Commons Sitting of 3 June 1913

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Governesses Benevolent Institution Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed without Amendment.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Bill, As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Southampton Harbour Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Friday.
Cardiff Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
Halkyn District Mines Drainage Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Oxford University (St. Edmund Hall and Gatcomb Rectory) Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Westminster Hospital Bill,
Sir HENRY CRAIK: I beg to move, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Westminster Hospital Bill to consider whether it is expedient, in dealing with the present site of the hospital, to widen the street leading to the Houses of Parliament by making the frontage level with the neighbouring building, and so providing, in the public interest and for posterity, an access worthy of the dignity of the situation."
An HON. MEMBER: I object.
Sir H. CRAIK: May I ask the Deputy-Chairman of Committees whether he will not give me an opportunity for discussing this Instruction in the ordinary way?
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): If the hon. Member listened, as no doubt he did a few minutes ago, to the number of objections to Private Bills he will, I think, realise that it is quite impossible for any promise of the kind he asks for to be given.
Sir H. CRAIK: This is a public question.
Resolution deferred.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill,
Gas and Water Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 8) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 10) Bill,
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 11) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 12) Bill,
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Ribble Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,
Second Reading deferred till Tuesday next.
Tramways Provisional Orders Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Message from the Lords,
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to transfer to and vest in the Metropolitan Railway Company the undertaking of the Great Northern and City Railway Company; to empower the Metropolitan Railway Company to construct a new railway and works; to acquire additional lands; to raise additional capital; and for other purposes. [Metropolitan Railway Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer powers upon the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Bradford for the construction of waterworks, street works and improvements, and the acquisition of lands; for the provision of trolley vehicles; with respect to infectious diseases and the health, good government, and sanitation of the city; to authorise the establishment of superannuation and other funds; and to make provisions with respect to various matters of local

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administration and management."[Bradford Corporation Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the transfer to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Brighton of the powers vested in the Brighton, Hove, and Preston United Omnibus Company, Limited, under the Brighton, Hove, and District Railless Traction Act, 1911, and to sanction and confirm the purchase by the Corporation of lands adjoining the borough in the parishes of Ovingdean and Rottingdean; and for other purposes." [Brighton Corporation Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve the marriage of George Edwardes MacColl, of Kirkliston Drive, Bloomfield, in the county city of Belfast, engineer, with Mary MacColl, his now wife, and to enable him to marry again, and for other purposes." [MacColl's Divorce Bill [Lords.]
Metropolitan Railway Bill [Lords],
Bradford Corporation Bill [Lords],
Brighton Corporation Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
MacColl's Divorce Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; to be read a second time.
Private Bills (Group D),
Mr. Herbert Craig reported from the Committee on Group D of Private Bills; That Mr. George Lloyd, one of the Members of the said Committee, was not present during the sitting of the Committee this day.
Report to lie upon the Table.

EAST INDIA (RAILWAYS AND IRRIGATION WORKS).
Return presented relative thereto [Address, 29th May; Sir Robert Price]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

ROYAL PARKS.
Return ordered, "in respect of each Royal Park and pleasure ground open to the public of (1) the total area; (2) the area of each space from which the public are excluded; (3) the use to which each such space is applied; (4) the dates of commencement and expiration of the lease or
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agreement; and (5) the rental of other consideration paid in respect of such occupation."—[Mr. Dickinson.]

NATIONAL PHYSICAL LABORATORY.
Copy ordered of "Accounts of Receipts and Expenditure, with Balance Sheet, for the year 1912."—[Mr. Master man.]

EXTENSION OF POLLING HOURS BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Friday, and to be printed.

SELECTION (STANDING (COMMITTEES).
Mr. Fenwick reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C (in respect of the London Elections Bill): Mr. Robert Harcourt, Sir Frederick Cawley, Sir Alfred Mond, Mr. Holt, and Sir Courtenay Warner; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Carr-Gomm, Mr. Martin, Mr. Glyn-Jones, Mr. Radford, and Mr. Edward Strauss.
Report to lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Egypt (Arrest of Alexandre Adamovitz).
  Mr. CHARLES PRICEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether M. Arles, member of the Russian Seamen's Union, was arrested on Egyptian territory; what was the nature of his offence; whether the Russian authorities have power to arrest on Egyptian territory; and if he purposes taking any action in the matter?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): The person referred to appears to be identical with Adamovitz, with regard to whom

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  I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Leicester on the 29th ultimo, and to the statement made to the House on that day.
  Mr. PRICE: May I point out that the answer referred to by the hon. Gentleman was given to another question, that I had a question on the Paper before the question put by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicester, and I left it on the Paper in the hope that some further information might be obtained?
  Mr. ACLAND: I was not aware of any request for further information, and none was put forward during last Thursday's Debate.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I understood there had been some further information received?
  Mr. ACLAND: I beg pardon; we have heard since Thursday that the escort had not arrived and that the prisoner's removal did not take place on Friday.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Can the prisoner be removed without any judicial procedure?
  Mr. ACLAND: I cannot add to the statement made by my right hon. Friend. It was very full and I think it covered that point.
  Mr. KING: Will Lord Kitchener be asked for a report upon the matter?
  Mr. ACLAND: It is because he has already been asked, and because he has given us the information that we were able to make such a full statement in the Debate last week.
  Mr. WILLIAM THORNE: Can the prisoner be deported without the sanction of the Foreign Secretary?
  Mr. ACLAND: Yes. If my hon. Friend will read the Debate of Thursday he will see that no sanction of the Foreign Secretary is at all necessary.
  Sir J. D. REES: Is the territory of Egypt technically British territory; if not, what right has the right hon. Gentleman to interfere in the matter? [HON. MEMBERS: "Every right."]
  Mr. PRICE: May I respectfully ask whether it was not because the Secretary for Foreign Affairs said that he did not know upon what charge the man was arrested that I again put down the question?
  Mr. ACLAND: It is a fact that we do not know the charge upon which the arrest took place. I will communicate to my right hon. Friend the hon. Member's desire for further information on that point.

  Earl of Morley's Visit to Berlin.
  Mr. KINGasked whether Lord Morley of Blackburn has recently visited Berlin; if so, whether his visit was connected with any international mission; and whether any information as to its object can be given?
  Mr. ACLAND: Lord Morley's recent visit to Berlin was entirely private. It had no official character whatever, nor was it in any way concerned with political affairs.
  Mr. KING: Is there any truth in the statement that some British statesman is shortly to pay a visit to Berlin on a political mission?
  Mr. ACLAND: Not that I know of.

  China (Opium).
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India when the Government will publish the Reports of Consuls, Ambassadors, and Missionaries in China on the efforts made by the Chinese to suppress opium cultivation?
  Mr. ACLAND: Reports on this subject are now on their way home from His Majesty's Minister at. Peking, and on their arrival I will consider what Papers can be laid.

  Steamship "Gregory Apcar" (Medical Officer).
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether Captain Drake and the owners of the "Gregory Apcar" steamship, sailing from Calcutta, on which a large number of deaths of Chinese passengers have recently occurred, have been summoned by the authorities of Singapore for not carrying a properly licensed medical practitioner; whether he is aware that it was stated in the Court that although the doctor's qualifications satisfied the Calcutta regulations they did not conform with the Straits regulations; and whether he will state in what respect the Calcutta regulations differ from the Straits regulations?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second and third parts, the Secretary of State is informed that under the Chinese Immigrants Ordinance of the Straits Settlements, ships bringing more than twenty Chinese immigrants must carry a qualified medical practitioner as defined by Government order. On the return of the vessel to India a full inquiry is to be or has been made, and until the report is received the Secretary of State is not in a position to furnish the information which the hon. Member asks for.

  Scott Antarctic Expedition.
  Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary for India whether he is aware that had Lieutenant Bowers been serving in a vessel of the Royal Indian Marine at the time of his death he would have been in receipt of pay equivalent to £160 a year, and that further allowances might have brought his total emoluments up to £220 a year; that had Lieutenant Bowers left a widow and children they would have been entitled to a pension of £40 and £45 a year each, respectively, or a total of £130, and, as he died in the execution of duty, to a further compassionate allowance of £75 and £15 a year each, respectively; and whether, considering the fact that the sum of £300 a year had been granted to the widow and sister-in-law of Dr. Wilson, and that Lieutenant Bowers was the only son of his widowed mother and that she and her two daughters are indifferently provided for, he will ask the Government of India to reconsider the proposed grant of £50 a year to Lieutenant Bowers' mother and £25 a year to each sister and suggest that, in view of the circumstances attending the death of this officer, they should make a more generous grant for his family and treat his mother and sisters as if they had been his widow and daughters and grant them at least the pension of £235 a year to which a widow and daughters might have been entitled?
  Mr. MONTAGU: In determining the Grants to be made from Indian revenues to the relatives of Lieutenant Bowers the Secretary of State in Council dealt with the circumstances of the case as they existed, not as they might conceivably otherwise have been. Lieutenant Bowers was not married, and did not leave a widow and children. His pay when he left India was £120 a year, and his mother and
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  sisters were by no means wholly dependent on him. The Grants that have been made to them more than satisfy the Prime Minister's undertaking that dependent relatives would be placed in as good a pecuniary position as they would have been had no disaster taken place, and the Secretary of State would not be justified in asking the Council of India to agree to a heavier charge being placed upon Indian revenues.
  Colonel YATE: With reference to that reply, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that differential treatment of this sort between members of the Indian services and members of the British service tends to bring discredit upon the Indian Government and the India Office, and also to lower the tone of the Indian services generally?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I think if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will look into the conditions of this gallant officer's pay and circumstances, and note the provision made for those left behind, he will see—as I think has been acknowledged in most quarters—that the Government of India has dealt generously in the matter.
  Colonel YATE: Does the hon. Gentleman think that these terms of the Government of India carry out Captain Scott's last wishes?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion. The Under-Secretary has stated the facts; the hon. and gallant Member can draw his own inference and I can draw mine.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    LIEUTENANT BERTRAND STEWART (RELEASE).
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Lieutenant. Bertrand Stewart, a Territorial officer, has been released from imprisonment in Germany; will he say what notice has been taken of his conviction in Germany; and whether the release generously granted to him by the German Emperor will be followed by his reinstatement in the British Army in the position which he held before his conviction?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): Lieutenant Stewart has retained and continues to retain his commission.
    Mr. KING: Has any notice been taken of his enforced absence?
    Colonel SEELY: Of course, we knew of his enforced absence.

    HORSES (PURCHASES IN IRELAND).
    Mr. GOLDSMITHasked whether any instructions have been issued to officers employed to purchase horses in Ireland on mobilisation; if so, whether these instructions are the same as those issued to officers to be engaged in a similar duty in England and Scotland; and, if not, what is the reason for issuing different instructions and regulations for Ireland?
    Colonel SEELY: The instructions issued to purchasers in Ireland differ in some respects from those issued to purchasers in the rest of the United Kingdom, because the surplus horse population in Ireland is so much larger than in the rest of the United Kingdom.

    COST OF RECRUITING (SURREY TERRITORIAL FORCE).
    Mr. HUNTasked whether the Surrey Territorial Force Association complained of the cost of recruiting, £741 to obtain 1,100 men; and whether he can see his way to introduce the bonus system instead of what is now to a great extent free refreshments for recruiters and recruited?
    Colonel SEELY: I have no knowledge of these figures. It is not proposed to take away from County Associations the discretion they now exercise in the conduct of expenditure on recruiting.
    Mr. HUNT: Is not the right hon Gentleman aware that alcoholic drinks are used, and does he not recognise that the system is a terrible discouragement to teetotalers?
    Colonel SEELY: I do not know. I am not aware of the general practice with regard to enlistment in the Army.
    Mr. HUNTasked the amount spent by each Territorial Association in obtaining recruits for the year 1912–13, and the number of recruits obtained by each association?
    Colonel SEELY: The information is not available at the War Office.

    MILITARY POLICE (RATES OF PAY AND HOURS OF DUTY.
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked what are the usual hours of duty of the military police; whether the military police receive, with the addition of their Army pay, a larger or smaller wage per hour than the members of the Metropolitan or county constabularies for carrying out similar duties; if larger how much
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    larger, and if smaller how little less; if he can say what the average pay per hour a non-commissioned officer carrying out military police duties receives in each rank; and whether members of the military police are in receipt of any of the extra benefits enjoyed by members of the civil police force, such as extra pay for good conduct and one day's rest in seven?
    Colonel SEELY: The usual hours of duty are five hours patrol (and stable duty in addition) for the military mounted police and six hours patrol for the military foot police. As regards their wages it would be impracticable to institute any proper comparison between the emoluments and benefits of the military and civil police.

    QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S IMPERIAL NURSING SERVICE (DANCING).
    Captain FABERasked whether printed forms have been issued and handed round to the Army nurses forbidding them to go to any dances in the stations they belong to, and that if they attended these dances they were not to dance; whether, if they did not obey this Order, they were to lose two months towards promotion; and whether these Orders also apply to Indian Army nurses?
    Colonel SEELY: Dancing is prohibited for the members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service except when on leave of absence and away from their stations. This Order was issued two years ago, and copies were duly distributed, but no other Order has been issued by the War Office on this subject. This has always been the rule for the Service. These Orders do not apply to the Indian Service.
    Captain FABER: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether that Order was issued on account of the "Turkey Trot" or the "Bunny Hug"?
    Colonel SEELY: No, Sir. I do not think so, because the Order was issued two years ago when these dances were, fortunately, not invented.
    Captain FABER: Why is there a different Order for the Indian and the English nurses?
    Colonel SEELY: That does not come within my province. I do not mean to say the Orders are different.

    TIDWORTH BARRACKS.
    Captain FABERasked what it cost to build the ten houses at Tidworth

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    barracks, known as New Terrace, and what the rent has been fixed at for each house; whether the huts, known as Staff Colony and at present occupied by officers, were the huts originally occupied by the workmen who built the barracks; what price was paid for these huts when taken over by the War Office; and what rents are charged to officers for single and double huts?
    Colonel SEELY: The estimated cost of the ten houses amounts to £10,450, and the rent has been fixed at 6 per cent. of the total capital cost of construction. The huts known as Staff Colony were originally occupied by the contractors' workmen, but were adapted by the firm for letting to officers. The War Department purchased these huts at a cost of £600, and are letting them to officers at £30 a year for a single, and £50 a year for a double hut.

    TERRITORTAL FORCE.
    Mr. SANDYSasked for the latest returns relative to the numbers of officers and men in the Territorial Force; and if he will state what were the numbers of the force at the corresponding period last year and what is the increase or decline shown?
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYalso asked what were the actual numbers of the strength of the Territorial Force, both for officers and non-commissioned officers and men, on May Day last?
    Colonel SEELY: The figures required are as follows:—

    Officers.

    N.C.O.'s and Men.

    1st May, 1912

    9,393

    266,130

    1st May, 1913

    9,307

    242,091

    showing decreases of 86 officers and 24,039 non-commissioned officers and men.
    Mr. SANDYS: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, may I ask him, as a matter of fact, whether the General Staff are still satisfied that the Territorial Force are able to fulfil the defence required?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot put highly controversial matters at Question Time. He will have an opportunity on the Estimates.

    ARMY PENSIONERS AND THE CIVIL SERVICE.
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked the Secretary for War whether he intends
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    to reopen negotiations with the Treasury with a view to obtaining their approval of the scheme recommended some time ago by the Army authorities to permit soldiers of good character, who leave the Army before they have qualified for a pension, to count their years of employment in the more perilous branch of His Majesty's service for pension if they afterwards obtain employment in the Civil Service of the State?
    Colonel SEELY: I regret that I am unable to add anything to the answers given to questions on this subject on 30th May, 1911.

  AIRCRAFT.

    ROYAL FLYING CORPS.
    Mr. SANDYSasked whether, in view of the official refusal to give any information whatever with reference to the number of aircraft in the possession of the War Department, it is now the policy of the Government to withhold all such information from the House of Commons; and, if so, on what grounds this decision has been arrived at?
    Colonel SEELY: It is not the custom to publish detailed statistics of the present strength of personnel or materiel of the British Army. I hope to make a general statement on Thursday.
    Mr. SANDYS: In view of the fact that it is the policy of the Government to withhold information as to the number of aircraft in possession of the War Department, are we to understand the figures the right hon. Gentleman gave the House on 19th March were not, as a matter of fact, correct?
    Colonel SEELY: It is the policy of the Government to withhold from the House no information that can properly be given to it, and I may say we have given more complete information to this House than has been given to the Assemblies in any foreign countries. The fullest information upon this and all other matters that can be given in the public interest will be given.
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman issue a Return before he makes a statement, giving in their different classes the aircraft of the country?
    Colonel SEELY: Yes, Sir. I am glad the question is asked, because I propose to issue a Paper giving the fullest information possible, and such information as we have in regard to aeronautics.

    Devonport Gunwharf (Unskilled Labourers).
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked whether the minimum wage of the unskilled labourer employed at His Majesty's Gunwharf, Devonport, is 22s. a week and that the minimum wage of the labourer in the adjoining dockyard will, on the 1st June, be 23s.; and will he consider the advisability of levelling up so that the minimum wage may be the same in both cases?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Harold Baker): Yes, Sir. The necessary action is being taken.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is the second time when a rise in pay has been given to labourers in His Majesty's Dockyards, that it has required a question to be put, to the War Minister from this side of the House before an equivalent rise has been granted to the labourers employed at His Majesty's Gunwharf. Can I have an answer?
    Mr. SPEAKER: If the question is important, the hon. Member can give notice of it. If it is not important, it does not require an answer.

    Criminal Code (India).
    Mr. MORRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he can say when the last of the replies from the local Governments as to the proposed amendment of the criminal code relating to confessions of guilt, with a view to stopping torture by the police, was received by the Government of India; and when he expects to receive from the Government of India any further information on this subject?
    Mr. MONTAGU: As regards the first part of the question, I am unable to give any precise date, but the replies of the local Governments were being considered by the Government of India on the 12th April last. As regards the last part, the Government of India hope to communicate their views this month.
    Mr. MORRELL: Will this question be treated as a separate question or will it merely be treated as part of the general Amendment of the criminal code, which I understand he proposes?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am afraid I do not know. The Government of India's report upon this subjection of confession will be sent home in a dispatch this month.

    Churches and Chapels (India).
    Mr. KINGasked (1) how many Anglican churches and chapels have been constructed since 1905 in India on sites wholly contributed by the Government of India, and how many on sites partially given or sold for an inadequate price by the Government of India; to what the total value of the land given in such cases amounts; whether such sites are in any cases conveyed outright to trustees or ecclesiastical bodies or persons, or whether the ownership remains vested in the Government of India; (2) how many churches and chapels in India of all denominations have received contributions towards their buildings, either by way of monetary grants or sites, since 1905; how many in the preceding eight years; what is the total value of the grants and sites for erecting these places of worship in the period since 1905, and in the previous eight years, respectively; whether it is the settled policy of the Government of India to encourage the erection of Christian places of worship with funds provided in most part by the non-Christian inhabitants of India; and (3) how many Anglican churches and chapels have been helped since 1905 in India as to their construction by grants of money; what is the total amount of such grants of money; and whether such grants have been paid out of the general revenues of India or out of special taxes or levies paid only by members of the Anglican church?
    Mr. MONTAGU: My hon. Friend is, I observe, not satisfied with the information which he derived from the statement furnished to him on the subject and has put a series of thirteen questions for different days on the Order Paper. I would suggest to him that this is not a convenient method of extracting the information he seeks. Most, if not all, of the facts he wants to know must be obtained from India. If, therefore, he will put down an unstarred question of an exhaustive nature the Secretary of State will consider how much information can be got for him from India.
    Mr. KING: Am I not entitled to consult my own convenience as well as the convenience of the India Office?
    Mr. MONTAGU: Of course! I only made the suggestion. With all respect to the hon. Member, I cannot give information about questions that have not yet been opened up, and it seems to me a very

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    inconvenient method of procedure to keep on sending letters to the Government of India.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is it not a fact that the Government of India have not spent money collected from the taxpayers of India of all classes on hospitals and schools, which the people of India do not build?
    Mr. MONTAGU: An answer to that question would involve me in controversy.
    Mr. KING: Will there be an opportunity of raising this question on the Indian Budget?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I think so.
    Mr. BOOTH: May I ask why my hon. Friend suggested an unstarred question?
    Mr. MONTAGU: In order that I might ask my Noble Friend the Secretary of State. If the hon. Member prefers to put a starred question, and then postpones it for a month, it comes to the same thing.
    Sir J. JARDINE: May I ask whether any buildings put up at the expense of the Indian taxpayers are then handed over to any one particular Christian community to the exclusion of all others?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I must ask my hon. Friend to put that on the Paper.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    SICK BENEFIT.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the opinion of the leading friendly society orders that sick pay should be paid from the first day of certified illness and that full sick pay, i.e., 10s. for males and 7s. 6d. for females, should be paid to all minors, he will include provisions to this effect in the forthcoming National Insurance Act amending Bill?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent. The cost of these two changes would involve an addition of about £1,200,000 a year to the burdens of the taxpayer.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the possibility of lengthening the period for paying back?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I doubt whether that can be done in connection with this matter, and the particular suggestions put forward by the hon. Member would involve a very considerable task.
    Mr. FREDERICK HALLasked whether it has been decided that the responsibility of determining whether insured persons who have reached a convalescent stage shall continue to receive sick benefit shall rest with the society concerned; and, if so, what steps will be taken, in the interests of other contributors and of employers, to secure that a uniform medical standard shall be adopted in such cases?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Under Section 14 (1) of the National Insurance Act the responsibility for administering the sickness benefit of its members and therefore of determining in the first instance whether a particular member is still incapable of work rests with the approved society. As the benefit is paid from the funds of the approved society itself, it has an obvious interest in administering the benefit properly and with sufficient safeguards.
    Mr. F. HALL: Is it not a rather dangerous practice to throw the onus of deciding as to convalescence on the approved society?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think the approved societies would be exceedingly angry if we took it away from them.
    Mr. F. HALL: Are they not in the position of not knowing how to administer the convalescent benefit? Will the right hon. Gentleman make it perfectly plain for their guidance what rule they should follow?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am quite sure the approved societies are quite conversant with their duty in this matter.

    MEDICAL BENEFIT.
    Mr. HUNTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to the fact that over 600 insured persons living at Woodbridge have been allocated to doctors living about six miles away; and what steps he proposes to take to provide these people with medical attendance within a reasonable distance?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have made inquiries about this matter, and I find that a scheme was drawn up by the medical

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    committee for adoption by the insurance committee providing for the allocation among three doctors living at Wickham Market of about 600 insured persons living at Woodbridge. Any insured person at Woodbridge could have chosen a Woodbridge doctor. I have reason to believe that the insurance committee are now considering an arrangement which will make the proposed allocation unnecessary.
    Major HOPEasked whether the whole of the special grant of £10,000 for medical benefit and service in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is to be expended for the benefit of insured persons only?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer is in the affirmative.

    AMENDING BILL.
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked if the right hon. Gentleman will indicate in what respects it is proposed during the present Session to amend the National Insurance Act; and whether, in view of the admitted hardship suffered by the agricultural community in consequence of the flat-rate system of premium payment, he will in the amending Bill so alter such system as to make the weekly contribution of agricultural labourers and their employers more closely correspond with the high health standard of the former and the relatively few claims made by them for sickness and medical benefit?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent. In reply to the second part of the question, I would point out, as I stated in reply to the hon. Member for Barkston Ash Division, on 27th November last, that if, as the question assumes, persons in agricultural districts enjoy superior health to those in other parts of the country, agricultural societies should on valuation show a substantial surplus, which will be available either for increasing the benefits or for paying a part of the contributions of their members.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that most agricultural labourers are in societies which are composed partly of rural and partly of town labourers, and under those circumstances is it not impossible to get their due without some amendment of the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As far as I know, any agriculturist could have joined or could now be transferred to purely rural societies.
    Mr. BOOTH: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that of the five principal benefits under the Act the cost of administering three of them is larger in agricultural districts than in the towns?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think that may be so, but I was very careful not to assume the premises of the question.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Does the right hon. Gentleman admit that fact?
    Mr. PETO: Is it not precisely in respect of agricultural wages that the benefits are nearer in proportion to weekly earnings, and, therefore, what is required is not additional benefits but reduced contributions?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Certainly a large number of agricultural labourers ought now to be paying reduced contributions.

    SANATORIUM BENEFIT.
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland what action he intends to take in the case of county councils in Scotland who are refusing to administer the sanatorium section of the Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed that the Scottish County Councils are in every case taking steps to provide accommodation for tuberculous insured persons under Section 64 of the National Insurance Act; but if the hon. Member will furnish me, with particulars of the cases to which he refers I shall be glad to make inquiry.

    UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
    Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the expressions of opinion from insured persons in Lincoln that the person appointed as chairman of the Court of Referees under Part II. of the National Insurance Act is not calculated to be an impartial chairman by virtue of his other activities; and' whether, in view of the advisability of the chairman of the Courts of Referees having the confidence of those concerned, he can take any action to meet the representations made?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Robertson): In making appointments to the

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    chairmanships of Courts of Referees, the Board of Trade carefully investigated the qualifications of candidates, with special reference to the essential need of impartiality. The usual procedure was followed in the case referred to by my hon. Friend, and I am satisfied that there is no good ground for reconsidering the appointment.

    VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTORS.
    Sir ARTHUR GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the Secretary to the Treasury the number of voluntary contributors under the National Insurance Act, the estimated number of persons qualified to become voluntary contributors, and the number estimated by the actuaries as likely to avail themselves of the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The number of voluntary contributors, according to the latest returns, is 20,500. With regard to the second and third parts of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave him on the 1st May.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Am I right in assuming that the number estimated by the actuary was 829,000, and the number qualified over two millions? Can the right hon. Gentleman say how it is that the actual number has fallen so far short of the estimate of the experts?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have no doubt the chief reason why the number is so much below the estimate of the actuary has been the campaign carried on against the Insurance Act

    NATIONAL AMALGAMATED APPROVED SOCIETY.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that out of the 3s. 8d. per annum per insured member allowed by the Government to approved societies for the expenses of managing the Act the National Amalgamated Approved Society only gives 1s. 4d. per annum per member as remuneration and expenses of superintendents, agents, and assistants; whether he is aware that as a result many of the supertendents are working at a loss; and whether the Insurance Commissioners can bring pressure on the National Amalgamated Approved Society to compel them to pay more adequate remuneration?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As I have several times stated in reply to similar questions,
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    the Commissioners have no power to interfere in the rates of remuneration paid to agents for such work as they do for the National Insurance Act in addition to their normal work, as this is a matter to be settled between the agents themselves and the societies employing them. The funds of the society are held for the benefit of the members, to whose advantage any saving due to economical administration accrues.

    ALIENS.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury what is being done to secure the due payment of benefits to those who, though aliens, were on 4th May, 1911, members of societies which have become approved and who had then been resident in the United Kingdom for five years; whether such a person may easily be deprived of his rights through not knowing the special provisions of Clause 45 of the National Insurance Act; and whether he will take steps to see that societies and aliens are informed of their true position in the matter?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The handbook to the Administration of Sickness and Maternity Benefits, which has been supplied to all approved societies, directs their special attention to the fact that the aliens referred to in the first part of the question should be given the same benefits as British subjects. In addition, a special circular to the same effect has been issued to societies, offering to supply forms to facilitate declarations by alien insured persons as to membership and residence.

    SHEFFIELD FORESTERS' COURT.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether the auditor who has audited the National Insurance Act accounts of the Foresters' Courts in the Sheffield district has objected to or declined to pass items in respect to sums paid to secretaries under resolutions adopted at meetings of State-insured members for services rendered under the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am not aware of any instance in the courts named of the precise kind specified in the question, but I am advised that where the secretary whose increase of remuneration is in question is at the same time a member of the committee proposing the increase, such increase cannot legally be made in the absence of a specific enabling rule.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into this specific case?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: My officials tell me that they know nothing of it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can give me some particulars: then I will inquire further.

    MATERNITY BENEFIT.
    Mr. GRETTONasked if cases of abuse have occurred in the use of money paid as maternity benefit under the National Insurance Act; and if there is any provision in the Act that the money shall be used for the case of maternity and not squandered for extraneous purposes while the woman is in want or neglected?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Very few cases of the kind referred to in the first part of the question have been brought to the notice of the Commissioners. Under Section 19 of the Act it is the duty of a husband who receives maternity benefit to make adequate provision, to the best of his power, for the maintenance and care of his wife during her confinement, and for a period of four weeks after her delivery, and if he neglects or refuses to do so he is liable, upon summary conviction, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding one month.

    Land Valuation.
    Mr. FITZROYasked if the right hon. Gentleman will explain the delay in making valuations on occasions arising within the meaning of Section 2 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910; and by what date the 353,473 cases remaining to be dealt with will be disposed of?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): In the initial stages when the original valuation of land as at 30th April, 1909, is not complete, some delay is unavoidable. It is in part due to the time which must necessarily elapse before the original site value of the land, on which the Increment Value Duty depends, becomes finally settled. Care is, however, taken to minimise inconvenience which might otherwise exist, by expediting the valuation in all urgent cases as fully as the circumstances permit. It is anticipated that the whole of the outstanding cases will be disposed of by April, 1915.

    Reversion Duty.
    Mr. FITZROYasked whether, on a claim arising for Reversion Duty, an independent valuation has to be made, and none of the values directed to be ascertained as at 30th April, 1909, under the provisions of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, apply; and whether, apart from arrears of Undeveloped Land Duty, the sum he has estimated to receive from Reversion Duty for the current year amounts to nearly one-half of the total sum estimated to be received from Land Value Duties?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The valuation necessary for purposes of Reversion Duty is an independent valuation made by reference to the circumstances existing at the date of the determination of the lease; it is, however, ascertained in the same manner as the total value as at 30th April, 1909. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

    Land Under Mortgage (Scotland).
    Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Secretary for Scotland the amount of land in Scotland under mortgage and the amount which is held by corporations, banks, or associations of any description?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I regret that the information desired by my hon. Friend is not available.

    Prison Service (Scotland).
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the vacant clerkships in the Scottish prison service which were recently advertised represent a new rank in the service; whether the institution of this rank will bar the way to promotion for the present store warders; whether a store warder may be appointed a clerk; and whether any age limit has been fixed for candidates for clerkships which will prevent store warders who are over the ago of thirty from being promoted to be clerks?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the clerkships represent the revival of a former post, not the establishment of a new one. The present store warders are not excluded from the possibility of promotion if they can pass the examination, are otherwise suitable, and are not over forty years of age.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked what is the objection to promoting store warders in the Scottish prisons to be clerks instead of advertising for candidates for the new rank of prison clerks?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Experience has satisfied the Prison Commissioners that it is not in the interests of the public service expedient to confine clerical appointments to a class whose training has not as a rule been such as to qualify them for the conduct of the business side of prison administration; and this is the reason for the change proposed.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that in the English prison service these duties are performed by the same person?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: There is a considerable difference between the English and Scotch prisons.
    Mr. WATT: Are the store warders giving satisfaction as clerks?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I think my last answer has dealt with that point.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the maximum wage for store warders in the Scottish prisons is now £110, together with allowances amounting to £15 7s. per annum; whether the maximum wage for the new rank of prison clerks is £140 per annum; whether in the English prisons the duties now apportioned between prison clerks and prison store warders in Scotland are performed by one rank, namely, the clerk and school master rank; and whether he will take steps to obtain for the Scottish prison staff the same advantages in this respect as are enjoyed by the English prison staff?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The answers to the first and second parts of my hon. Friend's question are in the affirmative, except that he has apparently overlooked the existence of a class of head store warders with maximum salary of £150 and allowances valued at £23 18s. I regret I cannot enter into comparisons between the relative scales and duties in the English and Scottish prison service in view of the diversity of conditions.
    Mr. WATT: Is not the principle of the right hon. Gentleman to advance the servants already in the employment of the Department instead of embarking upon new assistants?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have explained in the answer I have given what the complaint was.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the store warders in Scottish prisons have to work twenty-nine hours more per fortnight than warders employed in clerical duties in English prisons; whether in English prisons promotion from Grade II. to Grade I. in the clerk and schoolmaster rank is automatic on reaching the maximum in Grade I., while in Scottish prisons the promotion of store warders from Class II. to Class I. is by selection; and whether he proposes to take any steps to place the Scottish and English prison staffs on an equal footing in this respect?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I must remind my hon. Friend that the English and the Scottish Prison services are separate and distinct, and that while the Scottish Prison Commissioners, of course, watch developments in the English service, they administer their own Department with a view not to identity of conditions in England and Scotland, but to the efficiency of the service in Scotland. I regret I cannot enter into the detailed comparisons between English and Scottish conditions referred to in the question. It is not proposed to take action as suggested.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it is detrimental to the public interest in Scotland that officials performing similar duties should have much better terms in England than in Scotland?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I do not admit that that is so.
    Mr. WATT: I give notice that I shall call attention to this matter on the Scottish Estimates.

    Land Court Congestion (Scotland).
    Captain WARINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that, owing to the congested state of business in the Land Court, an applicant for resumption of his holding in Gamrie parish, Banffshire, was unable to have his case dealt with before the term of Whit Sunday, that he has not yet got entry to his farm, and that he has difficulty in providing for his family, stock, and implements; and whether he proposes to take any steps to, secure the overtaking of arrears of work now accumulated in the Land Court in

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    order that a case of this kind may be promptly dealt with?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am informed that the delay in the case referred to is due not to any congestion of business, but to the necessity of reasonable notice to the tenant in possession before he can be asked to quit the holding.
    Captain WARINGasked whether, in view of the congested state of business in the Land Court, he will consider the expediency of delegating some of the judges of the Court of Session to assist in overtaking the work?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The work at the beginning of a new system necessarily leads to extra pressure, and it is too early to allege congestion in the business of the Land Court. The course suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend is not a competent one.
    Captain WARING: In view of the state of business in the Scottish Courts, does the right hon. Gentleman not think it would be well if some of the judges of the Court of Session were employed to overtake the arrears of work in the Land Court?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: That is not their business, and you could not put that business upon them without special legislation. As to the state of business in the Scottish Courts, I could not reply without notice.
    Mr. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the Land Court the judges say they have constantly to go through the work twice, instead of once?

    Small Holdings (Scotland).
    Mr. CATHCART WASONasked if there are any definite instructions laid down with reference to buildings that might be required for a small holding; and, if so, will he make them public?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: No definite instructions have been laid down by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland with reference to such buildings, but all plans for them require to receive the approval of the Board.
    Mr. C. WASON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether an iron or wooden building is considered sufficient, or will it be necessary to have stone or brick?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I think it will depend upon circumstances.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the number of new small holdings which have been created in the crofting counties and the Lowland counties of Scotland, respectively, as distinct from schemes of land settlement in respect of which the Board of Agriculture have applied to the Land Court, since the coming into force of the Small Landholders Act in April of last year?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: In the crofting counties twenty-eight new holdings and six enlargements, and in the rest of Scotland six new holdings, have been formed by agreement with the help of the Board's funds and without the Board going to the Land Court for an Order. I have no information as to holdings formed voluntarily outside the Act.
    Mr. HOGGEasked what proportion of the £206,000 which is annually at the disposal of the Scottish Board of Agriculture was spent last year in the setting up of new small holdings in Scotland?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The whole of the money available is practically appropriated for schemes in hand, though, in the circumstances of the case, the amount actually expended is necessarily small.
    Mr. WATT: May I ask whether, if this £206,000 is not utilised in one year, it is carried forward to another year or whether it is lost?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Oh, yes, certainly, and part of the £206,000 has gone to other general purposes of agriculture.
    Sir J. JARDINE: May I ask whether a larger portion of the sum may not in future be appropriated to the Small Holdings Act for providing more sub-inspectors and otherwise?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Yes, the greater part is devoted to that purpose, and I hope that we shall be allowed to appoint more sub-inspectors soon.
    Mr. HOGGEasked what sums, in addition to the salaries of the commissioner and sub-commissioners of small holdings, who are paid by the Treasury, were spent last year in investigating the claims and circumstances of applicants for small holdings?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: It is not possible to give this figure; the items cannot be precisely differentiated.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether His Majesty's Government agree with the Report of the Scottish Board of Agriculture that the demand for land settlement is far in excess of the present resources of the fund at the disposal of the Board; and whether he has approached the Treasury with a view to securing an additional Grant for the purpose of carrying out the objects of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I believe the fact is as stated in the Report, and the question referred to is engaging my attention.
    Mr. WATT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has actually approached the Treasury?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: No, Sir; it is not usual to make a statement in that form.
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether the Scottish Board of Agriculture are of opinion that the issue of four explanatory leaflets and the occasional visits of the commissioner and sub-commissioners of small holdings form the most effective means of popularising the Small Landholders Act, especially in the Lowland counties of Scotland; and whether, in view of the admitted success of the methods employed to popularise the National Insurance Act, similar methods will be adopted to make the Act known and understood in those counties?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The best advertisement is the successful establishment of small holdings. I do not think that the case of the Insurance Act is analogous. Applications are still coming in in considerable numbers.

    School Inspectors (Scotland).
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked for the names of His Majesty's inspectors of schools for Scotland; whether he can say how many of them are honours men in classics, English, or mathematics; and whether he can give the total number of schools which each visited during the last complete school year?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The names of His Majesty's inspectors of schools in Scotland are given on page 76 of the official publication, of which I am sending a copy to my hon. Friend. Of the twenty-eight members of that grade, including chief inspectors, thirteen are honours men
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    in classics, nine in mathematics and natural science, one in mental and moral science, and one in philosophy. Some have taken honours in more than one subject. The information asked for in the concluding part of the question could not be obtained without the expenditure of considerable time and trouble, and, if published, would be likely to have a misleading effect, owing to the varying circumstances of the several inspection districts.

    Midlothian County Council.
    Major HOPEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he has received a letter from the Midlothian County Council requesting that in future the title "county of Midlothian" may be used by all Government Departments in connection with all local government affairs pertaining to the county; and whether, especially as confusion in business has sometimes been caused by different Government Departments using the different names county of Midlothian and county of Edinburgh, he can see his way to grant this request of the local authority chiefly concerned?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I shall be glad to communicate the wish of the county council to other Government Departments and so far as possible to give effect to it in the Scottish Office. I must, however, point out that in some eases the county is described as Edinburgh or Edinburghshire in Acts of Parliament, and in proceedings under those Acts it may be necessary to adhere to the statutory style.
    Major HOPE: Would it not be possible by any means to arrange that the county should be known entirely as the county of Midlothian?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: It would be possible by amending the Act, but it is a question whether it is worth the expenditure and the time.

    Ceylon (Government Officials).
    Sir HERBERT ROBERTSasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the order recently issued by the Ceylon Government prohibiting Government officials from being members of temperance societies unless sanction has been first obtained from the head of the department concerned, which sanction is to be absolutely withheld from headmen;

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    whether he is aware that the headmen are usually either Buddhists or Mahomedans, and that their religion enjoins abstinence and regards the teaching of temperance as a sacred duty; whether the adherents of both these religious creeds view this prohibition as an unjustifiable interference with liberty of conscience, and have stated that if persisted in it will destroy the village temperance societies throughout the island; and whether, seeing that temperance in Ceylon is a religious and social and not a political question, he will cancel this new rule and restore freedom of action to these Government officials?
    Mr. CHARLES ROBERTSasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a circular has been officially issued to Government servants in Ceylon under which any public servant who wishes to join a total abstinence society or temperance society must first obtain the consent of the head of his department, and public servants in any case are not to be allowed to take part in the management or public meetings of such societies, and administrative officers such as headmen are not to be allowed to join; and, if so, whether he can account for this official discouragement of temperance?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I am awaiting a dispatch on this subject from the officer administering the Government for Which I have asked; after its arrival shall consider the whole question and will acquaint the hon. Members with my decision.
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has power to cancel this rule?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I rather fancy I have power to cancel any rule.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: Will my right hon. Friend consider the propriety of suspending the operation of this circular, which is immediately applicable to temperance societies until he and the House has had an opportunity of considering the matter?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I really do not think it would be right for me to suspend anything until I have information from the officers administering the Government.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman obtain that information by cable, seeing that injury is being done
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    daily so long as the circular is in operation?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have called for the information, but I think the reply will come by mail.

    Holyrood Palace.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he can say why the Premier of South Australia, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, the Hon. L. O'Loughlin, were refused admission to Holyrood Palace on Saturday, 17th May, although sent by the right hon. the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and accompanied by an official of his lordship in uniform; whether they were informed that permission could only be obtained by written consent of the First Commissioner of Works; and whether steps can be taken to secure that in the future the Lord Provost of Edinburgh may be protected from similar indignity?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): The First Commissioner has ascertained that these gentlemen were refused admission by the resident inspector of the Lord Chamberlain. The inspector is not authorised to admit visitors on his own responsibility. The First Commissioner wishes to point out that this regrettable occurrence would have been avoided had some previous intimation been given either to the Lord Chamberlain or to the Office of Works of the desire of these distinguished visitors to visit Holyrood as was done when the same party desired to visit Windsor.
    Mr. WATT: Has the First Commissioner corresponded with Mr. O'Loughlin apologising for this treatment of him?
    Mr. W. BENN: No. I think the mistake was made by those who advised Mr. O'Loughlin to visit Holyrood without the necessary permission.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: If he was not allowed to see the rooms, why was he not allowed to see the precincts of the house?
    Mr. W. BENN: The representative of the Office of Works in Edinburgh would himself have accompanied these distinguished visitors to Holyrood had he known they desired to visit it, but Holy-rood is now closed, because in the present circumstances that is considered wise.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Tell this Jack in office to behave himself.

    House of Parliament (Ventilation).
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked whether the recent experiments with the Ozonair system of ventilation in the Ladies' Gallery are considered as satisfactory as the same system has apparently proved to be in the Government House, Ottawa, and elsewhere; and, if so, if there is any likelihood of the oppressive air in this House being treated in a similar way by the Ozonair process in the near future?
    Mr. W. BENN: The ventilation of the Ladies' Gallery has been improved by the experiments which have been made and by the opening of fresh air inlets. The First Commissioner does not propose to introduce the Ozonair system in the Chamber itself.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is there any reason why ladies should not be admitted to the ordinary Strangers' Gallery?
    Mr. W. BENN: That question has been raised before, but I do not think it arises out of the question on the Paper.

    Board of Trade Sight Tests.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to a memorial signed by thirty leading ophthalmologists who are of opinion that the sight tests of the Board of Trade are not satisfactory; and, if so, whether he will now reconsider the whole question of these tests?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: My attention has been drawn to a statement published in a medical journal to which the hon. Member presumably refers. Careful consideration will be given to these and any other criticisms, but as at present advised, I do not think that they disclose any sufficient ground for reopening the question of the tests.
    Mr. PETOasked whether, in respect to officers holding certificates who have been requested by the Board of Trade voluntarily to surrender their certificates through failing to pass the Board of Trade tests in either colour or form vision, the Board of Trade are contemplating taking further action in this matter; and, if so, in what way?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: If any of the officers to whom the hon. Member refers are unwilling to surrender their certificates the
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    Board of Trade will have no alternative but to order in due course inquiries, under the provisions of Section 471 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, into their competency to hold the certificates.

    Merchant Shipping Acts.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade, whether any representations have been made to him by the stipendiary magistrate at Hull to the effect that there is only one Board of Trade official for Hull and Goole to see that ships are not overloaded in those ports; and, if so, whether he is taking any steps in regard to same?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): No such representations have been made to me by the stipendiary magistrate at Hull. There are seven Board of Trade officials at Hull and Goole available to deal with survey work, and I have no reason to believe that the staff is not sufficient to see that ships are not overloaded at these ports.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee is so constituted as to represent the interests principally affected in the making or altering of any Rules, Regulations or scales for the purpose of the Merchant Shipping Acts; if so, whether there are any representatives of the travelling public on this Committee; and, if not, whether he will consider the desirability of such representatives on the Committee?
    Mr. BUXTON: The Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee is constituted, in accordance with the provisions of Section 79 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, of persons who represent the interests principally affected by Rules, Regulations and scales under the Merchant Shipping Acts, or who have special knowledge of the subject matter. When the time comes for reappointing the Committee, its constitution will be considered.

    Whaling Steamer "Scotia."
    Mr. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade if he has received any information that will enable him to state whether the whaling steamer "Scotia," fitted out by the British Government in conjunction with some of the principal steamship lines, has returned to St. John's, Newfoundland; whether he has

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    official information showing that the vessel is unsuited to the duties to which she was appointed by reason of the following defects: that she is unseaworthy and has insufficient engine power; that her wireless equipment is incapable of communicating with vessels on the southern ocean track; that she cannot carry sufficient coal to enable her to make a prolonged cruise for the purpose of surveying those portions of the ocean where field-ice is to be expected; and that the scientific members of her staff are seriously hampered in their work by her want of stability which prevents proper work being done with scientific instruments; whether he will state the amount of the expenditure in connection with the ship to the latest available date; and what share of it is borne by the British Government?
    Mr. BUXTON: The "Scotia" left St. John's, Newfoundland, on the 23rd April, and has just returned to that port, so that she has been at sea continuously for over five weeks, engaged in carrying out her duties in reporting ice. The vessel is perfectly seaworthy, and I have no reason to believe that she is unsuited for the purposes for which she was intended. As regards her wireless equipment, I would point out that it was not proposed that she should communicate with vessels on the southern ocean track, but that she should be in communication with the land wireless stations on the coast of Newfoundland or Labrador, whence the information received is disseminated. A number of valuable reports in relation to the ice which is approaching the steamship routes have been received from the "Scotia" The expenditure on the ship up to the 7th May is approximately £6,725. Half the cost of the expedition is being paid by His Majesty's Government.

    Railway Companies (Staff and Wages).
    Mr. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade if it is proposed to issue any summary or digest of the Return on Railway Companies (Staff and Wages), No. 116, of this Session, issued recently; and whether it is customary for his Department to supply to Members of the House of Commons a mass of undigested statistics such as that Return undoubtedly is?
    Mr. BUXTON: The form of this Return was determined by the fact that it was
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    drawn up to take the place of certain entries originally inserted in Committee in the Bill which became the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act, 1911. The Return is not designed for statistical purposes. It is intended to give certain facts relating to each company, and any general summary might be quite misleading. The actual form of the Return was adopted at the instance of the Stationery Office, in order to save expense.

    Agriculture (Earnings and Hours of Labour).
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Board of Trade sent out forms of inquiry in March last to those who supplied the Board with the information published in the Report on Earnings and Hours of Labour in 1907, Part V., Agriculture; whether such forms deal only with cash wages paid to ordinary agricultural labourers, and omit all reference to the cash value of other earnings, allowances for overtime, piece-work earnings, value of cottages, etc., and to other classes of persons employed in agriculture; whether some farmers have refused to fill in the forms in consequence of the misleading nature of the information asked for; why such partial information, lacking in essential details, was asked for; and whether he will at once take steps to have the Report of 1907 brought up to date by issuing a fresh full form of inquiry and publishing the result?
    Mr. BUXTON: The inquiries sent out last March were annual inquiries intended principally to ascertain changes in cash rates of wages. I am well aware of the extra earnings and the allowances in kind of farm labourers, and when the elaborate inquiry made in 1907 is repeated full attention will again be given to such additions to the nominal cash rates. If the hon. Member will call at the Board of Trade, the various ways in which agricultural wages and earnings are ascertained will be fully explained to him.
    Mr. PETO: In view of the great interest taken in this question in all parts of the House, does not the right hon. Gentleman see the advisability of bringing the complete and entire statistics for agricultural wages up to a more recent date than 1907?
    Mr. BUXTON: I will consider the matter, but I am afraid it would mean expense.

    Cadeby Colliery Explosion.
    Mr. HANCOCKasked the Home Secretary whether the Government has rendered, or proposes to render, any financial assistance to the widows and children of the three mines inspectors who were killed at the recent Cadeby Colliery explosion; and, if so, what amounts have been or are proposed to be given?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT ((Mr. McKenna): The following awards were made by the Treasury: In the case of Mr. Pickering, a gratuity of £788, and a pension of £150 a year to Mr. Pickering's widow; in the case of Mr. Hewitt, a gratuity of £479, a pension of £86 to Mr. Hewitt's widow, and a gratuity of £22 in respect of his two children. The third inspector was unmarried.

    Police Rest-Day.
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked whether all counties and county boroughs in England and Wales have now followed the example of the Home Office and taken advantage of their powers to give all constables and police officers one day's rest in seven; and, if not, which counties and county boroughs are procrastinating in carrying out this desirable form?
    Mr. McKENNA: In order to provide for the difficulties of recruiting, Parliament allowed county boroughs till July, 1914, to bring the Act into force. I have not at present information as to how far the weekly rest-day has been granted, but it is being collected, and, when it is complete, I shall be glad to communicate the results to the House.

    Kew Gardens (Suffragist Outrage).
    Mr. F. HALLasked if the Home Office has any information as to the whereabouts of Miss Lenton, who was charged in connection with the burning of the refreshment house at Kew Gardens and released on his instructions; and if it is proposed to take any further proceedings in the matter?
    Mr. McKENNA: The answer to the first question is in the negative, and to the second in the affirmative.

    Clyde and Forth Canal.
    Mr. PETOasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether an application has been received by the Development Commissioners from the executive of the Ship
    784
    Canal National Association for Glasgow and the West for a Grant of £3,000 to defray the expenses of employing civil engineers to make surveys and prepare estimates of the cost of constructing a direct sea-level canal between the Clyde and the Forth; and whether this Grant will be made from the Development Fund?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: An application of this nature wars received by the Treasury a few days ago, and has been forwarded to the Scottish Office for transmission to the Development Commission, in accordance with the provisions of the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act. Until the Commissioners have reported to the Treasury, I am unable to say whether the application will be granted.

    Board of Trade (Second Secretary).
    Mr. F. HALLasked the Secretary to the Treasury the additional annual cost, if any, involved in the appointment of a Second Secretary to the Board of Trade; whether such expenditure is specifically provided for in the Estimates for the present year; if the approval of the Treasury was required to the appointment; if so, whether the Treasury is satisfied that the work of the Board justified the addition to the establishment; whether the Treasury recently vetoed an appointment of the Welsh Insurance Commission, after open competition, because the person appointed could not speak an almost dead language; and, if so, why in this case the Treasury did not veto the appointment on the much stronger ground of the relationship between the head of the Department and Mr. Barnes, which might be likely to prejudice the question of merit?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The approval of the Treasury was required to the creation of the post of Second Secretary at the Board of Trade. The Treasury was satisfied that the work of the Board justified the appointment. No specific provision for the post is made in the Estimates for the current year. The salary of the post is, however, the same as that of which the officer appointed was already in receipt in his previous post, which is not being filled up. There is thus no actual increase of cost, except about £500 a year in connection with certain other Board of Trade appointments made simultaneously. The Treasury have never vetoed an appointment on the ground that the candidate could not speak an almost dead language.
    Mr. F. HALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the case of the applicant who was passed as responsible but who was told, because he could not speak the Welsh language, he could not be appointed, although subsequently another applicant who did not speak Welsh was appointed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the hon. Gentleman defines Welsh as an almost dead language he had better go down to Wales.

    Town-Planning Schemes.
    Sir ARTHUR GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the President of the Local Government Board how many town-planning schemes have been finally approved by the Board under the provisions of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909; and whether the Board has yet made and issued any general regulations with regard to the preparation of town-planning schemes under Section 56 of the Act?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD ((Mr. Burns): The Birmingham (Quinton, etc.) scheme has been finally approved. Three other schemes (East Birmingham, Rochdale, and Ruislip-Northwood) have been made by the local authorities and submitted to the Local Government Board for approval. Many other schemes which the Board have authorised to be prepared are now in course of preparation by the local authorities concerned. The Local Government Board have made regulations under Section 56 of the Act of 1909 for regulating generally the procedure with regard to the preparation of town-planning schemes. Section 55 (to which, perhaps, the hon. Member intended to refer) also enables the Board to prescribe general provisions to take effect as part of schemes, and he will find on page XXX. of the Board's Annual Report for 1911–12 a statement of the reasons why such provisions have not yet been prescribed. The reasons, I may say, still hold good.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Is it a fact that up to date only one town-planning scheme under this Act has been approved Can the right hon. Gentleman give the reason for this extraordinary delay in putting this Act into operation?
    Mr. BURNS: No, it is not true as the hon. Gentleman suggests. One scheme has been finally approved, three are before the Board awaiting final approval, and fifty others are in process of approval
    786
    Altogether 150 towns and cities are making town-planning schemes.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Have not these fifty been a, long time in progress? Does the delay rest with the Local Government Board?
    Mr. BURNS: On the contrary, those most competent to judge are under the impression that with so many interests involved, there are occasions when more haste leads to delay.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Who does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "those most competent to judge"?
    Mr. BURNS: Those competent to judge are Mr. Raymond Unwin and the Professor of Town Planning at Liverpool University.

    Anti-Vaccination League (Small-Pox Virus).
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the statement made at the public meetings recently held in the Kingston Union by a representative of the Anti-Vaccination League that small-pox virus had been taken from small-pox patients at Glasgow, Middlesbrough, and West Ham hospitals, and, at the latter place, it had also been taken from dead bodies in the postmortem room, has been brought to his notice and is correct; and, if so, for what purpose this small-pox virus was used; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. BURNS: The experiments referred' to were made some years ago and were described in a Paper which was read before the Royal Society in November, 1902. It was stated in the Paper that all the glycerinated emulsion produced had been destroyed. I propose to take no action in the matter.

    Vaccination (Exemptions).
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board, whether he can state the total increase or decrease in the number of adults and infants vaccinated in each year from 1900 to 1912, and the number of exemptions granted in each year in the case of infants, and the percentage of exemptions in each year; and whether he now proposes to issue a general Order to boards of guardians that, by fees for exemptions or by fixed salaries, the salaries of vaccination officers hall be made up to the average earnings received

    787
    in the years 1903 to 1907, and that the losses they have already sustained by the operation of the Vaccination Act, 1907, shall be paid to them?
    Mr. WATT: How many questions is an hon. Member entitled to ask? There are ten down in the name of the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Mr. Peto).
    Mr. SPEAKER: This is the eighth question, after that the hon. Member must wait.
    Mr. BURNS: I am sending to the hon. Member a table giving, so far as it is available, the information asked for in the first part of the question. In regard to the latter part of the question I may say that the circumstances of the different cases vary to such an extent that they could not be satisfactorily dealt with by general Order.

    Vehicles (Lighting-Up Time).
    Mr. GRETTONasked the right hon. Gentleman if lighting-up time for traction-engines on high roads and for motor-cars is fixed at different times under separate Acts; and, as this has led to infractions owing to misapprehensions of the law, is there any reason why the lighting-up time for all vehicles should not be the same; and if he will consider the matter?
    Mr. BURNS: Under Section 5 of the Locomotives Act, 1898, traction-engines on highways are required to carry lights from sunset to sunrise during the winter months. For the rest of the year the hours during which lights are required on these vehicles are the same as those applicable to motor-cars. Legislation would be required to effect a change.

    Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether no building grants have been given to Hugh Brosnan or Maurice Kelliher, evicted tenants on the estate of the late Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, in the parish of Tuogh, near Killorglin; and whether, in view of the fact that at the time of the purchase negotiations these tenants were promised small building grants and a share of bog, he will request the Estates Commissioners to make the necessary inquiries with a view to secure to these tenants building grants, such as have been granted to other evicted tenants, and grants for stocking their land?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The Estates Commissioners are unable from the particulars given to identify the cases referred to in the question.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. BOLANDasked whether the tenants on the M'Gillicuddy estate, near Killorglin, who purchased their holdings, have been paying interest at 4 per cent. since 1903; the cause of the delay in securing a reduction in the annuity to the tenants; and, if entitled to a decadal reduction, when will the tenants secure this?
    Mr. BIRRELL: This estate is the subject of proceedings for sale direct by the owner to the tenants, and purchase agreements signed by the latter were lodged with the Estates Commissioners in 1906. In their agreements the tenants contracted to pay interest in lieu of rent at the rate of 4 per cent. on the purchase money of their holdings. The estate will be dealt with during the present financial year, and the Commissioners' requisitions have been issued to the solicitors having carriage of sale.
    Mr. HAYDENasked whether the Congested Districts Board have taken or intend to take any steps to acquire Creggane farm upon the Kyle estate, situated in the parish of Moore, county Roscommon, for distribution amongst the occupiers of uneconomic holdings on that estate, recently acquired by the Board; and whether the Board will consider the advisability of at once acquiring this farm, in view of the urgent need for land for the purpose of the enlargement of holdings upon the estate and in view of the further fact that the occupier is in possession of eight other farms, having an acreage of over 3,000?
    Mr. BIRRELL: When considering the question of purchasing the Kyle estate, the Congested Districts Board decided that it would be necessary for them to exercise their power to secure possession of the farm referred to, and they intend to take the necessary steps accordingly when they are the legal owners of the estate.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. HAYDENasked whether, through the action of the Local Government Board, P. Farrell, of Ballingari, Castlerea, county Roscommon, was deprived of an old age pension after having

    789
    had it for twelve months, notwithstanding the fact that he was fully qualified for it and that it was restored to him after two years; and whether, in view of the absolute qualification, there is any method by which this man can be paid the back pension that was wrongfully stopped from him?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Patrick Farrell's case came before the Local Government Board on appeal in January, 1912, when they allowed a pension of 5s. a week. The Board have no information as to his being deprived of a pension previously. In any case there is no statutory authority for payment of a pension for any period during which it has been stopped in consequence of the decision of a pension authority.

    Lords of Appeal.
    Mr. WATTasked the amount of public money paid annually in pensions to Lords of Appeal who are qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and what is the number of such Lords?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Pensions of £3,750 each are drawn by two former Lords of Appeal.
    Mr. WATTasked the amount of public money paid annually in salaries to Lords of Appeal who are qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and what is the number of such Lords?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The salaries drawn by the Lords of Appeal, of whom there are four, amount to £24,000.

    Butlocks Heath School.
    Captain FABERasked the President of the Board of Education how many children are now absent from Butlocks Heath school; for how many weeks the dispute has lasted; and whether he means to take action against those parents who refuse to allow their children to attend school; and, if so, when?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): My right hon. Friend is informed that the number of children of school age who have ceased to attend this school is seventy-seven. The withdrawals from the school began in the second week in April. The enforcement of attendance at school in cases where children are not
    790
    under efficient instruction in some other manner is a matter for the local education authority.
    Captain FABER: Has not part of the confusion in this school arisen from the fact that the sexes are mixed up?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I would ask for notice of that question.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Will the hon. Gentleman make some inquiry into the condition of the school for the information of Members of this House?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I believe the local education authority is watching the matter very carefully, and there are reasons for not interfering at this moment.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Has not an inquiry been asked for by the parents who have had to take their children away from this school?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I cannot say.
    Mr. KING: Has one of His Majesty's inspectors been asked to report upon this school?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: We have a certain amount of information from our inspectors.
    Mr. KING: Will the hon. Gentleman press for a distinct and full report upon the difficulties that have arisen?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I will ask my right hon. Friend.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    TURKISH "DREADNOUGHTS."
    Captain FABERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has made any attempt to buy the Turkish "Dreadnoughts" now in course of construction in this country; and whether he can make any statement concerning those ships?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to his former statements on this subject.
    Captain FABER: Is it a fact that the first instalment on these ships has been paid?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot answer that.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what business will be taken to-day, and has the Government any intention of putting down Vote 8 of the Navy Estimates in addition to the other Navy Votes tomorrow?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I understand that is the Dockyard Vote?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If that is desired we shall certainly do so, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to assist us to get the Report stage formally, because it is important that we should get the money.
  With regard to to-day, we do not propose to go beyond the second Order on the Paper—the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Bill.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when it is proposed to take the Sir Stuart Montagu Samuel Indemnity Bill?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, Sir.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: When is it now proposed to take the Milk and Dairies Bill?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Never.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I cannot give an answer at the present moment.

BILL PRESENTED.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES FIRE BRIGADES BILL.
  "To empower local authorities to recover from insurance companies and owners of property the expenses of the attendance of fire engines and fire brigades at fires whether within or without their districts, and to make charges for such attendance." Presented by Sir THOMAS ROE; supported by Sir Luke White, Mr. Pretyman Newman, and Mr. Raffan; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, lith June, and to be printed.[Bill 189.]

LOCAL AUTHORITIES ADDITIONAL POWERS (RATING).
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, "That leave be given to introduce a Bill to confer additional powers of rating upon local authorities."
I do not think it is necessary for me to apologise to the House for taking the opportunity, upon a day when we are discussing a lot of small Bills, of introducing a Bill of the importance of the one I have in my hand. It is a short Bill, and seeks to give to local authorities two distinct powers. In the first place, they are to have the power of requiring the officials of Somerset House to supply them with the valuations made under the Budget of 1909–10, and with any subsequent revisions of the valuations that may hereafter be made, either upon the occasion or if revision is made a necessary part of the valuation. The local authorities, whether county councils or borough councils, will have supplied to them what is described in the valuation as the full site value of each hereditament, and, having got the valuation, they will, in effect, add that as a new column to the already existing rate book, so that the local authority will have there the name of the occupier of each hereditament, the position of that hereditament in each particular street, the annual value of that hereditament as at present, the annual value of the land and the building together, and, in the new column, the full site value of the hereditament. The local authority, having that information, is then given power by the second Clause in the Bill to levy rates, not as they must at the present time upon the annual value of the land and building together, but in such proportion as they choose between the annual value of the land and building together and the full site value. The local authority will be free to make such changes as it thinks fit, or no change at all. It can continue to levy the rates on the present annual value of the land and building together, or can transfer the claim for the rates to the fell site value. They can carry out that transference by gradually increasing stages in subsequent years. We merely give them the opportunity of levying such of their rates as they think fit upon the new assessment. This is not an opportunity for local authorities to go into extravagant schemes and raise more money. We merely provide them with an opportunity of levying their rates

803
upon the new basis should they desire to do so, and levying such proportion as they desire to charge.
The object of this Bill is to exempt improvements from rating, and to get the local authorities, either at one step or gradually, to carry out this change, which we believe nearly all the Members of the Liberal and Labour parties desire—a change, moreover, which, although not approved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), already has the approval of many hon. Members on the other side of the House. It is common ground between us that the present system of rating improvements penalises improvements, hinders trade and checks opportunities for employment. It is with the object of doing what we can to free the hands of local authorities, so that they can gradually and progressively cease to levy rates upon improvements, that we desire this Bill should pass into law. There has recently been published an admirable book upon this question by Mr. Harold Storey. I think that book has been sent to all Liberal and Labour Members. I hope they will read that book. If they do, it will show them far more clearly than I can in the ten minutes at my disposal the arguments in favour of this change in the basis of rating. The Committee over which the Lord Advocate presided some four years ago recommended this change, but since that time nothing has been done legislatively to effect this change. We have had, thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a valuation made of the land of this country, and in that full site value we have the basis upon which this change can be built up. A time of flourishing trade with our industries and businesses, a time when employment, is easily to be obtained, that is the time we should pay most attention to arranging conditions, so that when slack times come again there will be opportunities for employment, and trade will not fall off as it would do normally. If you allow local authorities to exempt improvements from rates, you will do the very best stroke of work towards securing permanence of work. I passed through Macclesfield the other day, and at the station I saw a large advertisement saying that the town offered to allow all manufacturers who owned a large factory in Macclesfield to be rate free for a period of years. They might put up their factory and they would not be rated for it for a period of
804
years. If you go to Northampton, you will see a similar notice. The local municipality offers special attractions to people who put up new factories in that town. It has always seemed to me that these exemptions for new industries were rather unfair to the old industries, and that though there are countless arguments in favour of exempting new factories from the burden of the rates, those arguments are just as sound as applied to old, existing factories as to new factories.
With this Bill passed into law, a local authority will be able to exempt all buildings, all factories, and all improvements from local rates, and in that way they will do something to encourage the opening up of new industries and opportunities of fresh employment for the people living in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the rates which are remitted from the buildings and improvements will have to be made up elsewhere. The local authorities will invite to the ranks of the ratepayers certain parties who are at present not contributing to the rates. The owners of empties will be invited to contribute to the rates for the first time. The owners of undeveloped building land, whether they are holding the land up for a higher price or in order to preserve the view from their front windows, will be invited to join the ranks of the ratepayers for the first time. The owners of undeveloped minerals will likewise join the rank of the ratepayers. These people will make up for the remission of the rates upon buildings, factories, and improvements. I want the House to understand clearly that this is not a case of putting any additional burden upon property owners as a whole. The property owners in any district will pay exactly the same after this change is carried out as they pay at present. Those people who are making the best use of their land will find themselves paying less, and those who are not putting their land to the best use, or whose land is lying idle or underutilised, and thereby creating unemployment, by being invited to contribute more handsomely to the expenses of the district will be not only making up for the overburdened ratepayer of the present time part of that burden which is unjustly laid upon his shoulders, but will also have a very strong inducement either to part with their land or to put it to better use and offer opportunities for the creation of more wealth in this country and at the same time to give people who want work a chance of work.
Sir G. YOUNGER: I rise to oppose the Bill, not because I think it is very necessary to do so at this stage of the Session, but because it is impossible to allow a proposal of this kind to pass without making it perfectly clear that we are not, on this side at all events, of the same mind with those on the other side, who believe in this particular proposal. So far as I am personally concerned, it would suit me admirably if you could carry this scheme, because I am rated very much more largely on buildings than I should be on land, but it is because I know that although there are anomalies at present the anomalies would be infinitely greater and infinitely more harsh under the proposal of the hon. Gentleman than under the existing system People would be most unfairly penalised. The whole scheme is chimerical and absurd, and I do not believe you could ever find any Government in this country who would go so far as the hon. Gentleman is proposing to go in this Bill. I should also like to say that there is a novel proposal in it which I do not think we have heard of before. The proposal now is to place local rating upon the full site value as brought out in
the Budget valuation. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that any valuation of the Budget is a valuation in the ordinary sense of the word? Does he suggest that the full site value brought out in the Budget is a valuation at all? It is only a Budget abstract. You may just as well have a rate on the full composite value of buildings and houses as a rate on the full site value brought out by the Budget. One is just as fair as the other. The Lord Advocate proposed to transfer this rate on to the bare site value, but since the hon. Member has found out that bare site value is very often a minus valuation altogether, he has given up that proposal, and he seeks to shelter in this chimerical system and to make it attractive by charging on what he knows must necessarily be a positive value and not a negative quantity. I think I have said enough to entitle me to strongly oppose the Bill, as I certainly do.
Question put, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to confer additional powers to entitle me to strongly oppose the Bill,
The House divided: Ayes, 203; Noes, 95.

Division No. 98.]

AYES.

[4.0 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Delany, William

Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Devlin, Joseph

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Alden, Percy

Dickinson, W. H.

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

Donelan, Captain A.

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

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

Doris, William

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Arnold, Sydney

Duffy, William J.

Jewett, F. W.

Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

Joyce, Michael

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N)

Keating, Matthew

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N)

Kelly, Edward

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Esslemont, George Birnie

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Barton, William

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

King, J.

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

Field, William

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Bentham, G. J.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Leach, Charles

Boland, John Pius

France, Gerald Ashburner

Lewis, John Herbert

Booth, Frederick Handel

George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Gill, A. H.

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Ginnell, Laurence

Lundon, Thomas

Brunner, John F. L.

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Lynch, A. A.

Burke, E. Haviland-

Glanville, H. J.

Macdonald, J R. (Leicester)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Goldstone, Frank

McGhee, Richard

Byles, Sir William Pollard

Greig, Colonel J. W.

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

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

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

Macpherson, James Ian

Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

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

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Chancellor, Henry George

Gulland, John William

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

M'Kean, John

Clancy, John Joseph

Hackett, John

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

Clough, William

Hall, Frederick (Normanton)

Manfield, Harry

Clynes, John R.

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Meagher, Michael

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Hayden, John Patrick

Menzies, Sir Walter

Cotton, William Francis

Hazleton, Richard

Millar, James Duncan

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemooth)

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Molloy, Michael

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Higham, John Sharp

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Crooks, William

Hogge, James Myles

Mooney, John J.

Crumley, Patrick

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Morgan, George Hay

Cullinan, John

Holt, Richard Darning

Morrell, Philip

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Ruins

Muldoon, John

Munro, Robert

Pringle, William M. R.

Spicer, Rt. Mon. Sir Albert

Murphy, Martin J.

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Sutherland, John E.

Needham, Christopher T.

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Neilson, Francis

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Nolan, Joseph

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Toulmin, Sir George

Nuttall, Harry

Rendall, Athelstan

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Verney, Sir Harry

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Wadsworth, J.

O'Doherty, Philip

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Walton, Sir Joseph

O'Dowd, John

Robinson, Sidney

Wardle, George J.

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

O'Malley, William

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Watt, Henry Anderson

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Webb, H.

O'Shee, James John

Rowlands, James

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Rowntree, Arnold

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Parker, James (Halifax)

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

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

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

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Philipps, Colonel Ivor (Southampton)

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

Wilson, W. T (Westhoughton)

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Wing, Thomas

Pirie, Duncan Vernon

Sheehy, David

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

Pollard, Sir George H.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

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

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Wedgwood and Mr. M'Curdy.

NOES.

Agnew, Sir George William

Greene, Walter Raymond

Pretyman, Ernest George

Astor, Waldorf

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

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

Baird, John Lawrence

Hall Frederick (Dulwich)

Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Randles, Sir John S.

Barnston, Harry

Harris, Henry Percy

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Henry, Sir Charles

Rees, Sir J. D.

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

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

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Hewins, William Albert Samuel

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Blair, Reginald

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

Sandys, G. J.

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Spear, Sir John Ward

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Butcher, John George

Ingleby, Holcombe

Starkey, John Ralph

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

Larmor, Sir J.

Stewart, Gershom

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

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

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

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

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Lewisham, Viscount

Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

Craik, Sir Henry

Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

Thynne, Lord A.

Dalrymple, Viscount

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Doughty, Sir George

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.)

Weigall, Captain A. G.

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Magnus, Sir Philip

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.)

Martin, Joseph

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Falle, Bertram Godfray

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

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

Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.)

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

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

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

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Worthington-Evans, L.

Gardner, Ernest

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Yate, Colonel C. E.

Gilmour, Captain John

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Goldsmith, Frank

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Peto, Basil Edward

G. Younger and Sir F. Banbury.

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Pointer, Joseph

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Wedgwood, Sir William Byles, Sir Henry Dalziel, Sir Alfred Mond, Mr. Morrell, Sir Albert Spicer, Mr. Parker, and Mr. Watt. Presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 1st July, and to be printed.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [28th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—[Mr. Booth.]
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." Debate resumed.
Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOW: When the Debate was adjourned on Wednesday last I was endeavouring to put to the House the case for the local authorities in regard to this Bill. I had said a word or two about the question of liberty, and I do

809
not wish to go over the same ground, but I should like to refer to a, letter in the "Times" to-day from Miss Dendy, who is extremely well known to those who have paid any attention whatever to the subject with which the Bill deals. It is a forcible letter, and I would ask attention to it specially by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood). She proves conclusively that the line recently taken by him and his friends in regard to liberty is an unfortunate line, which has already had extremely unsatisfactory results. I should like to read two short quotations from the letter. In one of these she gives a most telling instance of the mischief which is done by inducing mentally defective children in some cases to return with their parents. She says:—
"A woman has just taken away her little girl whom we had been able to cleanse and feed so that she had very greatly improved. The father in this case would have liked to leave the little one with us; he says he finds his wife drunk on the floor night after night when he conies home from work. The child has gone back to the most cruel neglect and ill-treatment because the mother protests that she loves her too dearly to do without her! Where is the liberty for such a child as that? It is thraldom of the most horrible description."
She finishes her letter with these words:—
"It is a curious perversion of the desire for justice and liberty which would leave helpless little children at the mercy of human beings who are themselves the slaves of their animal passions. It is in the name of liberty that young girls are brutally ill-used, little children murdered, outrages of all kinds committed and we are asked to allow all this to go on indefinitely!"
Mr. BOOTH: Will the hon. Member give particulars of that case?
Mr. BARLOW: I have read the extract exactly as it is given, and if the hon. Member desires, I can procure such further substantial facts as Miss Dendy will be able to give. I wish now to return to the point with which I was dealing when the Debate was adjourned, namely, the question of expenditure, and the contribution in aid of the burdens now thrown upon the local authorities. Under Section 28 of the Bill expenditure falls under three heads. The local authorities are to ascertain what are the numbers of persons defective in their area, and they are to provide suitable supervision. Then they are to provide suitable and sufficient accommodation for such persons as are sent to certified institutions by Orders under this Act, and they are to make provision for the guardianship of such persons when placed under guardianship by Orders under this Act With regard to these two latter classes there is assistance from the Government.
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There are two more items of expenditure: the appointment of officers and the making of annual returns. The expenditure involved under this Act is divided into two categories—current expenditure and capital expenditure. Both are involved in the new classes of duties thrust upon the local authorities. The whole burden of this expenditure falls, so far as the first and third sets of duties to which I have referred are concerned, upon the local authorities. The cost of the whole administration depends on the numbers involved. Before the Committee last year the Home Secretary stated that the numbers involved would be about 20,000. He said very much the same last Wednesday. We know that under the Bill as it stands £150,000 is the amount which is provided by the Government for what I call the second class of duties. With regard to the accommodation and guardianship of persons under the Act, of those sent under guardianship Orders, the contention of the local authorities shortly is this: First, the number of 20,000 is very much less than the actual number, and secondly, that even if it were an adequate number, the amount provided by the Government, £150,000, does not go anything like half way to provide accommodation for those two classes. The Royal Commission, which went into this very thoroughly after very careful statistical computation, arrived at the conclusion that 046 of the population is mentally defective, of whom about 50 per cent. required accommodation. Working out those numbers, it comes to this, that about 70,000 people require accommodation. I have not heard these figures criticised, and I do not think that the Home Secretary in any way made any attempt to show that they are excessive or exaggerated.
Mr. WATT: Does the 70,000 include Scotland?
Mr. BARLOW: I understand that it does. The Home Secretary has given us figures which I think are admitted as to the cost of institutional support, and of support if boarding out is involved. Support in an institution costs 14s. a week, or roughly £36 a year. Boarding out is estimated to cost 8s a week, or about £20 a year. The average cost on that basis may be taken as at least £30 a year, and if you apply that to the 70,000 people who require treatment, it means an annual cost of over £2,000,000 a year. But even taking the figures of the Home Secretary, 20,000

811
people, and multiplying that by £30, you get £600,000 a year cost. But what the Government is giving is £150,000, and that £150,000 is to be half. We are told that no local authority is to be under any obligation with regard to accommodation unless the Government give half, and the Government are to give up to £150,000. There is some small addition, which we are glad to accept, in the case of those who are sent under orders by the Home Secretary or of the Court. Expenditure on them is not to count as part of the £150,000. Apart from that, £300,000 is primâ facie under the scheme of the Bill to be sufficient to cover the cost of accommodation.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): How do you arrive at the amount of £30?
Mr. BARLOW: I take it as an average between £36, the cost in institutions, and £20, the cost of boarding out. What we contend on behalf of the local authorities is that this £150,000 set aside under the Bill is entirely inadequate. It takes no account of those duties which are imposed on the local authority of ascertaining the numbers, of supervision, of appointing officials, and of making returns, which is to fall on them without any help, and, so far as it is a question of providing adequate accommodation, we are in this dilemma: We say that the 20,000 is only about one-third of the number you have to deal with. If you have got a locality where feeling is strong on the subject, as we have in the North, pressure would be brought by the inhabitants to provide accommodation for all those in the area who are mentally defective. But it is not fair to the local authorities that the local authorities should be put in the position that in such a case they should have to make up the deficiency, and pay a great deal more than half the expenditure, because this pressure by the inhabitants will be so great. It has been suggested that, as time goes on, we shall get more money from the Government. Some of us have experience of the possibilities of getting more money from the Government for local expenditure, and we are not very hopeful of being able to do better in the future than we have done recently. A word or two now about capital expenditure. The local authority under the Act has no authority to borrow money from a bank, whereas the Imperial
812
Government have. What we feel strongly is that if we are to spend money on putting up premises and so on the Government should be prepared to advance us money beforehand on an approved plan. I believe that this suggestion has already been put to the Home Secretary. Something of that sort should be possible. We may be told that this is only a matter of administration, and that it is not a matter of substantial grievance. Voicing the views of local authorities, I say that it is a very substantial grievance, because they have great difficulty in getting large capital sums beforehand for works which are to be carried out over a period of years. If it is suggested that there is no precedent for doing this, I understand that in the case of sanatoria and dispensaries under the Insurance Act provision is made for the advance up to three-fourths or four-fifths of the costs. If it can be done in the case of the Insurance Act, we should treat this, which is a very analogous matter, a question of health and national burden, on the same footing. The same kind of reasoning applies in both cases. The urgency and the national character are the same, and we might secure from the Government, in order that no delay may occur in this case as in the other, that the Government should be prepared to advance a considerable portion of the necessary expenditure on approved plans under this Bill.
There is another point as to which some uncertainty was caused in the country by what the Home Secretary said last Wednesday. What he said was:—
"So far as a ditty is imposed upon a local authority under this Bill, it is limited to the extent to which the cost of carrying out the duty is borne by the State as to one-half of the amount"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Wednesday, 28th May, 1913, col. 222.]
That is quite explicit. The local authority will have no duty imposed on it except that of which the State bears half the cost. We should like it to be more, but we cannot say, if the Act really definitely were so, that the local authorities would be very much aggrieved. He goes on to say:—
"It will not include half for the maintenance of that which might be termed the general administrative charges of the local authority, and which the local authority will have to hear in any circumstances."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, Wednesday, 28th May, 1913, col. 223.]
I cannot reconcile those two utterances. As I read the Bill, what is secured is that the Government are prepared to pay half the charges up to a limit amounting to £150,000 for accommodation. They are riot prepared to pay any of the charges of

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the local authorities or any portion of them or assist in any portion of them which covers the ascertaining of mentally defectives, which will require a large staff of persons.
Mr. McKENNA: There is no such duty in the Bill.
Mr. BARLOW: I am very sorry if I have misread the Bill, but I may point out that Section 28 says—
"the local authority are hereby empowered, and it shall be their duty, subject to the provisions of this Act and to regulations made by the Secretary of State, to ascertain what persons within their area are defectives and subject to be, dealt with under this Act, otherwise than at the instance of their parents or guardians."
You must ascertain who the whole number are before you know—
Mr. McKENNA: The hon. Member must read that in conjunction with the first two Clauses. They have only got to ascertain who are defectives subject to be dealt with under the Act. The only class subject to be dealt with are those who are neglected and so on.
Mr. BARLOW: I quite agree, but that will almost inevitably involve the ascertainment of practically everybody who is mentally defective in the area. I do not see how you are going to ascertain who belong to a special kind of mentally defective people unless you ascertain all those who are mentally defective in the area. They are to provide for the supervision of such persons, and, according to the Home Secretary, there is no assistance from the Imperial Government, nor is there any assistance from the Government towards employing a sufficient number of officers or other persons to assist in the performance of the duties imposed under the Act, or to make an annual report to the Board, or such reports as the Board may require. A very considerable trained staff of doctors will be required, with assistance—clerks, and so on—to deal with all the returns. All these duties mean extra expenditure, and the Bill does not provide one penny-piece towards it. I do not understand what the Home Secretary means when he says:—
"It will not include half the maintenance of that which might be termed the general administrative charges of the local authority, and which the local authority will have to bear in any circumstances."
I do not quite see, when new duties are imposed on the local authorities, why they
814
should have to bear the charges in any circumstances. The Home Secretary went on to say:—
"I have made inquiry as nearly as I can, and I think I am not very far wrong in saying between 20,000 and 30,000 people."
That is, people who are to come under the Bill. Then the right hon. Gentleman proceeded:—
"That is, I am quite aware, not more than one-third of the whole number of people who will ultimately have to be dealt with. Put it will take a considerable time before we shall be able under local administration to absorb these 20,000 or 30,000."
As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman does not include in his purview more than 20,000 or 30,000. Here, again, I am obliged on behalf of the local authorities to say that this is not fair. The hon. Gentleman's proposal does not cover the ground, and it puts the local authorities in an equivocal and invidious position if they are not to be able to take up actively the treatment of mentally defective persons; or, at any rate, if they do, in the case of some, as a matter of actuarial calculation, half the burden will be borne by the Government, but in the case of a 'large number of others none of the burden will be borne by the Government at all. In regard to this general question of the local authorities and the mentally defective, it is felt that this is one more instance of those additional burdens which are continually being thrust upon the local authorities without adequate satisfaction from His Majesty's Government. The next Bill on the Paper is one to deal with the educational side of the treatment of the mentally defective. In regard to this treatment, I would point, out that you are going to have confusion of authorities; you will have a major local authority and a minor local authority for education of defectives, and the whole burden of the cost is to be thrust on the local authority. Not so very long ago, in the early days of 1911—I remember it, because it was the first occasion on which I addressed the House—there was a Debate on a Motion that a small Committee should be appointed to deal expeditiously with the subject, and the Government were disposed to accept the proposal. Speakers on this side of the House drew attention to pledges which had been given that this question of local burdens should be dealt with, and dealt with promptly, by His Majesty's Ministers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said:—
"Whoever stands at this box next year will have to deal with the problem, and deal with it thoroughly."

815
Lord Crewe, in another place had said:—
"If we find ourselves next year in a position to devise the means, we shall make an attempt to deal with the whole subject."
That was in 1910. The right hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlan) also spoke in the Debate, and used strong language, but I do not think too strong language, when he said:—
"We are told by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that what the Government meant by dealing thoroughly with the question was the appointment of a Committee, which would make it impossible to have any legislation on the subject this year.… I say that is a pretty monstrous thing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1911, cols. 812–813, Vol. XXI.]
The feeling in the towns is very strong. Members on both sides of the House have had ocular demonstration of that fact either by deputations, by circulars, or otherwise. My own Constituents in the borough of Salford feel so strongly that I have found leading supporters of the Government suggesting that the local authorities should go on strike and refuse to administer the further burdens thrust upon them. If the Government proceed in this policy of thrusting burdens upon the local authorities towards which they do not provide an adequate share of the expense, then it will produce two extremely unsatisfactory results—it will disorganise more and more the work of local government, and it will produce amongst the ratepayers, and amongst those who have to administer local government such a disgust that it would be very difficult to get the necessary reforms in educational and health matters carried through, because their feeling will be, and they will say, "Yes, this is another measure for imposing upon us burdens which we ought not to be asked to bear without proper contributions from the Imperial Government." With these few words of criticism, and apart from the objections which I raised, my feelings are generally in support of the Bill.
Dr. CHAPPLE: I need not follow the hon. Member opposite in his criticism of the details of the Bill. I will confine myself as nearly as possible to the general principle underlying it. I have listened with great interest to the Debate so far, and many of the contentions of those who have spoken show that they have not a proper conception of the meaning of the term "feeble - mindedness." Feeblemindedness is not a disease, it is a condition. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) showed
816
clearly that he had no conception whatever of what is meant by experts when they use the term "feeble-mindedness." [An Hon. MEMBER: "There are others in the same position."] The hon. Member suggests that there are many others in the same position. It is more essential, I submit, to get a clear definition of terms, when you are discussing a question which is scientific or semi-scientfic, than it is in almost any other discussion. The hon. Member referred to Cowper, the poet, and spoke of his feeble-mindedness. Could anything be more grotesque? Cowper suffered from melancholia, a disease of the brain. Feeble-mindedness is a condition—it is a condition of arrested development of the brain. A clear conception of the term feeble-mindedness should be kept in mind. It is as impossible to get a scientific definition of feeble-mindedness as it is of insanity. There is no accurate definition of insanity, but, with sufficient experience, it can be detected, just as feeble-mindedness can be, detected. Feeble-mindedness is in-born in a child; it is a congenital condition which belongs to the brain. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) said the mother of Bacon was feeble-minded. He actually told us that Bacon's mother died of feeble-mindedness, and he drew the conclusion that feeble-minded women bear great sons. The fact is that the mother of Bacon was one of the most cultured women the country ever produced. She was a linguist; she could write fluently Italian, Greek, Latin, and French, and she used in her letters quotations as freely in those languages as we would use quotations from Shakespeare in our letters. In the last year or two of her life she was overtaken by senile decay, and died at the age of 82, yet the hon. Member for Pontefract quotes that fact in support of his statement that feeble-minded women bear great sons. Then the same hon. Member referred to the mother of Lincoln. What are the facts? Mrs. Lincoln was one of the most saintly and cultured of women as culture was possible in the far West and she was an omnivorous reader. Lincoln said of her:—
"All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother."
Yet the hon. Member quoted her as an illustration that feeble-minded women bear great sons. The mother of Turner was referred to as feeble-minded, and the hon. Member cited her as an example of a feeble-minded mother bearing a great son.

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It is one of the most grotesque statements which could be made, and I am surprised that the hon. Member for Pontefract is not here to listen to what I have to say. If he had said that Turner was feebleminded I might possibly have agreed with him, for it was said that he was "almost feeble-minded" in all other subjects than painting. Feeble-mindedness being a condition of the brain, and not a disease, is the most hereditary of defects. Dr. W. Duncan McKim, a great writer, in his book on "Heredity and Human Progress," says:—
"The capacity for evil of one feeble-minded woman appears beyond all conception when we reflect upon the long line of paupers and criminals to which she may give origin. It is probable that no defect is more surely transmitted from parent to child than this one of feeble-mindedness. As is generally admitted, it is very exceptional for the children of feeble-minded parents to be mentally sound. A recent writer has found in sixty-one families 267 feeble-minded individuals—an average of four and one-third to each family."
That is a scientific statement on the subject. It should be remembered that feeble-mindedness is not a disease, but an arrested development, and belongs to a child at birth and prior to birth; it is an hereditary condition. It is with that condition that we are dealing. It is easy enough to detect it, and there is no difficulty whatever in proving that the condition is due to arrested brain development, and is hereditary. The condition of the mentally defective child is as a rule congenital; that is to say, the brain has stopped growing previous to birth. In sonic eases it may arise in childhood from convulsions or epileptic fits, which may arrest development after birth to such an extent as to bring the child within the category of the feeble-minded. The Bill from start to finish assumes that you have detected feeble-mindedness and classified your child, and once you have done that you have come to the conclusion that the child is at a grave disadvantage, and is going to be at a disadvantage all through life. Because it is so afflicted, this Bill holds out a kindly hand and takes that child under its protection for its own benefit. The hon. Member for Pontefract calls that anti - Christian. This Bill comes along and takes care of these children, instead of leaving them to the world to be buffeted about and made the victims of their adverse circumstances. A statement appeared a little while ago that a feeble-minded woman had thirteen illegitimate children to as many different fathers, nearly all feeble-minded. Contemplate the tragedy to that woman and
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lose sight of the community for a moment. What did it mean to that woman bearing, children in poverty and degradation and pain? Contrast the taking of that woman off the streets and sending her, say, to Darenth, one of the finest managed institutions in the country, with the tragedy of her suffering and pain and degradation! In that institution no one suffers either pain or any consciousness of restraint. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme speaks of locking them up and keeping them in prison, but to say that is a prostitution of words. If he had ever been in that institution he would not say so, and I admit that there are people in that institution who take a more balanced view of these things than the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. I refer to those over the age of sixteen. I admit that some modification of the treatment of those under sixteen is required. Those over sixteen are at work and their minds are' educated through their hands.
That is the only principle on which education of the feeble-minded should proceed. There should be no attempt to teach the feeble-minded child that two and two make four. I have visited these institutions in England and Scotland and the only complaint that I have to make of those institutions is that they try and teach lessons. That is a mistake and is cruelty and persecution. I remember very early in life reading a graphic account of how a teacher boasted that after three years of constant training she had managed to get an idiot to count the buttons on his coat. I never got over that tragedy of three years' persecution of that child and the three years' waste of life of that teacher. In our special schools for these people there should be no such thing as a lesson and no teachers at all, except kindergarten teachers, mechanics, and others who teach through the hands only. If you go to Darenth you find all over sixteen at work, and the superintendent will tell you that when he wants to punish any offender, man or woman, he takes them away from their work. A man whom he took away from work cried like a child because he was not allowed to continue. I have visited the Larbert institution where I found a boy who had been engaged for six weeks in making a many-coloured woollen mat. Before that six weeks he was the most refractory child in the institution. He threw chairs at the nurses, smashed all the things around him, and it was almost impossible to keen him in

819
discipline. When I saw him he was industriously engaged in the making of the mat. I lifted it to look at it and he screamed for he thought I was going to take it away. Contrast the position of that little child, happy and contented with this occupation, with its position if you thrust it out into the adverse circumstances of outdoor life, where it would be impossible for him to be anything but miserable. You have the child there under discipline, and under the kind and humane and Christian management of a great institution.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme calls this the grossest materialism. He said we are making a law for the "lower orders." As a matter of fact, we are making a law for all the orders high and low. These institutions will be open to the rich as well as to the poor, and, as a matter of fact, the rich take as much advantage as the poor of such institutions. They cannot keep a feeble-minded child or idiot or imbecile at home. It is almost impossible to do so, and they make use of institutions, which are always open to the rich. We are providing for the poor under this Bill, and we are saying to the afflicted poor, "We are going to give you the same place, the same luxuries, the same protection, the same happy lives that the rich enjoy." Though we are doing that, the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, loyal to some fetish, uses these extravagant words, and says there is an attempt to steal the child. There is no attempt to steal any child. Anyone who has a defective child may keep it at home. What is the truth of this matter and what do those acquainted with the subject complain of? Miss Dendy, writing on this subject in today's "Times," says the trouble is that though we take in these feeble-minded children and train them, with whatever brains they have, to do some particular thing, the feeble-minded Parent comes along and tries to coax the child out, when he sees that the child can make something that could be turned into pennies, to be used perhaps for drink. They have the power now to take them out. Miss Dendy says that they take out the children to degradation, ruin, and misery. We want to remedy that. The Members who are hostile to this Bill accuse us of stealing the children and taking them away from their parents. I have no patience with the extravagant language used by some hon. Members. The one interest, said the hon. Member
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for Newcastle-under-Lyme, of those who support this Bill is the production of wealth by the community.
I think I have said enough to show that the one interest of those who support the Bill is the protection of the feeble-minded and defectives from themselves. The justification for the Bill is that there is a large number of defectives who are suffering in our community to-day, and we want to protect them from their suffering. Those defects, as I have said, are all hereditary and not diseases, but congenital arrests of brain development, which are the most hereditary of all brain conditions. Being so, those feeble-minded people produce defective children. It is a cruel thing to the individual child, and cruel to make any woman the mother of an idiot. I know of nothing more pathetic than to see the homes where idiots and imbeciles are. I have gone into a home and heard the screeching, half-barking sound of an idiot tethered in the back yard like a dog, with the pathetic, grief-stricken mother doing all she could to hide it. Do you mean to say it would not be a kindness to go to the mother and say, "We have a magnificent institution; we will take that child and protect it?"
Mr. PRINGLE: That is done under the existing law.
Dr. CHAPPLE: The whole family, and sometimes the whole community suffer from the liberty of the defection, but the child itself never suffers because it is taken to a home of that kind. It is remarkable how happy those children become as soon as you begin to methodise them and give them something to do. There is no consciousness of restriction or of gaol or of bars and bolts to which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme refers. Those are some of the aspects of the question that occurred to my mind as I listened to this Debate. I am justifying the whole principle of the Bill, and not dealing with details, some of which could be modified with advantage in Committee. In the meantime, I think that speeches such as have been made on the floor of this House and pulished all over the country are doing an immense amount of harm. Miss Dendy, in her letter to the "Times," said that already the speech made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme had had the result of one of the children being taken away from the home. Those speeches give an entirely warped idea of what the Bill is. My own idea is that it was,

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is, and will remain one of the most popular Bills that this Government has introduced. Throughout the whole of the country it is amazing to find how this question has become the subject of practical conversation, even among ladies who previously thought it was a subject which should not be discussed. It is in the interests of the individual and of the community and of the unborn that all these people should be protected from them-selves. Because those principles are at the bottom of this Bill, it has my most hearty support.
Mr. PRINGLE: I confess I find myself in the unfortunate position of disagreeing very largely with what has been said on both sides. I cannot find myself either at one with the opponents of the Bill or those who are its most wholehearted supporters. I desire, in the first place, to make an appeal to the Government against going on with this Bill and other measures like it which are cumbering their programme. In making this appeal I am expressing an opinion which is very widely shared by other hon. Members who sit on these benches. I can quite understand the position of hon. Members opposite who come here with professions of friendship for this Bill and say that it is an uncontentious measure, and in fact are offering almost fulsome flattery to the Home Secretary, their language on this occasion being in marked contrast with that which they apply to him on almost every other occasion. I think he would do well to listen to his friends. What is the situation? They speak in this effusive way of the philanthropic intentions of the Government and of the beneficent effects of this measure when it is put into operation, but what happens when this Bill goes upstairs? We had this Bill last Session, and it was sent to a Committee upstairs. Then the whole burden of finding a quorum for this Bill for discussion in Committee was thrown on Members on this side. [An HON. MEMBER: "No, no."] Yes, I have attended more regularly than the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite.
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: No, no.
Mr. PRINGLE: I remember very well the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. H. Lawson) was one day in the Committee and I was going to leave, because it was near the luncheon hour, whereupon he said, "It is your duty as a supporter of the Government to keep a quorum, as it is a Government Bill."
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: I was there.
5.0 P.M.
Mr. PRINGLE: I wish to point out what that means. I wish to point out that we have to be in those Committees in order to get through Bills which are approved equally on both sides. Meanwhile, hon. Gentlemen opposite look in when it suits them. They can go away at 4 o'clock, unless they have a snap Division on. We have to sit here, but they can look for their selected moment of attack. In introducing these Bills and attempting to pass them through the House the Government are really enlarging the opportunities for defeat, and it is on that ground that I, on behalf of many other Members, am now appealing to them not to proceed further with these measures. They are giving us a dead cargo. They must cut that dead cargo adrift, if the vessel is not to go down. I, therefore, oppose the Second Reading, in the first place, in view of the Parliamentary situation. We know that, as things are at present, we are not working under normal Parliamentary conditions. The Opposition is not acting as a regular Opposition. It is fighting a guerrilla warfare. I do not complain of the action of the Opposition. Holding the views that they do of the general policy of the Government, they are entitled to do it. But let the Government recognise the situation, and deal with measures of this kind on the basis of facts as they are. If they do that, they will not proceed with this measure.
I also quarrel slightly with the provisions of the Bill. I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Stirlingshire (Dr. Chapple) into the general problem of the feeble-minded. I agree very largely with what be said about the hard and cruel lot of the feeble-minded in this country. I agree that the problem requires the consideration of Parliament. But while one admits the urgency of the problem, it does not follow that the particular proposals contained in this Bill are the best way of dealing with it. The speech of the hon. Member himself displayed clearly the confusion of mind which marks so many of the so-called experts who are advocating this Bill. He said that there was a great deal of difficulty as to the definition of feeble-minded. I agree. He then gave us a definition which is not in the Bill. He said that it was a case of arrested development. That in many respects is an admirable definition and better than the one in the Bill. What is the definition

823
of the Bill? It says that a feeble-minded person is one who, while not being an imbecile, yet requires the protection of the law. In other words, a feeble-minded person is regarded as simply a degree better than an imbecile, who is a degree better than an idiot. It is not a difference in kind, as the hon. Member for Stirlingshire argued, but a difference in degree. So that we have the most eloquent and fluent support of the Bill differing altogether from the definition in the Bill.
Dr. CHAPPLE: That is not what I said. The condition is one of arrested brain development. The definition may be quite different, but it must be loyal to that condition. An idiot is the lowest form of mental defect, an imbecile is the next lowest, and the feeble-minded next. Then you get to the normal.
Mr. PRINGLE: Even the explanation of the hon. Member has not quite cleared up the matter. Let me go further into his speech. He gave us a distressing picture of an idiot chained to a post in a backyard. But under the existing law, without this Bill at all, you can deal with idiots. The change made by this Bill is to bring within the purview of the law a class who never before came within it. Moreover, the Bill is to deal with these people under compulsory powers. We must remember that the hon. Member has said that the feeble-minded are those nearest to the normal; consequently they are those in respect of whom we should be most chary of exercising compulsory powers. We should, in cases like these, exercise to the utmost extent the voluntary principle. We should endeavour by all the means in our power to encourage and assist those voluntary homes which are at the present operating so admirably in this country. I would be in favour of State assistance for these institutions, so that many of those people who are anxious voluntarily to enter them might be enabled to do so. It would then be impossible to describe them as prisons, because it would be possible for the people to leave them, and there would be no fear of any cruel punishments or cruel discipline in connection with them. But immediately you confine people by compulsion, you make it possible to have these cruel and objectionable punishments. Hard instances have been quoted where children have been withdrawn by their parents, not because they wished to protect and care for the children, but simply to make a profit out of them. I
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should certainly be prepared to deal with such exceptional cases. I would be prepared so to amend the law as to prevent parents whose character was objectionable from withdrawing their children from such institutions. But we have no right to prevent parents whose character is unexceptional, who are doing their duty to their children, from objecting to having their children immured in these institutions or from withdrawing them if they so desire.
Dr. CHAPPLE: That is not in the Bill.
Mr. PRINGLE: I think it is. At any rate, that is my interpretation. In fact, the whole point of the case is that under present conditions parents can withdraw the children, and the object of the Bill is to put an end to this state of affairs, so that the parents cannot withdraw the children. The cases cited only justify the State's interfering where the character of the parents is bad, and not where the character is good, and the parents care for and protect the children. I think that we have had enough compulsion in this Parliament. I was one of the few Members who objected to compulsion in the Insurance Act. There were four Members on this side who had the honour of objecting to compulsion in the Insurance Act, but we got so little support from the other side that we did not go to a Division. Compulsion is now the main argument on Tory platforms against the Insurance Act. If this Bill is passed, with these compulsory powers, wherever a child has been taken by compulsion you will have the same arguments used on Tory platforms. I suppose I shall be told by the President of the Board of Education that I am giving a wrong interpretation of his Bill if I suggest that under it in the country districts it will be possible to take away defective children from their homes and send them to a residential special school compulsorily.
The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Pease): I do not want to deal with the provisions of my Bill which is not before the House, but it ought to be clearly stated that a very large majority of the children whom we have been discussing this afternoon will be returned to their parents from the special schools daily. There will be a comparative few in rural districts, where it would be impossible to provide special schools for them without some residential arrangements being made in connection with those schools. Where such residential arrangements were made, it would merely mean

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taking the children who are educable from their parents for four or five days in the week, and returning them probably on the Friday until the Monday morning.
Mr. PRINGLE: I am glad to have that explanation from my right hon. Friend. I do not desire to misrepresent his Bill. I have been accused of misrepresenting the provisions of the Bill before the House. I am glad to have it from him that in many rural districts there will be cases where children will be withdrawn from their homes and placed in residential schools independently of whether their parents consent or not. Granted one case of compulsion in any parish, and you will have an uprising. You will have the mother weeping, because we all know that it is to these defective children that the mothers are most attached, and it will be put forward as another case of hard, tyrannical compulsion exercised by a Radical Government. Under the guise of a non-contentious measure, we, at any rate who sit below the Gangway, will not give any more electioneering capital to hon. Gentlemen opposite. That is not the only point upon which we shall be liable to attack. I hope the Government will bear this in mind.
The Bill creates a certain number of officials. If there is one count in the indictment of which we hear more frequently than of any other at every by-election it is as to the hoard of officials which the Government have brought into existence for the purposes of corruption. I mean political corruption. I am not using the word "corruption" in any invidious sense from the moral point of view. I use it simply from the point of view of the spoils system. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the spoils system in one of his speeches, but, after getting the statistics in the matter, he conveniently never said a word further about the matter. But the underlings of the baser sort still repeat the charge on platforms where they are not reported. We are now proceeding with another measure which creates new officials, and we are doing it to please hon. Gentlemen opposite. Last week we were appointing judges, also to please hon. Gentlemen opposite. A few weeks ago they introduced a Housing Bill which created other officials, and they made it a leading matter of attack in the Cambridgeshire election that the Government had not adopted it. All these measures add to the list of
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new officials appointed by the Government for the purpose, as it is said, of political corruption. This Bill does the same thing. We, on these benches at any rate, object to putting this weapon of attack into the hands of the enemy, and we appeal to the Government not gratuitously to give it to them. We say that the Government have already in hand sufficient urgent measures to be passed this Session. They have sufficiently exhausted the time and energies of a single Session. Let us do that work. Let us not overload our ship. Let us see that the work that we were sent here to perform is done.
Mr. CROOKS: I do not know quite where we have got to. We have heard a good deal about making capital for party and of saving money out of the poor little imbeciles and idiots. It seems to me that a more barbarous kind of argument I have not listened to. I have taken some trouble to understand this question and I know a little about it. It is perfectly true that there is a certain class of children who are not certifiable, and that is the trouble. First, we were going to set up an institution; there was to be a new authority to deal with these feeble-minded people under the Bill. Then I think an observation was made by the hon. Member for Pontefract that you could not put new wine into old bottles That was a tremendous score. But I would remind the hon. Member that there is such a thing as putting new whisky into old vessels—which is, by the way, still done. I have listened very carefully to the speeches of the hon. Gentlemen the Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Pontefract, and North Down, and now I am in as big a fog as ever I was as to what they propose to do for these feeble-minded children. What are they doing? Are they trying to do anything? We always hear on these occasions about mandates. Let me inform the House about my mandate. I have not gone down to the Market Square to my Constituents to ask them to support or to oppose this Bill, but I have received, without asking, a letter from the borough council—which is a Tory borough council. I have enough evidence against the Tories here to show pretty clearly that they will not be able to use it in evidence against the Liberals. The borough council has passed a resolution approving the principle of the Bill. After full consideration, they ask that the Home Secretary may reintroduce and pass it in the present Session with a view to it becoming law. That was followed by a petition containing 150

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or more signatures from the Women's Cooperative Guild. This petition said:—
"We, the undersigned, representing many forms of social and philanthropic activity in your constituency, are convinced that certain legislation for the better care and control of the mentally defective is, in the interests of themselves and the community, an urgent necessity. We, therefore, venture to appeal to you to support through all its stages in the House of Commons the Mental Deficiency Bill introduced by the Home Secretary on 25th March, and to use your influence with the Government to secure its passage into law during the present Session."
In addition to these 158 signatures, there were 120 persons who signed a memorial embracing seven societies of various grades dealing with philanthropic matters and the welfare of the people generally. They sent this to me, and in it they said that:—
"As the help of these societies is being constantly asked in mentally deficient cases, and in view of the impossibility of dealing adequately with those concerned in the present state of the law, these societies urgently request the Government to pass the Mental Deficiency Bill as amended without further delay."
In the opinion of these societies, this Bill will afford the care and protection necessary for the most urgent cases. In addition to these, I have received a petition signed by 102 representative men—Church of England clergymen, Free Church ministers, justices of the peace, the Mayor and ex-Mayors, and men representing the friendly societies in the constituency which allows me to represent it. I may, therefore, at least, say that I have got a mandate to support this Bill quite apart from what I know of the matter generally. I remember a tremendous fuss being made in this matter by some who asked whether we were living in a Christian land! The Scriptures were quoted. I look upon this as a Christian measure, and I would like to ask people and the hon. Members who talk of Christianity to remember that the Lord's Prayer—to quote Scripture, as has been done—says, "Lead us not into temptation." The temptation of these poor creatures is beyond description. We talk about removing them from prison and putting them into a worse prison under the various Clauses of this Act. The hon. and learned Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) emphasised several points the other evening as the wickedness of the whole proposal. There is not a single line in the Bill but what protects parents and children too. Let me ask the House for a moment to look with me at Clause 2, Sub-section (1), where we are told you will get the dragging away of children from loving parents, which is an abomination
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in the eyes of a free, liberty-loving country! That sounds well. But look at this: This Clause says that a person who is defective may be, under the Act, sent to or placed in an institution for defectives or placed under guardianship—
"(a) At the instance of his parents or guardian, if he is an idiot or imbecile or is under the age of twenty-one; or
(b) If in addition to being a defective he is a Person—
(i.) who is fount neglected, abandoned, or cruelly treated." Is that wrong? That you should take those who have been neglected, abandoned, or cruelly treated, and see to them? Is that done in the interests of party government? Or are you to say, "It has nothing to do with us; what does it matter to us! In the interests of liberty, let the child lie there and rot; what do we care"? We are told that there are no safeguards at all in the Bill. Let me read the Clause further. Paragraph (iv.) says:—
"(iv.) who is an habitual drunkard within the meaning of the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900; or
(v.) in whose case such notice has been given by the local education authority as is hereinafter in this Section mentioned; or
(vi) who is in receipt of Poor relief at the time of giving birth to an illegitimate child, or when pregnant of such child.
"Every safeguard is made for hearing before a judicial authority. Then the claim is made, and made openly, as though those who made it really believed it, that the Press should be admitted to examinations of the character indicated. Where is their faith in human nature? Where is the credit to the people who have been doing this magnificent work for years and looking after the interests of those concerned? I have been connected with many such cases where the people certified have been present, and I can imagine the mother or father, sister or brother being compelled to give evidence before the magistrate, or a medical man asking that the child may be put under some control, and for all that to be flamed about in the public Press! I can imagine nothing more wicked, nothing more vile, and nothing more cruel to the people who are cursed with some relative suffering under such conditions of mental deficiency.
Is there anything new about this proposal? I am told that this time they are

829
all to be brought within the four corners of the law. It is about time. The hon. Member for Stirlingshire talked about Darenth. I could tell him about many such institutions, and could tell how much they tend to the good of those concerned. The right hon. Member for the Strand Division, when he was in office, did much for mentally deficient children. I heard the other evening my hon. and learned Friend who sits beside me. He apparently did not know—although he knows all about the Lunacy Acts—that children might be removed on the mere signature of a guardian from a person who is too poor to take care of the child at home, but could not go to a special school if its parents could not care for it, without the guardian getting an order for its admission. The guardian had only to go down and sign a paper that in his opinion the child was fit to be sent to an institution. Where was the control? Where was it like to being in a prison? When it was for the benefit of the child, surely to goodness it should be taken! The House, or some Members of it, will remember the Committee which was set up a good many years ago to inquire into the administration of Poor Law schools. Mr. Mundella was chairman. There was another Committee set up again during the time of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon. With this was associated the Metropolitan Asylums Board, of which hon. Members have heard so much. They set up a schame for improving imbeciles. Part of this work is being done in London, apart from Act of Parliament. Small schools dealing with the mentally deficient have been set up, and they have had a marvellous, wonderful, and miraculous experience. Children who were silly, and pushed, and shoved, and buffeted about, and whom no one cared for, whom one was told the policemen looked after—the policeman who has been pictured as a monster of iniquity, although we have heard a good deal about the policeman looking after these poor little children—children were taken, I say, and sent to these mentally deficient homes, and cared for; and wonderful indeed was the improvement that took place!
I remember a voluntary institution. I do not think that the English language can supply me with words of gratitude sufficiently to explain how much I feel that the people connected with it and with similar places should have taken up these imbeciles from time to time in a voluntary
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manner and looked after them, dealing with the poorest of the poor, whose parents were very poor, and had either to drag them about with them, or to turn them out into the streets. These little children have gone to mentally deficient homes and they have improved beyond all knowledge. It will be within the recollection of some hon. Members that in connection with the Local Government Board we were allowed to keep these children until they were sixteen years of age. I want hon. Members to note that. That is the law as it then stood—and, by the way, as it stands now. The law describes a person of sixteen as an adult person. When we took these children there were three homes, one at Fulham—where we had one special school—there was a home at Peckham, and there were two homes in Lloyd Square, Pentonville. The whole of the children were improved by the treatment. We came to the Local Government Board and asked to be allowed to spend money without a voucher. That was a distinct departure. We had no authority and no right to spend money without producing a voucher. We got the permission we asked for, and these children were given a shilling to spend, and so we endeavoured to see whether their brains were expanding. The experiment was a tremendous success. The children yielded to that kind of treatment. I can bear out what the hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs said, that that kind of treatment develops their little minds better than anything else. Then we had a deputation from those connected with the children, who said, "Why do you look after these children till they are sixteen, and then allow them to go back to the workhouse to be kept there as prisoners?"
Talk about the liberty of the subject, and the wickedness of control! I know two men who had mentally deficient daughters. One of the daughters fell a victim quite early in life, and had a child. She was sent away. The parents claimed her back again, as parents will claim children taken who fall in one form or another. What I would say to hon. Members who are opposing this on the principle of liberty is: "What would you do in a case of that kind for the sake of the mother or the father?" You say you would not interfere with the liberty of the girl. Very well then, I have no argument in that case. I cannot argue with men like that. I have got another case where the story is exactly the same. I persuaded the, mother in that case to allow the child to

831
go away. I said to her, "Remember, some day you must go, like the rest of us, over to the majority, and then who will look after this child?" She allowed it to go, and in about three weeks took it out of our care again. She fell a victim again, and so far as I know at the present time, is in the workhouse. Is that the kind of liberty you like to act upon? Here is this Bill, which allows persons to petition that their children should be admitted to an institution. It asks at least that the children when neglected should be cared for and controlled. Surely there is nothing wrong about that! When these women came to us by deputation and asked that we should be allowed to keep these children beyond sixteen, they pointed out that all the education and all our training was wasted—that when they came back they might as well write over the portals of the door of the workhouse, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!" What was the consequence? We asked permission to keep these children after they were sixteen. We received a very prompt refusal from the Local Government Board. The child is an adult at sixteen, and therefore we were told that we were bound to give up control. We asked the Local Government Board to receive a deputation upon the subject and they did, and when we got there we received the usual formal greeting, "Good morning, and will you state your case," but we put the boot upon the other leg and said, "You tell us we are not to be allowed to keep those children after sixteen years of age, and will you tell us why?" They said, "The parents may demand the children," and we said, "If the parents are sufficiently foolish to demand the children, we shall give them up," and then the concession was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand enabling the Metropolitan Asylums Board to have control of these children until twenty-one years of age. My hon. Friend who spoke just now said, "I am in favour of some control, but do not do anything because you are ruining the Government." That is a weak kind of argument.
Mr. PRINGLE: You very nearly ruined them last night.
Mr. CROOKS: Thank goodness we did not quite. That is not a good argument at all why we should not do anything. After all, you are dealing with human
832
beings, and it is for them I am pleading and asking the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill. I ask them to read the three speeches made against this Bill by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), and my hon. Friend who said there was nothing further to be said in favour of the Bill. He called upon the Press, which he said was stronger than any other power in the land. I have heard other views on that sometimes according to the convenience of the moment, and then the Press said, in reporting the speeches, "The Government must give some answer to this." What is to be said on this was said by Miss Dendy, who is the greatest authority on the subject, who has begged money, prayed for money, done everything, sacrificed her life to this object. Surely of her it may be said she has lived laborious days in the interests of our poor humanity. She got several cases, it seems, already at a cost of £150,000, but what is money compared with life and human beings. I have had as much experience in local administration as any Member of this House, and I do not think the taxpayers care how much they spend as long as it is properly spent, and there is nothing you can do in which you can defend your position so well as spending money in saving the lives of the people. They talk of liberty, but let me quote some cases:—
"A little feeble-minded girl. Turned into the streets by her father. Found by the school attendance officer and placed in safe keeping. Was actually starving and filthy—verminous. Horribly disfigured by burns. Her feeble-minded brother (an adult) had put her on the fire and held her there.
This boy's mother left her husband and went away with her brother, who is the boy's father. There are three children of the union (two boys and a girl), all of whom came to the workhouse. The girl is already living a bad life. H.H. is in safe keeping if no one interferes.
An abnormally-developed and over-grown girl. At thirteen had already suffered every evil that can fall to the lot of a woman. Had several times been taken home by respectable men whom she had accosted. It was difficult to train her into habits of common decency, but at eighteen she was a happy girl living a simple, wholesome life, and her health, which had been very delicate, had improved. Her father, a drunken, disreputable man, then came and persuaded her to leave her shelter.
A strong boy, small; high grade feeble-minded; subject to very violent attacks of temper, in which he does not know what he is doing. His father murdered his mother. So far as the law goes, this boy is 'at liberty' to leave his home at eighteen."
Talk of liberty of the subject to live a life like that with all the danger to the community. Men talk about stealing! As if anyone wanted to take them for the sake of taking them; as if anyone wanted to lock them up for the purpose of finding

833
a job for a doctor or a nurse or a policeman, when the whole experience of our lives shows the contrary. I have never known—and I have seen tens of thousands of lunatics—I have never known a medical man or a justice of the peace or a nurse in an institution—and they are heroic, these nurses—who would not at the first signs of returning sanity have been the first to have gone to the doctor to give them a chance.
The whole horror of the thing would be that you should go chasing up one street and down another to find a little boy who wants looking after. To say that these people are imprisoned or that there is a limitation of the liberty of the subject is absurd. I ask the House not to be led astray or led away, and I do say with all the feeling at my command this Bill is absolutely necessary. We talk about prisons and we know that 20 per cent. of the people in prison are mentally defective. You talk about the injustice of removing them to lunatic asylums. It is much better to be a patient than a prisoner. I believe that the overwhelming opinion of the country is in favour of this Bill. I believe if there was one thing to be said against the Government which will be stronger than another, it would be that they had an opportunity of saving and safeguarding these people when in office, and did not do so, and they will be asked, why did they not do it. Was it the fear of the consequences of creating other officers? Surely you should keep in your mind the sacred cause of humanity and save them when you have the opportunity.
Mr. M'CURDY: I shall only trespass on the time of the House for a few minutes to give the reasons why I should vote for this Bill with the greatest possible pleasure. I shall vote for it because I regard it as a scientific attempt to deal with the social evil of the very greatest magnitude. It is not denied there are at the present time some 70,000 feebleminded young persons in this country whose lives are not only a source of misery to themselves but a source of degradation and misery to others, and whose very existence must lower the national standard of life in this country. I regard this Bill as a welcome sign of the awakening social conscience of the community which demands that social evils of this kind shall receive attention at the hands of the Government, and I find myself very far from sympathising with the views expressed by my hon.
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Friend the hon. Member for Lanarkshire when he appealed to hon. Members on this side of the House not to encumber the Liberal programme by measures of this description. I should like to ask him quite plainly in favour of what measures does he propose we should jettison a useful cargo of this character?
Mr. PRINGLE: Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment.
Mr. M'CURDY: In favour of improving the political constitution of the United Kingdom, of rectifying a political injustice in the system of religious establishment for portion of the United Kingdom, and perhaps, if time permitted, in favour of further polishing and building temples of liberty by improving the constitution of the House of Lords. It is not by building up temples of liberty and by polishing and repolishing political constitutions that the people can grow up to proper manhood and healthy national life. Man does not live by political reform or by the recasting of liberty alone. In passing, I confess for myself I have but little enthusiasm for these great measures which my hon. Friend has mentioned, and why? Because the political enthusiasm which I felt for them in an abounding measure some twenty-five years ago, when I first took an interest in politics, has become a little stale and grey-headed, like myself. The new century has brought new social problems, and it is with one of these problems this Bill makes a courageous effort to deal. My hon. Friend believes that if you bring forward a measure of this kind you afford material out of which party capital will be made at by-elections. Was there ever a more unwise reason put forward for not doing what we believe to be our duty in face of a gigantic social evil—because misrepresentation may be made upon party platforms at forthcoming by-elections? This Bill, of course, must be read side by side with the next Bill on the Order Paper, and, taking the two together, the State attempts to deal with this important problem. This Bill provides suitable and separate schools for this unfortunate class of the community, and it provides, in the second place, that remedial measures shall be taken in the best manner and that scientific advice shall be provided for the child and that the State will provide the institutions where its scientific treatment may be conducted. It was suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Durham that in

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the old days before the Lunacy Act came into force there were evils in the nature of improper detention which the Lunacy Acts were intended to remedy, and the implication was that there is reason to anticipate that similar improprieties and similar cruelties may be perpetrated in the case of feeble-minded members of the community for w hose benefit these institutions are erected.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: I never said that. What I spoke of was people who were practically sane being placed in these institutions.
Mr. M'CURDY: I am very much obliged to my hon. and learned Friend for his correction, and I think perhaps I obtained the latter part of my suggestion from the speech of another hon. Member. But I think the suggestion, from whatever quarter it may have come, was very effectively answered by the hon. Member (Mr. Crooks) in the passage in which he asked this House to consider to whose possible interest it would be to detain as feebleminded in these institutions children who were not feeble-minded. It is quite unnecessary for me to deal with that point further. There is, I think, one possible Amendment to this Bill which no doubt, if it be necessary, the Government will consider, and that is the question of whether it might be made plain by positive words in the Bill that in the case of a defective child whose parents are willing and are in a position to give the child proper care and attention—I am not referring to the question of attendance at school—that that is a fact that should prevent an order being made against the will of the parent and that that matter should be taken into consideration by the judicial authority in deciding whether in the interests of the child such an order should be made. I entirely associate myself with the views so eloquently expressed by the hon. Member who preceded me, as regards the danger of making a fetish of the word "liberty," and of attempting to deprive these children in the name of a useless liberty, of what I believe under the Act will be the care and guardianship of the State, exercised for their interests, and for their interests alone.
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Until I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Lanark, I thought that the informing, and if I may say so, the almost inspiring speech
836
of the hon. Member for Stirling, had had some effect upon the unrepentent band of curious-minded persons who sit in a group below the Gangway. The hon. Member for Lanark talked about this Bill as deck cargo. I do not know whether there came through his mind the deck cargo of 70,000 feeble-minded persons, which the State has to carry, much to its detriment, much to the loss of efficiency, and much to the increase of degradation at the present moment amongst the uncared for and untrained, because the remedy proposed by the Royal Commission and embodied in this Bill has been so long denied. That seems to be a deck cargo of a more serious kind than any the hon. Member thought of. He is afraid that the Opposition are going to use this Bill as a party weapon, but I do not wish to adopt a Pharisaical tone. Those who lived through the "pigtail election," know what can be done in the way of party expedients.
Mr. PRINGLE: The Insurance Act is more recent.
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: I do not want to take too high a tone. This Bill is founded upon a Unionist measure, and the chairman of the Unionist party is one of its principal promotors. We are much too proud of being associated with this great social reform ever to attempt to use it against the party opposite. I think that disposes of the argument which the hon. Member used just now. Those who sat on the Grand Committee have heard a good deal of this kind of talk, and this Bill has been traversed by an unending and sluggish stream of sloppy sentimentalism on the subject of personal liberty of which we have had a great deal of experience. Those who have talked about this Bill as an interference with personal liberty are surely living in the Dark Ages. They talk as if we were still in the time of Valentine Vox, and as if it were still possible to spirit away persons for motives of spite and greed, unknown to the public, and without the least official cognisance or control. Quite apart from the question of the judicial authorities created under this Bill to whom such large powers are given, the hon. Member has to recollect that we live in days of publicity. The reporter with his note book and camera is abroad in the land, and there could not be a scandal which would not be inquired into immediately, and which the hon. Member and the right hon. Gentleman who sits next to him would not make the most of at the earliest opportunity. Conceive

837
the scandal that would arise from the complaint of the family, or from the public knowledge of the locality. Would public attention not be immediately directed to it. It is absurd to talk of things; being done which were possible in the early times of Queen Victoria. Those things are not possible now, but apart from that the hon. Member is aware that no adult can be dealt with under this Bill who is not already within the grasp of the law. Every child becoming an adult must perforce have his case reviewed and reconsidered.
I want to take the House back for the moment to the basic facts on which this Bill is based. A Royal Commission sat for three years, composed of men specially selected for their expert knowledge of the question, and they reported in such a way that no Government could long have neglected to deal with the problem. Their first words would almost have served for a preamble for this Bill, and the House will pardon me if I read them. They said:—
"The facts indicate evils of extreme gravity which require the speediest attention. Very many of the feeble-treaded are untrained and uncared for. Leading irregular and purposeless lives they become entirely undisciplined and fall into vice and crime, and except so far as the special classes of the local education authorities may have in a few cases met the need in some degree there is no public organisation to train them according to their ability and to control and supervise them especially in the early years of life when most can be done to ail them effectually."
That was the Report of the Royal Comission in 1908. What is more important is to consider the facts in regard to crime, which are as true now as they were then! The Commissioners of Prisons, the magistrates, and the judges, are urging this House to do all they can to put a stop to what is not only a crying scandal, but a prolific evil, producing every other sort of evil in our social system. In our convict prisons 16 to 20 per cent. are cases 'of congenital or infantile mental deficiency. Even in the "starred" class of prisoners 17 per cent. are mentally deficient, whilst 25 per cent of the ordinary prisoners belong to the class with Which this House is now called upon to deal. Those figures must impress themselves upon anyone not led away by theory. Are hon. Members aware what is the fate of these poor people who wander from gaol to gaol, and from workhouse to workhouse, when turned out of prison? All that can be done under the old Act is to take them to some workhouse, without the power of making them enter the doors. They are let loose again upon society,
838
and they return to their homes. What does that mean? Hon. Members are always trying to do something to make for clean lives and clean homes, but what misery and degradation those people bring to the homes to which they return! It is not only the personal effect; it is the way in which they drag down their families and all their connections, for they bring them almost to the same level as themselves. Is this House at this time of day going to refuse to do anything for those who have the misfortune to have feeble-minded people quartered upon them in the hope of raising their condition in life and freeing them from this tremendous handicap? These facts are the ground on which the Bill is brought in, and upon which Clauses are drawn, and I do not believe for a moment, that hon. Members will listen to the general objection because there may, in the dark days, have been some scandal before the Lunacy Acts were passed—[An HON. MEMBER: "And since."] Those are not the scandals brought forward by the hon. Member for Durham. He referred to those before the Lunacy Acts were passed. There may have been some scandal in connection with cases of those whom their friends wished to get rid of.
The figures reported by the Royal Commission speak for themselves, and I will only say a word from the other point of view. My fear is that not enough will be done under the Bill because of its financial provisions. I fear that in the different districts of the country, because of the high figure at which the rates now stand, there many be an indisposition to take advantage of the powers conferred upon the local authorities. The general inspector of the Local Government Board who was examined by the Royal Commission said the great difficulty is that the rates are going up. He said that in regard to the special schools now there is to be another call for local expenditure, and I press upon the Home Secretary that when we get upstairs he should consider carefully whether he is not able to extend further financial aid on behalf of the Exchequer. I say that because, if he does not, the risk is that the least will be done where the most is required. The Royal Commission say that, of course, as we know, there is a larger proportion of feeble-minded in rural than in urban areas. It is notorious that rural authorities are less likely and less able to expend public money than the great corporations of the great towns. Supposing

839
the right hon. Gentleman cannot increase the amount which is given in the urban areas, there is a strong case for his increasing the proportion for rural areas. I want him to do that, because it is no good our placing a measure like this upon the Statute Book unless there is a reasonable chance of the local authorities giving it an effective administration.
Everything depends upon finance when we get the Bill in operation and practice, and I do think that there is a grave fault in the parsimony of the Exchequer which appears on the face of the measure as we have it in our hands to-day. The precedents of the past few years, after all, have not been in favour of niggardliness on the part of the Treasury. If it was possible to increase the expenditure upon old age pensions by 30 or 40 per cent., surely, in regard to the small amount required for dealing with this social evil, so grave as we know it to be in this Bill, the case is a far stronger one? I hope that if the Bill is passed the Home Secretary will do something to ensure that the law in regard to lunatics, idiots, and the feebleminded is consolidated and brought into consistency with itself. It will be very awkward for the local authorities and the judicial authorities to have to administer a code which presents so many points of difference and anomaly as there will
be after the passing of this Bill. Lord Loreburn is the Chairman of a Joint Committee of both Houses which has done excellent work in consolidating the law in regard to many different kinds and classes, of public affairs, and I hope that the whole law will be remitted to that Committee in the hope that they may not only consolidate it, but where required, bring up suggestions for its amendment so that it may be made in harmony with itself. I only wish to express the hope that when we get into Grand Committee drastic steps will be taken to see that the time we are now spending upon this measure is not wasted. Last year we had a bad experience upstairs, which we do not wish to repeat. I am quite certain that there is nobody who does not feel that if we can pass a measure this Session, with the Amendments which those who are experts in the matter will be able to suggest when we are n story higher, we shall have done a great deal to heal a sore which I think is doing more mischief than any other that I know of, and which literally stinks to the country for redress.
Mr. McKENNArose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put," That the Question be now put."
The House divided: Ayes, 273; Noes, 96.

Division No. 99.]

AYES.

[6.1 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Falconer, James

Acland, Francis Dyke

Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

Farrell, James Patrick

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Chancellor, Henry George

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Agnew, Sir George William

Chapole, Dr. William Allen

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson.

Alden, Percy

Clancy, John Joseph

Field, William

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

Clough, William

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

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

Clynes, John R.

Fitzgibbon, John

Arnold, Sydney

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

France, G. A.

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Furness, Stephen W.

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Cotton, William Francis

Gill, Alfred Henry

Barnes, George N.

Cowan, W. H.

Ginnell, Laurence

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

Crooks, William

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Barton, William

Crumley, Patrick

Glanville, Harold James

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Cullinan, John

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Goldstone, Frank

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Bentham, George Jackson

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

Greta, Col. J. W.

Bethell, Sir John Henry

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Griffith, Ellis J.

Black, Arthur W.

Delany, William

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

Boland, John Pius

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

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

Bowerman, Charles W.

Devlin, Joseph

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Dickinson, W. H.

Hackett, John

Brace, William

Donelan, Captain A.

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Doris, William

Hancock, John George

Brunner, John F. L.

Duffy, William J.

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

Bryce, J. Annan

Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Elverston, Sir Harold

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

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

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

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

Byles, Sir William Pollard

Esslemont, George Birnie

Hayden, John Patrick

Hayward, Evan

Molloy, Michael

Rowlands, James

Hazleton, Richard

Molteno, Percy Alport

Rowntree, Arnold

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Mond, Sir Alfred M.

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Mooney, John J.

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

Henry, Sir Charles

Morgan, George Hay

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

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

Morrell, Philip

Scanlan, Thomas

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

Morison, Hector

Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

Higham, John Sharp

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Hinds, John

Muldoon, John

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Munro, Robert

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Murphy, Martin J.

Sheehy, David

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Needham, Christopher T.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Illingworth, Percy

Nicholson, Sir Charles (Doncaster)

Shortt, Edward

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

Nolan, Joseph

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburgh)

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

John, Edward Thomas

Nuttall, Harry

Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

O'Doherty, Philip

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

Jones, Leil Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

O'Dowd, John

Stewart, Gershom

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Joyce, Michael

O'Malley, William

Sutton, John E.

Keating, Matthew

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

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Kelly, Edward

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Taylor, Theodore, C. (Radcliffe)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

King, J.

O'Shee, James John

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Toulmin, Sir George

Leach, Charles

Parker, James (Halifax)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Levy, Sir Maurice

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Lewis, John Herbert

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

Wadsworth, John

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Walton, Sir Joseph

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Pirie, Duncan V.

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Pointer, Joseph

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Lundon, Thomas

Pollard, Sir George H.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Webb, H.

Lynch, A. A.

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

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

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

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

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

McGhee, Richard

Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

Whitehouse, John Howard

Maclean, Donald

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

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

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

Radford, G. H.

Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Wiles, Thomas

Macpherson, James Ian

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Reddy, Michael

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

M'Curdy, Charles Albert

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

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

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

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

Rendall, Athelstan

Winfrey, Richard

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Wing, Thomas

Manfield, Harry

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

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

Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Young, William (Perth, East)

Meagher, Michael

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Younger, Sir George

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Menzies, Sir Walter

Robinson, Sidney

Middlebrook, William

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Millar, James Duncan

Roe, Sir Thomas

Gulland and Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

NOES.

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Archer-Shee, Major Martin

Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Hill-Wood, Samuel

Baird, John Lawrence

Craik, Sir Henry

Hogge, James Myles

Baker Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

Dalrymple, Viscount

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Barnston, Harry

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir. J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Denison-Pender, J.

Hunt, Rowland

Bird, Alfred

Denniss, E. R. B.

Jessel, Captain Herbert M.

Blair, Reginald

Doughty, Sir George

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Booth, Frederick Handel

Eyres, Monsell, Bolton M.

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

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Falle, Bertram Godfray

Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

Bridgeman, William Clive

Fell, Arthur

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Bull, Sir William James

Flecher, John Samule (Hampstead)

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.

Burn, Colonel C R

Gibbs, George Abraham

Martin, Joseph

Butcher, John George

Gilmour, Captain John

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Campbell, Captain Duncan (Ayr, N.)

Goldsmith, Frank

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

Campbell, W. R.

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Nellson, Francis

Cassel, Felix

Greene, Walter Raymond

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Cator, John

Gretton, John

Nield, Herbert

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex S.E.)

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

Clive, Captain Percy Archer

Guinness, Hon W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Outhwaite, R. L.

Courthope, George Loyd

Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

Paget, Almeric Hugh

842

843

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Stanier, Beville

Watt, Henry Anderson

Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Pringle, William M. R.

Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

Sutherland, John E.

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.)

Randles, Sir John S.

Talbot, Lord Edmund

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

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Rees, Sir J D.

Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

Yale, Colonel C. E.

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Thomson, W. Mitchell (Down, N.)

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Touche, George Alexander

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Spear, Sir John Ward

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Wedgwood and Sir F. Banbury.

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 368; Noes, 11.

Division

Ayes

[6.11 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Cotton, William Francis

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

Acland, Francis Dyke

Courthope, George Loyd

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Cowan, W. H.

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Agnew, Sir George William

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Alden, Percy

Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

Hackett, John

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Craik, Sir Henry

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

Archer-Shee, Major Martin

Crooks, William

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Arnold, Sydney

Crumley, Patrick

Hancock, John George

Baird, John Lawrence

Cullinan, John

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Dalrymple, Viscount

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

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

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

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

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Barnes, George

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire)

Barnston, Harry

Delany, William

Hayden, John Patrick

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.W.)

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Hayward, Evan

Barton, William

Denison-Pender, J.

Hazleton, Richard

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Denniss, E. R. B.

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Devlin, Joseph

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Dickinson, W. H.

Henry, Sir Charles

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Dixon, Charles Harvey

Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., South)

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Donelan, Captain A.

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

Bentham, G. J.

Doris, William

Higham, John Sharp

Bethell, Sir. J. H.

Doughty, Sir George

Hill-Wood, Samuel

Bird, Alfred

Duffy, William J.

Hinds, John

Black, Arthur W.

Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Blair, Reginald

Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

Hodge, John

Boland, John Pius

Elverston, Sir Harold

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Bowerman, Charles W.

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Brace, William

Esslemont, George Birnie

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Illingworth, Percy H.

Bridgeman, William Clive

Falconer, James

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

Brunner, John F. L.

Falle, Bertram Godfrey

Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

Bryce, J. Annan

Farrell, James Patrick

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Fell, Arthur

John, Edward Thomas

Bull, Sir William James

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Field, William

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

Jones, Leif Straiten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Butcher, John George

Fitzgibbon, John

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Joyce, Michael

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

Fletcher John Samuel

Keating, Matthew

Byles, Sir William Pollard

France, Gerald Ashburner

Kelly, Edward

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

Furness, Stephen

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Campion, W. R.

George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

King, Joseph

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Gibbs, G. A.

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Gill, Alfred Henry

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Cassel, Felix

Gilmour, Captain John

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Cator, John

Ginnell, Laurence

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

Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Leach, Charles

Chancellor, Henry George

Glanville, Harold James

Levy, Sir Maurice

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Lewis, John Herbert

Clancy, John Joseph

Goldsmith, Frank

Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Goldstone, Frank

Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

Clive, Captain Percy Archer

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Clough, William

Greene, W. R.

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.

Clynes, John R.

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Greene, Colonel J. W.

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Gretton, John

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Griffith, Ellis Jones

Lundon, Thomas

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

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

Lyell, Charles Henry

Lynch, A. A.

Parker, James (Halifax)

Spear, Sir John Ward

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.)

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Stanier, Beville

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

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

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

McGhee, Richard

Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Maclean, Donald

Peto, Basil Edward

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

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

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Stewart, Gershom

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Pirie, Duncan V.

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Macpherson, James Ian

Pointer, Joseph

Sutherland, John E.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Pollard, Sir George H.

Sutton, John E.

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Talbot, Lord Edmund

M'Curdy, C. A.

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

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

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

Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Manfield, Harry

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

Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Radford, G. H.

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

Randles, Sir John S.

Touche, George Alexander

Meagher, Michael

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Toulmin, Sir George

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Menzies, Sir Walter

Reddy, Michael

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Middlebrook, William

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Millar, James Duncan

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Wadsworth, John

Molloy, Michael

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Walters, Sir John Tudor

Molteno, Percy Alport

Rees, Sir J. D.

Walton, Sir Joseph

Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz

Rendall, Athelstan

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Mooney, John J.

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Morgan, George Hay

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Morrell, Philip

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Webb, H.

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

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Morison, Hector

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Muldoon, John

Robinson, Sidney

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

Munro, Robert

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Murphy, Martin J.

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Whitehouse, John Howard

Needham, Christopher T.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Rowlands, James

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Rowntree, Arnold

Wiles, Thomas

Nield, Herbert

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Williams, John (Glamorgan)

Nolan, Joseph

Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

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

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.)

Nuttatl, Harry

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Sanders, Robert Arthur

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

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Scanlan, Thomas

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

Winfrey, Richard

O'Doherty, Phillip

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Wing, Thomas

O'Dowd, John

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

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

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

O'Malley, William

Sheehy, David

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

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

Sherwell, Arthur James

Yate, Colonel C. E.

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Shortt, Edward

Young, William (Perth, East)

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

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Younger, Sir George

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

O'Shee, James John

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

Gulland and Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

NOES.

Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

Outhwaite, R. L.

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Pringle, William M. R.

Booth, Frederick Handel

Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Hogge, James Myles

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Watt and Mr. Martin.

Neilson, Francis

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Bill read a second time.

Mr. MARTIN: I beg to move, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."
Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."
The House divided: Ayes, 15; Noes, 358.

Division No. 101.]

AYES.

[6.24 p.m

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

M'Kean, John

Touche, George Alexander

Booth, Frederick Handel

Neilson, Francis

Watt, Henry Anderson

Dalrymple, Viscount

Outhwaite, R. L.

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

Pringle, William M. R.

Hooge, James Myles

Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Hunt, Rowland

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Wedgwood and Mr. Martin.

NOES.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Delany, William

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

John, Edward Thomas

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Denison-Pender, J.

Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Denniss, E, R. B.

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Agnew, Sir George William

Devlin, Joseph

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Alden, Percy

Dickinson, W. H.

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

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

Donelan, Captain A.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Doris, William

Joyce, Michael

Archer-Shee, Major M

Doughty, Sir George

Keating, Matthew

Arnold, Sydney

Duffy, William J.

Kelly, Edward

Baird, John Lawrence

Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

King, Joseph

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

Elverston, Sir Harold

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Barnes, George N.

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

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

Barnston, Harry

Esslemont, George Birnie

Leach, Charles

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Levy, Sir Maurice

Barton, William

Falconer, James

Lewis, John Herbert

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Falle, Bertram Godtray

Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Farrell, James Patrick

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Fell, Arthur

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.

Bonn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Bentham, G. J.

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Bethell, Sir J. H.

Field, William

Lundon, Thomas

Bird, Alfred

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

Lyell, Charles Henry

Black, Arthur W.

Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

Lynch, A. A.

Blair, Reginald

Fitzgibbon, John

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Boland, John Pius

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

McGhee, Richard

Bowerman, Charles W.

France, Gerald Ashburner

Maclean, Donald

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Furness, Stephen

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

Brace, William

Gibbs, George Abraham

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Gill, A. H.

Macpherson, James Ian

Bridgeman, William Clive

Gilmour, Captain John

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Brunner, John F. L.

Ginnell, Laurence

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Bryce, J. Annan

Gladstone. W. G. C.

M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Glanville, H. J.

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Bull, Sir William James

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

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

Burke, E. Haviland-

Goldsmith, Frank

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Goldstone, Frank

Manfield, Harry

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Greene, Walter Raymond

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Butcher, John George

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Griffith, Ellis Jones

Meagher, Michael

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

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

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Bytes, Sir William Pollard

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

Menzies, Sir Walter

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

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Middlebrook, William

Campion, W. R.

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Millar, James Duncan

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Molioy, Michael

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Hackett, John

Molteno, Percy Alpert

Cassel, Felix

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

Mond, Sir Alfred Mcritz

Cator, John

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

Hancock, John George

Morgan, George Hay

Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

Morrell, Philip

Chancellor, Henry George

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

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

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Morrison, Hector

Clancy, John Joseph

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Muldoon, John

Clive, Captain Percy Archer

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

Munro, Robert

Clough, William

Hayden, John Patrick

Murphy, Martin J.

Clynes, John R.

Hayward, Evan

Needham, Christopher T,

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Hazleton, Richard

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Nolan, Joseph

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Henry, Sir Charles

Norman, Sir Henry

Cotton, William Francis

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

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Courthope, George Loyd

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

Nuttall, Harry

Cowan, W. H.

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Higham, John Sharp

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

Hill-Wood, Samuel

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Hinds, John

O'Doherty, Philip

Crooks, William

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

O'Dowd, Jahn

Crumley, Patrick

Hodge, John

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Cullinan, John

Holmes, Daniel Turner

O'Malley, William

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Hope, Harry (Bute)

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

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

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

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

Illingworth, Percy H.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

O'Shee, James John

Dawes, J. A.

Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

848

849

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Rowlands, James

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Palmer, Godfrey, Mark

Rowntree, Arnold

Toulmin, Sir George

Parker, James (Halifax)

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

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

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

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

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Verney, Sir Harry

Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Wadsworth, J.

Peto, Basil Edward

Scanlan, Thomas

Walters, Sir John Tudor

Pirie, Duncan V.

Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

Walton, Sir Joseph

Pointer, Joseph

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Sheehy, David

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Pollard, Sir George H.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Shortt, Edward

Webb, H.

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

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

Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l., Walton)

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

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

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

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Radford, G. H.

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Randles, Sir John S.

Spear, Sir John Ward

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Wiles, Thomas

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Stanier, Beville

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Reddy, Michael

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

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

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Stewart, Gershom

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Rees, Sir J. D.

Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

Winfrey, Richard

Rendell, Athelstan

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Wing, Thomas

Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

Sutherland, John E.

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

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Sutton, John E.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Talbot, Lord Edmund

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

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Yale, Colonel C. E.

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Young, William (Perthshire, East)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

Younger, Sir George

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Robinson, Sidney

Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Gulland and Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY AND LUNACY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I think I should be wanting in respect to the House if I entered upon a discussion of the principle of the Bill, which is identical with the principle of the Bill which has obtained a Second Reading by so overwhelming a majority. That principle has been discussed this year and last year, and the House has obviously made up its mind upon that part of the subject. The House will remember that this. Bill last year was part of the English Bill, but there are certain points of administration, points connected with the local authority, and points connected with finance in regard to which it was considered more convenient to deal with them in a separate Bill, therefore this Bill is introduced for Scotland as a separate measure. We propose in this
850
Bill—I do not intend to take up the time of the House in dealing with what are, after all, Committee points—that the education authority should take charge of the mentally defective child up to the age of sixteen. I think that provision will commend itself to the House as a whole. Everyone will agree that the education authority, from many points of view of sentiment and more than sentiment, is the right authority to deal with a defective child. With regard to the safeguards in the Bill, they are similar, but I am sure they will be found, when considered in Committee, to be at least as strong as the safeguards in the English Bill. The appeal to the sheriff is a very satisfactory appeal. These are necessarily Committee points. I can assure my hon. Friends that they will find that the safeguards are not in any degree weaker than they are in the English Bill, and, perhaps, in some respects they are even stronger.
There is another feature in this Bill which, I hope, will commend itself to general approbation; that is, we propose to spend the money dealing with lunacy and mental deficiency so as to relieve to some extent the burden placed upon the

851
poorest parishes in Scotland, in which, as every Member of the House knows, the burden of lunacy is now an almost intolerable weight. There are certain Amendments that are Amendments in detail of the Lunacy Act, which it would be quite impossible to discuss upon Second Reading, but there is one point which I ought to mention. The central authority proposed under the Scottish Bill is the Lunacy Board, with the addition of another Medical Commissioner. Having its powers enlarged, its name will be changed, and it will be called the Board of Control. As to the local authority, some difference of opinion may arise. As hon. Members from Scotland know, for some time parish councils have claimed that as they have to bear the cost of maintaining the individual lunatic they ought to have some share in the representation on the district committee—that is the committee in the lunacy district. On the other hand, the county councils, who have had a large share in the appointment of these committees, claim that they ought to retain a share. That is obviously a Committee point, and one which, I think, we all would be willing to discuss with open minds and to hear representations upon from the different authorities who are interested. I do not think I have anything to add upon the Bill. It is the same Bill in principle, and the differences in detail are not very large or important, and every one of them is a purely Committee point. I therefore venture to appeal to the House, seeing that we have discussed this principle so thoroughly—
Mr. WEDGWOOD: No.
Mr. McKINNON WOOD: And having had such an overwhelming proof of the will of the House in the matter, to give us the Second Reading for the Scottish Bill, so that Scotland may not be deprived of the benefits which, I think, this Bill will bring to her.
Sir G. YOUNGER: I rise in no spirit of hostility to the right hon. Gentleman, for this is a Bill which is very much wanted in Scotland, and one we desire to have discussed in Committee upstairs. I propose to follow the right hon. Gentleman by not dealing at all with the details of the Bill because, as he truly said, they are practically identical, except in regard to certain particulars which local differences demand, with the Bill which has been dis-
852
cussed by the House and approved of by an overwhelming majority. There are one or two points which we must consider carefully in Committee. The first thing I wish to say to the right hon. Gentleman is that the changes in administration are really very important and far-reaching, and I hope that he will not take the Bill too soon into Committee, but that he will give an opportunity to the various boards to consider it in order that they may communicate with their Members in Scotland and advise them upon the subject. I myself for many years was a member of a board of lunacy controlling the Stirlingshire district. We were appointed by the county councils and the borough councils. We found a very large sum of money from our rates to provide what proved to be an enormously valuable institution. It seems to me that we cannot dispossess these people straight away without consideration, and we have to consider the propriety of transferring the authority from them to the parish council. In a matter of this kind, which is of great importance and a very delicate matter we shall have to commune with ourselves in a friendly way, as I am sure we shall do from the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, as to whether or not these changes are desirable.
I have nothing to say about the alteration in the central authority, an increase in which was demanded by the increase in the work, nor do I wish to say anything about the proposal to put a portion of the maintenance of lunatics and mentally deficients in the shape of a flat rate over the various parishes. The capital expenditure in the past, which was called a providing account in connection with asylum management in Scotland, has always been paid by a rate levied by the county council, and the maintenance has been provided by each parish according to the number of lunatics. This pressed heavily upon some poor parishes, and if you add the cost of mental deficients to that of lunatics, you will be asking some parishes to do more than they can afford one other word I am not satisfied with the manner in which the Treasury deals with Scotland under this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman will agree that that is the point of difference between this and the English Bill. In England, as I understand it, one-half of the cost is paid by the Treasury in the case of lunacy, and is also going to be paid in the case of the mentally deficient.

853
In Scotland a specific sum is paid now for the purposes of lunacy, with the result that while we had 4s a patient some years ago, we have only 2s 6d. a patient now. It may be considered very Scotch to bring up this question, for it nearly always crops up on every Bill of this kind. The Treasury is always painfully niggardly in dealing with it. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the fact that he has been more successful in beating the Treasury than some of his predecessors. I wish him God-speed in that work. I hope that in this case he will induce the Treasury—he can do it if he likes, for he has seventy-two votes behind him—to put Scotland in this particular matter in the same position as England, and to give us a little more than the Bill proposes to give. Subject to these remarks, I hope very much that the Bill will be allowed to pass to-night.
Mr. JAMES HOGGE: I have listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) because it appeared to me that the arguments he was using were arguments not for referring the measure to a Committee upstairs, but for delaying the passing of the Second Reading, in order that those authorities in Scotland who have to be consulted with regard to it should have every and ample opportunity of considering this vast and far-reaching change in local administration before anything is done in this House. I was also interested in noticing that the bulk of the cheers in regard to the appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman, that we might have the Second Reading of this Bill to-night, came from Members who do not know anything at all about Scotland. I think that en occasion the Scottish Secretary can make very adequate speeches about great topics but this measure, dealing with the large subject of mental deficiency in Scotland, which involves such far reaching changes and which also involves the setting up of what the Opposition in this House is so much opposed to, new authorities, new appointments given through Liberal administration to Conservatives throughout the country—
Sir G. YOUNGER: It is not a new body.
Mr. HOGGE: I am obliged to my lion. Friend for reminding me of that, but it is an authority to which battalions of officials are to be added. I am informed that this authority will be increased by
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over 50 per cent. of what it is at present. We shall then have a request for a return from the Opposition for the appointments made and then they will run away, as usual, from the debate. I was saying that the Scottish Secretary can make an adequate speech on a great measure on occasion, but this afternoon in the space of three minutes the Scottish Secretary attempted to deal with what the Government call a great far reaching social reform, upon which they appeal to the' country for support, and all the information we can get with regard to it, unless we have taken the trouble to read it ourselves, is a three-minute speech from the Scottish Secretary. As a Scottish Member I object entirely to that method of dealing with Scottish business in this House It is nothing short of a scandal that on the day on which we are to adjourn at seven o'clock in order to celebrate the King's birthday, we are asked, in the remaining thirteen minutes, to discuss this measure and to give a Second Reading to the Government in order that they may send this Bill upstairs. The Government have got far too many Bills on their programme already, and there are a great many of us who sit behind the Government, and who are pleased and glad to support them on every available occasion, who object to the prospect of this being prolonged into another Autumn Session. If Ministers go on producing Bills from their pocket and putting them upon the Order Paper to the number that appeared yesterday—thirty-five is the number that we have got on the Paper, and we have not yet started the programme for the Session—if that is the hors d'œuvre what is going to be the menu? People in Scotland after all have a certain amount of intelligence, even those who, are not going to be dealt with by this measure, and the intelligence resides in the local authorities in Scotland. Some of these local authorities have not had an opportunity of discussing the details of this measure. It is going to involve financial changes, and I do not know what the Secretary for Scotland meant by saying that it would relieve the burden on the poorest parishes. That is the tale that both Front Benches tell when they are in office, but it usually works out in an entirely different way, and we who represent Scottish public opinion would like, before we agree to the Second Reading, to have the opinion of those authorities as to, whether or not, from the administrative

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side, they agree to the Bill. For these reasons and a great many others which I need not enlarge upon, I feel bound, in order that the House may proceed to celebrate the King's birthday, to move the Adjournment of the Debate.
Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: I beg to second the Motion.
Debate to be resumed to-morrow (Wednesday).
ADJOURNMENT—Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
Adjourned accordingly at Nine minutes before Seven o'clock.