§ Considered in Committee.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it is expedient, for the purpose of providing money towards the sums authorised to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund for the acquisition of share or loan capital in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to apply, notwithstanding anything in The Sinking Fund Act, 1875, the Old Sinking Fund for the financial year ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fourteen, for that purpose to the extent of a sum not exceeding six hundred and fifty-four thousand eight hundred and thirteen pounds twelve shillings and seven pence.—[Mr. Churchill.]
§ Sir F. BANBURYThe result of this Resolution would be to appropriate practically the whole of the Old Sinking Fund. On the 4th of May the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that the Old Sinking Fund amounted to £750,000 and in making that statement he used these words:
It would leave a surplus of £760,000, after leaving £1,000,000 still to strengthen the Exchequer balances. I think that must be a source of encouragement to all who feel any doubt as to the future of English finance.You are not strengthening the balances with this £750,000 if you now take it away to provide the fund for the Persian Oil Company. On the same day [the 4th of May] in answer to a question by the hon. Member for Northampton who askedWill the right hon. Gentlemen kindly answer the question which I asked as to what should be done with the £1,500,000.the Chancellor of the Exchequer saidThe £1,500,000 is still in the Exchequer balances, and it will remain there until the day comes.That is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. I presume that the day has come to-day. It is an extremely vague way of carrying out the finance of the country to say it will remain there until the day comes. I have looked back to see what took place in 1912, when as far as I remember the last inroad upon the Old Sinking Fund was made. What happened then? The Chancellor of the Exchequer when he made his Budget statement said that he was not going to tamper with the Old Sinking Fund. In that year he proposed to take the whole of it, but there was such objection raised in the City and elsewhere 1068 that he only took £1,500,000 and that sum was dealt with not in a resolution after the Budget had been passed but in the Budget itself and if the right hon. Gentleman doubts me I have the Act here.
§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)indicated assent.
§ Sir F. BANBURYWhy did not the right hon. Gentleman tell us on 4th May that not only was he going to take £1,000,000 out of the New Sinking Fund, but that he was also going to tamper with and take practically the whole of the Old Sinking Fund. If he had told us that, we should have been in a position to deal with the question of taking away not only a large portion of the New Sinking Fund, but practically the whole of the Old Sinking Fund. There are some extraordinary figures here. I do not know whether it is the regard of the First Lord of the Admiralty for economy. He wants the sum of £654,813 12s. 7d. I do not know where all these odd figures come in. The fact remains that the Chancellor of the Exchequer never said one word about this in his Budget statement, and the first we heard about it was on 17th June, when the First Lord of the Admiralty, bringing in a Resolution dealing with the Anglo-Persian Oil Agreement, made this statement:—
My right hon. Friend has still in his strong box £1,500,000, which was diverted from the Old Sinking Fund by the Finance Act of 1912, which was reserved for belated naval payments, and he has also afforded £750,000. making £2,250,000, which represents the Old Sinking Fund for 1913–14. Accordingly, it is proposed to meet the expenditure on the acquisition of this new capital asset out of these accumulations without any new borrowing of any kind. In that respect we follow the general rule of sound finance, that it is better to meet new liabilities out of existing resources than to engage in the operation of borrowing on the one hand while paving off old debt on the other."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1914. cols. 1186–7.]Why did not we hear all this from the Chancellor of the Exchequer? How on earth is anybody to know what is going to happen to the Old Sinking Fund if he has to grope about among the speeches of the First Lord of the Admiralty, not on the Budget statement or on the Finance Bill, but on something to do with Persian oil. I admit that I was not aware until I happened to see the Resolution on the Paper to-day that any mention whatever had been made with regard to tampering with the Old Sinking Fund. I asked my hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Cassel), who is a great authority on all these things and who, we 1069 have been given to understand, looks up all sorts of old dust-bins, and he knew nothing about it. I asked several of my other friends who look into these dust-bins, and they knew nothing about it. If I had not happened to see this, and, through my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington Evans), had not looked into the dust-bin of the First Lord's speech on Persian oil, I should have known nothing whatever about the matter. This is a gross innovation upon the old principle of finance.The Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently is not to be responsible for the management of finance. He is to be put in commission with the First Lord of the Admiralty. When he wants a little money, he makes a casual observation and allusion in his statement with regard to the particular object for which he wants it. We know nothing whatever about it, and, after the Finance Bill is passed through all its stages in this House, we suddenly find that something is going to take place which is of great importance and which would have had great effect during the Debate upon the Finance Bill. It is possible, that the right hon. Gentleman may say that he did not know it on 4th May. It shows very great ignorance and carelessness on the part of the right hon. Gentleman if he did not know it on 4th May and not until 17th June. I suppose the First Lord of the Admiralty did not make that statement unauthorised, and therefore the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have known it.
On 17th June the Finance Bill had not gone through Committee. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman put in a new Clause in the Committee stage of the Bill? He may say he did not want to change his Bill, but we had already had two versions of it: why not a third? I strongly protest, and I shall divide the Committee against this Resolution, not because I object to finding the money for the Persian Oil Company, but because I object to its being done in a way which is calculated to conceal it from the House. It is all very well for the Financial Secretary to laugh but it was only quite accidentally that I found out anything about it. Nobody on our side knew anything about it and certainly nobody on the other side knew or cared about it. They allow the financial customs of this House to be broken, and cared not so long as they get their £400 a year.
§ Mr. JONATHAN SAMUELYou get £1,000 for being a director.
§ Sir F. BANBURYYes and I do my duty. So far as I have been able to ascertain it has always been the custom in the case of any alteration in the Old Sinking Fund to provide for it in the Finance Bill. The right hon. Gentleman followed that course in 1912 but he has departed from it now probably, as I think, because when he tampered with the Sinking Fund before he met with such opposition, which he hoped to escape by doing it in this way. At any rate I shall divide the House against the resolution.
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu)This Resolution takes the balance of the money required to find £2,200,000 from the Old Sinking Fund of last year and transfer it to the Consolidated Fund out of which it will be issued in pursuance of the Resolution already passed by this House. The peculiarity of the sum of money which the hon. Baronet refers to is explained as follows:—In the year 1912 there was kept in the Exchequer balances not issued to the National Debt Commissioners so much of the Old Sinking Fund as exceeded £5,000,000—an amount of £1,545,186 7s. 5d. In order therefore to get the balance we now require—£654,813 12s. 7d.—the remainder of the Old Sinking Fund of last year will be issued to the National Debt Commissioners as the Old Sinking Fund if this Resolution passes. The next point the hon. baronet makes is that this procedure was muddled through and that nobody could possibly have known it was going to be done in this House had it not been discovered through the watchfulness of the hon. Member for Colchester. The reason it is sought to be done in the Oil Bill and not in the Finance Bill is that we thought it would be for the convenience of the House—and I still believe it will be—to put in one Bill the whole financial provisions for this one transaction.
We wanted to get £2,200,000 from one source and it would have been a great mistake to take part in one Bill and part in another. The hon. Baronet quotes the precedent of the reduction of the Old Sinking Fund in 1912. There is another precedent he might have quoted with regard to the loan to East Africa. But on those occasions there was no other Bill and therefore the only course 1071 that could be taken was to make provision in the Finance Bill. The next objection was that nothing was said about it on the 4th May when the Budget was introduced. The Anglo-Persian Oil papers were laid on the 25th May. The Finance Bill was ordered to be printed on the 14th May. The Anglo-Persian Oil papers were laid at the earliest possible date and it would have been impossible to anticipate on the 14th May, a transaction which had not been made. The hon. Member now suggests that it would have been a good thing if all the other difficulties I have suggested might have been got over by putting down a new Clause for the Committee stage of the Finance Bill and a new Resolution. I am quite certain he would have been one of the most eloquent Members in the House to object to a new addition to the Budget and the disclosing of new financial provisions long after the stage in which they ought to have been made.
I come to the information which has been given to the House on this subject. The hon. Member himself has quoted my right hon. Friend the First Lord. That was the first occasion—the 17th June. Later on in the evening the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman) made a speech, and said
I think it must have been rather startling to the Committee to he informed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had got locked away somewhere £1,500,000 of the New Sinking Fund,of course, the only Budget he ever remembers is the Land Taxes part of the Budget of 1909—he had forgotten all about 1912—and £700,000 of the Old Sinking Fund.Mr. CHURCHILL: Both of the Old Sinking Fund."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, I7th June, 1914, col. 1184.]So that the hon. Member for Chelmsford and the House during that Debate knew it was the proposal of the Government to take the money from the Old Sinking Fund. On the 7th July the hon. Member for Rutland (Mr. Gretton) tried to make a speech on the subject, and he was informed by Mr. Speaker thatThere is another Committee dealing with that matter which comes up in the ordinary way, Order 27. I do not think the hon. Member is entitled to anticipate the discussion which will take place upon that Committee."—[OFFICIAI, REPORT, 7thJnly, 1914, col. 1022.]That proves that the House knew at that time—the hon. Member for Rutland certainly knew—the intention of the Government in this matter long before the finance Bill was read the first time, and 1072 they also knew that another opportunity for discussion would occur. The Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned it in answer to the hon. and gallant Member for West Dorset (Colonel Williams), who presides over the Public Accounts Committee, on the 15th July. He referred to it in a speech which I will not quote. I rely most of all on an answer given to a question by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) on the 25th June:—Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I desire to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question which I understand it would be convenient for him now to answer. The First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking on the oil contract agreement the other day, announced that the portion of the money needed for that transaction would be formed by the surplus of the financial year. That is a sum of £750,000, and I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can inform the House under what authority that sum of three-quarters of a million would be diverted from the Old Sinking Fund to the new purpose?Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: A Resolution will be submitted to the House.Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Would it not be in accordance with precedents of His Majesty's present Government that a Clause should be inserted in one of the Bills before the House, either the Finance Bill or the "Revenue Bill, and WAS not that the case in regard to the loan to East Africa?Mr. LLOYD GEORCE: We have considered that matter, and we thought it was very much better that it should be inserted in the Oil Bill, and that the whole transaction should appear on the face of that Bill.Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It will have a statutory sanction and not be a mere Resolution?Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certainly."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 25th June, 1914, cols. 1977–8]It was only two minutes after that, according to the OFFICIAL REPORT, or less than a column, that the hon. Baronet himself rose to ask a question. Therefore I conclude he was present in the House when that answer was given. In any case, it seems to be remarkable that after that very explicit statement he should come here and rouse himself to a pitch of indignation about this undisclosed provision which he hears of for the first time owing to the diligence of the hon. Member for Colchester. I need only point out further that in the estimate given to the House of the reduction of debt this year both by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Committee and by myself on the Third Beading of the Finance Act, when I flatter myself, as far as I can remember the hon. Baronet was good enough to listen to my remarks, I mentioned that there would still be roughly £9,000,000 for the redemption of debt this year after the £750,000 had been taken from the Old Sinking Fund for the Anglo-Persian oil contract, which I mentioned by name. Now finally the hon. Baronet says, Is it not usual to take this money out by means of the Finance Bill? I think the 1073 Sinking Fund should be dealt with by the Finance Bill and not by any other Bill. I would respectfully refer him to the Naval Works Act, 1896, 59, Vic., cap. 6, Section 4, when the Old Sinking Fund of 1895–6 was diverted for the purpose of Naval Works expenditure, not in the sum of £750,000, but of £1,210,000. That was not an isolated precedent. The Military Works Act of 1897 next year took £2,473,000 and the Public Buildings Expenses Act, 1898, took £3,678,000.
§ Sir F. BANBURYDoes the hon. Gentleman mean to say it was not mentioned in the financial statement?
§ Mr. MONTAGUI am quoting these as examples of precedents in which the Old Sinking Fund was diverted not in the Finance Bill but in another Bill.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI made two charges. I said the statement that it was going to be diverted ought to have been made on the Budget statement so that anyone interested in it could know. Secondly, in my opinion, it ought also to have been put into the Finance Bill.
§ Mr. MONTAGUI am suggesting that I have completely answered one of the hon. Baronet's questions. With regard to the other, that it ought to have been in the Finance Bill, we are founding ourselves on three precedents set by the Government which preceded us. I said earlier in my speech that my right hon. Friend could not have made the statement in his Budget speech because at that time the agreement was not entered into. The next answer was that we wanted the whole story in one Bill, and the third answer was that all the way through the Budget discussions these facts were well known to the House and not a single hon. Member opposite ever took exception to the procedure. If there is not a better case to put before the House in answer to this Resolution the Resolution is worthy of the unanimous acceptance of the House.
§ Mr. WORTHINGTON EVANSI think my hon. Friend was quite right to draw attention to the way in which this suspension of the Old Sinking Fund has been carried out. He did not say that the House has not from time to time had little bits of information and, as the hon. Gentleman has shown, by diligent search of question and answer it is possible to extract some information on the subject. 1074 But what my hon. Friend said, and, I think, quite rightly, was that you would expect to find that dealing with the Old Sinking Fund in the Finance Bill of the year and that precedent was followed in 1912. The Secretary to the Treasury says: "I will quote you three other precedents. The Naval Works, Military Works and Public Works Acts of 1895, 1897 and 1898 were dealt with not in the Finance Act of the year, but in separate Bills." It is quite possible and no doubt quite right that that was done, but it does not prove at all that the policy of the Government was not stated in their Budget speech, and that the House then was not informed what was going to happen to the Old Sinking Fund, so that they could judge of the financial policy of the Government as a whole at the time when that was under discussion.
The hon. Gentleman says that this year, however much they; would like to do it, they could not do it because they had not made the agreement. That is the second line of defence. They could easily have told the House when we were discussing the alterations of the New Sinking Fund, when the Government were defending the reduction of that Sinking Fund by £1,000,000, that they were also tampering with the Old Sinking Fund. What was the other point? It was that they wanted the whole of the finance in the Oil Bill so that everyone who read it might see the whole of the finance together. That seems to remain so. What was the difficulty of reciting in the Oil Bill, if necessary, that £2,200,000 was going to be obtained from the Consolidated Fund into which this money was going to be paid from the Old Sinking Fund? There would not have been the faintest difficulty in putting the history of the transaction in the Preamble of the Oil Bill. The Government are very fond of Preambles. That would have been an effective Preamble. Some of their Preambles are not effective. They could have dealt with the actual financial transaction in the Bill where one would expect to find it. In future we shall not know where to go for the record of it. We ought to be able to go to the Oil Bill, or the financial statement, to find the history of the whole transaction. There has been a sort of thimble-rigging with regard to the Exchequer balances. The transaction with regard to this particular £1,500,000 was started in 1912. It ought to have gone to the Old Sinking Fund in that year.
§ The CHAIRMANWe will have to deal with the £1,500,000 on a future occasion in 1075 Committee, but the amount we are dealing with now is the balance required to find £2,200,000 from the Old Sinking Fund.
§ Mr. WORTHINGTON EVANSI will leave that to another occasion. I will only say with regard to the sum with which we are dealing that I think my hon. Friend (Sir F. Banbury) has shown his diligence in being able to discover it at all. I hope the House will remember that this is the way the Old Sinking Fund has been taken.
§ Mr. GRETTONOne of the disadvantages of the present method of procedure is that the Bill is not yet printed and cannot be printed until the Resolution has been passed by the House of Commons. If anyone wants to know what has become of the Old Sinking Fund money, he cannot find a record of it anywhere. It was not entered in any of the national accounts which were issued, because the Government had not determined whether they were going to spend the money or not,
§ and it is not settled yet because the Bill is not yet printed. That is the kind of position to which this procedure has brought us. No wonder my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London, diligent as he is in matters of finance, has failed to trace this transaction. I must confess that I had some knowledge of this particular subject but it would be difficult for any hon. Member who had not given attention to this one subject to know what was happening. I hope that my hon. Friend will go to a Division as a protest against this procedure. On another occasion I shall have an opportunity of putting some questions to the Government as to the methods and objects by and for which they are going to spend this money. Meanwhile I wish to enter my strong protest against the financial methods pursued by the Government in this matter.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided Ayes, 191; Noes, 67.
1077| Division No. 202. | AYES. | [11.41 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Esslemont, George Birnie | Law, Hugh, A. (Donegal, West) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Falconer, James | Leach, Charles |
| Adamson, William | Ffrench, Peter | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Addison, Dr. Christopher | Field, William | Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich) |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Lundon, Thomas |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | France, Gerald Ashburner | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Arnold, Sydney | Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson | Lynch, Arthur Alfred |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) |
| Barnes, George N. | Gladstone, W. G. C | McGhee, Richard |
| Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.) | Glanville, H. J. | Maclean, Donald |
| Beauchamp, Sir Edward | Greig, Colonel J. W. | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) |
| Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George) | Griffith, Rt. Hon. Ellis Jones | MacVeagh, Jeremiah |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald |
| Black, Arthur W. | Hackett, John | Markham, Sir Arthur Basil |
| Boland, John Plus | Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton) | Marshall, Arthur Harold |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Meagher, Michael |
| Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) | Hardie, J. Keir | Meehan, Francis, E. (Leitrim, N.) |
| Brace, William | Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix) |
| Brady, Patrick Joseph | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Molloy, Michael |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Hayden, John Patrick | Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hazleton, Richard | Montagu, Hon. E. S. |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood) | Helme, Sir Norval Watson | Mooney, John J. |
| Chapple, Dr. William Allen | Henry, Sir Charles | Muldoon, John |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Herbert, General Sir lvor (Mon., S.) | Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Hewart, Gordon | Murphy, Martin J. |
| Clough, William | High-am, John Sharp | Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C. |
| Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Neilson, Francis |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hodge, John | Nicholson, Sir Charles (Doncaster) |
| Cory, Sir Clifford John | Hogge, James Myles | Nolan, Joseph |
| Crumley, Patrick | Holmes, Daniel Turner | O'Brien. Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Cullman, John | Holt, Richard Durning | O'Connor. John (Kildare. N.) |
| Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) | Hope, John Deans (Haddington) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth) | Hughes, Spencer Leigh | O'Doherty, Philip |
| Dawes, James Arthur | Illinworth, Percy H. | O'Donnell, Thomas |
| Delany, William | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | O'Dowd, John |
| Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen. East) | O'Malley, William |
| Devlin, Joseph | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) |
| Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H. | Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Doris, William | Jowett, Frederick William | O'Shee, James John |
| Duffy, William J. | Joyce, Michael | O'Sullivan, Timothy |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Kelly, Edward | Palmer, Godfrey Mark |
| Duncan, Sir J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Kenyon, Barnet | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Elverston, Sir Harold | Kilbride, Denis | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton) | Phillips, John (Longford, S) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Pollard, Sir George H. |
| Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Pratt, J. W. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) | Whyte, Alexander F. |
| Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Scanlan, Thomas | Wiles, Thomas |
| Pringle, William M. R. | Scott, A. MacCalium (Glas., Bridgeton) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Raffan, Peter Wilson | Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B. | Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.) |
| Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) | Sheehy, David | Williams, John (Glamergan) |
| Reddy, Michael | Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Smyth, Thomas P. (Leitrim, S.) | Williamson, Sir Archibald |
| Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Richardson, Albion (Peckham) | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) | Wing, Thomas Edward |
| Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Yate, Colonel C. E. |
| Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Toulmin, Sir George | Yeo, Alfred William |
| Robinson, Sidney | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Verney, sir Harry | |
| Roche, Augustine (Louth) | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Rowlands, James | Webb, H. | Mr. Gulland and Mr. Geoffrey Howard. |
| Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Wedgwood, Josiah C. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Guinness, Hon.W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) | Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham) | Royds, Edmund |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Helmsley, Viscount | Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth) |
| Banner, Sir John S. Harmood. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Sanders, Robert Arthur |
| Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) | Hills, John Waller | Sandys, G. J. |
| Barnston, Harry | Hill-Wood, Samuel | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Barrie, H. T. | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Horner, Andrew Long | Stewart, Gershom |
| Bigland, Alfred | Hunt, Rowland | Swift, Rigby |
| Boyton, James | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Talbot, Lord Edmund |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Larmor, Sir J. | Tickler, T. G. |
| Cassel, Felix | Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury) | Touche, George Alexander |
| Cave, George | Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. | Watson, Hon. W. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Malcolm, Ian | Weston, Colonel J. W. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | White, Major G. D. (Lanes., Southport) |
| Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham | Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton) | Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading) |
| Courthope, George Loyd | Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton) | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Dairymple, Viscount | Newton, Harry Kottingham | Worthington Evans, L. |
| Dixon, Charles Harvey | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | Younger, Sir George |
| Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | |
| Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue | Pollock, Ernest Murray | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Ganzoni, Francis John C. | Pryce-Jones, Colonel E. | Sir Frederick Banbury and Mr. Gretton. |
| Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ Resolution to be reported to-morrow (Tuesday).