Lords Sitting of 29 July 1904

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:—Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 3).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
Rotherham Coporation Bill. Reported, with Amendments.
Selby Urban District Council Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
London County Council (General Powers) Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 13) Bill; Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 8) Bill. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Emly be proposed to the House
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as a member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Lord Armstrong; read, and agreed to.
Swindon Corporation Bill. Read 3a with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed and returned to the Commons.
Saddleworth and Springhead Tram, ways Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Aberdeen City Improvements Order Confirmation Bill [H.L]. A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Aberdeen City Improvements—Was presented by the Lord Kintore (E. Kintore); read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899), deemed to have been read 2a (the Lord Kintor (E. Kintore)); and reported from the Committee. (No. 168.)
Ayr Corporation Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] (No. 169). A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Ayr Corporation Tramways; and
Glasgow Corporation (Sewage) Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] (No. 170). A

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Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Glasgow Corporation (Sewage)—Were presented by the Lord Kintore (E. Kintore) (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, Sections 8 and 9); read la; and to be printed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 10) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 11) Bill. House in Committee (according to order). Bills reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bills to be read 3a on Monday next.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. House in Committee (according to order). Amendments made. Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3240. United States (Savannah).
  No. 3241. Paraguay.
  No. 3242. Japan (North Formosa).

  IMPERIAL DEFENCE COMMITTEE.
  Treasury Minute, dated 4th May, 1904, as to Secretariat.
  Report by the Board of Trade of their proceedings under the Tramways Act, 1870, during the session of 1904.
  METROPOLITAN GAS COMMITTEE.
  Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire and report as to gas-testing in the Metropolis. Part II. Evidence and Appendices.
  Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
  WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOUR, BOARD OF TRADE (LABOUR DEPARTMENT).
  Report on changes in rates of wages and hours of labour in the United Kingdom in 1903; with comparative statistics for 1894–1902.
  STATISTICS.
  Statistical abstract for the principal and other foreign countries in each year from 1892 to 1901–1902 (as far as the particulars can be stated). Thirtieth Number.

  HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Report on American manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Volume I.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  LUNACY,
  Return to the Lord Chancellor of the number of visits made and the number of patients seen by the several Commissioners in Lunacy during the six months ended the 30th June, 1904.

  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF HERTFORD).
  Orders made by the County Council of the county of Hertford, re-dividing into polling districts—
  The Eastern or Hertford Parliamentary Division; The Mid or St. Albans Parliamentary Division.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  FINANCE BILL.
  Brought from the Commons and read 1.
  Standing Order No. XXXIX. considered (according to order).
  Moved, "That the said Standing Order be suspended for this day's sitting."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  *EARL SPENCER: My Lords, last night I thought it my duty in the very few words I then addressed to the House to protest as strongly as I could against the action of His Majesty's Government in bringing up a Bill of this great importance at so late a period of the session, and in compelling this House, or trying to compel this House, to pass it through all its stages in the course of an hour or two. I said that I should repeat my protest to-day, and I think that this is the proper

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  time, when the suspension of the Standing Order is moved, that I should do so. This is not the first time that I have protested against Bills being brought up from the other House for your Lordships' consideration at the very fag end of the session, but the present is one of the greatest scandals in this respect that I can recollect.
  Let me just describe what has occurred. We came here to-day without having any intimation on our Votes that we were to discuss this Bill. We had it foreshadowed in two facts. First, there was the fact that we were to meet at the unusual hour of three o'clock instead of a quarter past four; and, secondly, there was the fact that the Standing Order which prevents the several stages of a Bill being taken the same day was to be suspended. That was the only notice we had on the Votes of the House as to this Bill being brought before your Lordships' House to-day. After our arrival this afternoon we observed some communication going on at the Bar between the Clerk at the Table and a gentleman whom we know represents the House of Commons, and presently a Paper was brought to the Table tied up in green silk. We subsequently learned that this was the Bill which has lately been passed in the House of Commons—the Finance Bill; and, thereupon, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House moved that it be read a first time. Now, my Lords, that is a very strong order indeed. Your Lordships are obliged to discuss a Bill of the greatest national importance without having notice of it on your Votes. Peers who look at their Votes to see what is coming on in your Lordships' House would not know, unless they learned it from another source, that this Bill was to be brought up.
  We all know that we in this House cannot amend a Money Bill, but we have a perfect right to discuss it, and a full right to throw it out if we so will. I need hardly say that I am not going to propose that the Finance Bill should be thrown out, but I do claim the right of this House to discuss a measure of this great importance. Why is it that the Government have taken this course and placed your Lordships in this most undignified position? It is stated that the Bill must become law before 1st August, and there-
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  fore, as the House of Commons does not sit to-day later than half-past five or six and does not sit on Saturday. the Government wish your Lordships' House to pass it through all its stages, if possible, within one hour, so that the Commons may be summoned to hear the Royal Assent given to it. I very much doubt the pressing necessity for passing the Bill through your Lordships' House in this hurried manner. I have in my hand a "Manual of Procedure in the Public Business of the House of Commons," prepared by the Clerk of that House, and in Article 239 I find these words—
  "When the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made his annual financial statement, he moves, in Committee of Ways and Means, the Resolutions required for continuing, imposing, remitting, or reducing taxes, or otherwise regulating the collection of the revenue. These Resolutions require confirmation by Parliament, but when any such Resolution is to take effect at once it is, by usage, brought into operation as soon as it has been passed by the Committee of Ways and Means."
  These Resolutions, as a rule, name 1st August as the day to which they refer, but I find that has not always been the practice.
  Though 1st August has been named as the day when the Resolution comes to an end, and when it requires confirmation by Parliament, that has not always been followed by the immediate passing of the Finance Bill. By Section 1 of the Finance Act, 1895, the tea duty was continued till 1st August, 1896. By Section 1 of the Finance Act, 1896, the tea duty was continued from 1st August of that year to 1st August, 1897; but the Finance Act of 1896 did not receive the Royal Assent until 7th August. I would ask His Majesty's Government to explain why, in face of that fact, it is now necessary to force this Bill through by 1st August. I submit that there is no case for such action. If, however, the contention of the Government that the Bill must receive the Royal Assent before 1st August is correct, then I think they are open to very grave censure for not having arranged their business in such a way as to allow of this measure coming before your Lordships at an earlier period, so that we might have proper time to consider it. It certainly strikes me that the system of conducting business in the other House must be exceedingly careless

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  when such a thing as that against which I am protesting can happen.
  I would remind your Lordships that it was not always so. In 1894, when the Liberal Government was in power, the Finance Bill was read a first time on 19th July, and a second time on 26th July. It was committed on 27th July, and read a third time on 30th July. And that Bill, it should be remembered, embodied the great system of death duties with which the name of my right hon. friend Sir William Harcourt is so intimately connected. In 1895 the Bill was read a first time on 27th May; the Second Reading was on the 28th and the Royal Assent was given on the 30th. In 1896 the Finance Bill was read a first time on 30th July; it was read a second time and passed through the remaining stages on 4th August without discussion. In 1901 the First Reading was taken on 18th July; it was read a second time and the Committee negatived on 23rd July and the Bill was read a third time on the 25th. In 1902 the Bill was read a first time on 26th June—a much earlier period; the Second Reading was taken on 3rd July, and the Third Reading on 4th July. In 1903 the Bill was read a first time on 25th July, and on 29th July it went through its remaining stages. The Government have managed their affairs in the House of Commons in what I venture to think is an exceedingly slovenly way, and in a way that has placed your Lordships' House in a very difficult and serious position. It is impossible for this House to debate a great measure of this kind in the circumstances in which we stand, and I strongly protest against the suspension of the Standing Order as proposed.
  The LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): My Lords, I sympathise with a great deal that has been said by the noble Earl. It has been the subject of debate more than once that Bills come up from the other House in circumstances which make it impossible for your Lordships to discuss them. I do not feel as strongly as the noble Earl does on this particular occasion, because, although I agree that three stages were taken as a matter of form on the occasions to which he has referred, I doubt whether the noble Earl will find that there was much debate.
  *EARL SPENCER: On one occasion I made a speech of considerable length, and other noble Lords on this side have spoken.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I was speaking of what has been the common practice. On a great many occasions it has been a mere matter of form. I lament it very much, and I think the noble Marquess the Leader of the House will lament it too. There are times when there are great debates in the House of Commons, and it is impossible to hurry them; and it has been with great exertions and at some cost to health that even now this Bill has been brought before your Lordships. I quite understand that if the Resolution had been reserved to a later period the difficulty would not have arisen, but the Resolution limited the period to 1st August.
  *EARL SPENCER: It did the same in 1896.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: All I can say is that, apart from that Resolution, I do not know what power there was to collect any taxes whatever after 1st August. That is one of the problems which I confess I cannot solve. If there was no real power to do it, no one knew anything about it, and the taxes were collected in the ordinary course; but they had no right to do it after the determination of that period. That is the condition in which we are, and I think this House is not responsible for it. It is a state of things that does sometimes occur, and I have very often expressed the feelings which the noble Earl has given utterance to on occasions when there really was something to discuss. and when, at the end of the session, we were informed that, although there were some matters in a Bill which were obviously erroneous, its going back to the Commons would be fatal to it, and we have been compelled to accept the Bill. I have more than once thought that it would be much more convenient if some of the Bills of a public character were initiated in this House. I hope the noble Lord will not himself take a course which could only result in public inconvenience or encourage his followers to do so. Whatever has been

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  done on previous occasions, when nobody knew anything at all about it, now that the noble Lord has called attention to the determination of the period on 1st August, somebody will find out that he need not pay any tax on that date. I ask your Lordships not to resort to extreme measures on this occasion, and I hope the difficulty will not occur again.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: My Lords, I do not wish to enter into the question as to this Bill becoming law before 1st August. Whatever questions may arise in consequence of this being a. Finance Bill, I hope your Lordships will think that we are justified in taking advantage of this opportunity to make a clear and distinct protest against the way in which this House is treated. As my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has said, he has been very emphatic in his condemnation of this practice, which is really having a most serious effect. I would remind your Lordships of what occurred recently in the case of the Factory Bill. That Bill effected more than 100 amendments in the law, and there were Members in your Lordships' House most qualified and most anxious to deal with that subject; yet Lord Belper, who had charge of the Bill, had to announce that if this House made one single Amendment in it, there was not time for the House of Commons to consider it, and the Bill would be lost. There were some Members of your Lordships' House who were prepared to say that, in the circumstances, the Bill should not pass; but my noble friend on the Woolsack and I made a most pressing appeal to your Lordships not to punish the operatives who would be affected by the rejection of the Bill. The Bill was passed, but your Lordships' hands were so tied that you were unable to make the slightest Amendment. The late Lord Salisbury, who had the honour of this House at heart as much as any man, joined in deploring this state of things—a state of things which I venture to think ought never to exist. The majority of the House of Commons desire to see this House continue in its strength; but if we submit to be treated as if we were nobodies, if we are not to bear an equal responsibility with the House of Commons in legislation, the
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  time will come soon enough when others will think of us as we allow ourselves to be thought of, and the country will tell us that we are a Chamber without utility and without influence in the country.
  This is not a question affecting this Government only; it is a habit that has grown up. Although the difficulties that exist in the House of Commons in carrying business through may drive a Minister to take a course which he cannot always control, surely some effort should be made to allow us to take a greater part in the responsibility of legislation. Why is it that in this session not one measure of the slightest importance has been initiated in this House? Why should we be treated as if we were incapable of dealing with these questions? By the action of the other House there has been taken from us the possibility of our doing anything. I do not blame this Government particularly, or individual members of it; but surely everyone who desires to see this House honoured and its utility maintained ought to take every opportunity of protesting against the course that has been pursued towards it.
  The EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, I venture to associate myself with the protest which has just been made by the noble and learned Lord. I speak not so much with reference to this Bill, because I do not suppose there is any noble Lord likely to move its rejection, but with reference to the precedent which is created, and because, so far as I know, it has never before been stated in this House that a Bill brought in at three o'clock must be passed through all its stages by half-past five.
  A NOBLE LORD: By four o'clock.
  The EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: It is perfectly true that in the Orders of the Day the Commission is announced to sit at four o'clock to give the Royal Assent to this Bill; but, as a matter of fact, your Lordships are given till half-past five—namely, two and a half hours—in which to discuss this Bill. This is the strongest practical illustration that I can imagine of the necessity for the protest which was raised by Lord Newton last year, and which has been repeated

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  this year, with reference to the management of the business of this House, and the way in which this House is treated during the last fortnight or three weeks of the session. When the noble Lord opposite (Lord Newton) introduced his Motion I added a few words, giving my own experience of the last three weeks of the session in this House. If any noble Lord attends this House at all, the last three weeks of the session is the time for him to attend. There is very little business to transact before then. Shoals of Bills are presented to this House during the last three weeks of the session, and with regard to them appeals are made, such as the noble and learned Lord opposite told us were made in the case of the Factory Bill, and noble Lords are implored to withdraw all opposition.
  The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has to-night made a speech of a very apologetic character. He agrees with a great deal of what was said earlier by the noble Lord who leads the Opposition, and I believe he agrees with a great deal of what I am saying now, and with what Lord Newton has said in former debates; but it is not merely sympathy that we want. Sympathy is a very fine thing in its way, but what we want is some practical illustration of that sympathy. During the remaining two or three weeks of the session Bills will be brought up here, and we shall be adjured to pass them without being given any opportunity whatever of amending them or even of considering them. This House has before now postponed the consideration of a Bill on the ground that there was no time to take it into consideration. Such a Motion was made by the late Lord Redesdale. It was a Scottish Education Bill or something of that sort which originated in this House. It was largely altered in the other House, and was brought up again to this House about the 9th or 10th of August. Lord Redesdale moved that it was then too late to consider those Amendments, and the House affirmed his opinion by, I think, a majority of something like twenty votes. I hold that with regard to Bills which may be brought up to this House during the remaining weeks of the present session, noble Lords who really wish to show that they attach some practical
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  value to the independence of this House, and to its taking a proper part in legislation, would be acting perfectly within their rights in moving to postpone the consideration of the Bills then brought up. I cannot understand why it is not possible to introduce more Bills in this House. The noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack said it would be a good thing if that were done.
  LORD NEWTON: The Licensing Bill, for instance.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I was going to ask the noble and learned Lord whether he would not intercede with the noble Marquess the Leader of this House, and get some Bills initiated here. It is not sufficient to say one wishes to see them introduced; some practical steps should be taken to get them introduced. I believe the Licensing Bill, which has just been referred to by my noble friend Lord Newton, was eminently a Bill for consideration by this House. It would have been wholly unnecessary to interfere with any part of the compensation or money clauses, but I venture to say that in this House most valuable debates would have taken place with regard to the principle of the Bill. If the Bill had been introduced in your Lordships' House, I believe it would have been almost as forward in the House of Commons as it is at the present time, and your Lordships would have had ample time for its consideration. I wish to renew my protest against the way in which your Lordships' House is treated during the last three weeks of the session, and this is going to be one of the very worst sessions in that respect. I cannot remember a Bill ever being forced down our throats in a period which may be an hour, and which must not be more than two and a half hours. It is the most practical application of the guillotine that I ever remember. I hope the noble Marquess, who has at heart the honour and the dignity of this House, and who leads the House with such universal approval, will bear in mind the rights and privileges of this House, and will in the next session of Parliament, at all events, set a better example than has been set during the

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  present session in the way of introducing Bills in this House.
  *LORD COLERIDGE: My Lords, your Lordships' House is in rather a peculiar position, because we are asked to pass a Bill which no Member of this House has ever seen. What mischief may lurk under that green silk band I know not, but at any rate, until the Bill is seen we cannot reasonably be asked to pass it. Let me remind the House of the manner in which matters have been conducted by His Majesty's Government. The Committee stage of the Finance Bill began in the other House on 20th June. The Prime Minister said it was absolutely necessary—and I presume he did not say that without some grounds—that the Bill should be taken on 20th June, and no later, and that it should be discussed de die in diem. It was discussed on the 20th, 21st, and the 22nd of June. Then, my Lords, there was a gap, and the House of Commons heard no more of the Bill until 18th July. Now, with what face, speaking respectfully, with what excuse can the noble Marquess come to this House and plead for urgency when His Majesty's Government have not used the expedition that might have been used in the other House?
  One of the weeks during which there was this suspension of discussion on the Finance Bill was occupied with Ascot. Will the noble Marquess say that that was an adequate reason for suspending any discussion on the financial business of the country? Another week or fortnight of that period was occupied with the Licensing Bill. Now that Bill is a very important measure; but, after all, no Bill is so important as the Bill which enables the Government to levy taxes. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister, if the truth were known, felt that he was more secure of his majority on the Licensing Bill than he was at that particular time on the Finance Bill, because the Licensing Bill affected great interests, and the interests of the many are apt to be overlooked in the interests of the few. The noble Marquess cannot say that the Government have shown that despatch of business which entitles him to come and ask us to pass through all its stages a Bill we have not seen.
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  I do not know what the awful consequences to the Government will be if we do not pass this Bill through in the allotted time. The noble Earl on the Woolsack thinks no taxpayer need pay in the interval between the ceasing of the operation of the Resolution passed by the House of Commons and the coming into force of the statutory measure authorising the levying of the tax. I do not know how that would be; but there is one simple way out of the difficulty. The Government have a vast majority in the House of Commons and a still larger majority in this House, and no delay need accompany the passing of a Bill of indemnity. I have no doubt it would be carried by acclamation in both Houses. When, for instance, in South Africa acts were done under martial law which the civil law did not recognise, it was found necessary to pass Acts of Indemnity, and these were passed without opposition. That is an excellent precedent for this country; and it seems to me that the difficulty might be got over in that way, and that, therefore. the need for this speedy passing of the Bill is not so urgent as the noble Marquess would lead us to believe.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, I cannot understand why the noble Marquess, in asking us to suspend the Standing Order, did not give us reasons why this is necessary, because it does seem to me that in taking the course proposed His Majesty's Government are establishing a precedent. My noble and learned friend behind me has reminded the House that we have not even been permitted to see the Bill which we are asked to pass through all its stages to-day. His Majesty's Government appear to have taken the view that as this Finance Bill is introduced with the authority of a Conservative Government, therefore it is one which does not excite any question of public interest. Reference was made by the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition to what took place in regard to the Finance Bill which introduced the death duties: and I cannot help thinking that if this House acts on the principle involved in this Resolution it would be perfectly possible for any Government, a Liberal Government perhaps, to introduce proposals of a most stringent and radical

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  character into a Finance Bill, embodying principles opposed to the view of the predominant Party in this House, and by deferring the date demand the rapid passage of such a Bill through all its stages to avoid the disorganisation of the financial arrangements of the country.
  I, with all deference to what has been said, very much doubt if any serious financial disturbance would arise through not acceding to the proposal of His Majesty's Government. It is absurd to suppose that the Bill now before the House has not in it great questions of principle. If it did not contain such questions, on what conceivable grounds did the House of Commons debate it at such length? It is said that the opposition in the House of Commons was purely obstructive; but I would point out that upon the question of protection—which I hope I and others will have an opportunity of discussing later this afternoon when the Second Reading is moved—a great deal of the opposition to the Bill came from the Ministerial side of the House. I do contend that if your Lordships' House is to be considered an independent Second Chamber, it is desirable that we should take some stand to maintain our rights. If this Assembly is to be looked upon merely as a sort of adjunct to the Carlton Club it is perfectly intelligible, and in itself intelligent, that Bills of this kind should be brought up when introduced by Conservative Governments, and that we should be asked to accept them without any discussion or deliberation at all. In moving that the Standing Order be suspended, the noble Marquess did not say a single word in explanation of, or justification for, that Motion. It is presumed that your Lordships will do exactly as the Government ask, that you will suspend the Standing Order without debate, and pass the Bill through all its stages, so that it may receive the Royal Assent before the adjournment of the House of Commons. Although it may seem somewhat strange that noble Lords on this side of the House should stand up in defence of the rights of this Assembly, yet it does seem to me that so long as the House of Lords exists, and so long as the members of the Opposition are obliged to sit in an Assembly in which they are in a considerable minority, they
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  should be treated with a semblance of respect and consideration.
  LORD NEWTON: My Lords, it is with some gratification that I have heard from noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon sentiments which I have myself expressed on previous occasions, but I confess to feeling considerable regret that these sentiments have not been expressed earlier. When on a recent occasion I drew attention to the state of business in this House, not only did nobody say a word in support of my contention, but the Leader of the House, amid the plaudits of the Assembly, pointed out to me that there was practically no hope of ameliorating the condition of things, and that we must be content to exist in our present circumstances. I rise more for the purpose of endeavouring to show, if I can, that the Prime Minister is not so much to blame as he is supposed to be. I will admit that at first blush it looks as if this House had been treated with extreme contempt, I might almost say contumely, by the Prime Minister, because he has left the discussion of the Finance Bill over until the last possible date, and if the contention of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is correct, has left us with at the most two and a half hours for discussing this Bill, and passing it through all its stages. I cannot help wondering what would have been said by our Party if we had had to endure this at the hands of the Party opposite.
  But, as I say, I am anxious to make the best case I can for the Prime Minister, and to prove, if possible, that he is not so black as he has been painted, and I will do it by asking the Leader of the House whether it is not the case that under the old Finance Act power is taken to levy duties up to 1st August, and that it is not absolutely necessary for the present Bill to become law at this sitting. 1st August is next Monday, and, so far as I am aware, the old Finance Act as in operation until 1st August. The new Bill will come into operation on 1st August, and there will be no interval between the two. I wish to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House whether I am correct in this assumption; and, if I am, there is obviously no neces-

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  sity for passing the Bill through all its stages during the present sitting.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the only reply I am able to give to the noble Lord is that we are advised that the course he suggests is not one which could be adopted consistently with the provisions of the Act of Parliament. I rise really with the object of adding my expressions of regret to those of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack at being obliged to ask your Lordships to take so unusual a course with regard to this Bill. There is a consensus of opinion on this subject and I do not dissociate myself in any way from what has been said as to the inconvenience of passing Bills of this importance so hurriedly through your Lordships' House. I should, however, like to notice for one moment the remark of the noble Earl opposite that this result might have been avoided, if it had not been for what he called the slovenly manner in which business had been conducted in the House of Commons. I find that the discussion of this Bill occupied seventeen days in the House of Commons, or three and a half weeks of Parliamentary time; and although I feel that I am scarcely in a position to carry the war into the enemy's country, I would ask him whether some of the delay that has taken place may not be attributed to the extreme anxiety shown by the noble Earl's friends to discuss not only this measure, but other measures which have been simultaneously before the House of Commons.
  As to the position of your Lordships' House in reference to money Bills I do not think there is any controversy. It is open to us, if we like, to throw out a money Bill. It is, I believe, even open to us, if we choose, to amend it. I believe there is a case on record where an Amendment was actually inserted; but as a matter of practical politics we all know that the insertion of an important Amendment in a money Bill by this House would lead to the abandonment of the measure when it went back to the other House. Therefore we may regard the insertion of an Amendment as equivalent to the rejection of the Bill. The case is different when we come to the question of discussion. When the noble Earl claims for this House the right
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  of discussing a money Bill at length, it is rather interesting to recall cases when we on this side of the House have upheld this doctrine, and it has been disputed by noble Lords opposite. The noble Earl referred to a debate which took place in 1894 on the Finance Bill of that year. If he will refer to that debate he will see that Lord Rosebery deprecated altogether the idea that the House of Lords should have anything to do with money Bills. In those days, therefore, noble Lords opposite took a different view, and we appeared as champions of the rights of the House of Lords. I have no doubt some allowance must be made for the different conditions under which the subject is approached according as we sit on one side or other of the House. I am not familiar with the precedent to which the noble Earl referred, but it certainly is the case that, in the Act of last year, it is clearly and distinctly laid down that certain taxes shall continue to be charged, levied, or paid until the first day of August this year, and in our view that does render it necessary that the new legislation should come into effect before the arrival of that day.
  *EARL SPENCER: August was also mentioned in the Act of 1895, but the Act of 1896 did not become law until 7th August. The same conditions obtained then.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Even assuming that that was so, it does not follow that the transaction was regular, or that it is desirable to repeat it on the present occasion, There is one suggestion which I would make to the noble Earl. I quite admit the desirability of discussing in this House the financial position of the country, and the great problems which arise in connection with it. But is it quite clear that it is only upon the introduction of the Finance Bill that discussions of that kind can take place? It always seems to me to be rather astonishing that we in your Lordships' House, whose time, after all, is not so fully occupied, should not avail ourselves of the opportunities which are within our reach for raising what it seems to me would be extremely useful discussions upon such questions as the financial position of the country. I have heard it said, very recently, that it is only in

  19
  the House of Lords that full opportunities are really given for such discussion. I do not see why the noble Lord or any of his friends should not at any moment, had they desired it, have initiated a debate on the general financial prospects of the country. I did not, however, rise for the purpose of disputing what was said by the noble Lord opposite as to the inconvenience complained of. On the contrary, I may assure your Lordships that we shall make it our business to prevent a recurrence of a state of things similar to that which we are discussing this evening. We have taken already one step which, it seems to me, is a practical one in that direction, because in the Bill of this year we have substituted for the date of the 1st of August the 1st of July, so that there will at any rate be a little more elbow room another year. I can assure your Lordships that I am deeply concerned for the honour of your Lordships' House, and that I should be the last person in the world to desire that any slight or indignity should be offered to it.
  LORD BURGHCLERE: My Lords, I shall only interpose for a few minutes in this discussion. I have heard a rumour that some of my friends are proposing to take a division on the Motion now before the House. On an ordinary occasion I would be the last man in the world to register my vote against a request by the responsible Government of the day to suspend certain Standing Orders in order to enable them to carry on the Government, but if there is an occasion in which we ought not to take the situation in which we are placed lying down I think this is the occasion, and if my noble friends go to a division I shall certainly join them in the Lobby. It is perfectly true that your Lordships have no power to amend a money Bill, but we have the power to end it, and if we never attempt to exercise that power it seems to me that it would be better that Finance Bills should never be referred to this House at all. That would make the course of the Government a great deal easier, and I think it would place us in a position of greater dignity than we are in on the present unfortunate occasion. I do not rise for the purpose of making a speech on this subject, but
  20
  only to explain my own position in regard to the matter. In order to register my protest against the position in which we are continually being placed year after year at this period of the session, when it is quite impossible for your Lordships to discuss the various Bills that are sent up with a proper sense of your own dignity, I shall, if my noble friends divide upon this Motion, follow them into the Division Lobby.
  EARL CARRINGTON: My Lords, I should like to be permitted to say a word or two on this subject, on which I feel very strongly. I am certain every noble Lord on this side of the House will receive in the way in which it was meant the expression of regret which emanated from the noble Marquess the Leader of the House on account of the impasse in which your Lordships find yourselves. As I understand this matter, if this Bill is not passed by Monday next the taxes which are now being levied under the Resolutions passed by the House of Commons will be illegally levied, because the old Act of 1903 only gave the Crown power to levy the taxes sanctioned by the Resolutions of the House of Commons up to 1st August. If, therefore, the Government continued to levy these taxes without the Resolutions having been confirmed by the Bill before the House, they would have to have recourse to a Bill of Indemnity.
  When I first landed in New South Wales in 1883 the Government were turned out within seven days; another Prime Minister and Government were elected, but they only remained in office a fortnight. Then there was a third Government which lasted six weeks. These changes had one advantage, inasmuch as they made the Governor acquainted with almost every politician of any standing in the colony; but they had this great disadvantage, that very little public business could be done, and one result was that the different Oppositions had a playful habit of refusing supplies. The Leader of the Opposition in each case did the best he could to obtain supplies for the Government, but miserably failed in that laudable endeavour, and the result was that all the Ministerial salaries and the different salaries I in the colony were paid by monthly

  21
  Supply Bills. Of course, that was illegal, and it had to be remedied, when the staple Government came in, by Bills of Indemnity. Therefore, if this Bill is not passed by next Monday I take it that the taxes that will be levied will be illegally levied, and the Government will have to have recourse to a Bill of Indemnity. No doubt that would take some time to pass the House of Commons, and it would delay public business, but it would not be the fault of the Opposition. The Government ought to have thought of that before.
  I submit that it is not respectful to this House to bring in a Bill at the last moment, and, as it were, to force it down the throats of your Lordships. The noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack spoke of the public inconvenience that would be caused if the Government did not get this Bill by 1st August. He concluded with a most pathetic appeal to your Lordships not to say anything this time, and he was good enough to assure us that such a thing should not happen again. With all respect, I submit that the procedure of the Government in the case of this Bill is not an isolated case. It is part of the systematically contemptuous manner in which this Government has treated Parliament, relying on the support of a majority which was elected on a false issue. That is the real reason why the House of Lords is placed in the present position. This majority, I repeat, was elected on a false issue, and they have received abundant proof of the displeasure of the constituencies in the country. As I believe this is the real reason of the present deadlock, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two on these false issues. They have a distinct bearing on this Bill and on the finances of the country. I would remind the House that Mr. Balfour said in Manchester in 1900—
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: May I venture to remind the noble Earl that the Motion before the House is that the Standing Order be suspended for this day's sitting? I think my noble friend's observations are scarcely germane to that Motion.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I am entirely in the hands of the House, but I do most
  22
  respectfully submit that this is a matter of the gravest importance. Seeing how small numerically is the band of Liberal Peers in this House, I do think that some little consideration and some little latitude might be allowed to us when we are standing up, not only for the rights of this House, but for what we think are the rights of the country at large.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I rise to a point of order. I gathered that my noble friend was showing that we are in this position owing to the incapacity of the Government to administer the affairs of the country in the House of Commons. He was giving instances to show their incapacity in that direction. Surely that is in order.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: The noble Earl is mistaken. The topic was the false issues raised before the constituencies at the last election, and I think it will require some ingenuity to bring that within the present discussion.
  EARL CARRINGTON: It is, I contend, these false issues whieh have brought about the present deadlock; but, as I said a moment ago, I am entirely in the hands of the House, and if the House wishes for some reason that this debate should not go on, I will bow to that decision. But I do, at the same time, enter the strongest possible protest against not being permitted to go into this subject, which I consider, though I may be wrong, to be entirely germane to the matter before the House. The position in which we are now placed is, perhaps, the last instance of the systematic dictation of His Majesty's Government to both Houses of Parliament. I understand that the original proposal was that we should have met last night at midnight as soon as the Bill had passed through the House of Commons. I suppose that some noble Lords would have been sent down at half-past twelve or one o'clock in the morning, armed with a big revolver, to point it at the devoted heads of the few members of the Opposition who were present, telling them in plain language that they were to pass the Bill. Owing, however, to the protest made not only by noble Lords who sit on this side of the House but by the noble Lords who generally support the

  23
  Government, that course was not persisted in. I ask whether it is right, whether it is decent, to ask the House to rush this Bill through all its stages in the course of a few minutes? There is one great reason why this particular Bill should have fair and proper discussion.
  Standing Order No. XXXIX. having been suspended, Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  *LORD COLERIDGE: My Lords, I desire to say a few words on the Motion now before the House. The occasion is one on which I think it is not immaterial to draw some attention to the growing expenditure of the country. The figures are somewhat startling. There are two reasons why I think attention should be drawn to the Budget—firstly, because of the growing expenditure of the country, and, secondly, because, as my noble friend Lord Carrington in his concluding words told us, for the first time for fifty years the Budget discloses taxation of a protective character. Without going any further into reasons, that is sufficient reason of itself why we on this side of the House at any rate think it right to draw public attention to the nature of the Budget of this financial year.
  The expenditure to which I would draw attention is of a most alarming character. In 1894, when the Liberal Government were last in power, the expenditure upon the Navy and Army together did not
  Earl Carrington.
  24
  It is the first Budget savouring of protection which has been introduced into Parliament for the last fifty years.
  On Question,

  equal the expenditure on either one of those branches now; that is to say, the present expenditure on either of these services exceeds the total expenditure on both branches demanded by the Government in 1894. Now, my Lords, does that correspond with either the increase in the population or the increase in the wealth of the inhabitants of the country? It corresponds with neither. It is an enormous advance in the weight of taxation upon every individual member of the community. To show how this expenditure has been growing, I may mention that between the years 1894 and 1899, the first five years of the Conservative Government, there was an increase in the annual expenditure of the country of £15,000,000 sterling. That was a large increase and one calculated to make every man who had financial economy at heart pause and reflect; but it was as nothing compared with the corresponding increase, since the year 1899. From 1899 to 1904 in addition to that £15,000,000, we are now faced with an extra expenditure of £35,000,000 a year. Every financial authority on either side of the House, of whatever economic or political opinion, is agreed that this is a dangerous state

  25
  of affairs and cannot be permitted to continue without risk to the financial stability of the country.
  I am discussing a Bill that I have never seen, but Iassume, from the form in which the Finance Bill was reported to the House of Commons after it had been amended in Committee, that there is an increased tax of 2d. placed upon tea. Let me first deal with the question of tea, which is, after all, one of the most innocuous and essential elements of food. It is a drink that everyone must wish well to, that everyone must desire should be shared as largely and as economically as possible by the whole population. It is an article of necessity which everyone who has the interests of the poorer people at heart would desire to relieve as far as possible from any burden of taxation which would tend to increase its price. The tea duty was increased from 4d. to 6d. by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and it was increased, as he stated at the time, not as a permanent tax. He thus described the reasons for its imposition—
  "This extra 2d. is purely, in my opinion, an exceptional tax levied for the purposes of the present war."
  Therefore, my Lords, the financial authority for the time being of His Majesty's Government, in asking the House of Commons and the country to accept his Budget, admitted the grave result of putting an extra tax of 2d. a lb. on such an article of necessity as tea. He excused it on the ground that it was a temporary tax imposed for a temporary purpose, leaving everyone to infer, as this House and the House of Commons did infer, that when that temporary necessity had passed away the temporary tax would be remitted.
  The war is over and we are in times of peace, put this year His Majesty's Government, instead of not remitting the 2d. in the £ that was imposed by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach for the purposes of the war, are actually adding another 2d., bringing the tax upon tea up to 8d. per lb. Having regard to the price of tea in the market, that is an extraordinary proportion. It is 75 or 80 per cent. of the whole price of the tea in the market. I need hardly say that that is a great burden upon the people, and for such a tax some unusual
  26
  and unprecedented reason ought to be forthcoming. Take the income-tax, which is felt by the rich, and particularly by those persons who are between rich and poor, viz., the professional classes who are hoping to put enough money away to provide for old age. The income-tax was 8d. in the £. It was raised during the war in the same circumstances, the same reasons being given for its increase, to the amount of 1s. 3d. Mr. Ritchie, after the war was over, remitted 4d. of that tax. The income-tax then stood at 11d.—a high rate, but still a substantial reduction as compared with the 1s. 3d. that had been imposed as a temporary war tax. Now, what does the present Chancellor of the Exchequer do in regard to income-tax in the Budget before us? This is, as I say, a time of peace. Not content to permit the income-tax to remain at 11d. he adds another 1d. to it, with the result that the income-tax now stands at 1s. Altogether the taxation of the country since the year 1894 has increased by 57 per cent.
  Now, if I take the ten years between 1892 and 1902 I find the following figures most eloquent of the state of things to which a long course of His Majesty's Government has reduced the financial condition of the country. The increase in expenditure has been more than four times the increase in population; that is to say, we ought to be four times as rich as we were ten years ago if the taxation of the country is to be borne with equivalent sacrifice on the part of the taxpayer. The normal expenditure of the country has increased by £49,000,000 a year since the Conservative Government came into office in 1895. I do not pretend to be a financier, but I am sufficiently acquainted with figures to understand these, and I ask noble Lords whether they do not think these figures disclose a state of things at which every lover of his country ought to feel somewhat alarmed. Will the noble Marquess, when he responds in this debate, reassure us on this point and give us some hope of a relinquishment of taxation in future? Is this to go on in a sort of arithmetical progression, or what is to be the end of the growing discrepancy between the wealth of the country and the amount of taxation that is imposed on the people?

  27
  I have said enough, I think, to show the seriousness of these figures. But there is another reason why I think this particular Bill ought to be fully considered and discussed. For a period of over fifty years every Budget that has been introduced into this country has been, as far as possible, free from any imputation of protection. There are some people who suspect—I do not know whether rightly or wrongly—that the particular tax upon tobacco which has been the subject of considerable debate in the other House was not introduced so much for the purpose of balancing expenditure and revenue as for the purpose of introducing a new principle into the taxation of the country, and we cannot overlook the fact that it is imposed by the son of the head of the protectionist movement in this country.
  Let me examine for a moment into the incidence of this tax on tobacco. Originally there was the same duty upon the importation of tobacco whether stripped or unstripped, viz., a duty of 3s. A duty was then imposed of 3s. 3d. upon stripped tobacco, so that the man who imported stripped tobacco had to pay 3d. more than the man who imported unstripped tobacco. Clearly, my Lords, the effect of that tax must be to restrict trade, and any taxation, the object of which is to restrict trade and not enhance it must, I submit, be of a protective character. It was imposed so that the man who stripped tobacco here should be protected against the importation of stripped tobacco from abroad. Therefore, my Lords, it amounted to a protective tax of 3d. per lb. on stripped tobacco. Of course, from that 3d. there must be deducted the cost of stripping tobacco in this country, which we are told is a trifling amount—about per lb.; therefore the remaining 2½d. is clearly in the nature of a protective tariff.
  At first the Chancellor of the Exchequer denied with some heat that there was anything of a protective character in this tax; but the case which was made against its imposition by persons who had imported tobacco of the particular character in question into bond, and bought it, therefore, at a higher price, was so strong that the Chancellor of the Ex-
  28
  chequer conceded by way of rebate a certain proportion, I think it was 1½d., on the existing stocks of stripped tobacco. That concession is a very significant one. because it amounts to practically an admission that, so far as it goes—and I admit it does not go very far—the tax is clearly of a protective character. Why, in spite of the strong opposition which it encountered in the House of Commons, this tax was maintained for the admittedly miserable results to the Budget which will now be found to accrue, is hard to conceive, unless there is some important reason at the back for the maintenance of this tax. It could not have been in order to balance revenue and expenditure, and therefore my conviction is that it was the protective character of this impost which tempted the Chancellor of the Exchequer to adhere to it in spite of all the arguments that were used against it. If that is so, it is a very significant fact; and it is quite right that those of us in this House who have always been free-traders should draw public attention to the nature of the year's Budget.
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 31; Not-contents, 11.

  CONTENTS.

  Halsbury, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

  Clonbrock, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) (L. President.)

  Harris, L.

  Lauderdale, E.

  Hatherton, L.

  Salisbury, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Lucan, E.

  James, L.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Argyll, D.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.) [Teller.]

  Colville of Culross, V.

  Macnaghten, L.

  Bath, M.

  Cross, V.

  Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.)

  Lansdowne, M.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donough more.)

  Raglan, L

  Camperdown, E.

  Sid mouth, V.

  Robertson, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Balfour, L.

  Windsor, L.

  Cromer, E.

  Belper, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Portsmouth, E. [Teller.]

  Coleridge, L. [Teller.]

  Carrington, E.

  Emly, L.

  Chesterfield, E.

  Gordon, V. (E Aberdeen.)

  Hawkesbury, L.

  Crewe, E.

  Burghclere, L.

  Shuttleworth, L.

  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure the House will not expect me to make a financial statement analogous to that which the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes in the House of Commons, but I think it due to your Lordships that I should follow in a few words what has been said by the noble and learned Lord who has just sat down. He has pointed to what I think we must all of us regard as a danger—I mean the great growth of our national expenditure; and he will forgive me for saying that he has made, with reference to that subject, the very kind of speech which I suggested a few minutes ago might be made at any time during the session by any noble Lord desiring to call the attention of this House to that most important subject. The noble and learned Lord, I understand, was alarmed to find that although the war had come to an end the large expenditure which followed upon the war had not terminated, but surely he must be aware that expenditure of that kind is not expenditure which you can suddenly shut off at a few weeks' notice. For example, there is one permanent item

  29
  of increase growing out of the war expenditure. I refer to the interest on the large increase to the public indebtedness which was occasioned by the war itself—an addition, if I remember rightly, of something approaching £150,000,000.
  As to the other items of increase, it is quite true that in the last ten years all the principal items of expenditure have risen rapidly; but there is a great deal to be said in explanation of the circumstances under which that increase has taken place. For example, I see that the expenditure on the charge of the public debt has increased during that period by £4,000,000, That is partly interest on the new war debt, and partly interest on those large public
  loans which have lately been contracted for military and naval purposes and also for various important public works. Then there is the increase in Army expenditure. That has risen in ten years by no less than £11,000,000. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that we should spare no effort to diminish that expenditure, and it is with this object that my right hon. colleague the Secretary of State for War is endeavouring to discover some means of giving this country a cheaper but also not less efficient Army, and he has, I think, a right to appeal to both sides to assist him in bringing about that most desirable result.
  The principal cause of increase of expenditure is. however, the Navy. The expenditure on the Navy has in ten years increased by very nearly £20,000,000, or by no less than 111 per cent. I admit that that is an augmentation which may well alarm us, but who is going to propose that the naval strength of this country should be reduced? It is interesting to turn for a moment to see what other nations are doing. I see that in the same period of time our naval expenditure has increased by 111 per cent. the naval expenditure of Germany has increased by no less than 140 per cent., that of Russia by 143 per cent. and that of the United States by 174 per cent. Well, my Lords, that at any rate is, I think, a prima facie explanation of the increase of the expenditure on the Navy. Take one other item—the increased expenditure upon education. That has risen in ten years by £5,500,000, but I am sure the noble and learned Lord would be
  30
  the last person in the world to grudge the expenditure incurred on that most important subject.
  The noble and learned Lord referred to the increase in the tea duties. It is much to be regretted that an article which is almost a necessary of life to our fellow-countrymen should be taxed, or that the tax should be increased. but we always endeavour to divide increased burdens as equitably as possible between direct and indirect taxation, and it seemed to us that a moderate increase on the tea duties was upon the whole a most reasonable way of obtaining additional revenue from indirect taxation. The only other item referred to was the tobacco tax. I will not follow the noble and learned Lord into the mysteries of the tobacco trade, but at any rate we are firmly of opinion that the tobacco duties are no more protective in their object and character than the old tobacco duties which, I believe, were imposed for the first time by Mr. Gladstone. I do not know that I can usefully detain your Lordships with further remarks on this subject, but I certainly do admit that the noble and learned Lord is justified in calling attention to the rate at which the national expenditure is progressing, and I can assure him that there is no matter which His Majesty's Government have more at heart than that expenditure should be kept within reasonable limits.
  *EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I am in rather a peculiar position to-night: I have not taken part in the division, and I will explain why. The noble Marquess, with his usual courtesy, sent to me two or three days ago to ask whether I would agree to this arrangement of having the debate at three o'clock, and the subsequent Commission the same afternoon. I rather hastily, perhaps, assented to the proposal, but I took care however, to explain to the noble Marquess last night that I was not responsible for more than my personal action. I support my noble friends, however, in dividing against the suspension of the Standing Orders. Now, as to speaking on this question, I had intended to have spoken earlier and to have gone into the whole subject with which this great Bill deals,

  31
  but I was not able to because I had exhausted my right of speech in discussing the question of the suspension of the Standing Orders. I am rather diffident now about saying anything on the general subject, but I confess I feel so strongly on the point that I most gladly support the views which have been put forward by Lord Coleridge and other noble Lords as to the gigantic growth of the national expenditure. It is very serious indeed when we reflect that the expenditure of the country, though we are at peace, is increasing; and it is not only the expenditure of the country which is increasing, but the national credit which is decreasing.
  No one more desires to see a strong Navy than I do, but the time has come when we must seriously consider the great yearly increase in the Naval Estimates. A great effort should be made to reduce them, or to prevent their increasing at the rate at which they have been increasing of late years. I believe I am right in saying that the naval expenditure of this country exceeds by £6,000,000 the naval expenditure of France, Germany, and Russia. These are very alarming figures, and I cannot help thinking that without really diminishing the effectiveness of the Navy some check on the growing expenditure might be made. I notice one remarkable fact in regard to the finance of the Governments of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour. They have proposed three taxes, all declared in turn to be simply revenue taxes, while each in its turn has been proved to be protective. I refer to the corn tax, the sugar tax, which was consequent on the Sugar Convention, and the tobacco tax. The last-named has already changed the current of trade in the tobacco business. For the past five years the average amount of stripped tobacco imported in the month of June has been 2,459 casks, but in June of this year, after the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was made known, it fell to 344 casks. I maintain that that, therefore, is a distinctly protective duty. While maintaining the importance of our having adequate time for the discussion of a Bill of this magnitude, I thank the noble Marquess for his statement with regard to the earlier date at which the similar Bill
  32
  of next year will have to be passed; and I, for my part, am satisfied with making the urgent protest which I made last night and which I have repeated in the two speeches I have delivered this evening.
  EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, the exceedingly brief and, if I may say so, unsatisfactory nature of the reply made by the noble Marquess to the cogent remarks of my noble and learned friend Lord Coleridge make me anxious to press His Majesty's Government for some further reply to the Questions which have been addressed from this side of the House. The noble Marquess, I believe, would be one of the first to admit that there was little in the way of justification of, or excuse for the growing expenditure of the country in the remarks which he addressed to your Lordships. The enormous increase during the past ten years of no less than £48,000,000, a sum of money which, so far as we can see, and so far as we have received any assurance from the other side, shows no sign of decreasing in the future, is a matter which demands debate and consideration at your Lordships' hands.
  There is one aspect of the matter which has not been touched upon in the course of the debate this afternoon to which I may be allowed to allude. Your Lordships will no doubt remember that when the first intimation of the tobacco duties became public some remarks were made by Members in another place with regard to the way in which the knowledge that this tax was going to be imposed by the Government seemed to have leaked out. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and, I think, in concert with him, the Prime Minister indignantly repelled any attack on their personal honour. No attack on their personal honour had been made by anybody, and it seemed to me exceedingly weak for any member of His Majesty's Government, when attacked for what was, at the worst, perhaps, only an indiscretion on the part of the Minister or of some clerk in his office, to take refuge in a plea of personal honour. I can assure your Lordships that for myself, having the pleasure to recognise in the Chancellor of the Exchequer a native of my own county, and having known him for many years, I feel it would be impertinent on anybody's part to make

  33
  any kind of accusation against his personal honour. At the same time we say that it does seem, having regard to the imports of tobacco this year compared with last year, that some inquiry ought to take place into this matter. Your Lordships may need to be reminded of the fact that the imports of tobacco during March and April of this year were, I think, more than double the imports of similar goods during March and April of last year. If that is so, it surely is some reason why inquiry should be made into the matter, and it would, I think, be wise on the part of His Majesty's Government if they appointed some Departmental Committee to inquire into the matter and report to your Lordships.
  With regard to the growing expenditure on the Army to which reference was made by the noble Marquess, I am sure I may say, on behalf of the large majority of people throughout the country, that they would not grudge the growing expenditure upon the Army if they were sure that the country was getting an adequate return, but they are forced at the present time to conclude, having regard especially to the speech which was made in another place last night by the present Secretary of State for India, that not even His Majesty's Government have complete faith and confidence in their own Army reorganisation scheme. In view of the exceedingly surprising attack which was made by the Secretary of State for India upon his colleague, we are, I contend, fully justified in asking His Majesty's Government for more information with regard to their scheme for the reorganisation of the Army.
  The noble Marquess made reference to the expenditure upon the Navy in other countries. It is a familiar device of some noble Lords on the other side to use percentages, but percentages by themselves are not conclusive. I may remind your Lordships of certain percentage statistics with regard to teetotal soldiers. A Return was moved for and obtained with regard to the numbers of soldiers in a certain campaign who wore the blue ribbon and how they fared, and the Return came back that 50 per cent. had died of wounds and 50 per cent. of disease. That was an alarming Return, but a closer examination of the figures showed
  34
  that there were only two soldiers to whom the Return referred at all, and, therefore, while only one soldier had died of wounds and one of disease the alarming Return was made to Parliament of 50 per cent. dying of wounds and 50 per cent. of disease. I say, therefore, that we are entitled to ask from the noble Marquess something more than mere percentages in this matter.
  The figures the noble Marquess gave us were that the expenditure of this country upon the Navy had increased £20,000,000, I think, in the last ten years. But what we complain of is that the total expenditure of the country has gone up no less than £48,000,000, and we have in this way only £20,000,000 accounted for. Some ten years ago, although some doubt was expressed with regard to the preparedness of the Army by noble Lords on the other side and by their colleagues, no doubt that I know of was expressed with regard to the efficiency of the Navy; and if the Navy was efficient ten years ago, we need some explanation as to why it should have required another £20,000,000 to be spent upon it during the last ten years. The question of education is one on which I find myself in hearty agreement with the noble Marquess. who said that the £5,500,000 on education was an additional sum to which noble Lords on this side would not take exception. I only wish that we spent still more money upon education. We should not then hear so much of the ruin of British industries nor of the way in which our exports were declining in neutral markets.
  Turning for a minute or two to the question of the tea duty, I should like to emphasise what was said by my noble and learned friend beside me with regard to the incidence of taxation in this matter. The increase in the income-tax and the increase in the tea duty as compared with one another do not, in the opinion of noble Lords on this side of the House, constitute a fair distribution of the burden. The proportion of the expenditure of the working classes which is spent upon tea makes them contribute to a far higher proportion than those who have to pay the extra penny on the income-tax. Therefore it is that we see in this addition to the tea duty one more sign of the desire of His Majesty's Government to favour

  35
  certain sections of the community at the expense of the community as a whole.
  Now, my Lords, let me turn to the question of South Africa, for, after all, we had expected to receive in the relief of the taxation of this country a large sum of money from South Africa. Noble Lords opposite have probably conveniently forgotten that only twelve months ago we were told that South Africa would be in a position to pay back large sums of money to this country before very long. The amount which was, I think, to be paid at the beginning of this year was £10,000,000. I do not think that we have received any sufficient or adequate explanation for the non-payment of that sum, and meanwhile the taxpayers of this country are obliged to go on paying the interest upon this £10,000,000 instead of this as a lump sum being added to the Sinking Fund.
  The Sinking Fund, again, demands urt her consideration than was given to it by the noble Marquess. It is, after all, one of the best barometers of the prosperity of the country. If large sums of money are available year by year for the Sinking Fund then we may be sure that the country as a whole is in a prosperous condition. We regret that His Majesty's Government have not seen their way to do something more for that fund. The noble Marquess made mention of the public works which had been carried out during the past ten years. I should like to ask the noble Marquess, or some other representative of His Majesty's Government, a Question with regard to the fund out of which these public works are paid for. As I understand it—and if I am wrong some noble Lord opposite will, no doubt, be able to correct me—large numbers of these public works are paid for out of the moneys of the Post Office Savings Bank. If that is so, and imagining, without wishing for one moment that such a thing should happen, that the Post Office Savings Bank were obliged to realise their assets, the unhappy people who had deposited their money in the Post Office Savings Bank would find themselves presented with a quarter of a mile of the Uganda Railway or some equally useful article, because the deposits are used by His Majesty's Government in order to carry out various measures of public usefulness. I think that is an
  36
  expenditure of the public money to which attention should be directed. I am not at all sure that it is in accordance with the soundest finance that such large sums of money should be spent in public works all over the world instead of being applied to the purchase of Consols in this country; if any noble Lord on the other side of the House believes that the finances of this country have prospered under His Majesty's present Government, I think the price at which Consols now stand in the market ought to disabuse his mind.
  It was only a comparatively short time ago that the late Marquess of Salisbury mentioned Spain as being one of the decaying nations of Europe. It was a shorter time ago that we found that the public funds of this country had gone down below the public funds of that decaying nation. That seems to me to be a matter which demands the earnest attention of His Majesty's Government. There was another aspect of the matter referred to by the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition. I refer to the Sugar Convention, which, of course, arises under the Bill now before your Lordships' House. I could wish that a discussion on this measure and a defence of it had been undertaken by noble Lords opposite on some occasion when Viscount Goschen could have participated in the debate, for there are many people who regard the Sugar Convention, not only as being a measure of dangerous finance, but also as being a working model of protection. I think we are entitled to know in what way the Convention which was passed last year has benefited the people of this country. The price of sugar to the ordinary consumer has gone up, but it does not seem that the sugar producers of the West Indies have reaped any advantage from the enhanced price of sugar to the people of this country. We even find that less sugar from the West Indies has come into this country during the last few months than previously. Therefore we are entitled, I think, to ask His Majesty's Government whether, under such circumstances, they do not see their way to promise that in another year at least some remission shall be made in the sugar duties.
  One of the most important reasons why noble Lords on this side look on this

  37
  Bill with hesitation is the doubt which we feel with regard to the financial views of His Majesty's Government. Time after time discussions have been initiated in this House, with the idea of eliciting from the noble Marquess some definite profession of faith with regard to the fiscal system of this country. In the absence of clearer and more definite statements we are obliged to draw our conclusions from the provisions of the Finance Bill for this year, and it is indeed difficult for some of us to reconcile the professions of noble Lords opposite with the taxation which is imposed on the country during the current year. We have the noble Marquess declaring that he is against any taxation of food, and yet we find an increase in the tea duties. We ask whether it would not have been possible to find some other source from which the necessary money might have been drawn. Although I am afraid it is no use expecting at such a late period anything more definite from the noble Marquess than we have had in the past, still I would urge him, if he can see his way to do so, to say something more definite with regard to the taxation of the food of the people than we have yet been able to extract from him.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, I did not happen to be in the House when the noble Marquess the Leader of the House was speaking, but I understand that he alluded to the question of the growth of the military services of the Crown. Well, my Lords, that seems to me to be a matter which really does demand the most serious consideration. The military services of the Crown ten years ago cost £35,500,000, and now they have reached the appalling figure, which has to be provided out of revenue alone, of over £66,000,000. My noble friend Lord Beauchamp referred to the remarks made by the noble Marquess opposite in regard to education. We entirely endorse the views he expressed, and heartily rejoice at any wide expenditure on education. But I would remind your Lordships that while the total expenditure on the Army amounts now to the enormous sum of over £66,000,000, the sum which we spend upon education does not amount to £15,000,000.
  38
  Reference has been made to the state of the National Debt. The National Debt has been increased through the policy of the Government in South Africa by over £159,000,000, and not one penny of that Debt is covered by the Bill now before your Lordships. On the other hand, are still have what is a most serious and cruel imposition upon the middle classes—a war income-tax in times of peace. As my noble friend has said, we have also to face the fact that Consols, which represent the credit of the country, have fallen in a greater ratio than the leading securities of any other nation. I look upon that as a very serious matter, because Consols represent the credit of the country. They represent the rate at which the country can borrow, and our great strength in regard to the war in South Africa was not so much our military preparedness as the credit of this country which, owing to careful and prudent administration of its finances, stood so high.
  I wish to call attention to the statement made by the noble Lord and others to the effect that this Budget contains the germs of protection. There can be no denying that that is the case. You cannot have a more clear and visible proof of this than the portion of the Budget which deals with the duty upon cigarettes. There is no Excise duty placed upon cigarettes; it is an import duty only. Now, what is the position of affairs as regards cigarettes? A new duty of Is. per lb. has been imposed upon all foreign cigarettes. This brings in as additional revenue the paltry sum of £20,000 a year. But who pays 90 per cent. of this duty? Ninety per cent. of this duty is paid by the consumer. That is a distinct, a clear, and a definite protective duty, and it is a most remarkable illustration of what protection means. It only brings into the country a revenue of £20,000 a year, which is hardly worth considering, but the consumer is taxed 90 per cent of the duty. It has also raised the price of home-made cigarettes. These, you may say, are not in themselves large matters, but they are interesting now when the whole question of protection and free trade is being considered We feel on this side of the House that

  39
  it is most important that every opportunity should be taken to show that this Budget introduces a totally new system of taxation.
  My noble friend Lord Beauchamp referred to the £30,000,000 promised to be paid to this country as the contribution from the Transvaal. Lord Milner told us that the finances of the Transvaal were in such a condition that the taxpayers of this country must abandon their claim for this £30,000,000, but more recently I read a report of a speech by Lord Milner, in which he alluded with cynical contempt to the crocodile tears that had been shed over the condition of affairs in the Transvaal. He went on to say that affairs in that Colony were not half so bad as they were represented to be. if that is so, I should like to ask, when is this £30,000,000 to be repaid to the taxpayers of this country?
  I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the anxiety which exists throughout the country respecting its finances. We. have had figures as to the enormous increase inArmyexpenditure—yet I venture to say there is no one in your Lordships' House, not even the noble Marquess who leads it, who dares avow what the proposals of the Government are with regard to the Army. In addition, it must be remembered that we have an automatic
  Bill read 2a accordingly.
  Moved, That the Bill be committed.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  The Earl of Portsmouth.
  increase in the Navy Estimates. It may be said that your Lordships have no right to interfere with the details of Finance Bills. Your Lordships are some of the largest taxpayers in the country, and it really is monstrous to say that we have no right to consider this question of taxation. Any unwise and wasteful expenditure of money chiefly falls upon the owners of real and personal property; and there is a very strong feeling that while we have on the one hand this growing and enormous expenditure, we have not received from the Government any definite basis or system for confronting or dealing with it. This is merely a makeshift Budget. We have no proposals treating seriously the very grave increase in the National Debt, or the growing expenditure of the country. I do not know whether noble Lords will wish to divide the House on this Bill, but it seems to me a grave question whether some of us on this side ought not to enter our protest, not only as to the conditions under which we are asked to consider this Bill, but as to the Bill itself, considering its totally novel and mischievous principles.
  On Question,
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 42; Not Contents, 8.

  CONTENTS.

  Halsbury, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  Feversham, E.

  Harris, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) (L. President.)

  Lauderdale, E.

  Hatherton, L.

  Northesk, E.

  James, L.

  Salisbury, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Selborne, E.

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Errol.)

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Argyll, D.

  Lawrence, L. [Teller.]

  Devonshire, D.

  Colville of Culross, V.

  Lovat, L.

  Cross, V.

  Methuen, L.

  Bath, M.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Newton, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.)

  Sidmouth, V.

  Raglan, L.

  Ancaster, E.

  Robertson, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Armstrong, L.

  Sherborne, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Balfour, L.

  Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

  Cromer, E.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Windsor, L.

  Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

  Colchester, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Glenesk, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Beauchamp, E. [Teller.]

  Portsmouth,E.

  Emly, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Shuttleworth, L.

  Chesterfield, E.

  Coleridge, L. [Teller].

  Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: We have been told that a change has been made, and that 1st July has been substituted for 1st August next year. I would ask the noble Marquess to explain at what part of the Bill and in what clause 1st July is substituted for 1st August.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: As I understand, it is intended to substitute 1st July for 1st August as the date up to which taxes may be continued.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I should like to ask the noble Marquess how this will affect the income - tax. There is no mention, so far as I can make out, of any change such as that proposed, in Clause 7, Part 2, of the Bill.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: In the Act of 1903 the wording is that the taxes shall continue to be imposed, levied, and paid till the 1st day of August. It is the presence of these words which, in our opinion, obliges us to finish these proceedings before 1st August. In the Bill now before your Lordships the provision is that the taxes shall be continued, levied, and paid till the 1st day of July. It is quite clear that the words "1st of July" will give us more elbow room.
  EARL CARRINGTON: There are no such words in Part 2 with reference to income-tax. I ask, Does this apply to the income-tax?
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (The Earl of SELBORNE): I am sure it will be a source of satisfaction to the noble Earl to know that it does not apply to income-tax. In regard to income-tax the date remains the 6th of April; it always has been so.
  *LORD COLERIDGE: As I have never seen the Bill, I desire to ask the noble Marquess a Question. As I understand, there has this year been appropriated £1,000,000 from the unclaimed dividends account. Now that money clearly does not belong to the Government. It is unclaimed money belonging to some persons unknown. I understand that the majority of it is now to be devoted to current expenditure. I may, of course, be speaking inaccurately, but the noble
  42
  Marquess has given me no opportunity of studying the Bill in all its details. Not having seen the Bill, I ask whether it contains any authority to the Government to take this £1,000,000, which is the property of some persons unknown, or, at any rate, not the property of the Government, and whether there is any authority in the Bill to devote that money to current expenditure? I presume that that would want the authority of Parliament just as much as the levying of the tobacco tax, the tea duty, or any of the other taxes.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of SALISBURY): It is perfectly true that £1,000,000 is taken for current purposes, but I can assure the noble and learned Lord that we do not intend to defraud anybody. A charge for that sum will be maintained on the Consolidated Fund under a separate Act of Parliament which has already been passed.
  On Question, Motion negatived.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  *EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I ask your Lordships whether the silence on the other side of the House tends to the dignity of this Assembly. The occasion is one which demands something more in the way of reply than we have yet received from the Government. We have attempted to put before your Lordships the serious condition of the country's finances. At the most the noble Marquess has occupied ten or fifteen minutes in his justification of the increased taxation. I cannot imagine that in regard to an important matter of this kind His Majesty's Government can think they have given enough time for its consideration. Here is the House of Lords asked to consider a Bill which has not even been circulated. Although I know well enough the constitutional position of this House with regard to the Money Bill, still I cannot think it is in accordance with the dignity of your Lordships' House that We should be asked to read a Bill and pass it through all its stages when it has not even been printed and circulated. If the noble Marquess will not answer the Questions

  43
  which have been addressed to him, perhaps he will be good enough to explain from what source is drawn the money for the expenditure on the Uganda Railway of £67,000, on the Land Registry Buildings of £16,000, on the New General Buildings of £162,000, and also the expenditure on the Public Offices in Dublin. There are other items upon which I should like information, but I have no wish to waste the time of your Lordships. I would ask the noble Marquess to explain from what sums the amounts I have quoted are to be spent.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEThe points which the noble Earl has raised are no doubt very interesting ones, but they relate to questions of detail. If the noble Earl will ask me the Question on any other evening I shall be glad to provide him with an Answer.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: Perhaps the noble Marquess will be good enough, if not on the present occasion at any rate in the near future, to tell us whether we may hope for some definite promise as to the payment of the £30,000,000 which the Government have undertaken shall be paid over to us by the Transvaal.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I rise on a point of order. I should like to ask whether the date on which this money may or may not be paid has any bearing on the question of the Third Reading of the Finance Bill.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: The noble Earl seems to have constituted himself a sort of master of the ceremonies of your Lordships' House. He is a very mournful one on this occasion for he rose with a most mournful countenance. My question is quite pertinent because the finances of the country are necessarily dependent upon the contributions which are promised. A contribution of £30,000,000 from the Transvaal is certainly not a negligible asset in considering the question of the debt of the country; and it is a question which, if we cannot discuss it now, we can never discuss. When we are dealing with the finances of the country we should know what the assets are. I demur to the
  44
  suggestion that the question of the contribution of £30,000,000 from the Transvaal cannot appropriately be discussed on the: Finance Bill.
  *LORD COLERIDGE: My Lords, I am the last person to wish to obstruct the business, but I would appeal to the noble Marquess for a reply to the pertinent Questions raised by my noble friend Lord Beauchamp. Many questions of detail involve most important principles; and the fact that they are details does not exonerate the noble Marquess from the obligation cast upon him by his position as Leader of the House of answering Questions pertinent to the Bill before us. My noble friend has pointed out that there are certain items of expenditure amounting in all to the sum of £7,305,000. Naval works are accountable for £3,318,000; Military works for £2,950,000; telephones for £780,000; the Uganda Railway for £67,000; the Land Registry Buildings for £16,000; the New General Buildings for £162,000, and the Public Offices in Dublin for £12,000, the total being £7,305,000—which, if a detail, is a very considerable detail. My noble friend has asked the Leader of the House whether or not that sum of money is forthcoming from the Savings Bank deposits—a most material question; and I should have thought the duty would have been cast on the noble Marquess of answering it now. He says he will answer it on some future occasion if the Question is put to him. Surely that is not the way in which the noble Earl should be treated. I entirely associate myself with the Questions put by the noble Earl, and I respectfully ask the noble Marquess for a reply.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I understand that the whole of these items of expenditure have been authorised by various Acts of Parliament. I make no apology for not being able to reply offhand to these Questions. I cannot give the information now, but if the noble Lord will ask me for it on Monday, I shall probably be able to give it.
  EARL CARRINGTON: My Lords, I submit with great respect that when Questions are asked by noble Lords in this

  45
  House as to the expenditure of millions of public money, it is scarcely courteous to them to put them off and say an Answer shall be given on Monday, after the Bill has become law. This is one of the most important Bills that can come before this House. We are a commercial nation; our commerce and trade are everything, and we are naturally anxious to know how these millions are being spent. Millions of public money are at stake, and are being voted as if they were twenty-five shillings or half-a-crown. This is a proper protest to make, and I ask the noble Marquess whether he cannot answer the very pertinent Questions asked by my noble friend.
  On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Monday next.—(The Lord Belper.) (No. 171.)

  THE MILITIA FORCE.
  *The EARL OF WEMYSSrose to move to resolve—" That, in the opinion of this House, any scheme of Army reorganisation that does away the Militia force is contrary to sound policy, destroying as it does the ancient constitutional foundation of our existing military system." He said: My Lords, as I believe this will be the only opportunity which will present itself of calling attention to the very important matter to which this Resolution refers, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to do so even at this late hour. The Militia, so far as we are able to judge from what has passed in your Lordships' House, is about to be abolished. That was the view of the position taken by my noble friend Lord Burghclere in his speech on the Army reorganisation scheme. The same view was taken of it by Lord Spencer; and I got from Lord Donoughmore, the able exponent in your Lordships' House of the views of the War Office, a clear and distinct affirmation of the fact that it is intended to absorb the whole of the Militia force. When the noble Earl the Under-Secretary was speaking, I asked him distinctly whether
  46
  the intention was to absorb the whole of the Militia. He replied "Yes;" and my noble friend Lord Burghclere seemed so pleased at getting that admission that he kissed his hand to me in thankfulness.
  My Lords. this is a very important question and had time permitted I should have gone more fully into it than I feel justified in doing to-night. I should have referred to the history of the Militia, and have endeavoured to show that it is the foundation of our military system, embodying as it does the right of the Crown compulsorily to force men to serve for home defence. But I shall not go into that further than to say this, that the present Act dates from the year 1852, when Lord John Russell brought into the House of Commons a Local Militia Bill. Lord Palmerston took exception to the Militia being localised, and moved to strike out the word "local," and in doing so he struck out the Government as well, for the Government thereupon resigned. The first act of the succeeding Government was the bringing in by Mr. Walpole of the Bill that became the present Act. I should like to call attention to the great services rendered by the Militia to the country at various times. In 1803, 15,000 Militia Volunteers joined the Army; in 1808, the Local Militia was, in addition, established; 20,000 Militiamen volunteered then for the Army for twelve months. In 1812, three strong battalions joined the Army. During the ten years from 1803 to 1813, 100,000 Militiamen passed into the Regular Army. In 1815, Militiamen in great numbers joined the Army and served at Waterloo. In 1854 we had the Crimean War, during which fifty battalions of Militia volunteered for service; ten were sent to the Mediterranean as garrison, thus freeing the Regular troops for service in the Crimea. In all, the Militia sent to the war in South Africa, 1,691 officers and 43,875 men, and we know that every year the Militia gives 14,000 recruits to the Army. Besides that, up till a quite recent date there was the Militia Army Reserve. In this Reserve there were 30,000 men up to last year, when the Reserve was abolished by the late Secretary of State for War. That abolition means this, that if you were engaged in war to-morrow you would have 30,000 men less to count upon to fill the rank

  47
  of the Army than you had when you entered into the South African War.
  I now come to the avowed intention to absorb the Militia force into the Regular Army. I have never heard of such a proposal until it was made by the present Secretary of State for War. Against the view of the right hon. Gentleman I could quote the views of many high authorities, but I will content myself with opinions expressed by Mr. Pitt a hundred years ago, by Lord Palmerston in the fifties, and, finally, by the Duke of Wellington. What did the Duke of Wellington say in his last speech in your Lordships' House with reference to the Militia? He said—
  "I recommend you to adopt this measure (Mr. Walpole's Bill). It will give you a constitutional force. It will not be at first or for some time forward what we could desire, but it will become what we want—an efficient auxiliary to the Regular Army."
  I am quite content, in defence of the Militia and its continued existence, to cite these authorities. What have we to weigh against them? Nothing, so far as I know, except the authority of the present War Minister. I feel sure that weighed against these in the balance of public opinion Mr. Arnold-Forster's reasons would kick the beam. It is in these circumstances that I venture to ask your Lordships to pass the Resolution which stands in my name.
  My Lords, I have received numerous letters approving of this Motion from persons whose opinions cannot fail to have great weight in your Lordships' House. The noble and gallant Lord the ex-Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, writes that he is very sorry he cannot be present, as he has to be at Lancaster to-day. But your Lordships heard the noble and gallant Lord quite recently, and it was evident that his speech was directed strongly against any haste in dealing with this question. He prayed your Lordships to be cautious in dealing with this important force. I have also in my hand a letter from the Duke of Somerset, who regrets that he cannot be present, and says—
  "Instead of destroying the Militia, which is evidently the intention of the Government, the country should see that every effort is made to increase it in numbers and in efficiency."
  48
  Lord Penrhyn writes me a short and pithy letter, in which he expresses regret that he will not be able to record his vote in favour of my Motion against the destruction of the Militia. He adds—
  "I have been brought up to believe that the Militia is the backbone of the Army, and I am still of that opinion."
  Lord Wolseley also writes regretting that he cannot be here to-day, but condemning in the strongest possible terms what is proposed to be done by His Majesty's Government in regard to the Militia force. Lastly, I have in my hand a letter from Sir Alfred Turner, who was at the head of the Auxiliary Forces at the War Office. He writes—
  "Dear Lord Wemyss,—We ought all to be grateful to you for taking up the defence of Great Britain's old constitutional force against Mr. Arnold-Forster, who clearly means to abolish it if he can, in spite of the really splendid services it did during the war. when, in addition to the numbers who went abroad, the whole of the remainder were embodied for very long periods. If the numbers of the Militia have fallen away, and if its efficiency is not what it should be, the reason is the utter stupidity with which it has been treated by the War Office. It has been sent year after year to unpopular camps and away from its counties, which has been the chief cause of its falling away."
  The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition spoke the other day in the highest possible terms of the importance of the Militia, and he added—
  "It is the force which, during the late war, furnished such an enormous number of men to the Army in South Africa. The country would be much staggered if it thought this force was to be shortly destroyed."
  I think these quotations clearly point to the importance of this force, and to the desirability, instead of destroying it, of making it as efficient as we can.
  I know not what course the Government will take with reference to my Motion, nor what course your Lordships will take. So far as the Government are concerned, they do not seem to be quite at one on this subject. We had, on the one hand, an able exposition from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State for War, but, on the other hand, we had a speech from the Leader of the Government in this House, Lord Lansdowne; and I cannot believe that the noble Marquess in his heart desires to do away with a force on which he said he relied, even by compulsory service, in

  49
  case of emergency. The noble Marquess said—
  "Let me say frankly that the Paper which your Lordships have before you does not represent what can be described as the final conclusion of His Majesty's Government."
  This Paper is Mr. Arnold-Forster's Memorandum, and the Leader of the Government in this House says that it does not represent what can be described as the final conclusion of His Majesty's Government on many of the subjects to which it has reference, and one of the most important subjects with which it deals is, as your Lordships know, the Militia. I do not know whether His Majesty's Government are going to resist this Motion, which is simply a statement of fact. It is, after all, only a truism. But, if the Government do resist it, I ask your Lordships to take an independent and patriotic line. If your Lordships often did that on questions of principle that come before you, you could govern England, and save our country from many a measure which we would be much better without.
  There are two courses open to your Lordships—one is to stand by the old Militia force, which is the foundation and the basis of our military system; the other is to substitute for it, assuming that the Militia is to be done away with, this territorial mongrel begotten by the present Minister of War. I feel, however, that Mr. Arnold-Forster's scheme will only add some fragments to the War Office administrative wreckage that floats and eddies round the base of Lord Herbert's statue in Pall Mall, and on which, with bowed head and sorrowful mien he continuously looks down, and I am bound to say from my experience of the War Office that it is practically the Goodwin Sands of political Army administration. I say "political" because, unfortunately, one always sees that in these matters politics enter largely, and the safety of the politician is on the whole placed before the safety of the nation. Be that as it may, I ask your Lordships to affirm a Resolution which in your heart of hearts I am sure everyone of you must feel to be right. And certain I am that if the Opposition were to propose the abolition of the Militia force, the foundation of our military system, such a proposal would be rejected by your Lordships by a very large
  50
  majority. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
  Moved to resolve, "That, in the opinion of this House, any scheme of Army re-organisation that does away with the Militia force is contrary to Sound policy, destroying as it does the ancient constitutional foundation of our existing military system."—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
  *EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I rise early in this discussion, because I am anxious to draw attention to a particular part of the subject, on which up to the present there has been absolute and complete silence, in the hope that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary will be able to give us some information upon it. But before I come to that, I wish to say that I entirely adhere to the remarks I made the other day about the Militia, and which the noble Earl near me has quoted. 1 certainly understood from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary that the Government were in favour of a homogeneous plan, and of welding, as he called it, the Militia into the territorial forces.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOE WAR (The Earl of DONOUGHMORE): I used the word "we." I Meant the Army Council, and not the Government.
  EARL. SPENCER: Then I ask the noble Earl, Is the Army Council to be considered as a separate and independent body? I should be much surprised to hear that the Board of Admiralty was independent of the Cabinet, and that its particular views on a question of policy might be distinguished from those of the Government. I have a right to complain of the noble Earl putting upon the Army Council the desire to absorb the Militia into the territorial system. Bat what I rise particularly to call attention to is this. In former years I had considerable experience of the very large body of men constituting the Irish Militia. In my first Viceroyalty, I found that the Militia had not been called out for exercise for a considerable number of years on account of Fenian troubles. I rather think that at that time the transfer of the Militia from the Lord-Lieutenant to the War Office had not taken place. At all events, I had a great deal to do with the Irish Militia, and I recommended, and the

  51
  Cabinet agreed, that they should be called out for exercise.
  A NOBLE LORD: It was Lord Cardwell who made the transfer.
  *EARL SPENCER: I do not remember whether or not the transfer had taken Place at that time, but I think they were under the Lord-Lieutenant, and this was just previous to Mr. Cardwell's transfer of their control to the War Office. I may be wrong, but that is immaterial. The Militia were called out, and I had the opportunity of seeing nearly every Militia regiment in Ireland. I took great interest in them, and was struck with the fact that they were a particularly fine body of men. Moreover, they had more officers than the English Militia. In Ulster there were a great many regiments which drew numbers of men from Scotland. These men, who belonged to Ulster, were at work in factories and other places in Scotland, and they invariably came over during their holidays to do their training. That showed, I thought, a spirit which ought to be commended. I am ready to admit that a considerable change may have taken place in regard to the Irish Militia since then, but I am rather inclined from what I have heard to believe that very much the same state of things exists now as existed then. Ireland is in a totally different position with regard to the Auxiliary Forces from either England or Scotland, for there are no Volunteers in Ireland. The only defensive force is the Militia. Therefore, I think it is very important that this point should be considered—namely, what do the Government propose to do with regard to the Irish Militia? I admit that the Militia force is not now in a satisfactory state, but I am strongly opposed to the idea of destroying it. I am much inclined, therefore, to support my noble friend's Motion, but I must not be supposed to endorse all his views on the Militia, especially on the subject of the Militia ballot, of which he is such a persistent advocate.
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I have said nothing about that to-night.
  *EARL SPENCER: No, but the noble Earl's name is so bound up with that subject that I wish it to be clearly under-
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  stood that, in supporting my noble friend's Motion now before the House, I do not endorse his views on the subject of the Militia ballot. I rose chiefly, however, for the purpose of calling attention to the case of the Irish Militia, because that is a point on which we have not heard a single word, and 1 think it is an important element in the consideration of this question.
  *LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I am not prepared to say at this moment whether I can support the Motion of the noble Earl opposite or not. It depends rather upon what the Government have to say to-night or at some future time on the subject. At present it seems to me we are very much in the dark as to what are the intentions of the Government with regard to the Militia. At present their proposals are entirely inchoate. We have not heard any explanation either from the Secretary of State for War or from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary which would lead us to be certain what is the system which it is proposed to introduce in substitution for the present one so far as the Militia is concerned.
  Some years ago when I had the honour to serve at the War Office I took a great deal of interest in the Militia, and was chairman of a Committee which took a great deal of evidence upon it; and one conclusion I came to from the evidence we had before us, and it has remained fixed in my mind ever since, was that the Army has got no more useful recruiting agent than the Militia. And for this reason. There are many lads in the country who are bitten with the idea of military service but rather dread tying themselves down for what was in those days eight years with the colours and four years with the Reserve, and the Militia gave them the opportunity of seeing what military service was like. I believe that large numbers of young men went into the Militia with that object in view. I think it must be most discouraging for Militia officers to see lads come into their corps and get trained, and then for the best of them to pass into the Army. I sympathise very much with Militia officers in regard to that, but at the same time I recognise that the Militia is the most successful recruiting agent the Army has had for some considerable time. Therefore, I do trust

  53
  His Majesty's Government will consider very gravely from that point of view the policy of so changing the Militia service or so reducing its strength as to endanger its recruiting power. The Government may say that the new period of service which they propose to introduce is so short that it will serve in place of the Militia to enable a lad to make up his mind whether or not he cares for military service. I am a little doubtful about that. It seems to me that two years is too long a time, and that the lad will think he has had enough military service after that time, and will not be inclined to join the general-service Army for the nine years. Therefore, I do hope the Government will, before they present their scheme to the country, seriously consider this point.
  I understand from the Secretary of State that he is going to consult the Militia colonels during the autumn. I assume, therefore, that the Government scheme, whatever it is, is not complete. I do trust that before they present their complete scheme to the country they will bear in mind the great advantage it is to give these young fellows the opportunity of putting in a few months service to see how they like it. It is suggested in the Secretary of State's speech that there is a portion of the Militia which is redundant, which cannot be fitted into any scheme for the defence of these shores. I should be quite prepared to support the Government, if they think it necessary, in lopping off unnecessary limbs. The illustrious Duke the late Duke of Cambridge said to me once, after a War Office meeting in which he had struggled long against a reduction of numbers—
  "I made the best fight I could, but, of course, if there is not money enough, the numbers must be cut down."
  He added—
  "I have often submitted to a reduction of numbers, but I have never submitted to a reduction of cadres."
  His late Royal Highness thought this most important, because while you have the cadres you can fill them up in case of emergency. That is an important point which ought not to be lost sight of, and it was that which was done in the case of the Yeomanry regiments sent to South Africa.
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  The other night I asked the noble Earl the Under-Secretary what length of time he considered the general-service regiments would have to put in abroad, and he replied that he was hopeful that they would not have to serve as long abroad as they do now; but I cannot see how he worked that out on the figures he subsequently give us. As I understand, there are to be about 105 general-service regiments. There are now, I think, seventy-nine on foreign service Our recent experience shows that the demands of the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office go on increasing. The result is a greater demand on the English Army abroad, and I think it most unwise if the War Office authorities are calculating on a considerable reduction of numbers for foreign service. There are at present seventy-nine regiments on foreign service, and there is a proposal to reduce the number of battalions in the general-service regiments to 105. I work out the figures in this way, that regiments will have to put in something like twenty-two or twenty-three years on foreign service out of a tour of service of thirty years, the tour at present being eighteen years abroad and twelve years at home. The Secretary of State for War expressed great interest in the terri-torialisation system and in the history of regiments. Now, I ask what connection can possibly be maintained between a county battalion and its county when that battalion is to be abroad for three-fourths of its tour of service, and is to put in three years of the remaining period at Aldershot? The connection between the county and the regiment, will, I fear, be very much diminished. I deplore that as much as anything in the many intricacies of the scheme that has been presented to us. I think that the interest of a county in its regiment, an interest which has grown up by degrees, but which was enormously increased and intensified by the war, is a most valuable element in arousing enthusiasm for military service; and, therefore, I do hope that the Government and the Secretary of State for War will consider the matter very carefully before they finally decide upon so reducing the number of battalions as to necessitate such a long tour of foreign service as that to which I have referred.

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  The speech of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, the other night, filled me with the greatest apprehension. I could not detect one note of enthusiasm for this scheme. If that is so, and if I have correctly construed the noble Marquess's attitude, I ask the Government: Is it fair on their supporters in this House and in the other House to present the scheme to us and lead us to suppose that it is a scheme in which the Government believe tie safety of the country rests? I do not think I am exaggerating the case when I say that the noble Marquess either damned the scheme with faint praise, or praised it with faint condemnation. I hesitate to support my noble friend's Motion to-night because I believe the Government must have something more positive to say with regard to a scheme upon which the safety of these shores as well as the Empire at large rests.
  LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, like my noble friend who has just sat down and the other noble Lords who have addressed the House to-night, I am bound to say I have the same doubt as to what the scheme of His Majesty's Government really is. I have endeavoured to find Out what it is. I asked my noble friend the Leader of the House certain definite Questions, and he said to me, Wait till the debate on Friday next, and in the meantime carefully study the Memorandum of the Secretary of State for War." My Lords, I have very carefully studied that Memorandum, and I can assure your Lordships I am no further advanced than I was before. I should have put this down, perhaps, to my want of intelligence, but I find that every other person to whom I have spoken is in the same nebulous state of mind as to what the Government proposals really are. Then I come to what has been said in the course of the military debates that have taken place in your Lordships' House. First of all there was the statement of the noble Earl the Under-Secretary in which he said positively that the entire Militia were to be abolished or welded into a territorial Army, which is an expression I do not understand myself, and I very much doubt if His Majesty's Government understand it. Then the noble Marquess the Leader of the House said he did not
  56
  think it was going to be done like that; at any rate, commanding officers of Militia were going to be consulted in the autumn. If it has been decided that the Militia are to be abolished, what are commanding officers to be consulted upon in the autumn?
  With regard to the position of the Militia, I think noble Lords on the Front Bench will bear me out when I say that I have been a most persistent advocate for the improvement of the Militia for many years. I do not think anyone has clamoured more for reform and efficiency than I have, and I have endeavoured to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the condition of that force. No doubt it will be said that if the Militia is in a bad condition, why object to its abolition? Well, my Lords, I have long believed that the Militia could, by the exercise of a very small amount of what I might call "sympathetic administration," and the expenditure of a certain amount of money, be put into such a position as to be able to be brought thoroughly up to date and to carry out the duties for which hitherto it has perhaps been incompetent. The want of men I put down to the loss of the agricultural population, and I do not believe it is possible to make any very large additions to the numbers in the Militia by anything short of some system of universal service. But I do think this, that you could perfectly well maintain a Militia force of something like the normal establishment at a small expenditure of money and by sympathetic administration.
  As to officers, that I am sure is entirely a question of money. There is not a large leisured class in this country prepared to take commissions, but if the War Office would pay a certain retaining fee they would get a fair number of officers. Of course the larger the fee the more officers they would get. I believe that if they gave, say, £100 a year to every Militia officer, they would get a large addition in the number of officers. The position of commanding officers is an extremely difficult one. The commanding officer is of no account at all during the non-training period. If he were given a free hand a different state of things would obtain. For a short time there existed a most excellent body called the Militia Advisory Board. They may not have possessed any very great

  57
  weight with the authorities at the War Office, but that Board was a channel through which we were able to make our wants known to the Secretary of State for War. That is the great difficulty I have always felt as a commanding officer—the difficulty of making our wants known to the Secretary of State for War. I do not know why the Advisory Board was abolished. It was not extravagant, and I think it did a very great deal of good. It certainly gave the force a greater amount of confidence than it had hitherto possessed in the War Office administration.
  Your Lordships may ask, If the Militia is unsatisfactory, why not abolish it? I reply, Because I believe it can, at a very small cost, be made most efficient. The chief point about the Militia, to my mind, is its remarkable cheapness. Even at an additional cost it would be by far the cheapest force serving the Crown. I will put into pounds, shillings, and pence, the cost of the Auxiliary Forces that went to South Africa. Before the war the cost of a Militiaman was £14 a year, the cost of a Yeoman £10 a year, and the cost of a Volunteer £4. I am speaking, of course in round figures. Something more than half the Militia served in the War—some 43,000 rank and file, as units, and some 14,000 as Militia Reserves. That works out that every Militiaman who served in the South African War cost the country £28. I turn to the Volunteers, and I find that only about 20.000, all told, served in the war. That is somewhere about 8 per cent, of the strength. Therefore every Volunteer who went to South Africa had cost the country £50 a year for a considerable time. About 20 per cent. of the Yeomanry went to South Africa, and there, again, the cost of each Yeoman was £50 a year. That was not the only direction in which the Militia proved a cheap force, because the remaining 50 per cent. of the Militia were all embodied in this country. Therefore the Militia showed that they were not only a cheap force, but a force that the country could rely upon.
  The noble Earl the mover of the Motion now before the House spoke of the services of the Militia in the past. The Militia have been tried over and over again and found to be absolutely reliable,
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  and their reward is that they are to be abolished. What is to be substituted for this force? We are told that we are to have a new sort of territorial Army. We have had absolutely no figures, no information of any sort as to what this territorial Army is to be, or what it is to cost. We have had nothing but the barest possible generalities. I am informed that it will cost considerably over £10,000.000 to build barracks for this force. So far as I am able to judge, it will mean in any case a large reduction in numbers and an entirely new force which cannot be very much more highly trained than the Militia are now. It is to be enlisted for two years. It is true that they have two years service in Germany, but is the War Office prepared to give their recruits the same training as recruits are given in Germany? If so, I can tell the War Office that they will not have many recruits to train. More than that, it is to consist of small battalions of 500 rank and file, of whom 100 are to be long-service and 400 short-service men. Out of those 400 men, I am prepared to prophesy that at least 250 will be recruits of under one year's service. Wastage you must have, and nothing short of increasing the pay of the Army to a gigantic figure would give you anything but a large mass of recruits about the age of eighteen.
  It is imagined that the same class of men who have joined the Militia will go into this territorial Army. My noble friend Lord Harris has expressed doubts on that point. There is another class of men, and a very valuable class, which I regret has disappeared largely from the Militia, but which does still exist in certain corps. I refer to the old civilian Militiamen, the men who never were soldiers, but who went into the Militia because they liked a certain amount of soldiering, and became a most valuable element in the regiment. I do not believe for one moment that that class of man will enlist any more for two years than he is at present prepared to enlist for three years. Therefore you will wipe out that class of man altogether unless he goes into the Volunteers. But in Ireland, as the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, there are no Volunteers, and, therefore, if the Irish Militia is abolished, those men will be

  59
  lost altogether to the Crown. As to officers, as far as I gather, all the senior officers, myself included, I presume, are to be abolished, and no Militia officer is to exist any longer above the rank of captain.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: Major.
  LORD RAGLAN: That will deprive the country of the services of a great number of gentlemen whose services are exceedingly valuable. I refer to those old soldiers who, having served a certain amount of time in the Army, have transferred their services to the Militia. You will completely wipe out from the forces of the Crown that class of officer, and I am also firmly convinced that you will wipe out a great number of other officers who will refuse to go into Militia regiments where they never can be regarded as fit to rise to a position of command. In any case, as far as I can make out, there must be a very large reduction in the number of officers. To each of these proposed new battalions are to be added ten officers who are to do a month or six weeks training every year. I very much doubt whether a very desirable class of officer will join when there is no possibility of rising above the rank of major, and the class of men who now officer your Militia regiments will disappear altogether.
  This is a matter on which I feel most strongly. I have the honour to command a Militia regiment, and, perhaps I may be allowed to say, not one of the worst regiments in the service. I have at this time thirty-one out of my thirty-six officers, and 960 out of my 1,000 men. I should have had more than my thousand men had not my recruiting been interfered with. I and my family have served in that regiment for 240 years; it has been commanded by a member of my family for more than one hundred years. But, putting sentiment on one side, I should be willing that that regiment should be swept away if it was incapable of being brought up to date, or if something better was going to be substituted for it. I do not, however, believe that those conditions exist.
  This remarkable proposition has been sprung upon us very suddenly at
  60
  the end of a long session. The remarkable thing about it is that it is quite at variance with the earlier speeches which were made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. One of the very early speeches he made after taking office was at Liverpool, in the course of which he particularly alluded to the Militia as a force which wanted assistance and sympathetic management, and a force which should be looked after. His way of doing that is like curing toothache by cutting off a person's head. I trust that His Majesty's Government will defer these drastic changes, at all events, until those of us who sit on this side of the House and usually support His Majesty's Government have had a chance of hearing what their actual suggestions really are. The Militia has never failed the country in a time of need, and I ask the Government to think twice and even thrice before they attempt to tamper with it.
  *THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I have been asked a number of Questions this evening extending very widely over many parts of the scheme which has been outlined by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State in another place, and I do not know that I should be in order in referring to all of them, more especially to those which were raised by my noble friend Lord Harris. He asked two Questions in particular, both with reference to the foreign-service Army. I am sorry that in the few sentences in which I attempted to reply to him on the last occasion on which your Lordships discussed this subject I did not make the matter clear, but if, at any time in the near future the noble Lord will give me five minutes I can explain the matter fully and, I hope, satisfactorily to him.
  LORD HARRIS: I shall be happy to hear what the noble Earl has to say privately; but we are accustomed to wander rather wide in our discussions, and I cannot see why the noble Earl cannot now give me an Answer to my Question.
  * THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: The Motion before us protests against the abolition of the Militia, and I think I should be detaining your Lordships at too great length if I entered into those other subjects now. I do not wish to

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  complain, but I think I have a right to say that the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards the Militia has been misunderstood. I think that my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War made perfectly plain in his speech in another place his exact attitude in respect to this question. I know it would not be in order for me to quote from that speech, but I am perfectly in order in referring to the Memorandum which has been circulated to your Lordships. There are some three or four paragraphs on pages 11 and 12 dealing with this question. My right hon. friend says most distinctly that no sweeping change in the general position of the Militia force, or in the strength of its units, is at present contemplated; and your Lordships must be perfectly aware that nothing in the nature of large organic changes can be carried out until the Estimates for next year have been presented to Parliament. At the same time we do regard the position of the Militia at the present moment as serious. I do not for a moment depreciate what the Militia have done in the past, but the Report of the Royal Commission recently presented to your Lordships' House shows how very serious the position of the Militia now is. The Commission stated in their Report that the average strength of 104,000 yielded only 82,000 Militiamen fit as regards age to take the field. In Continental armies (the Commission pointed out) men are not taken before the age of twenty, and if we adopted that age as the lowest for field service, and deducted the men who had not reached that age, the effective total was reduced to 69,000 men, out of an establishment of 130,000. The Commission also stated that the evidence which they had received satisfied them that the drill and training at present undergone by the Militia force was insufficient to fit its units, at short notice, to meet trained troops in the field.
  LORD RAGLAN: There have been no classes held for several years to which Militia officers could go. You close the classes to them, and then tell them they are untrained.
  * THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: I think the noble Earl will find a great many other reasons in the evidence given
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  before the Commission. The reason I have quoted is not the sole reason. I am not claiming too much when I say that the evil is an organic one more than accidental, as the noble Lord seems to suggest. Indeed, there is no more convincing proof of the bad condition in which the Militia find themselves at the present moment than is to be found in the speeches of the noble Lord himself. I read very carefully this afternoon the speech which the noble Lord made on the occasion of the debate raised by my noble friend Lord Newton, in which he advocated compulsory service, and 1 find complete corroboration of almost everything I have just quoted from the Report of the Royal Commission. The position is a very serious one. The chief evils, as we believe, arise from the fact that the Militia competes with the Line for recruits, a competition which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, does not very much deprecate because he thinks it is a very useful thing to have the Militia as a feeder for the Line. But I venture to say that a Militia at £1,800,000 supplying 19,000 recruits for the Line, though perhaps an excellent thing, is a luxury which we ought to try and cheapen if we can.
  Again, we are confronted with the fact that the Volunteers compete with the Militia for recruits. Militia colonels are complaining to us that a great many officers and men find their way into the Volunteers instead of, as they did in former times, into the Militia. We also recognise as an evil the want of trained officers and non-commissioned officers. My noble friend Lord Raglan suggested that we could get a large number of officers for the Militia if we give them a retaining fee of £100 per annum. If we did that I cannot imagine any officers going into the Army as subalterns at £120. We are also confronted with the fact that the Militia are in no way organised for war. It is necessary to find some alleviation for this state of affairs. The Army Council have decided that it is necessary to at once raise the physical standard of the Militia to the level of the Line. We also feel that we should be doing wrong if we attempted to continue in existence or unamalgamated, if I may use the phrase, certain units which are at the present moment absolutely redundant; but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that

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  these expedients may only prove to be palliatives, and that some large organic change may be found to be necessary. But it has never been suggested that in any organic change which may be made it will be necessary absolutely to abolish the Militia. For that reason I can assure the noble Earl that I have no objection to the Motion.
  The question of the Irish Militia has been raised in the course of the debate. That is a very important question, and I can assure the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition that it will be kept in view in connection with the consideration of the whole scheme. As to the point raised by Lord Raglan with reference to the future position of commanding officers, he will, of course, remember that it was suggested in the evidence before the Norfolk Commission that the position of the commanding officer is at present very unsatisfactory. He has no power to command except while the regiment is out training. It has been suggested that commanding officers should be allowed to give attention to their regiments all the year round. which would not separate them very much from the position of commanding officers of one of the home-service battalions if the recommendations of my right hon. friend are carried out.
  LORD BURGHCLERE: My Lords, I am unwilling to trouble your Lordships with any remarks at this late hour, but as I had the honour of initiating a debate a week or so ago on the Army scheme, and as I have been particularly invited into this discussion by the noble Earl, Lord Wemyss, I hope your Lordships will allow me for a few minutes to address you on this subject. My noble friend, in inviting me to take part in this debate, said that on a previous occasion I had at a point in my speech kissed my hand to him. I do not remember, my Lords, that I ever took such a liberty with my noble friend; but I must admit that I never hear him address this House in his strenuous and vigorous fashion without wishing to take off my hat to him. I have only risen to endeavour to elucidate the rather hazy condition in which, if I may say so, the Under-Secretary has left the question, and to elicit from the Government some definite statement as to what really are their opinions with re-
  64
  gard, not to the abolition of the Militia, but to the absorption and amalgamation of the Militia.
  The Under-Secretary told us just now that we had entirely misunderstood the Secretary of State as to his attitude with regard to the Militia. I would venture to draw my noble friend's attention to the Secretary of State's Memorandum which has been circulated in this House. We find in it the deliberate statement of the Secretary of State to this effect—
  "There will be an improvement in the Militia, and, if public opinion will allow, the amalgamation of the Militia with the Line for the purpose of forming a true territorial Army."
  I think it is quite clear, from the speech of the Secretary of State for War and from this document, what is in the mind of the Secretary of State with regard to the future of the Militia. I do not think the Under-Secretary will deny that the plan of the Secretary of State is to create a territorial Army. Having accepted the theory of the blue water school, the Secretary of State proposes that the Army shall be smaller than hitherto, but we hope it is to be more efficient; and in endeavouring to form that Army the Secretary of State proposes to absorb, I think. thirty-three battalions of the Militia, and to abolish the remaining Militia battalions in order that he may effect a certain economy. What that economy is was referred to just now by the noble Earl the Under-Secretary. It is the £1,800,000 a year, which is the present cost of maintaining 91,000 members of the Militia force in order, as he put it, to give to the Regular Army 19,000 recruits per annum. The noble Earl insinuated that that was a very large sum to pay for these recruits.
  If the Secretary of State proposes to absorb these thirty-three Militia battalions, and to abolish the rest, it is quite obvious that, in accepting this Motion, the Under-Secretary of State is not carrying out the plan of his chief, nor the plan which he himself was good enough to give to your Lordships the other night, and which he strangely said proceeded from the Army Council and not from the Cabinet. I do not speak with any experience of these high offices; but, in the case of the Admiralty, it would seem

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  a most extraordinary doctrine if the Lords of the Admiralty were to initiate a policy of a far-reaching nature and of vital importance to the very existence of this country, and then, when it came before Parliament, we were to be told by His Majesty's Government that it was not they who were responsible for it, but the Admiralty Board. That is a doctrine which has never before been placed before your Lordships or the country.
  I venture to say, with all respect to His Majesty's Government, that the official acceptance of my noble friend's Motion is the last phase in the decline and fall of that great scheme of Army reorganisation which appeared before the country with such a flourish of trumpets a short time ago. When I last spoke, the noble Marquess, with great good nature, twitted me because I had said that the basis of this plan was the acceptance of the doctrine of the blue water school. The Government having accepted this Resolution, I hope I shall not offend the literary susceptibilities of the noble Marquess when I say that the scheme of the Government is now many fathoms deep below the blue water, and is likely to remain there, and I do not think in any effective form it will float on that blue water again.
  The noble Earl the Under-Secretary told us the other night that the amalgamation of the Militia and its absorption with the Line was part of the Army scheme. Shortly afterwards the Leader of your Lordships' House told us that this was not the final scheme of the Government, Then, I ask, with all respect, what on earth was this Memorandum circulated to Parliament for? We do not want to hear from His Majesty's Government what they are not agreed upon. We want to hear from them what they are agreed upon. Yet by the confession of the noble Marquess, and the position in which that scheme is now placed, it is obvious that it represents what the Government are not agreed upon, and in no sense what they are agreed upon. I should like to know how the noble Marquess explains that position. The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition said he would support my noble friend if he went to a division. Luckily for us we are not to have a division. For myself, I am bound to say I feel some difficulty in giving an un-
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  qualified assent to the Motion now before the House. At the same time, I fully associate myself with what has been said with regard to the past services of the Militia, and the way in which they behaved from Waterloo to the Crimea, and more recently in South Africa. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Raglan, would tell us that our proper territorial Army is the constitutional force, the Militia.
  LORD RAGLAN: Hear, hear!
  LORD BURGHCLERE: It is obvious that the territorial Army will be mainly composed of the Militia. We know that at present recruiting for the Militia is not what we desire it to be, and it does not follow that in the future more recruits will be forthcoming. It is quite possible that recruiting will he more difficult. You will have a small territorial Army mainly composed of the Militia, and when Your recruiting falls off, what will happen? Why, those noble Lords who favour conscription will come forward and point to the depletion of your only territorial force, and when some scare occurs, they will at once urge, that the Ballot Act should be put in force; thus will come in the thin end of the wedge of conscription. I, for my part, being an opponent of conscription, do not wish to see such a result. By the admission of the noble Earl. the Under-Secretary, it is obvious that the Militia force will have to be strengthened and improved, and if you strengthen and improve it, it may be that you will have to alter its constitutional position, especially as regards service abroad. I think it would be very difficult to constitute the territorial Army largely of the Militia without imposing the obligation to serve abroad. You will thereby alter the whole constitution of the Militia force, and if you tie yourselves down to an abstract proposal like the one now before the House, you will find it difficult to explain your position when the difficulty arises.
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (The Earl of SELBORNE): My Lords, I trust you will allow me to say a few words in reply to my noble friend. I desire to speak in a double capacity—as

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  First Lord of the Admiralty and therefore a responsible member of His Majesty's Government, and also as a Militia officer. First of all, may I say a word for myself as a Militia officer? I have served twenty-five years in the Militia, and although my active career in that force is closed, I have still the great honour to be hon. colonel of the regiment in which I served, and my attachment to the Militia is not less than that of my noble friend. Lord Raglan, who has addressed the House with such consummate knowledge of the subject. Having made quite clear what my personal attitude towards the Militia is, I feel bound to say, as Lord Raglan would say, that the condition of the Militia at the present moment is profoundly unsatisfactory. I must allow myself a little licence on this occasion. I do say, with a full sense of my responsibility, that the condition to which the Militia has been brought has been the work of the War Office and nobody else—not the particular War Office existing at the present moment, not the War Office of any one Government, but the War Office as I have known it throughout my Militia service of twenty-five years. The Militia is what the War Office have made it, and the War Office alone is responsible for all its failures and shortcomings.
  In the whole of my service, with the exception of one or two officers I could name, I have never found, be it Liberal Government or Conservative Government in power, any sympathy at the War Office for the Militia except from the civilians. The military officials at the War Office knew nothing about the Militia; the conditions of service in the Militia were so different from those to which they had been accustomed that they never seemed able to exercise their imagination; they never seemed to realise that there could be a force whose conditions were different from those of the Regular Army, or that any force other than Regular soldiers could be of any value. They regarded the Militia as if it never could be anything else than a recruiting ground for the Line. I do think that successive military administrators at the War Office have, in all their dealings with the Auxiliary Forces, been most short-sighted. They have been unable to raise their
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  eyes beyond the immediate needs, as it seems to me, of the Regular Army, and they have grudged for the Auxiliary Forces any money that they could get for the Regulars.
  Now, my Lords, that is the past. What about the future? The Army Council have devised a scheme which has the complete acquiescence and cordial approval of the Government, and for which the Government are absolutely responsible. It is the division of the, Army into a general-service Army and a home-service Army. What part in that reorganisation is the Militia to play? That is the question. Nobody can doubt that that part must be played in the home-service Army, and, whatever particular method of adaptation to the home-service Army you may favour for the Militia, the changes that must come will be drastic. My noble friend who spoke last put his finger on the most drastic change of all, and one which, speaking as an individual Member of your Lordships' House, seems to me to lie at the root of the whole question. Whether the scheme described in the Memorandum of the Secretary of State for War or any other scheme is adopted, the Militia of the future in the home-Army must be a force bound to serve abroad in a defined case of national emergency—a voluntarily raised, not a compulsorily raised, force.
  The days have gone by, I hope, for enlisting men for home service and expecting them to volunteer in time of war for foreign service. That has been done time after time, century after century almost, and I think it is full time that that fraud should cease. The Militia always have been required for foreign service in great wars and always will be. The question is how to adapt them for the home-service Army. The Army Council have adopted a wise attitude, and one for which the Government wholly accept responsiblity. They have said—
  "We are dealing with a force of immense historical antiquity, as old an institution as exists in this country, except perhaps Parliament, the Church, and the Monarchy. It is a force that has done national service in war after war, and in emergency after emergency, and we cannot deal with such a force as that hastily."

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  They have, in fact, adopted the advice which the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition and the noble and gallant Field-Marshal Lord Roberts gave the other night; they have not acted hastily. They have put the conditions before the Militia force and before Parliament and the whole country, and they have said, "These are the conditions—We must have a home Army; the Militia must be in the home Army." And they might have added that the Militia must be available for foreign service; how are you going to adapt the Militia to these conditions? They adumbrated a plan of their own, a plan which, if successful, would give a very valuable body of men and officers, and their contention is that it does not amount to an abolition of the Militia. They admit, of course, that the career which has been such a pleasure to my noble friend and to myself, to rise through one's regiment as a county gentleman to command it—they admit that that will be closed. Up to the rank of major thee say the career would still be open, and they believe that in time of war there would be full employment in the battalions that will have to be improvised for those senior Militia officers for whom permanent employment had not been found in time of peace. Therefore, the view that this is really the abolition of the Militia force is not the view that the Army Council admit, and those who want fairly to discuss this question must remember that that is the point of view of the Army Council. Not only do they say it is not proposed to abolish the Militia, but they say that the Militia is necessary to make the territorial Army what they hope to see it. They say they cannot with a few Line regiments spread the territorial organisation over the country. They want the historical and territorial prestige of the Militia to help them in striking even deeper and fuller the roots of the territorial system.
  LORD BURGHCLERE: How mane battalions of the Militia do the Army Council propose to abolish? They propose, I understand, to amalgamate thirty-three battalions. How many do they propose to abolish?
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I frankly admit I cannot tell you. A large number
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  would disappear as units. The Army Council say that whatever they do they will have to amalgamate many of the existing units, because they have fallen below the numbers necessary to enable them to maintain them as separate units. Whichever plan they adopt they will have to do a great deal of amalgamation. The Army Council say to the Militia, "Can you show us any better plan which, for the same money, will give us an equally valuable force of Militia, or which, for less money, will give us a larger force of Militia, adequately trained for the needs of the country"? That is the problem which they put before the Militia and the country, and there is no shirking of responsibility on the part of the Government. It is with their full and entire sanction that the Army Council have come forward and taken the public into their confidence. That is the problem which we have all got to discuss. It is not and never can be a Party question. It is a national question. How, without losing any of the great historical value of the Militia, are we to weld that force into the new home Army so as to get the fullest possible value for our money, and supply the country with the largest possible number of men?—that is the problem before us, and the contributions we have had to-night from noble Lords, and which we shall have more of in the future, are of the greatest assistance in elucidating this problem.
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I gathered from the speech of the noble Earl the Under-Secretary that the Government accept my Resolution declaring that it would be contrary to sound police to get rid of the Militia, which is the foundation of our military system. While defending the Government from any intention of abolishing the Militia, or of absorbing the whole of it, he spoke of organic changes that will have to be made. What I wish to ask the noble Earl is this—Will Parliament have an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon those organic changes before they are made? I venture to think that anything which makes an organic change in the Militia force ought to be brought before Parliament in the early part of

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  the session, so that Parliament and the public may have full opportunity of expressing their opinion upon it.
  *THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: The noble Lord will realise that it is impossible to make any important organic change in any part of the Army without having authority in the Estimates. We cannot do anything in connection with this part of the scheme until next year's Estimates.
  On Question, resolved in the affirmative.

  ARMY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]

    SECOND READING.
    Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
    *THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, it may be in the recollection of your Lordships that when I had the honour of addressing you a month ago on the Report of the Esher Committee, and explaining the terms of the Order in Council which would be submitted to your Lordships, I also explained that there were certain statutory powers of the Secretary of State which it was intended to transfer by Act of Parliament to the Army Council. This is a Bill to carry that out. There are a number of statutory powers, mostly enumerated in the Army Act, the Reserve Forces Acts, and the Militia Acts. They are chiefly small but very important powers. There are also statutory powers which were until lately vested in the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant-General, the principal one being the power to reduce a non-commissioned officer to the ranks. The operative part of this Bill is to be found in Clause 1, Sub-section 1,while Sub-section 2 of Clause 1 vests property that has hitherto been vested in the Secretary of State for War in the Army Council. We are in this Bill following the precedent of the Admiralty.
    Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
    *EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I think this is a Bill of greater importance than appears from the statement made by the noble Earl in moving it. It apparently places the Army Council on something
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    like the same footing as the Board of Admiralty, but there is a great distinction between the two, and I believe there will be very great opposition to the proposal to remove these powers from the Secretary of State. It is impossible at this late hour of the evening, aid in the present condition of the House, to go into details; but there will be considerable opposition to diverting powers from the Secretary of State, who is responsible to Parliament, to the Army Council, for we know very little about the Army Council at the present moment. The Army Council, so far as I know, stands on a perfectly different basis from that of the Board of Admiralty. The latter are not appointed for a fixed time. When the Government go out the whole of the Board of Admiralty cease to hold office; but I am told that by the Patent constituting the Army Council the military members of that Council are appointed for four years.
    Another question which has never, to my mind, been quite cleared up, is the relative position of the Secretary of State and the members of the Army Council. There is no doubt whatever as to the First Lord of the Admiralty and the members of the Board of Admiralty. The First Lord can, if he chooses, overrule the majority of the Board. It may be so with regard to the Secretary of State and the Army Council, but I have heard it distinctly stated by those who have studied the subject that the Secretary of State, and the Under-Secretary of State, who is also a member of the Army Council, are merely equals with the other members, and that the Secretary of State cannot overrule, if necessary, the remainder of the Army Council. There is also the question as to the number of members of that Council who may be in Parliament. There is no Act of Parliament dealing with that in the case of the Board of Admiralty. In the old days nearly all the members of the Board were in Parliament, but of late years that has not been so, The only person on the Board of Admiralty who cannot be a Member of Parliament is the Controller. Though it may be advisable sometimes to have members of the Army Council and the Board of Admiralty in Parliament, I think it would lead under modern circumstances to a very grave and serious difficulty.

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    It would be an extremely awkward position, but it is one which, considering the constitution of the Army Council and the fact that the members have a tenure of four years, might arise if a new Secretary of State of a different political complexion suddenly found himself confronted in the House of Commons with military members of the Council who were opposed to him and the Government. I feel that this is a very serious matter. My copy of this Bill only arrived yesterday morning, and I have not had time to properly look into the question; but friends to whom I have mentioned the matter have expressed their astonishment at the proposal, and I am certain there will be in another place, even if we pass the Bill here, serious opposition to it, particularly as it greatly affects the position, which has long been defined, of the Secretary of State and his responsibility to Parliament. I therefore greatly depreciate the Bill being passed in this hurried way, at this late period of the session, and I should be disposed to divide against it if the noble Earl presses it to-night.
    *THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (The Earl of SELBORNE): My Lords, I sincerely trust the noble Earl will allow this Bill to be read a second time, because I think I can satisfy him on every point he has raised. It is my happiness in this class of question always to agree with the noble Earl. The intention has been to follow the practice of the Board of Admiralty in every particular and down to the smallest detail. The difference is this. The constitution or the powers of the Board of Admiralty are not to be found in any Act of Parliament, but there are a series of Acts which devolve special responsibilities and special duties upon some of the members of the Army Council, particularly upon the Secretary of State, and that is why this Bill is necessary. The Bill must be read with the Army Patent and the Order in Council which is shortly coming out. In that Order in Council it will be found that the responsibility of the Secretary of State is absolutely defined and insisted upon. He will be as solely responsible to the Sovereign and to Parliament as the First Lord of the Admiralty is at the present moment, and he will be in a
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    position to overrule, in a last resort, all his colleagues on the Army Council. I think all the points to which the noble Earl has drawn attention will be found to be met in the three documents on which the constitutional basis of the Army Council will henceforward rest—this Bill (if it passes into law), the Patent, and the Order in Council. In regard to the provisions limiting the number of members of the Army Council who may at one time hold seats in the House of Commons, that is a departure from the practice that obtains in connection with the Board of Admiralty, and we shall be ready to reconsider it in Committee. Each successive Government will have the power at any moment of issuing a new Patent and having a new Army Council, just as it has the power of issuing a new Patent and having a new Board of Admiralty. Therefore the case will not arise, where you can have members of the Army Council in the House of Commons at variance politically with the Government of the day.
    *EARL SPENCER: Am I correct in saying that under the Patent, the military members of the Army Council are appointed for four years?
    *THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I understand that you are incorrect. There is no limit at all. The Esher Committee recommended it, but it was not put into the Patent. That accounts, no doubt, for the misconception. We shall be prepared to reconsider in Committee the provision limiting the number of members of the Army Council who shall sit in the House of Commons, in order to bring it on exactly the same lines as the documents that prescribe the proceedings of the Board of Admiralty. I hope that after this explanation the noble Lord will at any rate allow the Bill to be read a second time.—
    On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.

  WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACTS AMENDMENT (ST. KILDA) BILL.
  House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.
  DEAN FOREST BIIL.
  Read 3a (according to order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  COUNTY COURTS BILL [H.L.]
  Amendments reported (according to order).
  *LORD COLERIDGEexplained that the object of the two Amendments standing in his name was to leave the option perfectly free on the part of plaintiffs to bring their actions in the County Court or in the High Court, in cases where the jurisdiction of the County Court was enlarged from £50 to £100. If the Bill remained as at present the plaintiff would be forced into the County Court, possibly against his will, in actions between £50 and £100, and he would be penalised because if he recovered less than £100 he would not be entitled to any more costs than he would have been entitled to if he had brought his original action in the County Court. He could not conceive that it was intended to penalise plaintiffs in this way. The object of the Bill was a very salutary one, namely, to enlarge the jurisdiction so that plaintiffs should not be precluded from bringing actions in the County Court in claims for more than £50; and he hoped the noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack would see his way to accept the Amendments, which would greatly improve the usefulness of the measure.
  Amendments moved—
  "In page 1, Clause 1, line 12, after the word 'eighty-one,' to insert the word 'and'; and in line 13, to leave out the words 'and one-hundred and sixteen.'"—(Lord Coleridge.)
  THE EARL OF HALSBURYsaid he did not intend to resist the Amendments, as he thought the application of the section to which the noble and learned Lord had referred was the result of an error. He therefore accepted the Amendments.
  On Question, Amendments agreed to.
  Drafting Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURYproposed the insertion of a new clause to meet the case of deputy high bailiffs.
  Amendment moved—
  "After Clause 6, to insert as a new clause the words, 'Section thirty-one of the principal Act as to the appointment of deputy registrars shall apply to the appointment of deputy high bailiffs, with the substitution of the words 'high bailiff' for the word 'registrar.'"—(The Earl of Halsbury).
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Drafting Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURYmoved to add to Section (1) of Clause 11, which provided that—
  "A person liable to be fined under Section forty-eight of the principal Act shall be liable to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any period not exceeding two months if so ordered by the Judge or on summary conviction."
  the words contained in his Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "In Clause 11, page 5, line 4, after the word 'conviction' to insert the words 'and the said section shall apply to any case in which any officer or bailiff of any Court or any person put into possession of goods seized under any process of the Court by a bailiff of any Court is assaulted or obstructed while in the execution of his duty, and to any case of rescue or attempted rescue of any person arrested under process of the Court.'"—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURYexplained that his next Amendment was necessary owing to the City of London Court not being technically a County Court.
  Amendment moved—
  "After Clause 12, to insert as a new clause, 'The extended jurisdiction exercisable in County Courts under this Act shall be exercisable in like manner in the Cy of London."'—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Bill to be read 3' on Monday next; and to be printed as amended. (No. 172.)

  POOR LAW AUTHORITIES (TRANSFER OF PROPERTY) BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order).
  Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
  Clause 5.
  EARL WALDEGRAVEsaid the Amendment which he had to move to Clause 5 explained itself. Its object was to make it clear that the Bill did not apply to Ireland.
  Amendment moved—
  "In Clause 5, page?, line 36, to insert as a new sub-section, '(1) This Act shall not extend to Ireland.'"—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Standing Committee negatived: The Report of Amendment to be received on Monday next; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 173.)

  WHALE FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to regulate Whale Fisheries in Scotland—Was presented by the Lord Kintore (E. Kintore); read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 167.)
  House adjourned at five minutes past Eight o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.