should only be allowed to levy a tenpenny rate at present. Provincial Members say that they have burdens in their own locality, the same or more than people in the Metropolitan area. I quite agree. But it must be understood that the local authorities have got control of their police.
  Mr. BOOTH: No.
  Mr. W. THORNE: I beg your pardon. The provincial borough councils have absolute control over their own police. The town council elects the Watch Committee, and surely that means representative control? If you take into consideration the fact that the police rate levied in various
  parts of the country ranges from 5d. to 7d. in the £, it will be considered remarkable that, simply because we are living in the Metropolitan area, we have to pay a rate of 11d.
  Mr. McKENNAdissented.
  Mr. W. THORNE: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Then what are you asking for 11d. for? As a matter of fact, as a representative of West Ham, I should like to point out that if we had control of our own police, I am not quite sure that we should not have a better supervision than at the present time, and a more efficient police. I am absolutely certain, if we governed our own police, that it would mean a rate of 7d. in the £ at the outside, and the result of that gain of 4d. would mean a saving of £20,000 to the borough. That is a thing that ought to be taken into consideration so far as the people from West Ham are concerned. I am therefore delighted that my hon. Friends opposite are determined to go to a Division. If they do not press this matter I shall.
  Question put, "That the word 'elevenpence' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 213; Noes, 159.

  Division No. 37.]

  AYES.

  [6.55 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Dawes, James Arthur

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Agnew, Sir George William

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Hayward, Evan

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Devlin, Joseph

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

  Dewar, Sir J. A.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Armitage, Robert

  Dickinson, W. H.

  Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

  Dillon, John

  Higham, John Sharp

  Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Balfour, sir Robert (Lanark)

  Doris, William

  Hodge, John

  Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

  Duffy, William J.

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

  Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

  Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

  Beale, W. P.

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Bentham, G. J.

  Elverston, Sir Harold

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Boland, John Pius

  Essex, Richard Walter

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  John, Edward Thomas

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Brocklehurst, William B.

  Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Bryce, John Annan

  Fitzgibbon, John

  Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Gelder, Sir William Alfred

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Joyce, Michael

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Kellaway, Frederick George

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

  Glanville, H. J.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Goldstone, Frank

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

  Clough, William

  Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

  Leach, Charles

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Cotton, William Francis

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

  Low, sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

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

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Crumley, Patrick

  Hackett, John

  Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

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

  Harwood, George

  Macpherson, James Ian

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Philips, John (Longford, S.)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Taylor, T. C. (Radcliffe)

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Pointer, Joseph

  Tennant, Harold John

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Thomas, J. H. (Derby)

  M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

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

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

  Toulmin, Sir George

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Radford, George Heynes

  Verney, Sir H.

  Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Ward, John (Stoke-on-Trent)

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Wardle, G. J.

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Waring, Walter

  Meagher, Michael

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Middlebrook, William

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Webb, H.

  Mond, Sir Alfred M.

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradesten)

  Montagu, Hon. E. S.

  Roche, Augustine (Louth)

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

  Munro, Robert

  Rowlands, James

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

  Murray, Captain Hon. A. C.

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Neilson, Francis

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

  Wiles, Thomas

  Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Nolan, Joseph

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

  Norton, Captain Cecil William

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E.

  Williamson, Sir Archibald

  Nuttall, Harry

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

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

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

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

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Sheehy, David

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Winfrey, Richard

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  Shortt, Edward

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton)

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Gulland and Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

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

  Sutherland, John E.

  NOES.

  Aitken, Sir William Max

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)

  Alden, Percy

  Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

  Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Amery, L. C. M. S.

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

  Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

  Archer-Shee, Major Martin

  Doughty, Sir George

  Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

  Ashley, W. W.

  Eyres-Monsell, B. M.

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

  Bagot, Lieut.-Colonel J.

  Faber, George D. (Clapham)

  Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Mackinder, Halford J.

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

  Fell, Arthur

  M'Mordie, Robert

  Balcarres, Lord

  Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert

  McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine)

  Baldwin, Stanrey

  Fleming, Valentine

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  Martin, Joseph

  Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)

  Forster, Henry William

  Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

  Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

  Foster, Philip Staveley

  Morrison-Bell, E. F. (Ashburton)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Mount, William Arthur

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

  Gastrell, Major W. H.

  Neville, Reginald J. N.

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Gibbs, G. A.

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gilmour, Captain J.

  Nield, Herbert

  Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

  Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K.

  O'Grady, James

  Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

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

  Bennett-Goldney, Francis

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Paget, Almeric Hugh

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

  Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Beresford, Lord Charles

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)

  Bigland, Alfred

  Hambro, Angus Valdemar

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Bird, Alfred

  Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

  Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Quilter, William Eley C.

  Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Rawson, Col. Richard H.

  Boyton, James

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Henderson, Major H. (Berkshire)

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Burdett-Coutts, William

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Hewins, William Albert Samuel

  Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

  Butcher, John George

  Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

  Sanders, Robert A.

  Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

  Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury)

  Sanderson, Lancelot

  Cassel, Felix

  Hill-Wood, Samuel

  Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, West>

  Cator, John

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Smith, Harold (Warrington)

  Cave, George

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Starkey, John Ralph

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

  Horne, W. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Staveley-Hill, Henry

  Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Steel-Maitland, A. D.

  Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

  Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

  Stewart, Gershom

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

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

  Sykes, Mark (Hudd, Central)

  Clynes, John R.

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Lansbury, George

  Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

  Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End)

  Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N)

  Croft, Henry Page

  Lewisham, Viscount

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Crooks, William

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Thynne, Lord Alexander

  1166

  1167

  Touche, George Alexander

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

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Tryon, Capt George Clement

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Yate, Col. C. E.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, ipon)

  Younger, Sir George

  Ward, Arnold (Herts, Watford)

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Wheler, Granville C. H.

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Hayes Fisher and Captain Jessel.

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

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

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Amendment made: Insert at the end of the Clause the following words, "And
  (b) Before approving the issue of any warrants under Sub-section 23 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1829, by the effect of which the annual sum to be provided for the purpose of the Metropolitan Police in any year will be for the first time increased above the rate of tenpence in the pound, the Secretary of State shall lay before the House of Commons a Minute stating the reasons for such increase; and if within the next twenty days on which the House has sat after any such Minute has been laid before it an Address is presented to His Majesty by the House praying that the said increase be not made, the said increase shall not then be made."—[Mr. McKenna.]

  CLAUSE 2.—(Short Title and Construction.)
  This Act may be cited as the Metropolitan Police Act, 1912, and shall be construed with the Metropolitan Police Act, 1829 to 1909; and those Acts and this Act may be cited together as the Metropolitan Police Acts, 1829 to 1912.
  Bill reported as amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.

  SUPPLY— [26th February]—REPORT.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [26th February], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Resolution, 'That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £11,400, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, including certain Grants-in-Aid.'"
  Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I have an Amendment on the Paper.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): The Question has already been put.
  Sir F. BANBURY: My Amendment is on the Paper, and I respectfully submit I should have been called upon, especially as the Amendment has been on the Paper for several days.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Question has already been put from the Chair "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution." And it is now too late to move an Amendment.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Yes, but may I respectfully point out, my Amendment being on the Paper, it has been the general custom to call upon the Member whose Amendment is on the Paper before the Question is put.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Question has been put, and I cannot now go back upon it.
  Mr. FELL: I also had risen, as I was desirous to speak on the Question.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Question has been already put to the House.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I had intended to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Paper to reduce the Vote by £500. That I cannot do now, but I think, in the circumstances, I am at liberty to vote against the whole Amendment. I am sorry I did not rise in time to be called upon. The reason I put my Amendment down was to object to the additional expenses for the purpose of small holdings, and also to object to the sum of £10,000 for the improvement of the breeding of light horses. I object to the additional salaries for the administration of the Small Holdings Act because I believe that these additional in spectors are not necessary, and that the discussion which we have had upon this subject in Committee shows that really no thing depends, or very little depends, upon the appointment of those additional inspectors. The hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Dorsetshire had a table showing the number of applications made for small holdings

  1169
  before and after the appointment of these Commissioners, and hon. Members must in fairness admit that that table shows conclusively that no result had been gained by the appointment of this number of Commissioners, who are only appointed, to use the well-known phrase of the First Lord of the Admiralty, to apply ginger to certain county councils, which ginger has been applied and has not been efficacious. With regard to the other item for the improvement of the breeding of light horses, I object to that, because the sum of £10,000 mentioned is not sufficient to do any good, at all, it is merely waste of money to give this £10,000.
  The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture has shown very great interest in his Department, and I think he endeavoured to justify the application of this £10,000 on the ground that it is to some extent a new departure, and that he is devoting this money to the assistance of private mares with tenant farmers for breeding. I think I am right in saying that that was the argument that the right hon. Gentleman advanced, but what is the use of spending such a small sum as £10,000 for that purpose? This little Grant will serve no useful purpose. If it had been £20,000 or £30,000 there would be something in it. I see behind me my hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Wiltshire. He was rather annoyed with me in the Debates in Committee because he thought I was endeavouring to prevent his constituency securing certain sums of money. Not at all. All I wish is that if there is to be this sum of money it should be a sufficient sum to do good. There is no use having a little money which may benefit a few people unless you can serve the whole district and carry out the object you have at heart, namely, to increase the horses in this country.
  I do not know what my Friends on the Front Bench below me will say, or whether they will approve, in the circumstances which has arisen, and which prevented me in moving my Amendment, if I propose now to divide against the whole Vote. I am perfectly well aware that is an unusual course to take, but there was some misapprehension. I do not say anyone was to blame except myself, but owing to that unfortunate error I want to explain how it is that I come to object to the whole Vote. I wished to move a reduction, but through the forms of the House I cannot do so now, and in these circumstances I hope I shall
  1170
  have the support of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Wiltshire, whose experience in these matters is of great value not only to his constituents, but also to the House. I shall be very much obliged to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench if they will get up and inform me whether they approve of the action I am taking.
  Mr. FELL: I should not have intervened on the question relating to agriculture had I not a case sent to me from my Constituents which reflects, as they consider, very seriously upon the Board of Agriculture and its allotments.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That does not arise on this Estimate.
  Mr. FELL: It is in connection with a case of swine fever, and in these allotments there are a large number of swine, and in last December a case of swine fever arose.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. There is nothing in this Vote about swine fever. The amount for the diseases of animals is for foot-and-mouth disease.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is my impression. The hon. Member must defer his statement for the main Vote.
  Mr. FELL: That is Appropriation-in-Aid and for estimated expenditure, including services in connection with swine fever for those employed in looking after cases such as I have referred to. There was a case of swine fever brought under my notice in these cottages and the inspectors were immediately informed.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member does not understand. I do not think there is any money in the ordinary administration for carrying out matters in connection with swine fever in this Vote that arises upon the main Vote.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Is it not a fact that under Item A this is a Vote for the salaries in connection with the diseases of animals, not only in connection with foot-and-mouth disease, but all diseases of animals?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I repeat what I said in Committee, the amount here refers to the additional salaries requisite for the Small Holdings Commissioners.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: If that is so the statement in Item A is grossly misleading, because it is set out as an item in

  1171
  connection with the administration of the Diseases of Animals Act. That refers to all the diseases scheduled under the Diseases of Animals Act.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think that subject should be raised upon the main Vote.
  Mr. ASHLEY: I wish to say a word or two in support of what has been said by my hon. Friend the junior Member for the City of London. He pointed out that we consider the appointment of these additional inspectors absolutely unnecessary, most irritating to the county councils, and a negation of popular government. In the counties we have bodies of men elected not only by male but by female voters, And they are entrusted by Parliament with certain powers. Amongst other powers, they have been given the power to provide small holdings, in certain circumstances, for people who reside inside and outside their area. In the opinion of a vast majority of the people in this country, these bodies have, to the best of their ability, carried out the duties imposed upon them. In the county of Hampshire, where I live, the committee of the county council has taken a great deal of trouble trying to find suitable land for applicants. I know that these gentlemen have actually neglected their own private business in order to try and meet the requirements of many impossible applicants, and the only thanks they get for it is that they are told that they are not trying their best, and that additional inspectors are to be sent down in order to see that their work is done properly, and the taxpayers have to pay for this political move—for it is nothing but a political move—on the part of His Majesty's Government. Surely it is very cynical of a Liberal Government to behave in this manner, because they talk so much about government by the popular will. Where could we find a better expression of popular will than in our county council? They are elected on the broadest possible basis, and, therefore, to send out from headquarters these inspectors to harass the county councils and hamper them in every way and take the matter out of their hands is an outrage on representative government, and something against which we ought to protest by voting against this Supplementary Estimate. Before we leave the discussion upon this Vote, I wish to ask, in regard to the £10,550 for colleges
  1172
  and institutions engaged in scientific research and experiments, does any portion of that sum go to institutions which are looked after and aided by county councils. I want to know whether the county council farm at Hutton, in Lancashire, gets any Grant-in-Aid from the Board of Agriculture. If it does not, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of giving it a Grant because this farm has done a good deal of good to the dairy farmers in the county of Lancashire, and it is a model for all the other county councils of England to follow. Can the right hon. Gentleman also tell how the £10,000 for the improvement of horse breeding is allocated? I do not think he gave us this explanation in Committee. Is it allocated on the basis of population or horses or areas of the counties?
  Mr. MOUNT: I want to call attention to Item F. I do not refer to this matter in any carping spirit, and my only criticism is in regard to the delay which has taken place in granting this money. Any Supplementary Vote is always open to the criticism that the money ought to have been provided at the beginning of the financial year. It is important with regard to the work of these institutions for agricultural research and experiments that Grants should be made at the beginning of their financial year in order to enable them to carry out their duty thoroughly. In many of these institutions the greater part of their research work must be undertaken in the late autumn or the early spring, and if these Grants are put off until we have the Supplementary Estimates brought forward there must be a great waste of time. With regard to these Grants to experimental farms throughout the areas which these institutions serve, you scarcely ever find any one farm which contains the various sorts of soil to be found in different parts of the county, and if you carry out experiments on one farm it will be very little use to the various farmers in that area where the soil is different from that of the experimental farm. If you carry out your experiments on various soils throughout the district they will be of far greater value to those you are endeavouring to benefit, and you would also get into closer practical touch with the farmers. One of the great difficulties which agricultural districts experience has been to get the co-operation of farmers in the work you are carrying out. If you develop your experimental work, and

  1173
  research so far as you can upon experimental plots on different farms, you would be doing a much better work. Those are the two points which I wish to bring before the President of the Board of Agriculture.
  Captain JESSEL: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is included in this Grant any sum for the Royal Veterinary College?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes.
  Captain JESSEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the exact amount which is given to this college? I ask this question because I know that this institution is labouring under very heavy financial difficulties. I think it is most important that there should be an adequate supply of veterinary surgeons in this country, and, owing to the introduction of motor-cars and mechanical transport, this profession has been very much affected, and there is not nearly so much inducement to young men to enter the veterinary profession as there used to be. On the other hand, for military purposes as well as for Civil purposes, it is essential that a sufficient number of men should be induced to take up this profession. I am informed that the financial straits of the college to which I have referred are very great, and from a military point of view I think it will be very serious if we cannot get enough veterinary surgeons. I do not wish to labour the point, but it must be apparent to the President of the Board of Agriculture that for dealing with the diseases of animals it is very necessary to induce men to become veterinary surgeons for research work as well as for the curing of diseases. The Royal Veterinary College is labouring under very great difficulty, and I know there is a proposal which is resented in many quarters of the veterinary profession to levy by Act of Parliament a tax upon those who are on the register. Owing to the falling off in their practice they are not in the position to meet that demand, and I submit to the President of the Board of Agriculture the great importance of the Government helping a good deal more in that respect in the future than they have in the past by way of an increased subsidy. The whole Vote is only £10,550, and for the requirements of the college I have referred to it hardly seems too much if the whole amount were given to a great institution of this kind. It is not often one gets an opportunity of discussing these matters, and I have taken part in this
  1174
  Debate, not with any wish to delay the proceedings, but because I have received a great many representations in regard to the position of this college, and I hope the Government will be able to do something to meet their needs, because this is really a matter of national importance.
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: The matter I wish to allude to has been very clearly put before the Committee by the hon. Member for Wiltshire. It is in regard to the question of foot-and-mouth disease. I only speak upon this question because I happen to be particularly circumstanced in my Constituency, which has been the last place to be afflicted by that scourge. While my Constituency has nothing but praise for the sympathy with which they have been treated by the officials of the Board of Agriculture, they do feel that it would have been a very great advantage to them if the rules and regulations had not been so adamant and so fixed as they were. My Constituents felt, and felt with reason, that every individual case of this description should be treated upon its own merits. Hard and fast rules should give way to exceptional circumstances. Let me give a couple of illustrations. You may have a farm high up on a hill in Cumberland, isolated, or you may have a farm down in the valley in Somersetshire or Devonshire. There is not the same liability in either of those few cases to spread infection as in the case of a farm upon a plain. Those two farms, I think, should be excluded from a hard and fast rule such as the regulation of the fifteen-mile area. We realise that you can hardly have a worse disaster to agriculture than the unlimited spread of that disease, and the last thing I should wish to urge would be any course that might be called or might seem in the least dangerous. I believe, however, there would be no danger in accepting it as a fact that the fifteen-mile area is not a necessary safeguard against the disease, and that the disease in every case where it is feasible should be treated upon its own individual merits.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I should like to put four questions to him. The first is connected with the very important question properly raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras (Captain Jessel) with regard to the Royal Veterinary College. I am aware the right hon. Gentleman has lately received a deputation from the college, and that he is considering the matter of making increased

  1175
  Grants to the college, but I should like to ask him whether he is contemplating, in making additional Grants, a postgraduate course at the college in order to provide men who shall be properly equipped to act as inspectors under the Diseases of Animals Acts for the various local authorities. I think it is common knowledge in the veterinary profession today that we really have not suitably equipped men coming from the college to carry out these most responsible duties.
  The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member addressed the House at some length on this Vote on 29th February, and he has therefore exhausted his right to speak.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Does that prevent my asking questions? I will not do more than ask bare questions, if you limit it to that.
  The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid it does, and it is not in my power to depart from the Rules.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN:I think I can reply to some of the questions which were put by the hon. Gentleman on the last occasion, and which I rather anticipated he was going to put now. I do not think it would be in order to discuss the general Grant to the Royal Veterinary College on this occasion, because the only money which appears in this Vote for that college is under the head of Research. I can, however, give the House the necessary particulars about that. The Royal Veterinary College will receive for research work the sum of £650 for investigations in respect of vaccination against tuberculosis, £230 for research work into an obscure disease of sheep which has not yet got a name, £410 for exceptional research work in Johne's disease of cattle, and £100 for toxicology, making a total amount of £1,390.
  Captain JESSEL: Is that the total Grant?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: That is the total Grant for research work. We have no right on this occasion to discuss the other Grants made to the college; but I may perhaps say I have recently seen a deputation from the college, and the relations of the Department to the college is now receiving our consideration. I was asked whether any Grant had been made towards the Hutton Farm, near Preston. There is no money voted under this heading for the
  1176
  Hutton Farm, but the relations of the Board to the farm and the work done there is receiving the Board's attention in relation to the larger Vote. With regard to experimental plots, these do not either arise under the Supplementary Vote we are taking here, but the use of experimental plots is being considered by the Board and may possibly be dealt with during the course of the next twelve months. Both the questions put to me by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) have been answered previously, and I do not know that he would wish me to detain the House. So far as the Small Holdings Commissioners are concerned, I can only repeat that they have facilitated the work of the county councils, and, so far from creating friction, they have really been a source of gratification to the county councils, as well as to the small holders themselves.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: With regard to the research Grant for the diseases of sheep, is this the only Grant being made with regard to the strongylus contortus intestinal disease in sheep. It is a very serious matter if it is.
  Captain GILMOUR: I understand there is some Motion to divide against this Vote, but, as one interested in agriculture, I would appeal to my hon. Friend not to do anything of the kind. I am strongly of opinion, though I admit that the sums are rather small, we should accept gratefully those sums which go towards agricultural co-operation and light horse breeding in this country. It may be said, and probably with some justice, that what we have got for the furtherance of light horse breeding will not really be sufficient, but it will at least go a long way towards meeting the views of many of us on both sides of the House, and looking at it from the agricultural point of view, we are only too grateful to receive these small sums.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I am perfectly willing to accede to the appeal of my hon. Friend, but it is the invariable custom of the House to take this action, not because they object to the Vote, but to testify their disapprobation and displeasure.

SUPPLY— [26th February]—REPORT.
Resolution reported, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £47,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the

1177
Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for Stationery, Printing, Paper, Binding, and Printed Books for the Public Service; for the Salaries and Expenses of the Stationery Office; and for sundry Miscellaneous Services, including Reports of Parliamentary Debates."
Resolution read a second time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £2,000.
I move this Amendment because I think the explanations the hon. Gentleman gave to the Committee were far from satisfactory. We have an increase on the paper for public Departments. The original Estimate was £250,000, and it has increased to £282,000, or an addition of £32,000, which is an enormous increase. Then we have a large increase for binding, and a still further increase for books for public Departments. Again, we have an increase for miscellaneous small stores for public Departments. If we look at the footnote, we find the whole of these subheads are additional amounts required to meet certain liabilities in respect of the Debates and Records owing to the unforeseen length of the Session of 1911, for the Department administering the Insurance Act, and for the increased price paid for paper. I know what the hon. Gentleman will say. He will say, I have carefully avoided the footnote which alludes to the Admiralty and the War Office. When we pressed the hon. Gentleman, we found only a very small portion of the increase was required for the Admiralty and the War Office, and he was quite at sea to account for the difference between the amount required for maps for the Admiralty and the War Office and the rest. He told us it must be for maps for administering the Insurance Act, and, when we pointed out that that Act, with all its difficulties, could not possibly be required to be administered with maps, he took advantage of the fact that the Debate had gone on for some time, and he made no reply at all. I admit the great difficulty which must present itself to any man filling the place now occupied by the hon. Gentleman, but he knows the questions which were asked in Committee and which were not answered, and he must therefore have come down
1178
prepared to answer them now. I want to know, after subtracting the amount due for maps and books for public Departments, what has happened to the rest of this additional sum of £2,000. The next matter is Item J, which is increased by £6,500, an increase of something like 9 per cent, on the original estimate. That increase is again alleged to be due to the length of the Session and the administration of the Insurance Act. But how could the cost of the supply of miscellaneous small stores for public Departments have increased because this House sat a long time? We do not have any such small stores here, and I should like to know what small stores were purchased to the extent of £6,500, and where. I see the cost of paper shows an enormous increase. It would appear almost impossible that the actual increase in the cost of making paper should have been so great as 12 per cent, on a gross total of £250,000. I think we ought to have some further explanation of that, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to give me a satisfactory reply to the questions I have put, as, otherwise, I am afraid I shall not be able to listen to the blandishments of hon. Gentlemen and refuse to divide.
Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I take this opportunity of asking an explanation of one or two items on this Vote, especially in regard to the Parliamentary Debates and Records. Those hon. Gentlemen who happened to be here when the Committee was sitting, will remember that we had some discussion on this point, and certain explanations were proffered by the hon. Gentleman. The original Estimate was £7,500. The revised Estimate is £12,000, and that is described as being due to the Autumn Session. The hon. Gentleman, who was new to his office, explained, on the 26th February, that the whole of these payments were for printing, paper, indexing, and otherwise preparing and printing the Parliamentary records. He added that the original Estimate in 1907 was for an average Parliamentary year of 120 days, and on that basis the Estimates have been prepared ever since. To that 120 days a certain number of days and nights have to be added, and, therefore, the amount of the Vote has gone up automatically. That explanation was accepted as satisfactory at the time, but investigations have shown that it is not so. The explanation amounted to this: 120 days was the estimate of a normal Session. Last

1179
session covered 172 days, but the rate of increase is far greater than it ought to have been in proportion, for whereas a normal Session of 120 days was estimated to cost £7,500, being at the rate of £62 10s. per day, the additional fifty-two days cost no less than £4,500, or at the rate of £86 10s. per day. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's first explanation does not appear to hold water.
It may be said that the Autumn Session was unusually arduous, that the days on which we sat were very long, and that there were also a number of night sittings. I regret to find on investigation that that explanation also is not satisfactory. I have had the figures taken out and even reckoning by the amount of printing done the increase is not justified. The reports of the Summer Session are contained in nine volumes, with 19,544 columns, at a cost of £7,500, or 7s. 6d. per column. The autumn reports are con-contained in three volumes with 6,548 columns, at a cost of £4,500, or an average of 13s. 8¾d. per column. There surely must be some other explanation which we have not yet had from the hon. Gentleman. He did certainly suggest that part of the extra cost might be accounted for by the fact that the proceedings in the Standing Committee upstairs on the unemployment part of the Insurance Bill were printed and reported along with the Parliamentary Debates. I have had those figures investigated as well, and I find that, including the reports of those debates upstairs, which were contained in 484 columns, the total amount of the Autumn Session was 7,032 columns, at the rate of 12s. 6d. per column, as against 7s. 6d. per column, which was the cost in the earlier part of the Session. I do not know what the explanation is. I doubt very much whether the hon. Gentleman himself knows it. But I think that by this time even he must be convinced that the explanation he has given is not the whole explanation. The explanation with regard to calculation by time breaks down, because in a normal Session the cost is £62 10s. per day and in the Autumn Session £86 10s. per day. In the same way the calculation based on the quantity of printed matter equally fails, because it shows an increase in the Autumn Session of more than 50 per cent, as compared with a normal Session. I think the House is entitled to some further explanation.
The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): The explanation I gave on the Committee stage is, I venture to assert, the true and accurate explanation of the particular items in regard to which the hon. Member appears to have taken so much trouble in investigating the figures. The amount required in order to provide for the printing, etc., of the Official Debates is purely automatic, and depends entirely on the amount of speaking that takes place in the House. I may suggest another valuable factor, and that is the greater speed at which hon. Members speak, and an hon. Gentleman who speaks with considerable fluency, like the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat, costs more to the nation than a man who, like myself, speaks with some hesitancy.
Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Why?
Mr. MASTERMAN: Because more paper is required on which to print his speeches. I think if he will go through the actual figures he will come to the conclusion that the explanation I have given is a thoroughly satisfactory one, and possibly he will be able to induce the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London to withdraw his Amendment. The original Estimate, based on a normal Session of 120 days, with a normal amount of Debate of sixty-nine pages a day, gives a total of 8,280 pages. The Session of 1911 extended over 172 days. The daily output of speaking averaged seventy-nine pages, partly owing to the Eleven o'clock Rule being suspended and partly owing to the increased speed of speaking in this new House. Therefore, the proportionate sum works out as follows: As 8,280 is to 13,430, so 7,500 is to 12,000. The total amount required for the Session was therefore £12,000. The amount provided was £7,500, and we kept the exact proportion in asking for a Supplementary Estimate of £4,500. I hope the hon. Member will accept that as a satisfactory answer to his contention.
I now come to the questions put by the Hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. I think he asked them all on the Committee stage, but I will run through them shortly. The first was on Item I. "Books and Maps." That is merely a general title of the sub-head. It does not mean necessarily that anything is spent on maps. I have no knowledge of any maps having been required by the Insurance Commission, but a large quantity of books was needed for that body, and the

1181
rest of the Estimate is due to the Admiralty estimate for books required, especially under the new scheme of education for seamen, which, I think, the whole Committee approved of. With regard to Item J, "Stores," I did go at some considerable length into that on the Committee stage, and I explained that this is very largely for the equipment of the offices of the Insurance Commissioners and for the provision of typwriters, calculating machines, and so on. There were also large quantities of indelible pencils provided. Then I come to the question of paper. As I explained on the Committee stage, the rise in the price of paper is due to good trade. We get paper cheap when trade is bad, because contractors are glad to take contracts in order to keep their mills going, but when trade is good they demand a higher price for the paper. Much of the demand for paper was due to the requirements of the Insurance Commission, but there is a sum of £3,000 for
the Post Office in connection with the telephone work it has just taken over. I think this is a fair answer to all the points which have been raised, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will not think it necessary to press his Amendment to a Division.
8.0 P.M.
Mr. ASHLEY: No doubt the hon. Gentleman may have given a very satisfactory answer from his point of view, but he has not in the least answered the questions of my hon. Friend (Mr. Mitchell-Thomson), who asked why, if the printing cost 7s. 6d. per column in the summer, in the autumn it cost 12s. 6d. The hon. Gentleman has not challenged the figures or answered the question, and I hope my hon. Friends will go to a Division.
Question put, "That £47,000 stand part of the said Resolution."
The House divided: Ayes, 186; Noes, 98.

Division No. 38.]

AYES.

[8.0 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Essex, Richard Walter

Macpherson, James Ian

Adamson, William

Esslemont, George Birnie

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Farrell, James Patrick

M'Callum, John M.

Alden, Percy

Ffrench, Peter

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

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

Armitage, Robert

Gelder, Sir W. A.

Marks, Sir George Croydon

Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

Gill, Alfred Henry

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Baker, Harold T (Accrington)

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Masterman, C. F. G.

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Glanville, Harold James

Meagher, Michael

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Barnes, G. N.

Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

Menzies, Sir Walter

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Middlebrook, William

Beale, William Phipson

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

Millar, James Duncan

Benn, W. (T. H'mts., St. George)

Hackett, John

Mond, Sir Alfred

Bentham, George J.

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Harcourt Robert V. (Montrose)

Munro, Robert

Boland, John Pius

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

Neilson, Francis

Booth, Frederick Handel

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Brace, William

Hayden, John Patrick

Nolan, Joseph

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Hayward, Evan

Norton, Captain Cecil William

Brocklehurst, William B.

Helme, Norval Watson

Nuttall, Harry

Brunner, John F. L.

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Bryce, John Annan

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Higham, John Sharp

O'Doherty, Philip

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Hodge, John

O'Grady, James

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

Holmes, Daniel Turner

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Holt, Richard Durning

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Clancy, John Joseph

Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Clough, William

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

Parker, James (Halifax)

Clynes, John R.

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

John, Edward Thomas

Pirie, Duncan V.

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Johnson, William

Pointer, Joseph

Crooks, William

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

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

Crumley, Patrick

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Radford, G. H.

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Jowett, Frederick William

Raphael, Sir Herbert Henry

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Joyce, Michael

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

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

Kellaway, Frederick George

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

De Forest, Baron

Kilbride, Denis

Rendall, Atheistan

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Lamb, Ernest Henry

Richards, Thomas

Dillon, John

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Donelan, Captain A.

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Doris, William

Leach, Charles

Roberts, George (Norwich)

Duffy, William J.

Levy, Sir Maurice

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Lewis, John Herbert

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Rowlands, James

Elverston, Sir Harold

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Tennant, Harold John

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

Wiles, Thomas

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

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Wilkie, Alexander

Sheehy, David

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Sherwell, Arthur James

Verney, Sir H.

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

Shortt, Edward

Walton, Sir Joseph

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Wardle, G. J.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Stanley, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Watt, Henry A.

Young, William (Perth, East)

Sutherland, John E.

Webb, H.

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Sutton, John E.

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

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

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

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Whitehouse, John Howard

NOES.

Aitken, Sir William Max

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Ashley, Wilfrid W.

Fleming, Valentine

Paget, Almeric Hugh

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

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

Peto, Basil Edward

Balcarres, Lord

Forster, Henry William

Quilter, Sir William Eley C.

Baldwin, Stanley

Glimour, Captain John

Rawson, Col. Richard H.

Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K.

Remnant, James Farquharson

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

Gouiding, Edward Alfred

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

Rothschild, Lionel de

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hambro, Angus Valde ar

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington)

Sanders, Robert A.

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Henderson, Major H. (Berkshire)

Sanderson, Lancelot

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

Bigland, Alfred

Hewins, William Albert Samuel

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Bird, Alfred

Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

Starkey, John Ralph

Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

Hills, John Waller

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Hill-Wood, Samuel

Stewart, Gershom

Boyton, James

Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

Bridgeman, William Clive

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)

Burn, Col. C. R.

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

Hunt, Rowland

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Campion, W. R.

Ingleby, Holcombe

Tryon, Capt. George Clement

Cassel, Felix

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Valentia, Viscount

Castlereagh, Viscount

Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

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

Cave, George

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Wolmer, Viscount

Courthope, George Loyd

Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

Wood, Hon. E F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Wood, John Stalybridge

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Lewisham, Viscount

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

Craik, Sir Henry

Lloyd, G. A.

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Croft, Henry Page

M'Mordie, Robert

Yate, Col. C. E.

Dalrymple, Viscount

Magnus, Sir Philip

Yerburgh, Robert

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

Doughty, Sir George

Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir F. Banbury and Mr. Mitchell-Thomson.

Eyres-Monsell, B. M.

Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

Fell, Arthur

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Original Question again proposed.
Mr. FELL: I could not help feeling that the suggestion that the increased volubility of speakers had occasioned a large portion of this Vote was so far-fetched tha I had the greatest pleasure in voting for the Amendment. The increase really turns on the Autumn Session, and not on the price of paper. The question is whether the Government could not have foreseen that Autumn Session when they prepared their Estimates. They could have calculated the number of days approximately required for the lengthy programme they brought forward, and could have made their Estimate of this Vote accordingly. If Members did talk quicker, that only accounts for a portion of the increase, and it does not account for the fact that the Government did not foresee, when they made their Estimates, that additional cost would be thrown upon the Stationery Office through the Autumn
Session. I hope that this will be a warning to them, and that they will in future cut their coat according to their cloth, so that they may make their arrangements with more accuracy. I should like to ask one question with regard to the stationery Is there not a large quantity of old stationary sold and pulped? I think that is included in the Appropriation-in-Aid, but I do not see any reference to it here. I should like to have some explanation of that. There must be some contract to buy all the old paper which we see destroyed every day, and the quantity of it must be augmented by the long sittings. We have had no explanation on that subject. We have to test the items on the debit side, and we ought also to test the items on the credit side, in order to see whether the Government are making proper allowance for what must be a credit. I do not know whether £2,000 was

1185
the sum saved by this means. I hope the Government will take that into account when they are framing their Estimates, so that this time next year the hon. Gentleman will not come to us with explanations which are made on the spur of the moment, or tell us again that the increased rapidity of speakers occasions the demand upon us for further sums of money. I hope that in any circumstances we shall not be met on the Report stage, when full information should be given—
And, it being Quarter-past Eight, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  NEWRY, KEADY, AND TYNAN RAILWAY BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed.
  NEWRY, KEADY, AND TYNAN RAILWAY BILL.
    MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
    Read a second time, and committed.

TERRITORIAL FORGE ORGANISATION.
Colonel YATE: I beg to move, "That this House, whilst appreciating the organisation of the Territorial Force, and fully recognising the patriotic spirit of its Members, is of opinion that it should be supplemented by a system of national military training."
I wish to move this Motion in no sense whatever in a party spirit. It is a national question—a question for the nation to consider, a question of national safety and of national security. The proposal for national training I know is supported by Members both on this side of the House and on the other side, and also by a very large number indeed of people of every shade of political opinion throughout the country generally. I think the question must certainly be taken up before long. The anxiety that is manifested throughout the country regarding national safety speaks for itself. I do not think the country will continue to rest satisfied with the present conditions. I am speaking solely to-night of the Territorial Force. The Regular Army is an overseas Army, an Army enlisted for foreign service, and it is and always must be a purely voluntary Army. I wish to speak to-night about the question of national defence as connected with the
1186
Territorial Force. I think the whole country thoroughly appreciates the genius of the Secretary of State for War in his organisation of the Territorial Force. It was a masterly stroke of genius for Lord Haldane to bring into being the county Territorial Associations, and to give the administration of the Territorial Force into the hands of those associations. We all admire the organisation of the right hon. Gentleman in dividing up the Territorial Force into brigades and divisions under Regular officers. That is real business. The organisation, so far, is complete. What we now have to do is to provide the necessary number of men and the necessary amount of training. In considering this question of the Territorial Force, I cannot do better than commence by taking up a pronouncement that I heard from the Secretary of State himself at Leicester two months ago. Lord Haldane went to Leicester specially to address the Leicestershire Territorials on the subject. Of the 17,000 men who comprise my division, 8,000 or more live in the town of Leicester, so that I was particularly interested in the question. These men, both in the town and the county of Leicester, are so zealous and enthusiastic and so well has the county Territorial Association done its work, that the Leicester Territorials, at the time Lord Haldane addressed them, were up to 98 per cent, of their strength, and I have heard since that they are up to 100 per cent., and even in some cases 102 per cent. Leicestershire in this respect has set an example to the whole of the counties in Great Britain. If every county in Great Britain however had followed the example of Leicestershire still the safety of Great Britain would not be assured. This is through no fault of the men themselves. We all recognise the grand spirit of duty and patriotism that animates every man who enlists in the Territorial Force. The country owes a great debt of gratitude to these men and the country acknowledges that debt; but the point is this. The burden falls unfairly on the patriotic few, and what we have to do now is to case that burden. Lord Haldane, in this address, first of all pointed out one very important point. In speaking to the Leicestershire Territorials, he said:—
"The Territorial Force is in the nature of an insurance premium against the worst disaster that could befall labour in this country, that of a state of affairs arising in which factories and workshops will be swept away under an invasion by a foreign foe."

1187
I was specially pleased when I heard Lord Haldane use those words. If there is one thing more than another which is certain, it is that the working men of this country have not yet realised the terrible hardships and sufferings that they would be exposed to in the case of a war of invasion. They have not yet realised that it is they who would be the first to suffer on such an occasion. Just as the working classes are the first to suffer in an industrial war, like that in which we see ourselves engaged now, so it is that they will be the first to suffer in any war of invasion should it ever come about. I trust, therefore, that Lord Haldane will continue to impress this on the people of the country wherever he goes. Our working classes have no knowledge whatever of what war means. They have no idea of the sufferings the French peasantry went through in the War of 1870 even at the hands of a great civilised foe like Germany. Lord Haldane, when he first introduced his Territorial Force scheme, placed this insurance premium at 314,000 men trained for fifteen days in each year. We have never yet been able to get these 314,000 men. We have now got only 264,000, of whom the engagements of no fewer than 94,000 expire this year. Last year the recruits numbered only 39,000; the year before they numbered 42,000. How many will join this year it is impossible to say, but we can only safely reckon on some 40,000 or 45,000 men coming forward. How many of these 94,000 four-years' men will reengage this year it is also impossible to say, but we are face to face with the possibility of finding ourselves about 100,000 men short of our insurance premium number. I say this is a danger to the nation. Of these 264,000 men that we have now, only 155,000 did fifteen days' camp this year, and all, I think, will admit that a man who has only done one week—that is, six days' training—is unfit for service in the field. If it takes 264,000 men to give us 155,000 men who have done their fifteen days' training, it is clear that it will take 528,000 men to give us the full 314,000 men who have done their fifteen days' training. That means that we have to double our numbers. Where can we do that? Is it possible to do it under the present scheme. I emphatically say, no. On the contrary, we may find ourselves 50,000 shorter than we are at present. Not for a moment do I agree that 314,000 men trained for fifteen days is sufficient for
1188

our needs, but the point is that our present scheme will not give us even that.
I say again, this is not a party question but a national question, and, speaking on behalf of the working men of this country, the men who in case of invasion will have to bear the brunt and on whom the greatest hardships and misery will fall, they have a perfect right to demand from the Government a practical measure for complete insurance, and that they have not got at the present moment. Not only this country but the whole Empire realises the necessity for change. The present system in this country has been in existence for four years, and the county associations, landlords, employers of labour, and all people of influence have done their best to help on the scheme during that period. After four years' trial, the only result is that we have neither a sufficient number of men nor a sufficient amount of training to secure the safety of the country.
Let us see what our overseas Dominions are doing. In Canada there is a Minister of Defence going about the country organising the boys in cadet battalions and the men in regiments of Militia for national defence. In South Africa we have the same thing going on. In Australia and New Zealand we see that a definite scheme has been brought in by Act of Parliament, providing for all boys from fourteen to eighteen being trained, and also for the training of all men from eighteen to twenty-one. I have got here a Reuter's telegram, which states that in New Zealand the first annual training has just been held, that the attendance was good, that the men were enthusiastic, that the total number of cadets was 38,000, and of Territorials 31,000. That is out of a population of 1,000,000. Here, in England, Scotland, and Wales, we have a population of 40,000,000, and if we were to take as much pains to defend ourselves as our brethren across the seas we could have 1,250,000 men under arms and 1,500,000 boys under training. I just mention this to show how earnestly our brethren overseas are taking up this question, and how little we are doing to follow the good example they are setting.
There are two aspects in which I would ask the House to consider this question of national training. The first is the question of national physique; and the second is the question of national defence. I think all will allow that under the present

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stress and strain of industrial life in our great cities we are gradually losing our national physique. Our recruiting returns alone prove this. Of the men presented for enlistment this year, I see that no less than 44 per cent. were rejected as unfit. I say that is one of the saddest signs of the times. We have made the mental education of our children compulsory, but we have done nothing to make their physical education equally compulsory, and I say it is as absolutely necessary for us to arrange for their physical as for their mental education. All parents realise that a boy drilled and trained in his youth is enabled to start life with a sounder body and a better chance of success than if he had not had this training. All the working men I have talked to on this subject acknowledge and realise the advantages of some sort of training for their sons. It is true that we are giving a certain amount of physical training in the elementary schools at the present time—training between the ages of twelve and fourteen—but we have done nothing whatever to arrange for securing a continuance of this training.

What I have to suggest is the formation of cadet battalions for the national training of our youths from fourteen to eighteen, thus following the lead given by the self-governing Dominions overseas. I would apply this rule not only to boys at school, but to every able-bodied boy in the Kingdom, whether at school or not. Beginning with the schools, I would go to Eton and Harrow, and I would thus prove that we in our endeavours are not wishing to put an extra, burden on the poor, but an extra duty on the rich. So far as the boys attending schools are concerned, the question is very simple. What we have to arrange for is the training of boys who are not attending school. This difficulty arose both in Australia and New Zealand, but it was overcome there, and it can be equally overcome here. On this point we have the support of Lord Haldane himself. I have here the report of a speech which he made at the Royal United Service Institution on 29th March, 1911. Speaking about boy cadet training, he said:—
"It is an admirable thing that cadet corps should have progressed as they have progressed, but what is necessary is that the third stage should come when the State should recognise that as part of the education, I think the compulsory education, of the youths of the country, some kind of physical training of an organised character, should be included along with the mental discipline which is essential to fit people for the work of life."
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Lord Haldane further on, referring to the period between fourteen and seventeen years of age, said:—
"The Board of Education is extending its activities. It is a body which has an enlarged future in front of it, and if we can only keep this distinction between national service, which is a question, however you may look at it, with which the War Office must deal, and national training, which is a thing in its earlier stages at all events for the Board of Education to deal with, then I think you have lines along which, if you choose to proceed, you will find the friction and the prejudice which you might otherwise have to encounter reduced to a minimum, and your path made a pretty smooth one."
I say let us proceed along these lines. We want national cadet training for the youths between fourteen and seventeen, and national military training for our men between eighteen and twenty-two. By all means let the Board of Education attend to the training of the youth and the War Office to the training of the men, but, I say, let us train. So much from the point of view of national physique.
As to the question of national defence, my proposal is that every able-bodied man, high and low, rich and poor, should go into camp in the summer of his eighteenth year with the local Territorial unit, and that he should be liable for further short training, if required, for the next three years, as in the Territorial Force at present. I purposely say "if required," for every man would not be required for further training. The number required would be laid down each year, and arrangements would be made accordingly. The result would be twofold. In the first place, every man in the country would be started in his career with a sound and well-trained body, and, secondly, he would be sufficiently trained to take part in the defence of the country in case of need. Expenditure on these lines would result in the greatest social reform of the age and no money spent upon it need be grudged. It would solve the question of national physique and national defence as well. Let us now consider how we stand as regards the question of national defence. Let me again refer to Lord Haldane's speech, as reported in a local newspaper. Talking of the Territorial Force, he told us that that force was the main instrument for defence, to deal with possible raids and possible invasion on a large scale. I would ask the House to remember these words. Here Lord Haldane distinctly acknowledges that the Territorial Force is the main instrument for defence, and he admits the possibility of raids and invasions on a large scale. The Regulars he puts more or less out of count. It is important to remember that this is the justification Lord

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Haldane gives for the Territorial Force. He went on to tell us that of the fourteen Infantry Divisions with their Artillery, and the fourteen mounted brigades, ten of these divisions and eleven of the mounted brigades were assigned to the defence of the coast, leaving four divisions and three mounted brigades which he said were to form a central corps consisting of Territorial units with a certain number of Regulars added, and this so-called central force was to come to the rescue of any place where the enemy was attempting to land. That is the main line of defence given by Lord Haldane against a possible invasion by 70,000 of the most highly trained troops on the Continent. We are to have one Territorial Division on the spot, and four more in reserve ready to come to its help. When we look at this I doubt myself, after taking all the necessary deductions into account, whether each of those divisions would number over 12,000; so that leaves a total of 60,000 untrained men to oppose 70,000 highly trained men which it is supposed it is possible for the enemy to land on our shore. To talk of that as a national defence is to impose upon the credulity of the nation. So much for the Territorial defence.
Consider now the question, of the number of Regulars who are supposed to help. In the Returns supplied by the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State he told us that in addition to the 264,000 Territorials we should have another 145,000 odd Regulars or a total of 410,000 men remaining in the United Kingdom after the departure of the Expeditionary Force. It may be that that number will be remaining in the United Kingdom, but I would like to consider for a moment what they would consist of, so far as they can help the Central Reserve Force that Lord Haldane talks of. Take his Return. The Cavalry is given as 9,626 men. Of the fourteen regiments of Cavalry in Great Britain at the present time twelve would go abroad with the Expeditionary Force, and only two remain behind. We all know that probably a large number of the horses of those regiments will have to be taken away to make up the strength of the twelve other regiments proceeding abroad, so that of the 9,000 men left behind very few will have trained horses, and there will be very few officers. The result will be that those men will be of comparatively little use as
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Cavalry. Take now the problem of the Royal Horse Artillery, and the Royal Field Battery numbering 8,487 men. Exactly how many batteries remain at home is not stated, but we all know that none of the batteries at present in the kingdom have the full supply of horses for all their lines of wagons. The consequence is that a large number of horses would probably have to be taken away from home batteries to horse the lines of wagons with the batteries sent abroad.
Whatever happens these 8,000 men will not be very mobile. We all know that both these Cavalrymen and Artillerymen will have to be sent abroad to make up vacancies in the Expeditionary Force. Consequently neither of these two forces will be of much advantage so far as regards that Central Reserve Force of which Lord Haldane talked. Coming to the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Engineers, with 19,492 men, we have got Lord Haldane's own word that those men will all be required to man the fixed defences. Therefore they will be of no use in the Central Reserve. Then, with regard to the Army Service Corps, the Army Medical Corps, the Army Ordnance Corps, the Veterinary Crops, Army Pay Corps and Military Police, I do not know why these men are put in the list at all. It must be simply to fill up the list, as they have got their own special duties to perform. I would therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite whether this Return, attempting to show that we have 410,000 troops available for home defence after the departure of the Expeditionary Force, is not an absolute sham? I am sorry to say so, but it appears to me that this Return is likely to deceive people in this country into the idea that they have an adequate defence when they have not got it. Remember that in all these figures no deductions have been made for recruits, inefficients, untrained men, and sick. That is all in a small printed note at the bottom of the Return, and these men would comprise the majority of the Whole. For the right hon. Gentleman to say, as he said the other day, that we should have 410,000 troops ready to eat up any 70,000 foreigners who attempted to invade us is to my mind absolute nonsense. I am sorry to say that it is more than nonsense. I think that such a statement is dangerously misleading. Therefore we may take it that, except for the manning of the guns at our forts, the Regulars remaining

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at home after the departure of the Expeditionary Force would be of comparatively little account in resisting invasion.
Now consider the case of the Territorial Force "our main instrument of defence," as Lord Haldane acknowledged it to be. Of the 265,000 men about 145,000 are under three years' service, and probably the majority of them have only attended two camps—that is, they have only had a total practical camp training of from twelve to twenty-four days, as the case may be. A man with that training is not fit to take the field, and it is not fair to put him there. I have endeavoured to get from the right hon. Gentleman the actual number of men in the Territorial Force who have fired their full course of ball cartridge on an open range at 500 yards under Service conditions, but I utterly failed to get any really definite information. The right hon. Gentleman gave me a Return which I have here. I will leave out all the recruits. I think everyone will acknowledge that the recruit is not qualified to take the field. So far as I can understand this Return, 94,000 men are all who have qualified in musketry, but I am not at all sure that all these men have qualified with ball cartridge on an open range or whether they have qualified by what is called its equivalent in an enclosed range of thirty yards in length. No one can say that a man who has not fired a full course of ball cartridge on an open range is trained to take the field. As to the danger of operating with men who do not know how to shoot, I will quote what the right hon. Gentleman said on this subject ten years ago:—
"I tell you I have found myself in command in face of an enemy of men who with every other good military quality could not shoot, and did not pretend to be able to shoot. Those I saw, and they were many, were excellent men and anxious to do their duty to the fullest extent of their power, if necessary with the sacrifice of their lives; but many of them could not shoot for the simple reason that, they had no opportunity of learning to do so, and had never realised that as Englishmen it was one of their first duties. I myself, speaking as a Member of Parliament with a seat to lose, say openly that I consider it would be extremely desirable that it should be obligatory for every male in this, country to be trained to arms. I also believe that five-sixths of the people of this country would welcome such a proposition. I am strongly in favour of this matter being put before the public quite frankly. Our countrymen should be told that the danger is imminent, that it can be easily overcome by their own personal exertions, and that in no other way can it be overcome."
This is what the right hon. Gentleman said ten years ago, and I can only hope that he will adhere to that. I hope also that he approves of my putting the matter quite frankly before the public to-day. I will ask hon. Members to consider the con-
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ditions under which we stand at the present time, and what our military forces are wanted for. Our forefathers defined this by saying that the Army was needed for the safety of the United Kingdom, for the defence of the possessions of the Crow and for the preservation of the balance of power in Europe. It has lately been laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir E. Grey)—
"that a policy which contemplates a balance of power in Europe to which we were not to be a party, is not a possible policy now."
We are therefore now in the position of having a definite national policy, a policy approved of by both the parties in the State, a policy which I think I may fairly describe as a policy for the support of the entente cordiale. We know definitely, with that policy definitely before us, that if war were to break out on the Continent we would be committed to sending off our Expeditionary Force at any moment. War on the Continent does not give time for preparation. Our Expeditionary Force would have to leave these shores within ten days, or it would be too late altogether. We have had nothing like it since the days of Waterloo. I believe the country does not realise what it means. It means that we must have for home defence a force of such numbers and so well trained that on the day war breaks out it could take over the whole of the land defence of these islands. The case briefly is this: the Regular Army has as much as it can do to keep the Expeditionary Force at its full strength when that force is abroad on service. We require a Territorial Force for home defence of sufficient numbers and sufficient training to be able to take over the land defences altogether on the day war breaks out. We cannot get that Territorial Force without some system of national training. As to what that system might be, let me refer to that great writer who has so often been quoted here, the military correspondent of the "Times." I have here a copy of a lecture delivered by him before the Military Society at Aldershot three years ago. After expressing his opinion that, if the General Staff were not satisfied with the numbers and training of the second line, then there was no escape from the conclusion that the time for national training had arrived. He proceeded to say:—
"What do you mean by national training, and what sacrifices does it entail?"

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Then he went on to say:—
"I see no reason to dissent from the view of the National Service League, that it means three to four months' initial training during the summer in camps for recruits, and a fortnight's training afterwards over a short term of years."
That is my proposal exactly. We in this country will not have conscription. What is conscription? It means taking a man from his home and putting him in barracks in a Regular regiment, keeping him there for two, three and four years, as in France, Germany and Russia. We will not have conscription; we do not require conscription; what we require is national training, and without that national training I see no possibility whatsoever of our Territorial Force having sufficient numbers or having sufficient training on the day war breaks out to take over the land defences of the kingdom. Finally, I will quote the words of the military correspondent of the "Times" of 4th March:—
"The writer's view of national service is that it is desirable on military and social grounds… In view of the general position of England in the world, and the stupendous armaments which may be arrayed against her the basis of her military power is not broad enough, and it can only be broadened by the training to arms of a large number of the population. Are we to be the very last of this self-governing community to recognise this extremely elementary truth? Australia, New Zealand, and now South Africa, are adopting the principle of national service, and are making strenuous effort to carry it out. …. The mere application of the principle of the South African Defence Bill to our conditions will go a long way to secure these desirable results; and it is not beyond our power, or against the tenets of any political school, to apply to ourselves principles of defence which have been almost unanimously accepted by the democracies of Australia and New Zealand, and are now in debate in the Union Parliament."
Those words I most cordially endorse.
Sir HENRY CRAIK: I beg to second the Motion.
This Motion has been submitted in an admirable speech by the hon. and gallant Member. I feel acutely my own lack of that expert knowledge, that wide range of acquaintance with the subject, which he and others can contribute to the discussion. But I think that civilians, as well as military Members, have their duty in this matter. We are bound to have our opinion, framed on our study of the history of Europe, framed upon our views of the state of European politics, framed on the conditions on which our Empire is fixed, and framed on what is likely to make for the welfare of this country. We know this one thing, that danger may come from any quarter. That is common knowledge. The only thing we can predict with almost absolute certainty is that the danger, when it comes, will not vouchsafe any longer
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warning than history tells us has been vouchsafed in the past I would ask the House to consider at once the fact that we are the only great European Power which does not train its general body of citizens to take some part in the operations of war. That, in itself, is enough to give matter for grave consideration. It is one which the civilian may estimate just as well as a military man. I am quite aware that the advocacy of national military training is not likely, as matters now stand, to be accepted as a plank in its platform by any political party. But there is a great body of public opinion throughout the country which is strongly convinced of the necessity of this national training, and we, who share that conviction, will, I am sure, in the judgment of the House, be considered to be only doing our duty when, actuated by no party motives, and at the dictates of no party organisation, they bring the proposal forward for the consideration of the House, and ask for it a patient hearing and a balanced judgment. Surely this is a question which may be advocated from no party motives, and non-party subjects are not so frequent in this House that you should not now ask for a little consideration. If no political party at this moment adopts this view as a part of its avowed creed, may it not perhaps be wise for any party, which has a regard for its own consistency, not to be too rash in its condemnation to-night, We know not what changes and contingencies may come upon us, and the most confident amongst us cannot be quite sure of what is in store for his party in the way of rapid development of opinions. That the view which we advocate may not now be popular proves, perhaps, that we allow our convictions to weigh with us more heavily than our interests. It does not prove that the view is wrong, and I am convinced that the view is less popular with Members of this House than it is with the constituencies that send them here. I think it would find enormous support in the country if the country were free to express its opinion on the question. I am not going to urge the and topic of personal inconsistency against any hon. Member of this House so as to introduce any acrimoniousness. The right hon. Gentleman (Colonel Seely) knows that about ten years ago he and I were closely associated in the affairs of a Commission of which I had the honour to be a member, and of which he was one of the members. I think he agreed with me then.
Colonel SEELY: I do still on that point.
9.0 P.M.
Sir H. CRAIK: I am very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's agreement goes further than I hoped or anticipated. There have been, both amongst hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in this House and amongst experts outside changes in the opinions that were then held. For those changes they may have thoroughly good grounds, and I would speak of them with all respect. I think though we are entitled to ask for an explanation of those changes. History has much to teach us, and I shall venture to touch very shortly only upon one example, not without its special lesson for us. In the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century we see a Power curiously like our own. They, from a small and insignificant corner of North-Western Europe, held, by force of enterprise, a vast colonial empire, stretching across the world from South America, Africa and the East Indies to Java. In their hands was the greatest part of the carrying trade of the world. They were the centre of commerce, and the Bank of Amsterdam dominated the money markets of Europe. Their fleet seemed invincible; and they felt secure against invasion as long as they could flood their dykes and expose to the invader vast tracts of impassable water. They had built up their marvellous power on the basis of citizen training for war; and it is to the abandonment of this military training under the stress of eager money-making that Sir William Temple, Ambassador to the States for many years and thoroughly acquainted with the country, attributes their rapid fall. Before the century was run their carrying trade had been ruined by Cromwell's Navigation Laws. Their fleet was defeated. Invasion became easy in spite of what had seemed to be Nature's barrier. They were left to be for more than one generation the battlefield of Europe. We cannot, of course, argue with those who consistently oppose all armaments, and who deem that a man is morally deteriorated by undergoing military training. Of those who hold these views I would speak with as much respect as possible and with as much toleration as is consistent with the safety of this nation and the Empire. But they are as much opposed to the Secretary of State as they are to us. We must both leave them out of account. I am not prepared to accept arguments like those of a former distinguished Member of this House, Mr. Harold Cox, who met a similar
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proposal by saying that no man was bound personally to be a defender of his country; he did his duty equally well if he paid others to fight for him. Not a very dignified or virile argument at the best, but one which at least could serve only if we did pay our defenders. But according to the Secretary of State a constituent part of our defending force is the Territorial Force, which is not even paid its out-of-pocket expenses. We are not paying other people to fight for us. We are asking other people, at a great sacrifice, to perform a duty which we shirk for ourselves. No country can distinguish so clearly between defensive and offensive warfare as we can. In France, in Russia, in Germany, the defending force may before it knows it, by the accidents of warfare, become an attacking force. Our insular position enables us to define with certainty and to circumscribe within fixed limits the sphere of defence. And training for it rests, to my mind, on three great arguments. First, the enormous benefit, moral, physical, intellectual, which it would bring to the rising generation. I confess that, looking through all the work in which I have spent my life, this was the consideration which first brought me to be an advocate of national military training, and has kept me faithfully to that view. Can anyone doubt that such training will enormously raise the self-respect, the moral weight as citizen, the dignity and worth of life of those who now too often run to waste? What would it be to the wastrel of the street corner if he could have a few weeks or months of well-ordered and disciplined life, at no cost to himself, in which to learn habits of cleanliness, self-control, and physical regeneration? What measure of paternal legislation, intended to coddle or compel him into temperance, would equal that of teaching him the lesson of wholesome living which this training would give? That is a lesson which would not be confined merely to closing public-houses; it would implant in him a vigorous principle which would remain with him all his life. If there is a submerged and down-trodden element in the nation, would not this help to redress their wrongs? If I belonged to the party below the Gangway opposite, there is no measure which, in the interests of those I represented, I would press with more zeal and urgency.
Secondly, I would urge, as another argument, the cruelty of your present method. If we have a Territorial Force, it is be-

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cause we think it may some day be necessary. When that day comes, we know that the nation will have to summon all her citizens, trained or untrained, to prepare for war. I do not envy the Minister who would have to compel tyros, with no training, to meet seasoned troops on battlefields that would be for them veritable shambles. I would urge, lastly, the injustice of our present system. Is it fair to ask patriotic men, who sacrifice time, labour, and opportunities in life, to look on while the selfish sluggards, who recognise no responsibilities of citizenship, supplant them in the race of life? Is it fair to the public-minded employer? Does he really recognise now the burden he may be incurring? If you mobilised the Territorial Force to-morrow for six months, what would be the feelings of the public-spirited employer if he found his business hopelessly crippled for the benefit of his selfish compeer?
I have introduced, I hope, no personal acrimony into the Debate, and have kept party spirit out of my words. I speak from earnest conviction, not only of the necessity, but of the attendant benefit, of what we propose, and of the injustice, the waste, the possible cruelty of our present laissez-faire system. I ask the House to consider dispassionately whether there are not sound reasons why we should follow the admirable example shown by practically all of our Colonies? They are not ruled by Conservative instincts, or dominated by class privileges or prejudices. They know, perhaps better than we do in our old country, the foundations upon which sound citizenship rests. Could not both parties combine to go together at least a certain length? You hold your Territorial Force to be a good thing. I have no power to criticise it as a military man. I cordially agree that, so far as I can judge, it is a good thing—so far as it goes. All we ask you now is to make that good thing co-extensive with the nation. If you do we will cordially work with you, and do all in our power to help you.
Mr. STEPHEN COLLINS: I rise as an out and out opponent of this proposal. It has been the pride and glory of England that we have always depended on a voluntary Army. We have won all our great battles with a voluntary Army. The hon. Member opposite (Sir H. Craik) expressed the belief that the great body of public opinion was in favour of national service. I beg most respectfully to differ as far as
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my experience goes. I have mixed with working men all my life. I have known meetings where those who are promoting this national service have, addressed working men, and the workmen have, by a large majority, been, altogether opposed to the introduction of such a system. The hon. Gentleman referred to Germany. Is it not a fact that tens of thousands of Germans run away from Germany and never go back in order that they may escape national service? [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] If you ask the majority of German working men you will find that they are against the system. They hate it; they loathe it; they detest it. The great majority of them will gladly be out of it if they had the opportunity. That is the reason why so many thousands of Germans leave their country. Instead of helping our people, instead of giving them higher morality and a better intellectual calibre, I think it would have just the opposite effect. In my opinion it would be a curse to the working men, and I believe that the great majority of Labour Members would say that the working men of England are against this proposal. It would be a menace to other nations, and would bring us into entanglements. We depend upon our Navy; we do not want a great Continental Army. Many hon. Members opposite do want such an Army; they want every man to serve. I give them credit for their patriotism, but I believe they are wrong. I hope the day is far distant when such a system will be introduced, and I trust that the Undersecretary will stand up boldly and condemn the proposal. We are proud of our voluntary Army and of what they have done. If this proposed system is introduced, who, after all, will pay? It is the workmen who will have to pay. Hon. Members said, "Look what help it will give to the unemployed," but I say that the workmen will have to bear the burden. I condemn this thing altogether, and I hope that this Motion will be rejected by a large majority.
Colonel HICKMAN: I should, in opening, just like, in a few words, to reply to the speech of the hon. Member opposite. He made an allusion to the Napoleonic wars, and suggested that our victories then were won by a voluntary Army. I should like to remind him that, as a matter of history, our forces at that time were raised under the Ballot. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Press Gang."] If we had the ballot

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in operation at the present time there would be no necessity for what is suggested in this Resolution. He went on to say that the Germans are leaving their country in very large numbers every year to avoid military service. If the hon. Gentleman would just consult the figures of emigration from Germany and emigration from England, he will see that his contention is not absolutely correct. He referred to the feelings of the constituencies in this matter, and said that the working men were generally against it. I should like to tell him my experience in this particular line, which may be some guide to other places. At the last General Election my opponent fought me on this very subject. In every speech he referred to it. The greatest thing he had against me was that I advocated what he called "conscription." I welcomed these challenges with open arms. I answered my opponent speech by speech—and I am here to-night!
The hon. Member opposite talked about there being no necessity for our having what he called anything like a Continental army. None of us have advocated anything of the sort. We have not dreamt of such a thing. All we are trying to do is to support one whom somebody has called the real War Minister—that is, the Foreign Minister. He has told us that it is necessary for us to have a military force to send on to the Continent to keep the balance of power. For that reason we are supporting the present War Minister and the Undersecretary in their very manifold endeavours to a sufficient and adequate Expeditionary Force When we have this Expeditionary Force leaving this country to preserve the balance of power in Europe—a force which the Foreign Secretary tells as is absolutely necessary for our national safety—we must have troops at home to defend this country in case of a sudden emergency. We have the Territorial Force for this. All we are endeavouring to do is to see that this Territorial Force shall be of sufficient numbers and sufficiently well trained to carry out the duties required of it. I want to support the action of my hon. and gallant Friend on three grounds. In the first place, I do so because I think in the late debates on the Army Estimates we have from this side of the House clearly shown that under the voluntary system we shall never find sufficient men.
Colonel SEELYindicated dissent.
Colonel HICKMAN: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He also shook his head at me the other night when I think I sufficiently demonstrated to the House the gradual dwindling year after year of the number of men in the Territorial Force. I do not think that the Under-Secretary answered that point when he spoke afterwards. Then a second reason is that a voluntary system will never give these particular men sufficient training to carry out the work required of them. The third point is that it has been adequately shown that under this voluntary system we shall never get sufficient officers. We might ask, what is this home defence army for? It has been laid down that we want this Territorial Force to defend the country against a sudden raid when the Expeditionary Force is away. Lord Haldane last year, in answering Lord Roberts in the House of Lords, compared their two contentions. He said:—
"Lord Roberts was asking or considering what was logically possible, while he himself was only considering what was reasonably possible."
Any ordinary citizen, when he wants to insure his house against fire, does not consider what is reasonably possible, but insures against what is logically possible. Any nation that wants to take proper care of her interests and safety will agree with Lord Roberts. It has been laid down that 70,000 men is the force that we may have to defend our country against. I would venture to point out that these figures are arbitrary. In the first place, they were started in the Council of Defence, as Lord Roberts has told us. He has told us that at a certain Defence Committee meeting some five or six years ago he said the lowest possible number that any enemy would dare to land on these shores with any chance of success would be 70,000, but Lord Roberts never said they would not land more men if they could. Therefore I think it is very arbitrary to say that 70,000 men is the number that would come. If 70,000 men, following Lord Haldane's contention, was logically possible six years ago, there has been a very great change in transport possibilities during that six years. According to the experts of the Admiralty it would not have been possible, or probable, that any enemy could have landed more than 70,000 men; they would have needed so many ships, and would have taken up such a large portion of the sea that their fleet would have been easily discovered and attacked.
Circumstances have changed. We have seen a tremendous development in the size

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of liners. It would be quite possible now for ten to fifteen of these enormous liners to be congregated together at a port of embarkation in the North Sea, and—whereas it was logically possible only for 70,000 men to be dispatched six years ago—it is reasonably probable that 200,000 men could be transported to our shores now. [A laugh.] An hon. Member is pleased to laugh, but Lord Roberts has said—and I think he has gone into these subjects pretty well, and most Englishmen, and at all events all soldiers, will believe what he says—that any one of these big liners could carry from 10,000 to 15,000 men a short distance. If you reckon up the number of men coming up by one ship and multiply it by fifteen or so, you will get not far short of 200,000 men. The wars that we may look forward to in the future will come very suddenly. They may come, very likely will, when we have trouble abroad—either India, Canada, Australia, Egypt, or elsewhere. It is quite possible that when, owing to trouble abroad, our Expeditionary Force has been sent to some native war, say, that our Fleet may be decoyed away by strategy. It is quite possible, and it is quite possible also that the Germans, looking out for the main chance, must sacrifice half their fleet in damaging ours in order to gain a few days wherewith to send the transports over and land their Expeditionary Force. Then we have to rely upon what the Under-Secretary for State has said is available—410,000 men. I should like to examine what these 410,000 men are a little more fully than my hon. and gallant Friend did. There are something like 110,000 in the Special Reserve. I think the Under-Secretary will agree that that is something like what he told us the other evening. It may be a little more.
Colonel SEELY: The Special Reserve is 150,000.
Colonel HICKMAN: What are these people composed of? It seems to me that the large majority of them are immature boys who belong to the regiments of the Expeditionary Force gone abroad, and whose places have been taken by Reserve soldiers because these boys are not old enough or physically strong enough to go on foreign service. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will dissent from that. I wish to go a little further, and I would ask him to tell us when he replies how many regiments with officers in them will be available into which to put these
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110,000 men, because any soldier will tell him it is perfectly useless to have a mob of men unless you have regiments and officers and staffs to command them, and that a mob of men, whether Regular soldiers, Militia, or Special Reserve, are no earthly use unless they are properly organised in regiments, brigades, and divisions. Then we may ask, and I dare say the right hon. Gentleman will tell us later on, how many of these 410,000 men will be required as garrisons in the different forts and such places, and how many men will be required for lines of communication, and how many men will be required still to remain in Ireland? For it is possible that the enemy may not only raid this country but he may also raid Ireland, and may I ask where is your 410,000 men to go and grapple with the enemy?
Lord Haldane said six years ago that his idea was a million men when he started this Territorial Force, but he had to put down his establishment at 314,000 men as a limit, and I believe he put that down because he believed it was the limit he could get under a voluntary system. The real limit is more like 264,000 men, which is gradually dwindling, and only half of this 314,000 men, as proved by last year's figures, got fifteen days' training. Can we afford to wait six months to have these men properly trained to render them fit to take on a European enemy, because it seems to me one or two things must happen: either the Expeditionary Force must wait for six months until the Territorial Force is properly trained or else, if they go away, they leave us with a force not capable of doing the work required. On this subject there have been three Royal Commissions. I am not going to quote the opinions of these Royal Commissions because most of them have been carried out in the changes of the Militia and Volunteers into the Special Reserve and Territorial Forces. But there is one sentence at the end of the last Royal Commission's Report which I think is most pregnant. It is the summing up of the Royal Commission, and these are the words:—
"And that a Home Defence Army occupied in the absence of the whole or greater part of the Regular Forces to protect this country from invasion can be raised and maintained only on the principle that it is the duty of every citizen of military age and sound physique to be trained for national defence and to take part in it should the emergency arise."
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon having followed the Royal Commission on other issues, and I advise him now to follow upon these last recommendations. What we are asking for is that all boys

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shall be trained from the ages of fourteen to eighteen, and that on reaching the age of eighteen they shall go through from four to six months' training, according to the parts of the Service to which they belong. By this means we should have something like 400,000 men a year, and we should have effective recruiting for the Regular Army. One of the points that Lord Haldane and General Ian Hamilton put into their book was that they were afraid if we had this national training we would not be able to get sufficient recruits for the Regular Army. We exposed that here in this House, and after that Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell exposed it in the Press.
I maintain if we had that national service we should have plenty of officers, whereas at the present time we have great trouble in filling up the ranks with officers, not only for our Regular troops, but for the Territorial troops; also we have limited establishments. If every young man in the country was bound by law to go through a certain amount of regular military training, if he had to go through the ranks, we should soon have plenty of good men and plenty of Army officers. I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that if we had this national service we should have no trouble in finding officers, and we should have an unlimited reserve in time of war to fill the wastage of war, which we have not at the present time. It appears to me that the Secretary of State for War and the Under-Secretary are in somewhat the position of the old French writer, who said:—
"If we cannot get what we like, we must like what we can get."
I think the best preparation and the best insurance against the risk of war is preparation for war. If we are prepared for war and have sufficiently large and well-trained forces to meet every possible eventuality our enemies will give up the idea of attacking us, and the natural consequence will be they will give up building fleets against us, because they will see no possible chance of attacking us, and then, in the ordinary course of events, we should be able to reduce spending money on our fleets and save a lot of money in addition to advantages you would have morally and physically in this country, as has been sufficiently shown by the Seconder of this Amendment. I merely add that if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer would use his undoubted eloquence to incite the ardour of the youth of the nation for patriotic motives instead of rousing their lower passions to obtain the property of
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others he would go down to posterity as a benefactor to his country, instead of what I fear he is regarded at the present time as a destroyer of its prosperity.
Mr. CLYNES: This Debate is one upon national military training, and I want to express the view the Labour party has formed upon this subject. There can be no doubt whatever as to what is the considered and decided opinion of organised labour on this question, because on a number of occasions during recent years the great trade unions and political organisations of working men, which constitute the Labour party, have met and debated this question. The proposals coming before these congresses did come from the labour side, and the decision arrived at showed how very small the minority was in favour of any system of military training, and by overwhelming majorities the accredited representatives of at least 2,000,000 working men in this country have decided against the proposal now before the House. We regard such a proposal as unnecessary for geographical and military reasons, and because, even in the opinion of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, for the defence of this nation and the Empire's interests we must look to our Navy.
I could understand the position of those who put forward this Motion if they did not insist at one moment upon spending more millions on our Navy as the price of our national safety, and then at the next moment come forward and say our Navy is inadequate, and therefore we must turn every man in this country into more or less of a soldier. The millions we spend on our Navy may not be profitably spent, but our conclusion is that if we cannot secure safety at the price we now pay some better system and a more efficient and economic spending of this money should be devised. There is no need whatever to endeavour to turn the whole country into more or less of a barrack yard, putting a rifle into the hands of every worker with the expectation that sometime or other he will be called upon to use it. National military training, as it is termed in the Resolution, is in our view a process of enormous waste. I would like to ask clearly what is meant by those who have spoken from the opposite side of the House on this point. There is no consistency or sameness whatever in the arguments they have put forward. Is this proposal meant merely to supplement our existing Territorial system? The hon. and

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gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Hick-man) told us, with considerable weight and military experience, that it does not do merely to train men to arms, because you must have regiments, brigades, and divisions.
Colonel HICKMAN: I was alluding to what remained of the Regular Forces after the Expeditionary Force had left England.
Mr. CLYNES: We believe that this is really the thin edge of the wedge in that larger plan of conscription which the Mover and Seconder of this Resolution had not sufficient courage to fully acknowledge. I think the whole experience of militarism and the history of nations show that it is not much use bringing out men to train for a few weeks in the year for a sort of sham or boyish military holiday, putting them in camp, and then sending them back to their homes and to their work. We have come to the conclusion that the real plan behind this proposal is a scheme for dividing men into brigades, regiments, and divisions, and that would necessitate the erection of hundreds of other barracks up and down the country, and it would necessarily mean implanting into the minds of the working classes of this country more of the regimental idea and more of the nature of the soldier. It would, in short, mean extending the Vicious system of militarism which has already gone beyond the limits which modern civilised nations should tolerate. There is another question I should like to put. Are hon. Gentlemen opposite proposing to put a rifle in the hands of every man in Ireland? Is this military training to extend to the millions who are set down as disloyal subjects of His Majesty the King? Are they proposing to train every working man who is now in a state of industrial revolt to shoot at a time when many hon. Gentlemen on the other side appear to be encouraging methods designed to shoot at the strikers? We have had questions in this House quite recently indicating the spirit that soldiers must be ready to overawe and repress those who dare to strike for a minimum wage or for better conditions of existence.
We attach considerable importance to the extension of that world peace propaganda, which, in our view, is doing much more to effect the good destiny and the higher civilisation of nations than any proposal such as this which is now before the House. There are a great many social questions which stand in greater need of
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attention than this plan to train men to the business of a soldier. Your very efforts to obtain paid soldiers prove the strength of our case, because 44 per cent. of the men who submit themselves for enlistment in the Army are rejected as unfit. We suggest that we should begin any plan of better physical training in the workshop and in the home. You will not have men fit to carry a rifle unless you treat them well in their place of employment, give them adequate rest, sufficient wages, and homes with better sanitary conditions in which to bring up their families. These are far more urgent and crying topics of the hour. The factory and workshop conditions of this country are absolutely incompatible with any notion of the establishment of a system of national military training. If I can form a correct notion on the subject, I would say that the more countries like Germany and France have come up to the point of being commercial and industrial nations, the more their peoples have come to hate and detest the systems of conscription which prevail there. In certain small countries in the world military training may, on its merits, be defended. If you take a country like certain portions of South Africa formerly was, or Switzerland as it now is, you may very well bring forward sufficient arguments to make up a case in favour of this Resolution, but in the world's workshops like England, commercially situated as we are, ours is not a country in which you can justly fit a plan of this kind.
Then there is this view. Some millions of working men in this country have discovered they are merely in lodgings here, and that all this talk about Empire and about the defence of our shores is so much empty language to them. They have no Empire and they have no country. They find that the very surface of our soil is in the possession of a privileged few, and that the mines and mineral wealth beneath that surface is similarly owned. They find that they have no property rights and no material share in all these so-called blessings over which our flag flies, and they are coming to say, if they are to be compelled to defend the Empire and to fight for the country, you will have to give them a little more of the Empire and some of the soil of the country. Organised labour, therefore, is strongly opposed to any proposal of this kind, and I would suggest that hon. Gentlemen opposite should have the real courage to bring definitely forward in express terms their proposals for conscription.
Mr. FLEMING: I rise to support this Resolution in exactly the same spirit as was shown by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved it. I have not the smallest desire to criticise or to disparage in any way the officers or men of the present Territorial Force. Indeed, from the point of view of efficiency, the results which they have managed to achieve up to the present are extraordinarily satisfactory, considering the opportunities they have been given. I should like to emphasise the fact that we who believe in the principle of national service take no exception to the qualities or the results of the Territorial Force as it exists to-day. All we ask is that they should be given fuller and more ample opportunity to develop those qualities and to improve upon them. The speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is typical of what we have been accustomed to meet in the way of opposition to our scheme. Hon Gentlemen opposite, because we venture to suggest that present system of training does not provide either sufficient numbers or sufficient opportunities to the present members of the Territorial Force, appear to imagine we are trying to pass some sort of slight upon the officers and men who compose that force. I can only say I do not believe that view is shared by any really thoughtful member of any rank in the Territorial Force itself. Speaking for the Yeomanry, I honestly believe that the real grievance which that branch of the Territorial Force has to-day is the fact that directly the regiment begins to settle down to work and to feel its feet, and directly horses and men get really fit to carry out their duties the camp is broken up and they are sent home. That argument applies even with greater strength to the Infantry, because, unfortunately, so very large a percentage of the men are only able to go out for a week instead of the full fortnight.
After all, hon. Gentlemen opposite have got to remember that the average member of the Territorial Force is a fairly intelligent and well-educated person. He takes a keen interest in his work, and he has a pretty clear idea of the duties which will be allotted to him in the event of the outbreak of war. He knows, at any rate by repute, what sort of soldiers he will have to fight against, and in South Africa he has had bitter experience of what the results of inadequate and insufficient training have been. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman or anybody else telling these men that a fortnight's training
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minus two Sundays, minus a day for marching out and a day for marching in, minus possibly an afternoon for brigade or regimental sports, and minus perhaps two or three days which our weather makes impossible for the purpose of proper instruction, is sufficient to prepare them for the work they have got to do. Their common sense tells them, however proud they are of the force in which they serve, and however much they may try to make use of the opportunities given them, that those opportunities for training are absolutely and ludicrously inadequate. Of course, we know there are other opportunities in the course of the year for developing and amplifying the training of which the fortnight's camp is the nucleus, but no one knows better than the right hon. Gentleman himself, who has the command of a Yeomanry regiment, that in the widely scattered districts from which the Yeomanry are principally recruited, it is practically impossible for a very large proportion of the men to get to the squad headquarters and to attend the lectures and other courses of instruction we endeavour to carry on. It is absolutely notorious that the range accommodation at the disposal of the county associations is quite inadequate to carry out the proper courses of musketry instruction for a regiment of Yeomanry or any other Territorial unit. Indeed, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that any hon. Member, who looks upon this question without party prepossession, and simply as an ordinary citizen, can really conscientiously be satisfied with the present position of things in regard to our Territorial Force.
What is the position? We have been told by the Noble Lord the Secretary of State for War, that the smallest number of men which he requires to carry out the duties which he proposes to allocate to the Territorial Force is 314,000. His Territorial scheme has already existed long enough to stand on its own legs if ever it is going to do so. Its opportunities for training are such as I have described, and yet we find the force is at present, or was at the beginning of the military year, nearly 50,000 men short of even its inadequate establishment of 314,000. The right hon. Gentleman cannot be surprised that there is a very large and growing body of opinion, not only among those who write—of course I do not—and call themselves experts on military matters, but among the members

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of the Territorial Force itself, that their opportunities for training are absolutely inadequate, and that their numbers fall far short of the strength to enable them to perform the duties which will fall upon them in the event of war. In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman opposite is by virtue of his position a sort of apostle of the voluntary system and cannot be expected to do anything in the other direction, and in view of the fact that this Territorial scheme is the outcome of what I think we all admit to be one of the most industrious and fertile drains in the War Office, and quâ scheme, from an organisation point of view, is a very considerable improvement on the old Volunteer and Militia system; and yet we find it falling hopelessly short in the opportunity it gives for training. I say we are bound to give sympathetic attention to the views put forward by so very many high military authorities, and by what, I believe, is a constantly increasing body of civilian opinion in this country, that some form of universal military service, such as is outlined in this Resolution, is, not only inevitable, but absolutely urgent.
Hon. Members who believe in the principle have followed with the greatest possible care and interest the controversy which has taken place on this subject in the Press and on the platform, and more especially the interesting Debate that occurred recently on this question in another place; and though, of course, Lord Roberts' scheme, which I believe is only meant to be a tentative one, may possibly be open to criticism and amendment in certain details, I have never seen any successful attempt made to controvert the broad general principles upon which we who believe in national service base our claim. What are the chief arguments which strike the lay mind? I do not pretend to be qualified to deal with the purely military aspects of the case. First, we are told that the adoption of any such scheme as has been described to-night will have a bad effect on recruiting for the Regular Army. Next we are told it would disturb and dislocate the labour markets; and, lastly, we are asked to accept the sentimental suggestion that the idea of compulsion is foreign and distasteful to the English national character.
I will take the first question—the effect of universal national service on recruiting for the Regular Army. Speaking with great diffidence, and from my own limited
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experience in recruiting for the Territorial Force, and repeating also the views of Regular recruiting sergeants with whom I had an opportunity of talking, I can only say I believe the exact opposite would be the case. The more you familiarise the people of this country with the actual duties and circumstances of military training, the more you make the Army a real and intimate part of the life of the nation, the more likely you are to succeed with your recruiting. Take the case of anyone who has tried to recruit for the Territorial Force. You find that once you start the ball rolling in a certain district it goes along on its own momentum. Once you get a man to join, and he finds he likes the Service, he tells his friends, and he becomes the nucleus of a small local recruiting movement in his own particular locality. The more widely and universally that is applied the truer it is found to be. The more you bring the real condition of military service right home to the people the more likely you are to get a sufficient number of men for your Army.
10.0 P.M.
Then we are told that this system will have a bad effect on the labour market and on trade generally. I venture to say that under our present system far more hardship is caused and far mere invidious distinctions are drawn as against those employers who are so patriotic as to give their men an opportunity of going to the annual camp and those employers who take advantage of the opportunity—far more actual hardship is caused to them by the present system than would be the case if the burden of service were more widely and universally distributed. As regards the labour market, I am certain, as has been the case in all great Continental countries where the extreme form, which nobody on this side advocates, is adopted—where conscription is carried into effect, the labour markets have responded better than they do in this country to the systematic and regular and universal demand which is made upon them. I believe that such a systematic and regular demand is far more healthy from an economic point of view than the spasmodic and capricious ways in which masters and men now meet the situation. It is absolutely true to say the improvement in the national physique and in the habits of order and discipline among the people of the country—which some Members opposite seem to sneer at—do real good to the working classes, and in the

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end very largely increase the efficiency of labour for the manufactories of this country.
We are told we are not to have anything which savours of compulsion. We are told of some mysterious horror in the minds of Englishmen at the mention of compulsion, and certain sections of the Press tell us that by compulsion what they are pleased to call the rights and liberties of Englishmen are going to be interfered with. I believe if we heard a little less about the rights and a little more about the duties of citizens of this country we should be a great deal better off. As to compulsion, surely in the last resort the compelling instinct of self-preservation is the hope of our system of national defence. I believe the average citizen would prefer a thoroughly universal scheme of national training to the compulsion which in the last resort would become inevitable in case of the imminence or possibly the actual presence on our shores of a body of foreign troops. For these reasons I heartily support the Resolution moved by my hon. and gallant Friend, and I honestly believe that any Government which has the courage to bring in a scheme of Army reform based on general lines of national service will receive a far larger share of support, both in this House and in the country, than any hon. Members here have any idea of.
Sir IVOR HERBERT: I need hardly assure the House I should be the last man to approach this question in that spirit which was deprecated by the hon. Member for Glasgow University—the spirit of looking down on the soldier. I am one of those who hold that every man is better for having been a soldier. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to see that hon. Members opposite agree with me. I hope they will agree with me further when I say I should be very glad to see a very much larger number of my countrymen enjoying that which I consider the greatest advantage I have ever enjoyed myself, namely, serving His Majesty, but as I have served him, as a volunteer who served him for the love of the thing, and who can honestly say he has never made a penny out of it. I believe it is in that way that we can get a really efficient Army. I listened with great interest to the speeches from the other side, but I confess that I have never clearly understood what was the proposal hidden under the term we often hear, "universal military training." Is it to be
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military conscription or is it not? In the course of the recent Debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro-Ferguson) elicited some cheers from the benches opposite by expressing sympathy for what he described as a system of physical training continued after school age, a sort of continuation class in physical training. That is not military training. There is no doubt that the first thing you require in order to make a good soldier is a good physique, and the physical training no doubt would prepare a man for military training, but in itself it is not military training. Some years ago the late Lord Salisbury spoke of the defence of this country by means of organised rifle clubs. Rifle shooting is a very excellent thing, and an excellent item in the training of a soldier, but it cannot in itself be described as military training, and it could not be put on a level with military training. I gathered from the hon. and gallant Gentleman who introduced this subject that his idea of a system of military training is that it should consist of three months' training for all the male subjects of His Majesty who had been collected together in camp. I gather likewise from the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for South Wolverhampton (Colonel Hick-man) that it was to be for boys from the ages of fourteen to eighteen. It does not appear whether this system of military training is to be in addition to or to take the place of a regular military organisation, such as the Territorial Force, whether this collecting of immature boys of fourteen to eighteen for three months in camp is to be the force on which this country is to depend. That does not appear. I was at some difficulty to understand the eloquent appeal of the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Craik) when he spoke of the enormous moral benefit which was going to be derived by those who are the submerged wastrels of the country by this means. Surely those whom we should designate as the submerged wastrels of this country are not generally to be found among the boys of fourteen to eighteen. The men he evidently had in his mind were those who have sunk down from being useful members of society until they have become, as he describes them, wastrels. These are some of the discrepancies of this system upon which I should like to have more information. I have no prejudice whatever against military training, and I have no prejudice whatever

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against the soldier—very much the contrary. The hon. Gentleman stated that no party is at present prepared to make this policy a plank of party platform, yet the hon. Member (Mr. Fleming) urged very strongly that the party to which he belongs should make it such a plank in the platform.
Mr. FLEMING: I only said that any party which did introduce this measure would gain a good deal of support for it.
Sir IVOR HERBERT: I have known one case since I have been in the House of a Member who held precisely the opinions of the hon. Gentleman, and he did give up his seat in order to test the feeling of his constituency upon this very question. I need not recall what the disastrous consequences to him were. I can only recommend hon. Gentlemen opposite, and they will not think I do so with any arrière-pensée, to go and do likewise.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Hickman) spoke of the difficulty of obtaining officers, and seemed to think that would be overcome by this system. I wholly fail to see how, by collecting boys from the public elementary schools of the country into camps for three months, you are going to make any body from which you can take the commissioned officers of this country. There may be amongst these boys a good many who would make good officers, but I think it is a wholly impractical way of meeting the deficit of officers. I vastly prefer the policy which has been initiated by Lord Haldane and carried out with such excellent results, of harnessing to the defensive machinery of the country those institutions and organisations which are part of our daily life. By making use of the public schools and universities of the country he has taken a practical step to fill this deficiency in the officers' corps, and I think any development in that direction would be of the greatest possible use both to the Territorial Force and to the Regular Army. We have in the Territorial Force and in the Special Reserve cases where, by making use of the daily avocations of men and putting them into those arms of the Service where those avocations are of special service, you gain a vast amount of practical experience which can be applied to the defensive work of the country. That, again, I think is a far more practical way than to rely upon the haphazard method of collecting small school boys and putting them through their annual three months' drill.
Colonel YATE: If the hon. and gallant Member is referring to myself, I must say I never suggested that a school boy should be taken and put through three months' drill.
Sir IVOR HERBERT: I understood the hon. and gallant Gentleman to give as his definition of what his system of training was that which had been given in the lecture delivered by the military correspondent of the "Times." In that extract which the hon. and gallant Gentleman read out that was the definition given.
Colonel YATE: I think the hon. Member is making a mistake. My definition of what I propose is that we should have cadet training of boys from fourteen to seventeen, whether at school or not, and that a boy on attaining his eighteenth summer should go into camp, and then start on his civil life.
Sir IVOR HERBERT: What I wished to know was the proposal that had been made. I confess that through no fault of my own I was unable to hear the early part of the hon and gallant Gentleman's speech. I understood him to accept the definition of national training which was given in the extract he read out from the lecture delivered at Aldershot. I am sure he will acquit me of any desire to misrepresent him. The hon. and gallant Member for Wolverhampton taunted the Government with taking up a view which was in accordance with the French adage, "If you cannot get what you like, you have to take what you can get." I have a very clear recollection—though I do not know that I could put my finger on the quotation—of having read something very similar to that in one of the dispatches of the Duke of Wellington in which he was complaining of the drafts sent out to him. He said, "If the Government will not give me Regular troops, I must try to do what I can with the Militia." With such a precedent as that before them I do not think my hon. Friend and the Government will do far wrong. I am quite certain that in the mind of the great Duke there was the feeling that if you want to have a really efficient Army you must have an Army that has its heart in the work. You will not get that by any other method than by voluntary enlistment. Perhaps he may differ from me altogether, but I take some little exception to what fell from the hon. Member for Oldham when he spoke of the way in which conscription for

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the Army—not a sort of diluted conscription—is viewed in foreign countries. I have had a good many opportunities of discovering the feelings of the men who have served in the army in Germany, Russia, and France—men occupying all sorts of different positions. I can only say that I have never yet met a man who had a bad word to say of his military service, but many of those engaged in the hard labour of coal mines and ironworks told me that they looked back to the days they spent in the army as among the brightest of their whole existence. That is the fact, but nevertheless it is not an argument which can be applied to the system advocated by hon. Gentlemen opposite, because the great fault I find with it is that it is neither one thing nor the other. They seem to be afraid to advocate a system of compulsory service for the Army, and they would pass off upon us a sort of diluted system on the chance of training boys for the Army. Let them beware lest they do take away from these boys the taste for military work, and rather try to make them good voluntary soldiers. I hope hon. Gentlemen will do me justice to believe that I look at this question from an entirely detached position. I have no strong prejudices one way or the other. I should like to hear all that can be said in favour of this, because I am anxious that everything that can be done should be done to strengthen the Army, but I cannot say that I have heard anything which has converted me to be an advocate of the system of compulsory training.
Mr. SANDYS: The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken stated at the beginning of his speech that he was of opinion that every man was the better for being a soldier, and so far as he was concerned, it was the greatest advantage that he had ever enjoyed. That seems to be more an argument for the point of view which we favour than for the side for which he is speaking at the present time, and his criticism of the actual scheme suggested by my hon. Friend Colonel Yate, the Mover of the Resolution, was somewhat diminished in value owing to the unfortunate fact that he was unable to be here when my hon. Friend made his speech. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman in his reply will make clear this evening why he changed his views on this very important question since he made that speech at the United Service Institute, to which allusion has already been made. The position may be
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summed up very briefly. It is the function of the Territorial Force to protect the country against invasion. Therefore, the very existence of this force is a proof of the fact that our military authorities admit that invasion is possible. What we have to ask ourselves is, therefore, whether the Territorial Force is in a position to protect us against this invasion which the military authorities admit to be possible? Without going into any of these figures with regard to numbers of officers, attendance at camp, and so forth, the very fact that it is acknowledged that the Territorial Force requires six months' embodiment before it is fit to meet Regular troops is in itself sufficient to condemn the whole system. The right hon. Gentleman rather dramatically produced in the House a secret or sealed envelope which, he stated, when it was opened would explain the plans by which 150,000 men, fully equipped with arms and ammunition and provisions, could be dispatched to the seat of war within a few days; within a few days is the whole point of the argument. That is to say, there was an admission on the part of the right hon. Gentleman that in the event of war, time is all-important. If, therefore, according to his own admission, the attacking force is to be of any use whatever, it must be ready at any rate within a few days after the outbreak of war, on what grounds can he submit that the defence force, which is equally if not more important, need not be ready for six months after the war had begun? Of course we should never get this six months, and on that ground alone the whole system by which the right hon. Gentleman and his party stand is utterly condemned. The present system is condemned, not because the material of which the Territorial Army is composed is not satisfactory, but because the training and the numbers are insufficient, and when we come to consider the question of training and numbers we are at once placed on the horns of a dilemma. If we increase the training, automatically we reduce the numbers; if, on the other hand, we decide to increase the numbers, then we are faced with the situation that we have got to diminish the training. The system itself surely is shown to be unworkable. The only way in which we can place our home defence upon a satisfactory basis is by adopting a system of compulsory military service. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved this Resolution pointed out, the training

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of able-bodied men for military service comes in the end to a question of principle. Assuming that a sacrifice on the part of the individual is demanded, though in my opinion the benefits far outweigh the disadvantage, how far are we justified in calling on the individual to make a personal sacrifice for the benefit of the State, and not merely for the benefit of the State but in order to preserve the actual existence of the State? Surely in such circumstances we are justified in calling upon the citizens of the State to make any sacrifice which may be necessary in order to preserve its existence.
We enforce obedience to the law (in many cases against the interests of the individual) because we believe that obedience to the law is necessary to the safety and security of the State. We enforce payment of taxes against the will of the individual because we know that payment of taxes is necessary in order to keep the State going. We admit the principle of compulsory education not merely for the benefit of the individual, but because we believe that a certain standard of education is necessary in the interests of the whole nation. In fact, in any civilised community the interests of the individual must, where it is necessary, be sacrificed to the interests of the State. But in this case, so far from being a sacrifice it is an advantage to the individual, and it is an advantage to the nation. To give our country this system of universal military service is to give it that sense of discipline, the absence of which or the weakening of which in the opinion of many people is one of the gravest features of our national life at the present time. This system of national training will improve the physical qualities of the whole race. In my opinion a system of universal military service would do more than anything else to break down that barrier of mistrust and misunderstanding which unfortunately exists between many classes of the community at the present time. It would, in my opinion, bring about a better feeling amongst all sections of the community, because all classes of society under a system of universal military training would be united, high and low, rich and poor, in the common service of the State of which they are citizens.
Colonel SEELY: The Motion brought forward by the hon. and gallant Member opposite, in a speech to which we all listened with interest, is one some parts of
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which the House would gladly accept; but, on the other hand, its real meaning is: Are we to abandon the voluntary system of recruiting our armed forces and turn to the compulsory system instead? That is the real point on which we are divided. If it is a question as to whether it is desirable that boys, when they leave school, should have some further physical training, I for one agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and many of my hon. Friends on these benches agree with him. The Prime Minister has himself said that further physical training for boys is most desirable. I know that the President of the Local Government Board is strongly of the same opinion. He has stated so. I think, in fact, that the whole House is at one on that point. But the whole question is: Are you going to compulsorily recruit the Territorial Force or some other force at the same time. I think we must see that this is the real point. Let us consider for a moment what are the real differences between physical training and military training under some form of compulsion. If the object of the Motion is to improve the physical qualities of the race, I would point out how hopelessly inadequate is any system of compulsory military training, based on military needs. In the case of Switzerland, according to the latest figures I have been able to obtain, they rejected 47 per cent. of their population in the year to which those figures apply as being unfit for the arduous duties of war. If we are to use the powers proposed to be conferred by the hon. and gallant Member's Motion for the purpose of making a military machine as indicated by the last speaker the Member for Wells and by another hon. Gentleman opposite, then it would be absolutely useless for the purpose of physical training. If I had the honour to represent the War Office, the first question I should ask would be: Are these men intended forward If they are, then they must be only of the best, physically, as in the case of Switzerland and other Continental armies. Then we must reject the same percentage as Switzerland and as Germany, for Germany rejects a very large proportion, and the very feeble, whom you ought to try and uplift in physical well-being, whose chests ought to be expanded and whose lungs ought to be improved, are the very people you must of necessity leave out of your scheme. What I do beg the House to observe is, if the object is physical well-being, that compulsory military training,

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if it is to be of military use, is quite useless for that object.
The Seconder of this Motion, the hon. Member for Aberdeen University (Sir H. Craik), and one or two other hon. Members, indicated that they would like to know what my personal views were in the matter, and quoted speeches I made. I do not think the personal views of ten years ago of Members are of much interest to anyone, but I am glad to take the opportunity of saying to the House, as I think probably many Members hold the views I held then, that I hold precisely the same views that I always held on this subject. The hon. Gentleman said that he and I were concerned in a Commission, and he asked me was I still of the same opinion as I was in those days. Yes, Sir, I am strongly of the same opinion. What was this Royal Commission. It was a Commission to inquire into the physical training of children in elementary schools. In the course of that inquiry, at which I gave evidence, we found in one town in Scotland—it was the town of Dundee—that so many of the children were utterly underfed that the medical officers reported that it was hopeless to give them any physical training of any kind. The only thing for the poor little mites to do was to sit still, because their feeding was so miserable that they could not possibly profit by any physical training, however carefully given.
Mr. HUNT: Free Trade.
Colonel SEELY: I think that shows that the hon. Gentleman wishes to change the issue. We are discussing the Motion on the Paper, but I should be glad to discuss Free Trade if there were time. What was it that was before the Royal Commission? The question was—was it desirable that you should give physical training to the youth of this country, and, incidentally, was it desirable that the children should be so fed that they could profit by the physical training? I urgently put forward the view then, as I do now, that you ought to do both. I repeat that statement now, and I make a present of it to the hon. Gentleman, who, if he will look back into his past, I think will remember that he has forgotten something. If it is a question of consistency, I venture to say that my record is cleaner in this matter than that of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, but I only mention that in order to point the complete difference there is between physical training and military training. I turn to the military side, and I am of opinion with the hon. and gallant
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Member for Monmouthshire (Sir Ivor Herbert), that military service does no harm to anyone, but does any man good. I rejoice to think that there are many serving with the Territorial Force, and I only wish there were more. By all means let us encourage men to serve by every means we can. The question we have to decide in this matter is this—shall we abandon the voluntary system because it is alleged it gives us inadequate training and inadequate numbers, and, instead of continuing to induce, to reverse our process and compel? I think I have stated it fairly. That is the issue before us. On that particular point I wish to address one or two arguments to the House. First of all, if we reverse our policy and adopt compulsion for at least a part of our military forces, would it assist our Naval policy? We live in an island. Our first line of defence and offence is the Navy. Would it assist the Navy if we had a compulsory system? I venture to assert that it would not. I have read most of the literature on this subject. Indeed, I suppose I have made more speeches in defence of the voluntary principle than any other Member of this House. But I have never seen it suggested that you should man your Navy with compulsorily enlisted men. Therefore you would gain nothing that way. You would not get your men any more easily. The real naval problem to-day, as we all have reason to know, is not only the problem of men and of ships, not only of the courage of the men and the quality of the ships, but of the money that you have to spend on them. We have not unlimited money. We fortunately have more, in spite of Free Trade, than any possible rival, but we have not unlimited money.
What would be the cost of any scheme such as that suggested by the hon. Member in opening the Debate, with four months' training and, I presume, a "refresher" course, because he would not wish to put forward troops who for years past had never seen a rifle. [An HON. MEMBER: "A fortnight."] I recollect what the hon. Member said. He said they ought all to be trained for four months, but with regard to subsequent training he did not lay down any particular period, and some would not require to be trained at all. I do not think he will adhere to that statement. All his friends who take his view that compulsory service would be an advantage agree that you must have a period of service after the initial training. My advisers, who have been

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good enough to go into the finance of the matter, tell me that for any such system if universal, even allowing for the rejection of the 47 per cent, who might be not quite good enough to take their place in the fighting line—if you are going to have any physical advantage in it you must eliminate so many, and the cost will therefore be greater—the extra cost would be no less than £8,000,000. That is over and above what we spend now on the Special Reserve and the Territorial Force, the cost of which is now a little under £5,000,000. We should have to spend on the new force about £13,000,000. In other words, you would have to spend £8,000,000 extra, or the cost of four "Dreadnoughts" every year on producing this new kind of Army. Therefore I say from the point of view of the Navy it would do us no good but it must do us harm, because it would not assist you to recruit in any way, and it would cost you the price of four "Dreadnoughts" a year.
The next question I have to ask is would it assist our general military policy as a whole, not the policy of the defence of this country but our general military policy. It is perfectly true that you might have to fight in this country. It is true that a raid or even an invasion in the long run might be attempted. But one has to look at probabilities, and I believe it is a fact that for hundreds of years there has been no serious conflict with a foreign invader in these islands. [An HON. MEMBER: "Monmouth's raid."] I mean serious fighting. There has been no serious conflict with a foreign foe in these islands for hundreds of years, whereas we have had to fight overseas all the time. Therefore, what we have to look at is not fighting in these islands, but fighting overseas. Would this compulsory scheme help a foreign service Army? I contend it would not help, but damage it. But does anyone suggest that you could recruit your foreign service Army by compulsion? I think there is not one man in this House that does. Then the question is, would the fact that you recruited your Territorial Force, or some such similar force, by compulsion help your foreign service Army? The general impression of those best qualified to judge—and this must be purely a matter of speculation—is that it would not. One reason—amongst many—put forward by more than one military authority is that the man who had had

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a dose of soldiering—not a very large dose, perhaps—would not be, so keen as to enlist for a further period, to serve in any part of the world. He would say: "I have done my bit, and I now return to my wife and family," or, if he had not a wife, to find one. That is the view put forward by those who know the English people very well, and it is held strongly by many of our advisers at the War Office. Therefore that compulsory system, far from helping, would hinder in the enlistment of men for the foreign service Army.
This question has been often debated. I do not know that we can ever get finality. On 12th July, 1909, in the House of Lords, there was a most interesting Debate, in which most of the leaders on the Unionist side took the view that compulsory service would not help foreign enlistment. The most striking statement was made by a man with whom most of us on this side differ profoundly on every subject, but who admittedly is one who has made a close, intense, and careful study of military history—I refer to the Duke of Bedford. He said this:—
"I agree with the Secretary of State for War that a compulsorily raised home service Army is incompatible with a foreign service Army on a voluntary basis."
Let the House observe that this distinguished military critic goes much further than I go, and says that, the scheme suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Yate) would not only be injurious, but is incompatible with a foreign service Army on a voluntary basis. Therefore if the Duke of Bedford be right, and if we cannot have a foreign service Army on a compulsory basis, there is no man in the House who will say that you had better obtain your compulsory service Army for home defence, for it would shatter your foreign service Army. I do believe that the Duke of Bedford is nearer the truth than those who take the view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. Now we have to encounter the question, Would this course give you an Army more likely to win? It was suggested by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wells that I had changed my views on this subject. I can assure him that I have, again and again, over a series of years, done my best—very imperfectly, perhaps—to point, out the dangers of a compulsorily enlisted Army, and the immense advantages of a voluntarily enlisted Army. I know the speech that the hon. Gentleman is reading. I went over to Ireland to deliver a speech for the Military Society, and tried to show how fatal would be a system of compulsion for

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this country, and also that it had been so in the past. The reasons that I have been adducing for many years past are not in the least inconsistent with the passage from that speech that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walton is now reading. The reason that I have for holding this view is one that I think most soldiers will agree with on consideration. It is very desirable, in my view, that every man at some period of his career should not only be physically trained, but should learn how to shoot. If I had my way every little boy after he left school would be physically trained, and during the process of this physical training I am strongly of opinion it would be a very good thing for him if he learned the elements of how to aim along a gun. I think it is good for everybody, and I remain strongly of that opinion. But now the question is whether for a fighting force it is better to have a compusorily enlisted Army or a voluntary Army; and that is where the party point comes in, which has been made and refuted during the course of this Debate, as to whether the fact that Captain Kincaid Smith only got a few votes when he stood in favour of compulsion. The fact that very few hon. Members of this House will vote for this Motion—at least, I believe that to be the case—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]—because they believe their constituents to be opposed to it—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] May I make my point? I think everybody ought to do what he thinks best and right—but the military point of view comes in from the fact that it is admitted that an immense number of people in this country, we believe the majority of the people of this country, are strongly opposed to this principle of compulsion. That being so, in your compulsorily enlisted Army an immense number of recruits would be unwilling soldiers, and if we were to take the offer made by the distinguished officer to whom I have referred, who stood upon this principle, there would be a great majority of unwilling soldiers who would strongly object to the principle of compulsory service. Is an army in which there is a large proportion of unwilling soldiers likely to succeed in war?
Mr. F. E. SMITH: What about Germany?
Colonel SEELY:I am glad the right hon. and learned Gentleman made that interjection. Does he mean to suggest that there is the same proportion of people in Germany who think compulsory service un-
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necessary, undesirable, and unreasonable as there is in this country? Can he find a number of people, some of whom I quoted to-night, who formally object to it, and can he find in the German General Staff any number of distinguished officers who protest against it?
Mr. F. E. SMITH: I could find a large number of Socialists in Germany who protest against it with just as much vehemence as the right hon. Gentleman.
Colonel SEELY: What has that got to do with it? Here in this country the great majority and the men of all parties who have studied this question—not one of one party, but of all parties, the Conservative party, the Liberal party, the Labour party, and the Irish party—the overwhelming majority in each one of them are against it. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We shall see tonight who are opposed to this system of compulsory military service. Therefore I think we make good our case that this country stands alone, not only in its military and naval needs, owing to its insular position and world-wide Empire, but also in the overwhelmingly greater proportion of its people who are opposed to compulsory military service. For that reason, if you had compulsory military service you would have a greater proportion in the ranks that would be unwilling soldiers. I ask the House to look at this fact. The problem of war in the future—completely revolutionised with smokeless powder and in so many other ways—will not be so much to eliminate the unfit as to eliminate the unwilling, and will any soldier deny that by a system of voluntary service you eliminate all people who do not like war in times of peace. Of course there will remain the people who look upon war as such a horrible business, and although they may like it before they engage they do not like it when they get there. At least the voluntary Army will have the enormous advantage of eliminating at the start all those who seriously believe they ought not to join, and who think that the whole thing is a mistake. If you attempt to fight your battles with a force recruited on a compulsory basis, with British and Irish public opinion as it is, you are rushing straight to disaster, for you will fill your ranks with a number of people totally opposed of the necessity of your scheme, whether on naval or foreign service, army grounds, or grounds of general policy, who say, "This is a wrong thing, we are opposed to it," and they will not fight so well. It is true that we

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did adopt compulsion in the past. There have been three occasions when this country did engage in war over the sea with compulsory enlisted armies, and every one of them ended in disaster. [An HON. MEMBER: "Trafalgar."] I did not say anything about our naval forces. Every one of those land battles ended in disaster, but we have not been uniformly unsuccessful, and so long as we stick to the principle that one volunteer is better than ten pressed men, which is more true now than when the words were first spoken, so long as we stick to the voluntary principle, even if we have to resort to more expenditure, so long shall we continue to be what we have been up to now, a victorious nation.
Mr. AMERY: The right hon. Gentleman has made a great point of his necessities. He said he was in favour of general training, but not of a great military force. At one time he commended the Swedish system, giving training sixty-eight days in the first year and twenty-two days in the second, the Engineers and the Artillery for a longer period. He suggested that in this way we might have 3,000,000 men at a cost of £6,000,000. He said at the end of his remarks:—
"I am certain you can convert people to this view, and I go further. I believe, if all these warnings fall upon deaf ears, at no distant date this Empire of which we are so proud will fall to pieces, and this nation will be humbled in the dust."
I will now deal with the right hon. Gentleman's argument about a system which, he says, eliminates the unwilling. Sir Ian Hamilton pointed out that 77 per cent, of our soldiers are compulsorily recruited by hunger and unemployment. I think, if we have a universal system, the great majority of them will be willing to join. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that because there is a division of opinion now—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide, divide!"]—if universal service were passed by a free people the soldiers of a free country serving under a law passed by a free Parliament would be less ready to face the enemy than the troops of Germany. I think that is a most unwarranted aspersion on the character of the nation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide, divide!"]—
Mr. KINGrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Ordered, That the Lords Message [12th March] relating to the appointment of a Joint Committee to consider all Consolidation Bills be considered.
Lords Message considered accordingly.
Ordered, That a Select Committee of Five Members be appointed to join with a Committee appointed by the Lords (as mentioned in their Lordships' Message of the 12th day of March) to consider all Consolidation Bills of the Session:
Message to acquaint them therewith.
Mr. Cave, Mr. Ellis Griffith, Mr. Harry Lawson, Mr. John O'Connor, and Mr. Charles Roberts nominated Members of the Select Committee.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:
Ordered, That Three be the quorum.— [Master of Elibank.]

PUBLIC OFFICES (SITES) BILL.
Ordered, That the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills do examine the Public Offices (Sites) Bill, with respect to compliance with the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills.
Adjourned at Eight minutes after Eleven o'clock.