SATURDAY SITTING. (Hansard, 6 February 1913)

§ Mr. WALTER LONG
I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I rise to make a serious appeal to His Majesty's Government. I may remind the Government, although there was not what I would call an arrangement, there was a clear understanding, I think in all quarters of the House, when we met this afternoon, 201 that this Debate would begin somewhere about Half-past Seven o'clock. My hon. Friends on this side of the House, in order to facilitate that arrangement and to contribute so far as they could to its fulfilment, carefully abstained from taking part in the very interesting Debate to which we have listened, although many of them would have been very glad to have addressed the House on the new points which arose. I may say that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was anxious to take part in the Debate, but understanding that it was for the general convenience that the Debate should terminate, and that this one should begin at a reasonable hour, my right hon. Friend abstained. May I also remind the Government that that great Debate, and I entirely agree with hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who have referred to it as one of the most interesting and best-conducted Debates to which we have listened, has been very largely conducted by hon. Gentlemen opposite. At that part which carried us over the time, half-past seven, speaker after speaker rose from the other side, and no part whatever was taken in the Debate after a certain hour by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House. I am making no complaint. I think it would have been a great misfortune if we had not had the Debate which we have had to-night. I think it will have lasting effects on the future of this House and of legislation, and I am therefore making no complaint. I do respectfully submit to the Government and to the Committee that it is taking an undue advantage of your position to force by a majority the Opposition to begin at this hour a Debate of the importance of the one which we are now anxious to enter upon. I think that anybody if he were to look at this question, not as a party man, not as a partisan, but as a practical common sense individual, would agree that this House since we began at four o'clock, has done enough solid business to satisfy any reasonable person. I think most people would agree that a sufficient tax has been made on the strength and energy of Members to make it not reasonable to call on them to enter on a totally new subject and one which is of the greatest importance. The question which is raised by this Supplementary Estimate is one which affects the greatest and oldest of our industries more seriously than any other question at the present time. The day was when agriculture was 202 very largely an industry, dealing with the production of cereals, but to a large extent that has been changed, and to-day what we call the agriculture of the United Kingdom is mainly dependent on the rearing and breeding of cattle and the fattening and export of stock. There is no question connected with this industry so important as maintaining the health of the cattle of this country and securing for this country a clean bill of health. This year we have had for the first time for many years an invasion of a very serious character, bearing many novel aspects. I think it is quite unreasonable at this hour to ask us to discuss what we have not been able to Debate this Session, and to which we have only been able to refer by way of question and answer, and to ask us to Debate a subject of this magnitude, with the bearing it has on the agricultural industry, and remembering that at this hour the Debate will only have a very scanty account rendered of it in the Press of the country. On the contrary, I think it is reasonable and fair I should ask the Government not to press us to commence this Debate now, and to allow us to report progress and give us a fairer and better opportunity to raise this great question before the attention of the House and the country.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I rise not so much to resist the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman as to make an appeal to him. I quite realise the force of the arguments he has addressed to the Committee, and I fully assent to his statement that the Opposition are not responsible for any delay which may have occurred in bringing to a termination the discussion on the Scottish Temperance Bill. Undoubtedly the notion—I will not call it an understanding—was that the proceedings on that Bill would come to an end at half-past seven. We also fully recognise that the business the right hon. Gentleman wants to discuss is of first-class importance to the most important industry in the country. It is, therefore, exceedingly desirable that it should be debated at a time of day when the country would be fully apprised of everything that took place. What I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman is really by way of submission rather than by way of argument or contention against anything he has said. Unless some alternative arrangement is made, it necessarily involves a Saturday sitting, we cannot get out of it. 203 I am perfectly certain the right hon. Gentleman is much too good-natured to force others to come here on Saturday if it can be avoided. I have an alternative suggestion. He wants a discussion on the Agricultural Vote. I think that is important. I really cannot resist his argument on the point. My suggestion is that that should be taken first on the Report stage on Tuesday. In that case there would be a Debate starting at a quarter to four, which would be the very best time to have a discussion of that kind, for the newspapers as well as for Members. There were certain Votes agreed to be taken tonight. I do not want to put it too high. There were certain Votes which we hoped with some reason that we should get to-night. That was on the assumption that the Debate on the other Order would come to an end at half-past seven; therefore the Opposition are certainly not bound in any sense by the conversation which occurred. I suggest that the Vote, in which a considerable number of Members and the country at large are keenly interested, should come first on the Report stage on Tuesday. I shall be glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's views on that. I hope he will not press this Motion, and thus avoid the catastrophe of a Saturday sitting.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
The Vote to be discussed is not merely an English Vote; it is an Irish Vote, and it has attained exceptional importance because of the action of Ministers who, without reference to Parliament, and refusing Parliamentary Papers, have maintained an attitude such as I have never known before. They say that they are advised by experts, whom we have never seen and know nothing about. In my opinion we are entitled to a full discussion upon this question, and in Committee. The Report stage is not a suitable medium for a discussion of this kind. You cannot hammer a Minister on Report! That is what Ministers are for. They run the country on their own for twelve months, and it is not too much to expect that one day out of that twelvemonths they should be open to the criticism of Parliament. I quite agree that there was one day perhaps in which we had something of a discussion on the general Estimates. We got no satisfaction from the right hon. Gentleman. It is since then that he has put on this new system of quarantine—if I may say so. It is since then that he has had to acknowledge that this system 204 of experts has not proved quite as infallible as one might have expected coming from the quarter that it did. I should be sorry that the House and, indeed the Ministers, should not have their holiday. But this must be remembered; that apart from shipping and the linen trade this is Ireland's only industry. There is the contamination of English flocks and herds as well as the whole question of the admission of hay and straw in the form of packing that has brought us this disease in, and our relations with France. There has been no hesitation at shutting out. Irish stuff. But we want French stuff shut out. We want a discussion on these questions. What happens on Report stage? Somebody gets up and makes an arrangement with the Ministry, and the Minister, according to the modern system, gets up and goes out, and we have to talk to empty Benches. In Mr. Gladstone's time no Minister would have dared to go out. The whole thing becomes unreal. What suggest is this, and I think the Government will see that I make the suggestion in the interests of the time of the House—that instead of pretermitting the Committee stage we should pretermit the Report stage. Let there be an understanding that we will not discuss matters on Report, but in Committee. The time consumption will be practically the same, and we will have the advantage that the Gentlemen—a few at least from Ireland who take an interest in such questions as these—will get a chance. The modem method of dealing with Ireland is to go and see Ministers in their rooms, but I am rather too old a bird to favour that form of settling questions. Therefore my suggestion is that we should insist upon debate in Committee, and that we should give up the Report stage.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I entirely agree with what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will also agree that the Report stage is by no manner of means an equivalent for the Committee stage. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman's suggestion is a very good one. May I remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there was no objection taken by this side of the House to taking the Pilotage Bill last night? We were very good; we sat up till one a.m. It is hard to keep us up again at the end of a thirteen months' Session to one o'clock through no fault of ours or of hon. Members opposite, but owing to the 205 exigencies of Debate. I suggest that the proposal of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Heady) be accepted. I have in my hand a paper which says that the Government might get, if the Debate came to an end at 7.30, "the Agricultural, the Friendly Societies, the County Courts, the Public Trustees, and the Dundrum Asylum Votes." I suggest that we should give the Government the Friendly Societies and the County Courts' Votes—I am not quite certain about the Dundrum Asylum—I think that is a generous offer, and would enable the Government to get half the votes they put down, and I trust they will accept that solution which I suggest.

§ Mr. LONG
It seems to me that the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. Friend who has just spoken is a practical and reasonable one. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his most persuasive mode a few moments ago, asked us to abandon the Committee stage, but, as was pointed out, the Committee stage is the proper and constitutional occasion on which to raise questions of expenditure. In regard to this expenditure we wish to raise questions as to whether it might not have been avoided. I say that in no contentious or controversial spirit, but these are the questions which have to be answered, and I do not think the Report stage is the proper place to ask us to discuss these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) has made a suggestion. I know nothing about the Votes to which he referred, and if the Government accept his suggestion I shall heartily endorse it. I am quite willing to assent to the suggestion that so far as the Agricultural Vote is concerned that we might have a proper occasion for discussing it on Tuesday, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested, in Committee, and that then we should not take advantage of the Report stage to renew that discussion. Therefore the Report stage would be necessarily a formal one, as we would have had our Debate in Committee. The Chancellor made his name in his early days in these Committees, and I am convinced if the suggestion was made to him by a Conservative Government to drop the Committee stage, he would have raised the roof. I hope the memory of those days will appeal to him now, and that he will, in justice to us, and in view of our concessions, see that we have a proper opportunity for these discussions.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
My experience of those days made me feel it was very little use raising these objections late in the Session, and I still think the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend is not fair to us. I think with his Parliamentary experience, he will see at once that unless we get the Report of the Votes by Tuesday next, it is impossible to get away next week without a Saturday Sitting.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
Take the Report on Monday.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Monday has been hypothecated for Army Estimates and for Somaliland. Otherwise I agree that something might be done on Monday. I do not see why a late Debate on Monday would be better than a late Debate on Tuesday. What I am trying to do is to arrange a Debate at reasonable hours. There are only three alternatives. One I have already suggested; the other two are a Saturday Sitting, or else to prolong the Session to the week after next. I hope the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends can see their way to assent to the first proposition I made, with the knowledge that there is a Debate possible on the Second and Third Readings of the Appropriation Bill. The hon. and learned Member for North-East Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) complained that there would be no opportunity on the Report stage for attacking Ministers, but I have never known the hon. and learned Member fail to make the best of that opportunity, and I am perfectly certain he can present his case on the Irish Vote. Perhaps the Irish Agricultural Vote might be taken to-night, and the other Vote might be taken on Tuesday. Of course, if the right hon. Gentleman cannot see his way to withdraw his Motion I shall not resist it, but I am afraid we shall have to have a Saturday Sitting, and the Motion will be put down on Saturday. I suggest next Saturday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do not see any other way except that which I have indicated. I would have readily accepted the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend had it not been for the fact that unless we get the Report stage by the time I have stated it will be too late.

§ Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR
So far as my hon. Friends are concerned we are quite willing to come here next Saturday and have a real discussion and an opportunity 207 of having it properly recorded in the newspapers. So far as we are concerned we are entirely in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. HUGH BARRIE
On this occasion, and probably only on this occasion, the demand on the time of the House for the Irish Vote will be very small indeed. I think all Irish Members have united in asking that full time should be given for dealing with the Vote for the English Board of Agriculture.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Does the hon. Gentleman suggest we should proceed with the Irish Vote to-night? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
As far as I am concerned, my quarrel is not with the Irish Department, but with the English Minister, and I have no objection whatever to the Irish Vote being taken to-night if other Irish Members are willing. The question I want to raise is that with regard to the quarantine and, if the right hon. Gentleman says there is no alternative, I would suggest that the Minister of Agriculture should get up and say that after his experience he finds the quarantine no longer necessary.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think the right hon. Gentleman would prefer the other suggestion, but I should like to ask his view with regard to the suggestion made by the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury).

§ Sir F. BANBURY
My suggestion was that we should have a Saturday sitting.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The Government must really ask the House to take to-night some of the small Votes which are purely non-contentious.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
May I make a suggestion. Some of my hon. Friends have a fancy for the Vote for the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Ireland. It cannot take very long. I think, however, if we gave the right hon. Gentleman two Votes, the Friendly Societies Registry and County Courts, that ought to meet him.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think we may come to an understanding. I understand the hon. Baronet suggests that we might take to-night the Votes for the Friendly Societies' Registry, Stationery, and Printing.

§ Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON
No, no! That is the question of insurance.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
There is the Public Trustee Vote, the County Courts, and—

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I only said two Votes, and the right hon. Gentleman is going through the whole list. My original proposal included the Dundrum Asylum, but I took that off, though if it pleases the right hon. Gentleman I will give him the asylum.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Very well, if we are to get those three Votes, I will close with that offer.