Lords Sitting of 24 July 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  SHANNON WATER AND ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  Witnesses ordered to attend the Select Committee, two to produce documents.
  SOUTH WALES ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION BILL.
  Committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
GREAT GRIMSBY STREET TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  MARGATE PIER AND HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
  Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.
FARNWORTH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  RICKMANSWORTH AND UXBRIDGE VALLEY WATER BILL.
    NEWRY, KEADY, AND TYNAN LIGHT RAILWAY BILL.
    Reported with Amendments.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 14) BILL.
    Reported from the Select Committee without amendment, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.
    ST. DAVID'S RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL.
    The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House, That the promoters do not intend to proceed further with the Bill. Ordered that the Bill be not further proceeded with.
    LONDON COUNTY TRAMWAYS (No. 2) BILL.
    Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

    NORTH METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BILL.
    Moved, That the Order made on the 12th day of March last, "That no Private
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    Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 26th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

    GREAT INDIAN PENINSULA RAIL WAY COMPANY BILL.
    Read 3a, and passed.
    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
    Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
    ILFRACOMBE IMPROVEMENT BILL.
    Read 3a, with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAIL WAY (WALES) BILL.
  EAST LONDON WATER BILL.

    LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
    BLACKPOOL, ST. ANNE'S, AND LYTHAM TRAMWAYS BILL.
    Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.

    GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
    HASTINGS TRAMWAYS BILL.
    LAMBETH WATER BILL.
    Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

  LANCASHIRE, DERBYSHIRE, AND EAST COAST RAILWAY BILL.
    MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
    Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
  BURY AND DISTRICT WATER (TRANSFER) BILL [H.L.]
    PRESTON CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
    Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments; the said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  SOUTH WALES ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION BILL.
    NORTH METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BILL.
    Report from the Committee of Selection that the five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Durham (County of) Electric Power Supply, and other Bills, do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Bill and the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill; read, and agreed to; all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.
DURHAM (COUNTY OF) ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BILL.
  LANCASHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL.

    SHANNON WATER AND ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
    SOUTH WALES ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION BILL.
    NORTH METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BILL.
    Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Duke of Argyll be proposed to the House as a member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Lord Brassey, and that the Duke of Argyll be Chairman of the said Committee; read, and agreed to.

    LONDON (ST. MARYLEBONE) PRO- VISIONAL ORDER BILL.
    Moved, That the Order made on the 12th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought i from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday, the 26th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PRO VISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
    House in Committee (according to Order). Amendments made; Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received on Thursday next.
  RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
    ARMY.
    Statement of Stores transferred from Navy to land service for South Africa up to 31st December, 1899.
    QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST.
    Report of the President for the year 1899–1900.
    TREATY SERIES, No. 15 (1900).
    Convention between the United Kingdom and Uruguay renewing the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation of 13th November, 1885; signed at Monte Video 15th July, 1899 (ratifications ex-changed at Monte Video 9th June, 1900).

    TRADE REPORTS.
    Annual Series: No. 2484. Trade of Frankfort-on-Main for the year 1899.
    Presented (by Command), and ordered be lie on the Table.

    POLICE ACT, 1890.
    Correspondence relative to the refusal of the Secretary of State's certificate, under Section 17 (2) of the Act, to the River Tyne Police Force for the year ended 29th September, 1899. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
    BOUNTY AND BOROUGH FRANCHISE ASSIMILATION (LONDON) BILL.
    Reported from the Standing Committee without amendment, and to be read 3a on Thursday next.
    TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    Reported from the Standing Committee with further Amendments; the Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the whole House and by the Standing Committee to be received on Thursday next, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 209.)
TITHE RENT-CHARGE (IRELAND) BILL.
Reported from the Standing Committee without further amendment; the Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the whole House to be received on Thursday next.
HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACT (1890) AMENDMENT BILL.
Reported from the Standing Committee without further Amendment; the Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the whole House to be received on Thursday next.
CRUELTY TO WILD ANIMALS IN CAP TIVITY BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Viscount CROSS): Your Lordships, no doubt, are aware that the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act have been very much discussed up and down the country by chambers of agriculture and other bodies, and that a Commission was appointed to inquire into the working of the Agricultural Holdings Act. That Commission reported in, I think, 1898. In consequence of the Report of that Commission this Bill is now brought forward. I may say at once that the great object of the Bill is to simplify procedure and to relieve friction between landlord and tenant as far as that can be done. The foundation of all compensation—the measure of compensation—must eventually be no doubt the value to the incoming tenant of the improvement done by the outgoing tenant. Whatever the value to the incoming tenant may be, that is the measure of the compensation which ought to be given. Probably, my simplest course will be to go very shortly through the different clauses of the Bill—there are very few of them—and explain their provisions, as I hope I shall be able to do at no very great length. The first clause of the Bill re-enacts the old clause of the Act of 1883, but with this distinction. In the first sub-section it re-enacts the old clause of the Act of 1883, but it leaves out a particular proviso —
"Provided always that in estimating the value of any improvement in the first schedule hereto, there shall not be taken into account as part of the improvement made by the tenant what is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil."
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Those words have been left out, and I should not have wasted the time of your Lordships at the present moment in discussing the matter at any length, because it is more a matter for Committee than for this stage; but I see that a noble Earl on the other side of the House (Lord Grey) has given notice to re-insert those words. I would only, in passing, call the attention of the House to the Report of the Commission on that particular point. They say—
"The Central Chamber of Agriculture recommend that those words should be struck out. Mr. Lipscombe, the chairman of the Committee, who drew the Report, said that they had received a great number of suggestions from affiliated Chambers in different parts of the kingdom, and that a great proportion of these Chambers recommended the abolition of the proviso. Giving his own opinion, he said:—'I believe, practically, that it has not at all safe-guarded the interests of the landowner or of the incoming tenant, but that it has afforded an opportunity of cavilling at the Act unfairly…. I believe it has been inoperative, but it is constantly asserted by persons who, perhaps, know more theoretically than practically that it has operated against the outgoing tenant.' "
I should not have referred to that at the present moment if it had not been for the notice of Amendment which has been already given by the noble Earl opposite. That is a matter which will be discussed, of course, when we get into Committee. The second sub - section of the first clause simply refers to the schedules, about which I shall have to say a word or two by - and - by. The third and fourth sub-sections have one very important bearing upon this matter. The first sub-section relates to the compensation payable to the tenant under the principal Act, and says that—
"There shall be taken into account any benefit which the landlord has given or allowed to the tenant in consideration of the tenant executing the improvement."
The 4th Sub-section relates to the question of manures. But the important alteration of the law which is made by this section is this. The foundation of the whole matter is that a claim must be made by the tenant. If the tenant does not make the claim the landlord is left to his own remedy for any breach of covenant that the tenant may have committed; but under the present law if the tenant makes a claim and the landlord makes a counter-claim for damages as against the tenant he may set off any money that he gets in consequence of his claim,

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but he cannot go beyond the original claim of the tenant. Therefore it may be that if the tenant claims so much, and the landlord claims a much larger sum for what has been done against the improvement, although the landlord can set it off against the tenant's claim he cannot go beyond the tenant's claim. The Bill that I present to your Lordships alters that, and says that when it comes to arbitration, if the tenant claims and the landlord counter - claims and the counter-claim exceeds the tenant's claim, the landlord may under this Bill get what he ought to have in the counter-claim, and not simply be confined to a reduction of the claim that is made by the tenant. The 5th Sub-section of Clause 1 is to remedy a very curious state of things which exists under Clause 57 of the present Act. Under that clause the tenant was to come under the Act, and if he came under the Act then he was not to have any other remedy than the Act provided. That was supposed so to work that the Act should always be put into force; but under the existing law the tenant had to give notice of the claim, and therefore if the tenant neglected to give notice, or purposely did not give notice, he kept his right to any other remedy besides that under the Act. Therefore that section of the old Act of 1883 became practically of no avail whatever, and in this particular clause we have said that it leaves the tenant his remedy if he chooses to take it, leaving the law as it stands in practice although not in theory. Then we come to the second clause, which is a matter of, I think, very great importance. The second clause relates to arbitration. The great object of this Bill is to simplify the procedure with regard to arbitration. The Arbitration Act of 1889 may be said to be very simple, but that can hardly be applied to this particular Bill without great modifications, and it must be remembered that the Act of 1889 does not apply to Scotland at all, and therefore it is thought better, as those modifications are very difficult to introduce simply as modifications, to re-enact those parts of the Act of 1889 which are applicable, and to modify such parts as are not applicable and to place all the new procedure in the schedule to this Act so that, as this Act has probably to be worked not by lawyers but by laymen, they should have the whole procedure before them. That has seemed to us a
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very much simpler and better way of drafting the Bill than by reference or modification. Now, of course, the foundation of everything is the tenant's claim. Under the existing law the tenant had to give notice of his claim. That formal notice is by this Bill done away with, and the only limitation that is put on the tenant's right to claim is this—that it must be made before the determination of the tenancy; it cannot be made afterwards. With regard to such a claim when it comes before the court, the provisions of the Bill are certainly, I think, very advantageous both to the landlords and to the tenants. The Bill says—
" (3.) Where any such claim by a tenant for compensation is referred to arbitration, and any sum is claimed to be due to the tenant from the landlord in respect of any breach of contract or otherwise in respect of the holding, or to the landlord from the tenant in respect of any waste wrongfully committed or permitted by the tenant, or in respect of breach of contract or otherwise in respect of the holding, the party claiming such sum may, if he thinks fit, by written notice (not later than seven days from the commencement of the arbitration) to the other party require that the arbitration shall extend to the determination of the claim, and thereupon the provisions of this section, with respect to arbitration shall apply accordingly, and any sum awarded to be paid by a landlord or tenant shall be recoverable in manner provided by the principal Act for the recovery of compensation."
So that to prevent any dispute between the landlord and the tenant it may all be settled in one arbitration with a great saving of expense and trouble and annoyance. That, in my opinion, is a very wise provision in the Bill. It is also provided that unless the parties agree to anything else it shall be decided by a single arbitrator. The 3rd Clause relates to the land charges. They are at the present moment made by the county court in the. cases where land charges apply. That is found very inconvenient for many reasons, and very expensive. In the first place, the county court is not always sitting. It may be some time before you can get the land charges fixed, and therefore it has been decided that the question of the land charges shall be left, not to the county court as at present, but to the Board of Agriculture, who will do the business very much more cheaply and expeditiously than it has been done under the county court. By the 4th Section the provisions of Section 34 of the principal Act are to apply to any

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fixture not simply put up by the tenant according to the existing law, but if he has acquired or bought it. Then comes a new provision which alters the law, and I should say alters the law in a very popular way. The landlord, except by agreement under the present law, has no power to enter on the holding in order to see that the lease, or whatever it may be, is properly carried out, but by Clause 5—
" The landlord of a holding, or any person authorised by him, may at all reasonable times enter on the holding or any part of it for the purpose of viewing the state of the holding"
That seems to me to be really common sense, and a thing I should think there could be no possible objection to. Then there is a new provision in the next clause about penal rents and liquidated damages. This clause puts an end to penal rents and liquidated damages, except in certain peculiar cases. It is—
"Provided that this section shall not apply to any covenant or condition against breaking up permanent pasture, grubbing underwoods, or felling, cutting, lopping, or injuring trees, or regulating the burning of heather."
Those are matters which so very seriously injure the holding that they are purposely excepted from this particular clause. I think I have now gone through most of the provisions of this Bill with which it is necessary to trouble your Lordships at the present time, with one exception, and that is the schedules. I said that I would refer to the schedules later on, and I will do so very shortly. I do not think it is necessary for me at any length at the present moment to go very narrowly into the question of these schedules, but there are two points which are certainly of interest. In the first schedule, which relates to those matters in which you must get the consent of a landlord, a new provision is put in. It is not simply the erection or the enlargement of buildings, but the erection, alteration, or enlargement of buildings, and the word "alteration" has been inserted perfectly rightly, to my mind, and I think it will be a great advantage in working out, but no doubt it is one part of the schedule to which attention will be called by some of your Lordships when we get into Committee. As your Lordships are aware, at the present moment the making or planting of osier beds, the making of gardens, or the planting of orchards or
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fruit bushes, all require the consent of the landlord, but as the Bill now stands, provided that the gardens, or osier beds, or orchards, or fruit bushes do not exceed one acre, then the matter is transferred to the second schedule, in which the consent of the landlord is not wanted, but in which case notice must be given to him, the effect of notice being that when the landlord receives notice, if he chooses, he may do the improvement himself and charge the tenant with a certain rate of interest on the money which is expended. But added to the first schedule, in which not only notice must be given to the landlord, but his consent must also be obtained, the old Act included the making of permanent fences, but the words now introduced are "making or removal of permanent fences," which of course is a great protection to the landlord and one that I think ought to be carried into effect. Those, my Lords, are the provisions of this Bill. I shall be very happy at a future stage to make any further explanation which your Lordships may desire, but I have thought it best to state the provisions as shortly as I can. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
LORD BURGHCLERE: I hope I may congratulate the noble Viscount on the very lucid manner in which he has explained the provisions of this Bill. It will not be necessary for me, fortunately, to detain your Lordships for more than a very brief time in any remarks which I may venture to make on the measure which the noble Viscount has just introduced. A supporter of Her Majesty's Government in another place, and one who I know from considerable experience is a very competent judge of agricultural matters, has stated that this Bill is merely a "small amending measure." It principally concerns itself, as the Lord Privy Seal has pointed out, with the simplification and cheapening of the existing methods by which arbitration between landlord and tenant is brought about. Now, my Lords, I am sure that all of us at the present moment are agreed that it is highly desirable and highly advantageous, both for the landlord and the tenant, and for the agricultural interests in the country generally, that the culti-

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vator of a holding should have full and fair compensation for any improvements which he may make during his tenancy, and therefore it is obvious that it is very desirable and very advantageous that any settlement of difficulties by arbitration which may arise between landlord and tenant should be as expeditious and as cheap as is consistent with fair play to both parties in the case. As I have said, and as has been pointed out by the noble Viscount, the sole object—the main object, at any rate—of this Bill is to simplify and cheapen the procedure by which the arbitration is brought about between landlord and tenant, and in so far as this measure properly fulfils that very laudable purpose I am sure there will be no feeling in any part of the House except one of welcome to the measure which has just been introduced. But, my Lords, so complicated and technical is the law relating to landlord and tenant in this country, and so very complex is the legislation which deals with those relations in this country, that it is almost impossible to deal with even the fringe of this subject without arousing susceptibilities and inspiring perhaps fears in some quarter or another. This Bill, in my humble opinion, does not depart from that rule, but as those difficulties mainly refer to matters of detail and not to matters of principle, I think that they are more germane to the Committee stage of the Bill than to its Second Reading. There are, however, one or two points of general interest which I should like to be allowed to refer to very briefly. In the first place, as the noble Viscount has pointed out, for the first time in the history of agricultural holdings that oft debated phrase, "the inherent capabilities of the soil," disappears from the Statute book. I hear from the noble Viscount that there are noble Lords in this House who regret the elimination of that phrase, and who wish to see it re-introduced into the legislation of the country. It may be so. I would venture to refer them to the definition which is given of that particular phrase in a text-book which is very often accepted as a proper explanation of the measure, and I do so with greater confidence because I noticed the other day that in another place a very high legal authority, no less a personage than the present Attorney General, when it was suggested to him that the wording of this particular Bill
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compared with the legislation of the country generally was rather difficult to interpret, pointed out that he himself found great difficulty in understanding the statutes, and that when he did so he invariably referred to a text-book on the subject, and he confidently recommended such a course to those who asked him. questions on the subject. Now, I find in a text-book that is very generally accepted this passage—
"The words, 'the inherent capabilities of the soil' may mean anything or they may mean nothing."
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Would the noble Lord tell us what the text book is?
LORD BURGHCLERE: It is the "Law of Agricultural Holdings," by Sylvain Mayer; it is a well-known book, in general use. If that be a true definition, and if the source to which we were recommended to address ourselves for information by the Attorney General is a competent source, I can hardly think that there would be any noble Lord who would wish to retain on the Statute-book a phrase of such comprehensive uncertainty as the one to which I refer. My Lords, there is an observation I should like to make about one feature of the Bill which was not alluded to by the noble Lord who introduced it. This Bill is in the main a permissive Bill, and the principle of contracting out is maintained in the Bill throughout. Of course I know that there are in many portions of this country highly desirable and advantageous customs which are called the customs of the country, and by making this Bill a purely permissive Bill those customs are maintained in their entirety, and so far I should think it would have the approbation of many noble Lords who understand the subject. But on the other hand I am bound, in justice to the advocates of the Bill, as well as to those who oppose it, to point out to the Government that if the principle of arbitration and the alterations in the principle of arbitration which have been made in this Bill are advantageous and for the good of the country generally, it is a curious thing that they should not be made universal and even compulsory when questions of this nature arise between landlord and tenant. I think it might be alleged by some critics of the

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Bill that this would be advantageous possibly to the poorer and smaller tenants as compared with the larger ones, because it is quite obvious that a rich and well-to-do man is much more able to make good terms for himself than one who is poorer and in a different position. However, the Government have not seen their way to make it other than permissive, and therefore the Act will no doubt go on the Statute-book as a permissive Act and a permissive Act alone. The next remark I shall venture to make on the Bill is in regard to the complications, and I am afraid I must call it the bad drafting which has arisen from the abrupt and I would almost say the not very well-considered attempt to combine Scotch and English legislation in the same Bill. As your Lordships are aware, hitherto without exception there have been separate Acts relating to these matters for England and for Scotland. I venture to think that that course has been adopted not without some sufficient reason; because, if you consider it, the methods of cultivation, the relations of landlords and tenants in many parts of the country, and even the very legal expressions by which those relations are defined in the Statute-book, are often completely different in the two countries, and I therefore think it would have been better, on the whole, perhaps, to have conformed to what has been the universal precedent, and to have brought forward a separate measure for Scotland, in order to amend the separate Scotch Acts, rather than what has been done in this instance by, I venture to think, the somewhat hasty attempt to combine the two Acts, laying the seeds, it may be, of some considerable confusion when the working out of the Act takes place. I would venture to illustrate what I mean by one instance. As the noble Lord pointed out just now, in Part III. of the schedule to the Bill, which contains those improvements which may be made without any consent of the landlord whatever, we find a new one—No. 28, "laying down temporary pasture." Now, I am told—I speak with all submission, and I shall probably be corrected if I am wrong—that in some portions of Scotland, perhaps in Aberdeenshire, temporary pasture is merely one in the ordinary rotation in the crops of that country; whereas, in the South of England, temporary pasture
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may be well maintained to be an improvement on the holding. Therefore it will come about by this Bill that what is in Scotland merely the ordinary course of good husbandry is in another part of the country made into a tenant's improvement, for which he might claim compensation from the landlord. If that proposition be true, I think I have shown one, at least, of the disadvantages of departing from precedent, and endeavouring to combine the Scotch and English Bills into the same measure. My Lords, that reflection naturally leads me to another criticism which I shall venture to make —namely, with regard to the general drafting of the Bill. I think it will be generally admitted that it is better that every measure should as far as possible be couched in plain and understandable language that may be more or less understood by the ordinary layman, and that is, perhaps, more essential in these highly technical measures which refer to the relations of landlord and tenant, and I think it would be desirable that the Bill should be made as far as possible able to be understood by the agricultural interest itself. The measure should be set forth as far as possible in clear and reasonable terms. Now, I ask whether that is the case in this "small amending Bill," which has just been brought in? I will venture to read one of the clauses in the Bill, and I shall be glad if any ordinary mortal can put any understanding to it at all. Let me read to your Lordships Clause 10—
" (1) References to the principal Act and to Sections 29, 30, 32, and 34 thereof shall be construed as references to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1883, and to Sections 24, 26, 25, and 30 thereof respectively. References to Sections 31 and 39 of the principal Act shall not apply.
" (2) A reference to the Arbitration Act, 1889, shall be construed as a reference to the Arbitration (Scotland) Act, 1894, and a reference to the Marker. Gardeners' Compensation Act, 1895, shall be construed as a reference to the Market Gardeners' Compensation (Scotland) Act, 1897."
Now, I ask noble Lords generally whether that is a clause which is understandable by the ordinary intellect, and whether it would not require a very considerable knowledge of the statutes of the country, to say nothing of some rather distinguished legal knowledge, to be able to make out what on earth is meant by the clause which is put before us? My Lords, I know I shall be told that this is merely

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the ordinary sin of legislation by reference, and it has often been pointed out, and I think truly pointed out, that legislation by reference has its advantages in that it is possible in a highly complicated measure to avoid undue discussion on the subject and undue Amendments which may be drafted at a moment's notice without any serious study of the Bill. That may be so, and this method may have its advantages, but I cannot help thinking that, notwithstanding that, this is a course which is doing evil that good may come. But I have a very humble suggestion to make on the subject to Her Majesty's Government. We were told by the Minister for Agriculture in another place that it is intended to consolidate these Acts in another session. The objections which I have pointed out and the advantages which are gained by legislation by reference do not so much apply to a consolidating Bill, because we all know that in a consolidating Bill no new principle is allowed to come in, and therefore there cannot be the same discussion. Now I would suggest to the Government whether it would not be possible, when this consolidating Bill is brought in, not to legislate by reference, but to embody in the principle of the consolidating measure those clauses which would make it understandable by the common intellect. If that were carried out I think it would be doing something which would be of advantage, especially to the agricultural interest. There is only one general observation which occurs to me, and it shall be a very brief one, with regard to the agricultural legislation of the present Government. The remedial legislation of the present Government consists, I think, mainly of two Bills. One is the Agricultural Rating Act, and the other is the measure which we are considering to-day. That, as I understand it, is the sum total of the remedial legislation which Her Majesty's Government have found themselves able to bring in during their lease of power. My Lords, that is a very remarkable fact, well worth the consideration of the agricultural interest. I say this, I assure noble Lords opposite, in no polemical spirit. No one is more confident than I am that the Government are most anxious to bring in, and those who support the Government in both Houses of Parliament would be most anxious to support
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them in bringing in, any measures which could in any way assist or alleviate agricultural depression or agricultural distress. But it is a remarkable fact, as I have ventured to point out, that after five years of considerable power and a great majority, the most that they are capable of producing —I give noble Lords opposite credit for the intention sincerely to carry out their promises—-but the only thing that they have been able to do is to pass the Rating Act and this "small amending measure." I am sure that no one can be more surprised than are Her Majesty's Government at such a result of their labours, because that was obviously not their intention when they sought and when they accepted office. I very well remember in another place during the three years that the late Government was in power, year after year, session after session, Queen's Speech after Queen's Speech, we were reproached and we were twitted on every side because we neglected the agricultural interest and failed to help it by bringing in remedial legislation. We were told that legislation of this nature was instantly and immediately desired. We were told that during 1892 and 1895. We were told that by very eminent members of the present Government during the General Election of 1895, and even the Commission of Inquiry which we ourselves proposed at that time in order to see whether it was possible to carry out any legislative action in the matter—even that was criticised and condemned, because it was said so instant was the need for remedial legislation that even that Commission was dilatory and unnecessary. I may point out, because I have some interest in that Commission, that notwithstanding that, the Commission has been of the highest possible utility to the present Government, because it is by the Reports of that Commission and by the influence of that Commission that the only two Acts of an agricultural nature which have been brought forward have been suggested and have been adopted by the Government at the present day. But, however, whether that be so or not, and I really do not want to enter into any polemical discussion on the subject—I merely refer to it as a general remark—I say it is most remarkable that after five years, after all the consideration which I have no doubt has been given to it, the only remedial legislation which it has been possible to carry through by the present powerful

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Government is a Eating Act about which great differences of opinion exist in many parts of the country, and this measure, which has been termed by one of the Government's own supporters a "small amending Bill." Finally, my Lords, I must add that I am afraid there will be considerable disappointment in some quarters that this long-expected Bill goes no farther than it does. I do not myself hold any very wildly advanced ideas on questions of land tenure, but I cannot help thinking that even the most moderate-minded agriculturist had been led to expect a somewhat larger measure of reform than that which is offered to us in the measure which has been introduced by the noble Viscount to-night. I know many agriculturists who have often told me that they did not expect at any time any possible benefit to them by any possible alteration of the Agricultural Holdings Act at all, but even these gentlemen I think—after a measure has been talked about, promised in Queen's Speech after Queen's Speech, talked about on the platform, written about in the press—even such moderate-minded gentlemen must have had their hopes raised and expectations aroused, and I consequently fear that there may be some disappointment when the measure that has been introduced to-night comes to be thoroughly understood. However, my Lords, although this measure in many ways does not do what many agriculturists I dare say expected it was going to do, yet, as I have pointed out, it does contain some provisions which undoubtedly will be of benefit to the agricultural classes at large, especially in the matter of establishing arbitration between landlord and tenant. That in itself is a very laudable object, and for my part I venture to welcome the measure that the noble Viscount has introduced.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I am sure that so far as the principle upon which this Bill is founded there will be no difference of opinion in the House. I am sure that everyone wishes to be perfectly just in any legislation which concerns the relations between landlord and tenant. On the other hand, my noble friend who has just sat down alluded in rather dark terms to certain possible benefits which certain people are expecting or were expecting to derive from any agricultural legislation.
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What those benefits may have been he did not go on to tell us, but according to the line of argument with which he ended his speech, in which there was a reference to the benefits granted by the late Government as compared with those granted by the present Government—
LORD BURGHCLERE: I beg my noble friend's pardon. I made no reference to any benefits conferred by the late Government.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I thought the noble Lord said that there were certain proposals made during the tenure of office of the late Government.
LORD BURGHCLERE: No; I made no reference of the kind.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Then I beg my noble friend's pardon. At any rate, he threw out certain innuendoes that the present Government had not clone what might have been expected from them on behalf of the agricultural classes. Well, my Lords, I do not propose to enter into that part of the argument; I do not think it is necessary. What we are dealing with to-night is the Second Reading of this Bill, and it is to the principle of the Bill and to the contents of the Bill that I propose to address the few sentences which I have to say to your Lordships. As I said before, with the principle that it is desirable to be perfectly just in any legislation between landlord and tenant, I am sure we are all agreed. When I say the Bill is founded on that principle, it is quite true, as the noble Viscount who introduced it said, that in reality it is a Bill made up of a multiplicity of details rather than a Bill that states a principle which is supposed to have been admitted. Therefore, in considering the Bill, I propose very shortly to follow the example of the noble Viscount, and to go through one or two clauses, more with a view of obtaining information than anything else, which no doubt at a later stage of the Bill will be discussed in considerable detail. On the first clause, which defines the value of an improvement and says it is "such sum as fairly represents the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant," the noble Viscount pointed out to us quite properly that an alteration has been made in this Bill as compared with the existing law, and that that alteration

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consists in omitting the words which refer to the inherent capabilities of the soil. Those words "the inherent capabilities of the soil," it may be as well to remind your Lordships, were the subject of an Amendment which was very fully discussed in the House of Commons in 1883. The value of that Amendment was not admitted by the proposers only, but it was assented to and agreed to by noble Lords on both sides of the House, including the late Lord Herschell, who said that he considered it was necessary and desirable, and in the end it was inserted in the Act with the full concurrence and consent of all parties concerned. This Bill proposes to omit these words. Now with regard to the exact value of the words themselves I do not propose to say much. The noble Lord quoted to us just now a text-book, which he says is a very good one, in which it is stated that those words have no value at all. It has been stated elsewhere that as a matter of fact valuators never took them into account when making an award under the Act, and that has been given as a reason, and the only reason that I have seen forcibly put forward, why it was desirable and possible without doing any injury to omit those words from this Bill. But one must remember that this section is going to be interpreted not by the writer of any text-book, not even by the judges; it is going to be interpreted, in the absence of agreement, by arbitrators appointed by the Board of Agriculture. What I should like to know is this. I do not myself attach any very great importance to the words. If it were now proposed for the first time to put them in I do not know what I might have said or thought about them; but what I want to know now is, what is the effect of omitting those words in this Act which were expressly put in and were supposed and believed to have some considerable value? Supposing that judges were going to interpret this Act, for instance, which they are not, would they or would they not attach any importance to the distinct omission of a proviso of this kind? That is really the whole point. These words may have value or they may not have, but they are to be decided upon by the arbitrators. Now who are the arbitrators likely to be? They are likely to be men, I should suppose, probably of some practical acquaintance with land for this purpose—men who are not as a rule
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very skilful judges of legal phraseology. I should certainly like to hear from some legal authority what they would say in a similar case; but is it not likely that an arbitrator would say, "These words which were very much insisted upon and very much objected to by people outside the House have been struck out by Parliament. It cannot be supposed when Parliament was striking the words out that Parliament meant to do nothing at all; it struck them out on purpose, and it is quite clear that Parliament intended to transfer to the tenant something which was refused to him by the law as it stood up to that time. "My Lords, I have nothing at this point to say upon that matter further than that I should like to know what, in the opinion of the noble Viscount, and, what is of still greater importance, the opinion of the noble Lord on the Woolsack, is the effect which naturally may be expected to flow from the omission of these words under the conditions which I have named. There are no other matters in the first clause which I think it is necessary to refer to, except that in Sub-section 5 it is said—
"Nothing in this section shall prejudice the right of a tenant to claim any compensation to which he may be entitled under custom, agreement, or otherwise."
My Lords, I rather gathered from the noble Lord who spoke last that he himself thought it might have been advisable to make a Bill of this sort compulsory. Fortunately for the good management and easy management of land in this country, I believe that the bulk of the business will be done, as it has been done by custom and by private agreement, which is so well understood and which is different in different parts of the country, and not by laws which have been framed by the House of Commons and by this House. Your Lordships know, just as I do, that it is impossible to put into words many of the relations and transactions and duties which are incumbent upon a landlord in dealing with a tenant, and vice versa. There is so much depends on individuals, so much depends on the country, so much depends on the soil, so much depends on the practice, that custom and agreement must always be superior to the law, and I hope that Parliament will never be so unwise—it never has been hitherto, and I hope it never will be—as to attempt to determine the relations between landlord and tenant.

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In the second sub-section it is stated that—
"Any claim by a tenant for compensation under the principal Act or this Act in respect of any improvement comprised in the first schedule to this Act shall not be made after the determination of the tenancy."
As your Lordships know, at the present time the date in Scotland is four months before the expiration of the tenancy. In England I believe it is two months. I may say that I think this change is a good change. As the Bill originally stood it proposed to give a tenant some time after the expiration of the tenancy—an arrangement which would have produced, no doubt, very great confusion; but as the Bill stands it seems to me that you have done what is very fair and right in allowing the tenant to make his claim at any time before he leaves. The proposal in regard to there being a single arbitrator I imagine will obtain general approval. We all wish to do anything which will cheapen the procedure, and although, of course, we shall run the risk of the proceedings being before an arbitrator who is not a skilled lawyer, and who would labour, therefore, under certain disadvantages in interpreting contracts—although we may labour under certain disadvantages, yet on the whole, and taking the probable outcome from the clause, I think the single arbitrator is preferable, and the doing away with the court of appeal is, on the whole, an advisable course for the Government to have taken. My Lords, I do not think I need trouble your Lordships with anything further until we come to Clause 6, but to that clause I should like to call your Lordships' attention. It says—
"Notwithstanding any provision in a contract of tenancy for the payment by the tenant of an increased rent or other liquidated damages for a breach of a covenant or condition, a landlord shall not be entitled to recover, by distress or otherwise, any sum in respect of a breach of any such covenant or condition in excess of the damage actually suffered by him."
And it goes on with the proviso—
"That this section shall not apply to any covenant or condition against breaking up permanent pasture, grubbing underwoods, or felling, cutting, lopping or injuring trees."
It seems to me that that proviso proclaims the futility of the clause. Unless there be something contrary to public policy, is it not desirable that a landlord and tenant should be left to make any arrangements between themselves they
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may choose? Personally I have no love for penal clauses, but I do not see any reason—and surely some reason should be given—why even a landlord or a tenant may not propose and may not make and may not enforce any covenant which they choose. If it could be shown that it was contrary to public policy, and that public or general damage would ensue from that course, then I could understand Parliament forbidding what have been called penal rents; but, on the other hand, you will see in the clause as it stands you limit the damage which the landlord can recover to the damage which he actually sustains. If the clause stood by itself pure and simple every one of your Lordships knows that there are damages which you could not compensate in money. The Government originally proposed to compensate in money for breaking up permanent pasture. It would be perfectly impossible to assess that damage in money. No one can say what it is. It is entirely different in different places. As the noble Lord who spoke just now said, in some parts of Scotland nothing is easier or commoner than to sow down land to seeds and clover, and you get your clover, and the land will stand for several years in grass, and very good grass it is. If you try to do that in some of the strong land in the south of England no pasture comes at all after the first year or so. If the Government had not inserted this proviso and made it apply to permanent pasture, one would have been able to give them an instance in which the clause would have been absolutely injurious and absolutely unfair; and, so far as I can see, when you apply it to permanent pasture or any similar case, nothing can be fairer than that the landlord who wishes not to obtain payment for the damage done, but to prevent any possibility of the damage being done, should be able to say that if a person took a particular course he should be liable to pay a sum which would be sufficient in amount to prevent any likelihood of the act which it is wished to prevent being done. As I say, personally, looking at it as a purely practical matter, one can find no very great objection to it, but in dealing with it as a principle of law surely nothing can be more undesirable than that Parliament should interfere with the right of contract between landlord and tenant, unless there is some posi-

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tive public reason for so doing. The noble Lord who spoke last made some strictures—and, I thought, very deserved strictures—on the extraordinary phraseology of Clause 10. I do not think I can agree with him altogether in blaming the Government for making the Act applicable both to Scotland and to England. It is desirable to do so if you can do it, and on the whole, having some little knowledge of one part of the country, a part in which there is a good deal of high farming, I have been looking into the clauses, and I may say that I have not been able to see any particular objection to them. I quite admit this—I do not understand them; and I do not think that any other person in this House, or any other Scotchman, possibly could understand them, because they consist simply of references, and I do not think anyone has either the time or the intelligence, and I think probably he is not intended to have either the time or the intelligence, to make himself fully acquainted with their contents; but that is the system which draughtsmen have adopted—some of us think, very deliberately adopted. It has been said before now that this new mode of drafting has been adopted for the purpose of getting Bills through another place, and possibly through this House. I have known recently of cases in which noble Lords have been very much surprised to see things which have happened, and they have been very angry on ascertaining what a particular Bill really meant. Now, my Lords, I come to the schedules. In Part II. of the schedules there are, as the noble Viscount pointed out, some improvements in respect of which notice to the landlord is now to be sufficient where his consent was formerly required. Those matters are the making of gardens, the planting of orchards or fruit bushes, and the making and planting of osier beds. Except in certain rare cases—I believe they are very rare—I do not think it very much matters, because it will not be found very often that the tenants will make gardens or plant orchards or osier beds. They will usually choose to go to their landlords for fruit bushes if they want them, and so far as the making and planting of osier beds is concerned, I dare say they may do that in some places, but those places must be very few. What I want to call attention to is the principle which is involved in
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this second part of the schedule as amended. The ordinary principle on which a holding is held in England and Scotland has been hitherto, as I understand it, this: that the landlord, executing all or very nearly all the permanent improvements, making the fences, the buildings, and all things of that kind, and having, in fact, the full control of the holding, has hitherto had a right to say for what purpose his holding shall be used, and he has had a right to object if that holding was going to be applied to some purpose other than the purpose for which he let it. Now, what does the clause do? It says that, beyond one acre, no man may make a garden or do any of these other things without the consent of his landlord; but when you get below an acre then anyone may make a garden, plant an orchard, or make an osier bed, and he is to be entitled to be compensated for that. If it is a market garden, he is to come under the provisions of Part III., which refers to market gardens. Well, suppose he has made one garden, and suppose he leaves the holding — the tenant, generally speaking, holds on a yearly tenancy — then the next man comes; is he to be entitled to the same thing over again? How many times may it be done? Is there anything in the Bill to restrict the number of times it may be done? It seems to me that this involves a principle which is very much larger than the mere words or the mere effect which the clause is likely to have. I have no doubt that that will be a matter which will be discussed hereafter. I must apologise to your Lordships for having detained you so long. I do not think it is necessary for me to trouble your Lordships any further.
LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, there are two matters upon which I wish to address the House, very shortly indeed, and they have arisen out of the two speeches that we have just heard. The noble Lord on the front Opposition bench made a statement which certainly was not very germane to the Second Reading of the Bill, but it was a statement which I can hardly allow to go uncontradicted. He says that the present Government have only passed two Bills which really have aided the agricultural interest. The noble Lord has forgotten one measure passed by the present Government,

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and a most useful measure—namely, the reduction of the land tax to a maximum of one shilling. That measure has brought infinite relief to a great many of those who have been struggling with agricultural depression; but apart from that, if there had not been a single measure of any description passed for the relief of agriculture, I maintain that the firm attitude which has been adopted by our Minister for Agriculture in successfully withstanding all insidious appeals that might have led to the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever into this country, has done more good than any legislation that could possibly have been introduced. The other matter I wish to say a word or two upon has been touched upon by the noble Earl opposite, and that is the question of the omission of these words, "the inherent capabilities of the soil." I am well aware that the noble Viscount who introduced this Bill has got, as usual, a Royal Commission at his back, but I do maintain that if Parliament deliberately omits those words that have been in a previous Act people will naturally say, "Well, Parliament did not think it necessary to insert them." And apart from that, in the ordinary industry of agriculture, I submit to your Lordships that a most important element is the inherent capabilities of the soil. Lastly, I touch upon a matter which has been mentioned by both noble Lords, and that is the extraordinary drafting of this Bill. For years we have been engaged in trying to spread the land amongst the smaller people in this kingdom. We have had allotments, we have had small holdings, we are trying small farms, we are doing what we can to enlarge the number of tenants. Will any noble Lord tell me how it is possible, in three-fourths of a sheet of a Bill of this kind, to explain to any of these small men how he stands in relation to this matter? I know it cannot probably be done in this Bill, but I appeal to the noble Viscount, if he is again, as I hope he will be, in a position to help us in the agricultural world, that he will simplify the procedure.
On Question, agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.

LUNACY BOARD (SCOTLAND) (SALARIES, ETC.) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH): This Bill is a very simple one. The Lunacy Board! for Scotland has been established for about half a century, and at the time it was established a limit was put on the salaries which the Treasury might pay to the officers engaged by the Board. Since that time the scale of payment has risen. The limit of the secretary's salary, which is £420, is certainly inadequate, and the object of this Bill is simply to repeal the maximum salaries, and to leave these civil servants in the position of nearly all other civil servants in the various departments of the Crown, and to give power to the Treasury to fix a proper scale of remuneration. I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to the Bill.
Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.

INEBRIATES' AMENDMENT (SCOT LAND) BILL [H.L.]
Commons Amendment considered (according to Order), and agreed to.
EXECUTORS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order); an Amendment made; Bill recommitted to the Standing Committee;. and to be printed as amended. (No. 194.)
BEER RETAILERS' AND SPIRIT GRO CERS' LICENCES (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
PROHIBITION OF EXPORTATION OF ARMS BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Second Report from the Select Committee considered.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)moved "That the House do agree with the said Report."
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My Lords, I want to say a very few words upon the last paragraph of this Report, which says that after considering the letter addressed to the Clerk of Parliaments by the Clerk Assistant and certain proposals made by the Lord Chancellor, it was resolved—
"That the Committee, having heard the proposals of the Lord Chancellor, have no recommendation to make to the House."
Now, my Lords, though perhaps it is very discreet of the Committee to have come to this conclusion, I do not think it really represents the mind that was in the minds of members of the Committee. I think I am not misrepresenting the views of large bulk of the Committee if I say the that they were very strongly inclined to the view that the recommendation of the Committee of 1889 was a very reasonable recommendation, and one that it was in the interest of the House to have carried out. The whole question, of course, refers to the appointment of a Reading Clerk to fill the third seat that has been so long vacant at the Table of your Lordships' House. The subject has not been a new one before the House of Lords Offices Committee, and, indeed, if I am not misinformed, it has been much discussed by even a more august body. The facts are these: Prior to the year 1824 the appointment of the Assistant Clerk and of the Reading Clerk was in the hands of the Clerk of Parliaments. It was then transferred to the Lord Chancellor, and since then the Lord Chancellor has had the exercise of the patronage of the two seats at the Table. It has been realised of recent years that the sittings of your Lordships' House are not usually very prolonged, and that therefore the actual work in the House that the Reading Clerk has had to do has not been excessive, and at any rate is not such as to require the full time that a competent man could give to the work. At the same time I think it has been brought very clearly before the House of Lords Offices Committee, both recently during the present session and also on former occasions, that it is desirable that there should be a third clerk at the Table; that great inconvenience might occur through one of the other two clerks being absent, and that though the
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absolute work of the Reading Clerk is not very great, yet he is able during the sittings of the House to give great help in other respects to the other two clerks, and that really it is in the interests of the House that a third clerk should be sitting at the Table. Now the difficulty is this, that you have got a certain amount of work, not a great deal of work, but yet work that it requires an experienced man to perform, and a man who is acquainted with the procedure and Standing Orders of the House. The Committee has, on more than one occasion, held the opinion that such a man could be found amongst the higher clerks already in the service of your Lordships' House, and that it was a very reasonable and convenient arrangement that one of the higher clerks of the House should have added to his duties the duties of the Reading Clerk at the Table. In the year 1889 the Committee reported, and your Lordships' House adopted the Report—
"The Clerk Assistant and the Reading Clerk were formerly appointed by the Clerk of Parliaments. Since 1824 the Lord Chanellor has appointed these offices. The Committee strongly recommend that the appointment of at least one of these clerkships should revert to the Clerk of Parliaments, and that he should promote one of the senior clerks of his department whom he shall consider most fit for the post. The clerk could combine with his duties at the Table the office of chief clerk or headship of a department. This change would, in the opinion of the Committee, conduce to efficiency no less than economy."
Owing to the unfortunate vacancy that took place in the Reading Clerk's appointment, this question came again this session for consideration before the Committee. I think the Committee's opinion, though not expressed, was, after all, very much in accordance with the resolution of 1889: and in the Committee I ventured to move the reassertion of that resolution. Some conversation ensued, and eventually the noble and learned Earl who sits on the Woolsack suggested that the whole matter might be referred to a Sub-committee of the Committee, consisting of the very eminent Peers, Lord Salisbury, Lord Kimberley, and the Duke of Devonshire. In face of that proposal, on the advice of the Lord Chairman, I withdrew my proposal. These noble Lords met. I understand that the Leader on that Bench and the Leader on this Bench agreed to leave the whole decision of the matter to the Duke of Devonshire, who now sits on the Front Bench. Well,

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the noble Duke, I am afraid, did not give the Committee any very great assistance by the recommendation that he made, because, so far as I am able to understand it, all the noble Duke decided was that the Lord Chancellor had the most complete right to appoint whom he liked.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): That is not quite an accurate statement of what occurred.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: That was the impression left on the minds of many of us. We received no formal report, and that was the idea left in my mind, at any rate. That, of course, was a power not in the least in dispute, and we most gladly assent to the fact that the power does lie with the Lord Chancellor to appoint whom he chooses. Now, unfortunately, I think rather a personal tone has been given to this question. I am very sorry for it, because I am sure that the very last thought that is the minds of any of us is to cast any reflection whatever on the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and that all we are anxious to do is in the most friendly and considerate way simply to represent to him what our views are. After the Committee sat, the noble and learned Earl then suggested to the Committee that he was quite ready to appoint one of the senior clerks on this occasion to the seat at the Table, which is now vacant, on condition that a Bill should be brought into Parliament for the future transferring the appointment to the Clerk of Parliaments with the further condition that whoever the Clerk of Parliaments should appoint should be a lawyer. Well, that was giving a very new and somewhat unexpected turn to the discussion, because we had not up to that time been informed that the legal service of your Lordships' House had been inefficiently performed under existing arrangements. My Lords, further, I have to point out that when the position of Assistant Clerk was vacant not very long ago, and when the Lord Chancellor made, as we all know, the most excellent appointment in the person of the gentleman who now occupies that position, the noble and learned Lord did not choose a lawyer for that position. Therefore at that time it would seem that there was no great necessity for a further appoint-
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ment in the legal division; but I must say I think the noble Earl on the Woolsack rather gave his own case away in saying that on this occasion he was prepared to appoint to the seat here the clerk now in the service of your Lordships' House. It seems to mo that by offering to do that —and I quite accept and welcome the concession that was made to our views in that offer—yet in making that offer surely the noble and learned Earl did give away his case of the extreme necessity of further legal assistance in respect of the clerks at the Table. As I say, I repudiate any idea of any personal reflection. I am only anxious to see this matter settled in a manner which will be conducive to the efficiency of the service of the House, and also which will prevent any ill-feeling arising between this House and the other House of Parliament. I do hold that we are bound so far as we can to combine economy with efficiency, to endeavour as far as possible to meet the views that have been again and again expressed by the other House, which have also been insisted upon by the Executive, by the Treasury, that as far as possible economy should be exercised with regard to our appointments. I propose to move, as an addition to the motion that this Report be adopted, the following words—
"But this House is of opinion that the appointment of Heading Clerk should revert to the Clerk of Parliaments, and that he should promote one of the senior clerks of his Department whom he shall consider most fit for the purpose."
That is taking practically the words of the recommendation which your Lordships adopted in 1889, applying it only to the Reading Clerk, and I think it is one which your Lordships would do well to accept. It would not at all fetter the action of the noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack, who would be perfectly free to appoint whom he liked; but I hope that were such a resolution carried, the noble Earl would be willing to assent to the wish so expressed—a wish expressed, I can assure him, with every desire to recognise his great abilities and the admirable manner in which he has always discharged his duties in this House.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Duke of DEVONSHIRE): I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will think it necessary to make any explanation or reply to the speech

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delivered by the noble Lord opposite. I only rise for the purpose of explaining the very small part which I have had in the matter to which the noble Lord has referred. With regard to the motion which the noble Lord has announced his intention of moving, it seems to me it would be a very inconvenient proceeding that such a motion as this should be moved without any notice whatever having been previously given. The House is scarcely in a condition to pronounce a decision on this subject, which has come before the greater part of those Members of the House who are present in an entirely unexpected manner. With regard to the noble Lord's statement, however, my part in this matter has been simply this. I will state it as clearly as I can, although, not knowing that this matter was coming on, I have not the correspondence to which I should have liked to be able to refer. I was not present at the meeting of the Offices Committee when the consideration of the question was delegated, as has been stated by the noble Lord, to the noble Earl opposite and the Prime Minister and myself; but what I understood was that the reference to that sub-committee was to consider what advice should be given to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in the matter. That was the question which I think at the only time we met was to a certain extent discussed. As has been stated, however, the noble Earl opposite and the Prime Minister agreed to delegate their functions to me, and I proceeded—I admit after some interval—to consider as well as I could how I was to discharge this rather difficult duty, and what advice I should suggest should be given to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. After some conversation with the noble and learned Lord and others, I came to the conclusion that although it was perfectly true that the duties of the Reading Clerk at this Table are not extremely arduous, and could be performed by some other clerk in the Parliamentary offices, who would discharge other duties, yet some inconvenience was considered by the noble and learned Lord to exist through the absence, in what I believe is called the judicial department of those offices, of any official possessing the acquirements of a trained lawyer; and the noble and learned Lord considered that in the discharge of its duties as the highest court of appeal, it would be of great advantage that such
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assistance should be provided to the House. What I understood the noble and learned Lord proposed to do if he made the appointment was to appoint a qualified barrister, whose time certainly would not be wholly occupied by his duties at this Table, but whose services would be available for the judicial department of the offices. I therefore informed the Prime Minister and the noble Earl opposite that, as there was no question of the right to the appointment belonging to the noble and learned Lord, he might be advised to exercise his right if he was prepared to do so, having regard to the necessity of additional legal assistance on the part of the House. The noble and learned Lord, I believe, saw the letter in which I communicated to the Prime Minister that opinion of mine. He did not act directly upon it in making the appointment, as I suggested he might do, but he made the proposal which has been stated by the noble Lord. As to that proposal of the noble and learned Lord, I have nothing to say. I merely wanted to state exactly the nature of the part which I took in the matter, which was simply to advise that if the noble and learned Lord thought that the judicial business of the House required additional legal assistance he would be perfectly justified in exercising his right to make this appointment.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My Lords, as I was deputed, in conjunction with the noble Duke opposite and the Prime Minister, to consider this question, I feel bound to say a few words. In the first place, the whole of what the noble Duke has stated appears to me to be perfectly and entirely accurate. It is a matter of fact that when we met Lord Salisbury suggested to me that inasmuch as the noble Duke was the only one of us three who had not taken some part in the matter before, and therefore was not in any way pledged to certain views, it would be convenient, as we had a colleague in the noble Duke who had had nothing to do with the matter before, that we should refer the matter to him to give us his advice. You have heard what was the result. Now I will state my own view. In the first place, I was, with Lord Salisbury, a member of a sub-committee in the year 1889 which considered very carefully indeed the whole question of the officers of the House, especially with reference to

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the very unpleasant disputes which had been going on with the Treasury, and which had found their echo in the other House, as to the want of economy in these appointments. We recommended to the Committee of Black Rod a variety of changes, all of which, I believe, have been carried into effect, and which, I believe, have in no way impaired the efficiency of the House, and have conduced to very considerable economy. Amongst other changes we suggested that the appointment which is by law vested in the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack should in future, if the Lord Chancellor would consent, be transferred to the Clerk of Parliaments, and that the post of Reading Clerk should be combined with the duties of one of the general establishment. That certainly seemed to mo at the time a very reasonable proposal. The Lord Chancellor, who undoubtedly possesses the power by Act of Parliament to make the appointment of Reading Clerk, did pursue that course upon the occasion of the vacancy then occurring; but when another vacancy occurred a difficulty arose, and that is the difficulty we are now considering. Certainly my opinion as to the advantages of the change which was recommended by the Committee which sat in 1889 has never changed, except upon this point, which I wish to explain exactly. When we came to consider the point which was referred to the noble Duke and the noble Marquess and myself, we learnt from the noble Duke that after consulting with the Lord Chancellor he had to tell us that the Lord Chancellor was of the opinion that there was not sufficient assistance to the House in the discharge of its very important duties as a Court of Appeal, and that it would be very desirable that the post of Reading Clerk should be held by a trained lawyer. We had the advantage on the Committee of hearing the opinions of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and if I understood him rightly he based his view upon this—of which, as it seems to me, he is by far the best judge—that with the amount of business which now comes before the House as a Court of Appeal, and looking to the whole conduct of that business, he had satisfied himself that it was desirable for the proper con-duct of that very important branch of the business of this House that a trained lawyer should be appointed who should combine with his duties in the House as
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a Court of Appeal the duty of Reading Clerk. I would just repeat that I entirely agree with the noble Duke that it has been shown that, although there is not sufficient work to be done by the Reading Clerk to occupy the whole of his time, it would be extremely inconvenient to the House that there should not be a third clerk. That, I think, must be very obvious. Our clerks may, like the rest of us, be for a time subject to be absent from illness, and it is obvious that extreme inconvenience might result to the business of the House if there were not a third clerk to take the place of one of the other gentlemen during temporary absence. But, at the same time, it Is also perfectly clear that there is not sufficient business attached to the office of the Reading Clerk to occupy the full time of a competent person. Then when the Lord Chancellor, who, of course is, above ail men in this House, competent to judge what is necessary for the service of the House as regards the discharge of its duty as a Court of Appeal—when the Lord Chancellor states that he has satisfied himself that it was necessary for the proper discharge of those duties that there should be a trained lawyer appointed, then my advice to the Committee was this: Here is a matter of which the Lord Chancellor is above all the best judge. If he informs this House upon his responsibility and with his knowledge that it is desirable, nay more, that it is necessary, for the discharge of the business of the House as a Court of Appeal, that a trained lawyer should be appointed, and that that trained lawyer in his opinion may also properly discharge the duties of Reading Clork, it seemed to me that it was beyond my competence to oppose the Lord Chancellor in taking the course which he thought necessary to provide the House with proper assistance. But as I have personally no knowledge of the Court of Appeal, as I am not myself in any way qualified to judge of the assistance the Court of Appeal may require, I considered that it should be left to the Lord Chancellor upon his responsibility to exercise his statutory power to appoint a clerk, who would also discharge the duties of Reading Clerk. Beyond that I was not disposed to go, and I informed the noble Duke that I practically concurred in his view after full consideration, and I also suggested to the

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Committee that, the state of affairs having been now for a very long time in suspense, it was not desirable that the dispute which had arisen should be pursued further—that although the Committee might some of them have the opinion that the arrangement which was originally proposed was the best one, it was much better for them to leave the Lord Chancellor to take the course which to him seemed to be best, and that therefore we should abstain from expressing any further opinion. That, my Lords, is a complete account of the part I took in this matter, and I have nothing to add except this, that never in the whole course of the business have I had the smallest wish or desire or reason to attribute any evil motives to the Lord Chancellor, or to find fault with any view he may hold if he holds it on his own judgment and responsibility.
THE EARL OF MORLEY: My Lords, I was not aware that there was to be a discussion upon this matter tonight, but as I was Chairman of the Committee I can hardly allow the debate to pass without saying a very few words on the subject. I very much agree with what the noble Lord (Lord Kimberley) said in his last remarks. I certainly have not the means of judging what is required for the discharge of the duties connected with this House as a Court of Appeal, and I quite agree with the noble Earl that there is nobody in this House so capable of judging of those requirements as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. But I do want to lay very great stress upon this, that if an extra officer is required for the Court of Appeal he should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor him self on his own responsibility, and that there should be no transfer to the Clerk of Parliaments or anyone else any patronage connected with that appointment. That I feel very strongly indeed. I always understood that the Clerk of Parliaments, who is a trained lawyer, was a Registrar of the High Court, and that the clerical duties connected with the judicial business were performed by Clerks of the House, who had done their work with ability and with great industry. The late Mr. de Burgh was a very able head of the Judicial department, and I was under the impression that the present department have done their work well, but on that I desire, of course, to
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defer to the judgment of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. But this I do say: that our proposal of 1889 was that a clerk at the head of the establishment of clerks should take the duties of Reading Clerk upon him in addition to his ordinary duties. I wish it to be distinctly understood that we never proposed to add to the patronage of the Clerk of Parliaments. We merely gave him an opportunity of recommending to the Lord Chancellor a clerk who should, in addition to his existing duties, perform the duties at the Table, which, as everyone must admit, are not sufficiently onerous to occupy the whole time of a gentleman of ability. Under those circumstances we consider that as the appointment was limited to the establishment of which the Clerk of Parliaments is the head, it would be reasonable and obviously desirable, he knowing the gentlemen who are comprised in that establishment, that he should have that patronage—well, I will not say patronage, but should nominate the gentleman who should perform those duties. But if it comes to appointing for an absolutely different purpose an extra officer—for such he will be—to perform important duties in the Court of Appeal, then I think the Lord Chancellor himself should have, as he has at present, the statutory power of appointing that officer. That is all I wish to say on the subject. Placing aside the opinion which the Lord Chancellor has given as to the needs of the Court of Appeal, I have always considered that the recommendation of the Sub-committee of 1889-—which was composed of the noble Earl opposite. Lord Kimberley, and the noble Marquess the Prime Minister, and other distinguished Peers—was a very reasonable one, and I would remind the House that it has been communicated with our Reports to the House of Commons and to the Treasury. I am not inclined to change my mind as regards that recommendation, but the point I do lay great stress upon is this: I think it is of very great importance that we should have a third Reading Clerk at the Table. The work, though it is not onerous, requires extreme care. Sometimes we have sixty or seventy notices on the Paper, and the keeping of the Minute requires a very great deal of care, and any little disturbance to the clerk who is keeping the Minute renders the duty very difficult.

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I do most sincerely hope that however the matter is decided we shall be left no longer in suspense, and that the matter will be decided once for all.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I cannot help feeling that this matter has been sprung upon me by surprise. The documents that I should have wished to refer to are not here, but I think I can sufficiently trust my memory to say what I have to say on the subject. In the first place, I am glad to learn that no personal object of mine is suggested in the course I pursued. The view which I take and which I must say I very strongly take is this: that the highest court in the kingdom ought not to be without one of those auxiliary persons or some of those auxiliary persons who are known in the courts of law as chief clerks or masters, or what not. The House of Lords as a Court of Appeal is the only court that has not one. I am not forgetting that at this moment the Clerk of Parliaments happens to be a lawyer. He need not be, and sometimes the Clerk of Parliaments has not been a lawyer; but as a matter of fact the present Clerk of Parliaments is a lawyer. But, my Lords, it is not the Clerk of Parliaments that is to be considered, it is the judicial staff which is required for the House as a Court of Appeal; and certainly I am very deliberately of opinion that it is something approaching a scandal that the highest Court of Appeal should not have those officials which every other court, down oven to the county court, possesses; and I have been desirous, notwithstanding the Report which was made so long ago as 1889, that that scandal, as I do not hesitate to term it, should be removed. After the conciliatory tone of the speech of the noble Lord who introduced the subject I do not wish to say anything that would conflict with the harmonious spirit in which the matter has been discussed; but for the purpose of informing your Lordships I am obliged to say that the Committee, as it originally sat, thought it right to proceed without the slightest notice to me, and my first notice that such a resolution had been passed, although I was Chancellor at the time, was the fact that I received a notice of the passing of the resolution. I am quite sure it was from no intentional disrespect, but I doubt very much whether any of your Lordships
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would desire to alter the patronage of an office that belonged to a person without thinking it necessary to ask him to attend, so that you might form some judgment after hearing him. I venture to think that the fact of this House being a great court of law was not present to the minds of the Committee. Your Lordships who meet here at half-past four for public business are not aware—at least, it does not occur to you—that some of us have been here since a quarter or half-past ten o'clock in the morning, and it is forgotten that besides its functions as a great legislative body this House is the most important court of law in the kingdom. Certainly, having regard to the business now being done here, and to possible changes that there may be hereafter, I myself am very reluctant that the opportunity should be lost of stregthening the legal part of the House by the appointment of a lawyer to the vacant clerkship. I believe it will be a misfortune if advantage is not taken of that opportunity. Suppose one of these days a question arises as to the staff of the House of Lords as a court of law compared with the staff of other courts of law. Just imagine what would be said when it was shown that the Court of Queen's Bench or the Court of Appeal had trained lawyers as masters or chief clerks, while the highest court of all did not have that assistance. I very much object, however, to be called upon to exercise the power given to me by statute if at the same time I am to be limited in the choice that I am to make, and I thought, and I think still, that the proper course would be to repeal the statute, and, so far as I am concerned, I should not offer the smallest objection to' this patronage being taken from the Lord Chancellor and transferred to the Clerk of Parliaments. But I did object, and I do object to be called upon to exercise the power which the statute gives me and yet be told that my choice is limited. Certainly if anyone were to propose to repeal that statute in the way I have suggested he will not find me opposed to it; but at the same time I have given my deliberate judgment, and I think the opportunity ought to be taken to appoint a lawyer. After what has passed, if your Lordships should confirm the view that I have expressed, I will take uncommonly good care that no one shall suggest that I have any interest in the matter of this appoint-

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ment. It has occurred to me that it would be a very good course to ask the Lord Chief Justice of England to select some person whom I should appoint. I have nothing further to say to your Lordships except this, that I think that those who advised originally in this matter must feel that they made a mistake in not consulting me before that resolution was come to.
THE EARL OF MORLEY: I cannot help reminding the noble and learned Lord that he was a member of the Committee who passed this Report after a great deal of deliberation.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: The noble Earl is speaking of a subsequent period, because at the time that Report was agreed to I had never heard of there being such a Committee at all. Although I was Chancellor for a short time in 1885 and came in again in 1886, the Committee was never called to my attention. I certainly think that they ought to have asked me to attend, and have called my attention to what was being done. That, as it appears to me, was the error that they committed. However, I have nothing further to say upon the matter.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I was a member of that Committee, and I am quite free to say that I think it would have been much better if a communication had been made to the Lord Chancellor. But at the same time I must say that I am considerably astonished to hear that the noble and learned Lord, who had then presided over the House for two or three years, was not aware that there was a Black Rod Committee, and was not aware that he was a member of that Committee. I believe notices of the meetings are always sent to every member. No doubt it would have been better if special notice had in this case been sent to the Lord Chancellor, but I suppose that did not occur to any member of the Committee, and unfortunately it was not done. However, my Lords, that is a matter which occurred a very long time ago, and I think it is scarcely necessary or desirable to bring up again anything which occurred then.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: After the conversation that has taken place I certainly shall not think of troubling your
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Lordships with the motion. I can only say that, so far as the former Committee was concerned, no blame can very well rest upon my shoulders, because I was not a member of your Lordships' House at that time.
On Question, Report agreed to.

EDUCATIONAL GRANTS —DIFFEREN TIAL TREATMENT IN RURAL AND URBAN SCHOOLS.
LORD HENEAGE,in rising to call attention to the Return issued in accordance with an Order of the House of Lords on 5th July, 1900, showing the results of the differential treatment in urban and rural schools, and to move—
"That the experiment of the last four years has been most injurious not only to the agricultural counties as a whole, but to the large majority of the Church of England voluntary schools associations, and should be discontinued,"
said: My Lords, I shall limit my very few remarks to the question of the differential treatment of schools in rural and urban districts. Some two months ago I asked my noble friend the Lord President of the Council if he would let me have a Return, which your Lordships have since had placed in your hands. My noble friend then made the very sensible suggestion that I should move for the Return as unopposed, and that any discussion should be taken after the Return had been laid. The Return has now been laid upon the Table, and we are now in a position to discuss the matter. In Lincolnshire we have lost a great deal of money, taking the rate at 5s. a head under the Act, under the differential treatment, and on two occasions the governing body of the Voluntary Schools Association of Lincolnshire has sent a memorial to the Education Department, which I hold in my hand, but with which I will not trouble your Lordships. Under the Voluntary Schools Act of 1897 the aid grant was to be not more than 5s. a j head, but no precise directions were laid down as to any differential treatment between schools in urban and rural districts. The principle or the experiment, whichever you like to call it, which has now been in practice ever since the Act was passed, I venture to say has not been satisfactory either to the rural schools or to the Church of England. In the few remarks I am going to make I propose to limit myself abso-

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lutely to facts and figures, and I am not going to make the slightest comment upon the Education Department. I think so far as the Departments are concerned they have given the associations every assistance they possibly could. They have shown considerable ability and the greatest courtesy to us when we have had reason to write to them for advice in conducting what has been a new and rather difficult experiment in legislation. I was told after the first year that the experiment had been a failure, and that it was likely not to be continued. Unfortunately it has now gone on for a period of four years. I am only dealing now with the throe years that are put forward in the Return, during which time the rate has been paid at 5s. 9d. per child for every child in the urban districts, and 3s. 3d. per child for every child in the rural districts. I am myself unable to see, and the members of the governing bodies to which I belong are utterly unable to see, why there should be this difference of treatment between the rural and urban districts. So far as we can judge, for what it is worth—and I have been on the executive body or central committee of the Lincolnshire Voluntary Schools Association for four years—it is the rural districts and not the urban districts which require the most favourable treatment. Again, it must be remembered that, although this aid grant is allocated at a differential rate towards urban and rural schools, the money is all pooled together when it arrives in the hands of the association, and the governing body can deal with it exactly as they like. As a matter of fact they do not care whether a school is in an urban or in a rural district. They only look to the necessities of the school, and they treat it as it ought to be treated, with equity and justice. But what is very material with regard to this differential treatment is that in associations where the children in rural schools are a larger number than in urban schools they are very great losers by this differential grant. The large towns and the large urban districts gain largely. The agricultural districts—your Lordships have only to look at the Return yourselves to see this—lose enormously, but they require the aid very much more, in my opinion, than the urban districts. In the large towns in most cases there are school boards, and therefore, looking at it entirely from an
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educational point of view, the children would receive education whether there were voluntary schools or not, but in the rural districts they would be without education altogether in a large proportion of the parishes if it were not for voluntary schools. You could not have boards at all—you could not get the men fitted to sit on the board; you could not get the rate to pay for the schools; these schools are very small schools. In Lincolnshire—I am speaking now from what I know—they do not average more than an attendance of thirty or forty children, and anyone who takes any interest in the education given in these very small schools knows that they get a very small education grant because there are so very few children to earn the grant. They are, therefore, in a very great difficulty in that respect, while if a competent staff is to be kept up to teach the children in their parishes as you would have them taught, it is kept up at greater relative expense. Therefore these small schools require special assistance, and I do not see why the grant to them should be less than the grant to the urban districts. I will give your Lordships only one example—I could give you a great number—of how absurd and ridiculous this distinction becomes. I am not going to say that there are not good reasons for it—no doubt the noble Duke will give your Lordships what he considers good reasons; but let me deal with three parishes close together in the north of Lincolnshire. Roxby, with a population of 378, has one school with an average attendance of 43 children. But that is an urban district, so that the allocation of the aid grant is at the rate of 5s. 9d. per child. The school is solvent and non-necessitous, and receives no aid grant. Close by are the two combined parishes —really one parish—Barsow-on-Humber and New Holland. They have two schools. Their population is 3,200. In the one school the average attendance is 222, and the school is non-necessitous; in the other the average attendance is 241, and the school is specially necessitous. Both these schools are in rural districts, and the money is paid on account of them to the governing association only at the rate of 3s. 3d. per child. Yet they want all the assistance that it is possible to give them. Now, I will not detain your Lordships at any length, but I should like to quote one or two figures to prove my

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case. I will ask your Lordships to allow me to deal with the results of the differential system of allocation of the Aid Grant on the agricultural county of Lincoln so far as the Church of England schools are concerned. In 1897 we had 44,253 children in average attendance. Of these 20,400 were in urban district schools, and were paid for at 5s. 9d. a head, and we received on their account £5,867 17s. 6d. The other children, 23,843, were at rural schools, and we received at the rate of 3s. 3d. a head for them, making £3,874 9s. 9d. So that, although there were 3,000 more children in the rural schools than in the urban schools, we received £2,000 less on account of payment of Aid Grant to deal with them. Similar results (I will not trouble your Lordships with the details) were arrived at in 1898 and 1899. In each of those three years we received, putting all the money together, at the rate of 4s. 5d. per head of the children. The total received in 1897 was £9,742 7s. 3d., instead of what we should have received at 5s. per head, £11,063 5s. In 1898 it was £9,731 2s., instead of £11,021 10s. In 1899 it was £9,692 3s., instead of £10,983 10s., or an actual loss of £3,759 19s. 5d. in three years, notwithstanding that we received 5s. 9d. for the children in the urban districts. Now, I have quoted the actual sums that were received on the allocation of the grant. Take those figures, in order to compare them with the figures in the Return, and you must add the second allotment, which is received some months afterwards, and in Lincolnshire amounts to one penny per child. I only say that because that shows the difference between the figures. Now, the general effect of this on the whole of the schools is that in forty-six Church of England Association schools only eight received at the rate of 5s. per head, whilst of those eight, five—London, Liverpool, Manchester, Wakefield, and Rochester—received at the rate of 5s. 6d. and upwards. The remaining thirty eight Church of England Association schools lose on an average 10 per cent. of the present differential rate allocated. As a consequence of this principle (I do not for a moment say that it is intentional) the Roman Catholic, the British and the Wesleyan schools gain very largely, because they are schools in the urban
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and not in rural districts. I may quote to your Lordships a paper which has been prepared upon this point which appears to me to be very accurate and worthy of notice. It is stated in the Schoolmaster of the 14th July that—
"In 1897 the Church Federations of London, Liverpool, and Manchester score no smaller amount than £15,295 above the 5s. limit, the chief losers being Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Wilts, Berkshire, Kent, Cumberland, Sussex, Dorset, Durham, and Essex."
Therefore, it is practically at the cost of these other counties that these privileged federations receive their contributions. Thirty-eight Church Federations lose £27,684; that is, taking it at 5s. a head. Eight Church Federations gain £17,402, so that there is a net loss to the Church schools of over £10,000. That is the case I wish to bring forward. The memorial presented by the governing body last year, and which was again sent this year is as follows —
"The governing body of the Lincoln Diocesan Association of Voluntary Schools desire to represent to the Education Department that, in consequence of the different rates fixed for town and country schools, between which the distinction is in may cases artificial and anomalous, the total Aid Grant allotted to their Association fell short by no less a sum than £1,320 17s. 9d. of the amount which would have been received if 5s. per head had been given to town and country schools alike. The Association, having to deal with a large number of small country schools, in which the average cost per head of efficient maintenance must be greater than in any other class of schools, has therefore been unable to recommend grants adequate to help and increase the efficiency of many of the necessitous schools in its area; and it cannot with the present rates of allotment make satisfactory provision for improved training of pupil teachers, and for such objects as manual instruction in cookery."
That is the case I have to present on behalf of the Lincolnshire governing body, and I am very sorry that it should have to come on at such a late period of the session and in so small a House. I am also exceeding sorry that I had to put this matter off from Friday last until this evening, because Lord Reay, who takes a very great interest in this matter, is unable to be here.
THE LORD BISHOP OF MAN-CHESTER: My Lords, as the Diocesan Associations of Liverpool and Manchester have been referred to as having been specially benefited by the

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distinction made between urban and rural schools, I think I should say a few words in favour of the discrimination. There are, I have no doubt, anomalies in special cases which it would be difficult to explain; but on the large scale I venture to think that there are very good reasons to be given for the present system. For instance, if you notice the number of children in the urban districts, that are spoken of rather depreciatingly by the noble Lord—
LORD HENEAGE: I did not intend to depreciate them at all.
THE LORD BISHOP OF MAN -CHESTER: I simply meant speaking of them depreciatingly in respect of the fact that they are a very small minority of the schools. I am trying to point out that, though they may seem to be a minority of the associations, they contain an enormous number of children in average attendance, and the London schools have as many as 120,000 children in average attendance, so that the number of children affected by any change in the present system will be considerable. Now I agree that if there be nothing different in the circumstances of the urban and village schools to justify discrimination there ought to be none; but I venture to think, at any rate, that these two reasons may be given for making the discrimination in Lancashire: first, the enormous number of school boards that exist there, the necessity of providing for rates in aid of these Board schools and also at the same time providing voluntary contributions, and the very much larger salaries that we are obliged to pay to our schoolmasters and our staff because of the competition of the Board schools making our expenses very much more than they would be. But the principal reason is this. There was an Act passed which if I am not misinformed (the Lord President will no doubt tell us) was intended mainly to benefit agricultural schools, an Act which enabled the parent of any child to demand that that child should be educated free of cost. Now that, I have no doubt, benefited greatly the agricultural districts. The fees paid there were very small, and the remission of the fee was therefore quite easy, but in the north the fees paid were very considerable— from 3d. to 6d. a week per child, and
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those fees wore easily paid because we had a large industrial population receiving high wages. It was never felt to be a burden. We had no difficulty in obtaining the money, but the moment the opportunity was afforded to those who were the poorer amongst the parents to demand free education, of course they demanded it. Further, I would venture to say to your Lordships, because I know it to be a fact, that a number of those who are unfriendly to Voluntary schools stimulated parents to make these demands with a view to making it more difficult to conduct voluntary schools, and then a feeling of chivalry on the part of those better paid of the working classes made them feel "Rather than leave the poorer of our brethren in an invidious position we will make the demand for free education." The result is that we have lost a very large proportion of the funds upon which we relied for the maintenance of elementary schools. That deficiency must be supplied in some way. I venture to say that the defency is small in agricultural districts because the fees charged were small and the remission was easy. The fees charged in manufacturing districts were considerable, and therefore their remission was a blow to the prosperity of the schools. Therefore, as they have those particular disabilities, I venture to submit to your Lordships it is fair that they should have a certain number of compensating advantages.
THE BISHOP OF HEREFORD: My Lords, as representing a diocese quite at the opposite pole to that of my brother of Manchester, I should like to say a few words on this subject. I do not propose to follow him through the arguments that he has put before us, and I am not sure that I should agree absolutely and entirely with him, but my desire is rather to address myself to this question as representing one of the most rural of all the dioceses, and a diocese which has, if I may venture to say so, been more hardly hit by this method of distribution than any other diocese in the kingdom with possibly one or two exceptions. I was surprised that in the list of dioceses that had suffered the diocese of Hereford was not mentioned. The facts as put before us in this Return are that if the distribution had been at the rate of 5s. per child, we should have

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received for the Hereford diocese something like £5,914. As a matter of fact, we only received £4,795 a year, thus losing a sum of £1,119, or suffering, that is to say, to the extent of nearly 20 per cent. If we look at the rate per child which is received by my two associations, the Association of Hereford and the Association of Ludlow, it only averages 4s. 1d. per child. I venture to ask your Lordships to notice that this is one of the very lowest of all the averages throughout the kingdom. Now, my Lords, I wish to join with the noble Lord who has put this question to this extent, and to say that in the diocese of Hereford there is no doubt a good deal of feeling that we do not receive more than 4s. 1d. per child; but for myself I could not go further than saying that I shall be extremely grateful to the noble Duke if he sees his way by any means to give us a larger share of this Special Aid Grant, and in appealing to him I would venture to urge two reasons—both of them I feel to be strong reasons—why he should consider the possibility of giving us a little more money for our rural schools. One is that our schools throughout my diocese are many of them so very poor that we are obliged to employ a very large number of teachers, assistant teachers in particular, with qualifications which I am sure would not satisfy your Lordships. In my diocese, even in the city of Hereford, there are a very large number of teachers who are known in the language of the Education Department as Article 68. Now, my Lords, what is an Article 68? It is simply a respectable young woman who is eighteen years of age, and she has to present no other qualification whatever for employment as a teacher. Now, some of these young women are excellent teachers, but I cannot help thinking that it is unsatisfactory that, as part of our National school system, we should be obliged to employ so many assistant teachers who are not duly qualified. Many of them, I am bound to confess, are, in intellectual qualifications, hardly fitted to be teachers of the children of our rural population. Therefore, on this ground of want of more means—for these teachers are very poorly paid; indeed, the reason they are employed is that they can be got so cheap—I venture to appeal to the noble Duke to consider as favourably as possible this application. If he does entertain it he may rest assured that
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any additional money given for this purpose will be well administered. I have in my hands the report of my association, and I cannot but feel that it will be satisfactory for your Lordships to know how the Special Aid Grant which we have received has been spent. I find on looking at the matter that no less than 62 per cent. of the money that we receive has-been spent on the improvement of the salaries of the teachers—to my mind the very best and most economical way of spending such money, Then I find that 30 per cent. of this money has been spent on the improvement of furniture, books, apparatus, buildings, playgrounds, and the sanitary arrangement of the schools. So that on the whole sum that we have received under the Special Aid Grant something like 92 per cent. has. been expended on these most excellent improvements. That I cannot but hope the noble Duke will consider gives us some claim for any additional help which he feels able to bestow upon us. But, my Lords, having said so much, I am bound to say that, looking to the facts of the case, I should not envy the noble Duke if he were to take away from the urban districts—from my brother of Manchester and others—the money which has been allocated to them. It is a task which I hope he may be able to accomplish, but from which I should shrink. I am bound also to confess, having some knowledge of town schools as well as rural schools, that many of our urban schools are no Jess necessitous than those in the country. For myself, if I may be permitted to add a word or two, I must acknowledge that I look to other sources of help rather than to an additional share of the Special Aid Grant. In this connection I think it right that, as representing the schools in my district, I should express my gratitude to the noble Duke for having given us the prospect of additional help through the proposed block grant. It must not be forgotten that the working of that proposed method of the block grant, so far as I have been able to investigate, and as I understand it, is likely to bring very substantial additional assistance to our country schools. I have taken occasion to look into two or three of our typical schools and see what will be the probable effect of the new block grant, and I find that, taking one of our weak schools—and I am sorry to say that

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we have a great many of them, just as they have in Lincolnshire—I find it is a reasonable expectation that a school which has been receiving a grant of between £29 and £30 per annum will receive £33, so that that school will receive an advantage of something like 12 per cent. But turning to another school, of which we have a much larger proportion, that is the fair average country school—somewhat small —I find that such a school which has received £59 or £60 in the way of grants will probably receive over £70. For that addition we are very grateful. There is another class of school—there are not so many of them as we should all like to see —and that is the really good school. Now, the really good school in my district will hardly profit at all by the block grant system. A school which is receiving, perhaps, £240 or £245 per annum will be likely to lose about £5 per annum, and that, if I may venture to say so, is one of the defects of the proposed change to the block grant, that it does not give so much assistance and encouragement as I think they deserve to the best class of schools. One cannot help thinking that in every educational reform it is desirable to encourage the highest and best schools, and this change, unless it can be in some way amended, will, I fear, rather tend to lower the standard of education in some respects than to raise it. I find that the block grant has been received by the teaching profession with acclamation, and I am not surprised, because teachers are human like other people. The best teachers welcome it because it will give them more liberty to teach in the best way, and the other teachers welcome it because it gives them more freedom from minute regulation. I am afraid that under that system some slackness may come in, and individual children may be neglected, and the education may not advance in consequence as the noble Duke would desire. Therefore I hope some special care may be taken as to the instructions issued to the inspectors in order that this system may not do some harm as against the direct financial good that it will do. But, my Lords, there is still another point that I desire to urge upon the noble Duke in connection with this matter, and that is that he may give us in our best country schools very material assistance if he will make the new higher education minute apply to our good country schools.
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If it is simply to apply to a separate school, such as a higher grade school in a town where it is not always very welcome, then it will be almost entirely inoperative in a diocese like mine and will do practically no good, but if it could be extended so that in any good, efficient elementary country school the managers might be at liberty to add a higher elementary top, that would be a great boon to us in the country and a great assistance to our rural education. My Lords, there is just one other remark I may venture to make, and that is that while we are grateful for the additional assistance given us under the block grant, while we shall be grateful if we can have more of the Special Aid Grant, I have the profound conviction that we shall never be able to put our rural schools on a satisfactory basis, or to give the children of our rural population the sort of education that we ought to give them until Her Majesty's Government can devise some means of putting our parish schools under public management. I cannot but hope that this may be done, that the noble Duke may before long see his way to do it by introducing some Bill which will enable the managers of Voluntary schools to approach, let us say, the parish council, with a view to a parish education committee, all religious education to be reasonably safeguarded. On that parish education committee, of course, the parish council should have the majority of managers, the other managers being representatives of the trustees of the school and the parents of the children. In that case the parish would have power to levy a rate, and so to give that adequate financial support to our rural schools of which they are in such sore need in many districts.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I think it is scarcely necessary or desirable that I should attempt to follow the right rev. Prelate into a discussion of the effect of the provisions as to the block grant in the new Code, or as to the future development of higher elementary schools. The suggestions which the right rev. Prelate made are no doubt important and well deserve full consideration, but I do not think probably it would be convenient to your Lordships that I should follow him into that part of the subject at present. My Lords, I am

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somewhat at a loss to understand what object my noble friend who has brought forward this resolution had in moving for a Return, and in giving us the calculations which he has founded upon it. I could have told my noble friend without any Return and without any calculations that when the Special Aid Grant is divided between urban and rural schools in the respective proportions of 5s. 9d. and 3s. 3d. the districts which contain a largo number of urban schools would gain a great deal more than districts which contain a large number of rural schools. My noble friend's contention is that which I believe he has always consistently maintained. He objects to the discrimination. But it was not necessary to produce a very elaborate array of figures in order to show that the discrimination which was provided for in the Act, and which has been put into effect by the Board of Education would have the effect which it has had. That effect could have been calculated with considerable accuracy beforehand. The noble Lord said that the experiment had failed. If by failure he means that in consequence of the discrimination various districts have received various amounts, failure was inevitable; but I do not know in what way failure is proved, because, in our opinion, the discrimination has had mainly the effect which it was intended to have, and has given the greater share of the grant to what we believe to be the most necessitous cases. The reasons which induced Parliament and the Department to make this discrimination were shortly these: In the first place the rural districts generally had gained and urban districts had lost through the operation of the Fee Grant, inasmuch as in urban districts fees for 1891 were in excess of 10s., and in rural districts they were considerably under 10s. In the next place the local interest of the well-to-do classes in the maintenance of Voluntary schools is generally greater in the rural than in the urban districts; the power to raise voluntary contributions being greater, the need for further assistance is less. In the next place special provision is made for the most necessitous schools in rural districts under Articles 104 and 105 of the Code. I may say a word upon that subject by-and-by. In the next place the cost of living and therefore the amount paid for salaries is higher in the urban than in the rural dis-
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tricts. It may also be added that in rural districts the proportion of schools which possess liberal endowments, and are therefore not necessitous, is greater than in urban districts. Presumably in urban districts new endowments have not kept pace with the growth of population. The experience of the past three years has on the whole justified the conclusions which we drew from those facts. The rates of Aid Grant for town and country schools were fixed so as to secure as nearly as possible that the actual allotment of aid grant to the several associations should range from 4s. to 5s. 6d. per head. Now, my Lords, I refer to Articles 104 and 105 of the Code, which are articles which provide for schools in districts of very small population. The small schools in the Norwich Association (which is one of those which apparently receive a very low rate from the Special Aid Grant) received £3,930 under these articles, or 1s. 5d. per head on the attendance of all schools in the association. In the Sudbury Association they received £1,285, or nearly 2s. per head. In the Lincolnshire Association (the case of which my noble friend has brought forward) they received £4,105, or 1s. 10¼d. per head. In contrast with these figures, the schools of the London Diocesan Association received £35, or an infinitesimal fraction of a penny per head, and those of the Manchester Association received £395, or a trifle over a halfpenny per head. I think I have only to add that the Right Rev. Prelate who has just spoken was also perfectly right in saying that the new provision for a Block Grant would be a considerable assistance to schools in the rural districts. Therefore, whatever case my noble friend may have had previously to the introduction of that change, his case is somewhat weaker than it was. My Lords, I quite admit that a larger amount of assistance would be very acceptable, and probably would be admirably expended, if it were in our power to give it to rural schools, which in many districts are no doubt extremely necessitous, but, as the right rev. Prelate said just now, we could only do this at the expense of other schools which we believe to be still more necessitous, and therefore, for the present at all events, and until we see reason from further experience, I cannot hold out any hope that we shall be likely to alter the rates which the present Code has fixed.
LORD HENEAGE: I beg leave to; withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.

INEBRIATES AMENDMENT (SCOT LAND) BILL [H.L.]
Order of Friday last, for printing of Commons Amendment, discharged.
House adjourned at a live minutes past Seven of the clock, to Thursday next, at half past Ten of the clock.