Lords Sitting of 28 June 1906

Preamble
Lord Graves (Claim to Vote). Several witnesses ordered to attend the Committee for Privileges on Monday next, and produce documents.
Earldom of Norfolk, Several witnesses ordered to attend the Committee for Privileges on Monday next, and produce documents.
Worcester Election, Message to the a Commons for copies of minutes of the evidence taken at the trial of the Worcester election petition.
The Lord Petre took the Oath.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with: Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Electric Power.
And also the Certificates that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with: Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 1).Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2). Water Provisional Order.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Great Yarmouth Waterworks and s Lowestoft Water and Gas Bill [H.L.]; The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill [H.L.]; Tramways Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; The order made on Friday last, appointing certain Lords the Select Committee to consider the Bills, discharged.
Lord Tredegar's Supplemental Estate Bill [H.L.]; Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
North and South Shields Electric Railway Bill, Brixham Gas (Electric Lighting) Bill; Read 3a, and passed.
Kettering Water Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Bill; Cork City Railways and Works Bill. Brought from the Commons, read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders(No. 4) Bill [H.L.]; Tramways Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.] Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Uxbridge Gas Bill and another Bill do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill [H.L.], and the Tramways Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; read, and agreed to: All petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill; Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill. House in Committee (according to order); Bills reported without Amendment: Standing Committee negatived; and Bills to be read 3a To-morrow.
Gas and Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.], Gas Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.], Gas Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.], Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.], Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION.
  Petition in favour of maintenance of existing religious education in Church of England Schools; of parents and guardians of children attending school at Colne; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  WORCESTER ELECTION.
  Minutes of evidence taken at the trial of the Worcester election petition communicated (pursuant to Message of this day).
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (1906).
  Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools, with schedules.
  COLONIES: ANNUAL.
  No. 486. St. Helena (Report for 1905):

  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES—
  No. 3653. Russia (Odessa);
  No. 3654. France (Nice);
  No. 3655. Turkey (Salonica);
  No. 3656. Germany (Trade of Germany for 1905);
  No. 3657. Venezuela (Carcas);

  ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE.
  Report of the Royal Commission.
  PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS, 1853–1891, (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
  Licence granted by His Majesty to Constance Farrilley, a convict under detention in Aylesbury Prison, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the London Female Preventive and Reformatory Institution, Milton House, Chelsea.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS, 1882 TO 1902 (PROCEEDINGS).
  Report by the Board of Trade respecting the applications to and proceedings of the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 to 1902, during the past year.
  PILOTAGE
  Abstract of returns relating to pilots and pilotage in the United Kingdom (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 300 of session 1905), as furnished by the various pilotage authorities.

  HARWICH HARBOUR.
  Abstract of the Accounts of the receipts and expenditure of the Harwich Harbour Conservancy Board from the time of their incorporation down to and inclusive of March 31st, 1906.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  EXPLOSIVES ACT, 1875.
  Thirtieth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives, for 1905
  TONNAGE.
  Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to inquire into the operations of section 78 and 87 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, in regard to the measurement of the tonnage of steamships; with minutes of evidence, appendices, and index. I. Report. II. Minutes of evidence, appendices, and index.

  NAVY.
  (New Construction) — Memorandum explanatory of the programme of new construction for 1905–1906; with details not included in the Navy Estimates for 1906–1907.
  (Wireless Telegraphy) — Agreement, between the Admiralty and the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, dated July 24th, 1903.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  CLERGY DISCIPLINE ACT, 1892.
  Additional Rules, dated the 25th day of June 1906, under the Act.
  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (No. 2) BILL.
  Amendments reported (according to order), and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.
  EDUCATION OF DEFECTIVE CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
  MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL.
  Amendment reported (according to order), and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

  THE FLAG AT WESTMINSTER.
  THE EARL OF MEATHrose to ask His Majesty's Government whether the National Flag on the Palace of Westminster was lowered to half-mast on the

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  announcement of the death of the late Right Hon. Richard Seddon, P. C., Premier of New Zealand, or at the time of his funeral, or of the memorial service lately held in St. Paul's Cathedral, and if not, whether His Majesty's Government do not consider that the time has arrived in the history of the Empire when such a national tribute of respect and of sympathy should, on the death of a Premier of a British self-governing colony, be paid to his memory by the Parliament of the Mother Country.
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, since I put my Question on the notice Paper of your Lordships' House I have been advised that the raising and lowering of the National Flag on the Houses of Parliament is within the prerogative of His Majesty the King, inasmuch as this building is a Royal palace. This information has come to me from a private source. In consequence of this fact I have given notice that I propose to add to the Question as it has already been printed the words—
  "And will advise His Majesty the King, in the exercise of his prerogative, to give the necessary instructions in regard thereto."
  By the death of the Right Hon. Richard Seddon, P.O., Premier of New Zealand, the British Empire has sustained a very serious, and in some particulars an irreparable, loss. This successful statesman and devoted son of the Empire was a very remarkable man. The son of a Lancashire schoolmaster and schoolmistress, he laid no claim to classical culture; in fact, it is known that as a boy he resisted the efforts of his father to teach him Latin. But, on the other hand, his sound common-sense, his great knowledge of the work-a-day world and of all things connected with it, his strength of character and belief in himself, his courage, endurance, independence, and indifference to criticism, his power of impressing his will on others, his energy, and his evident earnestness in all that he took up, made his personality irresistible.
  For fourteen years, until his recent death, Mr. Seddon held the reins of power in New Zealand, and during four general elections he was re-elected with large and ever increasing majorities, proving that he had obtained the love and affection of the people of New Zealand. None of his predecessors had ever remained in office longer than four
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  years. Such was his hold on the affections of the people of New Zealand that, if he had not died at the comparatively early age of sixty-one, in all probability he would have remained at the head of affairs in that country so long as his working powers lasted. He told interviewers that he was neither a Radical, a Liberal, a Conservative, nor a Socialist. He said—
  "I desire to improve the condition of the people socially, morally, and politically, to inspire them with hope and to give them every opportunity of securing comfort in old age without sacrificing their independence."
  Whatever we may think of the political and social measures for which he was responsible, there can be no doubt whatever that the vast majority of the people of New Zealand warmly supported them; and not only that, his popularity increased year by year so that he reversed the usual experience of Governments, who find that their popularity is in inverse ratio to the length of their tenure of office.
  In New Zealand he will probably be remembered as the author of two important measures—the Female Suffrage Act and the Old Age Pension Law. But for us at home he will ever remain the great Imperialist statesman who, when the military resources of this country were at their very lowest ebb, sent to our assistance in South Africa a gallant band of trained marksmen and skilled horsemen who rendered yeoman service in defence of the Empire. Since the war in South Africa the relation towards the mother country of the Colonies has been altered in a great degree. By associating themselves actively with the mother country and with each other in mutual defence they have identified themselves with imperial interests and acquired a distinct right to be consulted in all matters of an imperial character. To my mind, my Lords, the British Empire owes a deep debt of gratitude to the late President Kruger for having been the means of uniting and solidifying the British Empire. New Zealand took a full share in this memorable struggle, sparing neither blood nor treasure.
  The spirit which animated those men who fought for us was their own, but it was Richard Seddon who gave them the opportunity of showing what they were made of. He

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  it was who set an example of patriotism to New Zealand by sending his own son to the war before asking others to follow his example. Does not the Empire, and especially the mother country, owe some gratitude to this sturdy imperialist of the Antipodes? Surely we do, and New Zealand may rest assured that his action in the hour of the Empire's need, and the gallant deeds of her sons, will never be forgotten as long as the sun in the course of its revolution sets on the folds of the Union Jack in New Zealand and rises in Great Britain to salute the well-known emblem of British sovereignty.
  I do not know what Answer may be given to my Question with regard to the lowering of the National Flag to half-mast on the occasion of Mr. Seddon's decease. I fear it may possibly prove to be in the negative, but, if so, I am confident that such regrettable inaction will not have been due to any want of respect or sympathy but from lack of precedent and initiative in the perception by His Majesty's Government of the entirely altered position occupied by New Zealand and the other self-governing Colonies since the date of the Boer War.
  THE LORD STEWARD OF THE HOUSEHOLD (The Earl of LIVERPOOL): My Lords, the Answer to the first paragraph of the noble Earl's Question is in the negative. The flag on the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster is only lowered to half-mast on the death of the Sovereign or of a member of the Royal Family, and the First Commissioner of Works does not see any reason for departing from the decision of the late Government in this matter. As to the supplementary Question, His Majesty's Government do not see their way to take the course suggested; but in saying that, I wish to associate myself entirely with the noble Earl's eulogium of the late Mr. Seddon, whom everyone must look upon as a great statesman, and whose loss to the Empire all must deplore. I have always kept in touch with New Zealand politics, through an old and valued friend, who was leader of the Opposition there during Mr. Seddon's earlier terms of office, and who has now passed away, and I know from him that all parties in New Zealand held Mr. Seddon in the highest respect. Perhaps I ought to point out that though the
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  the Union Jack is a national flag, it is no more the national flag of this country than the American Jack or the Jack of Russia are national flags. A Royal palace moreover, is not in the same category as other buildings from which flags are flown.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, may I be allowed to point out to the noble Earl who has brought this matter to the attention of your Lordships this afternoon, that if his suggestion had been adopted by His Majesty's Government there would be the greatest possible difficulty in discriminating between one Colonial Premier and another. You must either show this mark of respect in the case of the death of every Premier of an important Colony, which would reduce it to a mere matter of form, or you must discriminate between their respective merits, which it is not in. the province of this House or of His Majesty's Government to do.

  ARMY MEAT CONTRACTS.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government why the contracts for beef for the Army have been changed so as to substitute home-killed beef for home-bred beef. The Question is a very short one, but it embraces many people and many interests. Some years ago imported dead meat was served out to our troops, but in consequence of the great outcry against it an arrangement was made that the troops should have on five days homebred beef and on two days Australian or New Zealand mutton. That went on for some time, and gave every satisfaction. The arrangement remains in force, I believe, where the contract is accepted for live cattle, but in all dead meat contracts home-killed is allowed; that is to say, home-bred is entirely done away with. All cattle imported alive have, as we know, to be killed at the port of entry, and therefore all cattle imported into this country, whether from Canada, America, or the Argentine, comes under the category of home-killed.
  This is a great blow to the farmer and to all agriculturists in England, Ireland and Scotland, and it is one they hardly merit. On Ireland, a purely agricultural country, the blow falls most heavily. To show your Lordships that this is not a

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  small matter, I may mention that the annual consumption of meat by the Army And Navy represents 164,250 head of cattle, the money value being about £2,792,000. By one stroke of the pen, by the alteration of one word in a contract, this trade is almost swept away. The cattle and dead meat imported into this country govern the price of cattle in the United Kingdom. If there is an enormous import of dead meat and live cattle the price of stores naturally falls at once, and this is felt throughout England, Ireland and Scotland. I cannot see, therefore, what the advantage is in altering the contract in this way, because if the price of cattle is governed by the importation, surely it is just the same if you allow home-bred cattle to be killed for the purpose of the troops Surely among the millions that inhabit these Islands there are more than enough to consume the imported beef. I am sure the troops would be more than pleased if our farmers were allowed to supply them with the Toast beef of Old England and of Ireland and Scotland.
  I should like to read to your Lordships the curt and decisive letter which was received from the Army Council by the Secretary of the Irish Cattle Traders and Stockowners' Association. Here it is—
  Sir,—With reference to your letter of the 12th inst., transmitting a copy of a resolution passed by your committee on the subject of War Department contracts for meat, I am commanded by the Army Council to inform you that troops in the United Kingdom get fresh beef five days a week, and the main reason for the alteration in the tender form was to widen the source of supply, and to obtain the best quality at the most reasonable price.
  The words in the tender form are general, And include beef from imported cattle killed At port of entry. There is no intention of again substituting "home-bred" for "home-killed" in the tender forms.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
  (Signed), R. M. BRUDE.
  The Secretary Irish Cattle Traders and Stockowners' Association.
  I suppose that may be considered as the law of the Medes and Persians, and that in future English, Irish and Scottish farmers are to be precluded from providing the troops with home-bred beef. Farmers all pay taxes, and I think some consideration might be shown to them.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of PORTS- MOUTH): My Lords, this question has been raised on several occasions recently in another place, and I would refer the noble Earl to the replies given on those occasions By the Secretary of State. The only object in altering the Army contract forms so as to substitute home-killed for home-bred beef was to widen the source of supply of meat for the Army with a view to obtaining the best meat at the lowest price. As the Secretary of State has said, the policy of the Government in this matter is one of free trade—i.e., to buy meat where we can get it best and cheapest; and I am afraid that I can hold out no hope of a return to the old arrangements. These arrangements, of course, did give a decided preference to the home agriculturist, but it must be remembered that this preference was given at the expense of the public Exchequer. We expect by the new arrangements to effect a considerable saving in the annual Estimates under the Supply Vote. The present demand in this country for foreign home-killed beef points to its satisfactory quality. By opening the Army contracts to it we are both saving public money and keeping down pro tanto the price of meat for the consuming public.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: When the time comes I hope the noble Earl will be able to point out to me the saving to the consuming public as a result of this arrangement.

  WORCESTER ELECTION.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBOKN): My Lords, your Lordships will have observed that a message has come from the Commons that they have agreed to an Address to be presented to His Majesty, in which they desire the concurrence of this House, viz.:—
  "Worcester Election,—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the
  "Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty that Sir John Compton Lawrence, knight, one of the Justices of the High Court of Justice, and Sir Joseph Walton, knight, one of the Justices of the High Court of Justice, being two of the Judges

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  appointed for the trial of Election Petitions, pursuant to The Parliamentary Elections Acts, 1868, and The Parliamentary Elections and Corrupt Practices Act, 1879, have reported to the House of Commons that there was reason to believe extensive corrupt practices had taken place at the last Election for the City of Worcester.
  "We therefore humbly pray Your Majesty that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made, pursuant to the powers of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, intituled 'An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament,' by the appointing of Edward Tindal Atkinson, esquire, one of Your Majesty's Counsel, Attorney-General for Your Majesty's Palatine of Durham, and Recorder of Leeds; Horace Edmund Avory, esquire, also one of Your Majesty's Counsel and Recorder of Kingston-upon-Thames; and Charles Willie Matthews, esquire, Barrister-at-law and Recorder of Salisbury, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices."
  I have therefore to move that this House agree with the Commons in the proposed Address.
  Moved, "To agree with the Commons in the Address to His Majesty, and to fill up the blank with 'Lords Spiritual and Temporal and'"—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  The Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain to present the Address on the part of this House: The Lord Chamberlain to learn His Majesty's pleasure concerning the presentation of the said Address.
  House adjourned at Five o'clock till To-morrow half-past Ten o'clock.