MONEY RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 30 June 1913 vol 54 cc1513-69

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it is expedient to authorise the advance, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any sums necessary for payment of the principal and interest of all or any part of any money borrowed by the Welsh Commissioners, and guaranteed by His Majesty's Treasury, under any Act of the present Session to terminate the establishment Of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and to make provision in respect of the temporalities thereof, and for other purposes in connection with the matters aforesaid."—[Mr. Gulland.]

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): As the Committee know, under this Bill no part of the expenses of the Commissioners, or, in other words, no part of the cost of bringing the Act into effect, is borne by the public funds. It has been said from time to time that the public are being taxed in order to bring into operation a Bill devised for the benefit of Nonconformists. Let me say at once that there is not the smallest ground for that charge, and that not a single penny of public money will be devoted to the purpose of bringing this Bill into effect. I see that even so acute a critic as the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare) who, if he will allow me to say so, has shown himself throughout these discussions so exceedingly well informed in matters relating to them, seems to have fallen into the error in assuming that the salaries of the Welsh Commissioners are payable out of the taxes. Let me assure him that is not so. The salaries of the Welsh Commissioners and other expenses of the Bill will be paid out of the alienated funds of the present Established Church. That being so, it seems almost to be unnecessary to have a Financial Resolution at all. But in the early days of bringing the Bill into effect the Commissioners will undoubtedly have greater demand upon them than their revenue at the time will enable them to meet. If the representative body avail themselves of the opportunity which the Bill affords them, and accepts the principle of commutation, then it is obvious that the Commissioners will be obliged at once to borrow a large sum of money in order to make the commutation Clauses operative. The Commissioners can, no doubt, borrow money upon the security of the alienated Church funds, but it is proposed in the Bill that some assistance should be given to the Commissioners, not by way of Grant of money, but by way of guarantee by the Treasury of such loans as the Commissioners may have to make. If hon. Members will look at the Bill and turn to Clause 30, they will see that in the first Sub-section of the Clause the Welsh Commissioners are empowered with the consent of the Treasury to borrow such sums of money as they may think expedient for carrying into effect any provision of this Act, and Sub-clause 3 of the same Clause says:— The Treasury may, if they think fit., guarantee the payment of the principal and interest of all or any part of money borrowed by the Welsh Commissioners.

And, further, Sub-clause (5) says:— For giving effect to the guarantee aforesaid, the Treasury in aid of any money applicable under this Act for payment of "principal and interest for the time being accrued due in respect of any money borrowed by the Welsh Commissioners in pursuance of this Act, may cause to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom or the growing produce thereof, such sums as may be necessary for the pay- ment of the said principal and interest, or of any part thereof respectively.

In the first place, let us consider what the probable extent of the Treasury guarantee may amount to. We have to take two alternative cases. We have to suppose that there is no commutation, and that there is commutation. Assuming in the first place that there is no commutation, what will be the charges that will fall upon the Commissioners for which the Treasury may give a guarantee? The Commissioners will have to pay a compensation to lay owners of tithe-rent charges. In any event that cannot amount to a large sum. They will have to pay their own salaries; that also cannot amount to a large sum, and they will have to pay such other expenses, as the management of their own office, which will probably be covered by a few hundreds a year.

Mr. HEWINS

What about the legal expenses?

Mr. McK EN NA

I very much doubt whether the legal expenses will be heavy. I admit there will be some legal expenses, but they will not amount to a large figure. The hon. Gentleman thinks they will. Probably we are not agreed as to the meaning of a large figure. I am dealing now with the possibility of a loan that may have to be raised by the Commissioners on account of their expenditure exceeding their income. Assuming commutation does not take place, what are the possible limits of that loan? Such a loan could not in any circumstances exceed more than few thousand pounds, and the loan would necessarily only be for a short period. Of course the Committee will understand that immediately after Disestablishment the revenue of the Commissioners would be practically confined to the amount which was paid under the old Queen Anne Bounties, originally the whole charges of first fruits and tenths, and that will be the sole revenue of the Commissioners immediately after Disestablishment. As life interests fall in, the revenue will increase, and consequently some few years after Disestablishment takes place, the Commissioners will be in a position to pay, not only the annual cost of their office, but they will be able to repay any loans that they have incurred. The Committee will see, of course, that it is quite impossible to give a definite figure. As the revenue of the Commissioners will depend upon the period when the life in terests fall in, we cannot give anything more than a rough estimate, that is to say, a rough estimate of revenue, but as to the expenditure of the Commissioners, the limits are known apart from commutation, and all we ask the Committee to do is to authorise the Treasury to guarantee the loan which, if commutation is not accepted, must be of a trivial kind.

4.0 P.M.

The second alternative—the alternative of commutation—is much more serious, and I do not wish to disguise from the Committee for one moment that the amount of money which the Commissioners might have to borrow in order to buy out the life interests of the clergy would be a very large suni. We must take our second alternative now, and we must assume that the governing body of the Church decides to accept commutation. I have had some very interesting figures worked out by a most competent actuary. With assistance given to him by the actuary of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he has been able to work out some very important figures. It will be remembered that the principle upon which commutation is to be settled is laid down in a Schedule to the Bill. This principle provides that in estimating the value of the life interest we take not merely the latest life tables, but we take the latest life tables as applicable to the clergy and to make a further allowance for the prospective increase in longevity of all classes, including the clergy. The actuary I have mentioned has taken the latest tables of the Clergy Mutual Assurance Society for May, 1911, and I believe they show a greater longevity than any tables which have yet been worked out. We have, first of all, to estimate the number of years' purchase which 'would be payable upon the life tables of this society We propose, however, as a reasonable allowance, to make for the increasing longevity of the clergy, that every individual should be taken as being ene year younger than he actually To justify this assumption we have 1:o go back. If we had taken to-day the tables hich were made up twenty-five yeas s ago we should have found by actual verified experience that the clergy lived longer than was anticipated in the tables made up a quarter of a century back. We expect, and the world expects, that the process which has been going on now for a great many years, showing a tendency towards an increase in the length of life will continue, and consequently it is not enough, we hold, in order to do justice in this case merely to take the latest tables, but we have to anticipate what would be the tables fifteen or twenty years hence, and upon that anticipation we have come to the conclusion that a proper estimate to make is that each individual is one year younger than in fact his burial certificate shows.

I wish also to make this statement. In the figures which I have hitherto given to the House in dealing with this Bill I have always founded myself upon the Report of the Royal Commission, which gives the figures for the year 1906. I have always stated that those figures would be found subject to alteration whenever the Bill passed, because we should have to bring them up to the last year or the last year but one before the actual passing of the Bill. The increase for 1912 would not agree altogether with the figures for 1906. The revenue of the Church has increased in the interval, and consequently two things have happened. The total amount of property alienated has increased, and with that increase there has been an increase in the total amount of the life interest. That is to say, each clergyman on the average now has got a life interest in a larger income than was estimated in the year 1906. Making allowance for these two factors, increased longevity and increase of income, we estimate that the amount required to affect commutation would he about £2,160,000, or upwards, at any rate, of £2,100,000, and that sum represents twelve and three-quarter years' purchase of the income from the alienated property.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

Does that include the expenses of administration?

Mr. McKENNA

That includes everytl-ing.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

Does it include the 2½ per cent?

Mr. McKENNA

No, it does not include the 2½ per cent., but it represents simply the life interest. It represents twelve and three-quarter years' purchase of the existing income and it amounts to £2,100,000. If I may complete my statement on this matter I would like to make a brief comparison with what was done in the case of the Irish Act.. In the case of that, Act, in calculating the value of a life tenancy, interest was reckoned at 3 per cent., and we propose to reckon the interest at 31 per cent.. In the case of Ireland the 12 per cent, was described as bonus, and that was added to the life interest, and of that 12 per cent. 7 per cent. represented an allowance for greater longevity of the clergy and 5 per cent. was estimated to represent the cost of working commutation. We propose to give no additional bonus, but we propose to allow 2é per cent. for working expenses, se that upon those two items it would appear that we are giving much less favourable terms to the Church in Wales than was given in the case of Ireland. How does it work out in the Irish case? In the case of Ireland the number of years'purchaseworked out altogether at 12.8 years' purchase, and that included the bonus and the reckoning of the life interest upon a 3 per cent. table. We propose to give 12.75 years' purchase and in addition we propose to give 2é per cent. towards the cost of working the commutation.

Mr. ELLIS DAVIES

Does that include the additional one year?

Mr. McKENNA

We are not adding the one year's purchase.

Mr. ELLIS DAVIES

Is it equivalent to one year's purchase?

Mr. McKENNA

Oh, no. You must not assume that. We assume that the total life interest is worth one year's purchase, but it is really only worth just a few months more. It will work out at about four months, but in spite of this we give twelve and three-quarter years' purchase and an additional 3é per cent., and another three or four months, and we give altogether over thirteen years' purchase. The true difference arises in this way. In all life payments of which we have experience sufficient allowance is not made for the increasing longevity of the rest. By taking the latest life tables, which are the only tables we ought to take, and allowing for a similar factor in the future, we get at the true basis of calculation, and on that we take 3é per cent. as the proper rate, and thus we give to the House a real basis upon which the calculation can be properly founded. This is twelve and three-quarter years' purchase throughout. If commutation is accepted, the Welsh Commissioners will have to borrow a. sum exceeding £2,000,000, and unless they borrow at a prohibitive rate of interest they would have to have a Treasury guarantee. It is not certain that the loan ever will be raised, because itis not certain that the governing body of the Church will determine to accept commutation, but, if they do accept it, then undoubtedly the Treasury would be asked to guarantee a loan of this kind. I am asking this Committee to sanction something which is not a merely trifling matter upon the basis I have argued, the first alternative. It would be a serious matter, and I submit to the Committee that it is a matter in which the Exchequer may be fairly called upon to assist in settling this difficult matter. Unless the Commissioners could borrow from the Treasury with a Treasury guarantee, they could not hope to offer to the Disestablished Church anything like the same commutation terms. It is a fact that they will get the benefit of the State guarantee which enables them to do so, and I submit to the Committee that if with the sanction of the House we approve loans representing millions for the development of our Colonies, as we have recently done in the case of Soudan, we must on an occasion of this kind endeavour to avail ourselves of Government credit in order to settle a long outstanding cause of difficulty and resentment amongst the Welsh people. With these few words I beg to recommend to the House that this Resolution should be adopted.

Sir ALFRED CRIPPS

The Home Secretary has attempted to draw a distinction between taxation and using the credit of the Government in order to raise a loan on more advantageous terms. Although there is a distinction between direct taxation and giving a Government guarantee, yet, in principle, you are really dealing with the same thing and using the Government credit, and that could not be done without a Resolution such as the Home Secretary has now proposed. It is necessary to follow the Home Secretary to see in what respects Government credit might be necessary under the terms of this Resolution, and if I am right—and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—in every case it will depend, directly or indirectly, upon the action of the Welsh Commissioners. It may for legal or official expenditure or in connection with the loan raised under the commutation scheme. What I want to say is that if we in this House are going to give authority to a body of Commissioners to pledge the Government credit, we ought to know who those Commissioners are. We ought to know now, because, if there is one time at which we ought to know the names of the Com missioners, it is when we are giving that body power to use the Government credit for the purposes of this Bill. The question whether the Government credit ought to be so used or not must surely depend in all cases of this kind upon the constitution of the body and to whom you are giving the power to use that credit. I say quite frankly, and I think I am speaking on behalf of other members of the Committee, that I object strongly to giving Government credit to a body without we know in what way that body is to be constituted and who the members of it are to be.

I am not going into matters of precedent to any great extent, but I am not aware of a blank cheque of this kind having been given to a body whose names were not known and which was not constituted at the time. It is a blank cheque, because the amount depends upon the action which the Welsh Commissioners take. The question whether the credit of the Government is to be subject to a larger or to a less extent depends upon the action of those three gentlemen, whoever they may be. Would anyone in private business give a blank cheque credit to a body of Commissioners, none of whose names had been revealed? Surely we ought to be specially anxious to get proper guarantee when we are giving Government credit. I cannot imagine anyone in private business saying, "We want credit on behalf of the action of certain gentlemen whose names are going to be disclosed at some subsequent time." The answer would be, "Disclose the names first; then we shall be in a position to consider whether they are entitled to the credit asked for or not." The Home Secretary, in dealing with this question of commutation, unwittingly, no doubt, created what I think I must call a false impression by his reference to the Irish precedent. He said himself that the commutation is to be assessed on the comparatively unfavourable 3é per cent. table. If we are to have commutation on fair terms, that 3é per cent. table, to my mind, is entirely inadmissible. I may quote on that point what was said more than once by the right. hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker). He said that although the offices with which he was connected had given up business of this kind because pensioners lived so long, he thought that the proper percentage to take was 3 and not 3é. He expressed his view quite strongly that the 3é per cent. table was unjust and not right, and he said that in his experience nobody could embark upon this commutation without risk with such a high percentage.

Mr. BOOTH

That is only part of what he said.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Without any discourtesy, I do not take any notice of what the hon. Member says, nor shall I. The expenses here are given at 2é per cent. That is an entirely inadequate amount. If you arc to have commutaion, and I think you ought to have it in a case of this kind, you cannot expect the new representative Church body to take risks. It ought to be put on such a basis that it is tolerably certain it will work out without loss to the new representative body, because in case of loss they have no funds on which they can rely. Let me deal with what was said with regard to the Irish precedent. In Ireland it was 3 per cent., as against 3é per cent.; there was a bonus of 7 per cent., whereas in this case there is no bonus at all; and in Ireland the expenses were put at 5 per cent., whereas in this case they are put at 2é per cent. Yet the Home Secretary tells us that commutation in this case is more favourable than in the other. He himself pointed out the fallacy. Longevity has increased, and the only reason why you get an apparent benefit here is that longer tables as regards longevity are taken now than in the Irish case. What is the just thing to do? You ought to take longevity according to the most modern tables, and, having got the right tables as regards longevity, why should we not; have the 3 per cent. given the same as in the Irish case?Of course, it will work out at a greater number of years purchase, because longevity is longer, but that only means that as regards longevity you are using an accurate table and not an inaccurate one. But so far as the 7 per cent. bonus and the 5 per cent for expenses are concerned, there is obviously nothing given here at all equivalent to what was given in the Irish case.

It is useless for the Home Secretary to say, "We have better terms here, because the table, as regards longevity, has altered in the two periods." It only means that there is a heavy liability, because there is a longer period of life. No one who sufficiently understands matters of this kind can doubt that the commutation, so far as life interest is concerned, is far more unfavourable, I think unjustly unfavour- able, in the Welsh Bill than the provisions of the Irish Bill, and to say that you get over that because you take now what is the actual table as regards longevity is really begging the question altogether. It means that you have more to compensate for when you draw up your commutation table. It does not mean that you are to draw up your commutation table on less favourable terms than were used in the Irish case. I therefore submit that what the Home Secretary said as regards commutation terms in this Bill being more favourable than in the Irish Bill is really not carried out when we analyse the conditions in the two cases. The next question is as regards the capitalised sum—that is, the income on which the calculation is to be made. Of course, a great deal depends upon that point. I have already said that. the 2é per cent. deduction for collection was much less than the 5 per cent., and I am not quite sure whether the rates and land taxation are charged on the three years' average in the case of Ireland as in the case of Wales. The Home Secretary perhaps will tell me whether the three years' average is more favourable to Wales than the average taken as regards Ireland, because, apart from that, every condition shows that the commutation table is drawn up less favourably in this case than in the Irish case. We are no doubt discussing this Financial Resolution under great difficulties. Owing to the terms of the Parliament Act, there is to be no Committee stage in one sense, and this whole discussion appears to me to be nothing more than a farce and a mockery. The terms of the Resolution are quite broad. They are simply— for payment of the principal and interest of all or any part of any money borrowed by the Welsh Commissioners, and guaranteed by His Majesty's Treasury, under any Act of the present Session. The Resolution was first passed in that form, so that it would allow within certain wide limitations alterations in the Committee stage. It was passed in this wide form to prevent Amendments in Committee being out of order. Of course, that was a most valuable principle when the Resolution was first debated, but what is the good of it now? We are not going to have any Committee stage, and the Home Secretary or those responsible for the Financial Resolution ought, instead of asking for a blank cheque, to have said, "Now the Committee terms are fixed as far as we are concerned, we ask the Committee to authorise the issue of such sum, a specified sum, as may be necessary." That is a very important point, and I think the right hon. Genteman in putting down this Resolution must have forgotten the effect of the Parliament Act. We cannot discuss its terms in Committee, because under the Parliament Act there is going to be no Committee stage. Under those circumstances, is it not quite wrong, as a matter of procedure, to introduce a general form of Resolution of this kind which is only allowable in the first instance in order to admit of drastic changes in Committee? If we are to have a Resolution now, we ought to have its terms before us. The The Home Secretary has put it, as regards glebe and other matters, as though it was something in the nature of an adjustment of old and new Parliamentary Grants. But what is the good of leaving a matter of that kind open when there is going to be no Committee stage at all? We protested as strongly as we could against the monstrous injustice of not giving any compensation to curates, but none of those matters are open now. When the question of compensation to curates was open, it was very important that we should have a Money Resolution in these terms, but what is the good of it now? It is a mockery and a farce. It is brought in in the old form, whereas under the Parliament Act we do not get a Committee stage at all.

It is very difficult under those circumstnces to say much as regards this Financial Resolution, because we cannot, in the absence of a Committee stage, follow up what we say now by any effective discussion. I can only say, speaking on behalf of Churchmen, that we do consider and have considered every financial provision in this Bill mean and petty as regards the Welsh Church, quite irrespective of the main principle to which everyone knows we are opposed out-and-out. If I thought we were dealing with the funeral expenses of the Bill. I really should not mind in what form the Resolution had been brought before this Committee so long as the expenses were sufficient to bury it once and for all. I would, indeed, have voted in addition for a memorial effigy of the Home Secretary, and to meet the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for the Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams), I would have added effigies of the private secretaries. The Home Secretary might have been in the centre of the group with the private secretaries weeping tears of sorrow around him. From any other point of view this procedure is a farce. The House has no specific figures before it at this stage. The Resolution is brought forward in general form, although it is well known there will be no Committee stage; the Resolution as framed does not give the House the information to which it is entitled, while it suggests the possibility of a future discussion which cannot arise. Under these circumstances, I hope that hon. Members on this side of the House will express their disapprobation of procedure of this kind and their disapprobation also of the terms in which the Resolution has been drawn.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

I am not a private secretary and, therefore, without incurring the displeasure of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two on the Resolution, and in reply to the observations which have fallen from him. He told us he spoke under great difficulties. I venture to think he has overcome those difficulties with reasonable skill, for he has made a speech of considerable length which, judging from the silence of the Chair, appears to have been absolutely in order. And as far as I can gather the hon. and learned Gentleman has got in quite an eloquent peroration in the sentence or two which indicated very much the attitude in which he approaches all the financial proposals of this Bill. With regard to the substance of his speech— and I know the hon. and learned Gentleman would never have arisen unless he had something substantial to say.

Sir F. BANBURY

We all do that.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

I accept the words of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). whose election to a Committee upon the procedure of this House was achieved recently under circumstances in which we all assented. I was saying that the point of substance, which I gathered from the speech of the hon. and learned Member, was this, that, owing to the fact that under the procedure of the Parliament Act, the Clauses of this Bill may now be regarded as settled Clauses, any discussion upon the Financial Resolution must be a waste of time.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Apart from the actual figures.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right, "apart from the actual figures." That is the first point he was making. He said that, seeing that the Clauses are settled, the Debate on the Financial Resolution becomes a mere farce. But that is not a result of the Parliament Act. The hon. and learned Gentleman has been a Member of this House a long time, and he must know well that the Financial Resolution is often postponed until the greater part of the Committee stage of a Bill has been gone through. If he attends a Standing Committee upstairs he will find that that is the case, and that it is by no means unusual to postpone all Clauses requiring for their support a Financial Resolution until the other Clauses of the Bill have been discussed. Therefore the hon. and learned Gentleman is quite wrong in thinking that one of the consequences of the Parliament Act is that the procedure now adopted is novel.

Mr. RAWLINSON

In the case of Bills that go upstairs you have a Report stage.

Sir A. CRIPPS

And you get a specific sum at the same time.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

The hon. and learned Gentleman who first interrupted me is right in saying that whenever a Bill goes upstairs to a Standing Committee there is a Report stage in this House, but that is not in any way relevant to the point made by the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks. Then says that hon and learned Member, you do not put in the figures here. But there would be no advantage in doing that. What advantage could there be?

Sir F. BANBURY

It would prevent the Government spending more.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

Then the Government need only put in a larger amount than is absolutely necessary. It is purely and simply a mere matter of form. Nothing could be more clear than the limitation as to the amount of the charge that can possibly fall upon the Treasury as a result of this Bill. It is a very odd thing that, during the Debate- on the Report stage last Session, the point that was taken by some hon. Gentlemen opposite was that this expenditure was being cast upon the Welsh Church instead of on the Treasury. Now, as I understand it, the point taken is that the Government are, under this Bill, imposing an improper responsibility on the Treasury. Other points of criticism made by the hon. and learned Gentleman turned upon the details of the commutation scheme, and the Home Secretary, to my mind, performed what might be called a work of supererogation in once more explaining the details of that scheme. As far as I can understand it the scheme has been slightly improved in the interests of the Church. The right hon. Gentleman told us that, having looked into the matter, he had come to the conclusion that in future the life of the Welsh clergy would be a little longer than in the past. Alhough not an actuarial expert, I think the new method of assuming that a Welsh clergyman is a year younger is rather to the advantage of the actual holders of benefices than the reverse. I am ready to admit that the life of the Welsh clergyman, once this Bill has passed, may reasonably be expected to have an increased average duration, not of one, but possibly, of two or three years. However, I entirely approve of this concession of the right hon. Gentleman.

I have been trying to think what other relevant objections were contained in the hon. and learned Member's speech. There was an interjection made from the other side of the House in regard to legal expenses. As far as I can see the legal expenses of the Commissioners, like the legal expenses in similar cases, will be practically nil; the expenses in fact will fall on the unhappy suitors. Whether the expenses in proceeding before the Commissioners under Clause 11 of the Bill, or in reference to appeals will be great or small, I should think if the Commissioners, as I have no doubt they will, exercise some restraint on the duration of their proceedings, and in reference to the kind of procedure they will permit, they will be small. In any case the real expenses connected with any dispute that may take place under the Act will not depend on the will of the Commissioners, but will depend on the will of the parties. Where there is an appeal from the Commissioners, possibly some small sum may have to be provided to secure their representation before the Court to which the appeal is brought, but surely, seeing that by the provisions of the Bill the expenses will conic not from His Majesty's Treasury, but out of funds which we say belong to the Welsh nation, the point is really too small and too trivial to occupy the attention of this House at any great length. I have thought it right to make these observations. I do not indeed complain of the criticisms made on the other side, but I thought it only courteous to my hon. and learned Friends opposite to say that there is some answer to the objections they have taken to this Motion.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

I agree in some measure with the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken, that the discussion upon this Motion, if it is to be kept strictly within the limits of order, must necessarily be very restricted. I hope the Home Secretary will not, when he goes to the country and makes speeches on this Bill, assert that the details were not discussed, notwithstanding the fact that there was an opportunity of discussing them on the Financial Resolution. I wish to refer to some statements contained in the speech of the Home Secretary, which I think went very nearly outside the Rules of Order. Of course we should like to discuss the terms of the commutation. We think them unjust and unreasonable, but it is clear we cannot go far into details, although, perhaps, I may be allowed to do so to the same extent as the Home Secretary. Let me, however, deal at once with the first part of his speech. In his opening sentence he said it had been stated that the expenses of the Commissioners under this Bill, which is for the benefit of Nonconformists—

Mr. McKENNA

No, no.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

Ostensibly.

Mr. McKEN NA

No. My observation was, "It has been said that the expense of the Commissioners in bringing this Bill into operation, a Bill which is said to be for the benefit of Nonconformists, is being borne out of the Exchequer."

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

The right hon. Gentleman's words then were, "It has been said." Apparently he will not commit himself to the statement that it is for the benefit of Nonconformists. I was going to challenge the statement that they got no benefit out of it whatever, except perhaps spite against, the Church. I do not know where this was said or when, but however that may be, this money is coming out of funds which you say are Welsh national funds, and these expenses are being borne entirely by Wales and not by the United Kingdom. We maintain that they are being borne entirely out of Church funds, out of money which, if we come back into office, we intend to return to the Church. In view of that fact, it is important that the finance of this Bill should be a little more business like than it is. What does this Resolution do? It says that these Commissioners, who are at present nameless, may borrow for practically any purpose and to any extent they may think lit.

Mr. McKENNA

No.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

The Resolution says under any Act of the present Session—— Who is to decide the amount?

Mr. McKENNA

The Treasury.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

I suppose the Treasury will sue the Commissioners if they borrow for improper purposes?

Mr. McK E N NA

They may borrow.

Mr.ORMSBY-GORE

I suppose that the Treasury will decide how much money the Commissioners may have, and that the Commissioners will have to state beforehand what the money is for? That is not the way to bring a Resolution before this Committee. The Home Secretary ought to have said, "There are the salaries of the Commissioners, the expenses of the offices, and, in a certain event, there is commutation, and the charge on the Treasury will be so much." The right hon. Gentleman is asking the Committee to lay upon the Treasury and the Welsh Commissioners a burden of decision in matters which it is not proper for them to decide without a full knowledge of this House beforehand. I challenge altogether the Home Secretary's idea as to what the expenses of these Commissioners will be. They have to decide very difficult questions, and to go into the question which the Royal Commission said is exceedingly difficult—the origin of the Church property and the date when it was given. There is bound to be a dispute as to what is to be returned to the representative body and what is not to be returned to them. There are bound to be difficulties in dividing the spoil under this Bill. All these questions are to be decided by the Commissioners. If there is an appeal, and in a highly contentious matter like this there is bound to be an appeal, enormous expenses are attached. What will happen if the Commissioners lose their case on appeal? Who is to pay? I suppose the taxpayers of this country, or else it will come out of the funds, which under this Bill are supposed to be devoted to the Welsh University or the Welsh National Library. That is an unsatisfactory financial method. If you say the money is wanted by the Welsh University and the Welsh Library, how you can take it out of their pockets? It will be wanted more by them than it is by——

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now discussing the Bill rather than the Money Resolution.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

I realise that it is difficult to keep within the rules. I want to say that the Commissioners, during the first years at any rate, will not be able to get the money out of the Welsh Church. The first fruits and tenths referred to by the Home Secretary, which will form their sole income, will amount to something between £800 and £1,000 a year. That will not be sufficient to pay their salaries, maintain their offices, and enable them to indulge in those legal expenses which are bound to arise in a great controversy of this kind. The legal expenses are bound to be considerable. Apparently, under this Resolution, the Commissioners will have the money advanced to them by the Treasury, and it is to be paid back to the Treasury with interest. That will have to paid back from one particular source under the Bill, and will come not from the whole amount of the Church funds, not from the whole of the alienated money, but from one particular portion of the alienated money. That is an exceedingly had financial arrangement. I hope the Committee realise that that particular sum is likely to be considerable. The major portion of the Home Secretary's speech dealt with a very much larger loan which will be necessitated in the event of the commutation scheme being accepted. If the commutation scheme stands as it is now, it is not likely to be accepted. I do not believe the Home Secretary wants it to be accepted. I notice that in his speech this afternoon he said that under the Welsh scheme of commutation it came to 12.75 years' purchase, and that the scheme under the Irish Act came to a small fraction more—12.8.

Mr. McKENNA

That is without reckoning in the ease of the Welsh scheme the 2é per cent. for expenses which was included in the case of the Irish Bill. If we worked it out on the same rate as the Irish Church, it would be thirteen years.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

I am glad to have that figure. Although the terms are said to be generous, several authorities have said that the Irish Church would have done better not to accept those terms, but to have retained the life interests and do all the business outside. What we want to know is whether the longevity has increased since 1869 more in proportion to the amount of increase which the Home Secretary states. He offers us thirteen years purchase, and says that the Irish terms were 12.8 years' purchase. He can only say that the figure he offers us is just if he can show that the increase in longevity since 1861 is represented by the fraction of difference between 13 and 12.8. I am certain that it will be fairer if, instead of reducing us to these fractions, he will give us, as was given in the Irish case, the genuine annuity basis of 3 per cent., with 5 per cent for expenses. That will be found far fairer than all this jugglery with elaborate tables and all these explanations. I do not speak with any authority upon this subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley Division (Sir T. Whittaker) does. He made a valuable contribution to the Debate last year, and no doubt will tell us whether or not the commutation scheme as suggested by the Home Secretary is a fair one. From the speech he made last Session upon this point we were led to think that unless the Home Secretary gave us a 3 per cent. basis, the commutation scheme would be impracticable. Let us suppose that the terms of the commutation scheme are altered in some way, and that the scheme is accepted. In that case these nameless Commissioners will come down upon the Treasury for a very large sum of money. It will be something like £2,500,000 in the first year of the working of this Bill. Upon financial grounds the Committee ought to pause before sanctioning in this manner a loan of £2,500,000 to the Commissioners. It is no use the Home Secretary saying that when the time collies, if the House objects, they can always move a Resolution in this House. If that is the case, why have a Financial Resolution at all now? This Committee ought not to be in the position of being asked to enable the Commissioners, whose names are not not known, to borrow a sum of £2,500,000 from the British Treasury in order to work this Bill upon the security of the small proportion of the Church funds that are to be alienated to the uses of the Welsh University and the Welsh Library. That is not the way it should be done, and I hope the Committee will pause before they sanction a Financial Resolution of this kind. I should have liked to have gone further into the details of the commutation scheme, but I gather that further details would be out of order. It ought to be clearly understood that unless there is some alteration in the commutation scheme, that scheme need never have been suggested. Unless you give us fair working expenses and a fair basis, it is most unreasonable to expect the Church to accept anything of the kind. The Senior Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Edgar Jones) interrupted the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) when he said he would move a reduction, and said, "Starve the parsons!"

Mr. EDGAR JONES

I said nothing of the kind. I said it, would have the effect of starving the parsons.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

I say that this commutation scheme is one which would tend not to starve them, but to reduce the fair amount of compensation to which they are entitled, even upon the principles you have laid down in your Bill. I hope I have not transgressed the rules in what I have said. I hope the Committee will reject the Resolution on financial grounds, and also because I think the commutation scheme outlined by the Home. Secretary this afternoon is unsatisfactory.

Sir THOMAS WHITTAKER

The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir A. Cripps) has made one or two references to myself. It is quite true that I did express an opinion in this House that the commutation scheme would be better upon a 3 per cent, than a 3é per cent. basis. As the position then stood, in my opinion that was undoubtedly so. The Government did not see their way to alter the basis to 3 per cent., but they did make further concessions, and I expressed the opinion, later on, that in my judgment those other concessions did balance the difference between a 3 per cent. and a 3é, per cent. basis. The Government had agreed, first of all, to take the very latest mortality tables. That is better than taking the old mortality tables. The next point is that they are taking the ages as one year younger. That is a very important matter indeed. When you get above fifty years of age it means about a 3 per cent. increase in the capital sum. They are also making another concession, which is that the annuities will be paid for the whole life of the annuitants.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Is the concession as to the last mortality table in addition to that?

5.0 P.M.

Sir T. WHITTAKER

It is in addition. This is taking the clergymen as being one year younger than they really are. That is a concession equivalent to a 3 per cent. increase in the capital sum. The one to which I was referring is this, that the capital sum paid for the annuity is a capital sum to provide an annuity for the whole of the life, right up to the death of every one of them, but in any cases where these men do not remain in the active service of the Church, if they retire, or in any way cease to draw that annuity, the capital sum which has been provided in order to enable the body to pay them an annuity for the whole of their life will be a gain. The 2é per cent., while just about the ordinary working cost in the ordinary way, seems to me to be quite sufficient. I do not think the actual cost of the working of this body will be increased beyond that, and perhaps not up to that. Then there is another point which has been accentuated somewhat since we last debated the Bill, and that is the rate of interest at which you can now invest money, which is higher than would have been the case for very many years past. You can get a 2é, per cent. more for your money than you could have got last year. May I make a suggestion to hon. Members opposite? Pass this Bill this year and get the advantage of the per cent. I have only intervened in this matter before purely from a business point of view. I was anxious that there should be a fair commutation scheme, fair not only to the Church, but to the Welsh people. I felt that a bare 3é, per cent. on the ordinary terms was cutting it too fine, but I am satisfied that the concessions which have been made make that basis a fair, a reasonable, and a workable one.

Sir F. BANBURY

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right in stating that the rate of interest which can be obtained now is higher than it was a year ago, and no doubt if the Government stays in much longer it will be still higher, but what we are dealing with is quite a different matter. My hon. and learned Friend (Sir A. Cripps) says 3 per cent. Was the rate which was allowed under the commutation scheme of the Irish Church Act. That took place in 1869. At that time the rate of interest was considerably higher than it is at present, and if the Irish Church Act is taken as an analogy for the commutation scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, the rate of interest ought to be below the 3 per cent. and not above. The hon. Member (Mr. Edgar Jones) made some reply to an interjection which I made. I have handed in an Amendment to limit the amount which the Treasury may sanction. That in no way starves the clergy. It will merely be a limit upon the powers of the Treasury. I quite agree with my hon. and learned Friend that the guarantee of the loan is in fact placing a charge upon the taxpayer for the benefit of the Welsh Church, and the right hon. Gentleman himself has admitted that. He said that without the credit of the Government the Welsh Commissioners could not borrow at a reasonable rate, and no doubt that is true. The Welsh Commissioners, if they could borrow upon the security of the property which they are going to appropriate, would have to pay a higher rate of interest than if principal and interest were guaranteed by the State, but if that is so it is self-evident that it is the credit of the taxpayer which is being used to facilitate the money which has got to be borrowed in order to pay for the commutation scheme. I want also to emphasise the request made by my hon. and learned Friend for the names of the Commissioners. That seems to me to be a very reasonable request, and I am at a loss to understand why it has not been complied with. After all, this Resolution is not upon the Paper for the first time. It was on the Paper last year, and during that time there must have been plenty of opportunities for the Home Secretary to consider whom he intended to appoint to this very onerous position. The only reason which suggests itself to me for refusing to give the names is that when they are given they will command such little confidence that the right hon. Gentleman is afraid to give them for fear that even the allegiance of hon. Members behind him will be strained, and that when they know the names they will vote against the Resolution.

Mr. BOOTH

Is the hon. Baronet in order now in discussing the inclusion or non-inclusion of these names in the Bill?

The CHAIRMAN

I think it is stretching the point rather too far. The power of the Welsh Commissioners to borrow does not arise under this Resolution at all, but under the Bill. What is authorised here is that the Treasury may give a guarantee.

Mr. HEWINS

Is not that affected by the nature of the security the Commissioners are able to give? Does not the existence of the Commissioners affect that security?

Mr. RAWLINSON

These three Welsh Commissioners have power to incur various expenses which entirely depend upon their discretion. If they are people who are likely to abuse that power it would not be possible to give them a blank cheque.

The CHAIRMAN

All these powers are given them under the Bill. The only additional thing authorised here is to authorise the Treasury to enable them to borrow at a lower rate of interest. Without this Resolution they would only be able to borrow on such security as they themselves had.

Sir F. BANBURY

I think the question of the names is in order, because we are asked to allow the Treasury to guarantee the principal and interest of certain funds. That is the effect of the Resolution. I might be induced to vote for it if I knew that the names of the three Commissioners would command my confidence. On the other hand, if they did not command my confidence, I might be induced to vote against the Resolution, and therefore I should like to ask your ruling as to whether an argument upon these lines would not be in order.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Surely upon a Financial Resolution, when you are backing up the credit of certain bodies, such as the Welsh Commissioners, by Treasury assistance, it must be material whether those Commissioners are named or not.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Gentleman will observe that I did not interrupt him when he asked for the names. I was appealed to, and gave what I think was a sound ruling, that any development of an argument which refers to another Clause of the Bill altogether would be out of order, but as far as it has gone both the hon. and learned Gentleman and the hon. Baronet have been entitled to ask.

Sir F. BANBURY

I will defer my argument on that till a little later.

Mr. HOARE rose——

The CHAIRMAN

It might save the hon. Member trouble if I refer to his Amendment to insert the words, "salaries of the Welsh Commissioners and the." That Amendment cannot be taken until the hon. Member is a Minister of the Crown. It requires to come from a Minister.

Mr. HOARE

I am sorry to think the moving of that Amendment will be put off for some indefinite time. I did not rise to attempt to move it at present because there are one or two questions I should like to have answered before we go to a Division. It seemed to me that the Home Secretary used the opportunity of this Resolution chiefly for bringing out again the Irish precedent. In two material points the Irish case differs altogether from the case outlined by the Home Secretary with reference to this Financial Resolution. In the first place, as far as commutation went, there was a considerable number of clergy in Ireland who had no wish to remain in Ireland after Disestablishment passed. They took a lump sum and left the country. That in itself made the conditions much better for the clergy who remained in Ireland. That cannot happen in Wales, where no one would say there is an excessive number of clergy in the four dioceses. Secondly, in another respect the Irish finance differed altogether from that outlined in this Resolution. Curates were compensated, and in some cases were actually given an annuity. It is sufficient to mention these two facts to show how entirely the precedent which the Home Secretary cited breaks down when applied to the Welsh Bill.

With reference to commutation, I should like to ask a question which I feel sure the Under-Secretary for the Home Department will answer when he comes to speak. I remember that in the Debate we had on the subject of commutation we pressed that the matter should be referred to an impartial actuary or a number of actuaries. The Home Secretary just now said that he had come to the conclusion which he described to the Committee after consultation with an impartial actuary. I shall be very much obliged to know who this impartial actuary is. Secondly, I should like to ask the Under-Secretary why we are having this Debate at all; not so much because it raises so small a point that an hour or two is unnecessary, but because I wish to know why a Financial Resolution is necessary at all. The Home Secretary devoted most of his speech to quoting the Irish precedent. I believe I am right in saying that in the Irish case, although there was commutation, and although the terms of compensation of the various freehold officers were much more generous than under this Bill, with the result that a much greater charge was put on the Irish Church Fund, there was no Financial Resolution at all. If no Financial Resolution was required in the Irish case, why is one required in this case? Thirdly, I wish to support the request which the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) has just emphasised, namely, Why is it that no specific sum is put into the Resolution? I will not elaborate that point, because we shall have an opportunity of doing so when the hon. Baronet moves his Amendment. It is sufficient to say that it ought to be reasonably possible for the Home Secretary to put in a definite sum. He told us that something over £2,000,000 was necessary for commutation. I suppose he has some estimate of what will be necessary for compensation. I wish to ask the Under-Secretary why no definite sum has been put in this Financial Resolution.

Lastly, I should like to emphasise what has been said by several hon. Members on this side as to the great danger of giving the Treasury guarantee to three Commissioners about whom we know nothing. The case is even stronger than that stated by the hon. and learned Member for South Buckinghamshire (Sir A. Cripps) and the hon. Member for the City of London, for it comes to this, that under this Resolution the Treasury will be guaranteeing the credit of men whose names, in the first place, are not known, and secondly, whose administration will not come under the purview of this House at all, so far as I can understand. I understand that owing to the payment of their salaries corning out of the Church Fund and not out of the Consolidated Fund, there will b3 no opportunity when the Bill passes for this House to criticise their administration at all. If their salaries were to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, then there would naturally be an opportunity in due course of moving a reduction in the salaries, or a reduction in some particular item of their expenditure, but under this Resolution no such opportunity will arise. We are in this position: We are asking the Treasury to give its guarantee to these-unknown gentlemen for £2,000,000 or £3,000,000, while their subsequent action will not be criticised in this House. If we were going to appoint impartial judges, that might not be so bad as it actually is, but these gentlemen are to be appointed to carry out simply a political transaction. They will be nothing more than political agents to carry out a transaction which creates the greatest discontent among a large section of people in the country, and, in addition to that, their duties will be attended with the greatest difficulties. 'These men who are to carry out a political transaction, and who will be faced with difficulties of great complexity, will be removed by your financial Resolution from all subsequent, criticism by the Committee or the House itself. In view of these three points, I shall certainly vote against the Resolution.

Mr. ELLIS DAVIES

The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Hoare) has complained that it is rather difficult to speak on this subject before hearing the reply on behalf of the Government. We have heard the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) dealing with the question of commutation. He rather suggested that if the rate of interest charged was reduced from 3½ per cent. to 3 per cent. they, on the other side of the House, would be willing to accept the proposal. I am rather curious to know how far the hon. Member is entitled to speak for the Church in Wales. I find that there is another hon. Member opposite who takes an interest in this question, and I hope we shall hear from him whether the statement made by the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs is accepted or not We understand on this side that under no circumstances would the Church accept the Bill, with or without commutation. We understand, further, that they will have nothing to do with what is called onside, if not in this House, the "unclean thing." It appears, however, that on the other side the real objection to compromise on the Bill is not at all on the question of principle, but because the financial proposals will be to the disadvantage of the Church. [An HON. MEMBER: "Quote."] I will be very pleased to quote a speech made by Lord Selborne on 30th May last. He is reported in the "Times" as having said:— If the Liberals were [at the next election] returned to power, the Church would he far stronger, far more enthusiastic, and in a far better position to find the money required for the spiritual purposes of the people of Wales if there had been no compromise. The suggestion contained in that statement is that if no compromise is accepted, the public will be more ready to help the Church in Wales. The terms now offered by the Home Secretary with regard to commutation are rather more liberal than before, but I notice that not one word of gratitude has been expressed on the other side. I hope the Home Secretary will take that into consideration when pressure is brought to bear upon him to make further concessions. There is only one point on which the 'Committee are agreed, and that is, that there is great reluctance on the part of clergymen to go to heaven, because the whole of the available statistics go to show that they live longer than ordinary mortals. They show considerable reluctance to leave this world. As to the terms on which commutation should take place, we have to bear in mind that the commutation tables are not the tables which apply with regard to the general public. They are tables of insurance companies with regard to a particular class of life, namely, the life of clergymen; and not only are they the tables which apply to clergymen in general, but they are even more advantageous, because they are the tables with respect to selected lives. Reference has been made to what was done in the case of the Irish Church, and it is suggested that the terms given to clergymen of that Church were more favourable than those which are to be granted to clergymen in Wales. It has been pointed out by the hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division (Sir T. Whittaker) that it means an addition of 3 per cent. to the capital value. It is the equivalent of 3 per cent, on the capital value of the price of commutation. I think it ought to be pointed out again, that while in Ireland the average number of years' purchase was 12.8, in this case it is 12.75, and, in addition, there is to be allowed a further sum of 2½ per cent. In any case the proposed arrangement is one with respect to which it is not for the other side to complain.

Mr. RAWLINSON

I hope I shall sail under no false colours. I wish to make it abundantly plain, so far as I am concerned, that I do not desire to express any gratitude for anything that has been promised. The hon. Member opposite referred to compromise, but I really do not know what the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs said. I am not prepared to compromise with those who are promoting this Bill. I think that a majority of them themselves know that they are doing an absolutely wrong thing to us, and, therefore, they are not in the least surprised that we do not meet them and thank them for the small portion given back to us. I think I have made that absolutely clear on every occasion on which I have addressed the Committee on this subject. There is one thing I am grateful for. This is a, Motion to spend public money. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. EDGAR JONES

No.

Mr. RAWLINSON

If there is the slightest doubt about that, I would refer the hon. Member to the terms of the Resolution, which says:— That it is exp3dient to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as may be necessary for payment of principal and interest of any money borrowed by the Welsh Commissioners.…

Mr. EDGAR JONES

The Treasury does not lose a halfpenny. We have to make it up.

Mr. RAWLINSON

The hon. Member says that this is not public money because they have to repay it on some other occasion, but they get the advantage of borrowing money on Consols which, after all, even now, are better security than the private credit of three Welsh Commissioners. The hon. Member contends that although you are using Consols to pay for a thing, that is not paying public money, because you are going to pay it off, but, of course, it is using public money and public credit.

Mr. EDGAR JONES

They hand over the money to the representative Church body.

Mr. RAWLINSON

They have got to pay their own salaries and a secretary of some kind. It is idle to talk about it not being public money. We have no passive resistance over this Bill. No one has got any conscientious scruples against public `money coming out of the taxes being devoted to the payment of commutation.

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite mistaken. Not one penny of public money is used in that way.

Mr. RAWLINSON

The right hon. Gentleman in his opening speech was so clear about it that I thought it unnecessary to go over it again. When the Welsh Commissioners borrow the £2,000,000 the Treasury have got to raise £2,000,000, and that, of course, is public money. But leav ing the more contentious point, let us come back to the proposition that is put before us. We are asked solemnly to grant an absolutely blank cheque to the three Commissioners whose names have been asked for already, but so far they have not been given. But even assuming that we knew who they were, is there any precedent for allowing three Commissioners to borrow such an amount as they think right for two different purposes? For one thing the Home Secretary tells us that he does not expect that many thousands of pounds will be required. That is for the expenses of carrying the matter out, including the salaries of the Commissioners and their secretary and other officers. There is no limit as to the amount which they are to be allowed to borrow for that purpose. Directly they borrow the Treasury is empowered under this. Resolution to issue Consols to that amount without any check from this House. Ta begin with there is a blank cheque as far as that is concerned. A similar sort or blank cheque is to be given to them in the case of commutation, and again the amount is unlimited. He told us of certain specific things which he proposed that the Commissioners should do. In what way are the restrictions to be enforced? Are the Commissioners bound-to take the 3 or 3½ per cent. table as the case may be? Are they bound to grant this extra year on the life of every. person? They have power, of course, in that part of Schedule III. to make such allowance as they think right. The Home Secretary says that they are going to give these terms. What are these terms? We are told by the hon. Member, who has just sat down, that the tables from which they are taken are the latest tables. That is quite right. The hon. Member for Spen Valley told us that same thing. Is there any great virtue in that. When you carry out any kind of insurance is it likely that you are going to take a table of fifteen years ago Is it not most likely that you will take the last available. tables? The hon. Gentleman, who has just sat down, told us that these tables only apply to clergy. It is the Clergy. Mutual tables.

Mr. ELLIS DAVIES

Not the average life of the clergy, but their experience with regard to selected lives, that is the insured life of the clergy.

Mr. RAWLINSON

That is exactly the point on which I beg to differ from the, hon. Member.

Mr. McKENNA

The actuary speaks of it as a process of readjustment from the actual experience of that society in respect of the lives of the clergy during the twenty-four years ending the 21st May, 1911.

Mr. RAWLI NSON

If that is so the hon. Member is right, and I am wrong, but T presume that it will be laid on the Table of this House so that we may be able to check it. I had no idea that there was any such table drawn up by the Clergy Mutual. They do a very large business with a very large number of lives besides those of the clergy, and it does seem odd that they should take out separate tables for the lives of the clergy.

Mr. BOOTH

Every office does it.

Mr. RAWLINSON

I am afraid that I cannot agree with the hon. Member. We know the tables perfectly well. The right hon. Gentleman purported to quote from that and no doubt he will lay it on the Table of the House so that we may be able to examine it. Does he suggest that it is the lives of the clergy which you propose to take, and that then you are to add one year, that is to give them one year of youth which they do not possess? Are the Commissioners bound to do that? What possible guarantee is there to this House that the Commissioners are going to do that? I do not doubt the bona fides of the Home Secretary, but here you have power given in an Act for the Commissioners to do certain things. The Home Secretary tells us to-day that the Commissioners are going to do this.

Mr. McKENNA

I did not say that. I quite realise the point.

Mr. RAWLINSON

I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that that did give us an extra year.

Mr. McKENNA

I quite realise the force of the hon. and learned Member's point and therefore I carefully refrained from using language of the kind which he thought I used. I stated that in the Fourth Schedule certain principles were laid down for the guidance of the Commissioners. I have been through those figures and on those tables it seems to me chat a reasonable allowance would be to assume that, the clergy would be one year younger than they are now. I stated that clearly. On the evidence I have no doubt that the Commissioners will come to the same conclusion. I quite agree that they are not bound to do so. On the other hand, the clergy are not bound to accept the Commissioners' terms.

Mr. RAWLINSON

The right hon. Gentleman really has given us his own private opinion and nothing more. He has gone into the figures and come to certain conclusions. He cannot bind the Commissioners any more than I can, or at least I presume that he cannot. Suppose that they come to a different conclusion. They might come to the view that they are not entitled to that year at all. In fact it might be said that there would be rather less than the average taken. There is nothing to bind them at all. Therefore what we are doing is giving this blank cheque to the Commissioners, and we are merely speculating as to what they will do. They will have power to borrow small or large sums. Is it business to leave simply in the hands of three Commissioners this power or discretion to borrow money in that way? But I submit, without affecting my hostility to the whole Bill in any shape or form, that there is a great objection to this House delegating what is its chief object—that is its control of finance. We must put some limit on these Financial Resolutions of the Government.

Mr. DAVID MASON

This power is only for three years.

Mr. RAWLINSON

It may be renewed by the Treasury.

Mr. MASON

Only for two years.

Mr. RAWLINSON

It is extraordinary the amount of borrowing you can do in three years. With the Consolidated Fund behind the Commissioners it is wonderful what you can do in three years. You are leaving a blank cheque in this particular case to the Commissioners; that is not making the position any better, but is making it somewhat worse, and therefore I shall certainly vote against the Resolution and support the Amendment of my hon. Friend.

Mr. BOOTH

I wish to deal with this one point, and that is really the ground of my being in the House during this Debate. The hon. and learned Member opposite quoted my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker), but only gave a small portion of a well-balanced argument. He was for a moment triumphant, but his downfall came when the right hon. Member for Spen Valley spoke in this House. The whole consideration is whether the basis of this Financial Resolution should take into account all these matters. The hon. Member for Spen Valley put his point very well, but the hon. and learned Member opposite made a complete burlesque of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. When you deal with the question of 3½ or 3 per cent., the calculation must take into account all the facts. Other conditions have been introduced, and the right hon. Member for Spen Valley has been led to finally agree to this particular Motion. My right hon. Friend agrees that the figures put in the Bill are perfectly fair to the Church. In regard to the Irish precedent, I submit that in this instance there is an advantage to the English Church as established in Wales, and I am very thankful for it, speaking as one who wishes to act with fairness to the Church. To listen to the hon. and learned Gentleman who preceded me, one would think that instead of being thankful for this concession to the Church, he wants to make a point against it. Let us put aside party politics.

Mr. RAWLINSON

I say that the money has been taken away from us, and it is idle to expect me to pretend gratitude because a very small portion of it is returned.

Mr. BOOTH

Does the hon. and learned Member suggest that if the clergy of the Church in Wales have a larger sum by means of concession to finance their spiritual work, that it is to be despised? Surely they will welcome it.

Mr. RAWLINSON

I never said that.

Mr. BOOTH

Then is the hon. and learned Gentleman grateful for it?

Mr. RAWLINSON

I tell the hon. Gentleman frankly that I am not. If he wants an untrue answer to be given he must get somebody else to give it. If a person comes and takes a large sum of money from me and I get some part of it back I am not at all grateful to him. If the hon. Gentleman knows anything of the Courts of Law, he must be aware that there are frequently cases in which money has been taken away, and, when the people from whom the money has been taken manage to get back part of it, they are not grateful for the portion they have just obtained.

Mr. BOOTH

What has that got to do with it? There is being given to the Church a larger sum which they are glad to receive, not to speak of gratitude. The hon. and learned Gentleman is speaking as a party politician; he is not a Welsh clergyman. Welsh clergymen have probably a higher standing than that which is associated with those law cases to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. I, like other hon. Members of the House, desire that the Church in Wales shall be successful in its spiritual mission, and this concession will be valuable to the Church organisation to conduct its spiritual mission; yet the hon. and learned Gentleman will not say, "Thank you." I should have thought that the hon. and learned Member might have taken up a more noble attitude. Surely this Financial Resolution treats the Church more generously than was originally intended, and, if that be so, while hon. Members opposite do not like Disestablishment or Disendowment or the Money Resolution, yet the Motion is in a better and more acceptable form than it was before these improvemnts were introduced. I really do not see why hon. Members opposite cannot be thankful. Surely in their own hearts they are grateful, but it seems to me that they will not acknowledge it.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I am not grateful for robbery.

Mr. BOOTH

The hon. and learned Member introduced heat, party bias and prejudice, and said that on this business transaction he was handicapped. I have looked into this proposal as a business one, and have treated it solely in that aspect, and I must express to the Committee my view that the terms are much better than the Irish terms to which hon. Members opposite alluded. It is quite true that the statistics of mortality show an improvement in the general community compared with those of a former period, but I am not at all sure that they show an improvement in the longevity of clergymen. That is the point. I do not think there has been any appreciable difference. Even the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London was not so sure that there was an appreciable difference in the length of life of clergymen. They have aways lived to a ripe old age, and if they have appeared reluctant to go to Heaven, no one can blame them for that, for it is because they lead normal, healthy, and Christian lives. It would be a very lamentable thing if the dissolute part of the community were to live longer than those who are engaged in the higher callings of life. Reference is made to the Irish Bill, but no one can produce figures to show that there has been a greater increase in longevity among clergymen than there has been in the case of other sections of the community. In many districts the elder people have not lived to a greater age. Infants have been preserved for six, seven, or eight years, and therefore the death-rate has apparently gone down, but it does not at all follow that old people live longer for any considerable period.

The Church is receiving much more generous terms under this Resolution, and I submit that it is a distinct gain. I refrained from speaking on the First, Second, and Third Reading of the Bill, because I desired not to introduce into these discussions a heat which I think ought not to be imported into these matters. But, to-day we are dealing with a business question and with insurance terms, and I defy right hon. Gentlemen opposite to show that any injustice is done in this case. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock, last year, was in a disturbed frame of mind in regard to certain points, and he spent some time with me in going over the financial proposals of the Bill. I went into the point, and I satisfied myself that the basis of the scheme was sound, all things taken into account. That was the position then, but now it has been improved, and the bargain is still better. The hon. and learned Member based his final argument on the fact that the three Commissioners are empowered to borrow this huge sum of money, but I would point out that this is an optional scheme, and it rests with the Church authorities whether they take it or not. So far as I understand it, the Commissioners are empowered to grant these improved terms with a view to coming to an amicable settlement. That is one reason why I thoroughly approve of the proposal. Surely the object is to promote the interests of our common Christianity, and I do not think that Debates of this kind do any good to the principles of Christianity. We are increasing the bargaining power of the Commissioners, and enabling them to make a better proposal to the Church organisation in Wales for a peaceful settlement. Every section of the House should rejoice, and I thank the Government for the suggestions they have made to-day.

6.0 P.M

Mr. DUKE

The hon. Member thanks the Government for making a sort of happy dispatch, or as short a dispatch as can be made, of the Church with as little offence and with such decency as is possible. As to this Financial Resolution, the wrong doing of which the party opposite has been guilty with regard to the Church in Wales, may be hushed up in some degree if they can convert the property of the Church in Wales into a sort of asset of the Commissioners of the Consolidated Fund, and so entangle the public interest with the interests of the Church in Wales that at some early date the people will say, "There is nothing more to be said on these matters; the Church property is so much concerned with public interests that there is no way back." So far as I am concerned, I do not desire that there shall be no way back. One hon. Member referred to what he called this business transaction. The only parallel which I can recall is a business transaction disclosed in some old law reports. Two gentlemen proposed to engage themselves in carrying on the business at Hampstead Heath and Blackheath, and other spots, of acquiring watches and jewellery and other property: but when the time came to settle, they found themselves very much involved in the criminal law. The "business transaction" is the depriving of the Church in Wales of the property which has been bestowed on it in past generations for religious uses. To speak of a business transaction of returning a percentage of it in consideration of being allowed quietly to walk off with the remaining percentage does not at all convey to me anything of the ordinary character of a business transaction. I do not approach it from the business standpoint, and nobody except a politician would call this a business transaction, or would refer to the spoliation of the Church of Wales as being a thing which you should describe in terms of addition or subtraction. We are reproached for the want, of a sense of gratitude. The only such sense we have is to the instinct of honesty amongst the English people which prevents this Government from doing what it proposed to d3 with the Church. That is the sense of gratitude we have. We are thankful that the ordinary feelings al out religion and fair play prevent. even this despotic Administration from carrying out its mere arbitrary will in a matter of this kind. That is our sense of gratitude, and I do not think hon. Members will find any other sense of gratitude amongst those who feel that a great injustice is being done to the Church in Wales. Hon. Members opposite rather pride themselves upon the large inducements which are being held out to the clergy to join them in making an easy end of the Church in Wales. To my mind anything more discreditable than to try and secure the co-operation of the clergy in disestablishing the Church in Wales by making it easy for every incumbent at present, it would be exceedingly difficult to find.

Mr. EDGAR JONES

May I ask if it is in order to have a Second Reading Debate on the principles of the Bill on this Financial Resolution?

The CHAIRMAN

I am not inclined to interfere with a simple phrase, but I think the hon. and learned Member is going too widely over the Bill. This Resolution deals with the supplementary provision for the Bill.

Mr. DUKE

I conform absolutely to your direction, and I will come to the consideration of the terms proposed in this Resolution which are to be used to inspire our gratitude and so secure our co-operation in the process which is in hand. So far as the immediate financial operation is concerned, it is an operation to enable three gentlemen whom we do not know to draw upon the Treasury for an amount to which we do not set any limit. That does not seem to me like finance. We are challenged to discuss this matter as a business transaction, and while it may be that we have had new light thrown on matters of finance in recent times, it is not business.

Mr. McKENNA

Nor is it the Bill.

Mr. DUKE

The right hon. Gentleman says it is not the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman can name his three Commissioners, then it will not be the Bill.

Mr. McKENNA

If the hon. and learned Gentleman will be so good as to look at Clause 30 he will see he has not accurately described the position.

Mr. DUKE

I am quite willing to read Clause 30, but I am quite sure from a study of the Bill so recently as the last occasion when this Motion was on the Order Paper there were no names in Clause 30, and, if there are names now, they must have been inserted in the meantime. What I was speaking of was the power imposed upon gentlemen, whom we do not know and I suppose nobody knows, to borrow sums of money, and such sums as they think will be expedient.

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. Gentleman has left out some very material parts, "The Welsh Commissioners may, with the consent of the Treasury and upon such terms as the Treasury may approve of." That is a very material point.

Mr. DUKE

I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. That is the very thing I was complaining of. I have no more confidence in His Majesty's Government, whom I do know, than I have in the Welsh Commissioners, whom I do not know. I have seen the works of His Majesty's Government with regard to this transaction and they do not commend themselves to me. I will read the words and see whether I was at all unjust in my statement of the effect:— The Welsh Commissioners may, with the consent of the Treasury and upon such terms as the Treasury may approve, borrow such sums of money as they think expedient. to carry into effect any provisions of this Act. That is what I said it was, to enable a body of gentlemen whom we do not know to cooperate with the Government for putting an end easily to the difficulties connected with the Welsh Church by borrowing a sum of money to which we do not set any limit. I venture to say that is a perfectly accurate statement of the powers contained here. As a financial operation I protest against that proceeding. I protest against it far more because of what is proposed to be done—because it is intended to identify the public exchequer with the transactions of the Welsh Commissioners with a view to the easy Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. As I look forward to the time when this proposal to Disestablish the Welsh Church, whatever happens to it this year, may be made an end of, I strongly oppose this proposition of the Government which is intended to facilitate it.

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

I, for one, did not expect any gratitude from hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite, because I know what their contention is. They have always said, and as was said just now by one of the hon. and learned Gentlemen, that the concessions that have been made—enormous concessions, as I call them—in the course of this Bill, are but the return of a small proportion of their own money. That being their view, I did not expect any gratitude from them. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), when he cross-examines an hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, with the view to getting an expression of gratitude from him for returning a small proportion "of his own money." I confess I was rather uneasy while my hon. Friend was talking. He seemed to think that if we did not return a great amount of money to the Church in Wales that the Church would suffer. That is not our view at all. Money has nothing to do with the success of religion at all.

Mr. BOOTHrose——

The CHAIRMAN

The whole point is far from the present question.

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

If I misapprchencled my hon. Friend I withdraw. I did not expect any gratitude, and I' do not expect any gratitude now that it is discovered that the terms of commutation are more generous than any of us anticipated.

Mr. McKENNA

was understood to indicate dissent.

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

I must say I came down in a very placable frame of mind this afternoon. I had so much confidence about the concessions that I thought it was quite safe not to hear the right hon. Gentleman make his statement. I confess when I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for the Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker) bless the Government and beam satisfaction for the generosity of the treatment from an insurance point of view, then I began to inquire whether we stood now in the same position as we stood last February when the matter was under discussion. I find there are two great distinctions. My right hon. Friend is not responsible for one of them. In February last it was pointed out that commutation would be based on a 3½ per cent. basis. Though I thought it was a very generous provision, I agreed to that because, on the whole, I felt it was better to err on the side of generosity than of parsimony in these matters. But what do we find to-day? I remember the Home Secretary saying in February last that investment in Irish Land Stock would bring in about £3 12s. 6d. per cent., or half-a-crown more than the three-and-a-half basis. I believe I am right in saying, though I am a child in these matters, and would appeal, if I might, to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City, that an investment in Irish Land Stock to-day will bring in something like £3 15s. or £3 17s. 6d. per cent., which means that the price of the security has fallen during the six months. My right hon. Friend is not responsible for that. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I am not going into questions of party politics, but I do not think that he or the Government are responsible. At all events, my right hon. Friend, as the protagonist of this Bill, cannot be blamed because by the accident of fortune the Church is making better terms for herself than she would have made six months ago. But on that one point alone the commutation scheme is more generous to the Church by thirty or forty, or fifty thousand pounds than it was last February. I do not blame my right hon. Friend for that, but there is one matter which I must say came upon me by surprise. Last February we understood that the commutation scheme would be taken on the average life of the clergy.

Mr.MckENNA

The precise terms are in the Schedule.

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

I am sorry I took an interruption to represent the position. I have been very free from care in this matter as my right hon. Friend was down at Cardiff and Holyhead making speeches, saying that there would be no further concession, so that I confess I have not been looking into the question. There is, however, one matter which has been brought out to-day and which was not mentioned before. I was not here when the right hon. Gentleman made his statement, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley said not only were we to take the latest mortality tables and that annuities would be paid for the whole life, but he also said the scheme would be taking one year off the age of the clergyman who came within the commutation scheme. He pointed out that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has mentioned that that ought to be done, and that that is in the nature of a direction to the Welsh Church Commissioners when they are appointed as to how they ought to proceed in this matter. The right hon. Member for Spen Valley, who cannot be accused of being too friendly to the interests of the Welsh people in this matter, has computed that this additional fact which has emerged from this discussion is equivalent to 3 per cent. on the capital sum —that is to say, if the figures of the Home Secretary are correct, and the commutation sum will be £2,100,000, the additional fact which has emerged to-day means another £63,000 to the Church in Wales at the expense of the Welsh people. All this is to be done, not as hon. Gentlemen opposite say, at the expense of the British taxpayer, but at the expense of the people of Wales, whose property this is. [HON. MEMBERS "No."] If you accept our hypothesis—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!" I have always accepted the hypothesis of hon. Members opposite in considering their arguments. They say that this is the property of the Church. I ask them, when listening to our arguments, to go on the assumption that we argue from our point of view that. this is our property. Therefore I say that all this is going to be done at the expense of the people of Wales, and not at the expense of the British taxpayer. It is true, as the hon. Baronet say, that there will be a Government guarantee, and to that extent British credit is involved. But not one penny piece will be taken out of the taxpayers' pocket——

Sir F. EANBURY

So long as the Welsh meet their obligations, certainly.

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

I suppose that the commutation sum will be based on the amount of property transferred to the Welsh nation. No one ever proposed that this should be what the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University suggested. The sum will be raised on the credit of the property transferred to the three Commissioners, and the loan will be guaranteed by the British Treasury. What will happen? If £2,000,000 is raised on the guarantee of the British Treasury, the interest will be paid by the three Commissioners out of the income of the realised property in Wales. I do not wish to make any captious criticism on these matters, but I urge that my right hon. Friend either ought to have told us last February of this new development or he ought not to have made the statement he has made to-day. Why should the hands of the Welsh Commissioners be tied as to the terms of commutation? Next year I suppose the Commissioners will be appointed. It is true that they will have to place before the Welsh Church a scheme acceptable to the Church, but although it is optional for the Church, it is compulsory on the people of Wales. If the Church accepts the commutation scheme, the people of Wales will not be consulted. Therefore, I deprecate that the right hon. Gentleman should in any way prejudge the matter. He should leave the whole question free and open for the Welsh Commissioners to decide next year. I do not wish at this late moment to do more than draw attention to this new factor. It is, in my opinion, a very serious one. It shows that the commutation scheme is far more generous than even we had anticipated. It is more generous than the Irish scheme. The 12 per cent. bonus in connection with the Irish scheme is, in a different way, included in the present scheme, and now we get further sums added in order to induce the Church to enter into the matter. One would have thought, from the way hon. Gentlemen, opposite speak, that commutation had' been proposed by this side. Commutation has never been proposed by this side.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

It was proposed by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs (Mr. Gladstone).

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

An unofficial Member; and it was seconded by the hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen). It was perfectly well understood that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock suggested it, not because he was a Liberal, but because he was a keen Churchman. The cry for commutation has come entirely from the Church) This Bill was drafted without any proposal for commutation at all. So also was the 1909 Bill. The Welsh people have never been asked to sanction commutation in any shape or form. It is true that no one on these benches is opposed to commutation as a business proposal pure and simple; but we do object, when we are willing to discuss commutation merely as a business proposal, that elements of prejudice and passion should be introduced. I shall not divide against this proposal, even though I am rather staggered at what has happened this afternoon. I feel greatly concerned that my right hon. Friend should have made the announcement he has made, and tied beforehand the hands of the Welsh Commissioners in dealing with the' subject.

Mr. McKENNA

My hon. Friend has made a very serious statement. He alleges that I have now made proposals other than those contained in the original Bill. But my hon. Friend on this occasion, I regret to say, has not informed himself so thoroughly as he usually does, and has fallen into a grave error. The error partly arises from the fact that he does not remember the terms arranged, and partly from the fact, that he was not in the House when I made my statement. Under these circumstances my hon. Friend runs away with the opinion that a proposal has been made wholly inconsistent with or greatly in excess of what the House was asked to sanction last February. As a matter of fact, nothing new has been proposed to-day. Nothing has been suggested which is in one single iota outside or beyond the precise and exact terms of the Bill as it stands. My hon. Friend, however much he may desire to stand as the unsparing and privileged champion of "No concessions," will be unable to find any case for himself in the present instance. Let me call the attention of the Committee to the actual terms. This is necessary also in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University. Under the terms of the Bill it is proposed that allowance shall be made on two grounds: first, on account of the greater longevity of the clergy as compared with other classes of the community; and, secondly, on account of any prospective decrease in the death rate. My hon. Friend omitted the last factor from his account. He did not propose to attach any meaning to those words. Is it a concession to the Church if any meaning is given to them?

Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS

The Welsh Commissioners should decide.

Mr. McKENNA

I stated to the Committee—my hon. Friend was not present—that upon evidence which I had received from the actuary whom the Government had employed, it appeared to me that a year's allowance would be a proper estimate to be taken—not a year added to the number of years' purchase, but that a person should be estimated to be a year younger than he actually is. The Bill itself prescribes the authority to decide the point. It is not the Commissioners; it is not the Home Secretary; it is not the governing body of the Church. In the event of any dispute between the authorities, the question is to be determined by an actuary appointed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. These points are all provided for by the Bill. The hon. Member for Cambridge University was just as much in error as my hon. Friend in his description of this Clause. Certain, questions have been asked which I wish to answer. The first was as to the name. of the actuary. I have not the least objection to giving it. He is a gentleman who has assisted the Government very greatly in the matter of the Insurance Act. His name is very familiar to hon. Members—Mr. Wyatt. It must be clearly understood that Mr. Wyatt has not advised on the question of policy. I am quoting him only for his figures. On the question of policy the Government takes the responsibility itself, and nothing which I have given as my opinion must be taken as founded upon the representations of Mr. Wyatt. All that can be taken is that the figures I am giving are the figures provided by Mr. Wyatt.

The second question was why a Financial Resolution is necessary now when none was necessary in the Irish case. A Financial Resolution is necessary now because we propose to give the Treasury power to guarantee the loan made by the Commissioners, and we could not raise the loan except that power were given. The third question was why no definite sum is mentioned in the Resolution. If commutation is undertaken, I have mentioned a definite sum. I have given £2,100,000 odd as the amount which the actuary has represented to me as being the figure upon the principles upon which the Government have framed the Bill. I do not say that those figures are precise, or that the authorities who will have to construe the Bill would come to that exact amount. But whoever construes the Bill will be bound to come to some conclusion of that nature. If there is no commutation, it is impossible to put any figure in the Bill. The amount to be borrowed would cover the expenses of the Commissioners, and the items would necessarily be small—the salaries of the' Commissioners, the expenses of their. office, and the cost of compensating the lay owners of tithe. These items cannot be estimated, but they will be small. Nor can the revenue of the Commissioners, out of which they will pay these items, be estimated, because it depends upon the falling in of life interests. The only assurance that can be given is that the amount of the loan which the Treasury will have to guarantee will be small, and' that it can only be guaranteed on such terms as the Treasury approve. When the hon. Member opposite tries to make a point by saying that the Treasury is the Government for these purposes, he must have very little acquaintance with the methods of the Treasury if he does not know that in matters of this kind they proceed on precise and definite rules. I hope the Committee will not be misled by any such suggestion. I trust that after this statement the Resolution may be allowed to pass.

Mr. MOUNT

I understood that we were getting better terms than in February last. Now we hear that no change whatever has been made in regard to this question of commutation. There is one point that 1 should like to deal with with regard to commutation. The right lion Baronet the Member for the Spen Valley Division, in the first speech that he made, supported us on this side in our contention that 31 per cent. was not a right figure to take. He based his argument on the fact that we would have to provide for the sale of stock upon this commutation scheme. That difficulty still continues. We shall have to provide for the first year of the commutation scheme, after its coining into operation, for stipends, etc., to the extent of £150,000. With the addition al amount adumbrated by the Home Secretary we shall not get more than £70,000 in interest. We shall therefore have to sell something like 60,000 worth of stock in order to meet our liabilities. It is therefore very important that there should be no risk whatever taken in the matter of depreciation of stock. There are two other questions which I do not think have been dealt with. It has been assumed all through that the only way in which there can be any call upon the Treasury, or upon public funds, is in the event of the scheme of commutation being adopted. In any case it is almost a certainty that there will be some call upon the public funds. What are the objects on which this money can be spent? It must be spent, in the first place, upon the salaries of the Commissioners and their staff, and, in the second place, upon compensation to lay patrons. In regard to the salaries of the Commissioners, the Commissioners will have to be appointed as soon as possible after the passing of this Act. They have got a good deal of work to do before the date of Disestablishment.

But it is also an extremely probable contingency that between the passing of this Act and the date of Disestablishment a 'General Election will take place. I do not think I am unduly sanguine if I say that the result of that General Election would probably be in opposition to this Bill, and that therefore this Bill would be repealed. What will be the effect on the Commissioners? They will require to be paid, but no property is to be invested until the date of Disestablishment; and if the date of Disestablishment never comes, the result will be that the Treasury will have -to guarantee the funds for the payment of the Commissioners. Take the other point, the question of compensation to the lay patrons. I dare say the amount for this does not sound a very large sum. If I read the Bill aright, the Commissioners cannot use any of the sums in their hands until the last of the lives which have an existing interest in the tithe rent-charge have passed away. At any rate, they cannot use their money until the last of those who have an interest in the capitular estates have passed away. The Home Secretary, as I understood, suggested that there are provisions in the Bill which make the tithe rent-charge vest at once in the county council and in the clergy funds. In any event, the capitular estates do not vest in the University of Wales, except subject to the payment of existing claims. If hon. Members will look at Clause 16, Sub-section (4) they will see it reads: The compensation paid under this Section shall be paid out of or charged on the property vested in the Welsh Commissioners under this Act, other than burial grounds, and the preperty to be transferred to the representative body, in such manner that the burden thereof may be distributed amongst the University of Wales and the several county councils in proportion to the value of the property transferred to them, respectively. It is difficult to ascertain what the proportion is that is to be borne by the University of Wales and by the county councils, and I venture to say that the Welsh Commissioners cannot part with a penny of the money until that is done. Money will therefore have to be found out of the funds with the guarantee of the Treasury. For these two reasons I do say that though on these two heads it may not be a very large sum, still there will be a certain charge upon the Treasury. I should like to strengthen and support what was said by the hon. Member for Chelsea, that we ought not to give power to raise this money to the Welsh Commissioners until we know who they will be. It is a very strong order, and a new departure, this giving a blank cheque to people we know nothing about.

Mr. EDGAR JONES

This Debate has been going on for over two hours, and 1 can see no reason why any party should divide against this particular Financial Resolution. I do not see how the party opposite can divide against it. There seems to have been a good deal of misunderstanding during the whole of this Debate. If I may say so, personally, I think my hon. Friend here is the subject of that misunderstanding from a different joint of view to that of the misunderstanding of hon. Gentlemen opposite. May I point out to hon. Members opposite that what they will be dividing against, is they divide against this Resolution, is—— [An HON. MEMBER: "A blank cheque."] No, no! If it were not for the commutation proposals of this Bill no Financial Resolution would be necessary. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Let me ex-plain. This Financial Resolution would not have been necessary, assuming that the Money Clauses had been put in the Bill, because there is power for the Commissioners to borrow on their own security without referring to the Treasury at all. Therefore, so far as the work and expenditure of the Commissioners, apart from commutation, is concerned, it is not absolutely necessary to have any resort to the Treasury. It was the commutation proposals that ma-de the resort to the Treasury advisable, and therefore made this Resolution necessary.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

No, no.

Mr. E. JONES

I think the Home Secretary will agree that it is possible for the Commissioners out of their own money——

Mr. POLLOCK

Commutation was not in the Bill. The Financial Resolution had to be proposed, and was proposed.

Mr. E. JONES

It was not absolutely necessary, as the hon. Member will agree, when the Commissioners have full power. There was no need at all to resort to the Treasury so far as the ordinary expenses of the Commissioners were concerned. It is the commutation proposals which have made this Financial Resolution necessary. I take it that hon. Members opposite, subject, of course, to the terms of the commutation proposals, are not going to divide against the arrangement that will enable the Commissioners to borrow money for commutation purposes on as favourable terms as possible. I want to point out another misconception that seems to have prevailed in regard to the commutation proposals. First of all, so far as I am concerned, I do not know—and I gathered last year that this applied to a majority of my hon. Friends amongst the Welsh Members also that we were opposed in any way to the commutation proposals. I take it the Chairman of our party agrees with me—we were quite neutral in the whole matter—provided that a satisfactory business arrangement was arrived at. We regard it as a purely business matter. At any rate, it was only a question of deciding what was the actuarial equivalent. We have been perfectly disinterested in the matter. I think I can say without cant or hypocrisy, and from my own knowledge, that it is the view of the majority of the Welsh Members that so long as we are persuaded that a fair business transaction was being carried out in accordance with the ordinary rules of such transactions, then we have no interest at all in opposing or even cavilling at the provisions for commutation of this Bill.

I am very glad the Home Secretary made his second speech, so as to remove a misconception which seems to have arisen. An impression had arisen that the Home Secretary had come down here to-day with this Financial Resolution outlined, and with some new proposals; that he had come down to make some new concessions to the Church about commutation. The right hon. Gentleman, in his second speech, made it quite obvious that he had been merely illustrating what would be the method of operation under the Bill, and what probably would be the character of the tables and the character of the amount that would emerge. The Home Secretary's figures are not final at all. The whole business that we have been transacting today has been simply an endeavour to elucidate what was in the Bill itself. As the Home Secretary has said, this matter will be, first of all, in the hands of the Welsh Commissioners. If they and the representative Church governing body can agree mutually upon the tables, then the thing is done. The terms of commutation, subject to a fixed figure at 3é per cent. interest and 2é per cent. working expenses, could be settled mutually between the Welsh Commissioners and the representative body. I am prepared to agree with hon. Members opposite that before this Bill actually becomes law it is important that we should know who the Commissioners are, because they will obviously have very great interests in their hands. I can assure hon. Gentlemen opposite we shall be as interested as they are to see who these Commissioners are. We shall hope that the Commissioners will be persons of perfect judicial impartiality, who will work this thing out impartially on an absolutely business basis, without any politics or anything else of that nature coming into it. If the Commissioners or the Church cannot mutually agree, then an actuary will require to be appointed as a kind of referee by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It is laid down in the Bill that the actuary has to follow two principles; the one that he has to consider that he is dealing with clergymen and not the ordinary fry of human life, and, secondly, he has to take into account that factor that the Home Secretary referred to to-day, namely, not merely the greater longevity of the clergy, but also the prospective decrease in the death rate of the clergy during the years following commutation. It does not follow that the actuary will take that prospective decrease as one year. The Home Secretary has had the opinion of one actuary whose name he has given us, a gentleman who, I think, commands general assent. He has taken one year. Perhaps the actuary appointed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council may take six months, or some other period. We have in all these matters to get into the hands of experts. I know there is a certain suspicion by many people of experts, but I think that, on the whole, the Home Secretary's explanation to-day has simply cleared the matter up, and his second speech at any rate made it perfectly clear that these commutation proposals are not a concession but a business arrangement for committing interests which have to be dealt with.

Mr. HEWINS

I rise to comment upon one or two observations made by the Home Secretary in reference to an interruption of mine in connection with the question of legal expenses connected with the administration of this Bill. I said they would be large and the Home Secretary corrected me. Of course, I did not mean large in proportion to the sum the Treasury is to guarantee, or to the resources of Wales where you have a single industry producing many millions of pounds. I meant larger in proportion to the resources of the Church. Like many hon. Members, I have been carefully through the Bill, and I have tried to picture to myself what the items of expenditure are that would fall upon the Welsh Commissioners in the discharge of their duties, and I have come to the conclusion that there are very few Clauses in the Bill that do not involve legal expenditure of one kind or another. There will be great expenditure in tracing out the intricate questions they have to deal with, and I doubt very much whether Me Home Secretary is right in putting it at the low figure he did. If the hon. Member who has just sat down will go into the question of 'surplus with that perspicacity that characterises all Celtic intelligence he will 'see this Financial Resolution is necessary not for the reason he alleged, but because it is absolutely impossible in the long run to carry out this measure of the spoliation of the Church without throwing expenses upon the British Treasury. There is no doubt whatever about that.

I agree entirely with what my hon. Friends have said about the vagueness of this Financial Resolution. There is no limit, no figure, no sum put down, and we do not know the different items. We do not know how long the Commission is going to last. We know none of those items which ought to be taken into account in sanctioning a Resolution of this kind. I do not believe that this House has ever before sanctioned a general vague Financial Resolution of this kind. We know nothing about conditions it will have to satisfy. I should like to impress upon Members, and I should like to impress upon the Welsh people that the first charge upon the resources of the Welsh Church is the expenses of a very indeterminate Commission appointed for a very indefinite time with absolute powers and with no limits to the expenditure they may impose. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, some time ago in a public speech, advocated the Disendowment of the. Church in Wales because he said there was money in it. It is perfectly true there is money in it, but the money is not for the Welsh people; the money is not for the Welsh farmers who have been deceived. It is not for the support of religion.

It being three hours after the commencement of the proceedings on the Resolution, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 23rd June, successively to put forthwith the 'Question necessary to dispose of the Resolution.

Question put, "That it is expedient to authorise the advance, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any sums necessary for payment of the principal and interest of all or any part of any money borrowed by the 1Velsh Commissioners, and guaranteed by

His Majesty's Treasury, under any Act of the present Session to terminate the Establishment of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and to make provision in respect of the temporalities thereof, and for other purposes in connection with the matters aforesaid."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 304; Noes, 193.

Division No. 127.]	AYES.	[6. 49 p. m.
Abraham. William (Dublin, Harbour)	Doris, William	Jowett, Frederick William
Acland, Francis Dyke	Duffy, William J.	Joyce, Michael
Addison, Dr. Christopher	Duncan, J. Hastings(Yorks, Otley)	Keating, Matthew
Adkins, Sir W Ryland D.	Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)	Kellaway, Frederick George
Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.	Edwards, Sir Francis(Radnor)	Kelly, Edward
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)	Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)	Elverston, Sir Harold	Kilbride, Denis
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry	Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)	King, Joseph
Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)	Esmonde, Sir Thomas(Wexford, N.)	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)	Essex, Sir Richard Walter	Lambert, Richard(Wilts, Cricklade)
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Esslemont, George Birnle	Lardner, James C. R.
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Falconer, James	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)
Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)	Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)
Barnes, George N.	Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson	Leach, Charles
Barran, Rowland Hurst(Leeds, N.)	Ftrench, Peter	Levy, Sir Maurice
Barton, W.	Field, William	Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert
Beale, Sir William Phipson	Fltzgibbon, John	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson	Lundon, T.
Benn, W. (T. H'mts., St. George)	Gladstone, W. G. C.	Lyell, Charles Henry
Bethell, Sir J. H.	Glanville, Harold James	Lynch, A. A.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Macdonald, J. Ramsay(Leicester)
Black, Arthur W.	Goldstone, Frank	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Boland, John Pius	Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)	McGhee, Richard
Booth, Frederick Handel	Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)	Maclean, Donald
Bowerman, Charles. W.	Griffith, Ellis Jones	Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Boyle, Daniel(Mayo, North)	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	MacNeill, J. G. Swift(Donegal, South)
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Guest, Major Hon C. H. C. (Pembroke)	Macpherson, James Ian
Brocklehurst, William B.	Gulland, John William	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Brunner, John F. L.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Bryce, John Annan	Hackett, John	M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Lelcs.)
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Hall, Frederick (Normanton)	M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lines., Spalding)
Burke, E. Haviland-	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)	M'Micking, Major Gilbert
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Harcourt. Robert V. (Montrose)	Manfield, Harry
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Hardie, J. Keir	Markhiam. Sir Arthur Basil
Buxton, Noel(Norfolk, N.)	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)	Marshall, Arthur Harold
Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar)	Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)	Mason, David M. (Coventry)
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)	Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.)	Meagher, Michael
Cawley. H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Chancellor, Henry George	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Hayden, John Patrick	Millar, James Duncan
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Hayward, Evan	Molloy, Michael
Clancy, John Joseph	Hazleton, Richard	Molteno, Percy Alport
Clough, William	Helme, Sir Norval Watson.	Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred
Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)	Hemmerde, Edward George	Money, L. G. Chiozza
Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)	Henderson, Arthur(Durham)	Montagu, Hon, E. S.
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J,	Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)	Mooney, John J.
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Henry, Sir Charles	Morgan, George Hay
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)	Morrell, Philip
Cotton, William Francis	Hewart, Gordon	Morison, Hector
Cowan, William Henry	Higham, John Sharp	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Muldoon, John	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Hinds, John
Crooks, William	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.	Munro, Robert
Crumley, Patrick	Hogge, James Mules	Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.
Cullinan, John	Holmes, Daniel Turner	Murphy, Martin J.
Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)	Home, C. Silvester (Ipswich)	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.
Davies, Ellis William (Elfion)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Nannetti, Joseph
Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)	Hudson, Walter	Nellson, Francis
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)
Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardiganshire)	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus	Nolan, Joseph
Dawes, James Arthur	Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)	Norton, Captain Cecil William
Delany, William	John, Edward Thomas	O'Brien, Patrick(Kilkenny)
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas	Jones, Rt-Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Sw'nsea)	O'Connor, John(Kildare, N.)
Devlin, Joseph	Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Dickinson, W. H.	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	O'Doherty, Philip
Dillon, John	Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)	O'Donnell, Thomas
Donelan, Captain A.	Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)	O'Dowd, John
O'Grady, James	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)	Roberts, George H. (Norwich)	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)	Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)	Verney, Sir Harry
O'Malley, William	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)	Wadsworth, John
O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)	Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)	Walters, Sir John Tudor
O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Robinson, Sidney	Walton, Sir Joseph
O'Shee, James John	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
O'Sullivan, Timothy	Roche, Augustine (Louth)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Outhwaite, R. L.	Roe, Sir Thomas	Wardle, G. J.
Palmer, Godfrey Mark	Rowlands, James	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Parker, James (Halifax)	Rowntree, Arnold	Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)
Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	Webb, H.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)	White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Philipps, Colonel Ivor (Southampton)	Scanian, Thomas	White, Sir Luke C Yorks, E.R.)
Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Pirie, Duncan V.	Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)	Whitehouse, John Howard
Pointer, Joseph	Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Pollard, Sir George H.	Sheehy, David	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Sherwell, Arthur James	Wiles, Thomas
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Alisebrook	Williams, John (Glamorgan)
Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)	Smith, Albert (Lanes., Clitheroe)	Williams. Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)	Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton)	Williamson, Sir Archibald
Primrose, Hon. Nell James	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Pringle, William M. R.	Snowden, Philip	Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Radford, George Henry	Soames, Arthur Wellesley	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Raphael, Sir Herbert Henry	Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert	Winfrey, Richard
Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)	Wing, Thomas
Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)	Sutherland, J. E.	Wood, Rt. Hon. T McKinnon (Glas.)
Reddy, Michael	Taylor, John W. (Durham)	Young, William (Perth, East)
Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Tennant, Harold John	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Redmond, William (Clare, E.)	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)	Thorne, William (West Ham)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
Rendall, Athelstan	Toulmin, Sir George	Illingworth and Mr. W. Jones.
NOES.
Amery, L. C. M. S.	Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred	Hume-Williams, William Ellis
Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.	Croft, Henry Page	Hunt, sir Charles H.
Anstruther-Gray, Major William	Dalrymple, Viscount	Hunter, Sir Charles H.
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)	Ingleby, Holcombe
Ashley, W.W.	Dension-Pender, J.C.	Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)
Astor, Waldorf	Denniss, E. R. B.	Joyson-Hicks, William
Baird, John Lawrence	Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott	Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr
Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)	Duke, Henry Edward	Kerry, Earl of
Baldwin, Stanley	Doncannon, Viscount	Kinloch-Cooke. Sir Clement
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Eyres-Monsell, B.M.	Knight, captain Eric Ayshforrd
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Faber, George D. (Clapham)	Larmor, Sir J.
Barnston, Harry	Fell, Arthur	Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'm ts, Mile End)
Bathurst, Hon. Allen B. (Glouc, E.)	Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert	Lewsham, Viscount
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes	Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)
Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks	Fletcher, John Samuel	Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Forster, Henry William	Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Gardner, Ernest	Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee
Benn, Ion H. (Greenwich)	Gastrell. Major W. Houghton	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-	Gilmour, Captain John	Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)
Bigland, Alfred	Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K.	MacCaw, Willam J. MacGeagh
Bird, Alfred	Goldsmith, Frank	Mackinder, Halford J.
Blair, Reginald	Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)	M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.
Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue	Grant, J. A.	M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)	Greene, Walter Raymond	Magnus, Sir Philip
Boyton, James	Gretton, John	Mason, James F. (Windsor)
Bull, Sir William James	Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S. Edmunds	Middlemore, John Throgmorton
Burdett-Coutts, William	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Burn, Colonel C. R.	Haddock, George Bahr	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas
Butcher, John George	Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)	Morrison-Bell Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)
Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)	Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth)	Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)
Campion, W. R.	Hambro, Angus Valdemar	Mount, William Arthur
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Hamersley, Alfred St. George	Neville, Reginald J. N.
Cassel, Felix	Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)	Newdegate, F. A.
Cator, John	Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington)	Newman, John R. P.
Cautley Strother	Harris, Henry Percy	Newton, Harry Kottingham
Cave, George	Helmsley, Viscount	Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University.)	Henderson. Major H. (Berkshire)	Nield, Herbert
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)	Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)	Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)
Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.	Hewins, William Albert Samuel	Orde-Powiett, Hon. William
Clive, Captain Percy Archer	Hill-Wood, Waller	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham	Hill-Wood, Samuel	Paget, Almeric Hugh
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)	Hoare, Samuel John Gurney	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)
Craig, Charles James (Down, E.)	Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)	Hope, Harry (Bute)	Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.
Craig, Sir Henry	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Perkins, Walter Frank
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian	Houston, Robert Paterson	Pollock, Ernest Murray

Pretyman, Ernest George	Smith, Harold (Warrington)	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.	Spear, Sir John Ward	Ward, Arnold (Herts, Watford)
Quilter, Sir W. E. C.	Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Randles, Sir John S.	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)	Weston, Colonel J. W.
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel	Starkey, John Ralph	Wheler, Granville C. H.
Rawson, Colonel Richard H.	Steel-Maitland, A. D.	White, Major G. D. (Lanes., Southport)
Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)	Stewart, Gershom	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
Ronaldshay Earl of	Strauss, Arthur (Paddington. North)	Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud
Rothschild, Lionel de	Swift, Rigby	Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)
Royds, Edmund	Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)	Winterton, Earl
Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)	Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, Central)	Wolmer, Viscount
Salter, Arthur Clavell	Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)	Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)
Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)	Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)	Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)	Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)	Worthington-Evans, L.
Sanders, Robert Arthur	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)	Yate, Colonel C. E.
Sanderson, Lancelot	Thynne, Lord Alexander	Younger, Sir George
Sandys, G. J.	Touche, George Alexander
Sassoon, Sir Philip	Tryon, Captain George Clement	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord.
Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)	Walker, Colonel William Hall	Edmund Talbot and Mr. Bridgeman.
Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton)

Question put, "That the Chairman do report the Resolution to the House."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 304; Noes, 193.

Division No. 128.]	AYES.	[7.1 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)	Cullinan, John	Hayward, Evan
Acland, Francis Dyke	Dalziel, Rt. Hon. sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)	Hazleton, Richard
Adamson, William	Davies, Ellis William (Eflion)	Helme, Sir Norval Watson
Addison, Dr. C.	Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)	Hemmerde, Edward George
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.	Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)	Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)	Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)	Dawes, J. A.	Henry, Sir Charles
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry	Delany, William	Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)
Baker, H. T. (Accrington)	Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas	He wart, Gordon
Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)	Devlin, Joseph	Higham, John Sharp
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Dickinson, W. H.	Hinds, John
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Dillon, John	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.
Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)	Donelan, Captain A.	Hogge, James Myles
Barnes, G. N.	Doris, William	Holmes, Daniel Turner
Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)	Duffy, William J.	Home, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)
Barton, William	Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Beale, Sir William Phipson	Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)	Hudson, Walter
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)	Hughes, S. L.
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus
Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts, St. George)	Elverston, Sir Harold	Jardine. Sir J. (Roxburgh)
Bethell, Sir J. H.	Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)	John, Edward Thomas
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)	Jones, Rt.Hon.Sir D.Brynmor (Swansea)
Black, Arthur W.	Essex, Richard Walter	Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)
Boland, John Pius	Esslemont, George Birnie	Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Booth, Frederick Handel	Falconer, James	Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)
Bowerman, C. W.	Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles	Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)
Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)	Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson	Jowett, F. W.
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Ffrench., Peter	Joyce, Michael
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Field, William	Keating, Matthew
Brunner, John F. L.	Fitzgibbon. John	Kellaway, Frederick George
Bryce, J. Annan	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Kelly, Edward
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson	Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Burke, E. Haviland-	Gladstone, W. G. C.	Kilbride, Denis
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Glanville, H. J.	King, J.
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon,S.Molton)
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)	Goldstone, Frank	Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)	Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)	Lardner, James C. R.
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Griffith, Ellis J.	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)
Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)	Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)	Leach, Charles
Chancellor, Henry George	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	Levy, Sir Maurice
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Gulland, John William	Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Clancy, John Joseph	Hackett, John	Low, Sir F. (Norwich)
Clough, William	Hall, Frederick (Normanton)	Lundon, Thomas
Collins, G. P. (Greenock)	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)	Lycll, Charles Henry
Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Lynch, A. A.
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.	Hardle, J. Keir	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)	McGhee, Richard
Cotton, William Francis	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)	Maclean, Donald
Cowan, W. H.	Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)	Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Craig, Herbert James (Tynemouth)	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	MacNeill. J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)
Crooks, William	Havelbck-Allan, Sir Henry	Macpherson, James Ian
Crumley, Patrick	Hayden, John Patrick	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
McKenna. Rt. Hon. Reginald	Palmer, Godfrey Mark	Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)
M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)	Parker, James (Halltax)	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leltrim, S.)
M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lines.,Spalding)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Snowden, Philip
M'Micking, Major Gilbert	Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Manfield, Harry	Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)	Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert
Markham, Sir Arthur Basil	Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton)	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)
Marshall, Arthur Harold	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Sutherland, John E.
Mason, David M. (Coventry)	Pirie, Duncan Vernon	Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Pointer, Joseph	Tennant, Harold John
Meagher, Michael	Pollard, Sir George H.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Thorne, William (West Ham)
Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)	Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Toulmin, Sir George
Millar, James Duncan	Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Molloy, Michael	Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Molteno, Percy Alport	Primrose, Hon. Nell James	Verncy, Sir Harry
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred	Pringle, William M. R.	Wadsworth, John
Money, L. G. Chiozza	Radford, G. H.	Walters, Sir John Tudor
Montagu, Hon. E. S.	Raphael, Sir Herbert H.	Walton, Sir Joseph
Mooney, John J.	Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Morgan, George Hay	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Morrall, Philip	Reddy, Michael	Wardle, George J.
Morison, Hector	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Redmond, William (Clare, E.)	Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)
Muldoon, John	Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Munro, R.	Rendall, Athelstan	Webb, H.
Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.	Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)	White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)
Murphy, Martin J.	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.)
Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Nannettl, Joseph P.	Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)	Whitehouse, John Howard
Neilson, Francis	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)	Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)	Whyte, A. F. (Perth)
Nolan, Joseph	Robinson, Sidney	Wiles, Thomas
Norton, Captain Cecil W.	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Roche, Augustine (Louth)	Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Roe, Sir Thomas	Williamson, Sir Archibald
O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Rowlands, James	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
O'Doherty, Philip	Rowntree, Arnold	Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
O'Donnell, Thomas	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
O'Dowd, John	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	Winfrey, Richard
O'Grady, James	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)	Wing, Thomas
O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)	Scanlan, Thomas	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)	Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E.	Young, William (Perthshire, E.)
O'Malley, William	Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)	Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.
O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Sheeny, David
O'Shee, James John	Sherwell, Arthur James	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
O'Sullivan, Timothy	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook	Illingworth and Mr. W. Jones.
Outhwaite, R. L.	Smith, Albert (Lanes., Clitheroe)
NOES.
Amery, L. C. M. S.	Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Gardner, Ernest
Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.	Cassel, Felix	Gastrell, Major W. Hough ton
Anstruther-Gray, Major William	Cator, John	Gilmour, Captain John
Archer-Shee, Major Martin	Cautley, Henry Strother	Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.
Ashley, Wilfrid W.	Cave, George	Goldsmith, Frank
Astor, Waldorf	Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford Univ.)	Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)
Baird, John Lawrence	Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)	Grant, J. A.
Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)	Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.	Greene, Walter Raymond
Baldwin, Stanley	Clive, Captain Percy Archer	Gretton, John
Banbury. Sir Frederick George	Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham	Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds)
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)
Barnston, Harry	Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)	Haddock, George Bahr
Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.)	Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)	Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Cralk, Sir Henry	Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth)
Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks	Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian	Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred	Hamersley, Alfred St. George
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Croft, H. P.	Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)
Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)	Dalrymple, Viscount	Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-	Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)	Harris, Henry Percy
Bigland, Alfred	Denison-Pender, J. C.	Helmsley, Viscount
Bird, A.	Denniss, E. R. B.	Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)
Blair, Reginald	Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott	Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)
Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue	Duke, Henry Edward	Hewins, William Albert Samuel
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)	Duncannon, Viscount	Hills, John Waller
Boyton, James	Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Hill-Wood, Samuel
Bull, Sir William	Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)	Hoare, S. J. G.
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Fell, Arthur	Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Burn, Colonel C. R.	Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert	Hope, Harry (Bute)
Butcher, John George	Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)	Fletcher, John Samuel	Home, E. (Surrey, Guildford)
Campion, W. R.	Forster, Henry William	Houston, Robert Paterson

Hume-Williams, W. E.	Nield, Herbert	Starkey, John Ralph
Hunt, Rowland	Norton-Griffiths, J.	Steel-Maitland, A. D.
Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk.	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A,	Stewart, Gershom
Ingleby, Holcombe	Ormsby-Gore, Hon William	Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)
Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)	Paget, Almeric Hugh	Swift, Rigby
Joynson-Hicks, William	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)	Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)
Kerry, Earl of	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)	Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, Central)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.	Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)
Knight. Captain Eric Ayshford	Perkins, Walter Frank	Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)
Larmor, Sir J.	Pollock, Ernest Murray.	Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)	Pretyman, Ernest George	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)
Lewisham, Viscount	Pryce-Jones, Col. E.	Thynne, Lord A.
Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)	Quilter, Sir William Eley C.	Touche, George Alexander
Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)	Randies, Sir John S.	Tryon, Captain George Clement
Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.	Rawlinson, Sir John Frederick Peel	Walker, Col. William Hall
Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee	Rawson, Colonel Richard H.	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)	Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)
Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)	Ronaldshay, Earl of	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh	Rothschild, Lionel de	Weston, Colonel J. W.
Mackinder, Halford J.	Royds, Edmund	Wheler, Granville C. H.
M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.	Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)	White, Major G. D. (Lanes., South port)
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)	Salter, Arthur Clavell	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
Magnus, Sir Philip	Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)	Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud
Mason, James F. (Windsor)	Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)	Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)
Middlemore, John Throgmorton	Sanders, Robert Arthur	Winterton, Earl
Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Sanderson, Lancelot	Wolmer, Viscount
Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas	Sandys, G. J.	Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)
Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Athburton)	Sassoon, Sir Philip	Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honlton)	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)	Worthington-Evans, L.
Mount, William Arthur	Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton)	Yate, Col. C. E.
Neville, Reginald J. N.	Smith, Harold (Warrington)	Younger, Sir George
Newdegate, F. A.	Spear, Sir John Ward
Newman, John R. P.	Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord
Newton, Harry Kottingham	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)	Edmund Talbot and Mr. Bridgeman.
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Resolution to be reported to-morrow (Tuesday).