Lords Sitting of 8 February 1911

VISCOUNT GAGE.
Petition of Henry Charles, Viscount Gage of Castle Island, in the County of Kerry, and Baron Gage of Castlebar, in the County of Mayo, in the Peerage of Ireland. and Baron Gage of High Meadow, in the County of Gloucester, in the Peerage of Great Britain, claiming a right to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland; read, and referred to the Lord Chancellor to consider and report thereupon to the House.

EARL OF PORTARLINGTON.
Ordered, That the Report of the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, made to the House of Lords on Tuesday last, that the right of the Earl of Portarlington to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to his satisfaction, be sent to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, together with a certificate stating that such report has been made, and that the House has ordered it to be sent to the said Clerk of the Crown in Ireland.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with

Aberdare Urban District Council.

Afon Lwyd Valley Sewerage Board.

Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway.

Ashborne and District Gas.

Bicester Urban District Gas.

Blackburn Corporation Water.

Brighton, Hove and District Railless Traction.

Bristol Corporation.

Bristol Tramways.

Cardiff Railway.

Central London Railway.

Chapel-en-le-Frith, Chinley and District Gas.

Chasetown Gas.

Chesham and District Gas.

Chester Water.

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Chesterfield Gas and Water Board.

Chichester Gas.

Chiswick Urban District Council.

City of London (Various Powers).

Corporation of London (Bridges).

Coventry Corporation.

Croydon and Southern District Railless Traction.

Dover Corporation.

Dover Graving Dock.

Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire Sewerage Board.

Ely Rural District Water.

Enfield Gas.

Felixstowe and Walton Water.

Furness Railway.

Gas Light and Coke Company.

Gloucester Corporation.

Great Northern Railway.

Great Western Railway.

Great Yarmouth Port and Haven.

Greater London Railway.

Harrogate Corporation.

Hastings Corporation.

Hebburn Urban District. Council.

Hornsea Urban District Council.

Ipswich Corporation.

Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation.

Kingston-upon-Thames Bridge.

Liverpool Overhead Railway.

Lloyds.

Local Authorities (Combined Drainage).

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Steam Vessels).

London Cemetery Company.

London County Council (General Powers).

London Electric Railway.

London and South-Western Railway.

London, Tilbury and Southend Railway.

London United Tramways.

Luton Corporation.

Luton Gas.

Luton Water.

Macclesfield and District Railless Traction and Electricity Supply.

Malvern Electric Traction.

Manchester Corporation.

Manchester and Milford Railway.

Manchester Ship Canal.

Margam Urban District Council.

Marple Urban District Council Gas.

Matlock District Railless Traction.

Merthyr Tydfil Corporation Water.

Metropolitan District Railway.

Metropolitan Electric Supply Company (Acton District).

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Metropolitan Railway.

Metropolitan Water Board (Hertford Sewerage).

Metropolitan Water Board (New Works).

Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Thornaby Tramways.

Midland Railway.

Milford Docks.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation.

North-Eastern Railway.

Northampton Corporation.

Oldham and Saddleworth District Railless Traction.

Oystermouth Urban District Council.

Paddington Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions).

Paignton Urban District Council.

Penllwyn Railway.

Poplar Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions).

Port of London Authority.

Rhondda Urban District Council.

Rhymney Railway.

Rhymney Valley Water Board.

Rochdale Market.

Rotherham Corporation.

Rotherham, Maltby and District Rail-less Traction.

Saint Helens Corporation.

Saint Mary Prestwich Rectory.

Saint Mary Radcliffe Rectory.

Seaforth and Sefton Junction Railway.

Sheils' Charity.

Sidmouth Gas and Electricity.

Sligo and Arigna Railway (Abandonment).

Sligo Corporation.

Slough Urban District. Water.

Southampton Corporation Tramways.

Southampton Corporation Water.

Southampton Harbour.

Star Life Assurance Society.

Swinton Urban District Council.

Tamworth Gas.

Thames Conservancy.

Thorney Drainage.

Upper Medway Conservancy.

West Cheshire Water.

Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board.

Weston-super-Mare Gas.

Whaley Bridge, Gas.

Widnes and Runcorn Bridge (Transfer).

Winchester Corporation (Electric Supply).

Wirral Water.

Woking Urban District Council (Basingstoke Canal).

Also the Certificates that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have not been complied with:

Bedwellty Urban District Council.

Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Railless Traction.

Halifax Corporation.

Swansea Gas.

Rhôs-on-Sea Pier.

Barry Railway.

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had prepared and laid it on the Table: The same was ordered to be printed. (No. 10.)

THE DEATH OF EARL CAWDOR.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA. (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, I feel certain that your Lordships will not desire to proceed to the business of the day without some reference being made to the sad event which we have all noticed in the newspapers of this afternoon. The long struggle which Lord Cawdor carried on against a fatal illness, carried on, as we were told, with the patience of a gallant spirit, has terminated. The career of Lord Cawdor was in some respects a unique one. There have been instances—there are some among men prominent in public life to-day—of those who have achieved high office without having climbed up any of the rungs of the official ladder, but I cannot recall any other instance of a man who, after a career of nine years in the House of Commons, hardworking and creditable, but not, I think, specially distinguished, then left active politics for a period of some twenty years, during which he devoted himself to local affairs and to the presidency of a great railway company, a post filled by him with the utmost distinction—who at the end of that time was called to one of the highest and most responsible offices under the Crown—who only held that office for a short time, but held it long enough to impress upon it his personality and to cause all those who were associated with him to regard him as one of the most capable Ministers who had ever been at the Admiralty.

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Since then, and after that brief period of office, Lord Cawdor has held a position in the Party of noble Lords opposite and in the public esteem only very short of the highest. My Lords, that is a very remarkable career. We on this side have always recognised Lord Cawdor as a most formidable antagonist, but though his weapons were sharp, they were never barbed; in short, we recognised throughout his public career those same qualities of courage, straightforwardness, and invincible good humour which so endeared him to his friends in private life. I have one special qualification in speaking of Lord Cawdor. I was associated with him during the long days of the Constitutional Conference, and the noble Marquess opposite is the only other man in this House who can say the same. The noble Marquess can speak, and doubtless will speak, of the ability and of the originality of mind which Lord Cawdor showed during the progress of those negotiations, as on other occasions; but I am able to speak from a different standpoint of his breadth of view and that receptive quality of his mind which caused him to examine closely and even sympathetically all propositions that were set before him, even by those to whom he was at the time being opposed. So while we offer to noble Lords opposite our most sincere condolences upon the, as I hold, irreparable loss which they have sustained, we claim for ourselves also a share in the general sorrow which I know the House feels without exception at the bereavement which it has suffered in the death of Lord Cawdor.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am glad that it should have fallen to the lot of the noble Earl who leads the House to bring this sad subject before us, because he is able to address himself to it, not as we might have done as political allies of the late Lord Cawdor, but as the leader of the whole House. In that capacity he is able to bear witness to the extent of the loss which we have all sustained, and, as he has truly said, it is an irreparable loss. I do not think there is any member of your Lordships' House who has not during the last few weeks followed anxiously, amidst hopes and fears, the progress of that illness which Lord Cawdor resisted with peculiar and indomitable courage, but to which he has succumbed at last. As to Lord Cawdor's position in this House, I think it would be true to say that if any of us, no matter in what part of the House we sit,
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had been called upon to draw up a list, a very short list, of the most able and conspicuous members of this Assembly, not one of these lists would have been found to have omitted Lord Cawdor's name. Lord Cawdor was an admirable debater—ready, fearless, eloquent: a hard fighter who never was happier than when he was in the fighting line, but a fighter who, as the noble Earl truly said, always fought fairly. He had business abilities of no ordinary description. My noble and learned friend behind me (Lord Halsbury) would, I believe, be ready to testify to the manner in which he devoted himself at one period of his career to the business of his own county. In the management of his own great estates he showed the same thorough and businesslike disposition; and when lie undertook the affairs of that great railway company to which reference has been made it was by his businesslike ability that its position was so greatly improved. At the Admiralty he showed what he was able to do as the administrator of one of the most onerous Departments in the public service. I listened with interest and pleasure to the words which fell from the noble Earl in that part of his speech which dealt with the part taken by Lord Cawdor in the discussions of the Constitutional Conference. I gladly bear out every word that the noble Earl said upon that subject. But while we think of Lord Cawdor's many public qualities we also cannot help at this moment thinking of some of those personal qualities to which he owed so much of his popularity. Those who knew him intimately will, I am sure, agree with me when I say that there never was a more delightful companion or a more invaluable friend and counsellor. In all capacities of life he discovered the secret of attracting to himself the respect and affection of those with whom he came in contact; and perhaps my testimony on this point is worth something, for my acquaintance with Lord Cawdor dates from the time when we were boys together at school. Looking back upon t hat long vista of years I can recall no moment when Lord Cawdor was not surrounded by devoted friends, and when it would not have been true of him to say that he did not know how to make an enemy. To us who sit upon this Bench, Lord Cawdor's death is indeed a calamity. "We loved him; peace be with him; he is dead"; and we offer our sympathy to all those, to his family above all, but to all those who are mourning his loss at this sad hour.
THE EARL OF HALSRURY: My Lords, the only ground on which I can associate myself with this small testimony to Lord Cawdor's memory is the fact that I had with him a lifelong friendship. I sat with him for thirteen years as a member of the same County Bench, and then, as always, he appeared to me a true type of the English gentleman.

MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War the Questions standing in my name on the Paper—viz.:

1. The total number of non-commissioned officers and men serving in the Regular Army in the United Kingdom on 1st February, 1911.

2. The number of the above under twenty years of age.

3. The number of non-commissioned officers and men due to proceed abroad before the end of the present trooping season.

4. The total number of officers, noncommissioned officers, and men deficient in all branches, combatant and non-combatant, of the Territorial Force on the 1st January, 1911.

5. The number of non-commissioned officers and men now serving in the Territorial Force under twenty years of age.

6. The number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in the Territorial Force who have not completed their recruit's course of musketry.

7. The number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in the Territorial Force who in 1909–1910 failed to reach the qualifying standard for musketry, but who were afterwards, in accordance with Army Order 38 of 1910, returned as qualified, and the number who did not attempt to qualify under Army Order 38 of 1910.

8. The number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Territorial Army who have been absent with and without leave from camp on two occasions during their service.

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The Questions need no explanation, as the information I seek is a more matter of numbers.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS): My Lords, with regard to the first three Questions of the noble Duke only the January figures are available. As to the first Question, the answer is 120, 837 non-commissioned officers and men. The answer to the second Question is 26,720 rank and file only, not including non-commissioned officers, but, of course, they are very few indeed in number. in answer to the third Question, the number of non-commissioned officers and men due to proceed abroad between January 1 and the end of the season is 3,523. As to Question four, the Territorial Force was below its establishment on January 1 by 1,514 officers and 44,106 non-commissioned officers and men. As to Question five, the latest figures obtainable are those of October 1 last, when 83,088 non-commissioned officers and men out of a strength of 257,337 were under twenty. The officers' ages are not available. As to Question six, out of a total strength of 73,813 officers and men who fired the recruits' course last year, 13,033 did not complete it. That does not mean that they did no musketry at all. Some may have done a good deal, but they did not complete the course. The Army Order to which the noble Duke refers in his seventh Question was issued in the month of February—that was, before the musketry of the year had begun—and therefore I think all the recruits who fired last year fired under the conditions of that Order. The number who did not attempt to qualify under that Order I cannot give; but the number of those who did not complete, though they may have attempted to do so, was 6,263. I am afraid I am unable to answer the eighth Question, as it would require a special return, which would take a great. deal of compiling. Of course, I can give, and have given, the number of men who did not attend camp in any particular year, but I cannot find out how far the men who did not attend camp in one year were the same who did not attend in another without asking for a special return.
House adjourned at ten minutes before Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.