Lords Sitting of 22 March 1900

VISCOUNT GORT.
Report made from the Lord Chancellor, that the right of John Gage Prendergast, Viscount Gort, to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  RUGELEY GAS.
  The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
  LONDON COUNTY TRAMWAYS (No. 1) BILL.
  The order referring the Examiner's Certificate of non-compliance with the Standing Orders to the Standing Orders Committee, discharged.

  WHITECHAPEL AND BOW RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  MERSEY RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
  GREAT GRIMSBY STREET TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.].
  Committed: The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

  LEITH BURGH PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL [H.L.]
  Committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.
  CHURCH'S PATENT BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Select Committee with amendments.

  MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL [H.L.]
  LINCOLN CORPORATION (TRAMWAYS) BILL [H.L.].
  Reported with amendments.

  KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES GAS BILL [H.L.]
  Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, no parties having appeared in opposition thereto; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on the 27th of February and on Monday last discharged; and Bill committed.
  NEWTOWN AND LLANLLWCHAIARN URBAN DISTRICT GAS BILL [H.L.]
  Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, no parties having appeared in opposition thereto; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on the 23rd of February and on Monday last discharged; and Bill committed.

  OTLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER BILL [H.L.]
  DONEGAL RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
  LANCASHIRE INEBRIATES ACTS BOARD BILL [H.L.].
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  GREAT SOUTHERN AND WESTERN AND WATERFORD AND CENTRAL IRELAND RAILWAY COMPANIES AMALGAMATION BILL [H.L.]
  Standing Order No. 92, considered (according to order) and dispensed with, with respect to a petition of the Viscount de Vesci. Leave given to present the said petition.
  COLONIAL BANK BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; Read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.

  DUBLIN CORPORATION BILL AND CLONTARF URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  Commons Message considered (according to order).
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY): The object of the Resolution which stands in my name is that the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill, which closely depends on the larger measure, shall be referred to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons. This course is not an unprecedented one, though I admit it is quite unusual. The great importance of the interests concerned in the question of the proposed extension of Dublin renders it desirable that the Bill should be referred to has strong a Committee as possible, and I think your Lordships will find that in a Joint Committee of the two Houses you have an apt tribunal to deal with so important a measure. The Bill had a somewhat checkered career last year, and it is desirable, in the
  4
  interests of all parties, that there should be no inconvenient differences of opinion between the two Houses on the question. This will be achieved by the course I propose, which will also save a great deal of expense. I understand from my right hon. Friend in the House of Commons that he agrees with me that a small Committee will deal with this matter better than a large one, and I would propose that three, or, at the outside, four Members of this House should join with a like number of Members of the House of Commons. I have made these few remarks because the course suggested is an unusual one, but I think that, in the circumstances of the case, I can without hesitation recommend it for your Lordships' adoption.
  Moved, That this House do concur in the following resolution communicated by the Commons, viz., "That it is expedient that the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons" (The Chairman of Committees); agreed to; and a message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES)—RETURN SHOWING:—
  1. Expenditure from the grant for public education in England and Wales in the year 1899, and expenditure from 1839 to 1899;
  2. Number of public elementary day schools on the Annual Grant List on the August 31st, 1899; accommodation, number of scholars, and average attendance in those schools;
  3. Detailed statistics of inspected schools, 1898–99: Public elementary day schools, evening continuation schools, and certified efficient schools; accommodation, number of scholars, average attendance, teachers employed, particulars of grant earned, income, expenditure, etc.;
  4. Summary tables of educational statistics; and
  5. Number of school boards under various heads of population:

  TREATY SERIES, 1900.
  No. 7. Convention and Declaration between the United Kingdom of Germany for the settlement of the Samoan and other questions; signed at London, November 14th, 1899 (ratifications exchanged at London and Berlin, February 16th, 1900);
  No. 8. Convention between the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States of America for the adjustment of questions relating to Samoa; signed at Washington, 2nd December, 1899 (ratifications exchanged at London, Berlin, and Washington, 16th February, 1900);
  No. 9. Treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of San Marino for the mutual extradition of fugitive criminals; signed at Florence, 16th October, 1900 (ratifications exchanged at Rome, December 5th, 1899).

  TRADE REPORTS—ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 2390. Italy (1898 and 1899).
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 AND 1896.
  Order, dated the 14th of March, 1900, relating to the conveyance of animals by the Steamship "Aldworth." Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
NEW BILL.
  PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to check corruption—Was presented by the Lord Russell of Killowen; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 35.)

  MONEY LENDING BILL [H.L.]
  [THIRD READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read for the Third Time."—(The Lord James of Hereford.)
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, before this Bill leaves your Lordships'
  6
  House, I wish to say one word with regard to it. I was not here when my noble friend introduced it, so that I do not know whether he did or did not act upon a suggestion which I made to him last session.* This is what I call thoroughly retrograde legislation. It fixes the price of money. I suggested last year that whenever any member of this Government brought in a retrograde measure, he should appear in the costume of the period to which legislatively he asked us to revert. My noble and learned friend is now asking Parliament to retrograde to the Dark Ages—to, I think, the customs of the 14th or the 13th centuries, when all these usury questions were in the hands of the clergy; and, as I ventured last year to say, my noble friend would, if he had followed my suggestion, have appeared in the dress of the Bishop of Hereford of that period. I do not know whether he followed that very excellent and valuable suggestion. If he had done so it would, I think, have been a warning as to what this kind of legislation really means. If you fix the price of one article—and money is the article probably most current in the world—why should you stop at that? Why should you not fix the price of other things? We all know what exceptional legislation means. The landlords have had a pretty good turn of it with regard to exceptional legislation in the matter of land. I remember hearing Mr. Gladstone, when he brought in his Bill in 1870 which interfered with contracts in Ireland, say, in eloquent language, that it was purely exceptional legislation, and that his hearers should not for a moment imagine that it was going to extend to other parts of the United Kingdom. But it had not been passed more than a year or two before it moved across the Irish Sea and settled in Scotland, and our socialistic Government has, I believe, got another Bill for further amending the law with reference to agricultural holdings. The point of my argument is this. When once you begin this sort of thing you never know where it will end. I recollect at that time holding strongly the other view, that it is not the duty of the State to make men's contracts or to interfere with them, and I also remember pointing out to those who thought they were not interested because
  * May 1st, 1899. See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxx., page 928.

  7
  they were not landlords, that they could depend upon it, if this principle was once broken through, that the so-called exceptional legislation would extend to almost everything. I have in my hand a copy of a Bill entitled the Wages Boards Bill, the object of which is to provide for the establishment of wages boards with power to fix the minimum rate of wages to be paid to | workers in particular trades, the socialistic Home Secretary of the day having the power to say what those trades are to be. Such a Bill as this is the direct consequence of the legislation proposed by my noble and learned friend. The great peculiarity of this Bill is the third clause, which says—
  "A wages board shall consist of a Chairman and such number of other members, not more than four nor less than ten."
  Who drafted that Bill I do not know, but these are the persons who have such great powers of calculation and who will fix the wages in every trade which the Home Secretary desires. The names at the back of the Bill are Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Burns, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Tennant, and Mr. Trevelyan. Mr. Burns admitted to me, at a discussion at the Society of Arts last year, that the object he and those who worked with him had in view was that all the instruments of production should be in the hands of the State, and that private enterprise should be done away with. I wish to call attention to the rapid way in which this is being brought about. The Bill which my noble and learned friend is now asking the House to read a third time met with a timely end in the House of Commons last year, and I hope it will meet with a like fate during the present session.
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 3a (according to order); an Amendment made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS BILL [H.L.]
  Amendment reported (according to order); and Bill to be read 3a on Tuesday next.
  CENSUS (GREAT BRITAIN) BILL.
  Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  MUNICIPAL TRADING—PROPOSED JOINT COMMITTEE.
  THE EARL OF MORLEY: My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is proposed to appoint a Joint Committee of the two Houses to consider questions relating to municipal trading. I must at once admit to the House that I have asked this question not so much with a view of obtaining information as with a view of urging on Her Majesty's Government the importance of appointing as soon as possible a Committee to inquire into what is generally called municipal trading. There are a large number of Bills which, to some extent, deal with this question, and I refer especially to Bills by which municipalities take powers very largely to extend their tramways or electrical undertakings beyond the borough limits. It is very difficult for Committees to whom these Bills are referred, if they are opposed, or for myself, in the case of unopposed Bills, to know quite how to deal with them without having some guidance from Parliament. It is also not quite fair to those who are introducing Bills that they should not know definitely what they will be allowed to do and what they will not be allowed to do. Therefore, I would very strongly urge upon the Government the necessity in the public interest that the Committee which was promised last year should be appointed as soon as possible, so that we may have some means of judging before the end of the session how these questions of large and widespread importance should be dealt with.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Before my noble friend answers the noble Earl, I should like to say that I am very glad this question has been put. Last night I had the honour of being asked to dine with the London Chamber of Commerce, where municipal trading was the question for discussion after dinner. The almost unanimous feeling was expressed that it was necessary that some such Committee as this should be appointed, in order to draw the line beyond which municipal trading should not extend, for municipalities now enter into almost every kind of trade. My own view is that it is by private enterprise that our commercial country has attained its present position, and that national progress depends upon private enterprise, and not upon the

  9
  municipalisation of inventions when they come out.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): I presume from the fact that my noble friend at the table has addressed this question to Her Majesty's Government that he holds Her Majesty's Government responsible for arranging these private Bills in this proposed manner. Now, I have always been taught that the Government takes no side in private Bills, and that private Bills are left to the management of the very able Members in both Houses of Parliament who devote themselves to that task. I am not, therefore, able as a member of the Government to give any answer to my noble friend. If he asks me individually I say it is very desirable that such a Committee should be appointed. I observe in the ordinary channels of information that a similar sentiment was expressed by the Leader of the other House of Parliament, but we do not accept it as a Government measure. The House of Lords is perfectly willing to do its part in the appointment of this Joint Committee, and as soon as the House of Commons has come to a similar resolution I hope the Joint Committee will set on foot what I have no doubt will be its very salutary deliberations.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Five of the clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten of the clock.