Lords Sitting of 19 December 1906

AIRTH PEERAGE.
Petition of Robert Barclay Allardice Barclay Allardice for leave to lodge his printed case on or before the third sitting day after the next ensuing meeting of Parliament; read, and ordered as prayed.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ure Elder Fund Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Ardrossan, Saltcoats, and District Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Dunfermline and District Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Dunbartonshire Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.];Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Recorders, Stipendiary Magistrates, and Clerks of the Peace Bill; Returned from the Commons with the Amendment agreed to.
Edinburgh Surburban Electric Tramways Order Confirmation Bill; Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  Statistics of proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, 1897 is and 1900, and the Employer's Liability Act, 1880, during the year 1905; presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  TOWN TENANTS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments agreed to, with one Amendment agreed to, with an amendment, and certain other Amendments disagreed to, with reasons for such disagreement; The said Amendments and reasons to be printed; and to be considered To-morrow. (No. 255.)

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of Ripon): My Lords, in order that we may proceed at once to the consideration of the Education Bill I beg to move the Motion of which I have given notice.
  Moved, "That Standing Order No, XXI, be considered in order to its being dispensed with, and that the adjourned debate on the Bill have precedence of other notices and Orders of the Day."—(The Marquess of Ripon.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
  Order of the Day read for resuming the adjourned debate on the Motion that the Commons' reason for disagreeing with the Lords' Amendments be now considered, and on the Amendment moved by the Marquess of Lansdowne to the foregoing Motion, viz., to leave out all the words after "That" for the purpose of inserting the following words, viz.:—
  "This House (1) records its protest against the innovation in constitutional procedure by which the Commons have rejected the whole of the Lords' Amendments to the Education Bill, including those proposed by His Majesty's Ministers, without assigning, in any case, specific reasons for the rejection of those Amendments; and(2) adjourns the consideration of the Commons' message in order to afford His Majesty's Government an opportunity of making a definite statement to the House as to the course which His Majesty's Government are prepared to recommend to the House of Commons with regard to each material Amendment to the Bill."
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships I should like to say two or or three words as to the procedure which might be followed this evening. I am sure we all desire that that procedure should be as simple and as easily intelligible as possible. At this moment the Amendment which I moved the night before last to the Motion of the Lord President of the Council holds the field. That Amendment had two parts. In the first place, I invited your Lordships to

  1371
  place on the records of this House a protest against the manner in which the Amendments made by your Lordships to the Education Bill had been dealt with by the other House of Parliament; and in the second part of my Amendment I suggested that the debate should be adjourned in order to afford His Majesty's Government an opportunity of making a definite statement to the House as to the course which His Majesty's Government might be prepared to recommend to the House of Commons with regard to each material Amendment to the Bill. That invitation was taken advantage of by the Lord President of the Council. He did not wait for the adjournment, but he at once made an important statement to the House, and since that time he has laid on the Table a series of Amendments. I therefore think that we must consider that the noble Earl, I do not say entirely to our satisfaction, but going as far as he felt himself justified in going, has complied with the terms of the second portion of my Amendment. I therefore think it would be convenient that I should withdraw that part of the Amendment; but I remain of opinion that a protest of the kind which I have invited your Lordships to make should be made, and I therefore suggest that we should add to it the Motion which the Lord President will make, and that we might say that this House, before proceeding to consider the Commons' reason for disagreeing with the Lords' Amendments to the Education Bill, "records its protest," and so on. I do not know whether that commends itself to noble Lords opposite but I suggest it is the most convenient way of disposing of the difficulties of procedure.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn; and the following Resolution moved in lieu thereof, viz., "Before considering the Commons' reason this House records its protest against the innovation in Constitutional procedure by which the Commons have rejected the whole of the Lords' Amendment to the Education Bill, including those proposed by His Majesty's Ministers, without assigning, in any case, specific reasons for the rejection of those Amendments."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, as far as the matter of procedure is concerned, I think that the course
  1372
  proposed by my noble friend might be adopted; but there my agreement with my noble friend ceases. I cannot accept in any degree whatever the Amendment in its amended form which he proposes, and I shall feel bound to take the opinion of the House by a division on that Resolution. I do not want to raise more controversy than I can help about these matters. My desire is, as far as possible, to avoid anything that would create disagreeable feeling on either side of the House. My objection to the Amendment of my noble friend is that I believe it to be, in the first place, inaccurate. It charges the House of Commons with having taken some proceedings which are in the opinion of the noble Marquess inconsistent with constitutional practice. I deny that altogether. My noble friend might have said that the House of Commons was uncivil or uncourteous, or he might have applied to them any other unpleasant epithets; but, my Lords, unconstitutional their proceedings have not been. It is perfectly consistent with the Constitution of this country—indeed I had almost said it is part of the Constitution—that both Houses of Parliament should regulate their own proceedings. They can regulate them as they please. They may regulate them wisely or foolishly, but it is within their constitutional right to regulate them as they please; and therefore on that ground alone, if it rested only there, I should feel bound to resist the Amendment of the noble Marquess. But apart from that I confess that I am somewhat surprised that my noble friend should have persisted in his Amendment after the speech made on Monday night by my noble friend behind me, the Lord President of the Council. I should have thought that that speech, made with all the authority of my noble friend, would have been sufficient to remove from your Lordships' minds any idea that the course which the House of Commons took in this matter was intended to indicate any want of consideration or respect for your Lordships' House. Nothing could be more definite and explicit than the language of my noble friend speaking on behalf of the Government, who in the House of Commons had concurred in the step which was taken; and I confess I should have thought your Lordships might have been willing to accept a statement of that kind made in

  1373
  such friendly terms, and with such an obvious desire to remove from your Lordships' minds any notion that any insult or impertinence was intended to your Lordships. I should have thought that my noble friend opposite and those behind him might have accepted the authority of my noble friend, which I
  feel sure your Lordships will agree is entitled to the respect and consideration of the House.
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 138.

  CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Selby, V.

  Grimthorpe, L.

  Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

  Crewe, E. (L. President.)

  Chester, L. Bp.

  Haversham, L.

  Hereford, L. Bp.

  Headley, L.

  Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  St. Asaph, L. Bp.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Lyveden, L.

  Beauchamp, E. [Teller.]

  Boston, L.

  Monk Bretton, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Brassey, L.

  Monkswell, L.

  Chesterfield, E.

  Colebrooke, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Coleridge, L.

  Overtoun, L.

  De La, Warr, E.

  Courtney of Penwith, L.

  Pirrie, L.

  Dundonald, E.

  Davey, L.

  Reay, L.

  Kimberley, E.

  Denman, L. [Teller.]

  Sandhurst, L.

  Portsmouth, E.

  Dunning, L. (L. Rollo.)

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Russell, E

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Stamford, E

  Tenterden, L.

  Temple, E

  Eversley, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Farrer, L.

  Wandsworth, L.

  Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Weardale, L.

  Glantawe, L.

  Welby, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, L. Abp.

  Lauderdale, E.

  London, L. Bp.

  Lindsey, E.

  Oxford, L. Bp.

  Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

  Lonsdale, E.

  Peterborough, L. Bp.

  Bedford, D.

  Lucan, E.

  St. Albans, L. Bp.

  Devonshire, D.

  Malmesbury, E.

  Salisbury, L. Bp.

  Newcastle, D.

  Mayo, E.

  Northumberland, D.

  Morley, E.

  Abinger, L.

  Portland, D.

  Morton, E.

  Allerton, L.

  Rutland, D.

  Mount Edgcumbe, E.

  Ardilaun, L.

  Sutherland, D.

  Nelson, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Wellington, D.

  Onslow, E.

  Atkinson, L.

  Plymouth, E.

  Balfour, L.

  Bristol, M.

  Radnor, E.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Lansdowne, M.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Barnard, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

  Barrymore, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Brownlow, E.

  Verulam, E.

  Belper, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Blythswood, L.

  Carlisle, E.

  Wicklow, E.

  Borthwick, L.

  Carnwath, E.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Cathcart, E.

  Bridport, V.

  Cawdor, E.

  Churchill, V. [Teller.]

  Burton, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Cross, V.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Darnley, E.

  Falkland, V.

  Clinton, L.

  Derby, E.

  Falmouth, V.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Devon, E.

  Goschen, V.

  Colchester, L.

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

  Halifax, V.

  Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

  Hardinge, V.

  De Freyne, L.

  Essex, E.

  Hill, V.

  De Mauley, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Deramore, L.

  Fitzwilliam, E.

  Digby, L.

  Haddington, E.

  Iveagh, V.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  Hardwicke, E.

  Knutsford, V.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Harewood, E.

  Llandaff, V.

  Faber, L.

  Harrowby, E.

  Forester, L.

  Jersey, E.

  Chichester, L. Bp.

  Gage L. (V. Gage.)

  Grenfell, L.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

  Saltoun, L.

  Grey de Ruthyn, L.

  Michelham, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Harris, L.

  Middleton, L.

  Seaton, L.

  Hastings, L.

  Mowbray, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

  Hothfield, L.

  Newlands, L.

  Sinclair, L.

  Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)

  Newton, L.

  Stalbridge, L.

  North, L.

  Stanmore, L.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhougie.)

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

  Talbot, de Malahide, L.

  Lawrence, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Templemore, L.

  Leigh, L.

  Ritchie of Dundee, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Ludlow, L.

  Robertson, L.

  Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

  Macnaghten, L.

  St. Oswald, L.

  On Question, "That the proposed words be there inserted," resolved in the affirmative.
  Commons reason considered.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I now rise to make a Motion dealing with this most important matter. I beg to move that this House do insist on its Amendments to the Education Bill. The noble Marquess who spoke just now referred to the interesting statement made on Monday evening by the Lord President of the Council, and he expressed his astonishment that we on this side of the House should not have been contented by the substance and the tone of that message. I freely admit that nothing could have been more considerate in tone than the speech of the noble Lord. I am also quite ready to admit that his statement marked a considerable advance upon any of the statements made by his colleagues in the other House. If I may be permitted to say so, however, the noble Earl in the course of his statement left untouched a great many subjects on which we on this side of the House feel most strongly.
  An adjournment ensued, and I imagine that it is a matter of notoriety that advantage was taken of that adjournment in order to effect an exchange of views between the Leaders of the two Parties. I have seen references to a conference. To my mind the word conference is wholly inapplicable to such discussions as those in which we have taken part. The word has a very technical meaning. I believe it carries with it a good many somewhat obsolete incidents, such, for example, as the representatives of the House of Lords wearing their hats and meeting representatives of the House of Commons without that covering. The advantage of a discussion such as that which has taken
  1376
  place in the last few days is that it is of a wholly informal character, that proposals or suggestions can be made in the most confidential manner and entirely without prejudice to those who make them. I have therefore no right to refer to what took place during those conversations or to their result. I say this particularly because we are now in full possession in the most official form of the decision at which the Government have arrived in reference to this Bill.
  Your Lordships have received this morning the Amendments of which notice has been given by the Lord President, and I have no doubt you have studied them. I assume that those Amendments are officially the last word which the Government have to say with regard to the Amendments which your Lordships have inserted in this Bill. I am very far from suggesting that upon some of the points at issue there has not been room for a transaction between noble Lords opposite and ourselves. Weave never excluded from our minds the idea that some arrangement of that kind might be arrived at. But I am afraid I must add that the Amendments proposed by the Lord President seem to me to leave the Bill in a shape in which this House could not possibly accept it.
  It is impossible in such a statement as I now have to make to pass in review seriatim in detail the minor issues raised by these Amendments; but there are a certain number of them which by their intrinsic importance stand out in clear relief and so to speak dominate all the others. One such set of Amendments is that which has reference to the position of teachers. The teachers, if I may say so, are almost the key of the position. We have constantly demanded that full freedom should be given to the teachers. We have done that upon many grounds.

  1377
  We have made the request because we believe that to refuse that request is to put an affront upon the liberty of conscience of the teachers themselves. We have recommended it because we believed that in a great number of our schools it would be absolutely impossible to find volunteers who could take upon themselves the duty of the religious instruction now performed by the teachers of the schools. We have recommended it again upon the ground that to deprive the teacher of these particular functions cannot fail to be highly detrimental to the discipline and efficiency of the school itself.
  The importance of this question seems to me to be enormously increased in consequence of the attitude which His Majesty's Government have taken up throughout these discussions with regard to what we speak of as Clause 4 schools. It is perfectly plain from what we have been told by the Lord President of the Council, and what we have learned from other sources, that in the view of His Majesty's Government these Clause 4 schools are to be altogether exceptional—they are intended for the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and for a small fraction only of the Church of England. Now it follows from that that all schools which do not fall within the thus limited scope of Clause 4 will have to depend entirely upon what they can get out of Clause 3.
  I ask your Lordships to remember that in regard to the fourth clause a minority of parents will be able to impose upon the school and upon the people interested in the school its transformation from a school of the type which it has always represented to the new type of school created under this Bill. I will also remind your Lordships that in cases where alternative accommodation is not accessible, there an insignificant minority of the children may prevent the school from obtaining extended facilities. It follows, therefore, that in the great majority of cases these schools, no matter how denominational has been their atmosphere in the past, will find themselves compelled to fall back upon Clause 3 facilities.
  Now, my Lords, what are Clause 3 facilities worth if the teachers are not permitted to give religious instruction in
  1378
  these schools? That brings me to the offer which his Majesty's Government have made to us in regard to the teachers. If you will turn to the Amendments on the Paper you will see these proposals. In the first place it is left open to any local authority absolutely to forbid of its own will any teacher, no matter in what school, to give religious instruction. In the next place no head teacher is ever to give religious instruction. In the third place, even where the assistants—who are the only people to whom this permission is to be given—are allowed to give religious instruction, they can give it only if and when the school numbers over 250 pupils. If your Lordships will consider the cumulative effect of these various restrictions you will see how complete is the denial of that freedom for which we ask for the teachers of this country. In our view, the insistence of His Majesty's Government upon that denial is in itself an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of such a friendly arrangement as we at one time hoped to effect.
  I have examined as carefully as I have been able to do in the short time at nay disposal the other proposals put upon the Paper by the noble Earl opposite, and I find amongst them the following provisions which I will enumerate as briefly as I can. The noble Earl passes over in silence the question of the deletion of the urban area limit in the fourth clause. He also passes over in silence the most important Amendment in the second sub-section of Clause 8, which provides that the local authority is to satisfy itself of the fitness of a teacher to give Cowper-Temple teaching. The noble Earl is also silent upon the subject of the retention of the Welsh clause. But then I come to other points upon which the noble Earl is not silent, but eloquent. He proposes that we should not insist upon the important Amendment inserted by Lord St. Aldwyn in Clause 3, under which two days a week certain were secured for facilities in Clause 3 schools. He proposes, further, that we should not insist upon the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Salisbury in regard to facilities for single-school area children in council schools. In the same clause he proposes that we should not insist upon the appeal—the

  1379
  most important appeal—to the Board of Education in cases where facilities are not properly provided.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: You mean in Clause 3.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Yes, that is all in Clause 3. Now I pass to Clause 4. The noble Earl asks us to abandon the Amendment in which we substituted the word "shall" for "may" at the beginning of the clause. We have to consider, with that Amendment, the most unsatisfactory state of affairs in which the Government clauses leave the condition of appeal throughout this part of the Bill. Then, again, in paragraph (b) of Clause 4 we are asked to consent to an arrangement under which the minority is to be counted by including, not only those who come forward to protest, but also those who remain silent, a point upon which many of your Lord-ships feel strongly.
  Further on, the important Amendment which was inserted at my instance as to the manner in which the question of alternative accommodation should be dealt with is proposed to be got rid of; and I find, in the same clause, that we are asked not to insist upon the Amendment which we introduced with the object of making it clear that the local education authority might not in a Clause 4 school forbid the teacher to teach. That is a most important point. I confess I was under an apprehension that that permission would not be denied in those purely denominational schools. In Clause 7 we are asked to give up the effective provision which we had made for the creation of new schools with denominational facilities. I find substituted for it a provision entirely confined to Clause 4 schools, and requiring persons who wish to build a new school to build it on the mere chance that it might afterwards be taken over by the local authority. Then in Clause 8 the discretion of the authorities to permit the teacher to teach religion is extended also to the Clause 4 schools.
  Those are some of the proposals which your Lordships are asked to assent to. There are one or two points upon which I would like to say a few words. In these Amendments we find reintroduced
  1380
  the State-aided school in its most objectionable form. It appears, not as an alternative which it would be open to the owners of the school to accept, but as a penal alternative that may be imposed upon any school which had reason to complain of the manner in which these facilities were accorded—a school which appeals for redress and which, instead of obtaining redress, is condemned to the position of a State-aided school without any support from the rates, and, by a further provision in these Amendments, becomes a school which may be established without any precautions for seeing that it has a reasonable prospect of maintaining its efficiency at a proper standard. There is something to be said on the question of State-aided schools. To a State-aided school in that form we on this side of the House have the strongest possible objection.
  Then I find also amongst these new Amendments a provision I think objectionable in that part of the Bill which relates to the taking over of schools by the local authority. Unless I misunderstand the Amendment on the Paper, it is intended that it should be open to the local authority to refuse one of these schools upon the mere ground of redundancy, unless its redundancy can be shown to be of an entirely temporary nature. Therefore, however necessary the school may be from the point of view of the parents, no attention need be paid to that consideration, and it may be dealt with on the high and dry ground of redundancy alone.
  Let me point out how remarkable it is that upon points of this kind His Majesty's Government deny altogether to the authority that discretion which we have so often asked for in vain in regard to other points in the Bill. As I said before, we should be perfectly ready to consider points of mere detail. I am glad to admit that in one or two points in his Amendments the noble Earl has done something to meet us; but what we feel is that the points to which I have referred are not points of detail, but vital points; and if we have, as I believe we have, reason to believe that these are points which His Majesty's Government regard as essential to a settlement, then I say with very great regret that we do not see our way to accept a settlement on those lines.

  1381
  We are told that the Bill as amended by us is a Bill entirely without value in the eyes of noble Lords opposite and their friends. Let me remind your Lordships that in the Bill as amended by the House of Lords we find a full admission of the principle of popular control. We find provisions which make it impossible for any denominational religious instruction to be given at the public expense. We find provisions which render Cowper-Temple teaching accessible to every child in all schools, and we find an arrangement with regard to what is commonly spoken of as "tests for teachers" which I do not gather is seriously objected to even by noble Lords opposite. I ask noble Lords opposite, are they justified in saying that a Bill containing all these provisions is a Bill which they cannot venture to recommend to the people of this country?
  We have now to consider what procedure should be followed in dealing with these Amendments. It is impossible for us to accept the greater part of the Amendments proposed by the noble Earl; and at this period of the session, and with the knowledge that there is no prospect of an agreement upon this great number of points, I venture to suggest to the House that we shall not gain anything by an attempt to go through these Amendments seriatim. I see, therefore, no alternative but that we should respectfully intimate our desire to insist upon our Amendments. I say again, such a Motion carried by this House must not be taken as implying that there are no points upon which it is impossible for us to come to an agreement; but I do say it must be taken as implying that, taking the Government Amendments as a whole, we cannot accept their proposals, or anything like their proposals, as the basis of a settlement. I confess that the argument of time has some weight with me, as it no doubt has with many of your Lordships; but I, for one, say that if I saw the slightest prospect of arriving at an amicable solution of this question I would gladly prolong the session into the next year, and far into the next year. But I can see no reason for taking that step unless we have in sight the possibility of coming to terms. These
  1382
  Amendments, I fear, hopelessly bar the way to such an arrangement; and therefore, with the most profound regret, I stand here to move the resolution the terms of which I have already mentioned—namely, "That this House do insist upon its Amendments."
  Moved, 'That this House do insist upon its Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.
  *THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, the House has listened to a very clear statement of the views of the noble Marquess and of the conclusion at which he has arrived—that it is necessary to remit the Bill to the House of Commons once more in the form in which your Lordships originally sent it down. I am in complete agreement with the noble Marquess as to everything he said about the private communications which have been passing between the different sides of the House during the last day or two. Neither he nor I need have alluded to them at all, but for the fact that they have become public property through what are known as "the usual channels of communication"; and although the statements which we have seen of the course of what I must not call a conference are not strictly accurate, yet they are sufficiently public property for us to have no hesitation in alluding to them here. The only inference that the public is entitled to draw is that the Amendments which I have placed upon the Paper do not satisfy noble Lords opposite, and from that fact it is not difficult to conclude what is actually required by them.
  These Amendments are to be rejected in globo, and the Bill is to be sent back to the House of Commons. I deliberately refrain from indulging in the rather obvious tu quoque that you are doing to the House of Commons what the House of Commons did to you. I think the noble Marquess made out, in the circumstances, a reasonable case for doing what he proposes to do. The alternative would be to take the Amendments seriatim; and there is no doubt, in view of the fact

  1383
  that it has been found impossible to come, I am afraid, even near to an agreement on more than one matter in the Bill, that course would involve a waste of time from which at this season of the year the mind naturally recoils. Therefore I am perfectly willing to believe that it is in an entirely businesslike spirit that your Lordships send the Bill back in this way, and although I admit that the circumstances were not identical, yet I assert that it was in a businesslike spirit that the House of Commons sent back the Amendments to your Lordships in globo.
  It is too much to expect that the Paper circulated in my name this morning can have been carefully studied by all of your Lordships. The form in which the Amendments are treated is difficult to follow for those who have not a perfect acquaintance with the Bill; and probably it will be in conformity with the wishes of the House if I state the general effect of the Amendments. But I desire to correct at once an error into which the noble Marquess seems to have fallen. He spoke of my "passing over" certain Amendments "in silence." It must be assumed that we concur in the retention of every Amendment as to which I do not move that your Lordships shall not insist upon it. I am sure the noble Marquess will not wish to misrepresent our attitude, but it obviously would not be fair to draw no distinction between Amendments of that kind and Amendments upon which we actually move the non-insistence. I am not going to run through the whole of the Bill, but there are one or two important subjects, rather than clauses, to which I desire to draw the attention of the House. As regards the Amendment of Clause 1, on the subject of religious instruction, it is perfectly true that we move to disagree with that Amendment. But at the same time I am bound to say that I do not think that the Amendment of itself would have offered an insuperable obstacle to an agreement between the two parties, or that it was impossible to find a form of words which in some degree might have met the wishes of noble Lords opposite without dictating to the local education authorities upon a matter in which, it is only right to remember, they have exercised an absolute discretion for the past thirty-six years.
  1384
  I pass to the facilities under Clause 3 I desire to deal with the points raised by the noble Marquess. It must always be remembered that we have never attempted to conceal the fact that one of the main principles of our Bill is that these schools should be undenominational schools as compared with Clause 4 schools. One difficulty that was raised is the difficulty attempted to be met by the Duke of Devonshire's Amendment. That Amendment, with regard to the taking over of schools for the purpose of Clause 3, left to the Commissioners complete discretion in saying that those schools must be taken over; but they were to be guided by the wishes of the parents with regard to the religious education of the children. In our opinion that went too far. We could not help seeing that, if the wishes of the parents were to be taken as paramount in this matter, there would in practically every case be a certain number of parents who would express a wish with regard to the religious education of their children, with the ultimate result that a very large number of schools which could just scrape through the ordeal of being pronounced structurally suitable would be forcibly taken over, although it could not be said that they were needed for the education of the district, in any other sense except that they supplied a denominational want.
  Consequently we proposed an alternative method for dealing with the matter. What we proposed was this—that where an order is made requiring the local education authority to give facilities, and the Commissioners are satisfield that the school is structurally suitable and is required or is likely to be required for providing a sufficient number of school places, then an order may be made. I draw particular attention to the words "is required or likely to be required." They are intended to meet a difficulty raised by the most rev. Primate. He said that there are towns in which there are a number of Church schools but also a number of council schools with a large proportion of vacant places. The school authorities, foreseeing the probability of the growth of their towns, built at one time schools with more places than were at the moment required; and if the local authority wanted to prevent these Church

  1385
  schools from being taken over as facility schools they might fill up the council schools with the children from the Church schools. That is a point which we felt might in fairness be met, and we thought that it would be reasonable on the part of the Commission to say to the local authority, "It is true you have these vacant places, but you have deliberately provided them with the idea of gradually filling them up as your town increases; it is not reasonable to extinguish these Church schools in order, so to speak, that you should fill your own up by a large windfall of children who only come on your hands through the operation of this Act; so we take into account your original purpose in making this excessive number of places, but we do not treat these places as being accommodation in the sense in which accommodation is ordinarily described; therefore these being good schools, we oblige you to take them over." In our opinion that was a substantial concession, and would have met a large proportion of those cases of denominational schools which did not come under Clause 4. Whether that would have met the views of the noble Duke I cannot say; but it is evident that it is one of the things which noble Lords opposite did not consider to be a sufficient concession, though in our opinion it was a very real one.
  Now I come to the vexed question of the teacher. I will read you the clause we propose about the teacher in these ordinary facility schools—
  "(2) The local education authority may, if they think fit, permit an assistant teacher to give any religious instruction of a special character not permitted under Section 14 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, in any school in which facilities for that instruction (although not extended facilities) are afforded under this Act, provided that the authority shall not give that permission in any school in a parish in a rural district which is the only public elementary school in the parish, except in cases where such a school provides accommodation for more than 250 children, and the authority think that the circumstances of the school justify the permission."
  Your Lordships will observe that the whole matter was left absolutely, as we were bound to leave it, to the discretion of the local authority, that only the assistant teacher could give the teaching, and that the smaller rural schools were to be ex-
  1386
  cluded. We did not, and do not, say that there is any magic about the number 250. We find that if the number 250 were left there are in England and Wales 410 large country schools that would get the benefit of the teaching of these assistant teachers. If 200 were taken as the limit—and I suppose we should not have lost the Bill for 200—altogether 765 schools would obtain the advantage of that teaching. If that is not a substantial concession, and one which we gave, I confess, with great searchings of heart, it seems to me to be very difficult to say what can be called a concession at all. Noble Lords opposite demand this privilege for all schools, of whatever size, both in town and country—that every teacher should be allowed to give the instruction, if he is willing, and that it should be a statutory obligation on the authority to allow it to be given. We thought that what the most rev. Primate and noble Lords asked for was that the facilities should be real in the sense that it should not be possible to say, "Here is a large urban school in which it is really a mockery to offer these facilities, because we cannot find volunteers to give it."
  The noble Marquess opposite said that the teachers demanded this permission. I think the noble Marquess is going far beyond the mark in making that assertion. No doubt a certain number of teachers demand it; but the statement has not been contradicted that among the whole body of teachers there is a majority who would prefer not to receive the privilege. The interest of the whole of this business to me consists in this fact: taken in conjunction with the previous Amendment it practically means that any Church school could demand to be taken over; it simply means that the majority of this House mean these Clause 3 schools to be absolutely denominational schools. You cannot get away from that fact; that is the absolutely unbridgable gulf that lies between noble Lords and ourselves, and it is one over which we have been, as is clear, unable to find any passage. After all the sole difference between these schools as noble Lords want to make them in the Bill and the schools as they are now, consists, on the one hand, that rent is paid for them by the authority and the

  1387
  authority undertakes the repairs, and on the other hand, they have to run the risk of not getting a Church teacher. If they do, there is apparently to be no difference in future in the conduct of the schools. All I can say is that this only shows how perfectly hopeless it was from the first to attempt to come to any agreement on this subject. To vote money for such a purpose as that is a deliberate mockery. To ask the local authority possibly to increase their rates, to ask the Exchequer for a grant of £1,000,000 in order to carry out a transaction of that kind, is nothing lesthan a farce.
  I come now to Clause 4. The noble Marquess spoke of the small number of schools under Clause 4 as we intended to leave them; but noble Lords opposite made them anything but exceptions. They made them almost the rule, and I think it cannot be disputed that even the Amendments I have placed on the Paper, some of which, in my opinion, go very far indeed, add largely to the number of these schools. What is the effect of these Amendments? We have altogether given up the restriction of the urban area, to say nothing about the 5,000 limit. We have tried as far as we could to meet the point about the small number of recalcitrant parents who could prevent a school from being made a Clause 4 school at all. On that point I should like to say a word. I am not sure that the noble Marquess did not himself fall into the error of saying that these parents could prevent the school from becoming a Clause 4 school. Ten parents could not demand to be accommodated in that particular school. Not only would the parents have to object to the teaching, but the local authority would have, even though accommodation existed elsewhere, deliberately to keep them there. That, of course, is a very different matter from saying that ten parents could spoil a Clause 4 school.
  Then we gave a prior right of admission to children belonging to the denomination—in my opinion a very real concession indeed. We gave the parents' committee, and as regards that committee we gave a concession of the most far-reaching character, and one which I am bound to say we should have found, in my belief, considerable difficulty in getting our
  1388
  supporters to accept. The provision to be inserted would read—
  "In every public elementary school in which extended facilities are afforded under this Act the local education authority shall appoint persons acceptable to the parents' committee to be teachers in the school, and for that purpose shall consult with the committee as to such appointment."
  If I am asked exactly how we reconcile the words of that clause with the general rule of "no tests for teachers," I confess that I am in a difficulty. I am bound to admit that it must be, owing to the very special circumstances, treated as an exception to that excellent rule. We gave an appeal to the parents against the refusal to institute a Clause 4 school or against a refusal to continue it. That, I think, disposes of the argument of the noble Marquess that we leave the word "may" instead of inserting the word "shall." If you give an appeal in each case it does not appear to be very important whether the word "may" or "shall" stands part of the Bill.
  We gave way on the number of four-fifths. I have placed the number three-fourths on the Paper, but I do not know that we would have lost the Bill over the question of three-fourths. But we did stand out, and we should stand out to the last, for the necessity that it should be a proportion of the whole number of parents, and not merely of those who go to the poll. The noble Marquess, owing to the point which I mentioned earlier, fell into an error as to the teacher being compelled to give religious teaching. He did not see the Amendment on the Paper. As a matter of fact it is not one of those Amendments with which I would ask your Lordships to disagree; and therefore I assume that the House will insist upon it, and therefore we must be taken as agreeing to the Amendment that the local education authority must permit the teachers employed in the school to give the teaching. In addition to that we gave the possibility of what I hope would be a complete system of inspection in all transferred schools, and we gave up, some of us unwillingly, the clause which made it not necessary for children to attend school during the hours of religious instruction.

  1389
  It is perfectly true we did not give way, and we never should have given way under any circumstances, on the absolute right to be taken over claimed by any structurally efficient voluntary school. We never could have given way to the demand of noble Lords opposite about the teachers. We could not give way—having made these denominational schools, as we think, so numerous and so liberally provided for—to any invasion of the council schools by denominational education. We were not prepared, and certainly never should have been prepared under any circumstances, to give way to what the noble Marquess (Lord Lansdowne) proposed—the absolutely indefinite multiplication of Clause 4 schools, including possibly some the smallest village schools in the country.
  And on the question of Wales, I can only say that noble Lords opposite treated our proposition with mere contempt. They altogether refused our invitation to make some counter-proposition with regard to what we did and do consider to be the fair claims of Wales to some separate sort of treatment in this matter; and consequently I am unable to agree with the insistence of the omission of the Welsh clause.
  This is how the matter stands. I have gone through all the principal Amendments, and I am content to leave it to the judgment of all moderate and reasonable people whether they do not represent a very large scale of concession indeed. There are, no doubt, a certain number of blind partisans and a certain number of amiable zealots who would accept nothing except that which appeared to them not merely reasonable but satisfying their own peculiar wishes. To such I make no kind of appeal. But I do appeal to the common sense of moderate people, both inside and outside this House, as to whether the concessions which I have indicated would not have formed a compromise acceptable to the vast majority of the people of this country. All I know is that in attempting to arrive at this conclusion we have strained the loyalty of many of our most valued supporters almost to the point of snapping. For all I know it has
  1390
  absolutely snapped in more than one case; I only hope it will be restored.
  I frankly confess that there is more concession in these Amendments than personally I like; but as a member of the Government I of course not merely accept but advance them, and I believe that is in the main the attitude of the Members of our Party. Many of them think we have gone too far in conceding so much, but they are prepared to accept it. But only on one condition—the only condition on which we could have gone so far as we have, and that is that it should be as part of a definite settlement and accepted as such by the Party opposite. I hope no noble Lord or right rev. Prelate is under the illusion that these concessions are, so to speak, thrown down on the floor of this House, to be picked up whenever the Party opposite may condescend to stoop for them. That, my Lords, would be a most serious illusion.
  One of the reasons why I specially regret the failure of this Bill is this. After all, my Lords, there is a tide in the affairs of Bills which, if you take it, may lead you into the habour, but if you do not take it the tide does not always recur. I am unwilling to prophesy in political matters, because there is nothing so dangerous; but I should be very much surprised if the time ever comes when either I myself or anybody else is found urging the claims of this identical Bill, including these Amendments of mine, in this place. I should be very sorry to prophesy that anybody in the immediate future would be found urging any Bill on this subject. All one can say is that these special proposals are gone and cleared away. As to the reappearance of any of them we can say nothing.
  It only remains for me to thank the House as a whole for the remarkable consideration which has been extended to me personally all through these debates and to thank my noble friends behind me, both official and unofficial, for the admirable measure of support which they gave me during the progress of the Bill. Noble Lords and right rev. Prelates have chosen war in this matter rather than peace. Your Lordships have chosen to open the sluice-gates and to

  1391
  let free the flood of sectarian unrest and religious passion. What that flood may destroy and sweep away in its course I am not going to attempt to predict. But I think it exceedingly likely that during the coming months a great many very harsh things will be said on both sides, and I am afraid some harsh things may be done. Our task is simply to administer as we may the existing law. But this I do say in conclusion, that we on this side of the House, and His Majesty's Government, whatever the consequences may be, deliberately refuse to accept one ounce of the burden of responsibility for the rejection of this measure. We leave the whole of it on the shoulders of noble Lords opposite and the right reverend Bench, who have chosen to wreck the Bill.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I am not going to follow the two eminent speakers who have addressed us into the particulars of the Amendments which now stand upon the Paper in connection with this Bill. Their speeches have been most lucid and have brought out the points upon which, to my great disappointment, agreement has been found impossible. Still less, of course, do I feel it to be appropriate to enter into the constitutional questions, if we may call them so, which have arisen as regards the relations of the two Houses and the action of each in this matter. I desire rather to say a few words about the general situation which has been brought about. Perhaps your Lordships will the more readily pardon me for doing so, as I was prevented, owing to circumstances over which I had no control, from being in your Lordships' House either on the Report stage or on the Third Reading of the Bill.
  I speak to-night with an intense feeling of disappointment. I had, I own, looked forward, I will not say confidently, but at least hopefully, to a different conclusion of our long discussions, a conclusion or settlement which must in any case have been a very hard one for the Church of England and for the workers in her schools, but which still, I trusted, might take such a form that we could accept it rather than let the intolerable, hateful strife go on.
  1392
  For such a solution, my Lords, I hoped against hope; and I have, in so far as in me lay, striven even to the point of putting to a test the confidence of some of my best friends, and this because I was, and am, profoundly convinced that, in view of the largest issues in English, life, it was desirable to secure such a settlement if only the conditions attainable should be such as to satisfy the principles of fairness and justice.
  Nothing can, my Lords, in the long run be gained by the removal of one grievance, great or small, merely to establish another, both greater in its range, and, as I think, heavier in its incidence. When this Bill was before us last August I was one of those who urged, contrary again, to the advice of not a few friends, that we ought to read it a second time, with the view of subsequently amending it, and that its ultimate fate ought to depend upon the acceptance by the Government, substantially and after joint discussion, of such Amendments as this House should deem to be essential. I did that in the interest of a possible settlement, notwithstanding that I deplored very much both details and principles that underlay the measure. From that time onwards, if I may refer to myself, I have striven, so far as I was concerned, to bring about some arrangement which would be honourable or, at least, tolerable, to all parties concerned.
  Until within these last few hours I was hopeful; but it has proved to be in vain; for unless the Government could have seen its way to meet us in what I am convinced are reasonable demands, on certain large and important questions, and, above all, on the question of teachers, we had better—I say it reluctantly—we had better, whatever the risks and disadvantages, have no Bill. A Bill, my Lords, marred by blemishes so grave could be no real settlement, and, therefore, ought not, as it seems to me, to have been in that form even desired by His Majesty's Government themselves. You cannot conduce to a settlement by removing grievances and disadvantages, acutely felt—whether reasonable or not is a matter of comparative indifference—but acutely felt by one section of the nation, on to the shoulders

  1393
  of another section of the nation which must feel and resent them not less acutely. That is one thing which, speaking for myself, though I am sure I may associate others with me, I have borne in mind throughout the whole of our debates and proposals. But that is not all.
  Quite apart from questions of grievance to teachers or contributors and donors, or to the denominations who have such large interests in the highest and deepest part of the work of our elementary schools, quite apart from all that, we have tried to keep before our eyes a clear vision of the purpose and aim of it all—the best upbringing of little children, the best upbuilding of their | character, the best furnishing, of them to be useful Christian citizens of a Christian land. To that result we have looked throughout, and to that practical end we have striven, in the proposals we have made and in the Amendments, which we have supported. We ask for no privilege or advantage for one section, or one denomination, over another. We want, and have pressed for, absolutely equal opportunities—subject, of course, to the ordinary conditions of our common life—to be open to all.
  What has the House of Lords done or tried to do by its Amendments? Never, it seems to me, was there a case in which wider misconception prevailed. I do no think the reason is very far to seek. The complexity, the technicality, the difficulty of this whole subject have daunted most people from even trying to follow in detail what has been done, More than nine men out of ten are at the mercy of the partisan speaker or writer who summarizes for them in his own airy way what he calls the gist or substance of what has happened. Something has been done during the last few days to diminish that difficulty, but the difficulty is there still. A prominent speaker in the House of Commons a few days ago began his speech, I think, somewhat as follows—
  "The Archbishop of Canterbury, in speaking at an earlier stage of this Bill, said that he and his friends did not propose to make or to support wrecking Amendments,"
  and he went on—
  "Now everybody knows what has happened since."
  1394
  My Lords, that is exactly what I think is not the case. Everybody does not know what has happened since; because it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at it without a far more prolonged and careful study than, I will not say one man out of ten, but one man out of a hundred will give to a matter so intricate as this is. I ask your Lordships to judge by your own experience of intercourse with friends in Parliament or out of it, and to say whether you have not found that a very large proportion of these people honestly confess that they have not been able to follow the matter in detail. That is the case; and I have looked back—on the suggestion of the speech, perhaps to which I have referred—to my own words on the Second Reading of this Bill in order to see whether during these long discussions one has inadvertently, in the course of the controversy, drifted away from the position one originally held and has become either stiffer or less reasonable than one tried to be at the outset. I have found nothing of the sort.
  I apologise for referring to a speech of my own, but it was a speech to which a great deal of friendly reference was made by supporters of the Bill at the time it was delivered. At that time I endeavoured to say quite frankly what were the large lines upon which, as it seemed to me, it would be necessary to amend this Bill if it were ultimately to prove a measure, I will not say acceptable, but even tolerable to those whom it affected. I asked that we should have some security that every Christian parent sending his child to an elementary school might count upon—not hope for it, but count upon it—that in the school curriculum some opportunity would be given for religious teaching. That has not been acceded to by his Majesty's Government, although we have heard words to-night which tell us that it might not have been impossible to have gained that point.
  Then—perhaps the most important point of all—I pressed that if those facilities in transferred schools on which rightly so much stress was laid by the Government were to be a reality, at all events in our larger schools, it was essential that the teacher who should volunteer to do so should be allowed to give the teaching where it could be

  1395
  done consistently with the general working and management of the school. Were that not done, I said then, and I feel it as strongly still, that the offer of facilities for denominational teaching would, in our larger schools at least, become almost a matter of empty form.
  In the speech of the noble Earl to which we have just listened I was surprised to hear him say that, if the teachers had been allowed thus to volunteer, the transferred schools would practically have been almost exactly the same as they are now. That seems to me to be an example of a misconception and misunderstanding which has throughout the discussion underlain a great deal of what has been said by the supporters of this measure. They have failed to realise how extensive, how far-reaching, how terribly severe is the sweep that is made of the character which has belonged hitherto to our elementary schools under the management of those who have hitherto had control of them.
  What becomes of the appointment of the teachers? That is taken away from us in any case. The whole management of the school in its ordinary daily work is taken away from us in any case. The "facilities" are to extend to two days only, and the lack of elasticity that would result as regards the ordinary working of religious teaching is evident at once to anyone who is an expert in school management. Please recollect, my Lords, that I am not objecting to these changes; we accepted them, we have agreed to them. But to tell us now that to allow the teacher to give the teaching in these schools two days a week when he volunteers to do it, and it is convenient to the rest of the management of the school—to tell us that this is to leave the school exactly as it now is, is to misconceive the whole effect of the Bill.
  Further, in the speech alluded to, I urged that in the special schools arranged for under Clause 4 the arrangements should not be fettered by such conditions as should make their attainment or their permanence in many cases practically impossible. To some extent, I fully admit, the noble Earl and his colleagues have gone some way to meet us; but there remain
  1396
  a number of difficulties of that sort which I confess would, in my judgment, reduce to a very small number indeed the schools under Church of England management which would have been able to find their place under Clause 4.
  Then, further, if you enact, as you do—and I am not complaining of it, on the contrary I welcome it—that every parent in England shall have within his reach the opportunity of sending his children to a school in which the teaching shall be of the simpler kind which he may desire, there does seem to be, if you transform the character of the existing schools in order to bring that about, a corresponding responsibility on the other side to endeavour in some way or other to meet the difficulty which will arise and grow to an intensity not yet adequately realised, the intensity of feeling of wrong and loss on the part of the parents equally keen and earnest on the other side, who will have no corresponding opportunity for their children in districts in which there are council schools and nothing else.
  These, together with some reasonable security that a fit denominational school should be able to count on being taken over, were the proposals I tried to foreshadow as those which I should support. Will any fair man say these were wrecking proposals? They were within the four corners of the Bill in every sense of the word. They were not wrecking Amendments in any way that that word can be properly applied. They do not lie outside the principles of the Bill. These form the substance of the Amendments we tried to make. In a measure so long, so complex, and dealing with such a mass of administrative details, there were a great many other things needing consideration and suggesting Amendment, and needing it all the more because very many of them had never been discussed in the other House of Parliament at all. We did think it right—I thought it respectful in every sense to the House of Commons—that we should go through those parts of the Bill carefully; and I think the Government recognised that we were right in so doing by themselves placing on the Paper no small number of the Amendments with which it was sent

  1397
  down to the other House for consideration there.
  It may possibly interest your Lordships to know what were the sources from which the various Amendments emanated which found a place in the Bill as it went down. As I reckon them there were eighty-three Amendments in the Bill, leaving aside drafting or purely consequential Amendments, which were forty three in number. Of these Amendments the noble Earl the Lord President was responsible for nearly one-third—that is to say, twenty-six out of eighty-three; and, taking in the drafting Amendments, he was responsible for almost one-half. The front Opposition bench was responsible for.twenty, independent Opposition peers for twenty-two, Roman Catholic peers for seven, the Episcopal bench for seven, most of which, I think, have been accepted by the Government, and one Amendment emanated from an independent peer on the Ministerial side. Thus the Government were responsible for 31 per cent. of the Amendments, apart altogether from thirty-seven other drafting Amendments which were carried on the Motion of Lord Crewe.
  It is constantly said outside the House, and not infrequently in both Houses, that the Amendments we introduced were contrary to the principles for which the country declared at the general election. These principles were two, and two only—the principle of full popular control and the principle of the freedom of teachers as such from tests. If it can be shown that any one of our Amendments really directly traverses either the one or the other of those two principles I, at least, should not be prepared to support that Amendment. But there are, of course, many different ways of giving effect to those two principles, and of necessity no declaration was given to the country before the general election as to how this thing was going to be done, and I urge that it is completely misleading for anybody to say that this Bill as it stood ever had the imprimatur of the constituencies of England.
  I do not want to dwell again on the principle of no tests for teachers. I think we have all accepted that, and I have only striven
  1398
  to draw attention to the distinction, which is constantly overlooked, between the appointment of a teacher as an once of a school and the appointment of a man who is to give religious teaching. As regards the former, I am prepared to admit that no test shall be imposed; but as regards the assigning to a man or woman the duty of giving religious teaching, I am literally unable to understand the position of those who say that those responsbile for the choosing of the person to give that teaching should be prohibited from finding out the qualifications of those who are to give it.
  I turn to the principle of full popular control. Surely there is a field for the widest possible misunderstanding as to the meaning of the words, and a wholly novel claim as to what they really mean has been authoritatively put forward within the last few days by no less a person than the Minister for Education. He said in the House of Commons last Monday—
  "In all those thickly-populated districts, those places where the mind of England is made up, those bodies"—
  (he was speaking of county, city, and borough councils—)
  "have become infected with a lofty ambition. They are determined to municipalise education from top to bottom; to get hold of complete control over all the machinery of education from the infant school to the University."
  If these words are taken literally they would imply that Eton was to be under the control of the County Council of Bucks, Harrow under the County Council of Middlesex, and Liverpool University under the control of the council of the borough. I do not suppose that the words were literally intended; but they seem to me to describe a demand on the part of the local education authority which, if it was ever made, and I have never heard any authority make it, is so startling, so novel, that I desire to call attention to it now. It seems to me to ignore in the very strangest way the place of the chief paymaster in the schools, which is the State as represented by the Houses of Parliament. Has the country ever asked that such complete autocracy, such complete omnipotence shall be placed in the hands of the local education authority without

  1399
  control by Parliament as regards any of the details?
  But let us suppose that you do recognise that claim. I ask, do you, as a matter of fact, try to grant it? You do nothing of the sort. Under the Bill and under previous legislation these authorities are absolutely prohibited from exercising the freedom claimed for them except in one direction. On the one side is a barbed wire fence of the closest sort. On the other is the open country into which they can go as far as they will. The barbed wire side is that which may seem to lead to denominational teaching of any kind, direct or indirect. The other is the direction which may lead the school away from religious teaching altogether. In that direction they are left perfectly free. Under the Cowper-Temple clause they may grant no facilities for any form of religious teaching save one, and in the transferred schools, which you are now placing under them, there is to be no power on their part to allow the head teacher to give the special teaching, and no power in a rural area to allow any teacher to give it at all. I am not asking at this moment whether it is a right decision or a wrong one, but I put it alongside the claim which is made for autocracy on the part of the local authority. Is that carrying out the definition laid down by Mr. Birrell? Is that real liberty? To claim it as the giving of absolute freedom to the municipalities seems to me unmeaning.
  Every year there is published by the Education Office the Code for that year. It has the force of an Act of Parliament, and it bristles at every turn with restrictions on the local authority. That does not correspond with the claim which is being made so loudly that the local education authority must be absolutely free. Every public elementary school serves a national as well as a local purpose, and the State is the chief paymaster, and I maintain that the nation in Parliament has the right to lay down the leading principles of educational policy to which the local authority ought to conform. That most local education authorities welcome such guidance I am certain. I yield to no one in my admiration for the way in which
  1400
  most of our local authorities, many of them recently under quite extraordinary difficulties, have done their work, and I do not think we shall conduce to that; work being better done by following the lines which the Minister of Education suggested.
  This question of the teacher, on which so much turns, is not a, detail but part of a very big principle. You make that, vital question upon which will depend the efficiency or inefficiency of your "Clause 3" facilities depend altogether on the discretion of the local education authorities. There is nothing to prevent any municipal authority from saying—"We intend that there shall be no teacher here giving the facilities teaching under Clause 3." They may do so from no malice prepense but simply from the utterly mistaken idea that by so refusing they will be avoiding worry and strife. They may say simply—" We do not desire that any teacher under our control shall give that teaching;" and the moment that is said your facilities, on which you rest your claim to have acted fairly towards Church schools, are swept away and gone for all practical purposes.
  No educational system is truly representative of our national life unless if regards within due limits the claim of (1) the nation, (2) the locality, (3) the parent, and (4) the Christian community to which the parents belong. Our business as legislators is to assign to each, of these its proper weight and influence, and any attempted solution which ignores the claim of anyone of them is foredoomed to failure. This year the English people have come to realise, as I think they never did before, the complexity and difficulty of this problem. I think the Bill fails to realise that, fails certainly to recognise the depth of the attachment felt by hundreds of thousands of families to schools carried on with, I think, universal approval in close association with a great religious body.
  The Bill proposes through a false idea of freedom to impose on thousands of teachers an intolerable restraint in their teaching of religion. The Bill ignores the conviction of a vast majority of Englishmen and women that (with due

  1401
  protection of conscience, on which we all insist) religious teaching ought to form part of the regular work in school hours of every elementary school. I admit that after your Lordships had amended the Bill so as to bring that teaching within school hours the Government have not asked for that Amendment to be struck out; but as the Bill came to this House it omitted that large and vital principle in the carrying on of religious education. During these long discussions that great principle has stood out more clearly than before.
  Deeply do I regret our failure to reach an agreement on matters of such vital importance to our national life. The earnest effort which certainly very many of us had made to secure an educational settlement has to my intense sorrow proved ineffective. I do most strongly protest against the words spoken by my noble friend the Lord President of the Council when he said that we had chosen war rather than peace. Those words were for him strangely unfair. I desire with all my heart peace rather than war.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I think I ought to state that those words had no personal application to the most rev. Primate. Quite the contrary.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I accept my noble friend's assurance. I think, however, that there are occasions on which there are more important issues even than peace. A great utterance was made by one of the most conspicuous men now alive a week or two ago—the President of the United States. In his message he used these words—
  "Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness; but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual."
  I think those words have a profound significance in the present controversy if by righteousness we mean, as I should mean, the principles of fairness and of justice to those who have laboured long and hard in a cause which has been nearer to their hearts than any other thing on earth.
  1402
  I should like to end with a word of hope. Something, I think, has been gained. People think about this more than they did; and, so thinking, we are being led, as I believe—not now, I know not when—to a solution which shall be larger and more true than this attempted solution would have been had we attained it. To such a solution I think we shall some day come, a solution which shall wound no conscience, which shall meet the convictions of different sections of the community, and shall promote the religious unity of the nation—I earnestly hope that day may not be far off—by granting a full measure of religious freedom in our educational life.
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I ask leave to address to the House a very few words. I have no intention of attempting to follow my noble friend behind me or the noble Earl opposite in the numerous details of this measure; still less have I any intention of following the most rev. Primate into the far wider considerations which he has introduced in the eloquent speech to which we have just listened.
  I rise solely for the purpose of making one or two observations on a much smaller point, and to say why to my very great regret I feel myself unable to concur in the course which has been recommended to us to-night on this side of the House. My noble friend referred to certain communications which it is in the knowledge of every one have been in progress during the last few days, and enumerated a very large number of subjects on which an agreement had not been arrived at and a large number of points which remained in the Bill untouched by the Amendments of the Government, to which he took strong exception. But I did not understand my noble friend to say that on any of those points but one had it been found that it was impossible that an agreement should be arrived at. I did not understand him to say that all of them had even been discussed, and I certainly.did not understand from him that it had been found that on any large number an agreement was absolutely impossible.

  1403
  It has been stated in the Press, and I think the statement of my noble friend tended to corroborate that statement, that there was one point on which agreement has been found to be absolutely impossible, and that disagreement on that one point has been so pronounced and distinct that it was useless to waste time on going into a further examination of the other points to which my noble friend referred. If that statement is correct, or has any approach to correctness, it is against the severance of communications or rupture of negotiations that I desire to protest. In my opinion a very sharp distinction exists and ought to be drawn between those provisions of the Bill which relate to the transfer of schools, such provisions as are contained in Clauses 2 and, I think, 10, 11, and 12, and those which relate to the future management of the schools which are transferred.
  As the Bill reached us it would have been entirely within the option of the local authority whether certain voluntary schools should or should not be transferred at all, and the schools which had to been taken over by the local authority would by a certain date have ceased to exist and would never have been resuscitated and would have been replaced by schools provided by the local authority. On this point we have secured very considerable concessions from the Government. We have secured that every existing voluntary school, whether it is a school for which Clause 3 or Clause 4 facilities are desired, should have an appeal from the decision of the local authority to the Commission to be appointed under the Bill, the fairness and impartiality of which have been universally recognised. I would not say that the conditions of that appeal are entirely satisfactory or entirely adequate for the protection of all existing voluntary schools; but I did not understand that upon that point the last word of the Government had been spoken, or that upon that point, or anything approaching that point, communications broke down.
  The provisions relating to the future management of transferred schools seem to me to belong to a very different category. Of the highest importance as
  1404
  some of those provisions are, they are not and cannot by their nature be of a final character, and their effect and operation can only be tested by experience of their working. Under these circumstances, they must be to a large extent, certainly to some extent, subject to future revision by Parliament. I cannot altogether agree with what fell from the Lord President of the Council when he said that if the compromise proposed by the Government had been found to be practicable, it would only have been on condition that the Bill should be taken as an agreed Bill, by which I imagine he intended that this should be a complete and final settlement of the whole question.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I think that perhaps I ought to correct the noble Duke. What I intended by that phrase was that the Opposition should be willing to drop all their substantial Amendments in consideration of the concessions offered by this side of the House.
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: The Opposition might have dropped their Amendments, and, if a compromise had been arrived at, they would have done so. But it was not for noble Lords opposite, nor upon this side, nor within the power of this Parliament, to secure that any agreement or compromise which might be arrived at in the present session should necessarily become a permanent or a final settlement. If the rumour to which I have referred that it was on the point of the teachers in the Clause 3 schools that this suggested compromise finally broke down is true, then I say that is a point which eminently comes within the category of the second class of provisions to which I have referred. That was a provision relating to the future management of these schools, and, in my opinion, it is one of those provisions which would most probably have come up very shortly for review in another session of Parliament. I believe that both the original arrangement, and the amended arrangement proposed by the Government would have been found unsatisfactory, and in many cases so unworkable that the local authorities and the teachers themselves would have been the first to require some alteration and amendment of the clause. Therefore

  1405
  I say that insistence upon the special form of this clause was not a point on which I should have considered it necessary to impose a summary conclusion to the negotiations.
  But, be that as it may, I admit I am so impressed by the prospect of uncertainty and doubt over the future of our voluntary schools—and, indeed, over the possibility of the effective continuance of real religious teaching in our elementary schools at all in the future—thatpersonally I should have been inclined to make almost any concession in provisions which were not of an irrevocable character rather than relegate the decision of this question to another session of the present Parliament or the next which would have to deal with this subject. But I know very well the difficulties which my noble friends behind me would have had in dealing with their supporters in either House of Parliament, and, perhaps still more, in the country if they had been disposed to take my view. Considering the enormous importance which has been attached throughout these discussions to these special provisions respecting the teachers, I know it would have been very difficult for them to have made any concession or shown any sign of yielding upon this point. I have received, as no doubt your Lordships have, a vast number of letters, memorials, and representations upon this subject; and I acknowledge that not one out of ten—I should say nearer, not one in a hundred has been in the direction of conciliation, but rather in the direction of refusing any concession. I am, however, not at all certain that after a very short time has elapsed, when these more or less irresponsible advisers have had greater experience of the results which will follow the loss of this Bill, they may not regret that they have not allowed their representatives in this House a freer hand and a larger discretion. But great as the difficulties have been, none the less I feel myself obliged to raise this protest, unavailing and ineffectual as I know it to be, and belated as I am afraid I must confess it, against the decision which has been arrived at to stop communications, with the possibility of compromise upon other points, upon this solitary question of the teachers.
  1406
  I do not know whether we shall ever see another Education Bill in this Parliament. If we should, I trust we shall be able to approach it with a clearer perception of the great and marked distinction, to which I have called attention, between those provisions which must necessarily be permanent and irrevocable, and those other provisions which can be subjected to revision in the light of experience. Before I sit down I should like to say how fully and entirely I concur in some of the words uttered by the most rev. Primate towards the conclusion of his speech. I feel, as he feels, the amount of mischief which has been done by the large use that has been made, with imperfect consideration, of the enunciation of great principles. Almost every question that has been raised has been referred to such principles as that of public control, of no tests for teachers, and of the rights of parents. These are principles to which all of us are able to give a qualified acceptance; but, unfortunately, in enunciating those principles we all of us attach to them a totally different significance.
  In my opinion, our educational system never has been founded upon any great, wide, and generally-accepted principles. I doubt very much whether it ever will be. If this Bill had been passed, either in the form in which it was originally introduced or as amended by this House, it certainly would not have conformed to any of the principles which have been laid down. I wish we could have been more unprincipled. If we could only have recognised this Bill as merely a set of regulations, a set of practical, perhaps even they might be called empirical regulations, for the future management of our public elementary schools, if we could have concentrated our attention on whether those regulations were consistent with the efficiency of education and with a sense of justice on the part of all parties concerned, and omitted all consideration of principles, I think it would have been possible to have made greater progress. I hope we shall hear less about principles and more about those practical regulations of which an Education Bill must always ultimately consist.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I think your Lordships will sympathise with me when I say that I am as sorry to find myself in opposition to the noble Duke who has just sat down as he was to find himself in opposition to my noble friend behind me. I rise mainly to say this, that, not being a Party man—
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh, oh!
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I think I may frankly say I am not a Party man. I have been drummed out of the Party. At any rate, I ask your Lordships to believe that in all I have said in this matter I have been entirely free from Party. I have simply regarded it as an educationist, and as one wishing for fair play and justice for the voluntary schools. I must really ask the House and the public to believe that in this matter I am not animated by Party; and I claim that this House has not been animated by Party. It is not fair to say that the action which has been taken by the Opposition leaders has been taken under the influence of any single individual, however powerful. Each Member on this side of the House has had a full opportunity of expressing his opinion, and it is almost a unanimous opinion at which we have arrived. I may say this, in reply to my noble friend who has just sat down, that, if his view had been taken, and if the Amendment with regard to the teachers had not been pressed, I should not have hesitated to take the same course which he has taken in the opposite sense, and I should have come forward and said that I did not see my way to agree with those who had come to the conclusion that the Bill could be passed without that Amendment.
  The Amendment with regard to the teachers, though my noble friend does not attach the greatest importance to it, seems to me to be absolutely of the essence of the case. No one could have listened to the most rev. Primate without seeing how certain that is. It lies at the bottom of the whole case. In his very ingenious argument, to which I listened with great interest, my noble friend made a distinction between Amendments dealing with the future and those dealing with the present. The noble Duke would have
  1408
  concentrated all the necessary influence upon securing Amendments which would ensure voluntary schools being taken over, because that was a matter of present interest. If I understood him rightly, he would have postponed all that related to the future management of the schools. If that had been done, what would have happened in the interval? All the teaching by the existing teachers would have been stopped, the whole of the religious instruction would have got out of gear, and the whole of the present generation of children would have been deprived, or might have been deprived, of the instruction which they now enjoy. Would that have been a solution? Would that have been a condition of things which could have been contemplated with equanimity? From the very commencement it has always been certain that the point on which it was absolutely necessary to insist was that existing teachers should be allowed to continue to teach.
  Nothing could be more extraordinary than the contention of the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council that the Clause 3 schools would, with your Lordships' Amendments, have become denominational schools. Let noble Lords remember that the management would be entirely different. No stress has been laid upon the fact that three of the managers would have been appointed by the local authority and three by the minor local authority. Therefore the whole of the management would lie in hands that might, if I may say so, be manipulated in order to prevent the leave being given to the teachers. That is a point which I do not think has been sufficiently insisted upon. At this stage, however, I do not wish to go into details, but I demur from the main point in my noble friend's speech that the teachers' question was the only point at issue. It was not the only point. My noble friend is misinformed if he imagines that with the teachers' question settled all other differences would have been settled. I have not been present at the conferences to which allusion has been made, but I have heard a great deal about them, and I believe it is acknowledged by the Lord President of the Council himself and by his friends that

  1409
  the chasm was much wider than the one created by the question of the teachers. I am certain that no member of His Majesty's Government will get up and say that there was a prospect of settlement in this matter if the question of the teachers had not been pressed. It is o supreme importance that no mistake of that kind should be made in the country, and that it should be known that the question of teachers was not the only one at issue.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: As the noble Viscount has asked that Question, I have no hesitation in saying that from the moment the negotiations began I had not the faintest expectation that they would meet with any success.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: Ah! The noble Earl knew the minds of his colleagues. We now see the spirit in which they approached the conference.
  *THE EARL OF CKEWE: I cannot allow that statement to pass. It was the attitude of noble Lords opposite very early in the negotiations that made me come to that conclusion.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: It was the attitude of the noble Earl and his friends which very early in that conference gave to noble Lords on this side of the House the conviction that it was perfectly useless to hope for agreement. [Cheers, and Ministerial cries of "Divide," and Opposition cries of "Order."]
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I would ask my noble friends behind me not to interrupt the noble Viscount. He is a man so distinguished that he is entitled to be heard with respect and in silence by your Lordships.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I do not claim a hearing on any personal grounds, but I really think this is a very serious matter and one of extreme importance. I maintain, and my noble friend opposite has not contradicted me, that it was not only on the teachers' question that difference existed. I do not think the noble Duke would have been entitled to say, even if that were the case, that the negotiations ought to have been carried on;
  1410
  but I maintain that the chasm was much wider and that no efforts on the part of noble Lords on this side of the House could have produced a settlement acceptable in view of the attitude taken by His Majesty's Government. I give the Government credit for wishing to give more, but their supporters would not let them.
  I will not intrude any further observations upon the House except to say this, that there has been in the House of Commons and in a certain portion of the Press a tone of menace with reference to Church schools which I greatly deplore. It has not found much expression in the courteous speeches of the Lord President of the Council, but in the concluding words of the noble Earl I did detect a tone of menace when he said that no doubt harsh things would be done. What does that mean? One cannot read much, perhaps, into those five simple words; but when one sees that it has been said out of doors that by administrative action pressure is to be brought on the schools in order to secure by administration that which Parliament will not grant, then I think those words derive some significance. Surely it cannot be the intention of His Majesty's Government to say that by administrative action they will do, because of the rejection of this Bill, what otherwise they would not have thought it necessary to do; that because of the rejection of this Bill they will put such penal pressure on voluntary schools that those schools will be squeezed out. I want to know: Is sectarian animosity to be enthroned in the Board of Education in order to carry out the views of a Parliamentary majority? However that may be, the Church and the denominations must face the difficulty and must look those threats in the face. The Church, at all events for the present, retains its 12,000 schools, and it will be the business of the Church, by increased exertion, by increased enthusiasm, and by increased sacrifices, if necessary, to see that she keeps the same position of respect and confidence which she has established in the country, so that when fresh attacks come it will be found that the Church has not been asleep, but has lone its utmost, in these troublous times,

  1411
  to maintain the schools which have been founded by the exertions of the past, and which will be continued by similar exertions in the future.
  THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: I do not wish to detain the House for more than two minutes. I should be very sorry, however, if the debate closed without my expressing the sincere feeling of myself and those who share my religious views, that undoubtedly the Government have taken a very great step towards meeting our wishes in the Amendment which they have put down upon the Paper with regard to the appointment of teachers. I cannot say that it is absolutely satisfactory, because it hardly safeguards the question of the religious teaching upon which we feel so keenly; but I do appreciate the fact that the Government have made a very distinct effort to meet our wishes. I think that my co-religionists would be disappointed and sorry if I did not publicly express that feeling. At the same time I do most sincerely regret that, while they have given that boon to those interested in Clause 4 schools, they have not seen their way to go still further, and remove the barriers in the way of entering under Clause 8. I am bound to say that it was distinctly disappointing to find, on looking through the Amendments of the noble Earl the President of the Council, that that matter had not been dealt with. I admit that on the fraction question the Government has shown that it is prepared to give something, but it is only a small part of what is really required. On the two Amendments of Lord Lansdowne and Lord Crewe the attitude of the House has been equally rigid. The first one was with regard to the number of those voting. This put nearly one-fifth of our schools in instant and serious jeopardy. The Amendment of Lord Lansdowne, which was negatived, the House preferring that of Lord Crewe, would have made it possible at any time when there was no school available of the character required, for any two or three parents, who had among them ten children, entirely to destroy all our facilities with regard to Clause 4 schools. With regard to future schools that is a question of enormous importance.
  1412
  By the Amendments carried in this House it was rendered impossible to have any fore-knowledge in building a school whether the money would be lost or whether the school would be taken over. Those points make us feel that our view as to Clause 4 being an illusory boon have been justified to the end. It is unnecessary for me to dilate upon this point, because the noble Lord has told us to-night that it is intended that these facility schools are to be exceptions. Surely, when he said that, he must have known that his invitation to us to carry such a Bill could not be accepted, and that those who belong to the religious body to which I belong must have felt it an intolerable strain. Since the Act of 1870 we have never handed over one single school to the school boards of the country. That has been our determination in the past, and we are not likely to accept any Bill which clearly fore-dooms many of our schools to extinction. The noble Earl ended his speech with a remark which seemed to come very strangely from him, after all that we have heard. I could not use the word "threatening" to anything which fell from the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council, but there was a sinister warning in what he said. If he meant that we are to have a hard time of it, I can only say that we have had a hard time during the last sixty years. We base our claim merely upon justice, and we ask for nothing for ourselves that we do not claim for every other parent in the country; and if we are to be treated with some severity because we have adhered to what we believe to be our duty to the religious well-being of the community, we do believe and trust that our countrymen in the future will remedy this, and that ultimately our claims will be satisfied.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I cannot but regret that my noble friend Viscount Goschen should have indulged in a very unnecessary sneer at my noble friend the Lord President.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I am sure that anything like a sneer was entirely absent from my intention, and I cannot

  1413
  imagine that what I said could be taken in that spirit.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: There is certainly some distance between my noble friend and myself, but what he said sounded exceedingly like a sneer. I am convinced that all concerned in the communications in which we have recently been engaged were animated by a sincere desire to come to a satisfactory conclusion. That desire was equally sincere on both sides. The question was a very difficult one and involved a great number of considerations, and perhaps it is not very surprising—though it is very lamentable—that they did not result in something more satisfactory than what has come about. But I cannot for a moment doubt the good faith of those who met together upon that occasion. The most rev. Prelate, at the conclusion of his eloquent speech, indulged in a hope that this question would shortly be solved—apparently, in the space of a few months or, at all events, a few years. I am afraid I cannot share that feeling of the most rev. Prelate—I wish I could. I feel penetrated with a very sincere and deep regret that this Bill is to be destroyed. No Bill is perfect and no Bill that will ever either House of Parliament will not be open to question and criticism. But the question is, as it seems to me. What lies before you if you reject this Bill? I say if you reject this Bill—I do not mean by "if" that I have the smallest doubt that this Bill will be now rejected—but if this Bill is rejected, I think you should ask yourselves, more than you appear to have done, what is to be the result. The noble Duke who was sitting on the Cross Benches (the Duke of Devonshire) is, I think, the only person who in the course of this debate has grappled with that question, and really shown that the most important point of all is, What is the future that will be left to us? That, my Lords, is the subject to which I desire to address the few words that I shall speak to your Lordships to-night. This Bill being rejected, the country is sent back to the condition created by the Act of 1902. I can conceive
  1414
  nothing more unfortunate, for the cause of education in all its branches, than that we should be forced to return, for any period, to conduct the educational administration of the country under the Act of 1902. Your Lordships do not seem to me to realise the position in which His Majesty's Government found themselves when they came into office. I think I touched upon that point in words which I ventured to address to your Lordships at the conclusion of the debate on Second Reading. We found ourselves in a position not of our creating and not brought about by our acts but created by our opponents—a position which had led to the gravest difficulties—difficulties so grave that your Lordships seemed to agree at least that something ought to be done in the matter. You say you have accepted the principle of public control, and you have intimated, in words, a willingness, in some form, or other, to accept the principle of no tests for teachers; therefore you have admitted that the position created by the Act of 1902, and the general election which followed it, has been such as to need large and important alterations in the present state of affairs. But, my Lords, if you reject this Bill, do you think you will be hereafter able to settle the difficulties under which we now suffer more easily than you can do now? Do the noble Lords who support denominational education believe that they will get again the terms that they might have had under this Bill? In saying that, I beg your Lordships to understand that I am making nothing in the nature of a threat—I have had too long an experience in this House not to know that the very worst thing in argument is to indulge in a threat—I have too much respect for your Lordships to do anything of that kind. But I do fool that I should be wanting in the performance of my duty, not only to the Government but to your Lordships' House, if I did not venture to raise a warning voice upon this measure. My noble friend (the Duke of Norfolk) spoke, I was glad to hear, with some acceptance of the change which we offered to make in Clause 4.
  THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: I am afraid that my remarks were limited to only one proposed change.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: Well, my noble friend is, I know, very difficult to please in this matter. But, my Lords, I must really tell my noble friend that I have the most earnest conviction that nothing more than Clause 4, as it would have been amended under our late arrangements, could be obtained at the present time. And, if you are going to reject this Bill in the hope that you will get something better for denominational schools some years hence, may I be forgiven for saying that that is pure gambling. I do not believe you will get anything more; on the contrary, though I should deeply regret it, I fear you are likely to get, not more, but less. Look at the situation which will be created when this Bill has been thrown out. You send us back to the state of things which exists at the present moment; we shall have all over again, particularly since the decision in the West Riding appeal, the passive resisters; we shall have infinite administrative difficulties; we shall have greater difficulties still with both county and borough councils; we shall have a continuance—aye, and perhaps an aggravation, of that agitation which the Act of 1902 created. Do not
  let your Lordships think that those who are the standing opponents of the Act of 1902, and of all that it created, will be quiet. You will have a renewal of agitation dangerous to the interests of education; you will have a renewal, aye, and an aggravation of the state of things which led to the introduction of this Bill.
  That, my Lords, is the argument which I feel bound to address to your Lordships to-night because, for that state of things, the responsibility must rest upon those who have—I have no doubt in perfect honesty—rejected the measure because it has not satisfied them in certain respects. I have, all my life, been a practical politician, and I have all my life thought it was political wisdom—perhaps I might say that it was statesmanship—to take what you can get in the circumstances of the case. My Lords, it seems to me that you are more likely to get less than more now that this Bill has gone; and it is to me, I honestly admit, a source of the very deepest regret that this measure should fail.
  On Question, "That this House do insist on its Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 132; Not-contents, 52.

  CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, L. Abp.

  Devon, E.

  Churchill, V. [Teller.]

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

  Cross, V.

  Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

  Falkland, V.

  Bedford, D.

  Feversham, E.

  Goschen, V.

  Newcastle, D.

  Gainsborough, E.

  Halifax, V.

  Northumberland, D.

  Haddington, E.

  Hardinge, V.

  Portland, D.

  Hardwicke, E.

  Hill, V.

  Rutland, D.

  Harrowby, E.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Wellington, D.

  Lauderdale, E.

  Lindsey, E.

  Iveagh, V.

  Bristol, M.

  Lonsdale, E.

  Knutsford, V.

  Cholmondeley, M.

  Malmesbury, E.

  Llandaff, V.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Mayo, E.

  St. Aldwyn, V.

  Salisbury, M.

  Morley, E.

  Morton, E.

  Chester, L. Bp.

  Albemarle, E.

  Mount Edgcumbe, E.

  Chichester, L. Bp.

  Camperdown, E.

  Nelson, E.

  London, L. Bp.

  Carnwath, E.

  Plymouth, E.

  Norwich, L. Bp.

  Cathcart, E.

  Radnor, E.

  Oxford, L. Bp.

  Cawdor, E.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Peterborough, L. Bp.

  Clarendon, E.

  Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

  St. Albans, L. Bp.

  Darnley, E.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Salisbury, L. Bp.

  Dartrey, E.

  Verulam, E.

  Denbigh, E.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Abinger, L.

  Derby, E.

  Wicklow, E.

  Addington, L.

  Allerton, L.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  North, L.

  Ardilaun, L.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Ashbourne, L.

  Emly, L.

  Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

  Atkinson, L.

  Faber, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Avebury, L.

  Forester, L.

  Robertson, L.

  Balfour, L.

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Rothschild, L.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Glenesk, L.

  St. Oswald, L.

  Barnard, L.

  Grenfell, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Barrymore, L.

  Hastings, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Hothfield, L.

  Seaton, L.

  Borthwick, L.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Braye, L.

  Lawrence, L.

  Stalbridge, L.

  Brougham and Vaux, L.

  Leigh, L.

  Stanmore, L.

  Burton, L.

  Lovat, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Ludlow, L.

  Clinton, L.

  Macnaghten, L.

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntley.)

  Wolverton, L.

  Colchester, L.

  Middleton, L.

  Worlingham, L. (E. Gosford)

  Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

  Mowbray, L.

  Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

  De Mauley, L.

  Newlands, L.

  Deramore, L.

  Newton, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

  Haversham, L.

  Headley, L.

  Crewe, E. (L. President.)

  Hereford, L. Bp.

  Henry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)

  Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Boston, L.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Brassey, L.

  Lyveden, L.

  Devonshire, D.

  Castletown, L.

  Monkswell, L.

  Colebrooke, L.

  Monson, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Coleridge, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Carlisle, E.

  Courtney of Penwith, L.

  Overtoun, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Davey, L.

  Pirrie, L.

  Chesterfield, E. [Teller.]

  Denman, L. [Teller.]

  Reay, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Ritchie of Dundee, L.

  Craven, E.

  Sandhurst, L.

  De La Warr, E.

  Eversley, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Dundonald, E.

  Farrer, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Portsmouth, E.

  Glantawe, L.

  Wandsworth, L.

  Russell, E.

  Grimthorpe, L.

  Weardale, L.

  Temple, E.

  Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

  Welby, L.

  A Committee appointed to prepare a reason for the Lords insisting on their Amendments. The Committee to meet forthwith.

  LAND TENURE BILL.
  Amendments reported (according to order).
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (Earl CARRINGTON): I believe that at this stage of the Bill it is not usual to postpone the title, and therefore I will move to leave out of the title of the Bill the words "Land Tenure" and to insert the words "Agricultural Holdings."
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 1, to leave out the words 'the Tenure of Land,' and insert the words 'Agricultural Holdings."—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDmoved to amend sub-section 1 of Clause 1 by inserting a proviso that the sum

  1419
  payable to the tenant as compensation for improvements should in no case exceed the fair value of the labour expended or the outlay incurred by him. He said that he made the Motion in order to ascertain the view of the Government as to the effect of the omission of the words in the former Act reserving to the landlord the increased value due to the inherent capabilities of the soil. Upon what basis was the value to the tenant to be assessed? He was rather afraid that on the last occasion when he spoke upon this point he misled the House by suggesting a supposititious case, and he apologised for having done so. He would put another case which he thought would make perfectly clear the point to which he desired to have an answer from the Government. Suppose that tenant A had spent £5 in putting on the land a particular manure, and B spent the same amount upon his land. The land of A perhaps would respond more readily than that of B. Suppose the land of A responded to the extent of 4 per cent., and the land of B 2 per cent. Each of these tenants spent the same amount of money upon his holding. Were they to receive compensation in proportion to the amount of their own expenditure—which he thought was fair, and which would be the effect of his Amendment—or were they to receive compensation according to the benefit which the land had received from their action? He submitted that the inherent capabilities of the soil—the power that a particular piece of land had of responding to certain treatment—was not a matter for which the tenant was entitled to compensation. He was afraid that as the Bill now stood, unless some such words as he had suggested were inserted, this matter would be left in doubt, and he could not help thinking that the matter was of such importance that it ought to be very clearly laid down. He begged to move, the insertion of the words of which he had given notice.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 1, line 18, after the word 'tenant,' to insert the words, 'such sum shall in no case exceed the fair value of the labour expended or the outlay incurred by the outgoing tenant."—(The Duke of Northumberland.)
  EARL CARRINGTON: I will do the best I can to explain the objects of the Government in regard to this clause. In the case put by the noble Duke of tenants A and B, he says one pays 4 per cent. and the other 2 per cent.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: The two tenants spend the same amount, but the return of one is 4 per cent. and the return of the other is only 2 per cent.
  EARL CARRINGTON: The two tenants spend the same amount, and the return in one case is 4 per cent., and in the other 2 per cent. The noble Duke asks whether the compensation should be paid on the expenditure of these two tenants or on the value of the improvement to the incoming tenant. The basis is the value of the improvement to the incoming tenant and the compensation will be such an amount as fairly represents that value. There is in the old Act a provision that what is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil shall not be taken into account. The value is to be measured not merely by the labour expended, but also by the skill and experience brought to bear on the work, and the success or otherwise of the improvements. If the proper manures, for instance, are used, and skilfully put on the land, the cost might be the same as if unsuitable artificial manures were improperly applied, and yet, according to the noble Duke, both those tenants will receive the same compensation.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: No, no.
  EARL CARRINGTON: The compensation should be paid not upon the expenditure, but upon the value of the improvement to the incoming tenant. I have done my best to explain the point to the noble Duke, and I hope he is satisfied with my explanation.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: I quite appreciate the point which has been raised, but I am afraid that the words proposed by the noble Duke do not carry out what he desires to establish. The noble Earl in charge of the Bill was quite right in saying that the measure

  1421
  of compensation in all the Agricultural Holdings Acts has been the value of the improvement to the incoming tenant, and not what the tenant has expended upon that improvement. That seems to me to be the only fair basis on which it can be calculated. A man might spend a great deal of money upon things which would be absolutely useless to the incoming tenant, and why should he receive that money back again as compensation? On the other hand, if the compensation to the out-going tenant is limited by the words suggested by the noble Duke, the result will be that if the improvement is worth a great deal more to the incoming tenant than the outgoing tenant has expended upon it the latter will not be fairly compensated for his expenditure and labour. If a tenant makes a mistake in regard to the improvements he makes, or if they were badly designed and badly executed he will suffer accordingly. On the other hand, if the improvements are well done the tenant will gain, and surely that is fair. The noble Duke desires to establish the principle that the tenant shall not receive anything due to the inherent capabilities of the soil. I happen to be, in some sense, the author of those words, because I remember when the original Act was being discussed in the House of Commons many years ago the President of the Board of Agriculture of that day used these words as showing in his opinion what the tenant could not be allowed to claim for, and I asked him to insert them in the Bill, which he did. So far as I have been able to ascertain in my part of England, valuers have never been able to understand these words, so that they have been practically without any effect, and I do not think any interest will be damnified by their omission.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: Under the circumstances I will not press my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I desire to move the omission of the words "any custom or." My technical advisers are
  1422
  of opinion that this Amendment is both desirable and necessary.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 1, line 22, to leave out the words 'any custom or,' and to insert the word, 'the"—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I now propose to leave out the words "to be determined by" in order to insert the words "referred to." This is simply a drafting Amendment drawn to meet a suggestion made by Lord Camperdown.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, lines 22 and 23, to leave out the words 'to be determined by,' and insert the words 'referred to."—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments proposed—
  "In page 2, line 7, to leave out the word 'section,' and to insert the word 'subsection."
  "In page 2, lines 10 to 13, to leave out sub-section (3) and to insert the words '(3) The following rule shall be substituted for rule (10) in Part I. of the Second Schedule to the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1900:—The arbitrator shall, on the application of either party, specify the amount awarded in respect of any particular improvement or any particular matter the subject of the award, and the award shall fix a day not sooner than one month or later than two months after the delivery of the award for the payment of the money awarded as compensation, costs, or otherwise, and shall be in such form as may be prescribed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries."—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendments agreed to.
  THE EARL OF KINTOREmoved an Amendment to enable a landlord who is obliged by ill-health to live away from his property to give his tenant permission in writing to kill game coming from preserves abutting on his farm, in lieu of paying compensation for damage done by the game. His Amendment was intended to provide against possible hardship which he was confident that the Minister for Agriculture did not desire to inflict. The clause provided that—
  "Where the tenant has sustained damage to his crops from game the right to kill and take

  1423
  which is vested neither in him nor in anyone claiming under him other than the landlord, he shall be entitled to compensation from his landlord for such damage."
  To illustrate what he meant he would take the care of a tenant who farmed some fields liable to damage from game crossing from a neighbouring owner's land. The landlord, being compelled to live away from home on account of ill-health, might empower his tenant to protect his crops by killing and taking the game causing the damage. If his information was correct, as the clause now stood, that landlord might nevertheless be held liable for damages. He did not think that his noble friend intended this, and he hoped he would accept this Amendment. He begged to move.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 2, line 16, after the word 'landlord' to insert the words 'and which the tenant has not permission in writing to kill.'" (The Earl of Kintore.)
  EARL CARRINGTON: I shall be very pleased to accept this Amendment.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: If the noble Earl will look at the Bill he will find that the words are "kill or take."
  EARL CARRINGTON: If that is so they have slipped in by mistake, and I must ask the House to allow it to read "kill and take."
  *LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGHsaid the words "or take" were put in deliberately. He believed the words were to be found in the Ground Game Act, and surely this measure ought to be on all fours with that Act. It was quite a different thing "to kill and take" from "to kill or take." A man might take without killing and in that way get off.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I must ask the House to allow me to retain the words "kill and take." The draughtsman says the words ought to be "kill and take."
  Amendment agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I have now to move a series of Amendments intended
  1424
  to make the procedure perfectly clear. Their object is to secure prompt notice to the landlord of damage done, thus removing any difficulty as to the tenant's position in the case of damage, and generally to clear up any ambiguity in the clause. As amended, the clause will read—
  "(2) The amount of compensation payable under this section shall, in default of agreement made after the damage has been suffered, be determined by arbitration, but no compensation shall be recoverable under this section unless notice in writing of the damage is given to the landlord as soon as may be after the damage was first observed by the tenant and a reasonable opportunity is given to the landlord to inspect the damages, (a) In the ease of damage to a growing crop before the crop is begun to be reaped, raised, or consumed; (b) In the case of damage to a crop reaped or raised, before it is begun to be removed from the land—and unless notice in writing of the claim together with the particulars thereof, is given to the landlord within one month after the expiration of the calendar year, or such other period of twelve months as by agreement between the landlord and tenant may be substituted therefore in respect of which the claim is made. (3) Where the landlord proves that, under a contract of tenancy any compensation for damage by game is payable by him, or that in fixing the rent to be paid under such contract allowance in respect of such damage to an agreed amount was expressly made, the arbitrator shall make such deduction from the compensation which would otherwise be payable under this section as may appear just. Provided that in the case of a contract of tenancy current at the commencement of this Act, such a deduction as aforesaid shall be made, whether the allowance was to an agreed amount or not, and whether the allowance was expressly made or not, and for the purposes of this proviso a tenancy from year to year current at the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to continue until the first day on which either the landlord or the tenant could, the one by giving notice to the other immediately after the commencement of this Act cause the tenancy to determine. (4) Where the right to kill or take the game is vested in some person other than the landlord the landlord shall be entitled to be indemnified by such other person against all claims for compensation under this section."
  By these Amendments we secure prompt notice of damage and remove any difficulty as to the tenant's position in the case of damage done within three weeks and the one week specified in paragraphs (a) and (b). Any ambiguity as to the meaning of the word "year" is also cleared up. I sincerely hope that the House will regard these Amendments as making for clearness and simplicity. If the House will permit me I will make these Amendments en bloc.
  Amendments moved—
  "In page 2, line 26, to leave out the words 'claim for compensation' and insect the word 'damage."
  "In page 2, line 28, after the word 'and' to insert the words 'a reasonable opportunity is given to the landlord to inspect the damage."
  "In page 2, lines 29 and 30, to leave out the words 'at least three weeks."
  "In page 2, line 30, to leave out from the word 'is' to the word 'and' in line 33, and insert the words 'begun to be reaped, raised, or consumed."
  In part 2, lines 34 and 35, to leave out the words 'at least one week."
  "In page 2, line 35, after the word 'is' to insert the words 'begun to be."
  "In page 2, line 36, to leave out the words 'written particulars of the claim are' and insert the words 'notice in writing of the claim, together with the particulars thereof, is."
  "In page 2, line 37, to leave out the word 'year' and insert the words 'calendar year, or such other period of twelve months as by agreement between the landlord and tenant may be substituted therefor."
  "In page 2, lines 40 and 41, to leave out the words 'whether made before or after the commencement of this Act."—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendments agreed to.
  Amendments moved—
  "In page, 3 line 14, to leave out the word 'or' and insert the word 'and.'—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 3, lines 23 and 24, to leave out the words 'produced upon the holding."
  "In line 25, after the word 'land' to insert the words 'on his holding."—(Earl Carrington.)
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHasked how could a tenant cultivate any land which was not on his holding?
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid the provision related to arable land on his holding. An Amendment was inserted the other day which, by accident, was not recorded, but which had the same effect as this one. He had inserted the words "arable land on his holding" so as to make it clear that it did not include pasture land. The insertion of these words now made the matter quite clear.
  Amendment agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I desire to move an Amendment to Clause 3 (freedom of cropping and disposal of produce), omitting the qualifying words "generally recognised in the district as good husbandry in respect of land of a like character." I venture to submit this Amendment instead of the Amendment standing in the name of Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The noble Lord proposes to leave out the same words, but he wishes to insert in lieu thereof the words "consistent with the principles of good husbandry." The words of the noble Lord are better than those originally inserted in Committee, but they are open to the same objection in principle. The object of the clause is to give the tenant, not merely freedom to crop as other people are cropping, but freedom to crop subject only to the condition that there shall be no injury to the holding. Subject to this condition we desire to encourage initiative and enterprise on the part of the tenant. Good husbandry is not a fixed and stereotyped thing, and what may be regarded as inconsistent with the principle of good husbandry at one time and in one particular part of the country may come to be regarded as quite consistent with those principles at a later date. With great respect, therefore, I ask the House to consider this matter from our point of view and accept this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, lines 25 and 26, to leave out the words 'generally recognised in the district as good husbandry in respect of land of a like character."—(Earl Carrington.)
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid the House would recollect that the words which he proposed to leave out were inserted during the Committee stage of the Bill. The words he now proposed were then on the Paper, but he withdrew his Amendment, and the House substituted an Amendment standing in the name of Lord Penrhyn. If their Lordships would look at the early words of the clause they would see that it read "notwithstanding any custom of the country." Then the clause went on to provide that the tenant should have the full right to practise any system "generally recognised in the district." That was really the custom of the country. Those words were wholly inconsistent

  1427
  the one with the other, and to that extent he submitted that the words of the clause were not suitable. The noble Earl agreed with him as to the words which ought to be deleted, but after that point their harmony ceased, because he considered it important that words should be inserted limiting the freedom of the tenant, not, indeed, in that which was good, but in that which was bad. Without some such safeguard as he proposed landlords in his own part of the country would run the risk of serious deterioration of their property. He could not tell the House how strongly he felt on this point. They ought to provide this very small and reasonable limitation to the immense amount of freedom which the noble Earl proposed to give to the tenant. They would part for a year with the whole control of their laid. The bargains between landlord and tenant were being interfered with, and he did not think it was asking too much to lay down that cropping should be done consistently with the principles of good husbandry. He begged to move his Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, lines 25 and 26, to leave out the words 'generally recognised in the district as good husbandry in respect of land of a like character' and insert the words 'consistent with the principles of good husbandry."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
  THE EARL OF DENBIGHhoped the noble Earl would consent to the insertion of the words "consistent with the principles of good husbandry." It was the original Amendment suggested on the Committee stage, and he thought the Government would find it very difficult to offer any sound objection to it. The proposal made it clear to the tenant that he had to cultivate his land consistently with the principles of good husbandry, and he hoped the House would decide to insert those words.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: The noble Earl opposite says the words in the Bill are objectionable because they appear to limit freedom of cropping and discourage enterprise on the part of the tenant which may lead him to try experiments which might be of real ultimate benefit to agriculture as well as to his own holding. I very much sympathise with that view, and I am very glad that Lord Balfour has moved to
  1428
  substitute these words. I do not think the two sides of the House are very far apart on this point. The noble Earl in resisting this Amendment said "a tenant ought not to do anything which would have an injurious effect on the permanent interest of the holding." I think those were his words. Really, if those words were put into the clause they would have precisely the same effect as the words proposed by my noble friend.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid he did not see how the Government could object to these words. He did not think their fathers were such fools as some people took them to be in this matter, and if their Lordships inquired why in the past there had been ridges and furrows and so on they would find very good reasons for that system of cultivation. One well known authority held that they could cultivate eight, ten, or twenty white crops one after the other without doing the land any harm. Without going any further into that question, even that might be considered to be consistent with the rules of good husbandry. He hoped the noble Earl would see his way to insert those words.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEIf my noble friend presses his Amendment I think he might leave out the reference to principles.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: No.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Surely the words "consistent with good husbandry" would be sufficient. I cannot see what the noble Lord means by a reference to the principles of good husbandry, because I am not aware of any place where a definition of those principles is to be found.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid the reason why he put in those words was that they formed an expression which was well understood in Scotland. If it was not likely to carry weight in England he was in the hands of the House, but it was clearly understood by everybody in Scotland.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I am in favour of giving the largest possible freedom to the tenant in this matter. I

  1429
  believe that if you want to have the best cultivation of your land you had better treat the tenant as you would treat any other person investing his capital in any other industry, and give him as much freedom in the management of his own business as you possibly can. It seems to me that that is a very legitimate and a very wise proposition, and I should very much regret the introduction of any words which would tend to restrict the tenant in this matter. Of course it is necessary to take precautions to protect the landlord from any injury or loss. I do not know whether your Lordships have noticed the words which provide that the tenant "shall make suitable and adequate provision to protect the holding from injury or deterioration."
  Those were the words suggested by the noble Viscount opposite, and as they appear in an earlier part of the clause, I should have thought they would have had the effect desired by the noble Viscount without unnecessarily interfering with freedom of cropping.
  On Question, "That the words 'generally recognised in the district as good husbandry in respect of land of a like character,' stand part of the Bill," resolved in the negative.
  On Question, "That the words 'consistent with the principles of good husbandry' be there inserted," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 85; Not-Contents, 22.

  CONTENTS.

  Northumberland, D.

  Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

  Dunboyne, L.

  Portland, D.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Forester, L.

  Wellington, D.

  Waldegrave, E.

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Wicklow, E.

  Hastings, L.

  Cholmondeley, M.

  Yarborough, E.

  Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount Earl.)

  Lansdowne, M.

  Salisbury, M.

  Falkland, V.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Halifax, V.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Albemarle, E.

  Hill, V.

  Lawrence, L.

  Brownlow, E.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donough-more.)

  Lovat, L.

  Camperdown, E. [Teller.]

  Macnaghten, L.

  Cathcart, E.

  St. Aldwyn, V.

  Middleton, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Mowbray, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Addington, L.

  North, L.

  Dartrey, E.

  Ardilaun, L.

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Denbigh, E.

  Armstrong, L.

  Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

  Devon, E.

  Avebury, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

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

  Balfour, L. [Teller.]

  Saltoun, L.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Sanderson, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Barnard, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Barrymore, L.

  Seaton, L.

  Gainsborough, E.

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

  Harewood, E.

  Belper, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Harrowby, E.

  Borthwiuk, L.

  Jersey, E.

  Braye, L.

  Stalbridge, L

  Lauderdale, E.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Mayo, E.

  Clinton, L.

  Templemore, E.

  Morley, E.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

  Morton, E.

  Colchester, L.

  Zouche of Haryngyworth, L.

  Plymouth, E.

  Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

  Shaftesbury, E.

  De Mauley, L.

  Stanhope, E.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Portsmouth, E.

  Glantawe, L.

  Grimthorpe, L.

  Crewe, E. (L. President.)

  Boston, L.

  Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

  Colebrooke, L.

  Haversham, L.

  Ripon, M. [L. Privy Seal.)

  Denman, L. (Teller.]

  Overtoun, L.

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Sandhurst, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Eversley, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Chesterfield, E. (Teller.]

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Weardale, L.

  LORD CLINTONsaid he had an Amendment on the Paper to insert the words "suitable manures having." He thought that some such words as these were necessary to make good the loss which the soil must sustain by the selling off of produce which it had always been the custom and good practice to consume upon the farm. Since he had placed this Amendment on the Paper he had received a communication from the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, informing him that he appreciated the reason and point of his Amendment, and stating that he had himself placed some words on the Paper which would meet the case. He had consulted his friends on the point, and they agreed that the words suggested would suit their purpose equally well, and under those circumstances he would not move his Amendment.
  Amendments moved—
  "In page 3, line 32, after the word 'full' to insert the word 'equivalent."
  "In page 3, line 33, after the word 'value' to insert the words 'to the holding."—(Earl Carrington.)
  Amendments agreed to.
  LORD SALTOUNsaid he had an Amendment on the Paper to insert after the word "holding" the words, "to the same effect and with the like enduring benefit to the land as if such produce had been consumed on the holding." He wished to acknowledge the courtesy of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill in communicating with him in reference to his Amendment, and as the point had been met he would not move.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNmoved an Amendment providing not only for the return to the holding of the full equivalent manurial value of the crops removed from the holding in contravention of the custom, contract, or agreement, but that "in either of such cases the tenant shall, if required, notify in writing to the landlord the provision so made or to be made." His Amendment stated clearly what the adequate provision was that had to be made to prevent the deterioration of the holding from cross cropping, and it also made clear what was to be returned to the holding from the crops which were sold off. He thought it was very desirable that the landlord
  1432
  should be informed in some way what provision was going to be made for these purposes.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, line 34, after the word 'agreement' to insert the words 'and in either of such cases the tenant shall, if required, notify in writing to the landlord the provision so made or to be made."—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
  EARL CARRINGTON: I am afraid I must resist this Amendment because it places on the tenant, especially in the case of the smaller men, an obligation which it is quite impossible for them to discharge. If the Amendment is passed it will lead to a good deal of friction and misunderstanding. I think that the tenant ought to be trusted to cultivate his holding subject to the safeguards provided in the Bill, which in my opinion, are quite adequate.
  LORD SALTOUNasked what "adequate provision" meant. It seemed to him that the whole of the noble Earl's intentions in this Bill were to protect the farmer and give him every facility against the landlord. He did not seem to consider the position of the landlord at all. There were such things as bad tenants, and there were difficulties in the way of getting rid of them. What was sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander, and he should like the noble Earl to point out in this Bill anything which would show what adequate provision meant.
  Amendment negatived.
  LORD CLINTONmoved an Amendment providing that the provisions of the clause should not apply—
  "(a) In the case of a lease for nineteen years or longer duration as respects the last three years before the expiration thereof; or (b) in any other case as respects the year before the tenant quits the holding, or any period after he has given or received notice to quit, which results in his quitting the holding."
  Their Lordships would remember that when the Bill was in Committee, an Amendment was moved to provide that sub-section (1) should not apply to the last four years of any tenancy, and it was generally agreed that that provision went further than its mover intended. Leases of four years and under would have entirely escaped the provisions of

  1433
  that sub-section, and leases of five, six, or seven years would have been very little affected. The Amendment was originally proposed in the interests of long lease such as they had in Scotland. He hoped the noble Earl would consider the words he had proposed were suitable to meet the case. It was obvious that this clause gave very large powers to the tenant. If those powers were misused for a year only the landlord could get rid of his tenant without much harm being done, but if a tenant had a nineteen years lease he might work very considerable damage before his lease could be brought to a termination. The Amendment was not only in the interests of the landowner but also in the interests of the incoming tenants. Their Lordships knew perfectly well the exceedingly difficult position the incoming tenant was in if he took a farm in a bad state of cultivation. He believed that three years, although not a very long time, might be sufficient for the tenant to put his farm in something like order. He hoped the noble Earl would see fit to accept the Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, line 35, to leave out from the word 'apply' to the word 'tenancy' and insert; '(a) In the case of a lease for nineteen years of longer duration as respects the last three years before the expiration thereof; or (b) in any other case as respects the year before the tenant quits the holding, or any period after he has given or received notice to quit, which results in his quitting the holding."—(Lord Clinton.)
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he very much regretted that it was absolutely impossible for him to accept the Amendment as it touched one of the vital parts of the Bill. It would deprive the tenant of his freedom of cropping during the last three years of his lease, and in view of the safeguards provided against the injury or deterioration of the holding he did not think that the Amendment was in any way necessary. He would ask the Committee just to look at the clause as it stood—
  "Notwithstanding any custom of the country or the provisions of any contract of tenancy or agreement,"
  and so on—
  "The landlord is entitled to recover damages in respect of any injury or to obtain an injunction restraining the exercise of his rights,"
  1434
  and so on. This applied, as their Lordships would see from the words he had read, to all tenancies under the Act. And what did this Amendment propose to do? It proposed, for the last three years of a nineteen years' lease to prevent the tenant cropping as he liked. They were told that in a great many cases these nineteen years leases were determinable, or broken, as he believed the expression was, at the end of seven or fourteen years. What would be the result of this? A lease of nineteen years would be broken at the end of seven years, and after the first four years the tenant would not know whether he might crop as he liked in order to make the best of his holding, or whether he would be obliged to crop according to the, he was almost going to say, penal conditions of old days. The thing could not possibly work. He must make a firm stand upon this. If the Amendment was pressed, as he supposed it would be, he must take the sense of the House on the subject.
  LORD SALTOUNpointed out that the noble Earl was entirely wrong; this Amendment did not apply to any break. It did not apply to the last three years with a break of seven, or ten, or any other number of years; it merely applied to the nineteen years, or the twenty-one years as in England. It was not meant only for Scotland; it was meant for England also. And he would point out to the noble Earl that those in Scotland who had leases were at the present moment, under the present Bill, in a much worse condition than their English friends who had yearly leases. There was not the slightest doubt that if an English landlord had a quarrel with one of his tenants, and wished to get rid of him, he could do so by paying him one year's rent. But with these Scottish leases they were in a very different position. A man might destroy his farm, but they could not turn him out; he was there for nineteen years, and during the last years of his lease he could leave that farm in a very bad state, unless there was some restriction during the last few years requiring him to put the farm into some sort of rotation. Let them consider for one moment.

  1435
  If the farm was let down and left, the tenant might say, "It is not worth my while keeping this farm unless you give it to me for a very much reduced rent," If the landlord replied "No," whether paid compensation or not, the tenant would go, and the landlord must either take that farm into his own hand, and go through a complete course of cropping, and put it in proper order before he could let it again, or else let it at a very much reduced rent. On the other hand, if he let it at a very much reduced rent, the tenant might keep it for a certain number of years. They must remember that one of the conditions of this Bill was that nineteen years leases would cease, twenty-one years leases would cease, and the tenure would be from year to year after the present leases had expired. A tenant would offer a very much reduced rent because the farm was left in bad repair. He would keep it for a few years, and then leave it, and he would go to the landlord and say "I have put this farm into excellent order; you must compensate me for what I have done." The landlord was in a hopeless position; he would have to pay. That meant compensation for what the other man had lost for them. There was absolutely no equality about it; the landlord was done either way. He earnestly hoped that Lord Clinton would press the Amendment to a division. If carried, it would result in benefit not only to Scottish landowners, but to landowners all over the kingdom.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNthought the experience of Earl Carrington was chiefly English. He wondered whether it had occurred to him to go to the Scottish Office and ask how this clause would work in Scotland. He was bound to say that judging from their experience of the amount of help which the Scottish Office had given in regard to this Bill, which, as they knew, was to be applied to Scotland, he did not think it would have done him much good even had he gone there. He greatly doubted whether at the Scottish Office they really knew anything about Scottish agriculture at the present time. At all events with regard to this
  1436
  Bill, which was a Bill drawn for England and extended to Scotland, the Scottish Office had not done one single thing to make it applicable to Scotland and to introduce the necessary Amendments for that purpose. He would point out to the noble Earl what he was doing. He was saying that this clause was not to apply for one year to a tenancy of any sort or kind, whether it was a yearly tenancy, whether it was a lease for nineteen years, or of any other duration. What was that except to put the man who let his land for nineteen years in an inferior position to the man who let his land for one year? What would be the result of that in Scotland? It would be to do away with nineteen year leases. Any man in future who let his land for nineteen years, whatever arrangements he might make with his tenant with regard to cropping or any thing else, would know that such arrangements were useless. If he let his land for nineteen years he was hung up for nineteen years, whereas if he only let it for one year, as his noble, friend Lord Clinton had pointed out, he could get rid of his tenant if he had cropped his land badly, at the end of one year. He had no doubt that the noble Earl thought he was doing a great deal for the interest of the tenant. He was certain that he had not a tenant himself who would wish to see this Bill passed, and he did not believe the tenants generally in Scotland wanted it for one moment. They had told the noble Earl, with regard to the clause for compensation, that they thought it was perfectly inapplicable to Scotland. The Bill was to be applied to Scotland, but it was not applicable to that country, and the result was that they would do away with nineteen year leases in Scotland. No doubt there were people in the House of Commons—and there might be some of their Lordships—who thought that that meant nothing. If they went to Scotland, and knew anything about Scotland, he was sure they would know that the Scottish tenants did not think so, and if no difference were made between yearly leases and yearly tenancies in Scotland all he could say was that he believed most sincerely it would produce a most prejudicial effect upon

  1437
  Scottish agriculture, and when he said Scottish agriculture he meant from the point of view of the tenant.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGsaid that the difficulty they, as Scottish landowners, were in arose from the fact that the Bill was drafted for England and not for Scotland. It was drafted hurriedly, no doubt, and by people who knew nothing about the conditions prevailing in Scotland with regard to land tenure. He would like very much to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, when the Government determined to take up this Bill, they realised that it would apply also to Scotland, and that it would have such prejudicial effect upon the Scottish system of nineteen-years leases.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNsaid that they on the Opposition side had often expressed their appreciation of the way in which the noble Earl (Earl Carrington) had met their proposals with regard to this Bill. He was sorry, therefore, that he had not shown any reciprocal appreciation of their endeavours to meet his views. He was sure that the clause a proposed by his noble friend Lord Clinton was a great improvement on the words in the Bill. The terms of the clause, as amended in Committee, were very much wider not only because four years were substituted for three, but also because they would apply to all leases, and, as his noble friend had said, would practically enable any person who gave a lease of four years to contract himself out of the application of the clause. His noble friend (Lord Clinton), desiring to be fair to the tenants, and to facilitate the working of the clause, had made this proposal to their Lordships. He did not think that, as a rule. English landlords gave anything like nineteen years leases, and therefore it was a proposal rather for Scotland than for England. As an English landlord, if it would meet the wishes of His Majesty's Government he was quite willing to see this proposal applied solely to Scotland. It was the Scottish agricultural system that required it, and he believed the desire for it was by no means confined to landlords, but would be found among tenants as well. He hoped that Earl Carrington would con-
  1438
  sider the matter from the Scottish point of view, at any rate, before the Bill became law.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid that of course he did not pretend to be a Scotchman, but he did pay a certain amount of deference and respect to the feelings of Scotsmen, and he would like to draw the attention of the House to the summer conference of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture and associated societies held in June, 1906. He had the honour of seeing the Scottish farmers in Edinburgh, and, as the Earl of Camperdown had said, he thought it was a good rule that, generally speaking, people should be allowed to manage their own affairs in their own place. He would therefore refer to the discussion of these Caledonians on the 15th June. Clause 4 of the Bill was discussed by them, and none of those present—most of whom had leases—put any amendment at all to the resolution of the chairman, who, he supposed, was also a Scotsman. The chairman at that meeting said to his brother Scotsmen—
  "Well, there is no amendment to this resolution, so that I may take it that Clause 4 is unanimously approved of."
  Those hard-headed men unanimously approved of Clause 4 as it stood in the old Bill, and under those circumstances he thought he was perfectly justified in sticking to his guns, and he would certainly take the sense of the House—either on this point or on his own Amendment which brought it back again to the original form that these Scottish people approved of—that it should be limited to one year only.
  On Question, after a division had been challenged, but not persisted in, Amendments agreed to.
  Drafting Amendments agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTONmoved to leave out sub-section (5), which had been inserted on the motion of the Earl of Wemyss. He thought that on reconsideration the House would agree that this sub-section was impracticable and of no real utility to the landlord. Very few farmers could

  1439
  comply with it, and it affected a most numerous class who would be unable to do what was required. There was no reason why the landlord and tenant should not agree to adopt the proposal for arrangement contained in the Bill. These were matters which, he would respectfully submit to the noble Earl (the Earl of Wemyss), should be the subject of agreement instead of statutory obligation. He thought that that was a distinction which the noble Earl would be the first to see and to appreciate, and therefore he hoped he might be permitted to leave out Sub-section (5).
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 4, lines 20 to 29, to leave out sub-section (5)."—(Earl Carrington.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: May I ask the noble Earl why, if he objects to this sub-section now, he accepted it on a previous occasion?
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid he would leave the matter in the hands of the House. Their Lordships had approved of it when he ventured to move it. It was not his own idea, but was suggested to him by responsible persons and it was accepted. He had pointed out on a former occasion that it would be a very good thing, and that it would have a beneficial educational effect; it would teach the farmers to keep their books and their accounts properly. He would now be content with repeating that, and would leave the matter in their Lordships' hands.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSSmoved to leave out the fourth clause. He objected very strongly to the Government's interfering with the management of private property. He had held that view through a long Parliamentary life; he had stood by it on the Irish Land Bill of 1870, and again in 1881; also on the Agricultural Holdings Bill in another House and in other ways. He did not see, provided that the landlord and tenant did nothing immoral in the management of their estate, that the Government should have anything to do with it. Of course there were
  1440
  few landlords and a great many tenants, and one could understand that there might be a Parliamentary reason for the part of the tenant being taken up by the Government. Passing that by, however, this Bill was not originally the Bill of the Government; it was one of those many Bills that, ever since the necessity of getting a First Reading in the other House was done away with by Mr. Disraeli, had flooded the House of Commons, and led to confusion. He wanted to know on what principle the Government up these Bills. It was very interesting for one to know the secrets of the Cabinet so far. He had his own idea on the subject, and that was that there was a small Committee of the Cabinet which looked through these Bills; that they took up any likely Bill, and asked themselves, "Does this interfere with contracts? If so, we will star it, and take it up. Does this Bill transfer property rights from the real owner to the tenant or to some other person? If it does, then we will star it." Lastly, and this was a very large order and covered the whole field, they inquired, "Is this a Bill conceived upon the old Liberal principles of the greatest happiness of the greatest number—of voters?" If the Bill satisfied any or all of those conditions, it was starred. He would not say that the present measure was a star of the first magnitude; but that it would become so, if they did not take care, he was perfectly certain. The Front Opposition Bench appeared to be satisfied with certain changes that had been made in the Bill. Any changes that he had seen made did not touch the evil of the Bill—the crux of the Bill—which was in the beginning of the fourth clause. Let them read the advertisements of the different clauses which appeared at the back of the Bill. In the case of the present Bill they would see that it embraced the principle of compensation for disturbance. Anybody who had paid attention to the Irish Land Bill knew pretty well what that meant, and what it might grow to. It meant tenant right; in the long run it meant dual ownership. That was an evil principle, and he would point out for their Lordships' consideration that it began thirty-six years ago in the Irish Land Act, which gave compensation

  1441
  for disturbance. That Act was an exceptional measure. He had before him the words of Mr. Gladstone when he brought in that Bill, and he might say of Mr. Gladstone's legislation that he looked upon him—as they would say in Scotland—as the "old Adam" of all evil modern legislation, for it all dated from the Irish Land Act. What did Mr. Gladstone say? Did he see in the future any probability of this legislation coming to England and Scotland? Far from it. He said, when he introduced his Irish Land Bill of 1870—
  "The Bill is a measure wholly and absolutely exceptional. We look upon it as an exceptional Irish measure. Nay, more, we hope the time may come when, instead of being extended to England and Scotland, the provisions of this Bill may no longer be necessary in Ireland."
  That was the opinion of Mr. Gladstone when he brought the Irish Land Bill forward in 1870. Now let them trace the history of that Bill. What had it ended in? They had had the Land Bill of 1881, and it had ended in the expropriation of the Irish landlords. He had met, in the autumn, an Irish landlord who was a great devolutionist, who said to him with a twinkle in his eye, "I have got rid of all my property. He (the Earl of Wemyss) said, "Have you? What have you done about your place and the surrounding grounds?" "Oh! that is mine for ever," was the answer; to which he had responded, "Yes! till they want it." That was the state of things in Ireland. Now he had told them how all this came from the nest-egg of the Irish Land Act of 1870. Did they wish to import into England and Scotland this same thing, If so, let them vote for this clause and vote against his Motion. He hoped their Lordships, warned by the history of Ireland, would take time by the forelock and prevent evil which would otherwise be felt for generations to come; and in that hope, and in the hope that he would have some support (and he would divide if he even had a teller), he would move the rejection of this Clause No. 4.
  Principiis obsta; and he asked their Lordships also to remember that splendid French saying, "Fais ce que doit advienne que pourra," and to act upon it.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 4, line 30, to leave out from beginning of clause to 'by' in line 32."—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he really had heard with great regret the determination of the noble Earl to move to omit this clause. They had listened to his speech with the greatest pleasure, as they always did, but he was bound to say that the subject of the speech was really to his mind a grievous one. He talked about the evils of the Bill. What were the evils of the Bill? The main evil of the Bill was, the noble Earl had said, compensation for disturbance, and he had gone on to say that that meant tenant right and dual ownership. There was no tenant right within the four corners of the Bill.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I beg your pardon. Compensation for disturbance is tenant right.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I deny it.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Absolutely.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid that compensation for disturbance did not mean tenant right, and there was no such thing in the whole of the Bill. They could not twist anything in the Bill into dual ownership. What was the idea of the noble Earl's speech? It was the old idea of hundreds of years ago: "All that is on the earth is mine, and all that is under the earth is mine, and if you do no leave all my property as I wish, and as I tell you, I give you notice to quit. Never mind how long you have been on the property—out you go, and you are not to have any compensation." He would honestly admit that if he lived under the noble Earl, or if he lived under any Member of their Lordship's House, he would have no fear, and he would not have any wish that a Bill of this sort should be brought before their Lordships. But unfortunately things were not in that happy condition that their Lordships would nave them believe. He did not wish to make a Second Reading speech but he thought it was only courteous

  1443
  to the noble Earl to put clearly before the House the view of the Government, not only on the omission of this clause, but on the various other proposals which they would have in a moment or two to discuss upon Clause 4. Perhaps it would save time if he said a word or two on the whole question. The Bill was passed in the House of Commons by large majorities, and they gave great concessions. The Government had gone as far as they could go, as he had said before. In his endeavours to meet the wishes of the Opposition he had strained the loyalty of the Liberal and Radical Party almost to breaking point. A hundred and fifty of them went into the Division Lobby against him, and he could not find it in his heart to blame them, for, had he been a county Member of the House of Commons, he thought he would have done the same thing. That Bill came up to their Lordships' House, and passed a Second Reading without a division; and he had submitted, and would do so again, that the agricultural opinion all over great Britain was favourable to the Bill.
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he was perfectly certain in his own mind that the great majority of those who had agricultural interests, and of the tenant farmers, was in favour of the Bill. He had quoted on a former occasion the words of Lord Helmsley, and he was told, and perhaps properly told, that the opinion of a young Member of another House ought to have no effect upon their Lordships' House. But he might be permitted to bring forward the opinion of a well known Member of their Lordships' House, a kinsman of his own, who had very large property in Lincolnshire, and also in Scotland, who was not a Liberal, and who, he believed, disliked and opposed the Bill as much as any Member of their Lordships' House could possibly do. But what did he say? Lord An caster was speaking a few days ago at Grantham, at a meeting of the Conservatives of the Stamford division. Their Lordships knew that Lord An caster was one of the longest-headed of men, and a man whose opinion was
  1444
  worth having. He had a very large property in Scotland as well as in England, and there was not one word in his speech in support of taking the Scottish leases out of the Bill. What did he say? He disliked the Bill, and he gave his reasons why he was opposed to it. But he also said—
  "However, they had got to accept it and to make the best of it. That was what it had come to. He only trusted that the hopes of those who brought in the Bill would come to pass, and that it might do good and have a favourable impression on agriculture. If their anticipations came to pass it would be good for the tenants and good for the labourers—"
  and so on. Lord An caster accepted the Bill, and he was prepared to accept it as it stood. What was the proposal now before them? It was practically to penalise the leaseholders who, as a rule, were the best tenants that their Lordships or any other landlords had, and gave the landlord the greatest security. They were the men who stuck to the estate—the men who had confidence in their landlord and were ready to stand by him. And the advantages of this Bill were given to whom? To the man who had a yearly tenancy, and who could go, sometimes in six months, sometimes in twelve months, and clear out altogether. What was the Scottish attitude with regard to this Bill? The whole of the Members of Parliament for Scotland were unanimous in its favour, and after all one must remember that there was such a place as the House of Commons, and that persons in the House of Commons were elected by the suffrages of their fellow citizens, and that, if they did not represent the feelings of their fellow-citizens at the next election they would lose their seats. All these Scottish Members of Parliament were unanimously in favour of the Bill, and that, to his mind, was conclusive evidence that Scotland, as a country, was favourable to it. And besides that, there was the increasing disposition of the Scottish Chamber to accept the clause they had now before them. He asked their Lordships, was it wise to make a leasehold tenancy less attractive in the tenants' eyes by withholding from the leaseholders rights and privileges which they had very generously given to other tenants? He implored them to do a

  1445
  generous thing, and to do it in a generous manner. Let them treat all their tenants alike, or what would the country say? The country would say that a hardship and an injustice had been done to the best representatives of a hard-working, honourable, and industrious class of men. He thought it would save the time of the House to express what the feelings of the Government were on this point—that they could not give way as regarded the leaseholders; that they could not exempt them from the benefits of the Bill.
  *THE EARL OF FEVERSHAMsaid that, in rising to support the Amendment, he might tell the House that he was one of those who, notwithstanding what had fallen from the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture, thought that this Bill contained a certain amount of dual ownership. In the sixth clause it was provided that if a tenant claimed for certain improvements, and gave notice to the landlord, and the landlord was not prepared to carry them out, the tenant should be able to do so and then come down upon the landlord to pay the expenses. That was really giving the tenant leave to deal with another man's property, and of course that amounted to dual ownership. He had always been in favour of making every concession to the tenant farmers of the country. He thought he knew something of them. They were an industrious, a loyal and a patriotic class, and he had always thought that Parliament should do all it could to meet their views. There were some parts of this Bill with which he must say he agreed. He thought it was quite fair that they should give compensation for unexhausted improvements. It was quite fair that they should give compensation for any damage or injury done by game or in any other way. It was quite fair that they should give a certain freedom of cropping, and not be too restrictive in their agreements in that respect. But when they came to this fourth clause, he quite agreed with the Earl of Wemyss that it was a new departure, which introduced a principle first originated in Ireland in the Land Act of 1870. It tended to a certain fixity of tenure. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, who was once
  1446
  a member of a Conservative Ministry, seemed to doubt, in what he said the other night, that this clause included fixity of tenure. It did not say so in so many words, but if they hedged it round with every kind of obstruction, if they made it impose a great expense upon the landlord—an unknown, indefinite expense—they would make him afraid; of making any change, though it might be most desirable in the interest of the estate. His opinion was that that almost amounted to fixity of tenure. It was in that direction at all events. It was not fair or just that a landlord should be exposed to unknown and indefinite expenditure, as he might be under this clause, and therefore he agreed with his noble friend and cordially supported the Amendment. They should, in his opinion, reject this clause, which he considered was out side the general principle of the Bill, and which would be dangerous in its effect. It would tend to introduce friction between landlord and tenant. The relations between landlord and tenant were now most satisfactory. They had settled down into a state of harmony and goodwill, and to pass any clause which disturbed that harmony and good feeling was, in his opinion, contrary to the interests of the country and inimical to the interests of agriculture.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN)said that the Amendment, if carried, would be a death blow to the Bill, and he thought that fact must be appreciated by every noble Lord who had spoken. He could only say that this clause was regarded by the Government as a vital part of the Bill and, if it were thrown out now, it would prove to have been rather a cruel kindness to have given the Bill a Second Reading. He trusted their Lordships would not, at this stage, destroy an essential part of the Bill.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNsaid he would only trouble the House with one or two observations, because he had already on more than one occasion expressed his view. He agreed with what the noble and learned Lord had just said to their Lordships, that if they had desired to expunge this clause from the Bill they

  1447
  ought to have rejected the Bill on the Second Reading. It was undoubtedly one of the most important provisions in the Bill, and having passed this Bill through Committee, and having made considerable Amendments in the clause, which certainly made it more favourable or, at least, less unfair, to the landlord than in its previous shape, he did not see how they could, consistently with what they had already done, reject the clause on Report. He had always asked himself, in considering the clause, not so much whether it would have any very great effect, as what harm it would do? It was very carefully guarded in its present form. The words at the commencement of the clause he thought really freed it from the objection of the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, that it gave fixity of tenure, or could be described as fining a landlord heavily for doing something which would be consistent with the proper management of his estate. But as the noble Earl (Lord Carrington) had accepted Amendments excluding the operation of the clause, in in certain cases, limiting the amount of compensation, allowing the landlord to obtain a valuation of the stock, implements, and produce which the tenant would have to sell or remove on quitting the holding before sale or removal took place, and constituting a tribunal at the option of either party in the county court for the better and more just carrying out of the clause, he hoped their Lordships would not accept the Motion of his noble friend Lord Wemyss, but would agree to the clause as it now stood.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDtrusted that on such an important question, really touching the whole nature of the Bill, their Lordships would excuse a few words from him even at that late hour. He was sorry he could not agree with the noble Lord, Viscount St. Aldwyn. The noble Viscount asked what harm this clause would do. It would do this harm—it would establish a precedent. Leaving out other parts of the clause which might be commented upon, it for the first time enacted that when an agreement had been made with a man for a certain number of
  1448
  years, and that number of years was terminated, the landlord at the end of the agreement was not to be at liberty to do as he liked, but, under certain penalties, the tenure must be renewed for a certain term. That was an entirely new principle in English land law, and, with all due respect to the noble Viscount, he must say it was idle to ask what it did. It established a precedent, and he did not see how they could get out of it. The harm of establishing a precedent was this, and they had seen it in past legislation over and over again. The first establishment of a precedent was never important—it was always very small, and it was always recommended because it was so small. Then when a very much greater invasion of good principle was introduced at a later stage in the history of the country, and they objected to it, they were told, "Oh, it is no use your objecting now; you gave up that principle long ago." Therefore he thought it was in the highest degree important that they should protest in the strongest manner against this introduction of a totally new principle in the land legislation of this country. The noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture had said that he listened to Lord Wemyss's speech with great delight. He (the Duke of Northumberland) was sorry he could not return the compliment with regard to the speech of the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture, because he accused them—or rather he did not accuse them, because he was good enough to exclude the House of Lords—but he accused the other landlords of England of wishing to keep to the stern old rule that everything was theirs upon the earth and below the earth. In the first place, that was not a very incorrect assertion of the rights of property, but if his words meant anything, they did mean that the landlords of England had used their power in an oppressive manner. With all due respect to the noble Lord, he considered that he had no ground for that charge, and although it was perfectly true that in every class there were certain political black sheep, he would like to remind him of one fact which he and those who had framed this measure had entirely forgotten, viz., that,

  1449
  as there were more tenants in the world than landlords, there were more black sheep among the tenants than there were among the landlords. In all this legislation there was not one single safeguard for the landlord against the tenant of the same value as there was for the tenant against the landlord. Before going further, he would return to this question of the new principle of not allowing a man at the conclusion for his agreement to re-let his land as he liked. He had to let it "according to the principles of good estate management." He would put a case. A man took a lease for ninety years. That lease expired. He received notice, and went, or was about to go, and the landlord intended to take that farm into hand, and to put, perhaps, his eldest son on it in order that he might learn farming. Some people thought that a very wise thing to do if the son was going to hold much property, but was it "good estate management"? He thought the young gentleman would very probably mismanage the farm—which was, indeed, partly the object of letting him farm, in order that he might make mistakes and learn by experience. But that, he imagined, would be an impossible process under this clause, unless large compensation was given to the outgoing tenant. If the noble Lord (Earl Carrington) thought that this Bill was really in favour of the tenants, he was making a very great mistake. He thought it should rather be called "The Annoyance of Good Tenants Bill." He could only repeat what he had ventured to say the other night, that every yearly agreement would have to be called in, and nothing was more disagreeable to a tenant than the suspicion that the terms under which he held would be modified in any way. Not only that, but in a great number of cases more than one name was mentioned in the agreement. In every one of those cases the landlord would have to call in all the agreements and expunge all the names but one, because otherwise, as the existence of two or three names in an agreement would form a partnership, there would be no conclusion of agreement at all unless that was done. What would be the consequence to the tenant? First
  1450
  of all, it would be against the traditions of many estates, and tenants were very fond of having their relations included in the agreement. He would like to know whether the Government had considered, or was aware, that if these names were not allowed to be put into the lease, tenants would be liable to increased death duties. He had about eighty-five such tenancies on his own estates, and when he called in those agreements, and put only one name in them, those tenants' families would have to pay death duties which they had never had to pay before. Did the noble Lord imagine that this Bill was going to be very popular under those circumstances? And what was going to be the case in small holdings? He saw that the other day the noble Lord had received a deputation from small holders, and had stated that he was very glad to encourage them. Did he think this Bill was going to encourage landlords to break up their farms into small holdings? Did he imagine for one moment that when all these complicated settlements had to take place with every tenant, landlords would wish to have more tenants than they could help on their land? Of course not. It was a direct discouragement to small tenancies, and, what was even worse, he thought it was a very great deterrent to small ownerships. He was told there were parts of the country already where small owners to some extent existed—they all knew that they were very few and far between—where the owners were aghast at the prospect of what would happen under this Bill. The way in which that worked was very plain. A man might be an able-bodied man, and have a son or two at home, and he got on in his small freehold very well. But he knew that: some day he would be gathered to his fathers, and that then his widow would probably have to let. What would be the prospect of a widow, who was not, generally, a very good person to manage business? What would be her condition when she had let her lands, and was face to face with all the conditions which the noble Lord had put into the Bill? It was a most retrogressive measure, and he thought that the noble Lord, Lord Wemyss, was perfectly justified in raising this question upon Clause 4,

  1451
  which was the essence, as had been confessed, of the Bill. He could not quite see the argument of the noble and learned Lord when he said that the whole essence of the Bill was in Clause 4. The whole mischief of the Bill was in Clause 4, or almost the whole of it. That, he admitted, but he should hardly have thought that a representative of His Majesty's Government would have said that in a Bill of some ten clauses the balance were of no value, and were not an improvement upon the present practice. Surely all these provisions in regard to game, cropping, and all the rest of it, were of some value in noble Lords' eyes, and they were not going to put the whole merit of the Bill into Clause 4. He was sorry to have detained their Lordships at that late hour upon a matter which he quite agreed was one rather for Second Reading than for Report; but as they had not been afforded an opportunity before of calling attention to the mischief of Clause 4, he thought they had every right to protest against it now.
  LORD BARNARDsaid he could not vote for the exclusion of the clause. He was perfectly convinced, after making considerable inquiries upon the subject, that there was a strong feeling on the part of agricultural tenants that in some cases they were unduly displaced. He was not going to follow the noble Duke into the details of the clause. The question before the House was whether, on the general principle, tenants should have any compensation in the event of being dispossessed without sufficient reason. As far as his own estates were concerned—although his experience was not limited to one county, but extended over several counties in England—there I was no reason for complaint on the part of tenants at all. But from inquiries he had ascertained that here and there—particularly in the midland counties—cases of the kind did now and then occur, and if that was so he considered that in the interests of the farming community generally it was only right that tenants should be protected against such treatment. Therefore, if the noble Lord pressed the matter to a division, he should certainly vote against him.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEtrusted that the Committee would be guided by the noble Viscount (Viscount St. Aldwyn), and not vote against the clause. He did not pretend that he had any great admiration for it, nor did he attach much credence to the statement of the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture, who had said that the clause was earnestly desired by the agricultural community. There had no doubt been an agitation of a kind going on lately in the country, but it was what he should call a one-man agitation, personally conducted by the noble Earl himself. But what they were face to face with was the fact that their Lordships' House had passed the Second Reading of this Bill, and that as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had told them just now, this clause was really the central clause of the Bill, and there could be no doubt whatever that its rejection meant the failure of the Bill. Speaking quite frankly, he would be very sorry indeed to see the death of this Bill laid at their Lordships' door. He thought the clause, bad as it was, was much more innocuous than many noble Lords supposed. It had certainly become very much more innocuous since the Bill had been before their Lordships' House. He thought, for example, the noble Duke who had addressed their Lordships so earnestly just now was sincere in his belief that one effect would be to oblige the landlord to renew a tenancy at its expiration. As he understood the clause, the question of compensation only arose on the tenant's quitting his holding. Therefore, that to which the landlord was exposed was not a liability to be compelled to renew the tenancy, but a liability to pay a certain amount of compensation in a very extreme case, which most of their lordships believed would arise very infrequently indeed.
  LORD SALTOUNwished to ask Earl Carrington one question. He had said that the clause did not include tenant right or dual ownership. Did it relate to fixity of tenure or continuity of tenure?
  EARL CARRINGTON: Continuity of tenure.
  On Question, "That the words pro posed to be left out stand part of the
  Drafting Amendments agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid that the next Amendment extended over several paragraphs, and as it was practically a drafting Amendment it might be the pleasure of the House to take it en bloc.
  Amendment moved—
  "In line 4, after the word 'stock,' to insert the words 'on or used in connection with the holding,' and also to insert the words 'Provided that no compensation under this section shall be payable—(a) unless the tenant has given to the landlord a reasonable opportunity of making a valuation of such goods, implements, produce, and stock as aforesaid; or (b) unless the tenant has, within two months after he has received notice to quit or a refusal to grant a renewal of the tenancy as the case may be, given to the landlord notice in writing of his intention to claim compensation under this
  1454
  clause," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 76; Not-Contents, 18.

  CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Stanhope, E.

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

  Crewe, E. (L. President).

  Waldegrave, E.

  Emly, L.

  Yarborough, E.

  Eversley, L.

  Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Cholmondeley, M.

  Churchill, V.

  Glantawe, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Halifax, V.

  Grimthorpe, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Hill, V.

  Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donough-more.)

  Haversham, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  St. Aldwyn, V.

  Lawrence, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Lovat, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Addington, L.

  Monkswell, L.

  Chesterfield, E. (Teller.]

  Armstrong, L.

  Newton, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Balfour, L.

  North, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Overtoun, L.

  Craven, E.

  Barnard, L.

  Pirrie, L.

  Denbigh, E.

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Reay, L.

  Dundonald, E.

  Belper, L.

  Sanderson, L.

  Fortescue, L.

  Borthwick, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Gainsborough, E.

  Boston, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Harewood, E.

  Braye, L.

  Seaton, L.

  Harrowby, E.

  Castletown, L.

  Stalbridge, L.

  Jersey, E.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Stanley, of Alderley, L.

  Morley, E.

  Colebrooke, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Plymouth, E.

  Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

  Weardale, L.

  Portsmouth. E.

  Denman, L, [Teller.]

  Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Northumberland, D.

  Falkland, V.

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Saltoun, L.

  Cathcart, E.

  Avebury, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Dartrey, E

  Clinton, L.

  Stewart, of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.) [Teller.]

  Devon, E.

  Forester, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Hastings, L.

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

  Morton, E.

  Middleton, L.

  Mowbray, L.

  section; or (c) where the tenant with whom a contract of tenancy was made has died within three months before the date of the notice to quit, or in the case of a lease for years before the refusal to grant a renewal; or (d) if the claim for compensation is not made within three months after the time at which the tenant quits the holding."—(Earl Carrington.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDsaid that he had an Amendment upon the Paper which he did not now desire to move, except as regards its last sentence, which might come in after the word "holding" in sub-section (d) of the Amendment just moved by Earl Carrington. The words he proposed were—
  "Unless notice of intention to make such a claim shall be given to the landlord not less

  1455
  than three months before the determination or expiration of the tenancy, and unless full particulars of such claim shall be delivered to the landlord within one month."
  He thought that was only carrying out more fully the noble Lord's intention.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNdid not think the words would come in properly where the noble Duke proposed them. They must be very careful what they were doing, as that was the last opportunity they would have of amending the Bill. Paragraph (d) limited the time within which a claim might be made after the tenant had quitted his holding, but what the noble Duke wished was that particulars should be sent in long before that.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDsaid that if the noble Viscount (Viscount St. Aldwyn), would look at his Amendment he would see that it was really the noble Lord's Amendment, except so far as the last words were concerned.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: "Within one month" of what?
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: Within one month after the three months.
  EARL CARRINGTONthought the noble Duke's point was met by subsection (b), which required the tenant to give notice in writing of his intention to claim compensation. He hoped the noble Duke would not press his Amendment, as he thought it would be hard upon the tenant.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDwas afraid he was rather irregular to speak so often upon the Report stage, but he would like to remind the noble Earl that there was nothing particularly legal in his Amendment, but it was merely directed to securing that the landlord should have full particulars of the claim. Surely that was a proper thing for the landlord to have.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he honestly thought the landlord was properly protected, and he again expressed the hope that the noble Duke would not press the Amendment.
  The Duke of Northumberland.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: Very well; I will not press it.
  *VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNmoved to insert a new paragraph:—
  "(e) In the case of leases for fourteen or more years current at the passing of this Act.'
  He said that in Committee words were inserted providing that this section should not apply to leases of nineteen years or longer in duration. He thought that on consideration their Lordships might be of opinion that that went too far, because it would exclude all future leases from the clause as well as existing leases. He had ventured to submit to their Lordships that leases were really in a different position, not only in other parts of the Bill, but also in this clause, from the ordinary year to year tenancy. When two persons entered into a lease—a lease at any rate for nineteen years—each party knew very well that he was entering into an agreement which would in the ordinary course of things be subject to revision or reconsideration at the end of nineteen years, and therefore the suggestion that there would be a capricious determination of the tenancy at that time as there might be in the case of a yearly tenancy, could hardly be said to apply, at any rate in the case of leases made before the passing of this Act. Neither landlord nor tenant could have imagined that there would be a law passed which would prevent a revision of the agreement at the end of the nineteen years. Both parties in the future could take care of themselves. If His Majesty's Government desired to suggest to the landlords—as they did suggest by this Bill—that they should substitute a yearly tenancy for a lease, they could do so; and if the parties preferred a lease notwithstanding that, they could enter into a lease, knowing quite well what might happen at the end of it. Therefore, he had prepared this new paragraph omitting from the operation of this clause only leases for fourteen years or more current at the passing of this Act. He hoped the noble Lord would see that at any rate it was a considerable improvement from his point of view upon the words as they now stood in the Bill—that it was in fact a concession to meet

  1457
  the objections which he had raised to the excluding of leases from the clause, and yet an attempt, as he did not think could be denied, to do justice in the case of existing leases. He begged to move.
  Amendment moved—
  "To insert the following now paragraph: '(e) in the case of leases for fourteen or more years current at the passing of this Act.'"—(Viscount St. Aldwyn.)
  EARL CARRINGTONquite agreed that it was a concession, and an attempt to do justice to existing leases, but he very deeply regretted that it was absolutely impossible for the Government to accept it. He had already said what he had to say on the question of leaseholders being exempted from the benefits of the Act, and he did not now wish to intrude longer on the time of the House. He hoped the noble Viscount would not think it discourteous in him not to reply to his argument at length. He had already stated his objections, and would therefore content himself with making the very strongest protest in his power against the proposal. He was absolutely in the hands of the House, but he hoped his protest would be taken with a view to save the trouble of going to a division.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHhoped that Viscount St. Aldwyn would press his Amendment. He would rather see the Bill lost than that this Amendment should not be adhered to. He did not believe that there was any precedent whatever for such a proposal as that two men should make a bargain for a period of years, both knowing that it was to come to an end at a certain time, and that in the middle of the period there should be somebody coming along and saying, "You are to have privileges for which you have never bargained." There was not the smallest justification for such a proposal. He had himself voted for the retention of this clause. He had never given a vote with greater reluctance in his life, but he gave it because he thought, after their proceedings the other night, they were in honour committed, after having amended the clause, to keep it in the Bill.
  1458
  But he voted for it in the hope that at any rate they would receive some consideration in respect of the interference with their leases in Scotland which was set up by this clause. He had appealed to two noble Lords from Scotland a few moments ago—the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for the Colonies—and he had asked a question which he thought demanded an answer. He thought it was a fair and reasonable question, and he begged now to repeat it, and to ask whether, when the Government took up this private Bill, they realised the effect it would have on leases in Scotland, and resolved to break down the Scottish system of land tenure. The noble Earl, the President of the Board of Agriculture, had spoken about penalising the leaseholder. There was no penalty on the leaseholder. He got his full bargain carried out to the end of his term. He got everything he asked for, and had no right to expect more. He (Lord Balfour) held that the First Lord of the Admiralty had given their Lordships a practical promise to do something for the interest of leases. He had promised to introduce certain provisions which would especially meet the case of nineteen years leases. That promise was not even restricted to existing leases. It had a general effect, and he did not think he misinterpreted the noble Lord's intention in saying that when he made that promise he intended to apply it to all nineteen years leases, whether current now or current hereafter. The request before the House at the present moment was not made with regard to all nineteen years leases in the future, although he thought that might fairly be asked, but was merely to restrict the operation of the clause from applying to existing bargains. Not one single argument or reason had been advanced by the Government or their supporters against this very moderate proposal. The hour was so late that he would refrain from quoting speeches made in Scotland by the noble Earl himself, but the President of the Board of Agriculture had gone as far as he could possibly go towards admitting in Scotland that for the protection of the Scottish tenant this Bill and this clause,

  1459
  was not Required. They had heard about tenants being given notice in an unreasonable manner. He would like to ask whether, by parity of reasoning, the landlord to whom a tenant gave unreasonable notice ought not to have compensation for his tenant going away unreasonably. Why should there be a difference of that kind as between landlord and tenant? He was afraid some of his arguments were not being listened to by the noble Lords on the Front Ministerial Bench, who were continually conversing with each other. He was sorry to be insistent, but he did not think that noble Lords in England had the slightest idea of the way in which Scottish customs were being broken into by this measure. It was the most unjust thing he had ever known since he entered Parliament. He thought he was fairly entitled to ask why the tenant should be the favourite of the Government at the expense of the landlord. If the tenant gave capricious notice to the landlord, why should not the landlord have compensation? He confessed that he expected his suggestion to be ridiculed, and he did not make it with any hope of its being accepted. But if the tenant was to have compensation under certain circumstances he did not see why the landlord under corresponding circumstances on the other side should not also have compensation. He should certainly urge that this Amendment be inserted in the Bill, and, so far as he was concerned, if it was rejected in another place he would do his very utmost to insist upon it.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid he would make a third appeal to the noble Lord, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, as to whether, as a matter of courtesy, they would give him some reply to the Question which he had twice addressed to them.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid that so far as he was concerned he must admit that he had held out certain hopes, which he was authorised to do. For his part he thought it was a very reasonable proposal, but he was prepared
  1460
  to support the Government of which he was a Member, and therefore he should stand by the Government in this matter.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid that the other Question, which was equally courteously put, was whether, when the Government resolved to take up this English private Member's Bill, they realised the serious inroads which it would make into the Scottish practice.
  Consequential and drafting Amendments agreed to.
  THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND,in moving to insert in Clause 6, after the word "intention," the words "together with particulars of such repairs," said that a noble Lord had moved in Committee an Amendment to the effect that the tenants should furnish "plans of such repairs." His Majesty's Government resisted that, and, as he thought, very naturally, because he did not see how the tenant could be expected to give plans—indeed some of the work might not necessitate any plans at all. At the same time, he thought it desirable that the tenant should furnish particulars of repairs; and he trusted the Government would make no objection to that.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 5, line 30, after the word 'intention,' to insert the words 'together with particulars of such repairs."—(The Duke of Northumberland.)
  EARL CARRINGTON: I have no objection to that.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTON,in moving to leave out the word "at" and to insert the words "within one month," remarked that it was merely a drafting Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 5, line 33, to leave out the word 'at,' and insert the words 'within one month."—(Earl Carrington.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid it was nothing of the kind. Lord Carrington was perhaps unaware that he had already accepted that suggestion in

  1461
  Committee; but, if he had any doubt about it, he would state what had been said. Lord Carrington had proposed to insert "one month," and he (the Ear of Camperdown) observed that he had no particular objection to "one month," but that he thought it rather a short time. Ultimately the noble Lord agreed to accept "three months"; and now the noble Lord, having accepted that, said that this was a mere drafting Amendment. Would the noble Lore explain what he meant?
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid that he would explain exactly what he meant The fact was that he had forgotten the incident, but, of course, he entirely accepted what the noble Earl had said.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 6, lines 5 and 6, to leave out the words, 'and in its application to Scotland on the first removal term day thereafter."—(Earl Carrington.)
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Will the noble Lord explain this Amendment?
  EARL CARRINGTONexplained that the Amendment was in accordance with Lord Saltoun's proposal, namely, to put off the date on which the Bill came into operation to November, 1909.
  LORD SALTOUN: No.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid the date was to be the 1st November, 1909—that was the first of the removal term days. He hoped the Amendment would not be objected to.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNthought there was no objection to this Amendment, provided the noble Earl would assure the Committee that the year "1909" was to stand.
  LORD SALTOUNexplained that he had not meant what was suggested by Earl Carrington. He meant the Whitsunday term, which was the first term; and he had mentioned it merely because it was a term day. But, if the noble Earl would accept "1909" as suggested
  1462
  by the Earl of Camperdown, he did not wish to oppose the Amendment
  VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNpointed out that Earl Carrington had accepted "1909" already.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHthought the House ought to have a distinct guarantee from the noble Earl that if they admitted the deletion of these two lines "1909" would be adhered to with all the strength of the Government in another place.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he had given a pledge to the noble Viscount that he accepted "1909," and he was prepared to stand by that pledge.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL CARRINGTON,in moving the insertion of a new clause with special provisions as to Scotland, observed that he did so in redemption of a pledge given in another place to submit these matters for their Lordships' consideration. He had tried to get the Amendment moved by an independent Member, but had failed; and as the pledge was given in the other House, he now moved it himself. The House would probably consider that the Amendment raised, some important questions of principle, which at that time of night it was impossible adequately to discuss; but the pledge having been given, he stood by his word, and moved the Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  "To insert as a new clause, In Scotland—(a) So much of the Ground Game Act, 1880, as limits the number or prescribes the classes of persons who may be authorised under that Act to kill or take ground game otherwise than with firearms shall be repealed; (b) Any agreement made after the commencement of this Act by which an incoming tenant undertakes to pay to the outgoing tenant any compensation payable to him for improvements shall be void."—(Earl Carrington.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid the House was entitled to ask Earl Carrington whether he made himself responsible for the proposed new clause. This was a Government Bill, and the noble Earl was the Minister in charge of it. He had always understood that

  1463
  a Minister who put a clause for-ward in a Government Bill made himself responsible for it. Was the noble Earl responsible for this clause? Because, if not, he would move to strike it out without any further conversation.
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he had already told the House that a pledge had been given in another place, and he felt bound to move the insertion of the clause so that the matters contained therein might be submitted for consideration. He considered that if a pledge was given it ought to be carried out; and therefore he had put this Amendment on the Paper. The noble Lord was at perfect liberty to do whatever he pleased with regard to it.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNthought this was the most extraordinary thing he had ever heard of in connection with Ministerial responsibility. In the first place, a pledge was given somewhere else that some proposal was to be made in their Lordships' House with regard to a Bill which in the other House was a private Member's Bill. The noble Lord had endeavoured to get among his friends in their Lordships' House some person who would move the Amendment. He appeared to have been unsuccessful, but he now came forward and made, the proposal himself. In the first place he had told their Lordships he was responsible.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: Surely at this time of night it is not worth while to pursue this matter much further. The noble Earl (Earl Carrington) has placed an Amendment on the Paper and he has intimated that on both sides of the House noble Lords may vote either for or against it as they please. Under the circumstances, I submit that to pursue the matter any further at this period of the evening would be a mere waste of time.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid that as he now understood that the Government were perfectly indifferent as to whether the proposed clause was inserted or not, he would vote against it.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  Then (Standing Order No. 39 having been suspended): Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.
  *LORD BARNARD,in pursuance of notice, rose to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries whether it is proposed to hold an inquiry into the system of agricultural education, and, if so, when and what will be the scope of such inquiry. He said that some twelve months ago certain University colleges engaged in teaching agriculture attended at the Board of Agriculture for the purpose of urging their claims for further financial support. Unfortunately, at that moment there was a hiatus in the office of the President of the Board of Agriculture; but the deputation was most courteously received by the Permanent Secretary, and they were assured that the new President of the Board of Agriculture would be consulted as to whether anything could be done. In reply to a question on the subject which he had addressed to him in the summer, the President of the Board of Agriculture (Lord Carrington) himself suggested that probably the best plan would be to hold some inquiry into the system of agricultural education in University colleges. Since that date he (Lord Barnard) had communicated with a very large number of representatives of those colleges and he had received—although there was some regret that no immediate prospect of financial assistance was held out—answers indicating a very general desire that some inquiry should be held on the subject. There were two points put forward; and those points he would respectfully urge upon the President of the Board of Agriculture. The first was, that any inquiry should not be limited exclusively to the question of agricultural education, but should extend also to the question of agricultural research. The other point was that any inquiry should embrace what was being done in other countries. There was a general feeling among those engaged in higher education in agriculture in England that, though England was a most important agricultural country, the Government was very

  1465
  far behind the United States and other countries, in the assistance it gave,
  EARL CARRINGTONsaid he was glad to be able to inform his noble friend that he had obtained the consent of the Government to set up a Committee to inquire into this matter, and he hoped to have the assistance of his noble friend as a member of that Committee. He hoped that Lord Barnard would allow him to consult with him on the matter, as he had not yet been able to settle definitely the scope of the inquiry, nor to arrange altogether the composition of the Committee. The Committee, however, would be appointed next year, and he hoped he could rely upon the assistance of his noble friend.

  TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  Commons' Amendments to Lords' Amendments, and reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords' Amendments considered (according to order).
  *LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGHsaid he would not occupy the House for more than a few minutes; but, as he was responsible for moving the first two Amendments which had been disagreed to, he thought it due to himself, and only courteous to the House, to say a word or two in respect of the Commons' disagreement to their Lordships' Amendments. On neither of those Amendments was there any division in another place; and therefore, on that ground, even if it stood alone, he should not ask their Lordships to persevere with their Amendments. Under other circumstances, he would have been inclined to ask that the first of the two Amendments, in an amended form—the one in which they had inserted the words "peaceably and in a reasonable manner," should be retained in a modified form, retaining the word "peaceably." He was notable to understand why that word was objected to; it was in every Bill presented to Parliament before the General Election, and it seemed to him in itself to be a reasonable thing. But the most striking thing in connection with these two Amendments was the reason given by the House of Commons for their disagreement. With regard
  1466
  to the first Amendment—and perhaps it was worth while having the words definitely on record—the Commons disagreed—
  "Because the peaceable exercise of the right conferred by the clause is sufficiently safeguarded by the words as they stood in the clause as it left the Commons."
  He only wished he could think so. In his opinion, at any rate, it was more than doubtful. But he took note of the fact that those who were foremost in leading the agitation for this Bill, and who would have an important part to play in its working, had, by agreeing to this reason, in his opinion, given an undertaking, not that they would remain peaceable if violent measures were adopted in the course of picketing, but that they would, as in duty bound, do all they could to see that nothing was allowed to be done contrary to peacefulness. The reason for disagreeing to the second Amendment was at least as striking. This was an Amendment which he had moved on the Report stage of the Bill, and which the noble Lord on the Woolsack accepted with the generous remark that it was more scientific in its wording than the provision which it sought to displace. He told them quite frankly, however, that he was not sure that the experts in another place would accept it. As a matter of fact, they had not accepted it, and they had given as their reason:—
  "Because the object of the Amendment is sufficiently met by the words of the original clause."
  Some day or other that would have to be construed judicially in their Lordships' House, and he could only trust that the beliefs and hopes, which he had no doubt were honestly entertained in another place, would prove to be well-founded, and that the clauses in this Bill, which would shortly become an Act, would be found sufficient to meet the intention which they were supposed to carry out.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid that in regard to the first Amendment he really thought it was unnecessary. The law stood sentinel alongside all that was done under this Act, and would see that peace was preserved. He entertained no doubt whatever that the addition of those words would make no

  1467
  difference to the Bill. In regard to the second Amendment, it was quite true, as Lord Balfour had said, that his own view had been that the words which the noble Lord proposed were more scientific and better; but he was persuaded that it was neither the wish nor the intention of the men to break the law with violence, nor was it their wish to withdraw their property from the ordinary rules of litigation attaching to property. The men thought, and the House of Commons (which was full of experts on this subject) also thought, that the words standing in the Bill were effective for that purpose; and he had not the least doubt they were right, although, as he had said, he himself would have preferred the language proposed by Lord Balfour. He believed their Lordships would find that these men wished to use, as he believed they had proposed, this Bill in good faith for the purpose of carrying it out honestly.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREdesired to say with regard to the third Amendment, which he had had the honor of moving, that he had only done so because he and those who thought with him honestly believed that employers did not, under this Bill, receive the protection which they believed the Government intended they should have. Words had now been inserted in the Bill by the law officers of the Crown which were intended to protect employers, and he of course accepted those words wholeheartedly, believing that the Government intended to give them protection under the Bill, and believing also that they had an earnest in these words that if they were found not to be so protected in the future, they would have the Government on their side in guaranteeing them the protection which they were intended to have.
  On Question, Commons' Amendments to Lords' Amendments agreed to, and the Lords' Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed not insisted on.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL.
  Amendments reported (according to order.)
  LORD BELPERthought it would be within the recollection of the House
  1468
  that there was some discussion on an Amendment which he had moved to Clause 2. On the suggestion of the Lord Chancellor he had put in the word "or," instead of "and" at the end of Clause 2 (1) (a), so that that part of the clause read—
  "That such want, defect, or inaccuracy was occasioned by mistake, absence from the United Kingdom, or other reasonable cause; or (b) the failure to make a claim."
  and so on. Those words were put in conditionally on the understanding that they should be reconsidered on Report. He had, however, found that they did not at all carry out his object, which was to guard against the time for claiming being extended where it might prejudice the defence that would have to be made by the employers. He would only say that if words could be inserted in somewhat like the original form—
  "Provided that the employer is not prejudiced in his defence by the delay in making the claim,"
  he would be glad to have them inserted, but he had rather understood, on the former stage of the Bill, that those words would not be agreed to by the other House. If the Government accepted them, he would be willing to have them put in that form. Otherwise, he would move to omit the words which had been added, leaving the clause without the words inserted on the Committee stage. If the noble Lord in charge of the Bill would state what his view was with regard to those words, he would then take whatever course he thought desirable.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid the Amendment was one moved by Lord Belper, and the Lord Chancellor had suggested an Amendment to the noble Lord's Amendment. That was adopted by Lord Belper, who now found that it scarcely carried out his intention. He (Earl Beauchamp) thought it better, as the Amendment did not meet with the noble Lord's wishes, that he should move an Amendment now; because on the whole it would probably be more in accordance with his wishes that the clause or sub-clause should return to its original condition, than that it should go down to another place as it stood.
  LORD BELPERsaid the alternative he proposed was that he should put in the

  1469
  words, "provided that" and then put in the rest of the words. That was what he would prefer to move, if that would be acceptable. He thought he had better move that the words "provided that" be inserted, instead of "or."
  EARL BEAUCHAMPwas afraid there was very little chance of the Amendment in that shape being accepted in another place, and therefore he hoped the noble Lord would not press his Amendment, but would be satisfied with the other course suggested, namely, leaving out all the words after "cause."
  LORD BELPERsaid his object was not to put forward either unreasonable amendments or amendments which would not be accepted by the other House. Under those circumstances, he would ask to have the words struck out after the word "cause" to the end.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, line 20, to strike out after the word 'cause' to the end of the sub-section."—(Lord Belper.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Drafting Amendment agreed to.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid that on Clause 8 he wished to move a small Amendment. This was a clause which the draughtsman had found it very difficult to make really satisfactory, and they hoped this would be the last addition to it, and would give no loophole whatever to any lawyer to find a way out. The Amendment he had to propose was, to leave out "requisite" before the word "information," and to insert the word "such" in its place; and in line 12, after the word "furnished," to insert—
  "Or is not sufficient to enable that employer to take proceedings under the next following proviso."
  He thought their Lordships would see that that was really designed for the protection of employers. He begged to move.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 10, line 8, after 'furnished' to insert the words 'or is not sufficient to enable that employer to take proceedings under the next following proviso."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
  LORD BELPERsaid there was a small consequential Amendment which would have to be inserted in the schedule. At page 22, line 16, the word "applicants" should be in the singular. The fact was, the word "either" had been inserted, instead of the word "both," in the Committee stage; and in order to make the provision read properly, it would have to be "on payment by the applicant," instead of "on payment by the applicants."
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid he had now to deal with a very important Amendment, which had been inserted in Schedule 1. He was afraid the mistake was partly owing to his own fault. They had been discussing the question of commutation, voluntary and compulsory, and as the Bill was somewhat complicated, he was unable to point out to the noble Lord, at the time he asked the Question, the provisions in the Bill which dealt with voluntary commutation. The wish of the noble Lord was that there should be nothing in this paragraph of the schedule which would prevent voluntary commutation; and at the time he (Earl Beauchamp) was unable to point out that voluntary commutation was dealt with under an entirely different section—he thought Section 17—while this paragraph dealt entirely with the question of compulsory commutation. It was rather because he was unable to satisfy the noble Lord that the Amendment was inserted by a somewhat narrower majority than was usual in their Lordships' House. Under those circumstances, he would ask the noble Lord (Lord Belper) to allow the words as they originally stood to go back, on condition that a proviso was inserted to make it perfectly clear. The words he proposed were—
  "Provided that nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as preventing agreements being made for the redemption of a weekly payment by a lump sum."
  He thought that made it perfectly clear; and he might remind the noble Lord that money obtained in commutation was very often squandered; and that the Digby Committee laid great stress upon commutation.
  LORD BELPERsaid the noble Earl (Earl Beauchamp)had been good enough

  1471
  to communicate this suggestion to him before the discussion of this stage of the Bill; and he thought that the words proposed by the noble Earl really made clear what he was anxious about with regard to this paragraph. His object was not to limit the sum which might be assessed when the employer made application, but to make it quite clear that an agreement could be come to to pay a less sum as between the two parties themselves. If the words proposed were inserted, they would carry out his view, and would allow of such agreements being made. Those agreements had been very numerous in the past, and it would be very much to the interest of employer and employee if they were allowed to be made in the future also. Under these circumstances, he begged to withdraw the words which had been inserted; and he would ask the noble Lord to move the words which he had suggested instead.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid he was very much obliged to the noble Lord (Lordhelper) and begged to move accordingly.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 23, line 16, to insert the words 'Provided that nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as preventing agreements being made for the redemption of a weekly payment by a lump sum."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Drafting Amendments agreed to.
  *LORD KINNAIRDdid not know whether he might, without notice, move the omission of provisoes (c) (d) and (e) from paragraph 9 of the second schedule of the Bill. In another place, provisoes (a) and (b) were put in; and a good many of those interested in the working of the Bill thought that they would fully meet the case; but somehow while they were left in, (c) (d) and (e) were not deleted. He would not go into the matter at any length; but their Lordships were aware that in the working out of these compensation appeals the expenses and the lawyers' bills ran up very high; and this further appeal which was allowed to those interested in the workman's case would add very considerably to the expenses both of the workman and of the employer. For instance, a case had lately come up in which one
  Lord Belper
  1472
  of the unions found the money in order that the case might go on; and, although the workman was quite satisfied, and eventually got what the company had settled with him for, he was told to claim for the full six months. Eventually, he was exonerated from the costs, and the company was allowed to go against the union. He did not know whether the Government had thought of provisoes (c) (d) and (e) being unnecessary; or, if so, whether they would consent to leave them out.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPwas afraid that it was quite impossible for His Majesty's Government at this late period to accept such a serious Amendment as the one suggested without notice. They had had a very long—perhaps he might say a very interesting—discussion on a previous occasion, dealing with the general machinery of the Bill. A suggestion was not made to this effect by any noble Lord. They had been unfortunate in not having the presence of the noble Lord (Lord Kinnaird) on that occasion, and he hoped that the noble Lord would accept his assurance on behalf of His Majesty's Government that these special clauses were put in with the approval of the Government and he was sorry they could not now omit them.
  *LORD KINNAIRDsaid he would not press the matter. It was to have been moved by someone last night, but apparently it was not done. There was, therefore, nothing to do now but to let it drop.
  Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX, having been suspended); Bill read 3a,with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  NOTICE OF ACCIDENTS BILL.
  Read 3a (according to order).
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid that he had two Amendments to move. They were not Amendments of substance. The first was to make the definition quite clear in order that the Bill might apply to various places which it was held might possibly not be included if this Amendment was not carried. It came in after the words "factory or workshop," and the idea was to include these words which were similar to the other words

  1473
  which had also appeared in other legislation of similar character.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, line 29, after the word 'workshop' to insert the words 'including any place which for the purpose of the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, with respect to accident, is a factory or workshop, or is included in the word 'factory' or 'workshop,' or is part of a factory or workshop."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid that the other Amendment which he had to move was rendered necessary because the Bill had been upon the table of their Lordships' House since February or March. A great deal of time had elapsed since then, and it was possible the Secretary of State would not wish every provision of the Bill to come into operation at once. The object of the Amendment was to enable the postponement of certain portions of the Bill if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, such postponements might seem advisable.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 4, line 9, after the word 'seven' to insert the words 'but the Secretary of State may appoint a later date not being later than the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eight, for any special provision of the Act to come into operation, and if a later date is so appointed, that special provision shall not come into operation until that later date."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

  EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) BILL.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading reud.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I have to apologise for not having been able to bring in this Bill last night. At the time that it ought to have come on I was engaged upon business which, as events have turned out, might as well have been left alone. I will endeavour to be as brief as possible in introducing this Bill, although the matter is one of considerable importance, and one which it would not be respectful to introduce to your
  1474
  Lordships' House without a few preliminary observations. This question of the feeding of school children, and of whether legislation should be brought to bear upon it, and if so, what legislation, is one which has been before the country for some considerable time, and it is one of those questions about which people have been apt to say that something ought to be done, without having any very clear idea of what particular action, should be taken. The matter has been reported upon by a number of different Committees and Commissions. In 1903 the Royal Commission on Physical Training in Scotland drew attention to this question of feeding school children, but did not recommend that the rates should be employed for the purpose. Then that well known Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration which sat in 1904 made suggestions which, speaking generally, are very much on the lines of this present Bill. Then there was another Inter-Departmental Committee in 1905, on Medical Inspection and Feeding, which also dealt with the matter, but its terms of reference did not allow it to argue the question as to whether rate aid should be applied or not. Then in the spring of the present year (1906) a Select Committee of the House of Commons at on the whole question. They went exhaustively into the matter; they examined twenty-eight skilled witnesses, including experienced officials, members of the late Government, school teachers, and a great number of people who, in one way or another, were distinguished experts on this question; and it is upon their recommendations that this Bill is based, which I will ask your Lordships to read a second time.
  It is important to remember and, in view of some of the provisions, extremely important to remember, that this Bill is purely permissive in character. It con-contains no compulsion of any kind, and I hope that fact may reconcile your Lordships to such provisions as you may consider to be of a novel character. Of course the question is mainly and largely urban. It is in the great cities that the question is most urgent; but still there is some demand for such provision in the rural districts, and I think it is a fact that the association of county councils expressed themselves favourably disposed towards

  1475
  the adoption of some measure of this kind within their areas.
  The Bill proposes to create a system of what we may call school restaurants, and, as your Lordships, I daresay, know, even at present there is a very great amount of feeding of poor school children by voluntary agencies. I confess that until I had looked into this matter I had no conception to what an extent this was done. In London there are 299 schools, according to the last Report, in which, in the course of one winter, 30,000 children were fed. At one time, in the course of the winter, 80,000 meals a week were given in this way. Then last year in West Ham about 750,000 of such meals were given; in Birmingham 600,000; in Bradford, Liverpool, Salford, and Hull about 200,000 each, and also, in some smaller places, such as Reading, Gloucester, and Wednesbury, a very considerable number of meals were provided. That means a vast amount of voluntary, most excellent, but still unregulated work, and it is also, of course, important to remember that in no case, in those voluntary arrangements, is any of the cost recovered, from the parents. It is proposed by the first clause of the Bill that the local education authority may take steps for providing meals for children by associating themselves with such committees as have carried on the work heretofore, called School Canteen Committees, and they—
  "May aid that committee by furnishing such land, buildings, furniture and apparatus, and such officers and servants as may be necessary for the organisation, preparation, and service of such meals."
  That services, and the apparatus, buildings, and so on, it is proposed should be paid for out of the rates. The second clause deals with the question of payment, and I think there will be a general disposition to agree that where payments can be recovered from parents who are able to pay, it is desirable that that should be done, in order to maintain the sense of parental responsibility; and it is proposed, therefore, to take power to recover both payments provided by voluntary subscription, and also payments made out of the rates, which appears to us to be a very distinct advantage. And it certainly does seem from experience in some cases that there are a very large number of parents who were quite willing to pay a fee if called upon to do
  1476
  so. In the cripple schools in London a good deal of feeding of this kind is done, for obvious reasons. The poor little cripple children cannot go home to their meals, and in the schools in London a great number of meals are provided in this way. Last year there were 167,000 such dinners given in London for Defective Children Schools. The parents paid of the cost nearly £1,400, and the-Dinner Fund was only drawn on for £179. That is very satisfactory evidence of the willingness of the parents to pay, because none of that money, as a matter of fact, could have been recovered by legal process.
  When you come to Clause 3 you approach rather more debateable ground. In Clause 3 the rates are called in. It is there provided that under certain circumstances a local authority may spend out of the rates such sum as may meet the cost of provision of food. That is a very carefully guarded clause. The object of the Bill is that the rates should in no way supplant the voluntary subscriptions, but that they should supplement them if it can be shewn that voluntary subscriptions have entirely broken down, and the local authority may apply to the Board of Education for leave to make this provision out of the rates. The Board of course, would inquire into all the circumstances, but in no case may the amount reach more than a rate of a halfpenny, and absolute necessity must be proved, and also that no other funds are available. Of course, while a halfpenny rate is allowed, it would very often mean that only a very small fraction of a farthing would be required, because, as your Lordships know, in London, the halfpenny rate produces a very large amount, and what it is contemplated might happen under this Bill is that after allowing for all the voluntary agencies, there might be a deficit of £4,000 or £5,000, which would be a fraction of a farthing on the rate of London, which the Board of Education might sanction the payment of out of the rates.
  Now it is argued, of course, that it is very dangerous bringing in the rates at all, because the moment you do so, the voluntary subscriptions will cease altogether. That may be so, and, if so, it is of course an extremely regrettable circumstance. But it is not

  1477
  quite easy to see why a combination of voluntary effort and rate aid should not be possible. It is done to some extent, as I daresay some of your Lordships know, in other countries, and it seems tome that if people could only be brought to see that the rates may exercise a very valuable function in just supplying what is short in voluntary benevolence, a valuable service would be done, because I daresay it has often occurred to many of us that at no distant date something of the kind may be necessary in regard to some of our great hospitals. Everybody knows what a struggle it is for the hospital work—particularly, of course, of London—to be carried on. They are anxious, if possible, and very naturally, I think, to avoid recourse to public funds, but still it may have to be done some day, and if people can only be educated into believing that you could not have a better arrangement than for the State to find the absolutely necessary balance over and above what is provided by charity for such purposes it would be, I believe, a very valuable addition to the means by which great public objects of this sort are supported, and I think it is worth an effort to try and secure that, if possible.
  I might remind your Lordships that the Bill which is now no more, the Education Bill, contained a clause (Clause 24) which was received with unanimous applause by your Lordships—namely, a clause which authorised the education authority to assist—I forget the precise word, but certainly the word "assist" was there—to assist voluntary associations providing meals of that kind for children. That was precisely the same principle, and it was not then hinted that, because the education authority was called in to assist, necessarily the people would cease to provide for children in that way. The object of this clause is that where a number of meals are given they shall only be given in case of real need.
  I come to only one other point which is of some importance, and which I daresay may find favour with noble Lords on the Opposition side of the House. It is stated that if you are going to give free meals to anybody you ought to give them, not through the Education Department but through the Poor Law guardians. But that would not be at all easy to administer. There are a great many more Poor Law areas than
  1478
  education areas, and these areas are by no means coterminous. A child may often be living in one Poor Law area and attending a school situated in another. This is not a Local Government Board measure at all, but an Education Bill. The contention is that the provision of these meals is not a question of dealing with pauperism, but an incident or episode in the education of the children. These canteens are intended to be a part of the school. They are not intended to be workhouse kitchens; they are intended to be a part of the school; and we believe that a great deal of good may be done in them, not merely by feeding children who are starving, but by feeding the children who are stupidly fed at home in the manner which, as some of your Lordships, I daresay, know, obtains to an extraordinary extent among many of the poor. It is not at all an uncommon thing in these schools to find children who simply will not eat the kind of meal—porridge, for instance—given to them there. Unless they are given pickles, or something of that kind, of a high flavour, they refuse to look at any food at all. Therefore we hope that these school kitchens may have a distinctly educative influence. As regards this question of the board of guardians, I may remind your Lordships that in the spring of 1905 a Resolution was moved in the House of Commons empowering local education authorities to ensure the feeding of children, and, where possible, to recover the cost. Then a very highly respected Member of the House, Sir George Bartley, moved an Amendment to the effect that the Poor Law guardians and not the local education authority should provide the food. He, however, was defeated by 100 to sixty-four, although I believe, as a matter of fact, the Government of that day supported him in the minority. That, I think, shows that there was a very strong feeling, even in the House which represented the views of noble Lords opposite, in favour of this particular provision, and I am very much afraid that if any attempt is made to substitute the Board of Guardians for the Board of Education in this matter it will be fatal to the Bill, which received an astonishing amount of support in another place. I do not remember the exact figures, but I know the minorities, though tolerably active

  1479
  in the discussion in the other House, were exceedingly small, ranging I believe from about fifty downwards.
  *LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: It was at three o'clock in the morning.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: But the majorities were considerable although the House was sitting at a late hour; and, had there been substantial opposition, hon. Members, even at three o'clock in the morning, would have opposed the Bill. If there are any other points to be raised we could deal with them in Committee. I hope noble Lords will not object to the Committee stage being taken to-morrow, notwithstanding the late period at which, unfortunately, the Bill has been introduced.
  *LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: To-day, not to-morrow.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: Yes, it is very much to-day, I am afraid. I hope that noble Lords will hand in any Amendments they may have to-night, or to-morrow morning, in order that they may be in the possession of noble Lords when the Committee stage is reached, I have some reason to hope that at any rate, if it be found necessary to move Amendments, they may be of a simple character, involving straight, plain issues—not so much verbal Amendments, but Amendments embodying the desire of some noble Lords to express objections on points of principle; and, as I have said, I hope we may be able to take the Committee stage to-morrow.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  EARL CAWDOR: No one, I think, will be disposed to enter to-night into any discussion with respect to this measure, but I venture to suggest that your Lordships have some ground for complaint that a measure of this importance should only receive a Second Reading at one o'clock in the morning two days before the close of an autumn Session. I do not think it a reasonable course to adopt in regard to a Bill of any kind; certainly not in regard to a Bill of this sort. It is not like the concluding stage of a Bill, brought in to
  1480
  wind up the session, but a new Bill, taken at the very last moment, when discussion is practically impossible. I therefore enter a protest against action of this kind. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill suggests that all our Amendments should be made of a simple nature. I have never heard such a suggestion made before.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I made no such suggestion. I merely expressed the hope that Amendments might deal with simple issues. Of course, if noble Lords desire to make elaborate Amendments they may do so.
  EARL CAWDOR: the noble Earl suggested that Amendments should be of a particular kind.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I made no such suggestion at all.
  EARL CAWDOR: You suggested that Amendments might be of a very simple nature.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I suggested it, owing to the nature of the case, and I did not wish, in the least, to interfere with the discretion of noble Lords. I might mention an instance. I know Lord Balfour is about to move an Amendment excluding Scotland from the operation of the Bill. He might do that very simply. Some other noble Lord might leave out Clause 3. But from the nature of the case it seemed to me that Amendments might be of a simple character, and not of the kind we had in the case of the Merchant Shipping Bill.
  EARL CAWDOR: I accept what the noble Lord says, but I do venture to suggest that at this hour, at all events, we cannot enter into a debate on the Second Reading. I do not think it possible to do it. The only reasonable course to pursue under, what I venture to think, is an inconvenient arrangement for discussing an important Bill, is that, while of course we shall not debate it at this time of night, we should not suffer from that fact. I shall raise no objection to Second Reading tonight, on the distinct understanding that noble Lords will be entitled to discuss the Bill fully in Committee this afternoon.
  LORD AVEBURY: I join in the protest of the noble Lord (Earl Cawdor). This Bill is certainly one of great importance—of much greater importance than anyone who listened to my noble friend opposite (the Earl of Crewe) would have imagined, and it will have, certainly, very far-reaching consequences. I trust that if we do agree to the Second Reading being taken to-night we shall not only have the opportunity of making any remarks we wish to make when we go into Committee to-morrow, but that if we propose any Amendments we shall not be told that we are precluded from doing so, because we have agreed to the principle of the Bill. I hope that may be generally understood.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I say exactly the same as has been said by my noble friends Lord Cawdor and Lord Avebury. I admit that the circumstances are exceptional, and if they had not been exceptional I should certainly have raised the question by moving to postpone the Bill for a month. This question is far too important to be hurried through like this. As your Lordships will have seen, I have an Amendment standing on the Paper to leave out Clause 7, and to insert a clause providing that the Bill shall not apply to Scotland. I shall not enter to-night into the case for my Amendment, but will only say that it is in my opinion a very strong one. In conclusion I have only to say that I hope the next stage of the Bill will be taken at a more reasonable time.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: I am in an absolutely penitent frame of mind, and can assure the House that I entirely accept the stripes laid upon my back by the three noble Lords who have spoken. Of course, I am not responsible for the time at which the Bill came up from the other House, and I have already endeavoured to explain that it was really owing to accident that I was not able to take it last evening. Had I been able to do so it would at any rate have given a little more time for its consideration. I frankly admit, however, that your Lordships have reason to complain that in these last few days of the session a measure of this considerable importance should be put down for Second Reading. Of course, I entirely fall in with the course suggested by the noble Earl—
  1482
  which indeed I had intended myself to suggest—that we should not proceed with the debate to-night, but that noble Lords opposite should have an opportunity, when we go into Committee to-morrow, of saying whatever they wish upon the Bill. As a matter of fact, there is not a great amount of business before the House to-morrow, so that I hope due time may be devoted to the discussion of the Bill.
  On Question, Motion agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House tomorrow.

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.
  House in Committee according to order.
  Clauses 1 and 2 agreed, to.
  Schedule:—
  THE EARL OF GRANARDmoved to omit from the schedule the sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Act, its inclusion being rendered unnecessary by a permanent Act having been passed this session.
  Amendment moved—
  "In the Schedule, page 3, to leave out lines 52 to 54."—(The Earl of Granard.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Standing Committee negatived. Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX, having been suspended), Amendment reported; Bill read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND BILL.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, this Bill seeks to give effect, as far as possible, to the recommendation of the Committee of 1903 which, under the chairmanship of Mr. Akers-Douglas, inquired into the whole question of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland. The objects of the Bill are these, put as shortly as possible to your Lordships.

  1483
  The first is to appoint a new Board to take the place of the Board of Manufactures. The Board of Manufactures, I may point out to your Lordships, is a very ancient institution in Scotland, and dates from a few years after the Union. Its duties, when it was first started, were to foster the woollen and hemp industries in Scotland, and for that purpose it was given the administration of a sum of £2,000 a year, which became payable to Scotland under the Treaty of Union, and it was part of the consideration for the imposition of certain taxes in Scotland. To these duties the care of the Fisheries was subsequently added, and for the first 100 years of the Board's existence it looked after those matters. Towards the beginning of the nineteenth century it began to look after Science, and subsequently Art, and during the latter half of the nineteenth century its duties were confined to those subjects. That is the explanation of how a body with the name of the Board of Manufactures comes to look after Art in Scotland. The next proposal is to substitute a new Board consisting of seven members for the old Board of twenty-one members, as it is considered that seven is a more workable number than twenty-one. It is right that I should mention, on this matter, that Mr. Akers-Douglas' Committee's recommendation has been slightly departed from here. The Committee recommended that the number should be fifteen, and that they should be appointed in a somewhat different manner from that proposed in the Bill. But after lengthy consideration it has been held that it is better, as I say, to make the number seven, and to leave the appointment in the hands of the Secretary for Scotland, whose judgment is only fettered in the matter in one respect, and that is, that three of the members of the Board must also be members of some elected body in Scotland. This is an Amendment which was recently added in another place without a division, and, I believe, unanimously. The second of the objects of the Bill is to hand over the buildings at present in charge of the Board of Manufactures to the Commissioners of Works, thus relieving the income of the Board from the charges of the upkeep of those buildings. The third object of the Bill is to make the sum of £2,000 a year, which is payable under the Treaty of Union, a
  1484
  charge on the Consolidated Fund; and the fourth object is to give increased accommodation to the Royal Society, the National Collection of Pictures, the Royal Scottish Academy, and the School of Art. If your Lordships wished, I could describe how those matters are to be effected, but I think perhaps it will be simpler, at this late hour, if I simply move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
  On Question, agreed to.
  LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: It might perhaps relieve the pressure of business at a subsequent date, as there seems no objection to this Bill, if I were to ask permission to take it through all its stages to-night.
  *LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I think it is quite sufficient to take the Second Reading to-night. I do not anticipate any Amendments to the Bill, but I personally have only been able to read it since I came to the House this evening. I do not think there is any serious question likely to arise, but I should like to ask whether the appointment should be made by the Secretary for Scotland or by recommendation to-the Crown. It is not necessary to answer the question now, but it would, I think, be better to put the Bill down for Committee to-morrow, and then, if necessary, it can be taken through the other stages.
  *THE EARL OF CREWE: My noble friend Lord Hamilton will certainly fall in with that suggestion.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Report from the Committee of the reason to be offered to the Commons for the Lords insisting on their Amendments; read, and agreed to; and a message sent to the Commons to return the Bill with the reason.
  House adjourned at a quarter past One o'clock a.m. till a quarter past Four o'clock p.m.