Sitting of 15 November 1888

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES: CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE, Votes 10 to 14.
Resolutions [November 14] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Withdrawn—Burgh Police and Health (Scotland) (re-comm.)* [340]; Land Law (Ireland) (Land Commission)* [199]; Barrow Drainage* [313]; Shannon Drainage* [314]; Criminal Evidence* [132]; Tithe Rentcharge Recovery and Variation* [289]; Tithe Rentcharge* [288]; East India Officers* [226].

QUESTIONS.

  IRELAND—STATE OF THE COUNTRY— THE POTATO CROP, &c. IN CO. DONEGAL.
  MR. MAC NEILLasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that in the coast districts and the mountainous inland parishes of the County of Donegal the produce of the potato crop this year, owing to a cold wet summer, averages only between half and a third of the usual yield, and that in several places the return from the soil supplies little more than bad seed for next spring; that, owing to the aforesaid circumstances, the people have been compelled to sell off, at serious loss, the pigs which would have been kept for three months longer, and sold at a profit, if the potato crop had been good; and that, on failure of the potato crop, the small farmers of the County of Donegal have nothing to depend upon for subsistence except a scanty crop of oats; whether his attention has been called to the letter of the Most Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, Catholic Bishop of Raphoe, written to the four Members of Parliament for the County of Donegal, apprizing them of the matters above stated, and warning them that, unless the Government push on at once a scheme of railway and fishery development promised for next year, the project will come too late to save the people; and, whether, having regard to the fact that warnings of impending distress have so frequently in times past been disregarded, he will be able to give any, and, if so, what, assurance for expediting the railway and fishery development

  1221
  which is so much required in the County of Donegal?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked, also, Whether the attention of the Government has yet been directed to the fact that in large districts of County Donegal, especially the coast and in the mountainous inland parishes, the potato crop averages less than half the usual yield, in many places the return supplying little more than bad seed for next spring, and that the people have, in consequence, been compelled to sell their pigs at serious loss because unable to feed them, while the small farmers have nothing to depend upon for food for themselves except a little oats; whether, if not fully informed, the Government will make immediate and careful inquiry into the condition of the district, and take adequate stops to meet any impending calamity; and whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed at once with any public works in any, and, if so, which, of the districts referred to?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I have caused careful inquiry to be made on the subject of these Questions, and find that, while the potato crop in part of the County Donegal is a good one, there are districts in which it is inferior both in quantity and quality; also, that the sale of pigs has recently been large; but that there is a demand for growing pigs, and good prices were obtained. On the other hand, the oat crop of this year is described as an excellent one, both in quality and quantity; while the supply of turf is abundant and well saved, and the prices of cattle and sheep are unusually good. There is, therefore, no reason to apprehend any abnormal distress, or such as could not be coped with under the ordinary Poor Law, should it arise. As regards legislation, the hon. Member is aware that we are anxious to deal with those parts of the Report of the Royal Commission which refer to railways and harbours; but these must necessarily wait until the proposals we have already made, based upon their earlier Report with regard to drainage, are dealt with by the House.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his observations with regard to the oat crop and the prices of cattle and
  1222
  sheep do not refer rather to the more fortunately situated districts of the county; and whether they are not entirely inapplicable to the mountainous and coast districts referred to in my Question?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I imagine that the rise of prices is universal. The information given to me as to the oat crop is also a general Report for the county at large. I believe that where oats have been grown they have been profitable.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: But is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the districts to which my Question refers there are no cattle for sale; that these districts are inhabited by very poor people, who are entirely dependent upon the potato crop, which has all but failed; and that such animals as they had they have been absolutely obliged to get rid of?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am far from denying that in parts of Donegal there is this year, as in previous years, distress; but my contention is that the distress can be coped with by the ordinary Poor Law.

INDIA (NATIVE STATES)—THE BEGUM OF BHOPAL AND SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN.
MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Secretary of State is aware that, in a letter addressed to the Viceroy, and which the officiating Agent refused to forward, the Begum of Bhopal wrote—
"The Agent of the British Government accredited to a friendly Court did not think it unbecoming the dignity of such a position to use such language as the following in his public communications with my vakeel;—
"'My orders are not being carried out. Does not the Begum Sahiba know me yet? If there were a thousand creatures like that disturber, Siddick Hussun, nay, a thousand obstinate devils, I shall not rest until my orders are obeyed;'"
and, whether the Government will lay upon the Table the Correspondence relating to the complaints of the Begum against Sir Lepel Griffin?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): The reply to the first Question is in the negative; and with regard to the second, the Secretary of State has no Correspondence relating to the matter which

1223
could, in his judgment, be usefully laid before Parliament.
MR. BRADLAUGH: Does the officiating Agent report to the Secretary of State when he refuses to forward Correspondence?
SIR JOHN GORST: I must ask the hon. Member to give Notice of that Question.

PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) ACT, 1885—PROPORTION OF ADVANCES.
MR. JOHN MORLEYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What proportion of the advances under Lord Ashbourne's Act of 1885 was for the purchase of holdings annually rented, first, between £30 and £50; second between £10 and £30; and, third, under £10?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The Land Purchase Commissioners inform me that the proportion of holdings in respect of which advances have been made under the Statute referred to is as follows:—Annual rent exceeding £30 and not exceeding £50, 884 holdings; annual rent £10 and not exceeding £30, 3,234 holdings; annual rent under £10, 3,599 holdings.
MR. JOHN MORLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to supplement that answer by laying a Return, in a form which I have privately suggested, classifying the size of the holdings purchased, and specifying the average number of years' purchase under each class, the amount of advances upon each class, and the amount advanced in each county?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: On receiving the right hon. Gentleman's letter last night I telegraphed over to the Commissioners to ask if that could be done. I have not received their answer; but I should hope and believe that it can be done. I would, however, suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should substitute the amount of the valuation for the acreage, because acreage indicates nothing. Thirty acres of mountain land, for instance, are very different to rich arable land.
Subsequently,
MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary, whether it will be possible by Monday, or on an
1224
early day next week, to have the important Return of which I gave him Notice at the beginning of Questions?
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he would do his best to have the Return furnished as soon as possible.

SUPPLY—THE SHIPBUILDING VOTE— THE LATE NAVAL MANŒUVRES.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he can inform the House whether the Committee of Admirals appointed to consider the lessons taught by the late Naval Manœuvres will report before the Shipbuilding Vote (No. 8) is discussed in the House; whether, considering the importance of the question, he will lay the Report of these Admirals upon the Table of the House; and, whether he will lay upon the Table a Paper showing any extra expenditure that may have been incurred by these Manœuvres?
THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON): I doubt if the Report on the Naval Manœuvres will be completed before the discussion on the Navy Estimates; but I intend, when completed, to publish such parts of it as relate to the behaviour and qualities of the ships engaged, and to any defects which they may have shown. The cost of the expenditure associated with the Manœuvres is estimated at £60,000; but a large proportion of this would have had to be incurred independently of the Manœuvres.

THE CROFTERS' COMMISSION.
DR. CLARKasked the Lord Advocate, How many cases were determined by the Crofters' Commission during the second year of its existence; how many cases considered, but not yet decided; and, how many applications still await the consideration of the Commission?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): There are not materials in London enabling me at present to answer this Question. But the Crofters' Commissioners have been requested to supply the particulars asked for if this can be done without interruption of the urgent duties in which they are at present engaged. If this is the

1225
case, as I hope it may be, I shall be happy to give the hon. Gentleman the information which he desires as soon as we obtain it.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)— SUMMONING CORONERS' JURIES.
MR. ILLINGWORTHasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Who are responsible for summoning Coroners' Juries in Ireland; and, who summoned the jury for the inquest on Mr. Mandeville?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, that upon the Coroner issuing his precept it was the duty of the police to summon persons to act as jurors. In the case of the inquest alluded to the jury was summoned, as usual, by the local Constabulary.
MR. ILLINGWORTHinquired why the Papers relating to the Mandeville inquest had not been distributed?
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he was not aware of the cause of the delay. He would hurry them on as quickly as he could.

LAW AND POLICE—ASSAULTS ON THE POLICE.
MR. HOZIERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the practice to in trust prosecutions, in the case of assaults on, or interference with, the police when in the exercise of their duty, to the counsel for the Treasury; and, if not, whether he can state for what reason?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): When a constable has been assaulted or interfered with, so as to render a prosecution necessary, a prosecution is instituted on behalf of the Commissioners. Ordinary cases are placed in the hands of a firm usually representing the police; cases of importance only are sent to the Treasury Solicitor. It is unadvisable that the Treasury Solicitor should intervene on behalf of the Government in trifling cases.

PROCLAIMED MEETINGS (IRELAND)— LONGFORD.
DR. FITZGERALDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that a meeting assembled in the town
1226
of Longford, to welcome the hon. Member for East Clare (Mr. Cox), on the evening of Saturday the 3rd instant, was forcibly dispersed without any notice or warning by the police, under the command of County Inspector Milling; whether Mr. Milling threatened the people that if they did not leave the streets within two minutes he would disperse them with a vengeance; and, whether this is the Mr. Milling who was returned for trial by the magistrates of the City of Cork some time ago for an assault upon the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner); and, if so, whether he was brought to trial?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): It is the case that a meeting which was attempted to be held in the streets of Longford at about 11.30 o'clock on the night of Saturday, November 3, was required to disperse by the police, commanded by the County Inspector, who acted under orders from the Divisional Magistrate. This meeting was attempted in the face of a Proclamation prohibiting the holding of a meeting at an adjacent place on the following day (Sunday), an information having been sworn that it would lead to intimidation and to interference with the administration of the law. Mr. Milling was the County Inspector in charge of the police; but he did not threaten the people. My reply to the first inquiry in the third paragraph is in the affirmative; but no trial took place, for the Attorney General of the day was of opinion that there was no evidence to support the case, and ordered a nolle prosequi.
MR. COX: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to state that the County Inspector asked the people to disperse before he ordered the police to attack them?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I gather that there was no attack made by them.
MR. COX: Well, I was present a that meeting; and I may inform the right hon. Gentleman that there was most deliberate and wanton attack mada by the police.
MR. HANDEL COSSHAM: I also was one of the victims on that occasion.
MR. LANE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it was not a fact that Mr. Milling, who was a

1227
District Inspector at the time he assaulted Dr. Tanner, has since been promoted to be a County Inspector?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware of that.

LABOUR—RETURN AS TO WAGES, &c.— PART 3.
MR. BRADLAUGHasked the President of the Board of Trade, When Part 3 of the Return as to Wages, &c., for the past 50 years will be laid upon the Table; whether any, and what, steps are being taken to publish Returns of Wages and Cost of Living in this country; what steps are being taken to give effect to the Memorandum of August, 1886, as to the Department of Labour Statistics; and whether he will state the precise number of persons employed in the Labour Statistical Department, and their respective salaries and duties; and whether the Labour Correspondent is otherwise occupied than in the collection of Labour Statistics and of information relating to the condition of the labouring classes?
THE PRESIDENT (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH), in reply, said, that the further Returns asked for in the Question, involved most laborious work, and he understood that they would not be ready for at least another 12 months. As to the other parts of the Question, perhaps he had better present a Memorandum to the House showing what had been done. The number of persons employed in the Labour Statistical Department was 10, including the Labour Correspondent. These, with the exception of the Labour Correspondent, were Lower Division Clerks.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (SCOTLAND) —THE MAXWELTON (EAST KILBRIDE) ENDOWED SCHOOL SCHEME.
MR. HOZIERasked the Lord Advocate, What is the present position of the Maxwelton (East Kilbride) Endowed School Scheme; and, when the said scheme is likely to be finally approved?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): The scheme for the Maxwelton School Endowment (East Kilbride) has been approved by their Lordships, and now awaits the approbation of Her Majesty. This
1228
approbation cannot be obtained until the next Council, which, I understand, is shortly to be held.

METROPOLIS—OVERHEAD ELECTRIC WIRES.
MR. BRADLAUGHasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the Board of Trade has sanctioned any existing overhead wires for the purpose of electric lighting; and, whether the Board intends to authorize, under Provisional Order or Licences, the transmission of electricity at high tension by such wires within the Metropolis?
THE PRESIDENT (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH), in reply, said, that no overhead electric wires had been sanctioned, so far, by the Board of Trade. He could not make any definite promise with regard to future applications on the subject with reference to the Metropolis; but certainly he should not be disposed to sanction such applications.
MR. BRUNNER.: Has the right hon. Gentleman power to prohibit the erection of such overhead wires in the Metropolis?
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: That is a Question I would rather not answer at present.

ARMY CONTRACTS—FORAGE CAPS.
MR. J. ROWLANDSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether an order for 30,000 forage caps was recently given to a Mrs. Featherstone; whether this Mrs. Featherstone was formerly forewoman of the machinists in the firm of Ross and Co.; and, is it a fact that some of the forage caps are now being made at the firm of Ross and Co., who were struck off the list of contractors in March last?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE), in reply, said, an order for 30,000 forage caps had been given to Mrs. Featherstone, formerly in the employment of Ross and Co., and now in business for herself. He understood that her business had no connection with the firm of Ross and Co., which had been struck off the list of contractors. If the hon. Member had specific information that the caps were being made by Ross and Co., it would be to the advantage of the

1229
Service if he would communicate with the War Department.

INDIA (BENGAL)—OUTSTILLS IN THE HOOGHLY AND HOWRAH DISTRICTS.
SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGEasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the attention of the Government has been called to an Official Minute, recently published by the Government of Bengal, in which it is admitted that the working of the out still system in Bengal of late has been such as to stimulate the consumption of intoxicating liquors; and, what steps, if any, will be taken to give effect to this decision of the Government of Bengal?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): The Minute referred to is published in The Calcutta Gazette of the 17th of October, 1888. The Government of Bengal find that, owing to the neglect of the Rules prescribed by the Bengal Excise Commission, certain outstills licensed early in 1887 in the Hooghly and Howrah districts have become a nuisance, and have caused the price of liquor to be cheapened. The Lieutenant Governor has ordered that the existing arrangements shall be thoroughly revised; and it is intended that the Rules shall be so enforced as to prevent undue cheapening of liquor. Steps will be taken in concert with the Revenue Board for ascertaining whether similar laxities in the outstill system have been permitted in other districts.

NAVY—ADDITIONAL WAR SHIPS.
MR. HOWELLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is true that the Government have decided to build a number of additional war ships; whether he will state to the House the number and class of such ships and their estimated cost per ship, and in the aggregate; and, whether the House will have an opportunity of discussing the proposed addition to our Naval Fleet before any portion of the expenditure is incurred?
THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON): If the hon. Gentleman would refer to my past statements, both in the House and outside, he would find that I have always
1230
pointed out that the desire of the Government was to complete as rapidly as they could the programme of shipbuilding adopted in 1885, and that when they had reduced it to manageable proportions they would commence a fresh programme of their own. This we propose to do next year. So far from wishing to take a surreptitious advantage of the House by incurring liabilities or expenditure without its knowledge, we desire to lay before it our programme in its entirety, and with the fullest information relating to each stage, both as regards cost and rate of progress, in the hope that the continuity of a shipbuilding programme, sanctioned under such conditions, would not be affected either by a change of Government or the election of a fresh House of Commons.
MR. HOWELL: May I ask the noble Lord whether, in the preparation of the designs of the new ships, care will be taken to insure that the ships will be battleworthy, as well as seaworthy?
LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I shall be quite ready to answer that Question when the hon. Gentleman tells me what he means by the word "battleworthy."
MR. HOWELL: I took the expression used from the Report of the Committee itself. All the witnesses before the Committee, and the Committee itself which passed the Report, drew a distinction between seaworthiness and battleworthiness.
LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I was not aware that the word occurred in the Report. I can only say that, although the Committee pressed several witnesses to give an accurate definition of what was meant by "battleworthiness," not one of them was able to do so.
MR. HANBURY: Is it not a fact that the noble Lord's own Constructor of the Navy, Mr. White, was the first man to use the word?
LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: No; my hon. Friend is in error. I think the word was invented by the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed).
MR. HOWELLasked, whether, in the Amendment to the Report, which was negatived on the Motion of the noble Lord, the same terms of "seaworthiness" and "battleworthiness" were not used by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury)?
[No reply.]

ALLEGED MURDER OF CAPTAIN GROBBELAR.
DR. CLARKasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has received any Report from Sir Sidney Shippard regarding his investigation into the alleged murder of Captain Grobbelar; and, if not, when he expects to receive the Report?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): In answer to the hon. Member, I have to state that the Report was received on Tuesday last, and, being very voluminous, has not yet been considered by Her Majesty's Government.

THE CROFTERS' COMMISSION— SITTINGS.
DR. CLARK(for Dr. R. MACDONALD)asked the Lord Advocate, Is it a fact that at Stornoway, on Wednesday October 17, Sheriff Brand alone, out of the three Commissioners, sat to hear the evidence of the crofters, in contravention of the terms of Section 23 of the Crofters' Act, which provides that not less than two Commissioners can deal with applications under the Act; and, if it is a fact that on that date the valuator, Mr. Ferguson, sat in the Court, while the other Commissioner, Mr. Hossack, was at Barvas doing the valuator's work?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): I am informed by Sheriff Brand that, on October 17, he sat with Mr. Fergus Ferguson, an assessor appointed, and acting under Sections 17 and 20 of the Crofters Act. The hearing referred to would not have proceeded had not Mr. John Murdoch, as representing the crofters who were then present, and Mr. William Mackay, as representing the estate, signed a Minute which had been written upon the application, and was in the following terms, namely:—
"Stornoway, 17th October, 1888.—We, John Murdoch, Uddingston, Glasgow, as representing the crofters, and William Mackay, chamberlain of the Lews, for Lady Matheson, considering that Mr. P. B. MacIntyre, Commissioner, is unable, on account of illness, to attend the sittings of the Crofters' Commission in this district, do hereby agree to one of the two remaining Commissioners, with the aid of
1232
Fergus Ferguson, farmer, Monkstadt, Skye, as assessor, proceeding with the hearing, in order to the due disposal and determination of the application, and that such determination shall be as effectual, to all intents and purposes, as if the said P. B. MacIntyre had been present and taken part therein.—J. MURDOCH, WM. MACKAY."
I am also informed that the application has not yet been finally disposed of, and that Commissioner MacIntyre, who rejoined the Commission some weeks ago, will be consulted in the matter of the final order.

AFRICA (SOUTH)—ZULULAND—TRIAL OF UNDABUKO AND OTHER CHIEFS.
DR. CLARKasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Government are arranging for the trial of Undabuko, and the other Zulu Chiefs, under native law or civilized law; and if under native law, whether steps are being taken to prevent the miscarriage of justice which took place in the case of Langalibalele?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): A special tribunal has been constituted for the trial of the leaders in the late disturbances. It is to consist of three gentlemen of judicial experience, unconnected with Zululand—namely, Mr. Justice Wragg, Senior Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Natal, and Messrs. Fannin and Rudolph, both experienced magistrates, well versed in the native language. The accused will be tried on definite charges for offences against the civilized criminal law. They may, if they see fit, be defended by counsel. The Court is to keep a full record of the evidence; and in the event of the accused being found guilty their sentences are not to be carried out until Her Majesty's Government have had an opportunity of considering the evidence and the Queen's pleasure is known.
DR. CLARK: Will they be tried for treason?
BARON HENRY DE WORMS: I have said they will be tried for offences against civilized criminal law.
MR. OSBORNE MORGANasked, when the trial would take place, and whether there would be a jury?
BARON HENRY DE WORMSreplied, that he was not able to say.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, SEC. 108, SUB-SEC. 4—COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICTS—SINGLE MEMBER REPRESENTATION.
MR. STEPHENSasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether lie can state to the House what is the proportion of the whole number of County Council Districts in which, during the January elections, 1889, effect will not be given to the principle of single member representation; whether to prevent the disappointment, confusion, and misrepresentation which must arise from divided votes in oases of two, three, or more members sitting for one district, he will use the ample powers conferred by section 108, sub-section 4, of "The Local Government Act, 1888;" and, whether, if the powers of section 108, sub-section 4, cannot satisfactorily be applied in time for the County Council elections of January, 1889, he will consider the expediency of postponing them for one year, that is to January, 1890, having regard to the entire dependence of the general functions of County Councils upon the decisions yet to be obtained when deliberation upon the scheme, as a whole, is resumed by Parliament?
THE PRESIDENT (Mr. RITCHIE): The total number of Electoral Divisions for the election of County Councillors in boroughs and districts other than boroughs is 3,400. Of this number 265 divisions will, by orders which have already been issued, or are in course of preparation, be combined for the purpose of returning more than one member. I am advised that section 108 (4) does not confer on the Board any such powers as suggested. The Electoral Divisions in the cases referred to have been duly made, and the combination has been rendered necessary by the fact that there are not separate lists of voters for those divisions. I must take exception to the suggestion that disappointment, confusion, and misrepresentation must arise in connection with the combination of districts, and also to that as to the general functions of County Councils being dependent entirely upon decisions yet to be obtained. I see no reason whatever for the postponement of the elections for another year.

AFRICA (EAST COAST)—BLOCKADE OF THE ZANZIBAR COAST.
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If it is true that it has been arranged that British vessels are to undertake the blockade of a part of the German Coast of Zanzibar, said to be from Mainea Island south to the Rovuma River; if so, whether, in addition to stopping the Slave Trade, the ships are to stop the import of arms; and whether the blockade is to extend to any other merchandize; whether there is now a British Consul in the Nyassa region west of the blockaded coast, or whether he is withdrawn; and, whether the African Lakes Company, who are now carrying on a war in those regions, and missionaries accompanying them, have been withdrawn or warned that they continue at their own risk, and must not expect to be supported by a British Expedition to the interior of Africa?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): As to paragraph I, the details of the blockade have been left to the discretion of the Admirals, and we have not heard that they have been finally settled. The objects have been clearly stated in the Papers before Parliament. There is a Consul at the south end of Lake Nyassa. His district lies to the south of the Zanzibar Coast, and to the westward of the Portuguese Colony of Mozambique. The Consul is at present absent on leave. The African Lakes Company are perfectly aware that they can expect no material support from Her Majesty's Government in conflicts with the Arabs or Native Tribes. It is not known that any missionaries have accompanied the Company's forces.
DR. CLARKasked whether it was the case that arms had been stopped by the Portuguese on their way up the river?
SIR JAMES FERGUSSONsaid, he was aware of that; but permission had now been given for the passage of certain arms.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONalso asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What is the exact nature of the participation of the French Government in the proposed

1235
blockade of the Zanzibar Coast, and the meaning of the following sentence in the Marquess of Salisbury's despatch to Sir Edward Malet of November 8:—
"The French Government, though unwilling to grant the right of search on all occasions and in all cases, has consented that it should be looked upon as one of the incidents of a blockade;"
and, when the Papers relating to the co-operation of the French Government will be laid upon the Table?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): The French Government are not participating in the blockade of the Zanzibar Coast, but have sent a man-of-war specially to observe and check any abuses of the French flag by slavers. The right of search has been recognized by the French as a necessary incident of a blockade; but the terms and limits of that recognition are still a matter of discussion between the English, French, and German Governments. Slaves discovered on dhows, whatever flag may be flying, will, of course, be liberated. It is not desirable to lay any Correspondence at present.

BRITISH GUIANA—IMPRISONMENT OF MR. DE SOUZA, A BARRISTER.
MR. BERNARD COLERIDGEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Mr. de Souza, a coloured barrister, practising in British Guiana, was, on July 9, 1888, sentenced by Chief Justice Chalmers, Mr. Justice Atkinson, and Mr. Justice Sheriff, to be imprisoned for six months, and to pay a fine of $500, for contempt of Court, in writing a letter in The Royal Gazette, dated June 27, 1888, reflecting on a decision of the Judges; whether, after Mr. de Souza had been sent to prison—namely, on July 11, 1888, the Acting Attorney General, at the direct request of the Chief Justice, moved before the Chief Justice for a rule nisi, calling upon Mr. de Souza to show cause why he should not be further punished for contempt of Court, in having written a letter to The Daily Chronicle on June 20, 1887, 13 months previously; whether for that offence the Court sentenced him to the further punishment of having to come up for judgment within 12 months if called upon; whether his attention has been drawn to the report of the Judg-
1236
ment of Chief Justice Chalmers, in which he is reported to have said of Mr. de Souza that he
"Posed as the victim of the intolerance and injustice of the Judges before an ignorant and partly educated population;"
that he was
"an unprincipled demagogue,"
and possessing
"a fluency of speech which, unless coupled with high principle, was, as regards the interest of the community, one of the most dangerous gifts any man could have, because it enabled him so easily to make the worse appear the better reason in the eyes of the unthinking multitude;"
whether that sentence prevents his being able to practise as a barrister during that twelve months; whether he is aware that during his imprisonment his wife died, and that Mr. de Souza was not permitted to visit her death bed or attend her funeral; whether either of the said letters had any reference to any matter pending before the Court at the time the letters were respectively written; whether it is a fact that Mr. de Souza has no right of appeal in the matter to the Privy Council; and, whether the Government purpose to take any steps in the matter?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS)): In answer to the nine Questions put to me by the hon. Member, I have to say that the Secretary of State has no official information on the subject; but from the reports in the Colonial newspapers it appears that the first and second Questions should be answered in the affirmative; and that, for the contempt of Court mentioned in the second Question, the Court ordered Mr. de Souza to come up for judgment within 12 months if called upon. The Secretary of State does not know whether Mr. de Souza is a coloured barrister. The Secretary of State has observed in the newspaper reports of the Judgment the third passage quoted in the fourth Question, but not the other two. The Secretary of State is not aware that the order to come up for judgment within 12 months if called upon prevents Mr. de Souza from being able to practise as a barrister during that time. The Secretary of State has no information as to the matters alluded to in the sixth Question. Neither of the letters referred to in the

1237
seventh Question appears to have had reference to a matter pending before the Court at the time it was written. It has been held that there is no appeal to the Privy Council in such a case. As at present advised, Her Majesty's Government do not propose to take any steps in the matter.
MR. BERNARD COLERIDGEasked whether there was any precedent for punishment for contempt in respect of a matter not pending before the Court?
BARON HENRY DE WORMS: That is a legal Question, which had better be addressed to the Law Officers of the Crown.
MR. BERNARD COLERIDGE: May I ask the Law Officers of the Crown?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): The hon. Member should give me Notice of such a Question.
MR. BERNARD COLERIDGE: May I ask the Under Secretary whether he will obtain official information?
MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he had known Mr. de Souza when he was a Bar student in this country, and was, therefore, interested in the case. He asked whether one of the Judges had not been guilty of conduct that had been seriously reflected upon by the Privy Council; and whether Mr. de Souza was prevented from attending his wife's funeral?
BARON HENRY DE WORMS: I have already stated that Her Majesty's Government have no official information on the subject. [Several hon. MEMBERS: Will you get it?]

METROPOLITAN POLICE—CALEDONIAN ROAD STATION—DISALLOWANCE OF CLAIMS BY THE REVISING BARRISTER.
MR. R. CHAMBERLAINasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is a fact that the claims of 18 police constables at the Caledonian Road Station were disallowed by the Revising Barrister, on the ground that the beds were not separated by some kind of partition; and whether, if this be the case, the Home Secretary will cause such modifications to be made in the bed chambers as will prevent members of the Police Force
1238
from being in this way disqualified for the future?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS), in reply, said, the fact was as stated. Since 1882 it had been the practice in building new police stations to give each police officer a separate bunk. He would consider whether arrangements could not be made to prevent the disqualification referred to.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—SENTENCE ON MR. P. A. M'HUGH, MAYOR OF SLIGO.
MR. J. E. ELLISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that Mr. P. A. M'Hugh, Mayor of Sligo, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment on the 10th instant for publishing two articles in The Sligo Champion, of which he is proprietor?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): Yes, Sir. The sentence of the Resident Magistrates was confirmed by the County Court Judge.
MR. J. E. ELLISasked, how the right hon. Gentleman reconciled this action on the part of the Government with his oft-repeated assertion that the Government did not interfere with the liberty of the Press in Ireland?
ME. A. J. BALFOUR: In the first place, these are not the proceedings of the Government, but of the County Court Judge. In the second place, I have never made the assertion which the hon. Gentleman attributes to me. What I have constantly asserted—and what I now repeat—is, that the Government had never interfered, either directly or indirectly, with any legitimate expression of opinion on any political subject whatever; but when a newspaper becomes an organ of intimidation to an individual, it legitimately comes under the operation of the law.
MR. P. O'BRIENasked, whether it was not the fact that the article for which Mr. M'Hugh was convicted was not a quotation from another newspaper; and, also, on what grounds he was not treated as a first-class misdemeanant?
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, that the County Court Judge thought the case so palpable that he declined to make the order for Mr. M'Hugh to become a

1239
first-class misdemeanant. He must ask for Notice with regard to the first part of the Question.

IRISH LAND COMMISSION—THE REPORT.
MR. J. E. ELLISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When the Report of the Land Commission for the current year will be distributed?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The Land Commission informs me that their Report is now ready, and will be forwarded forthwith for presentation.

THE CROFTERS' COMMISSION— FURTHER REPORT.
MR. PROVANDasked the Lord Advocate, When there will be issued a further Report of the Proceedings of the Crofters' Commission, in continuation of the Report to December 10, 1887?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON), in reply, said, a further Report would be prepared at the close of the year, and issued as soon as it could be completed.

THE CURRENCY—NEW SILVER COINAGE.
MR. W. BECKETTasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he is aware that there is still great difficulty in procuring silver of the new coinage from the Bank of England, that Body saying they cannot tell when they shall be able to supply it; and, if he knows the cause of this difficulty?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): The Bank of England report that they have satisfied all reasonable demands for the new silver coinage, and are preparing to meet the usual extra Christmas demand. If applied to by a banker for a very large sum all in coins of the new designs, the Bank might decline, not considering themselves authorized to meet a demand which, if granted, would involve a large increase of coinage beyond the necessities of the country. There is no lack of silver coin to meet all ordinary demands.
MR. W. BECKETTasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that difficulty had existed ever since the new coinage was issued all through the present year?
MR. GOSCHEN: I am most anxious that every reasonable demand for silver should be satisfied; but if every demand for new coins were acceded to, it would mean the withdrawal from circulation of all old coins, and that would, involve an expenditure that I do not think ought to be incurred so long as the old silver is doing its duty.

EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—DEATH OF JAMES DUNNE, AN EVICTED TENANT.
MR. GILLasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention had been called to the following verdict, found by the Coroner's Jury at Ardee last Friday, at the close of the inquest on the body of the evicted tenant James Dunne:—
"We find that James Dunne, on Tuesday, the 12th day of October, 1853, at Belpatrick, in the County Louth, died from the effects of shock and exposure; and we find Henry Robert Emerson and Athol Johnson Dudgeon did feloniously and unlawfully kill and slay the said James Dunne by subjecting him to this shock and exposure on the 11th day of October, 1888, at Belpatrick, in said county; and the Jury cannot separate without censuring the Sub-Sheriff for not using more precautions on the occasion;"
and what course the Irish Executive propose to take to give effect to this verdict?
MR. JOHNSTONasked, Whether the Jury did not consist of 17 Nationalists, including the Secretary of the local branch of the National League?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I have not made any inquiry as to the constitution of the Jury; but I am informed that those concerned have given the necessary bail, and have served notice on the Chief Crown Solicitor of an immediate application to quash the verdict. Pending those proceedings no determination can be arrived at by the Attorney General.
MR. HANDEL COSSHAMsaid, he was a personal witness of the case, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would satisfy himself as to the circumstances of it.

PUBLIC MEETINGS (METROPOLIS)— THE MEETING ON CLERKENWELL GREEN.
MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he can give any information as to the dispersing of the meeting on Clerkenwell Green on the night of Tuesday, November 13? He also wished to know whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman had been called to some observations of Mr. Lushington, the magistrate, to the effect that the police, in dispersing the crowd, were doing no more than their duty; and how the right hon. Gentleman reconciled that statement with the one he made yesterday, to the effect that no force had been used in dispersing the meeting?
MR. J. ROWLANDSasked whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman had been called to the statement that the mounted police rode in among the people who were leaving, in order to break them up into small knots; and whether the police had special orders from the Home Office to attempt to disperse the people in that way?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have made further inquiries since my statement of yesterday, and I have again been assured by the Superintendent of the district that the meeting was in no way dispersed or disturbed, nor was any effort made to break up any procession. In his further Question the hon. Member alludes to some expressions used by Mr. Lushington. I have only seen them in the newspaper this morning; I do not find them in such other reports as I have been able to refer to. From the evidence before me I gather that what was before the magistrate was not any attack or assault by the police upon the meeting or those leaving, but their moving on a knot of persons who obstructed the passing of a Post Office van, this being quite an isolated incident. With regard to the Question of the hon. Member for Finsbury, I have no information on the point. Such information as I have is opposed to the suggestion that the mounted police rode among the people leaving the meeting. Certainly, there were no orders, special or otherwise, from the Home Office
1242
directing the mounted police to break up the meeting.
MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into Mr. Lushington's remarks, as I am personally responsible for having called the meeting together?
MR. MATTHEWS: Certainly, Sir; I should have done so if time had allowed.
MR. PICKERSGILLasked, whether the mounted men were under the command of the Superintendent of the district, or someone else?
MR. J. ROWLANDSasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiries as to whether it was not a distinct procession that was leaving the meeting into which the police rode; and whether the obstruction of the Post Office van did not occur on Clerkenwell Green itself?
MR. MATTHEWS: I have given the hon. Member the whole of the information in my possession.

INDIA—(NATIVE STATES)—HYDERABAD COMMITTEE.
DR. CLARKasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether his attention has been called to an article in The Pioneer of Allahabad, July 22, 1888, in which serious charges are made regarding his connection with a Mr. Palmer; and whether it is his intention to take any action with regard to these statements?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): My attention has been called to the article in question. The charge which I understand to be insinuated in The Pioneer, that I have employed Mr. Palmer as an intermediary, either in the affairs of Hyderabad generally, or in reference to the Hyderabad Committee of this Session in particular, is wholly false. It is not my intention to take any action in regard to such statements. Perhaps the House will allow me to add that in the winter of 1883–4, before I had ever held Office, I acted as legal adviser to the Prime Minister and Senior Regent of Hyderabad. Since that time I have had nothing to do with the affairs of Hyderabad, except recently as Under Secretary of State for India. In that capacity I have acted under the direction

1243
of my noble Friend the Secretary of State, and through the regular officials of the India Office.

METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS— ACCIDENT IN GREAT TITCHFIELD STREET.
MR. BROADHURSTasked the hon. Member for the Knutsford Division of Cheshire, Whether the Metropolitan Board of Works purpose to hold an inquiry into the cause of the lamentable accident in Great Titchfield Street, through which six workmen lost their lives, and 15 others were injured; and, if so, whether the Board are likely to take any action against the parties who are responsible for the accident?
MR. TATTON EGERTON, in reply, said, the matter would come specially before the Board to-morrow. The officers of the Board had attended the inquest and had been in communication with the District Surveyor. The Board would, undoubtedly, follow in the present case the precedent of previous cases.

COAL MINES, &c. REGULATION ACT, 1837—EAST AND WEST GLAMORGAN COLLIERIES—SPECIAL RULES.
MR. RANDELLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Special Rules under "The Coal Mines, &c. Regulation Act, 1887," have been established for the collieries in East and West Glamorgan; and, if not, why not?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Special Rules have been established, and are in force in those parts of East Glamorganshire which are in the district of Inspector Martin. With regard to the rest of Glamorganshire, Rules have not yet been established, because arbitration on matters in difference between the Secretary of State and the colliery owners is still pending.

PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND)— BALLYCOTTON PIER.
DR. TANNER, who had the following Question on the Paper:—To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether Mr. Wolfe Barry has yet made his Report on the condi-
1244
tion of the Ballycotton Pier; whether it is a fact that in consequence of the recent gales a portion of the pier head was blown away; that the old fissures have been widened; and that 11 new cracks have appeared in wharf pavement after the storm of the 6th instant; whether it is true that on the 20th ultimo a large fishing boat was driven ashore upon the remains of the old pier, not 100 yards from the harbour's entrance, and was with difficulty saved by the prompt and energetic action of Mr. Steel and the coastguards; and, whether any immediate repairs will be carried out to prevent further damage and collapse, and, if so, who is to carry out and be responsible for the necessary repairs? said: I see that the Question is marked on the Notice Paper as being set down for Thursday next, the 22nd of November, although no intimation of the postponing of the Question was given to me. I wish to call attention to the irregular way in which this has been set down.
THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): I am not responsible for that. I understood it to be an error of the printer that it appeared in to-day's paper, that the Question was originally put down for the 22nd.
DR. TANNER: I put it down in consequence of the pier being in such a terrible state, and I meant to ask the Question as soon as possible, hoping that the pier would not be washed away altogether.

BRITISH GUIANA—RAILWAY TO THE NORTH WESTERN FRONTIER.
MR. WATTasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he is aware that the Governor of the Colony of British Guiana, on or about the 14th of May last, received a Petition from the principal merchants and leading inhabitants of the Colony, praying for the construction of a railway to the North Western Frontier; and, whether the Governor of the Colony has forwarded such Petition to Her Majesty's Government; and, if so, whether he is now prepared to state what action, if any, the Government propose to take so as to comply with the wishes of the Colonists?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS),, in reply, said,

1245
that such a Petition had been presented to the Governor, but the Governor had not forwarded it to Her Majesty's Government; and the Secretary of State was, therefore, not prepared to state what action the Government proposed to take in the matter.

AUSTRALIA—QUEENSLAND—APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR—SIR HENRY A. BLAKE.
MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is true, as stated in the public Press, that he has cancelled the appointment of Sir Henry Blake as Governor of Queensland; and, if not, whether he has received a reply to the message telegraphed to the Acting Governor of Queensland on Monday last?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The answer to both of these Questions of the hon. Member is in the negative. I may add that, as the House is aware, the Colonial Ministers have been desired to state the reasons of their opposition to Sir Henry Blake's appointment, and no communication in reply has yet been received.
MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he would give him an opportunity of discussing the appointment of the Governor of Queensland at an early day?
BARON HENRY DE WORMS: That Question must be addressed to the Leader of the House.
SIR JULIAN GOLDSMID: Is there any similar case of a Colony acting as Queensland has done in regard to the appointment of a Governor?
MR. LABOUCHERE: Is it true that the Colony votes the salary of the Governor?
BARON HENRY DE WORMS: Yes; of course, the salary is paid by the Colony.

PENSIONS—CIVIL LIST OF GEORGE III.—OVER-PAYMENT.
MR. HANBURYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is the fact that in the case of two out of the six pensioners still returned in the Finance Accounts as "Persons formerly on the Civil List of His Majesty George III.," the pensions have been continued
1246
after their death, one pensioner having died on April 16, 1885, and the other on March 6, 1887; and, what is the system of control in regard to pensions at the Treasury which makes such over-payments possible?
THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): No such over-payments have been made; and I am satisfied that the Regulations in force make it impossible that they should occur. The hon. Member has confused an issue from the Exchequer to meet a charge on the Consolidated Fund with a payment by the Paymaster General from the money so issued. I would refer him to the explanation which I gave him on this subject on the 28th of February last; and to the note in the Finance Accounts that the amount over-issued from the Exchequer, in respect to the two pensions referred to, will be repaid.
MR. HANBURYasked, how it happened, if the Paymaster General had repaid the amount into the Exchequer in 1885, that the Exchequer had continued to issue it for three years afterwards?
MR. JACKSON: It is somewhat difficult to make this matter clear to the hon. Gentleman. The Comptroller of Audits has satisfied himself that no such payment has been made. It is quite possible that the issue might he made, and necessarily made, because the death of the pensioner was not known; and until his death became known, the amount, of course, would be paid to the Paymaster.
MR. HANBURY: Is not that exactly my point? What evidence is there that the pensioners are alive?
MR. JACKSON: In every case where a pension is applied for, a life certificate must be produced.

LAW AND JUSTICE—DEBTS CONTRACTED BY MARRIED WOMEN.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been directed to the heavy losses sustained by many retail traders in consequence of married women declining to pay accounts they have contracted, on the plea that they had been forbidden to pledge their husbands' credit; and, whether, having regard to the fact that such a prohibition can be given in an entirely private manner, he will consider the possibility of making some amendment to the existing law so

1247
as to increase the trader's means of ascertaining the responsibility of this class of his customers?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): I am aware that, from time to time in past years, attention has been called to the fact that losses have been inflicted upon retail traders by reason of their having given credit to married women whose husbands had forbidden them to pledge their credit; but, at the same time, it has been pointed out in many Judgments that greater evils would be occasioned by allowing a married woman to pledge the husband's credit where he has forbidden her to do so; and, inasmuch as it is entirely in the hands of retail traders themselves whether they will or will not give credit, there is not, in my opinion, any necessity for an amendment in the law.

THE SWEATING SYSTEM—THE SELECT COMMITTEE.
MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in the event of the Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System being unable to complete their inquiries, owing to doubts as to subject-matter of the investigation, the Government will agree to the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, assisted by working men experts, to continue the inquiry into the Sweating System, and also into the case of the dock labourers, chain makers, &c. of Cradley Heath?
THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I am informed that there is no reason whatever to doubt that the Committee on the Sweating System will be able to conclude their work in a satisfactory manner. On August 3 they obtained an extension of the scope of the original Reference, so as to cover the whole of the United Kingdom; and I understand that it is the intention of the Committee to inquire into every trade in which sweating is alleged to exist. At their next sitting they are to receive evidence from dock labourers, one of the classes specially named by the hon. Member.

FISHERIES (SCOTLAND)—SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED.
MR. MARJORIBANKSasked the First Lord of the Treasury,
1248
Whether, in their contemplated salmon legislation, it is the intention of the Government to remove the Tweed from its present anomalous position of being regulated by separate and private Acts of Parliament by including it in the general laws applying to the salmon fisheries of the country; and, whether, for legislative and administrative purposes, it will be considered as a purely Scotch river?
THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): It is proposed to include the Tweed in the general laws applying to salmon fisheries in Scotland; and, so far as is practicable, the Tweed will, for legal and administrative purposes, be treated as a Scotch river.

THE REVISED EDITION OF THE STATUTES—PUBLICATION.
MR. HOWELLasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he can inform the House when the first instalment of the new edition of the Revised Statutes will be ready for issue, and at what price per volume they will be published?
THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The editor hopes to be able to return the last proofs of the first volume to the printers to-day; and, if this is done, the volume ought to be published in a fortnight at latest. The price will be 7s. 6d.
MR. HOWELLasked, whether it would not be possible to make the price of the volume 5s.?
MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not know, but I will inquire.

BURMAH (UPPER)—THE RUBY MINES —TENDERS.
In reply to Mr. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.),
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST)said, that the 21st instant was the last day for receiving tenders for the Ruby Mines, and that the advertisement as to the conditions of tender had been published in The Times and some other London dailies, The Scotsman, The Glasgow Herald, and the Irish Times.

AUSTRALIA—QUEENSLAND—APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR SIR HENRY A. BLAKE.
MR. CHILDERS: I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State

1249
for the Colonies a Question of which I have given him private Notice. It is, whether he can state to the House what answer has been given by the Secretary of State to the Agent General for South Australia with reference to the request of the Government of that Colony that it may be consulted, or confidentially communicated with, before the appointment of a Governor. Perhaps I may say, in putting this Question, that I never for an instant contemplated moving the Adjournment of the House to-day on the subject of the answer about the Government of Queensland, given to me on Monday last, which was perfectly clear and precise. I am sorry that anyone should have been inconvenienced by that supposed Motion.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, I will read to the House the following letter addressed by the Colonial Office to Sir A. Blyth:—
"Downing Street, Nov. 15, 1888.
"Sir,—I am directed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th instant, conveying the renewed request of your Government that they may have an opportunity, before any appointment is made, of expressing an opinion with regard to the person whom it may be proposed to appoint as Governor of South Australia. Lord Knutsford regrets that he is not able to give to this request any other answer than that returned to the Government of Queensland last month in the letter which was read in the House of Commons by the Under Secretary of State on Monday last. It would be a great satisfaction and assistance to the Secretary of State in the performance of a very responsible duty if it were possible in some manner to ascertain, before the Queen's pleasure is taken, that the gentleman whom he thinks suitable is also acceptable to the government and people of the Colony in which he is to represent Her Majesty for several years; and Lord Knutsford trusts it will be understood that the inability of Her Majesty's Government to comply with the wish of your Ministers in this matter is in no way connected with any indisposition to consult their views in other cases whenever practicable. As Lord Knutsford stated to the Agent General for Queensland, Her Majesty's Government feel precluded by the conditions of the Governor's office from having recourse to the advice of the Colonial Ministry in regard to the selection of a Governor. There are certain extra Colonial functions, in the discharge of which the Governor must be responsible to the Crown alone, and his action in regard to which does not interfere with, or affect the full responsibility of, the Ministers in the internal affairs of the Colony. But independently of his more strictly Imperial duties, the Governor occupies a position in regard to political matters which ap-
1250
pears to preclude the local Ministry from taking any part in his selection. The antagonism between parties in the Colonial Parliaments has frequently been very strong; and on the retirement of the Ministry which had virtually controlled the selection of the Governor, the succeeding Ministry might not improbably feel doubt as to his impartiality. For example, in dealing with the question, often one of much difficulty, whether a dissolution of Parliament ought to be granted or withheld, if the Governor should, however bonâ fide, act in accordance with the political interests of the party which had approved his appointment, his fairness might not improbably he called in question by the other side. Indeed, it seems obvious that in this and similar cases the relations of the Governor to the Colonists, as well as to the Crown, might be gravely embarrassed. I am further to point out that a public man of high standing could not well be asked to undertake an office subject to the approval of others at a distance, who may have little information as to his fitness; hut, beyond such personal considerations, the Constitutional obstacle which has been referred to appears to Lord Knutsford to be insurmountable."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

  MINISTERIAL STATEMENT.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH): A few days ago I gave an undertaking that I should to-day make a statement to the House in regard to the legislative proposals which Her Majesty's Government think it right to place before the House in the course of the present Session. In making these observations, I must first of all express my regret—my unfeigned regret—that the period of the Session at which we have arrived, and the very slow progress of Public Business during the last few days, has deprived us of the opportunity of passing several measures which we believe to be essential to the public interest, but for which there now remains no time for their due and proper consideration by this House in the course of the present Session. I refer especially to the Tithe Bills, which deal with questions not affecting the Established Church alone, but the good order and the peace of the community in a very important part of the United Kingdom. It appears to us, Sir, that sufficient time will not be afforded to the House for the consideration of these measures, which we think are of such importance as to require deliberate consideration at the hands of hon. Members. There are also other measures relating to Ireland—the Drainage Bills, for in-

  1251
  stance—which are met with a persistent opposition by hon. Members opposite. I do not in the slightest degree wish to call in question their right to oppose these measures; but they are proposed by Her Majesty's Government under a sense of their responsibility for the prosperity, advancement, and well-being of Ireland. We had reason to hope that they would have been received by this House generally with a desire to give effect to them, and that as rapidly as due consideration would permit. There is also another Bill which we regret we shall have to abandon in the course of the present Session. I refer to the Bill for the constitution of a Board of Agriculture. After communication with hon. Friends on both sides of the House who are interested in this matter, we have arrived at the conclusion that the time at our disposal would not enable us to deal with this question this Session. I have now referred to the morn important measures; but there are also others of less importance, which need not be particularized, which might have been considered, but which must now be abandoned. And now I will come to the question which we must invite the House to consider and dispose of before the Prorogation can take place. In the first instance, as I indicated in the course of the sitting before the Adjournment, we shall have to ask the House to provide an additional sum of £5,000,000 for the further extension of land purchase in Ireland. [Loud Ministerial cheers and Opposition cries of "Oh!"] I have stated in these words almost the entire contents of the Bill, for it will consist of only one clause. I admit, however, the importance of the subject, and the full right of this House to debate fully the question involved in the Bill. [Mr. J. E. ELLIS: Without the closure?] I trust the House will be able to dispose of it in the course of next week. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. A. J. Balfour) will, on Monday next, ask leave to introduce the Bill, and we propose to proceed de die in diem with it until it is disposed of. The only other Bill of any importance which is not introduced, and which we propose to ask the House to pass this Session, is a measure which deals with the allocation of the Probate Duty to Scotland and Ireland, and that, I apprehend, is
  1252
  not a measure which will receive much opposition. As to the Bill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Excise Duties (Local Purposes) we shall take the second reading immediately after the conclusion of the proceedings on the Land Purchase Bill. Following the second reading of the Excise Duties (Local Purposes) Bill, we shall ask the House to consider the Employers' Liability Bill, and as it is said that it is one which ought to go up for further consideration in the House of Lords, I hope that there may be no undue delay in getting it through this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) has made a suggestion which the Government have received with great satisfaction—that the Scotch Universities Bill may be taken pari passu with the Appropriation Bill, after Supply has been disposed of. The course which the Government propose to take is to adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. We are under an engagement to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. J. C. Stevenson) that he shall have an opportunity of raising the question of the Intoxicating Liquor (Sunday) Bill. I propose to meet this engagement when we have made sufficient progress with Supply. I propose to take the same course with regard to the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) with reference to Perpetual Pensions. But we shall not be able to afford time for the consideration of those subjects until we have made further progress with Supply. I can only say with regard to the Tithes Bills that I regret they are postponed until next Session, and to my hon. Friends who have our engagement to deal with this question as rapidly as possible, that so far as the Government can see at present they propose to make them the first Business of next Session. Afterwards we desire to take up the Scotch Local Government Bill and other matters relating to Scotland which demand our attention.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I have heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman in some respects with regret. I think, however, that it would not be right for me to do more than express that regret without arguing the point. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have thought it necessary to

  1253
  censure the proceedings of the House in regard to the progress made with Supply. So far, at any rate, as the discussion on the expenses of the judicial establishments was concerned, I must say that, in my opinion, the prolongation of that discussion is entirely due to the manner in which the proposals made, in different parts of the House, were met by Her Majesty's Government. To meet the points that were raised in such a manner is a certain and infallible recipe for securing a large expenditure of time quite unnecessarily. I gather from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that all the Business of Supply that now remains, and which includes subjects of the greatest importance—including the Irish Votes—is to be postponed until after certain legislative proceedings which may possibly prove to be protracted, and which introduce to the notice of the House, at this period of the year, matters on which as yet we have had no opportunity of pronouncing an opinion, and which are of a grave character. However, I shall not now discuss any of these matters, but I think it right to give a general intimation to the right hon. Gentleman that when, on Monday next—a very short notice indeed for such a subject—the Chief Secretary moves for leave to introduce the Bill dealing with the subject of land purchase—the terms in which the right hon. Gentleman describes it I will repeat, so that I may be sure that I have correctly understood him—I will make a proposal as an alternative to that contained in the Bill. I understand that the proposal will be a simple addition of a lump sum of £5,000,000 to the £5,000,000 already voted under Lord Ashbourne's Act, and that that will be done upon the same basis in a Bill of a single clause, without any other proposal tending to the relief of the people of Irelend with regard to the Land Question. If that be so, it will be proposed by myself, and on my responsibility, to substitute for that proceeding a different plan—namely, that we shall proceed to deal with the question of arrears which we believe to be excessive, and apply to Ireland the same principle which has been applied with such great advantage in the case of the Scotch crofters. We shall endeavour to consult with the authorities of the House as to the most convenient time for making that pro-
  1254
  posal. If there should be no difficulty in making it at the time when the proposal of the Government is submitted, it would probably be for the convenience of the House that we should proceed to take issue then on the important question of the course to be adopted. But while I say that, on the proposal of Her Majesty s Government being made, I will lose no time in the examination of the question, it is to be distinctly understood that dealing with the arrears will be proposed as an alternative to the measure which it has been stated will be submitted on the part of Her Majesty's Government.
  MR. J. C. BOLTONasked, whether the First Lord of the Treasury would not take the Burgh Police and Health (Scotland) Bill this Session?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, it would not be possible to proceed with the Bill this year. There were numerous clauses in the Bill, and if anything like protracted opposition was given to it, it would be fatal to the measure. The Government were also under the impression that it would be better to deal with it in connection with the Local Government Bill for Scotland, which they intended to introduce early next Session as a portion of the principal Business of the Session.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: Would the right hon. Gentleman be able to inform me, the time being so short between this and Monday, what is the Motion to be then submitted to the House?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I will endeavour to communicate it in the course of the evening to the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he would make a final appeal to the Government to reconsider their decision as to the Employers' Liability for Injuries to Workmen Bill.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he was as anxious as the hon. Gentleman that the Bill should be passed. The arrangement he had stated would, he thought, secure the hon. Gentleman ample opportunity for dealing with the matter.
  MR. CHANNINGasked what would be done as to the Patents, Designs, and Trades Marks Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that if the Bill was opposed to any serious extent it would not be proceeded with.
  MR. FENWICKasked the Government if they meant to give effect to the representations of the deputation who waited upon them lately with regard to the third clause of the Employers' Liability for Injuries to Workmen Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that the representations of the deputation would have the most serious attention of the Government. They involved considerations of very great importance, and it was not reasonable to expect, in reply to a Question, that he should state what the intentions of the Government were. They would be stated when the House arrived at the Bill.
  In reply to Mr. BARTLEY (Islington, N.) and Sir HENRY ROSCOE (Manchester, S.),
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that if Classes III. and V. were taken to-night, the other Education Votes in Class IV. would be proceeded with to-morrow.
  MR. E. ROBERTSONasked, with regard to the Burgh Police and Health (Scotland) Bill, whether, after the announcement the right hon. Gentleman had made, the Bill would be taken off the Order Book, so that Scotch Members might not be obliged to attend the House in the chance of its being taken? He wanted to have it definitely withdrawn. He also wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware, with regard to the Universities (Scotland) Bill, that there was on the part of a considerable number of Scotch Members the most determined opposition to the constitution of that Commission; and that on the part of another section of Scotch Members there was an equally determined opposition to proceed with any Scotch legislation whatever under circumstances which did not permit of it being adequately discussed?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he would undertake that the notification of the withdrawal of the Burgh Police and Health (Scotland) Bill should be followed by its excision from the Order Book. As regarded the Universities (Scotland) Bill, the representations which had been made to him by Scotch Members were to the effect that the great majority of Scotch Members were desirous of seeing that Bill pass into law this Session. He should certainly feel it to be his duty to give the House and the Scotch Members an opportunity of considering that Bill.
  1256
  If the hon. Member was correct in his view that the majority of Scotch Members did not desire the Bill to pass, he would have an opportunity of giving expression to that view and seeking the judgment of the House upon it.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman abide on that point by the decision of a majority of the Scotch Members?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: This is a united Parliament, Sir.
  MR. HUNTERasked the right hon. Gentleman whether, having regard to the very prolonged programme of legislation which he had put before the House, the enormous number of Estimates still to be considered, and the probable prolongation of the Sittings till February next, he would adhere to the arrangement to keep Scotch Members in town, in order to discuss the Universities (Scotland) Bill along with the Appropriation Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he had adopted the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers), who was exceedingly well fitted, from his experience and judgment in Parliamentary Business, to make a suggestion of that kind.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that, in asking the right hon. Gentleman to give them an opportunity of discussing the Universities (Scotland) Bill, he did not at all imply that the Bill as it stood was acceptable to the body of Scotch Members; but there was a strong wish expressed to him that they should have a full discussion on the Bill while the Appropriation Bill was passing through.
  MR. ESSLEMONTasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was not aware that the proposal now made by the Government was not in accordance with the promise of the ex-Lord Advocate?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not aware of it.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether he has made any estimate in his own mind as to when this Session will come to an end?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: No; I have not made any estimate, because it is not possible for me to discover the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. PROVANDasked, when the Army Estimates would be taken?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I cannot give any other indication than I have already given.
  MR. BUCHANANasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would ascertain the opinion of the Scotch Members as to the advisability of postponing the Universities (Scotland) Bill to the last few days of the Session, the limits of which it was beyond the right hon. Gentleman's own power to estimate?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I was under the impression that I had made an arrangement, which would meet with the views of the majority of the Scotch Members. ["No."] I do not hear the voices of the majority of Scotch Members in that expression. I will undertake to make further inquiry, and state to the House what course will be followed.
  MR. W. P. SINCLAIRsaid, that as the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken to make further inquiries, he should like to ask whether he would not yet endeavour to preserve the Burgh Police and Health (Scotland) Bill for consideration. He thought it would be found that the majority of the Scotch Members were more anxious that that Bill should be taken into consideration than the Universities (Scotland) Bill this Session. At the meeting of Scotch Members, to which reference had been made, preference was given to the Burgh Police Bill over the Universities Bill; and certainly the burghs were more anxious that it rather than the Universities Bill should pass into law this Session.
  MR. A. R. D. ELLIOTsaid, that having regard to the announcement of the First Lord of the Treasury that the measure for Local Government for Scotland would be proceeded with next Session, he thought it would strike a large number of Scotch Members and the Scotch people that it would be utterly unreasonable to proceed now with a measure for regulating the Scotch burghs; and he would therefore urge on the right hon. Gentleman to proceed at once with the Universities Bill.
  MR. J. R. KELLYwished to know what were the intentions of the Government as to the Weights and Measures Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he had indicated the principal measures with which Her Majesty's Government thought it necessary to proceed.
  DR. TANNER: I should like to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when it is the intention of the Government to take up the Irish Estimates; or whether it is the intention of the Government to postpone the passing of the necessary Votes for the Official Departments in Ireland until the Chief Secretary's Landlord Relief Bill is passed?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I cannot undertake to make any arrangement with regard to Public Business beyond that I have already mentioned.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.
  (1.) £19,000, to complete the Sum for Special Police.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he thought the Committee were entitled to know from the Government how long these extraordinary expenses were to be continued. He thought there was an enormous array of police in and about the precincts of the House of Commons, which was somewhat ridiculous, unless the Government had special information which rendered their retention, in the opinion of the Government, necessary. The railings surrounding the House were guarded from the outside as well as inside. The interior of the railing was generally empty of the public, but there was an array of police about the Members' entrance, which would be large enough even if there was a crowd to guard against. On Monday night he believed there were two persons in the Members' Gallery, and something like 144 policemen and detectives to look after them. He suggested that this enormous expenditure, which originated in panic—a panic which was so well rebuked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) on the previous day—ought now to be changed. The country would not regard the House of Commons as being very reasonable

  1259
  guardians of the public purse, if more of the money of the public was wasted in connection with the buildings of Parliament than was absolutely necessary. He was told that, at one gate alone, the cost of the police, when added up, represented an outlay of £800 a-year. He wished the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) to tell them what was the total cost of the whole of the police now employed about the building, and whether there was any possibility of making some reduction in the Vote. So long as there might be reason for these extraordinary expenses, he had refrained from calling attention to the matter; but, as far as he could judge, the need for such precautions did not exist to the same extent now as formerly, and therefore the cost might be reduced.
  MR. FIRTHsaid, he had a Motion on the Paper to reduce the Vote by £37,000, and he would explain shortly to the Committee his reason for moving the reduction. This Vote first appeared in 1885, when the Vote was £21,103—about the sum to which it would be brought if the reductions he moved were adopted. In 1886 the Vote had risen to £21,539; last year it reached £37,000; and this year it was £57,000. Inasmuch as the years in which the dynamite scare was current were those of 1885 and 1880, he thought the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) was bound to give the Committee a clear explanation of how it came to pass that the Vote was £37,000 more when, according to the ordinary understanding, the dynamite scare was absolutely non-existent. Was there any apprehension at the present time from dynamitards; were the Government in fear of a recurrence of dynamite outrages? To whom was this money paid? Was it paid to the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police; and if to the Government, what Government Department controlled it and paid the men? How many men were employed? The cost per policeman in London was slightly under £100; were there 570 men employed; if not, what was the number, where were they employed, under whose control were they; where were they stationed, and had these police really done anything of value besides guard the House of Commons during the past three or four years? This was
  1260
  a serious development and augmentation of the Secret Service Fund. Were these policemen taken from the London Force, or were they independently engaged; if so, on what terms? He should like to have information on all these matters. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £37,000.
  THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the total sum to be voted was only £19,000.
  MR. FIRTH: Then I will move the reduction of it by the sum of £19,000.
  Moved, "To reduce the Vote by £19,000."—(Mr. Firth.)
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, this Vote by no means represented an increase. For some years now it had been thought necessary to provide protection for public buildings and the House of Commons, both inside and outside. That protection was afforded by members of the Metropolitan Police, who were withdrawn from what might be called ordinary street duty. He would not undertake to say that every man engaged in this protective duty was replaced by an additional man, but undoubtedly additions had been made to the Force in consequence of the special duties discharged by these men in the protection of the great public buildings. The consequence of this was that an extra burden was thrown on the Metropolitan ratepayers. He confessed that he had watched that increase with great anxiety. To his mind, the expenditure of the Metropolitan Force had of late years increased faster than he could have wished; but inasmuch as this duty was performed by men of the Metropolitan Force in connection with circumstances which were not due to local Metropolitan causes, but in connection with the general interests of the whole community, it was thought that this was not a burden which ought to fall properly on the Metropolis. The Treasury recognized that to some extent, inasmuch as they paid the expenses of the men who were employed in the inside protection of buildings, but up to this time no contribution had been made towards the cost of the men who were employed in respect of outside protection. He thought the Committee would agree with the

  1261
  principle that the Treasury should assume the Imperial burden in payment of men whose duty it was to guard against possible crime, the origin of which was not local or Metropolitan, but dependent on causes of general policy or Imperial causes. It was therefore equally proper that the Treasury should contribute to the outside as well as to the inside protection. There had not been any extra men employed; on the contrary, they had diminished the number of men employed, and if this extra Vote was not wanted for the pay of men actually employed, it would not be expended, but returned to the Treasury. The extra Vote did not represent extra men put on, but it was placed on the Estimates in order to cover that part of protective duty hitherto defrayed, not by the Treasury, but by the Metropolitan ratepayers. It occurred to him that no distinction ought to be made between inside and outside protection. If they paid the men who were employed inside these buildings, they ought to pay those who were employed in protecting them outside. It was a relief pro tanto to the ratepayers, but he hoped it would not be considered an improper relief, seeing that the purposes for which the money was employed were Imperial and not local. He might add that this protective duty was not all performed in the Metropolis. The police were sent out of the Metropolis to places far remote, and it was obviously not right that the burden of paying their expenses should be thrown upon the ratepayers of the Metropolis. The only reason for the increase of the Vote was that the Treasury were called upon to pay for the whole of the expenses of the men in this class, instead of paying, as formerly, only a portion of them. The hon. and learned Member for Dundee had asked him how many men there were, and where they were stationed?
  MR. FIRTH: And under whose authority or control they were.
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, they were entirely under the control of the Commissioner of Police. He hoped the hon. and learned Member would not press him either as to the exact number of men or the places in which they were located. It was obvious that it would not be right, for public reasons, that he should give information of that kind. He knew that the hon. and learned Member
  1262
  was actuated by proper motives, but it would not be right, in the interests of the public at large, to give the information asked for. The money was paid to the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police, and it went into the Metropolitan Police Fund in repayment of the expenses of the men employed on special duties, some of them inside and some of them outside the Metropolis, but all for Imperial rather than local purposes. He hoped that it might not he necessary this year to employ nearly so many men on special duty, and that instead of reaching £57,000 the Vote would be considerably less. There had been times, within his own experience, when this extra protection had been thought necessary in this country, but the moment it was considered no longer necessary it had been withdrawn. He could assure the hon. and learned Member that, in this case, the moment it was considered that no further protection from crime and the preservation of order was required, it would be withdrawn.
  MR. FIRTHsaid, there was only one point which the right hon. Gentleman had not met—namely, the suggestion that this increase was an increase of outside men.
  MR. MATTHEWS: It is not an increase of outside men.
  MR. FIRTH: But it includes the charge for outside men?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.
  MR. FIRTHsaid, in reference to the charge about the dynamite, that in 1885–6 there was some ground possibly for employing these men. The Vote in that year was increased by £16,000, and this year it had increased by £20,000 more. Consequently there must be a double operation which had not been fully explained.
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, it was his fault if he had not enabled the hon. and learned Member to appreciate what the facts were. In 1885 there was a vast number of men employed in outside duty. The whole cost was paid by the Metropolitan Police Fund. The expenses incurred by employing the men were not covered by this Vote. So also in 1886 and 1887, the expenses not being covered by the Vote. This year, however, there was no ground for drawing a distinction between inside and outside men, and although the number of men employed was fewer, the Treasury met

  1263
  the expense of all who were employed on special duty. That was the reason of the increase in the Vote.
  MR. FIRTHsaid, he quite understood that; but he wished to point out that the amount in 1886 was £21,000, whereas in 1887 it was £37,000. He wanted to know whether there was another increase of £20,000 now?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON)said, he thought the hon. and learned Member for Dundee had rather failed to grasp what his right hon. Friend said. No doubt the figures quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Dundee were strictly correct. The difference arose in this way. The outside men employed in 1885–6 were charged on the Metropolitan Police Fund. As time went on no doubt the increase in the Force led to increase of cost, and the question was then raised as to whether it was reasonable or equitable to charge on a local rate the cost of a Force engaged on special duties. On an appeal being made to it, the Treasury consented to bear on this Vote a portion of the charge which had been hitherto borne by the Metropolitan Police Fund. He might give an assurance that nothing would be charged on this Vote—not a single 6d.—except expenditure for special duties.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he wanted an assurance that the right hon. Gentleman would inquire a little more strictly as to the large number of police employed about the Houses of Parliament, in order to see whether it could not be reduced.
  MR. MATTHEWS: Certainly.
  MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he did not think the explanation which had been given to the hon. and learned Member for Dundee (Mr. Firth) was at all satisfactory, and he should like to put one or two further questions to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He would ask, in the first place, if there was any fear of the incidents recurring which had led to the establishment of the Special Police in 1885? Was there any apprehension of a movement of that kind, or were there any rumours in the air? If the right hon. Gentleman would give any information on that point, it would tend to allay the feeling of alarm which a debate of this nature might naturally produce in the minds of the public as to
  1264
  the special purposes for which a special Vote of this nature was asked. The scare of 1885 no longer existed, and the time had therefore arrived for substantially reducing the Vote, if not for getting rid of it altogether. Then, again, he desired to know if the special force was included in the number of the Metropolitan Police, or were they entirely distinct from the Force which was under discussion last night? In 1885, when the dynamite scare was prevalent, a great part of the duty of protecting the public buildings, for a considerable period, was undertaken by regiments of soldiers. To his mind that was an additional argument why they should not continue to vote these large items for this particular service. He did not see why the military should not be employed again, if it was considered necessary to provide special protection of this kind. Was any portion of this Force told off for the protection of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in his journeys to and from that House? It was understood that he was always accompanied by a posse of detectives. Did the Vote include anything for that branch of the service, and did it fall to the lot of this special police to arrest the Irish Members who attended in that House in the performance of their Parliamentary duties? He further wished to know whether any portion of this Vote was contributed for the purpose of initiating the police into the mysteries of secret associations. Some time ago, according to the newspapers, there was an agent of the police who paid certain sums of money to become a member of a secret society. It might have been necessary to employ an agent of this kind, but the House ought to have some information when voting sums of this nature. The suggestion he would make to the Government was that if it was really the case—although he did not think they had at all proved it—that it was necessary to provide enormous sums of money in this way for the employment of a considerable number of police constables in this particular service, all the facts of the case should be stated to Parliament. His advice to the Government, however, was to withdraw, not only this special staff, but the police constables, who were engaged in interfering with public meetings in the Metropolis, and employ them in their more legitimate duty of

  1265
  detecting criminals. For instance, if they would withdraw the mounted police who were engaged on Tuesday in riding down the people in Clerkenwell, and employ them on other business, a considerable reduction in the present Vote might be effected. To put the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary into a nutshell, it simply came to this—that the more the numbers of the Force were reduced, the larger the Vote Parliament was asked to pass. He should continue to protest against the continual increase of this Vote. It was admitted that these men were introduced for a special purpose, and if the special circumstances had disappeared, they had a right to demand that the Vote should be got rid of. Was it intended to make it a permanent Vote? Would they be asked for a similar Vote next year; and, if so, would the total sum be again increased? He hoped the hon. and learned Member for Dundee would press the Vote to a Division.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought that this was a Vote of which the Committee was bound to be jealous. It was an increasing charge, and the House ought to be satisfied, before it assented to it, that it was really getting value for its money. But from his own knowledge of the Home Office, he was compelled to admit that the principle upon which the Vote had been constructed was not an unsound one. As the whole of this £57,000 was strictly applied to the police who were engaged in protecting the House of Commons and public buildings from dynamite outrages, he would advise his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Firth) not to persist in his opposition to the Vote.
  MR. FIRTHsaid, that after the appeal which had been made to him by his right hon. Friend, he would not press the Motion. He would only say that it was clearly understood that it was for the protection of the Houses of Parliament for Imperial purposes only, that this special police was employed. He was glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, that, in all probability, this particular expenditure would be very much reduced next year; and he hoped that some details of it would be given. If there were no further apprehension from any dynamite
  1266
  scare, he did not see why they should be called upon to pay for escorting Members to and from that House. Under the circumstances, he would not press the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he had no complaint to make of the Metropolitan Police generally, or of those who were employed on special duties about the House. He had some knowledge of the Irish Constabulary, and they were certainly not noted for their civility. The difference between them and the police of London was very marked. Early this year a detective was told off to watch a gentleman who came from the town to which he (Dr. Tanner) belonged. The coarse insults which the man showered upon that gentleman were abominable. The apparent cause of the persecution was that this gentleman was at one time connected with the Gaelic Association in Ireland. He was followed, day after day, from his hotel to his place of business in the City, although he had never been connected with any of those miscreants who traded in dynamite. It was not till his employer threatened to dismiss him, and the officials at Scotland Yard were communicated with, that the nuisance was abated. Increased Votes were now asked for, but no explanation was offered. The real explanation was that the men were wanted to insult Irish Members, and it was intended ruinously to affect any Irishman who was thought to be an enemy of the Government. These police were not wanted merely to watch public buildings, and he should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, whether the men had been systematically employed for the purpose of dogging Irish Members to and from the house. Otherwise, it would be his painful duty to move a reduction in the Vote. On more than one occasion, an humble individual like himself had been honoured with an escort in and about the City of London. He looked upon it as an extremely kind act of attention on the part of the right hon. gentleman the Home Secretary, but he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that there was no danger of his getting lost in any part of London.

  1267
  At the same time, the escort was unnecessary and might be dispensed with, and that money saved.
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he was able to give the hon. Member the most complete assurance that the money to which the Vote related could not possibly be employed in dogging Irish Members. As to the anecdote in reference to the gentleman connected with the Gaelic Association, he thought if the bon. Member was correct in his facts, that the constable had grossly misconducted himself, and he was satisfied that he could hardly be one of the men to whom the Vote for special services applied, as their duties were strictly local. If the hon. Member would kindly give him Notice he would ascertain what the facts of the case were. He hoped the hon. Member would furnish him with the name of the gentleman and the particulars of the case. He must say that a detective who insulted anybody ought to be strongly reprimanded and rebuked.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he should be happy to give the right hon. Gentleman the name of the gentleman and the facts of the case. It would be obviously improper to mention the name at present. So insulting was the man in his manner that he let the cat out of the bag as to what his object was—namely, to worry, annoy, and drive into ruin an unfortunate young man, whose only offence was that he belonged to an Irish political association. When the detective was removed by the authorities at Scotland Yard, and another employed, no similar trouble or annoyance was given. He would be happy to place the facts in the possession of the Home Secretary, in the hope that the Government, in future, when they employed emissaries for the purpose of worrying political opponents, would be more cautious as to whom they employed.
  Vote agreed to.
  (2) £872,286, to complete the sum for Police, Counties and Boroughs, Great Britain.
  DR. TANNERsaid, that here again there was an increase of the Vote. There had been an increase of £20,000 last year, and of £15,000 this. He found that the salaries and allowances were the same, also the travelling expenses and incidental expenses; but when he came to
  1268
  the item for the pay and clothing of the constabulary he found there was an increase of £15,000. Being an English Vote, he, as an Irish Member, did not like to say much about it; but it appeared to him extraordinary that in connection with such a Vote there should be a constant increase. He should like to get a little explanation in regard to the excess upon this item. Why should the clothing of the police cost more this year than last? Surely the cost of material could not be so very much more, and as there was, practically speaking, no increase in the number of men, it was singular that there should be an increase in any other item. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman who was identified with the Vote would kindly afford some explanation.
  COLONEL BRIDGEMAN COLONEL BRIDGEMAN (Bolton) moved to reduce the Vote by the sum of £1,899 4s. 10 d., half the cost of the county police employed in Bolton recently. He wished to explain that this sum had already been paid by the locality, and it was unjust that it should be paid over again. Last year there was a strike in the engineering trade, and, as disturbances were feared, those who were responsible for the preservation of the peace in the borough of Bolton asked for the county police to aid them. The county police were accordingly called in, and a sum of £6,500 was paid by the borough of Bolton for the expenses to which they were put. Of this sum £3,798 was the ordinary police wages, and, as the Secretary to the Treasury knew, one-half of that was paid back by the Exchequer out of the Consolidated Fund. The ratepayers of Bolton arranged to pay the whole of it, and yet Parliament were now asked to pass a Vote for one-half—£1,899—which was to go to the County of Lancaster, which would thus receive the money twice over. The ratepayers of Bolton would also be placed in this position: Having already paid the entire sum, they would be required, as ordinary taxpayers, to pay their share of the Imperial Grant. He trusted that the Treasury would be able to suggest some more fair arrangement.
  Moved, To reduce the Vote by £1,899 4s. 10 d.—(Colonel Bridgeman.)
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPART- MENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY)said, the sum alluded to by his hon. and gallant Friend was to cover the cost of services rendered to the borough of Bolton by the employment of the county police, under special circumstances, within that borough. They had been drafted into the borough at the request of the Local Authorities, and no doubt the sum paid by the borough included the ordinary pay of the constables, and special pay for what were called special services. At the same time, the county itself incurred a certain amount of risk in lending the men, and might have sustained injury by having its own Force placed in a position of peril, which might result in some of the men finding their way upon the non-effective list and becoming entitled to pensions. The Home Office had felt itself bound on the evidence before it to decide, in accordance with practice, that one-half of the total sum should be paid over to the county, the borough of Bolton having been saved from great liabilities in respect of damage by riot by having the services of the county police placed at its disposal. The same course was pursued in regard to Blackburn nine years ago, in the case of disturbances there. The Government Grant on that occasion was paid to the County, as the Act of Parliament directed that it should be. No doubt, under the circumstances, the County of Lancaster was the gainer. The hon. and gallant Member suggested that the County should make some allowance to the Borough, and, if there was a way open for a private arrangement, he did not think that such an allowance would be inequitable, and the Home Office would offer no objection.
  COLONEL BRIDGEMANsaid, the payment was made at a time last year when there was no opportunity of raising the question. He should be quite satisfied if some communication were made to the Lancashire Justices from the Home Office in reference to it.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he had no doubt that the persons who were interested in the matter would naturally take notice of what had been said in Committee of Supply.
  COLONEL BRIDGEMANwished to remind the hon. Gentleman that there was not a very large attendance in the House at that moment, and there were
  1270
  very few Representatives of Lancashire present.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he would be happy to cause a communication to be sent.
  COLONEL BRIDGEMANsaid, that under those circumstances he would withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that this was the last occasion, before the formation of the County Councils, that they were likely to have this question of the police brought under the notice of the Committee, and there was one question which he would like to ask. He wanted to know the exact position in which the Chief Constable would stand in regard to the two Committees—the Police Committee and the County Council Committee. Were either of those Committees to have power to dismiss the Chief Constable, or were they not? Was the Home Secretary still to exercise the power of dismissal, or was it to be delegated to the new Body? The question was one of considerable importance at the present moment, seeing that the new Body was shortly to be created. He had a further question to ask, which was also an important one. With regard to the other arrangements of the police, he presumed the Chief Constable would have exactly the same power he always had possessed with regard to the distribution of the Force and the promotion of its officers.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. and gallant Member was irregular in raising that question, seeing that it was not dealt with in the Vote now before the Committee.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he should like to have some explanation of the increase of this Vote.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, the Home Office could not refuse consent to reasonable increases of provincial Police Forces. The police naturally increase pari passu with the population and the rateable value, the number of inhabited houses, and the length of streets to be patrolled; and he had no doubt the hon. Member would find that the natural and automatic increase was due to those circumstances.
  DR. TANNERasked if he was to understand that this automatic increase had been going on for years to the extent of £15,000 a-year; that there had been such an increase in the population last year, and in the rateable value, that the increased cost of the Police Force had amounted to £15,000? Any intelligent person who went into the matter would regard the statement of the hon. Gentleman with a certain amount of surprise. The total sum now asked for for the police was £875,000, and if it were to go on increasing at this rate every year, what would it be by-and-bye? The matter was clearly one that was worthy of investigation, for he failed to understand why there should be such an automatic increase to such a terrible extent. The explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State disclosed another fault in regard to those Estimates. He (Dr. Tanner) had asked what that increase of £15,000 was due to, and the hon. Gentleman informed him that it was merely the automatic increase to the cost of the Force. In such circumstances it was most desirable that there should be some detailed accounts in the Estimates. He had pointed out in the course of his remarks that there did not appear to be an increased number of men.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must inform the hon. Member that his remarks were perfectly irrelevant to this Vote.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he was merely asking that the Committee should have some knowledge of the case why this increased amount of money was asked for. He desired to know the special purposes for which the increased Vote was to be passed. So far, all he was told was that it was due to an automatic increase arising from the increase of population and the rateable value. He therefore wanted to know what the increase had been in the number of men, or whether the additional cost was for clothing, or what other particular branch of the expenditure was the occasion of the increase?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, the hon. Member would find an explanation of the exact increase in the number of men upon page 245 of the Estimates. It would be seen that, as a matter of
  1272
  fact, fewer men were needed this year than last. He thought there were eight men less. There had been an actual increase in some counties, but six of the boroughs in Lancashire had elected to take over the control of the police into their own hands. That was the reason why in the counties this year the actual number of men was less than it was last year. As a matter of fact, there had been an increase in the number of men, although, judging from the Estimates, there would appear to have been an actual decrease. The total increase in the number of men employed in England and Wales was 332. The application for an increase in the Police Force always came from the locality and was made to the Court of Quarter Sessions.
  Vote agreed to.
  (3.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £311,180, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Expenses of the Prisons in England, Wales, and the Colonies."
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he wished to say a word or two upon this Vote; and in the first place he desired to express the satisfaction which he felt at the reduction which had taken place in the Vote. There was a reduction of £30,000 or £40,000, and he thought that that was a subject of congratulation. The prisons were under the eye of Sir E. Duncane, the head of the Department, and all who had been in official relations with him agreed that no one at the head of a great Office was more successful in enforcing judicious economy. As he had said, in connection with a previous Vote, he was not responsible for the present Vote during the short time he was at the Home Office; he only took over the Estimates which he found there, and before he left the Home Office the task of preparing the Estimates for the coming year had not commenced. His hands were, therefore, free; but he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) to the great inequality which existed in regard to the payments of chaplains and doctors in England as compared with Scotland and Ireland. Anyone going through the Estimates

  1273
  would see that in Scotland and Ireland the rates of pay in respect of these officers was much less than in the English prisons. He did not know on what grounds that difference was justified, and why it should be necessary to pay a higher rate for both classes of officers in England. He had no desire to enter into details, but he wanted to hear what explanation the Government had to make. To begin with, he was unable to make out why the rates of pay, for instance, of the chaplains employed in the English prisons and those employed in the Scotch and Irish prisons should show such an enormous difference in favour of the English chaplains. If hon. Members would refer to page 254 they would see that almost the whole of the chaplains employed in England received salaries of £300 and £400 a-year. If they would refer then to the subsequent estimates for the Scotch and Irish prisons, they would find that in Scotland no chaplain received more than £300 a-year, while in Ireland the difference was still more marked, as no chaplain in that country received as much as £200 a-year. He did not know why there should be such a discrepancy in the payments. At pages 335, 338, and 339, the Vote for the Irish chaplains was given, and it would be seen that no Irish chaplain received more than £200 a-year. The general rate was from £150 to £200. The most highly-paid chaplains only received £200, and they were probably chaplains who had been appointed before the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Similar discrepancies existed in the case of the prison doctors. In the prisons in England the surgeons were paid much more than the doctors attached to the prisons in Scotland and Ireland, although the duties were entirely the same. He wished to have an explanation of the reason why a higher rate of pay was given. When he came to add up the number of chaplains and doctors employed in England, the right hon. Gentletleman the Secretary of State would find that the difference amounted to a very large sum, to several thousands a-year in the aggregate. It was therefore important to press on the Home Office the necessity of looking specially into the matter. If anything could be done to equalize the rates of payment the Homo Office would remove a very great sore which
  1274
  was felt in Ireland and Scotland at finding they were paid so very much worse than their confrères in England. No doubt it would be impossible to interfere with vested interests. He should be the last person to make a suggestion of that kind; but he thought that when it became necessary to fill up vacancies, and make fresh appointments to the offices of chaplain and doctor in England, the appointments should be made on a new scale.
  DR. CLARKsaid, he had put down an Amendment to this Vote to reduce it by £1,000, in order to place the English prison surgeons and chaplains on the same level as their Scotch and Irish brethren. He had on several occasions called attention to this matter in the shape of Questions; but the answer he usually received was one which rendered matters more secure by elucidation and darkened by explanation. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) told them that evening that the three Kingdoms were united. No doubt, so far as Scotland was concerned, they were united when they wished the Scotch people to pay a tax; but they were not a united Kingdom when it was proposed to expend any money upon a Scotch subject. He wished to point out that this great inequality not only occurred with reference to this Vote, but in regard to every Vote which was to follow. According to the replies he had received in the past from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson), it seemed to be thus—that because some of the higher-paid surgeons in England were surgeons in the convict prisons, that that was a full explanation why they should receive a higher rate of payment for their services. Now, they had only got one convict prison in Scotland, and in that case the surgeon only received £100 a-year; so that, as a matter of fact, the surgeons of convict prisons did not invariably receive a higher rate of payment than the surgeons of ordinary prisons. Nor was the surgeon of a convict prison required to do the work of an ordinary prison surgeon. An ordinary prison surgeon had to examine all the prisoners who were brought before him, while the convict prison surgeon had not anything like the same amount of work to do, because the men he was

  1275
  required to attend went in for a long period of years, whereas, in the case of an ordinary prison, new men were constantly coming in, all of whom had to undergo an examination. At Kirkdale there were 515 prisoners, and at Leeds 490; so far as numbers were concerned, those prisons were similar to that of Glasgow, which had 450, and the prison at Perth, which had 500. At Barlinnie, the great Scotch prison, there were 735 prisoners, yet there was only one surgeon, with a salary of £200 a-year; while at Wakefield, with about the same number of prisoners to attend daily, there were two surgeons, one of whom was paid £450 a-year, with an assistant surgeon at £250. In the case of Scotland the surgeon had to do all the work himself, while in England the principal surgeon had an assistant. The maximum paid to any Scotch surgeon was £300, whereas the assistant surgeon of Wakefield began at £250. It must be borne in mind that the gentlemen employed in the two countries came from the same class; and it could not be said that the discrepancy arose in consequence of a greater expense involved in living in England, because all these gentlemen are housed free. In his (Dr. Clark's) opinion the discrepancy arose from this fact—that whenever any Vote was wanted for Scotland, it was refused. The Scotch Members were always doing their best to reduce the expenditure of the country; but they did not find that their English confrères were willing to aid them in carrying out the same object. Then, in regard to the prison chaplains. They were in the same position. He was not in favour of State chaplains at all; but while they did employ them in their prisons he did not see why a Presbyterian clergyman should be paid only one-half of what they considered it desirable to pay to an Episcopalian chaplain. He did not see why a chaplain of the first class in Scotland should begin at a salary of £200, while in England it was £400. He intended to press the Motion for the reduction he had moved to a Division. He had referred to the subject last year, and had endeavoured time after time since to obtain a satisfactory explanation from the hon. Gentleman the Secre-to the Treasury, but without effect. Unless he got a satisfactory explanation why in the Scotch prisons the surgeons
  1276
  should be paid £50 a year less than the assistant-surgeon of an English prison, he should consider it his duty to take a Division, as a protest against the unequal payment of surgeons and chaplains in the two countries.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item D, Pay and Allowances, be reduced by £1,000, in respect of Medical Officers and Chaplains."—(Dr. Clark.)
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he was glad that the question had been raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark), because it was one in which he had taken a great deal of interest, and he was curious to hear what explanation could be given from the Treasury Bench. The discrepancy was so very great that he could hardly see what explanation could possibly be given. They were told by his hon. Friend that the chaplains and doctors were exactly of the same class, both in England and Scotland, and what his hon. Friend had said was perfectly correct, that the work of the surgeons in Scotland was much heavier, more continuous, and more responsible than that of the same class of men in England. They had to examine very carefully and report upon the condition of the large number of prisoners who were weekly, and almost daily, passing through their hands. The only explanation he could see was that as a general principle everything was worse paid in Scotland than in England. Personally, he should feel inclined to say that it was a case for levelling up, rather than levelling down; he did not say that the English surgeons were paid too much, but he maintained that the prison surgeons of Scotland were paid too little.
  MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he wished to say a few words upon this Vote, because he had been prevented last year from bringing before the Government, as well as he could have wished, the question of the chaplains which had been raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers). It was not his fault but due to something else, having been ruled out of Order. He objected altogether to this system of paying chaplains considerable salaries for all the different prisons. If they would look at the list which appeared

  1277
  on page 260 of the Estimates, they would find an entry of the assumed average daily number of prisoners attended, and they would find that in a very small number of the prisons was there anything like as many as 100 persons in daily average occupation. He scarcely understood what was meant by the words, "assumed daily average." Were they to understand that that represented the number of prisoners actually in prison from month to month, or what? If hon. Members would look down the list, they would find that there were a very large number of prisons in which there were only 50 prisoners, and in most of them there were under 100. He would take one particular prison—namely, that of Dorchester, of which he had received information from persons who were cognizant of the facts. He was assured that in that case the assumed average number, put down in the Estimates at 115, was greatly in excess of the real number, and that it would be more correct to say that the average daily number of prisoners was something like 60. But whatever the general average might be in those prisons, he did not see what they wanted with a chaplain, who was paid a salary of £200, £250, £300, and as much as £450 a-year, for the purpose of looking after them. Last year, in answer to a Question he had put, he was told that it was impossible to cashier all these chaplains at once; but it was suggested that, as they died off or resigned, their places would not be filled up. He did not know whether that was the policy which was now adopted by the Government. [Mr. MATTHEWS dissented.] He saw that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary shook his head, and therefore he assumed that it was not. He submitted to the Government that it would be very easy to do this business of religious instruction, or whatever business the Chaplains were supposed to perform at the prisons, at a much cheaper rate. Without dealing with such prisons as those at Wandsworth and Pentonville, with 1,150, or Liverpool with 1,000, or Strangeways at Manchester, but with prisons where there were an exceedingly small number of prisoners, he did say that it was au extravagant and wasteful expenditure to maintain on the establishment chaplains who were paid £400 a-year for their services. He re-
  1278
  presented an important portion of a county which was almost entirely devoid of crime; indeed, it was the usual rule for the Judge who attended the Assizes at Bodmin to receive a pair of white gloves. At any rate, the average number of prisoners in the gaol there was only put down at 40; so that showed how exceedingly free from crime, with a population of more than 330,000, that part of the county was. With so small a number of prisoners, he felt bound to deprecate the appointment on the establishment of chaplains with high salaries. He would suggest to the Government that there was an easy remedy for this state of things. He would suggest that the religious functions and ceremonies required by the prisoners should be performed, not by separate chaplains who were made fixtures in the prisons, and had practically nothing to do on week days, except in special circumstances, and whose principal duty was to conduct one, or at the most, two services on Sunday; he would suggest that they should follow the same line which had been pursued, with much advantage, in connection with the workhouses. In the workhouses they never thought of having a separate chaplain, but they obtained the services of some of the resident clergy. He believed that in connection with the Union Workhouse at Redruth, in his own Division, the Rector of the parish within which the workhouse was situated, received about £40 a-year for his ministrations there. He was a most estimable gentleman, and did all that was necessary for the benefit of the occupants of the workhouse; and he would venture to say that there were more persons in that workhouse than there were in the gaol at Bodmin. Take, for instance, another gaol which he had already mentioned—namely, that of Dorchester, of which he knew something, because he had relations who live there. [Laughter.] He did not mean that they lived in the gaol, but in the town; and he had mentioned the fact, because he wished the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to understand that he was not putting forward merely theoretical views. In the Town of Dorchester there were numerous reverend gentlemen, some of whom were perfectly willing to do all that was necessary in the way of ministerial duties

  1279
  in the gaol for a far less sum than that which was paid to the chaplain of a prison for attending to the religious wants of the prisoners. He maintained that their expenditure in this direction was wasteful and wholly unnecessary, and he failed to see why they did not apply to the gaols the same principle which had been found to work so well in the workhouses. Indeed, there was nothing to occupy the whole time of the chaplains, and if the Government would cause an inquiry to be made, they would find that in all the towns where those gaols existed they would be able to obtain the services of clergymen and ministers of different denominations who would do all they required for £40 or £50 a-year. Indeed, their duties in the gaols would amount to a very small addition to their customary duties in the parish. Another reason why he pressed this matter upon the Government was, that he found on page 254 of the Estimates that the Presbyterian visiting clergymen only received £100 a-year. He did not know what his visits consisted of, and whether he visited only one gaol, but he would suggest that, as it was possible to get a Presbyterian minister to visit a prison and do what was necessary for £100 a-year, it would be just as easy to get clergymen of other denominations to undertake the same duties for the same remuneration. He thought it was wrong to go on paying those large salaries to gentlemen whose duties were exceedingly light. There was another matter in connection with this Vote which he was anxious to refer to, seeing that it related to the personal health and comfort of the prisoners themselves. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would not contradict him when he said that it was the universal rule for the prison cells to be whitewashed. The walls, consequently, were very dazzling to the eyesight. He had no wish to introduce Irish matters in this question, but he believed hon. Members behind him would support him when he said that, through the constant glare of the whitewashed walls, the eyesight of the persons confined in them had become much injured. He believed that that had been the case with most of the prisoners who were sent to gaol, and he held that they had no right, physically, to injure any man whom it was found necessary
  1280
  to send to prison for the commission of any crime, whether political or otherwise. Therefore, if it could be shown—and he was satisfied it could be shown—that the glare of the white walls did produce an injurious effect on prisoners who were confined in gaol for weeks and months, Her Majesty's Government ought to see whether they could not remedy the evil, so as not to inflict a permanent injury upon the prisoners. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give an undertaking that he would make inquiry as to whether it was not possible to cover the walls of the cells with a different coloured wash—say green, pink, or blue. All that he asked was that the right hon. Gentleman would make an experiment in the matter. He was speaking now of the class of men and women who were not able to represent their own grievances in that House. He thought it was a matter of common humanity that they should not inflict upon the prisoners permanent injury. If the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would consider the points which had been urged, both in regard to prison chaplains and surgeons, he thought it might be possible, in future, to face the amount of the Vote.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, he was sorry that he was obliged to differ from his hon. Friends in reference to the question of prison chaplains.
  MR. LABOUCHERErose to Order. He understood his hon. Friend to move the reduction of the Vote for surgeons and not for chaplains. Was it competent, therefore, to discuss the question of the chaplains on that Motion?
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the Question he had put to the Committee was for the reduction of the Vote in both classes.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, that in the case of the chaplains it was necessary that they should be permanently attached to the prisons. It would be most undesirable to have one chaplain coming in one week and a different man the next. It was therefore necessary that every prison should have a chaplain attached to it, who should attend to the religious wants of the prisoners and have no other work to do. The work of the chaplains in the prisons was about the best kind of work that could be done, because a considerable number of persons in the gaols were persons who

  1281
  were rather there by accident, and not because they were professional or habitual criminals. They had rendered themselves liable to punishment for having committed one single fault, and they were, therefore, peculiarly amenable to the influence of the chaplain of their own denomination. He, there fore, could not support his hon. Friend in the policy he had advocated of doing away with the office of prison chaplain. There was, however, a considerable discrepancy in the pay of chaplains of different countries. He knew nothing about the number of chaplains employed who belonged to the Established Church, and whether they were absolutely necessary or not, but he could not see what reason there could be for selecting chaplains of one creed, which he would call the English creed, and giving them double the salary of other clergymen of the Scotch and Irish creeds. At the same time he might say, on behalf of the Roman Catholic chaplains, that he was satisfied with the remuneration they received. He thought that £200 a-year, rising to £250, was sufficient for the purpose. It was given merely in the nature of sustenance and support to them in carrying out the objects of their sacred calling, but to give large salaries to a considerable number of chaplains of one particular denomination was altogether unnecessary, in addition to which there was the danger of creating appointments in the nature of sinecures, which would be sought for that reason, and not for the purpose of doing good. There was another reason why he was in favour of the retention of prison chaplains. Considerable progress had been made of late years in regard to the aid given to prisoners on leaving gaol by such institutions as "The Prisoners' Aid Society." The officers of such Society were able to hear from the chaplains, who being in constant attendance on the prisoners knew a great deal about them, and the prisoners thus were consequently able to obtain assistance and good advice when they left the gaol. He certainly thought that the distinction drawn in the payment of clergymen of different creeds was marked, and afforded a justifiable ground of complaint both to the Scotch and Irish Members. He was of opinion that a reduction might fairly be made in the Vote, and, if possible, in the number of chaplains
  1282
  employed also. The contrast, so far as the payment was concerned, was very great, and no satisfactory reason was given for it. It was simply a remanet of the old rule and custom observed in the House of Commons, that where Scotch and Irish matters were concerned economy should be practised, but where English matters were concerned there should not be economy, but absolute waste and extravagance.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he entirely agreed with his hon. Friend, and did not think that the Committee would vote in favour of there being no chaplains at all. That, however, was not the question. Nobody asked that there should be no chaplains in the gaol; but they were simply asking that those gentlemen should receive a fair and adequate, but not an excessive, amount of remuneration. In many cases, clergymen with not more than £200 a-year had to do a considerable amount of duty in the parish, while the prison chaplain was paid a salary of £400 a-year. There was not the slightest question that if those offices were thrown open to the clergy of the Established Church in the locality, or to other creeds, there would be an enormous number of applications from gentlemen who would be ready to undertake them for £100 or £150 a-year. The strong point was that the State did not pay Roman Catholic clergymen nor Presbyterian clergymen the same sums which they paid for clergy of the Established Church. Nor did they pay the clergy in Scotland at the same rate as they paid the clergy in England. He thought there ought to be one fair rule. Let all denominations be paid alike, and then they could discuss whether the amount was excessive or not. Because it happened that in that House the clergy assumed a sort of predominance and superiority over other sects, there was no reason why the clergy of the Established Church should, therefore, receive higher remuneration than those of other sects. He was not going to state his own religious views, nor to what Church he belonged; but assuming that he belonged to the Church of England—he meant the Established Church of England—he should be the very last, and he could not understand how any member of the Church could do it, to insist on the predominance of the members of his own particular Church

  1283
  over everybody else. It did appear to him that gentlemen who were opposed to the doctrines of disendowment and disestablishment were doing great service to those doctrines by putting forward a plea that so long as the Church of England was not disendowed and not disestablished its members should be paid for the services they had rendered on a far higher scale than was accorded to the clergy of other denominations for the performance of precisely similar duties. He thought there ought to be a fixed amount of remuneration for clergymen of all creeds.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON)said, he quite acknowledged the kindly spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) had introduced this question, and he was already acquainted with most of the facts which had been commented on by hon. Members. But really the whole question was a very simple one. There were two prisons in Glasgow now—the Glasgow Prison and the Barlinnie Prison. The Glasgow Prison was originally a large prison, and the pay of the surgeon connected with it was settled by consultation. When Barlinnie Prison was established the duty of looking after it was given to the same gentleman who was the surgeon of the Glasgow Prison; but by and bye Barlinnie got so large that it became necessary to make a now arrangement, and the question was whether the surgeon of the Glasgow Prison should receive the services of an assistant, or whether the two prisons should be entirely separated? In the end the two were separated, and a surgeon was appointed to each of them. It so happened, however, that Barlinnie Prison had become the larger establishment of the two, but the surgeon attached to it received the smaller of the two salaries. He would remind the Committee, however, that the appointment was quite a recent one, and the gentleman who accepted the office made no objection to the salary. It did, however, so happen that the gentleman who had been appointed surgeon at the Barlinnie Prison—the larger prison of the two—had the smaller salary. There were two plans by which this undoubted anomaly could be corrected—one would be to give a slight increase
  1284
  to the salary of the surgeon at Barlinnie; and in that respect he would point out that the appointment had been recently made, and that the gentleman who took the office was appointed practically upon a permanent salary. The other plan, which was quite within the competence of the Scotch Office, was to transfer the more highly-paid surgeon from Glasgow to the larger prison at Barlinnie, and bring the surgeon of Barlinnie Prison to Glasgow Prison. He had most carefully considered the matter in conjunction with Sir Edward Du Cane, who, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh had said, had a larger experience in connection with these matters than any other man in the country; and they had come to the conclusion that, although there was an anomaly, and he was prepared to admit that the payment of the surgeon at Barlinnie was rather less than the circumstances warranted, yet, at the same time, it was open to contend that the payment of the surgeon at the Glasgow Prison was rather more than was necessary.
  DR. CLARKasked, on what basis the surgeon of Glasgow Prison received a larger salary? Was it because his daily attendance at the prison was greater, or upon what grounds?
  MR. JACKSONsaid, the ground was that the surgeon received a larger salary because he had previously filled the two offices of surgeon at the Glasgow and surgeon at the Barlinnie Prison. The excess might be regarded as something in the shape of a personal allowance, which, in all probability, if a vacancy were to occur, would not be continued to his successor. It would be absolutely impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line, and to make a scheme which should be applicable to every case. A comparison between the English and the Scotch prisons showed, no doubt, that the lower rate was paid to the latter; but there were no prisons in Scotland with so many inmates as were to be found in the largest English gaols. In some of the English prisons there were as many as 1,300 prisoners. His right hon. Friend the Home Secretary informed the House that the number was still larger. The prison now in course of erection at Wormwood Scrubbs would, he believed, have room for 1,400 prisoners. There was no such prison in

  1285
  Scotland, and, so far as he remembered from the Scotch scale of payments, there was a classification according to numbers; but there was no provision made for prisons with more than 700 inmates. The English scale was divided into many gradations—that was to say, that the classification represented a less number between one scale and the next above it. Of course, it was quite open to consideration whether the existing scale might not be advantageously revised, and whether they were not paying on too high a scale. They were now settled practically on the lines of the salaries paid by the Local Authorities previous to 1877, when the prisons were taken over by the Government under Lord Cross's Act. The scale was settled at that time on the lines of the amount that had been given previously, and, apparently, the scale adopted by the Local Authorities in England was higher than that of the Local Authorities in Scotland. That, no doubt, was one reason why there was some discrepancy. The suggestions which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) were quite worthy of consideration, with a view to seeing whether the system of classification to which he had referred ought not now to be revised. His own opinion was that they ought to have a scale rising from 200. For instance, one classification for prisoners less than 200, and the next for 400, then 600, 800, 1,000, 1,200, and 1,400. But, at the time the classification was made, there was no prison containing so large a number of prisoners as some of the gaols contained now. There had been going on for some years a process of closing the smaller prisons, and concentrating the prisoners in the larger prisons. It was considered that that tended to improve the discipline of the prisons. With regard to the chaplains, he pointed out that it was quite impossible for gentlemen to discharge the duties of chaplains in large prisons if they had other duties to perform outside. He understood that the hours of service in prisons in this country were about the same as those in churches and chapels. The payments which were made, he believed, were based on population, and he was not prepared to say that anomalies did not exist; but he thought, on the whole, that the arrangements were made fairly
  1286
  as between England, Ireland, and Scotland, and that the small anomaly which he was prepared to admit did exist amounted, at the outside, to not more than £50 a-year. In dealing with these salaries the tendency was to endeavour to extract more money from the Treasury, and it was very difficult to resist demands sometimes when individuals found strong support in Members of Parliament. If the hon. Gentleman opposite asked why, if the amount were so small, it was not altered, he would answer that if they began to tamper with individual cases they would not know where to stop. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that there was every disposition on the part of the Treasury to inquire into the anomaly which existed, and try to remove grievances.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, the Committee would be obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he had promised that this matter should be looked into; but the hon. Gentleman appeared to think that this was a small matter, whereas it was, indeed, a very large one. There were 150 surgeons and chaplains on salaries provided in this Estimate for England only, and the total amounted to between £35,000 and £40,000. When they saw that the large sum he had mentioned was spent in England, and that the scale itself was nearly double that applied to Scotland and Ireland, he thought they ought to have a distinct promise from the Representatives of the Home Office that the scale should be reduced, so that everyone hereafter appointed should not receive more than the sum fixed. If the hon. Gentleman would give the Committee an assurance that the Treasury and Home Office would at once take in hand a new scale for the payment of chaplains and surgeons, he would undertake to say that in the course of years, as vacancies occurred and vested interests ceased, a reduction of £10,000 per annum would be thereby secured. As he had said, the question was a very large one, and he should not ask the Committee to take his view were it not that he felt strongly upon this subject. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, or the hon. Gentleman at his side, to say that the Treasury and the Home Office would set to work and reform the scale of payment in the case of these officers.
  MR. JACKSONsaid, he did not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman wished to reduce the salaries of the existing officers.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he wished the Treasury and the Home Office to frame a new scale for all fresh appointments and promotions. He had no wish to interfere with existing payments.
  MR. JACKSONsaid, that while he desired to give the Committee every assurance that the question would be most carefully considered, he would point out that there were some difficulties which might arise to make it almost impossible to give immediate relief. It was very easy for hon. Members to get up and ask the Government to pledge themselves on every Vote and on every item to make a reduction or some alteration, but it was a physical impossibility for them to deal with all these questions at once; there must be some little time given for due consideration, and, therefore, he thought he was not unreasonable in asking for it. What was the position of the Treasury at that moment? It was occupied in the defence of one set of Estimates and in the preparation of another, and the present was the very busiest period of the year. As he had said, there was a limit to human endurance, but he promised the right hon. Gentleman that what it was possible to do should be done.
  DR. CLARKsaid, he had asked two months ago whether the Scotch surgeons who were paid the salaries mentioned in the Estimates had a greater or less numbers of prisoners to attend than the English surgeons, and the answer of the hon. Gentleman was that there was a less number of prisoners in the Scotch prisons. But in the prisons at Glasgow and Edinburgh there was a larger number of prisoners than in the same class of English prisons, and his contention was that the surgeons should be paid on the English scale in the Scotch prisons. The hon. Gentleman told him last year that the matter should receive his consideration, but, as his consideration had produced on practical effect, he should divide the Committee upon his Motion to reduce the Vote, unless the hon. Gentleman would say that there should be one scale applying equally to England and Scotland according to the number of prisoners. If the hon. Gentleman would
  1288
  give that assurance he should be ready to withdraw his Motion, but as the matter stood they were paying men in Scotland, having the same qualifications, and drawn from the same class, only about one-half what they were paying to those in corresponding positions in England.
  MR. JACKSONsaid, he was afraid he could not satisfy the hon. Gentleman in the manner he wished. He could not pledge himself, and he had no information at hand to enable him, when challenged in this manner, to say without a moment's hesitation that the Government would deal with this matter. The scales were misleading, because they did not in every case indicate an equal number of prisoners. He had made an examination with regard to the offices held in Scotland, and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that if a hard-and-fast rule were applied, and the English scale, according to population, were adopted, there would be as many salaries reduced in Scotland as would be increased. He was quite ready to rectify anomalies, but he thought the hon. Gentleman must be aware that he could not make pledges that he did not see his way to fulfil.
  DR. CLARKsaid, the hon. Gentleman had made a statement which he could not allow to pass unchallenged; he therefore called his attention again to the subject, and asked him whether the figures placed in the hands of hon. Members were accurate or not, because, in the former case, the statement of the hon. Gentleman could not be accurate. He found that the prison he referred to stood at the head of the four Scotch prisons, and that the daily number of inmates was 735; whereas the numbers given for Leeds were 583, for Birmingham 586, and for Kirkdale 594. That being so, he did not see how any change, such as was proposed, could affect Scotch surgeons except in the way of increasing the money paid for surgeons.
  COLONEL NOLANsaid, that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers), used an extraordinary argument, inasmuch as the reason he gave for not adopting the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was that the Government had in hand two sets of Estimates. So far as the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to

  1289
  the Treasury was concerned, he allowed that this was a valid argument, but it was one which undoubtedly reflected upon his official superiors and the responsible Members of the Government, and he would ask how it affected the taxpayers of the country? His argument was that, because the Treasury had two sets of Estimates, one set of these Estimates could not be put right; in other words, because the Government had muddled away the time of the House, the anomalies which had been pointed out in the course of the discussion must continue to exist. But it was not only Scotland that was badly treated; he wished to draw attention to the unfair manner in which Irish officials were treated as compared with those of England. He found that the chaplains in English prisons received £400 or £500 a-year, whereas those of a corresponding class in Ireland only got £100, and the great majority of them only £80 a-year. He did not see why this anomaly should be allowed to exist. If the hon. Gentleman would entertain the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh, and would agree to modify the scale before next Session, either the officials of Ireland and Scotland would get the same amount of pay, or the taxpayers in Ireland and Scotland would get the benefit of contributing less to the general taxation in future. The anomaly that had been pointed out was one which he did not think the Government could justify; but he had risen chiefly to draw attention to the extraordinary argument of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, with respect to the Department having in hand two sets of Estimates, and he thought the Government ought either to increase the staff of assistants at the Treasury, or else to take care in future that the business of the country should not be postponed to the last moment, and the undue pressure of work be made the reason for not reforming existing anomalies.
  MR. DILLONasked, whether it would be competent for him, after the Committee had divided on this Amendment, to raise the question of the salaries of the medical officers at Kirkdale Prison, Liverpool, before the Vote was passed?
  THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 101 Noes 161: Majority 60.—(Div. List, No. 291.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. CAUSTONsaid, he desired to ask the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Office (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) a question with regard to an item which appeared on page 150—namely, that of Extra Receipts paid into the Exchequer as the proceeds of mat-making. He had on former occasions asked for information, for Returns, and also for a Select Committee to inquire into this subject, but he regretted to say that he had not received satisfaction on any one of those points. On one occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department said that he declined to comply with the request, because the prison authorities had considerable objection to publish the details asked for. When the Prisons Act of 1877 was passed, which dealt with the question of prison manufacture, a clause was inserted to prevent unfair competition with outside trade, while due regard was to be paid to the maintenance of the penal character of prison discipline. He had been unable to obtain from Her Majesty's Government any information, and he was, therefore, obliged to place before the Committee the information which he himself possessed. He was informed by those engaged in the trade that the labour in risons was let to contractors, who sent in their own materials, and that the goods were placed on the market in competition with other manufacturers, the goods being sold at prices representing a trifle more than the cost of production. He was told that the prices paid by contractors for prison labour would average no more than £3 per man per annum, and that there was an undue proportion of prison labour employed in mat-making. He would point out that the men engaged in mat-making had a real grievance; their trade was very bad, and the complaint was that those engaged in it were suffering from the competition of prison manufacture. As he had shown, it was the intention of the Act passed in 1877 that this unfair competition should not take place. He hoped that evening to obtain some information from the Government,

  1291
  and a promise of an announcement, in a short time, that the unfair competition which undoubtedly did exist should not be allowed to continue.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY)said, with reference to the general question of prison labour, there would, of course, be a grievance if they were to employ a large number of prisoners in any particular manufacture, because it would tend seriously to create disturbances in trade. Ten years ago there were about 3,000 prisoners employed in mat-making; whereas at the present moment there were, according to the Return, less than half that number, or 1,472, the Government having greatly reduced the number employed. He could assure the hon. Member that reductions in this respect were made wherever it was possible to do so, but it was necessary to find varied forms of employment for prisoners of all classes. It must be remembered that there was now only the small number he had mentioned of prisoners engaged in mat-making, out of 20,000 prisoners, including convicts. Each prisoner was estimated to do one-fourth or one-fifth of the work of a free man; and, therefore, the whole amount of prison labour devoted to mat-making amounted to that of about 300 men only, which he did not think could have any appreciable effect upon the industry in question. Nor were all of these 1,472 engaged in making mats for sale to the public, for many of them were engaged in making for Government Departments. At one time when mat-making was first practised in prisons the number of private manufacturers was extremely small, and the comparatively large number of persons now engaged in the trade showed that it had grown up during the time when the competition of prison labour was, according to hon. Members, far more unfair than it was at present. As a matter of fact, then, the decrease of wages in the trade must be largely due to an increased number of producers coming into the market. Nor had that competition been developed in this country alone; because there were several foreign countries in which the mat-making industry had grown greatly, and which countries exported their goods to England. As he had said, it would be seen that the very
  1292
  small number of prisoners engaged in this industry could not produce that depreciating effect attributed to it. This had been obviously caused by other forms of competition. He was informed that it had happened more than once that Envoys had come over here, with high diplomatic credentials, for the purpose of studying the mat-making processes in our prisons, with a view to introducing it into the prisons in their own countries. To a recent application of the kind the Home Office had opposed a steady refusal. So far as it was consistent with proper discipline and treatment of prisoners, the number engaged upon this work had been steadily reduced.
  MR. CREMERsaid, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) would pardon him for saying that his reply was not altogether of a satisfactory character. This had been, with a large number of persons, a fixed and sore question during the last 20 years. From time to time Ministers of State had been approached by them with the view of getting their grievances redressed, and he could not think that the answer given to the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Southwark (Mr. Causton) was in any degree sufficient. It was laid down in the Prisons Act of 1877, in the most emphatic manner, that there should be no undue pressure or competition with any particular trade or industry; but there had been undue competition owing to the fact, stated over and again, that the Government competed with honest industry, the result of which was that a very serious reduction had taken place in the wages of those engaged in the industry of mat-making. This had, as he had already pointed out, been a subject of complaint during 20 years, and the sufferers had never been able to get any real redress, notwithstanding the reiterated applications made to various Governments. It seemed to him that a remedy was to be found in the issue of specific instructions that no goods manufactured in prisons should be sold at less than market prices. That, he believed, was as far as they could go in redressing the grievance of which complaint was made; and he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would give a pledge that the provisions of the Prisons Acts of 1877

  1293
  should be carried out in spirit and in letter, no more would be heard on this difficulty with regard to the mat-making industry. It was not only the operatives who suffered severely from this undue competition—the manufacturers were also injured. It seemed to him (Mr. Cremer) that at a time when the Government had appointed a Committee to inquire into the sweating system in the Metropolis and elsewhere, it was a most anomalous spectacle to find them engaged in this work. For the sake of good example to the community, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see that positive instructions should be issued that the goods made in prisons and workhouses should not be sold below market prices.
  MR. BRUNNERsaid, he sympathized very strongly with the mat-making industry and the wood-choppers of the Metropolis, but he trusted the Government would not, in response to this complaint, for a moment pledge themselves to reduce the amount of productive labour put into the hands of prisoners. Those who were not directly affected by the competition of prison labour were, nevertheless, interested in this matter, because they had to pay for the cost of maintenance of prisoners in gaol, and if they were put on productive employment they would cost less than they did when engaged in useless work. There was more in this question, however, than he had stated, because if they put a man upon unproductive labour they did not make him any fonder of work than he was when he went into prison; whereas, if they taught him a trade which he could exercise when he came out, he was much less likely to go back to prison. He had heard recently of a very interesting plan pursued by the Italian Government. They had made it a rule, with regard to women convicts, that a certain firm which worked for the Government in the manufacture of lace should give employment to nearly 300 prisoners in lace-making. These were paid for at the rate of 2½d. a-day each, of which 1½d. was kept for the female convicts employed, and it was found that women in this way would earn 200 or 300 francs on the average, while the contractors undertook to give them employment when they came out of prison at the rate of
  1294
  7½d. a-day. The most interesting part of the story was that not 2 per cent of these women went back to prison, and, therefore, he recommended the Government to increase, rather than diminish, the amount of reproductive labour put into the hands of prisoners.
  MR. HOWELLsaid, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) seemed to have missed entirely the point raised by the hon. Member for West Southwark (Mr. Causton). He had placed before the House the view that, having undertaken to reduce the number of persons engaged in mat-making, the Government were thereby endeavouring to meet the difficulty, but that was not the case. The great thing was to prevent prison labour coming into competition with any other labour, and the complaint of the firewood choppers was not so much that the wood was chopped in the workhouse, as that it was afterwards sold under the market price. Now with regard to mat-making the case was serious, because the Government had set up machinery by which mats could be produced at a much cheaper rate than by the manufacturers, and this had had the effect not only of their keeping on a smaller number of men, but, at the same time, of reducing wages, and in this way the prison system acted quite as prejudicially to the manufacturers as to the mat-makers themselves. He sympathized with the hon. Gentleman with regard to the difficulties surrounding this matter, still he thought those difficulties could be surmounted if they would always keep before their minds the fact that in no case should the goods produced in prisons, workhouses, or any other Government establishments, be allowed to undersell the productions of free labour. If the Government undertook to look into this matter and deal with it in some way or other, he felt sure that free labour would be able to hold its own in the market.
  MR. J. ROWLANDSsaid, he desired to impress on the Representatives of the Home Office the view taken by his hon. Friend. The question was of much greater importance than they seemed to think. If he had caught the figures rightly, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department said there were 1,400

  1295
  men employed, with the aid of machinery, in the industry of mat-making. This would show at once that the output of these men must be very large indeed, and must seriously affect the outside trade. With regard to the information which the hon. Gentleman thought it right to withhold from the House—namely, the price paid by the manufacturers who had material made up in prisons, he was at a loss to understand why the price paid should not be known to the Committee. The price given in every trade for having work done was perfectly well known to everyone engaged in particular industries, and why there should be any secrecy about the price paid for prison labour, as he had said, he could not understand. None of them were opposed to the principle laid down by the hon. Member for Northwich (Mr. Brunner) with regard to making the time of prisoners as valuable as possible. They were as anxious as he that the best should be done with their time, so that these unfortunate persons might be able to earn their living when they left prison, but they did not want unjust competition with free labour.
  MR. CAUSTONsaid, that one of the difficulties which the Government had to contend with was that they encouraged outside people to send in material to be manufactured. He believed that if this plan were discontinued, and the Government made up their own materials, the goods being sold at market prices, there would be an end of the difficulty. Of course, manufacturers were only too glad to get the labour for next to nothing, instead of paying men £1 and upwards per week. He thought he was right in saying that no other materials of outside people were sent in to be made up than those used in mat-making.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he could not possibly make the promise asked for by the hon. Member who had just sat down. He fully agreed that all should be done to get the best price for prison labour; but he did not think that the price now obtained undersold the market.
  MR. HOWELLsaid, he did not think the hon. Gentleman could have looked into this question. Deputations of manufacturers, mat-makers, and working men had waited on the Home Secretary over and over again during the last 25 years; and he had himself, when Secre-
  1296
  tary to a Parliamentary Committee brought before the Office deputations from these men, pointing out how unfair the Government practice was towards the trade. This could hardly have taken place were it not that there existed a real grievance. The contention had always been that the mats made in prisons came into unfair competition with those in the open market. He did not think it feasible that the manufacturers and men would have spent their money, time, and labour upon these deputations if this question were merely a sentimental one. The fact remained that prison manufactured goods did, and were, coming into competition with the productions of free labour. As to the small price charged for the labour in making up materials, that was a concession to the manufacturers which enabled them to undersell the trade in the open market. He had no wish to detain the House on this matter. All that he wanted was a recognition on the part of Her Majesty's Government of the injustice done to the trade by underselling. He acknowledged the great difficulties experienced by the present and previous Governments in dealing with this question; but he trusted they would endeavour to see whether there was or not an actual grievance on the part of the men, and, if so, endeavour to redress it.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he rose to move that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £350 a-year, being the salary of the Medical Officer of Kirkdale Prison, Liverpool. He moved this reduction in order to direct the attention of the Committee to what seemed to him to be a very irregular and most objectionable proceeding recently adopted by the Head of the Irish Government. On a recent occasion he (Mr. Dillon) was visited in an Irish prison by a gentleman—he did not know whether he was right in calling him a gentleman, because he did what was always a very suspicious thing when one wished to be considered a gentleman—that was to say, he refused to give his name. That person came to the prison in a mysterious and sudden way, and he (Mr. Dillon) had asked him whether he attended the prison on behalf of the Government or not; but he refused to answer the question. He had asked him whether he was an official of the Government, and he had given him to understand that he was not. He (Mr. Dillon) asked that

  1297
  person who he was; but he would not say who he was, what he was, or where he came from. That person claimed the right to examine him (Mr. Dillon) medically, Well, he (Mr. Dillon) wanted to say, before he adverted to the practice of sending officials from English gaols over to Ireland to act as spies upon the officials in the Irish gaols, that that person, in his official relations with himself, had not acted the part of a gentleman. His conduct was insulting and offensive, though he might have known before he came into the prison that, though he (Mr. Dillon) had the misfortune to be an inmate of a prison, he was really not in a position which justified him in using treatment of an offensive and insulting character. That person must have known that he (Mr. Dillon) was a brother member of a profession which he did not honour himself, and in spite of that knowledge he was false to the traditions of an honourable profession, and took advantage of the opportunity which the engagement of his professional services by the Government afforded him to insult him (Mr. Dillon) and treat him as no gentleman would treat another. So much as to the personal action of that individual. That, as a matter of course, was a matter of very minor importance. What he (Mr. Dillon) wanted to know was, for what reason was that man sent over to Ireland to play the spy on the officials of the prison in which he (Mr. Dillon) was confined? He had made no complaint to the Government, or to anyone else, from the time he went to the prison to the time he left it. He had claimed no medical inspection. The gentleman who had charge of that prison was a gentleman—an Irishman and a gentleman—and in all his relations with him in that prison he had no fault to find with his treatment or conduct. The Government, therefore, could not honestly say—though the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had made statements to that effect—that in sending this Medical Officer to Dundalk Prison he was anxious and solicitous for his (Mr. Dillon's) health. He had been perfectly satisfied himself—and, after all, he ought to be the best judge upon such a matter—with the attendance of the medical gentleman who had charge of the health of
  1298
  the prisoners in Dundalk Prison; and the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, had no ground to go upon. The Government were not anxious and solicitous for his health; and he could not imagine any other motive for the treatment to which he was subjected titan that the Government wanted to find out what the doctor in the gaol was doing, and to intimidate him lest he should be treating the prisoners too well. He (Mr. Dillon) maintained that it was a mean, cowardly, and low act to send an English official over for such a purpose. He contended, moreover, that it was a departure from precedent, and an insult to every Medical Officer in every prison in Ireland. If the Medical Officers in Irish gaols were competent men—if they were educated men, and fairly represented their profession, and were fit to take charge of prisoners in Irish prisons, they were fit to do it without being spied upon by an official of a prison in Liverpool. He submitted, however, that, as a matter of fact, the individual in question went over to Ireland for the purpose of brow-beating, spying upon, and intimidating the doctors of the Irish prisons, and that he endeavoured to carry out that object. What occurred when he came into the prison in which he (Mr. Dillon) was confined? Fortunately he (Mr. Dillon) had had some experience of that kind of thing before. When that individual came in, he asked him (Mr. Dillon) to allow him to inspect him, saying that he wished to examine him medically. He refused to allow the individual to examine him. Had that person been a gentleman, or had his object been simply to do that which was professed to be his purpose by the Head of the Irish Government, he (Mr. Dillon) would simply then have quitted the room, and there would then have been an end of the matter. But he did nothing of the sort. He proceeded to cross-examine him (Mr. Dillon) in a hostile spirit as to the condition of his health, though he (Mr. Dillon) repeatedly told him that he had no complaint to make, either as to his health or as to his treatment. He plainly intimated that he (Mr. Dillon) was a malingerer, and had no right to be in the infirmary at all—a place, let it be remembered, in which he had never asked to be put. That individual, plainly exhibiting the spirit of the in-

  1299
  structions which he had received by the questions he put, conveyed to his (Mr. Dillon's) mind a clear impression that his object was to prove that he (Mr. Dillon) was pretending to be ill when he was not. He need hardly point out that in that case, besides the offensive character of the man's proceedings, no shred or shadow of excuse could be found for such a course of conduct, as the facts of the case were that from the day he (Mr. Dillon) entered the prison to the day he left it he never made the slightest reference to his health, unless in answer to the questions of the Medical Officer; and yet that individual came to the prison, cross-examined him in the most insulting way, and clearly suggested to him that he was malingering. Surely that was a very bad precedent. Surely that was an irregular proceeding, and a gross insult to the Medical Officers of the Irish prisons and to the Medical Profession in the City of Dublin. What had been stated in that House that day? He (Mr. Dillon) was informed that when a question was put to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as to why he sent that English official over to inspect prisoners in Irish prisons, the reply of the right hon. Gentleman was that he was so solicitous for the health of the prisoners that he was bound to send over the best Medical Officer he could to see how they were getting on. Were they to be told that the City of Dublin, and the whole of Ireland, contained no medical man honourable and skilful enough to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman upon that point, and that he was compelled of necessity to go to Kirkdale Prison in Liverpool for a Medical Officer? He maintained that it was a bad precedent, both in reference to the Medical Officers of the prisons in Ireland and the Medical Profession in Ireland generally. But he doubted very much whether he should have raised the question simply on the personal ground that that man did not know how to act as a gentleman, and that he dealt with him (Mr. Dillon) in a manner unmistakeably to suggest that he had been sent to the gaol to treat him as an ordinary pickpocket and a criminal and not as a gentleman. He did not know that he should have raised the question had it not been that a precedent was involved, and that the treatment or mal-treatment of hundreds of
  1300
  his countrymen in Ireland was a mistake. It was an undoubted fact that in many of the Irish prisons—though he regretted to say not in all of them, but in many of them—the cruelty and brutality of seeking to treat political prisoners as ordinary prisoners was mitigated, to some extent, by the gentlemanly feeling, kindness, and humanity of the officials. He raised this question because he thought it was a monstrous and outrageous piece of meanness and cruelty that where an official was inclined, so far as he dared do it, to mitigate the rigour of the Rules in those prisons against men with whom in his heart of hearts he deeply sympathized—for he believed that many of the officials, if they dared to express their views, would say they sympathized with the political prisoners—he should be subjected to insult and offensive intimidation on the part of such individuals as that Medical Officer from Kirkdale Gaol. It was a monstrous thing that Irish prison officials should be intimidated for attempting, in the smallest degree, to carry out the Rules of the prisons with humanity. It was because he considered it such a monstrous thing that he looked upon the question as of sufficient importance to bring it under the notice of the Committee. That, again, affected the position of hundreds of political friends of his who were now in gaol, and who would yet go to gaol. To mark his sense of the whole of the proceedings, as well as of the conduct of the individual in question, he moved that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £350.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item D, Pay and Allowances, be reduced by £350, in respect of the Medical Officer of Kirkdale Prison."—(Mr. Dillon.)
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I hope that the Committee will have noticed the very singular views of prison discipline which have just fallen from the mouth of the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon). He appears to think that the proper way to carry on prison discipline in Ireland—and, I suppose, in England too—is, that each prison official should form his own estimate of the guilt or innocence of

  1301
  the various prisoners committed to his charge; and when he happens to sympathize—if he ever does sympathize, which I very much doubt—with the offence for which a prisoner is put in prison, he is to break through the Regulations laid down by Parliament, and, I suppose, by a parity of reasoning, if the official took a darker view of the crime than happens to be taken by the Court, then he is to take the other view, and, in the exercise of his discretion, increase and augment the severity of the punishment which the law allows to be inflicted. ["Hear, hear!" from the Irish Benches, and cries of, "That was Barr's object!"] That is the theory which the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has laid down as regulating prison discipline in Ireland.
  MR. DILLON: I shall have an opportunity of replying by-and-bye, and, therefore, I will not interrupt the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman has attacked Dr. Barr's manner towards himself, and has said that Dr. Barr behaved in an ungentlemanly way. I know enough of Dr. Barr—[Ironical cheers from the Irish Members.] If hon. Members will control their excitement for one moment, they will better understand what I mean. I know enough of Dr. Barr—and what I know of him and how I know it I will explain directly—to know that the charge of the hon. Member, on the face of it, is an absurd one. My own personal knowledge of Dr. Barr was confined to one interview which I had with him in Dublin at the end of August last; and I must confess that, as far as one man can judge of another in one interview, and can make that a basis of the estimate of his character, I was favourably impressed by Dr. Barr's appearance, conduct, and conversation. But I am far, of course, from resting my estimate of Dr. Barr upon what happened then, or during the few minutes I conversed with him. Dr. Barr has other titles to the consideration and respect of this House. Hon. Gentlemen are in the habit of talking as if I had selected Dr. Barr myself from a knowledge that I possessed that he was endowed with those qualities of unscrupulousness and brutality, which would make him a fit instrument of a
  1302
  brutal and unscrupulous Government. [Irish cheers.] I see I have adequately represented the ideas of hon. Members opposite. Unfortunately, as so often happens with the allegations of hon. Gentlemen opposite, there is not a shadow of foundation for the charge. I never heard of Dr. Barr until he was selected by the English Prisons Board—when through my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Matthews)—[Renewed Irish cheers.]—[An hon. MEMBER: It is all coming out now!]—I requested the Prisons Board to select a man of high character and qualifications to carry out the work, the object of which I will presently describe. The Prisons Board—as was explained to the Government by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone)—acting independently of the Executive, chose this gentleman as a man amongst their subordinates of especially high character and qualifications, and it was because they so chose him, and only because they so chose him, that I made use of his services in Ireland. Dr. Barr is a gentleman—I believe a Northern Irishman by birth—[Dr. TANNER: An Orangeman too!]—he was educated in Glasgow, and in Glasgow won not only the respect of all those who were capable of judging of his medical qualifications, but also the respect and affection of all those who judged of him personally. The high character which he thus honourably won in Glasgow he fully maintained, and more than maintained, in Liverpool. Dr. Barr was universally known—and I trust is still known—in every part of the country where people still retain the capacity of judging of Nationalist criticisms upon Irish officials, in the favourable manner I have described to the Committee. Now, I told the Committee that I would inform them what was the object for which I asked the Prisons Board of England to supply me with an able and capable officer. The hon. Member for East Mayo appears to think that it was to screw up to an undue pitch of severity the Prison Rules which are applicable to Irish prisons. It was nothing of the kind. I was perfectly aware that, as hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite had attacked most virulently, and with little scrupulousness, the Administration of right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they had to deal with Ireland—I was

  1303
  perfectly aware that I was not likely to fare better in the hands of the hon. Member and his Friends, and that the prison officials in Ireland were not likely to fare better at their hands. I desired, therefore, to obtain an undoubted independent testimony—[An hon. MEMBER: So you got an Orangeman!]—some proof that Irish prison discipline did not differ from English discipline in its practice, or that, at all events, if it did differ, it did not differ in any manner unfavourable to the prisoner. That was my first object, and I think it was a proper and humane object; but I frankly admit that it was not my only object. Though we had not at that time the painful, and even horrible, evidence that has since come out, I was aware that every official in Ireland in any way dependent on Nationalist surroundings would be the subject of the most savage and unscrupulous persecution if he ventured in any way to do his duty; and I thought it was only due to these men, marked out beforehand for calumnious attacks, that they should have behind them to direct them a man who, because he was an Englishman by residence and the servant of an English Board, and not of an Irish Board, and because he did not depend on the favour of the Nationalist Organization, would, at all events, have no hesitation in telling the truth when he liked, where he liked, and how he liked. It was for that reason, as well as for the other reason which I have submitted to the Committee, that I asked the English Prisons Board to lend me the services of Dr. Barr; and most fortunate was it, in the interests of truth and in the interests of justice, that that course was pursued, because it was through the independent and indubitable testimony of Dr. Barr that we have been able to expose and bring to light the foul conspiracy of which the unhappy Dr. Ridley was the victim. [An hon. MEMBER: Your victim!] I think I have said enough to show that I was justified, before I made the appointment, by the general considerations which affected the Irish Government, and the circumstances which have happened since the appointment have amply, and more than amply, justified the course I then purued.
  MR. T. C. HARRINGTONsaid, he thought they had
  1304
  reason to be thankful to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the speech he had just delivered. For months past the right hon. Gentleman had been going through the country proclaiming that his object in sending Dr. Barr to visit prisons was to look after the safety of the prisoners of Ireland. That night, however, the right hon. Gentleman had come out in his true colours, and, as plain as words could express it, he had given the Committee to understand that the object with which he had sent Dr. Barr to Ireland to visit the prisons was to intimidate the officials in those prisons, and to add persecution to the infamy of imprisonment which he had already inflicted upon men more honourable than himself. The right hon. Gentleman had plainly avowed his object, and the statements which had been made about Dr. Barr, and which had been written in the Irish newspapers, had been amply justified by the speech of the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman probably thought he would be supported in this country in the statement that it was a proper thing to see that prison discipline in Ireland was maintained in the same manner as prison discipline in England. Well, those who know the prison system of both countries must know well enough that it was impossible for any set of officials to carry out the prison treatment in the one country and the other equally with all men. There were hundreds of instances in which they had to make allowances for one man's constitution and habits. Every Commission which had sat to consider the subject had gone on the principle of making some distinction between the treatment of certain classes of prisoners. Did the right hon. Gentleman remember the evidence given by the English Inspectors before the Commission on Irish Prisons, to the effect that prison officials were instructed to examine the condition of the prisoners in order to see when it was necessary that the ordinary Rules should be relaxed rather than that the health of a person confined in gaol should be broken? Rather, however, than that Regulation should be carried out in a humane spirit, they saw this emissary of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, Dr. Barr, sent over to Ireland in order to prevent the Irish

  1305
  prison officials from exercising their discretion and adopting a humane system, and in order to see that the treatment of Irish prisoners was such a treatment as would please the right hon. Gentleman. As to the statement that the object with which Dr. Barr was sent out was a humane one, he (Mr. T. C. Harrington) should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could point to a single instance in which Dr. Barr's mission had resulted in the removal of a prisoner from a bad cell to a good one, or in a beneficial alteration of the dietary? No; Dr. Barr had gone to Ireland, well knowing his mission and the work expected from him, and he had reported regularly to the right hon. Gentleman. He had reported not only in the one conversation which the right hon. Gentleman said he had had with him, but he reported regularly the result of his mission. Now, as to one portion of Dr. Barr's action in Ireland at the present time, they had nothing to say, although they expected at some futurer Sitting of the House to be able to bring under discussion his conduct; but he (Mr. T. C. Harrington) denied that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had at all removed from himself the responsibility of the appointment of this individual by saying that he relied on the discretion—the tried discretion and well-known experience—of his Colleague the Home Secretary in making the selection. If the right hon. Gentleman had no better defence to make than that he relied upon the skill of his Colleague, that was not a defence which was likely to be considered satisfactory. What was the real object for which Dr. Barr had been selected; what were the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the Prisons Board? What kind of official did the right hon. Gentleman tell them he wanted? Those were the points upon which the right hon. Gentleman should vindicate his conduct; those were the points from which he should remove from himself, if possible, the culpability which undoubtedly attached to Dr. Barr in his treatment of Irish prisoners. Beyond all manner of doubt Dr. Barr's visit to the Irish prisons had struck terror into every Irish prison which he entered. The officials in the Irish prisons used to speak of him as "the unknown medical man." The
  1306
  right hon. Gentleman himself could not visit the Irish prisons, and being anxious that no leniency, no mercy, should be shown to the men in prison under his system, he selected a fitting instrument to carry out his object—one who anticipated his wishes and was willing to carry them out.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he had heard with astonishment the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland say to the Committee that he had employed Dr. Barr because he was an Englishman, and a servant of an English Board, and dared to speak the truth under all circumstances. Those were two very extraordinary propositions. Of course, the insinuation conveyed was that if he were an Irishman he would not speak the truth. But the extraordinary part of that was that Dr. Barr, as a matter of fact, was not an Englishman, but a well-known Orangeman from the North of Ireland, a hanger-on, a protégé of the Hamilton interest, which was so strongly represented in the Government. It was a curious coincidence that although the Committee had been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that he knew nothing of this great English official, that his chief claim to be sent upon this mission was because he was an Englishman and would speak the truth, he was the son of one of the chief leaders of an Orange Lodge, a tenant of the Duke of Abercorn's, a creature of the chief prop of the landlords in Ireland. This was the impartial and open-minded Englishman who was sent over to the Irish prisons for the deliberate purpose of insulting the Irish Party when they were being treated as common prisoners in Ireland; and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would have the Committee to believe that the man was sent over because no Irishman would tell the truth. He (Mr. Dillon) wished to goodness the right hon. Gentleman himself would always tell the truth. [Cries of "Order, order!"]
  THE CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that expression.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he did so. He did so unhesitatingly—and was about to qualify the statement. He was about to say, when he was interrupted by the Chairman, that he made no accusations of deliberate untruth against the right hon. Gentleman, but wished to convey that

  1307
  he would not take the pains to ascertain the truth of the representations made to him upon which he founded his remarks in that House. He challenged the right hon. Gentleman to get up and repeat his statement as to Dr. Barr being an Englishman.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think that anyone who heard my speech will admit that the hon. Gentleman has given a version of it which bears not a shadow of resemblance to the original. What I said was that Dr. Barr was a native of the North of Ireland, that he was educated in Glasgow, and that he is practising at Liverpool—I gave his whole biography. The hon. Gentleman accredits me with casting an aspersion upon the Irish officials which I had no desire to cast upon them. What I had desired to convey was, that Irish prison officials living in country districts were to some extent dependent upon Nationalist surroundings——
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONsaid, gaols in Ireland are not in country districts.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: And my desire was that a man should be selected for the work who would not be open to intimidation. That was all I said.
  MR. DILLONsaid, that a more unfortunate charge could not be made. The right hon. Gentleman denied that the father of this man was a tenant of the Duke of Abercorn.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not deny it—I do not know what he is.
  MR. DILLONsaid, that at any rate he had found out that fact. Dr. Barr had admitted that he was a prominent leading member of one Conservative Committee in a district, he believed, represented by one of the Hamilton family, and he (Mr. Dillon) maintained that, under the circumstances, a more unhappy selection could not have been made to send upon such a delicate mission to the Irish prisons, and to place in the position of being able to insult and outrage the feelings of Irish gentlemen. With reference to the personal statement he (Mr. Dillon) had made on this subject, he wished to point out the ridiculously inadequate answer made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief secretary. When he (Mr. Dillon) had said, as a matter of fact, that this individual was ungentlemanly in his conduct towards him, and that his
  1308
  manner was most offensive, the right hon. Gentleman only replied that the charge was an unfounded one. On what ground did the right hon. Gentleman say this? Why, on the ground that Dr. Barr had interviewed him in Dublin Castle, and that nothing could be more courteous than his conduct.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I expressly stated—I believe I said it twice—that I did not rest my estimate of Dr. Barr on one short interview. Surely the hon. Gentleman ought not to get up in the House and say that my only ground for what I said was my one interview with this gentleman.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he would give the right hon. Gentleman credit for as many interviews as he liked, but his experience of men who were extremely insolent when they were in authority was that very often they were the most servile in the presence of superiors. It was no proof that a prison medical officer would treat the prisoners with civility and humanity merely because he was cringing and servile to the right hon. Gentleman. No one knew what had taken place at the interview between Dr. Barr and himself (Mr. Dillon) but themselves, and the only report the right hon. Gentleman could have received with regard to it until to-night was from Dr. Barr. He should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he had instructed Dr. Barr to refuse to give his name? If he did, it was an extraordinary proceeding, but if he did not, the fact that Dr. Barr refused to disclose his name when it was asked for showed that he was a coward, and not the courageous, truthful man that the right hon. Gentleman described. He maintained that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, in his reply that night, was not a fair one, so far as it was descriptive of what had fallen from him (Mr. Dillon) as to the treatment of the prisoners by Irish prison officials. He had not led anyone to believe that he considered that the officials in Ireland should modify their treatment of prisoners according to their conception of the criminality of those prisoners. What he had said was what everybody who had any experience of the enforcement of Prison Rules knew perfectly well—namely, that prison officials could make an enormous difference in the sufferings of the prisoners without transgressing

  1309
  any of the Prison Rules at all. What he had meant to say was, that where they had to deal with the lowest and most criminal classes, who were probably very often found malingering—such men as Dr. Barr was likely to have to deal with in the Kirkdale Infirmary of Liverpool—classes which he was probably well fitted to deal with—the Rules of the prison might be administered by the prison officials in a different spirit to that which should actuate them in dealing with political prisoners, such as there were now in the gaols of Ireland. These political prisoners were perfectly orderly, and in every case honourable men, against whom in no instance could a case of malingering be alleged. He submitted that a medical man who approached such men in the same spirit as he would approach the refuse in the streets of Liverpool was false to his duties. There was an immense difference being treated as though you were a gentleman, and an honest man, even when it was necessary to observe certain Prison Rules, and being treated as though you were the scum of the streets who had to be watched in order to prevent your malingering or breaking the Rules of the prison. The prison official, without over-stepping the Prison Rules, could, if he chose, make the treatment of a prisoner a perfect hell; and his (Mr. Dillon's) charge—and it was a charge which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary did not traverse—was that Dr. Barr was sent over to see that Irish political prisoners were treated in the same way as pickpockets, and nightwalkers, and the perpetrators of scandalous offences were treated in the gaols of Liverpool. What was the highest qualification of a surgeon? Why, he (Mr. Dillon) was a surgeon himself, and had had a large acquaintance amongst Army surgeons, and was, therefore, in a position to say that the highest qualification of a surgeon was to be able to detect an injury. Well, the great reputation of Dr. Barr might be built up on the fact that he was a successful detector of malingering in the prisons of Liverpool. Had he gone over to Ireland to examine into those cases where he saw the Prison Rules administered with humanity, to find out if anyone was malingering? The political prisoners in Ireland were not malingerers. Whether their cause
  1310
  were right or wrong, it was, at any rate, attended in an honourable spirit, and to have a man like their enlightened Chief Secretary and Governor sending over a medical practitioner to Ireland to grind Irish political prisoners down to the level of the lowest prisoners in England, was, he maintained, a disgusting, mean, and cowardly act. He wanted to know who paid the expenses of Dr. Barr? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had told them that one of his great objects was to protect the officials of the Irish prisons and of his own Government against the calumnious charges which the Irish Members were in the habit of making. Was there no man in Ireland amongst all the members of the medical and surgical professions who, according to Ministers opposite, were nearly all Unionists, skilful enough and courageous enough to afford this protection to the right hon. Gentleman? Could the right hon. Gentleman not obtain anyone from amongst the doctors in Dublin to carry out this inspection? Why should the right hon. Gentleman cross the Channel for a doctor? He asked, where was the bill of expenses for Dr. Barr's frequent excursions to Ireland? Did Dr. Barr get fees for these excursions, or was he sent across at his ordinary pay on the English Establishment? He desired to know why a Dublin medical man was not engaged? If the object of the Government was to protect themselves by independent testimony, why did they not get independent testimony? The first question he had put to Dr. Barr when he came into Dundalk gaol was, "Are you an English official?" but he would not answer, like the coward he was. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had sent to Ireland an official whom he could strike out of his place to-morrow if he displeased the Government. Surely, then, he was not an independent witness, and could not be regarded as a protection to the Government. He was an official witness, who went to Ireland with a brief, and who would consider that he had discharged his duty to his employers and paymasters when he made such a report as they could easily gather the nature of from the right hon. Gentleman whilst he was making his speech. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman and Dr. Barr had parted mutual friends. If this was

  1311
  the idea of the right hon. Gentleman about independent testimony for the purpose of protecting Government officials and the Government, all he (Mr. Dillon) could say was that his idea was entirely different. They ought to get a different statement from the right hon. Gentleman as to why this official was selected, as to who paid him, and as to why an independent medical man from Dublin was not selected.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I wished to compare the Irish practice with the English practice, it was absolutely necessary to employ anyone who was familiar with the English practice, and the only person familiar with the English practice that I could obtain was an English prison official. With regard to the expenses of Dr. Barr's mission, they do not fall under this Vote; and as to what the hon. Member said about Dr. Barr's not giving his name, I must say, in the first place, I am surprised and rather disgusted that the hon. Gentleman should accuse Dr. Barr of cowardliness, Dr. Barr not being here to answer for himself. I have no special information about it, but I am told that Dr. Barr did not give his name because it is not customary for prison officials, when they go to examine prisoners, to allow themselves to be cross-examined by those prisoners, either to answer questions or to give their names. I do not think there is anything so over-poweringly formidable in the hon. Gentleman that Dr. Barr should be accused of cowardliness.
  DR. CLARKsaid, he intervened in this debate because he happened to know Dr. Barr, having for several years sat side by side with him in the Glasgow University, and from his knowledge of that gentleman, therefore, he had to say that he did not think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was warranted in the statement he had made by the facts. The right hon. Gentleman asserted, in the first place, that Dr. Barr was very highly qualified, and that was using an adjective which the facts did not permit him to use. Dr. Barr had the most ordinary qualifications that a man could have. He was a graduate of Glasgow University, and a Licentiate—not a Fellow—of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. That was not the highest qualification, for the highest qualification would be to become
  1312
  a Fellow of his College, which Dr. Barr was not. Glasgow University did not stand so high as Edinburgh, and Dr. Barr was not a bright student even there; in fact, he was a very dull student, and if the right hon. Gentleman would consult the Calendar of the University, which was published year by year, he would soon find whether the information which had been supplied to him was correct or not. He would find that Dr. Barr, as a matter of fact, was a very common-place person indeed. The Dr. Barr pictured by the right hon. Gentleman was, he assured the Committee, a very different person to the real Dr. Barr, with whom he was acquainted. As to Dr. Barr's position as a surgeon, he (Dr. Clark) should support the reduction which had been moved, because he thought Dr. Barr was an individual who was not an honour to his Profession. He would support the Amendment, because he thought Dr. Barr ought not to have charge of the unfortunate prisoners in Liverpool Prison. Fortunately, Liverpool Gaol was a place where they would be likely to have an assistant surgeon, who would do most of the work; but, whether or no, he thought Dr. Barr was a person who ought no longer to be permitted to be in the prison service. The theories he held, and his practice, was a disgrace to any practitioner, and, looking at the circumstances of this case generally, he should say that Dr. Barr was about the worst man who could have been sent to Ireland to inspect the Irish prisons. There was a medical member of the Prisons Board, who ought to have been asked to do the work. If it was the fact that there was no one so well qualified as Dr. Barr, amongst English prison surgeons, to perform the Chief Secretary's mission, then, unfortunately, in this country they had no well-qualified man at all upon their staff. He considered Dr. Barr a disgrace to his Profession, and he should therefore vote to cut off his salary, holding him to be a thoroughly heartless man, deserving the utmost contempt. [A laugh.] He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary laughing. Perhaps Dr. Barr was a man after his own heart. The right hon. Gentleman had made a statement with his usual inaccuracy, and he (Dr. Clark) was very sorry to see that any man who had sat side by side with him in the University of Glasgow should have

  1313
  allowed himself to become the tool of the present Chief Secretary for Ireland.
  MR. E. ROBERTSONsaid, he was not acquainted with Dr. Barr, but the answer of the Government was of such a character that he felt compelled to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo. The real question—which appeared to have been lost sight of—was, that a charge had been made against this official of having been guilty of conduct described as insulting, rude, offensive, and ungentlemanly, towards a prisoner in an Irish prison. But that was not all. The charge was made by a Member of this House, a Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman, a man who, according to the best traditions of this House, was entitled to have his word accepted as true. He (Mr. E. Robertson) did not ask him to condemn Dr. Barr behind his back; but what he contended was, that the right hon. Gentleman was bound to treat the question as an open one, and not to foreclose the question against the hon. Member for East Mayo, saying that because he had a good report from Dr. Barr, and Dr. Barr had created a good impression on him in the short interview he had had with him, that, therefore, the statement of the hon. Member for East Mayo could not be relied upon. He (Mr. E. Robertson) declined to accept that as a sufficient answer.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he had listened to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and had been impressed with the singular heat which the right hon. Gentleman had thrown into the controversy. It seemed as if the cap which was being made for Dr. Barr exactly fitted the right hon. Gentleman himself. He (Dr. Tanner) could not help noticing, in looking over the list of the various medical officers attached to the prison establishments of England, this rather extraordinary fact—that the medical officer selected for duties of such a very delicate nature was really a medical officer belonging to the second class. All the medical officers of the first class were passed over, and one of the second class was chosen. Now, he (Dr. Tanner) did not intend to enter into the controversy which was initiated by his hon. Friend (Dr. Clark) as to the medical qualifica-
  1314
  tions of Dr. Barr. His medical qualifications might be good. It did not always follow that because a man happened to be a Licentiate and not a Fellow, that, therefore, he was not well qualified. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was laughing as usual—just as Dr. Barr laughed when he had seen his victims—but this did not seem to him (Dr. Tanner) as a laughing matter, however much it suited the risibility of the right hon. Gentleman. He did not think the people of England would look upon it in that light. Not only was Dr. Barr a medical officer of the second class, but it was rather interesting, so far as this question was concerned, to note the statistics relating to the health of the prisoners in Kirkdale Gaol. In proportion to the number of inmates in the gaol there were more men on the sick list of the hospital than in any other prison in England. They would imagine that the responsible medical officer looking after the welfare of these unfortunate prisoners would notice the fact of the large amount of sickness, and endeavour in some way or other to explain it. But that was not the case with Dr. Barr. They found in the general report of Kirkdale Prison the statement that the medical officer had reported that "The health of the prisoners has been very satisfactory." The right hon. Gentleman opposite was laughing again, but soon he (Dr. Tanner) would give him some figures which would, perhaps, convince him. The daily average of male prisoners in Kirkdale Gaol was 403, and the total number of cases of illness treated in the hospital during the year was 236. Compare these figures with those of other gaols. In Durham Gaol the total number of males was 308, and the number of cases in hospital 129. In Birmingham the number of males was 307, while the number of cases in hospital was 164; and in Millbank Prison, whilst the average number of males was 391, the hospital cases were only 94. It appeared, therefore, rather extraordinary that some inquiry had not been made into the sanitary condition of Kirkdale Gaol. Another thing he should like to call attention to was that during the absence of Dr. Barr—this bar sinister—in Ireland, the only fatal case that took place during the year occurred. The right hon. Gentleman was again laugh-

  1315
  ing—he always had a smile for any statement concerning deaths, misfortunes, or illnesses. It might suit the right hon. Gentleman to laugh, but he did not think that anyone endowed with the commonest feelings of humanity would be inclined to follow suit. The Committee were entitled to some explanation as to the sanitary state of affairs in Kirkdale Prison. He should like to know why, during the past year, in that gaol, there had been no fewer than four cases of pulmonary diseases of a serious character? Then there had been two cases of phthisis, and two cases of acute tuberculosis. Every medical man knew that a gaol was not a likely place for such a disease as consumption, notably when there was no trace of the disease in the prisoner on admission. He hoped that there would be some medical investigation into the circumstances he had recounted, so that the country might see whether Dr. Barr had been doing his duty as a medical man in the Kirkdale Infirmary. The state of affairs appeared to him to be uncommonly bad; but that, perhaps, could be explained, because Dr. Barr had been withdrawn from his duty in the Kirkdale Hospital, and called upon to do duty elsewhere. It had been suggested that Dr. Barr had an assistant surgeon, but there was no item for an assistant surgeon at the Kirkdale Hospital. If Dr. Barr was taken away from his duties in the Kirkdale Prison someone must have been there to do his duty. It was perfectly plain that medical men, who were always the most charitable people in the world, frequently, free of expense, discharged another man's duties; but, after what they had heard to-night of Dr. Barr, it seemed to him that it would be less difficult for him to get anybody to perform the duties of locum tenens than for another medical man. If he had anyone to perform his duty while away, why were the Committee not shown what sum of money was paid to the locum, tenens? He was surprised the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary should laugh and sneer over the sad circumstances which had been brought to light. Investigation into the circumstances was urgently demanded; something should be done for the benefit of the people who were incarcerated in the Kirkdale Gaol; at any rate, they ought to be supplied with a
  1316
  qualified and efficient medical officer—with a humane medical officer—not one who considered it his duty to grovel at the feet of men who were in power, and to insult the unfortunate persons who might be committed to his care. He (Dr. Tanner) hoped that, in due time, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland might put off that savage and insulting manner which characterized Dr. Barr.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  MR. GILLsaid, he did not intend to speak on the merits of prison treatment generally under the present Coercion Act, because on a future occasion a debate would take place covering the whole question. What he wanted to point out was that they had not had from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary a distinct statement as to the reason why Dr. Barr was sent to Ireland at all. There had been several suggestions, not definite statements, as to the object of his visit. One suggestion was that Dr. Barr was to make a report, the object of which would be the assimilation of the Irish and the English methods of prison treatment. On what authority did the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary undertake to assimilate the prison rules of Ireland to the prison rules of England? There were a great many differences between the two systems of prison treatment, and he very much desired to know upon what authority the right hon. Gentleman undertook to send an emissary to Ireland for the purpose of seeing that those rules were made alike? On the other hand, if Dr. Barr went there for the purpose described, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had very good authority for sending him there, why was not the system of prison treatment in Ireland modelled on every particular point upon the system in England? One of the chief differences between the Irish and the English system was that in England the Governor and the staff of a prison were left largely to their own discretion to interpret the letter of the prison rules. In England it was in the power of a prison Governor to modify, or to suspend, or to enforce, according to his own discretion, the

  1317
  rules that were laid down for the management of the prison; and in the Report of the recent Commission which inquired into the prison discipline of Ireland and England, approving reference was made more than once to this great distinction. It was pointed out that the Governor and the staff of a particular gaol acquired a knowledge of the peculiarities and the temperaments of the various prisoners under their control, which would suggest to them, in some instances, a modification of the prison rules, a knowledge which could not possibly be possessed by the Prisons Board at the centre or the capital of the country. In Ireland quite the opposite prevailed. There the Governor of a gaol could not——
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman must connect his observations with the Motion before the Committee.
  MR. GILLsaid, he was endeavouring to point out that if Dr. Barr was sent to Ireland, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary alleged, for the purpose of seeing that a system of treatment similar to that existing in English prisons was enforced in the Irish prisons, Dr. Barr did not see that in the case of the chief distinction between the two systems of treatment the English system was adopted in Ireland. The chief distinction was that discretion was allowed in England to Governors and staffs of prisons in the interpretation of the prison rules, and he was about to point out that in Ireland, after Dr. Barr's visit, the system of absolute irresponsibility of the prison staffs, and their incapacity to interpret the rules according to their own discretion, was more rigidly carried out than before. In fact, judging by results, the object of Dr. Bair's mission really was to see that the peculiarity or difference in the two systems was more firmly maintained than it had previously been. The Governor of one of the prisons in which the prisoners whom Dr. Barr was sent to visit were confined had to go up to Dublin and consult the Prisons Board, as he himself said, at a certain inquest in the country, in order to obtain their instructions as to how he was to interpret the prison rules under certain peculiar circumstances which had arisen. How was it that the chief distinction between the two systems had been increased, if anything, and not modified since Dr. Barr's visit? Dr. Barr was
  1318
  stated to be an English prison official of the highest rank, and his high qualifications were alleged by the right hon. Gentleman to be the reason why he was chosen for this very onerous and delicate mission. He (Mr. Gill) wished to emphasize the point made by his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner)—namely, that Dr. Barr, instead of being an official in the English prisons of the very highest rank, was really a minor officer of the second and not of the first rank. That bold, solid, matter of fact, as seen from the Records of the Government, utterly demolished the theory set up by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, that Dr. Barr was chosen for this mission on account of his extremely high qualifications as a medical man. The hon. Member for Mid Cork also pointed out that in the prison which was in the medical charge of Dr. Barr—the Kirkdale Prison—the percentage of sickness was far higher than that of any other prison of the same size in England. The two facts proved that Dr. Barr, instead of being an official of the highest rank, was an official almost of the lowest rank in the whole prison system of England, and led many Members of the Committee to the conclusion that the reasons given from the Opposition side of the House for Dr. Barr's appointment were the true reasons—namely, that Dr. Barr was, as he proved himself to be at the inquest to which reference had been made, a rabid partizan of the Party of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and a man among whose characteristics humanity, at any rate, was not the most prominent. This discussion had been very useful in bringing out these facts, which would be of some purpose in the debate which would be raised on the whole question of prison treatment in Ireland at a later period of Supply.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid that coercive Governments always had to use vile instruments. It was not for him at present to go into the whole question of what Dr. Barr did in Ireland, but when the time arrived there seemed no doubt he and his hon. Friends would be able to prove that Dr. Barr was the vilest in-instrument that the present Government ever used in Ireland, and that he was directly and immediately responsible for two deaths. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen might say "Oh, oh!"

  1319
  just as much as they liked, but that was his opinion. He was perfectly aware that hon. Members had been round and about the country copying this Dr. Barr in abusing his victims, but they would find out that they would be answered in the House of Commons. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentleman might continue to say "Oh, oh!" and sneer as much as they liked. He noticed that the hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. Johnston) appeared to disagree with him, but it was a matter of absolute indifference to him as to whether that hon. Gentleman or any other Orangeman disagreed with him or not. He trusted that in every word or thought the hon. Gentleman would always disagree with him; he should be utterly ashamed of himself if he found the hon. Member did agree with him. Why did the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland say he sent Dr. Barr over to Ireland? He said he sent him over because he was an Englishman, and that if an Irishman had been sent to investigate the prison discipline in Ireland, he would have been subjected to the most virulent abuse. He (Mr. Labouchere) must say that as far as abuse went the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to have succeeded, for Dr. Barr was the subject of abuse, and Dr. Barr deserved the abuse. But it was a remarkable fact that when the right hon. Gentleman told them he thought it desirable to send an Englisman over, he sent an Irishman and an Orangeman who had lived in Scotland. Now, what did Dr. Barr himself say in respect to his going there? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said that Dr. Barr was not sent by him, that he was sent by the Prisons Board, and that he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) knew absolutely nothing about the mission. It was a remarkable thing that the Prisons Board should select this Orangeman and Irishman, and send him over to Ireland to inquire into the prison system. But what did Dr. Barr himself say? He was asked this question, "Have you learned that you were sent over at the instance of some Party?" and he answered, "I believe I was." That was the testimony of Dr. Barr himself, that was how he replied to his first defender in the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman said that Dr. Barr was endowed with every virtue possible, and that he learned this at one
  1320
  interview he had with Dr. Barr. The interview made a favourable impression upon the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would remember that Lord Byron said in one of his letters that the man who made the most favourable impression upon him in an interview picked his pocket. Surely, they were not to judge a man by one interview, whether the interview be favourable or unfavourable. Why was this Dr. Barr, whose salary was put upon the English Estimates, sent over to Ireland; what ground was there for taking him from his own duties? Why were they now asked to vote his salary as an official of an English prison? He supposed that during the year Dr. Barr was employed in Ireland he received some sort of remuneration, no doubt out of the Secret Service money, and the Committee was now asked to pay Dr. Barr for duties which it was his business to fulfil at the particular time he was away. Putting aside the hon. Gentleman's character of Dr. Barr—and he (Mr. Labouchere) would have something to say of that later on—the Committee ought not to vote the salary, because Dr. Barr was improperly taken away by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland from duties which he had to fulfil here; the Committee ought not to endorse the conduct of the Prison Commissioners in sending, when called upon by the Irish Secretary to send a man over to Ireland, someone who had distinct functions and duties here. His hon. Friend (Mr. Dillon) proposed a reduction. He (Mr. Labouchere) should vote in favour of it, and he trusted that before this Session was over they would have an opportunity of going into the whole action and character of this man, when they would most distinctly prove everything that had been said about Dr. Barr from time to time.
  DR. TANNERsaid, that before the discussion closed he must press for an answer to the various points he had raised. He had pointed out that Dr. Barr was taken from his duties, that that gentleman had made a report in which he said that everything was satisfactory in the prison at Kirkdale. He had pointed out, too, that the prison at Kirkdale was about as unhealthy a prison for its size as there was in the country. Of course, as an Irish Member, he was apt to submit to the treat-

  1321
  ment which was usually accorded to Irish Members in the House of Commons. He was not a North of Ireland Orangeman, or he supposed he should receive such treatment as the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Belfast (Mr. Johnston) did. In rising, however, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) would have the courtesy to explain, if he could, the matters which he (Dr. Tanner) had previously mentioned. It was the duty of every Member who took the trouble to read the Blue Books, which were gratuitously supplied to Members of the House, to scrutinize closely the various items which were asked for by responsible Ministers of the Crown. He had no doubt that some hon. Members opposite did not quite understand the meaning of medical statistics; and, of course, they did not feel the same amount of interest in the matter as one who happened to be a medical man did. He refrained from making use of any very strong language as regarded Dr. Barr. He might or might not be mistaken; but surely responsible Ministers of the Crown, when they came to ask for money, ought to be in a position to afford satisfactory explanations as to the various items required. He wanted an explanation upon three points. He wanted to know whether the Kirkdale Prison was a healthy one or an unhealthy one; whether Dr. Barr told the truth in his Report, or whether the prison statistics which he had quoted at some length were right or wrong? He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who was paid a very good salary for presiding over—in the very good way which he had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman did—a section of the Department he adorned, would condescend on the present occasion to give the Committee some answer to the points which had been raised.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, he confessed that he did not think that this discussion about Dr. Barr's conduct in Ireland was very relative to the present Vote. Of course, he could not object to the course of hon. Members if they wished to have a full-dress rehearsal of the debate which was promised on the Irish Prisons' Vote later
  1322
  on. As, however, the hon. Gentleman (Dr. Tanner) had directly called upon him to answer certain observations, he felt bound in courtesy to rise. He was obliged, however, to point out, in the first place, that the hon. Gentleman's conclusions were hasty. There were two prisons in Liverpool, and for one of them Dr. Barr was responsible. If the hon. Gentleman would turn to the figures, he would find that the second prison in Liverpool presented even a higher percentage of cases of sickness than did the prison at Kirkdale. In the second Liverpool prison, out of 465 males, no less than 244 were treated for sickness in the hospital, and out of 400 females, 251 were treated in the hospital for sickness. He did not know that the proportions differed very materially from other cases; but so far from that telling against Dr. Barr, he should apprehend it rather told in his favour. It was always upon the recommendation or authority of the medical officer that a sick prisoner was treated in hospital, instead of being left in his cell. It was no fault of the medical officers that the prisoners who found their way into the Liverpool prisons were persons, for the most part, in a very low state of health from bad diet, and in a condition by no means conducive to their being able to stand prison discipline. As he had said, the fact that so large a proportion of prisoners in Liverpool were admitted to hospital, so far from telling against Dr. Barr, rather told in his favour, and spoke for his humanity and desire to give prisoners the full benefit of his assistance. He understood that the hon. Member laid stress on the fact that four prisoners were released on medical grounds from Kirkdale Prison. The hon. Member was, no doubt, aware of the course pursued when prisoners were released on medical grounds, which could only be done ultimately by the authority of the Secretary of State, if the case came up on the recommendation of the local medical man of the prison. The medical man advised the Governor that a certain prisoner was so far suffering from confinement that his health was in danger, or his recovery made more difficult by reason of confinement. The grounds of the medical opinion were then considered, and if found sufficient the order for release was made. Again, so far from that testifying to want of

  1323
  skill or want of humanity on the part of Dr. Barr, it testified to exactly the reverse. It was the medical man who set on foot the series of representations which ended in a prisoner being released. It really seemed to him that the criticisms of Dr. Barr failed entirely in their force. Now, he had some part, though a very small one, in the selection of Dr. Barr. He was asked by his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland to recommend to him some English prison medical officer who was both capable and experienced. He had no idea when the request was addressed to him for what purpose the services of Dr. Barr were desired by the right hon. Gentleman, but he transmitted the request to the Board of Prison Directors, who knew no more about the matter than he did.
  DR. TANNER: Why was a second-class officer chosen?
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, that Dr. Barr was not a second-class officer in any sense, but it happened that the prison in which he served had not a sufficient number of inmates to bring the medical officer under the higher scale of salary. Dr. Barr was a gentleman who had a large private practice in Liverpool before he was selected as prison medical officer, and he was selected, not by the Executive Government, not even by the Prison Commissioners, but by the Justices, before the transfer of the local prisons to the Government. Dr. Barr's conduct in the discharge of his duties in Kirkdale Prison had always given the highest satisfaction, and his reputation in Liverpool, both as a private practitioner and as a prison official, had always been of the highest kind.
  DR. TANNERsaid, when the right hon. Gentleman drew a line of demarcation between Liverpool Gaol, which was in a most unhealthy district, and Kirkdale, situated in a healthy district, he thought his analogy was not a fair one. He (Dr. Tanner) drew attention to the various county prisons, and he still maintained that what he had stated was substantially accurate—namely, that the number of sick people going into the infirmary wards were largely above the ordinary average. He also pointed out the cases of persons discharged in consequence of suffering, not from general affections, but from serious chest disease—that one of them had acute
  1324
  tuberculosis, and three other phthisis. All the cases of discharge from this prison were of substantially the same description, and the right hon. Gentleman had not condescended to controvert that point. The right hon. Gentleman said that Dr. Barr, although a medical officer of the second-class, was a first-class practitioner, but he could inform the right hon. Gentleman that, as a rule, they would not get any medical man in the first rank of the Profession to take up these appointments, on the ground that men belonging to that class would not be tied down by the duties imposed by the Prison Board officer. The right hon. Gentleman ought to be better informed on these subjects when he came down to the House and endeavoured to controvert assertions which hon. Members were enabled to make upon the facts stated in the Blue Books supplied to them. Having read these Reports, and after what they had heard that night, he thought it would be most improper for the Committee to pass this salary to a medical man who had in the first place behaved in an ungentlemanly and unprofessional way, and was mainly responsible for not doing his duty in consequence of the commands which he received from a partizan Government, which would be passed down to history stigmatized in consequence of misdeeds which had been perpretrated with its cognizance and at its instigation.
  MR. GILLsaid, the right hon Gentleman had said that the large number of cases in hospital was a proof of the skill and humanity of the medical officers, but the humanity of a medical officer would not be shown by allowing a man to suffer ailments of which he complained until they assumed a serious character, and until the man had to be relegated to the hospital in spite of him. Inhumanity of a medical officer would be proved by there being a large number of serious cases in hospital, and that had been proved by the fact that a number of men had gone into prison healthy and had been discharged suffering from disease. One prisoner had died under treatment, and he held that to be the best proof of the inhumanity of the medical officer, and also of his incompetency, because these men complained and the medical officer said they were malingering. The disease under which they were suffering was proved to be no

  1325
  sham disease, and it at length assumed such a character that Dr. Barr did not dare to refuse them accommodation in the hospital; and two men were consigned to a lingering death from consumption. He made these remarks to point out the absurdity of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that a great number of serious cases in Kirkdale Prison which his hon. Friend had quoted as a proof of Dr. Barr's incompetency and inhumanity, were no proof of his skill and fitness as a medical officer.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONsaid, that the main point was that Dr. Barr, an Orangeman and a partizan, had been sent by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the purpose of adding to the refinement of cruelty inflicted on Irish prisoners.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must ask the hon. and learned Member to observe the proper form of debate.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONsaid, he would endeavour to do so. He was contending that Dr. Barr was an unfit person to be sent to Ireland for the purpose. The hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. Johnston) was an opponent of the Irish Nationalists, but they always recognized him as an honest opponent both inside and outside the House; but would the hon. Gentleman be a proper man to send over to Ireland to report to the Chief Secretary for Ireland as to the propriety of leaving an Irish Member in prison. Dr. Barr was a man in avowed hostility to their views, and one of the parasites of the Hamilton family who practically ran the Government of this country, and as such he was sent over to Ireland to decide upon the treatment of Irish political prisoners. The hon. Member for East Mayo was not an ordinary prisoner, and the people of this country would not consent that he should be treated as a burglar or a forger. The hon. Member for East Mayo had asked Dr. Barr by what right he inspected him medically, and whether he was an official of the prison; but he had neither the courage nor the honesty to give his name or say whether he belonged to the prison staff. He had had some experience of prisons, but he had never found that prison discipline was relaxed in favour of Irish politicians, but he had found that while the officials, even down to the turnkey,
  1326
  carried out the rules to the last letter, there was a manner of doing so which would allow a man to go through even torture in gaol without having his feelings irritated day by day. He believed the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was not that the prison rules should be carried out in a humane spirit; and the mission of Dr. Barr was not directed to the object, but his mission to Ireland was practically to see that every odium and indignity should be put on Irish political prisoners. Those men were the honoured Representatives of the Irish people, and were men whose lives, outside the political charge against them, had been blameless, and who stood as high in public estimation in their own country as did the Colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman himself. He and his hon. Friends had made a distinct charge which had not been answered. The right hon. gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that night that the reason why Dr. Barr was chosen was because they wanted to get a high-minded English official, and he had afterwards avowed that Dr. Barr was an Englishman; thereby conveying to the world that an impartial English official, without prejudice, had been sent to Ireland to see whether the prison rules were administered in the ordinary spirit. Hon. Members on those benches had shown how far Dr. Barr came up to that description, and they were content to take a Division on the Vote and allow the matter to rest on the judgment of the country.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 116: Majority 49.—(Div. List, No. 292.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, there were one or two points which it was necessary to clear up. They had the evidence of Dr. Barr that the dietary in the English prisons was less than that in Irish prisons. Man was a creature of habit, and he thought that it was obvious that by suddenly giving a prisoner just enough food to keep body and soul together, his health must be injured; but this would still more be the result of suddenly giving a man less food, and then, after two or three weeks, giving

  1327
  him more. They ought to recognize the fact that they did not put men in prison for the purpose of torturing them; they ought not, of course, to b made comfortable there; but this specie of slow torture, of denying them sufficient food, ought not to be resorted to. Then again, in England and Ireland the plank bed was used, which was on an incline, and the person who lay upon it was on an incline; and when he had to go to sleep, his limbs became so heavy that continuous sleep was impossible. It was intended to put prisoners on hard beds, but it was never intended to torture them in this way. Another point was the warming of the cells He had asked lately at Millbank Prison why it was that some of the cells were so exceedingly cold, and the answer was that the warming machinery kept the cells that were close to it warm, but that unless the fire was kept up—which was not always the case—the cells in the wings of the building were far too cold. There ought to be an understanding as to what our prison discipline was. It had come to such a point that there should be an inquiry, and it should be declared what our prison discipline ought to be. With regard to prisoners who tried to escape. In Germany the theory was that a prisoner had a perfect right to escape if he could, and it was the business of the prison officials to prevent him doing so. They did not like this—always having to keep watch and ward; but when a prisoner escaped in Germany it was the warders who were regarded as blameable, because they ought to have prevented it. This was the view taken in an enlightened country, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary should consider whether the system was not more humane than ours.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he had given attention to all these subjects, and was, of course, impressed with the extreme importance, on the ground of humanity, of making sure that there was no undue severity imposed on prisoners. The prison dietary was, of course, as the hon. Gentleman had said, what was sufficient to support life; but it was clear, if imprisonment was to have any deterrent effect, a person in prison must be worse off than he would be outside. As to the point
  1328
  of temperature, he had visited two or three prisons lately, and he was sure, from what he had seen, that the aim of the system was to keep the cells at a proper temperature, with a system of ventilation to keep out foul air. With regard to the plank bed, the prisoner had sheets, two blankets, and a woollen rug, and, under the circumstances, he probably slept more comfortably than many people in the country; and he was informed that the plank bed was exactly the same as that on which a soldier slept in the guard-room. He could assure the Committee that when any complaint was made by a prisoner, the circumstances were thoroughly examined by those who were responsible to that House; and if occasion appeared to require it, he had always satisfied himself that a change was made.
  DR. TANNERsaid, there were cases which, owing to their treatment or the unkind laxity of the supervision in gaols, ought to receive very serious consideration before the Vote was allowed to pass. The first class of cases were those of insanity. He had noticed that in the case of one large gaol the number of cases of in sanity during the last 12 months were far beyond the average, and he asked whether this was the result of the class of persons confined in the gaol or of any undue severity in the exposition of the rules. Again, it would appear from the Report of the Commissioners of Prisons that in the year ending March, 1888, a great number of persons committed suicide by hanging, as well as several cases of death from cut-throat. Now, he said, these cases could not occur at all were the prisons properly managed, and if the warders and medical men noticed those who were suffering from a suicidal tendency and put them under watch and ward. He hoped the hon. Gentle man would look into these matters, and try and solve the difficulty in a satisfactory way, when he (Dr. Tanner) was quite sure the hon. Gentleman's action would be endorsed by every Member of the House.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked, whether the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Home Department would take the opinion of a fair medical man as to the question of the inclined plank bed? Those Irish Members who had

  1329
  tested it stated that it was absolute torture. With regard to heating prisons he would also ask whether the hon. Gentleman would agree that thermometers should be set up, say in Millbank Prison, to test whether the heating apparatus did the work it was intended to do?
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he should be glad to make the inquiry referred to by the hon. Gentleman. He had already spoken to some prison officials with the view of having registering thermometers placed to test the warming of the cells.
  DR. TANNERsaid, he had pointed out that there was a disproportion of cases of insanity in certain prisons, and had also asked for an explanation of the increased number of suicides.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, he believed no convicts were sent to Western Australia, and should like an explanation of the item of £400 spent at Victoria in connection with convicts.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, this sum was paid under an agreement of long standing with the Colony. There were the survivors of old convicts, and the children of some who, being destitute, would be chargeable on the Colony if this payment, which, however, was diminishing, were not made.
  DR. TANNERsaid, the hon. Gentleman had not answered his question with regard to the increased number of cases of insanity and suicide. This was a subject which, in common humanity, demanded an answer.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he was not prepared to admit that there was an increased number of suicides, but that there was an increase in the number of cases of insanity. He would cause inquiry to be made.
  Vote agreed to.
  (4.) £74,646, to complete the sum for the Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain.
  MR. P. STANHOPEasked, whether the Government would give any effect to the recommendations of the Chief Inspector, who, in his interesting Report, said "Another year has gone by without any legislation for Reformatory and Industrial Schools?" For many years the Chief Inspector of the Schools had made a large number of recommendations, which had never been
  1330
  followed by legislation of a suitable character, and it was desirable to have some statement from the Government that evening as to their general intention with regard to the schools. The Chief Inspector made a large number of criticisms on the present system, and particularly insisted upon the unfortunate legal necessity there now was of magistrates sending juvenile offenders to prison as a preliminary to their being sent to the schools. He believed everyone would agree that this was undesirable, and that legislation should be initiated to relieve the magistrates of this necessity. The next recommendation was that there should be a separation of the children who were temporarily sent to prison or the workhouse from criminals. If they desired to reform juvenile offenders they ought not to begin by associating them with hardened criminals who were not likely to improve their morals or assist them to reform. Then, with regard to emigration; he would like to hear from the Government whether they had taken any steps to enlarge the field of emigration for juvenile offenders, who, after some time, were supposed to be entirely reformed and capable of earning an honest livelihood. Unfortunately some of the Colonies, which, like Canada, had given facilities for their reception, had since objected to receive them on the ground that in early life they had been in prison. He hoped that this difficulty would be overcome and that the Government would take steps to secure a large field for the emigration of these young people. There had been, during last year, a considerable number of mutinies on board the ships used as reformatories and schools, and notably on board the Akbar, from which several lads had escaped. It was alleged that many of these ships were unsuitable as places in which lads should undergo training, and the Chief Inspector recommended that there should be connected with them, at a proper distance, a playground for the children. He thought it would be admitted that where there was no place for recreation separate from the vessels, the lads were almost forced into the mutinous outbreaks which had occurred during the last 12 months. With regard to the day industrial schools, he hoped that, as far as possible, these would be augmented in

  1331
  number, and that the Government would see that their great and acknowledged benefits were extended to places in which they did not now exist. Finally, there was a large number of young men and boys discharged every year as incorrigible, and he would like to know whether they went simply to increase the number of uncared for young persons in the streets, because that seemed to him to entail a very serious responsibility on those who had charge of the schools. He trusted that a responsible Minister would tell the Committee that the Government were considering all these questions, and would take upon themselves the duty of carrying out the recommendations of their own officials and of initiating legislation before the next Session of Parliament.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, if the hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to go into the Vote Office he would find two Bills, one dealing with reformatories and the other with industrial schools, in which every one of the subjects he had referred to were treated in a satisfactory manner. Not only had the Government carried out the recommendations of their Inspectors, but also other recommendations in connection with the subject which were of great value. With regard to emigration, he was perfectly aware there was difficulty in making a capital advance of money in order to pay for the emigration of a child; there was also the difficulty in handing it over to someone else, the difficulty of finding responsible persons to follow him in after life, and then that of finding Colonies to accept these young persons. But the hon. Gentleman would find, when the discussion took place on this point, that the Minister had taken powers to make advances for these purposes. No legislation could put an end to mutinies on board training ships, which must solely be effected by discipline and management. With respect to the incorrigibles, he pointed out that the schools were not State institutions, and it was impossible to compel the managers to retain those who resisted all the discipline, training, and influences brought to bear upon them in the schools; and the result was that they unfortunately
  1332
  passed into the class from which prisons were populated.
  MR. PICTONsaid, he could not understand why the cost to the State of maintaining boys in training ships should be 6s. a-week while in the industrial schools it was only from 3s. to 5s., and he should like an explanation of the cause of this difference. The item for industrial truant schools interested him, because be thought he might say that a suggestion of his own, years ago, led to the establishment of these institutions, or to the provision by which children were licensed out of these schools after they had been kept there six months. The whole suggestion he made had not been carried out in its entirety, as it might be with great advantage. When in Hamburg some years ago he visited their "punishment school," and found that not only truants were confined there, but children who had committed such indiscretions as had been referred to were sent there. He was informed, however, that for the first offence children were never sent for longer than one week; that on the second occasion they might be sent for a fortnight; but never, upon any accusation, were they sent for longer than a month. It might be asked, how was it that with such short sentences the number of re-committals were so few? It was simply because of the kind of discipline adopted. He was informed that there was very little corporal punishment inflicted; but that from the time they went in to the time they went out the children were never allowed to speak to each other. They were allowed to speak to the attendants and teachers, but not to each other. He had been struck with the remarkable silence and order of the establishment. It would be easily understood that to children, accustomed to chattering, the imposition of silence had a remarkable effect. Upon returning from Hamburg he had written a letter to The School Board Chronicle, which had attracted a little attention; and a scheme was proposed by the School Board of London for the establishment of a school of this kind. Lord Cross was at that time Secretary for the Home Department, and he was waited upon in connection with this matter. He seemed to regard with considerable favour the

  1333
  scheme proposed; but upon his sending it for consideration to the Metropolitan magistrates, he found they had an objection to it. The magistrates said they had no power to send boys to such a school, as it was conducted on what was considered the silent system. Children had, therefore, to be sent to the truant school for six months instead of one week, as he had suggested. He had always felt that the objection taken by the Metropolitan magistrates was rather an indiscreet one. Amongst the Society of Friends and other Societies which he might mention, it was a common thing to impose a sentence of silence, not towards everyone, but amongst children who had misbehaved themselves, and the system was found to have a very salutary effect. He had gathered from the records of the Hamburg School that there were hundreds of highly respectable people who had been sent there in early life for a week or a fortnight, as the case might be, and had never to be sent there a second time. The discipline exercised in the Continental schools, to which he drew attention, had nothing of cruelty in it, or of that which could frighten or repress any healthy animal vigour, although it exercised a solemnizing influence upon them, such as to prevent their being taken back again. He could not help hoping that their English system would be reconsidered, and that the example of foreign institutions would be followed.
  MR. D. CRAWFORDdesired to have some information as to the policy of the Government with regard to the establishment of day industrial schools in Scotland. He had had a Bill before the House dealing with this subject last Session. Although he had not received any actual pledge from the Government with regard to the Bill, it was not discouraged by them, but stopped from another quarter. He had understood from the Government that a Bill was in preparation dealing with this point as part of the whole subject of industrial schools. A measure had been introduced into the other House; but he was disappointed to find that Scotland was not included in its provisions relating to day industrial schools. Lord Aberdare's Commission had recommended that day industrial schools should be introduced into Scotland, and
  1334
  that country placed in the same position as England in this respect. Day industrial schools had been found to possess a very valuable educational effect in England; and he (Mr. D. Crawford) and other friends of his had constantly urged on the educational authorities in Scotland that the same facilities should be provided for industrial school training there as was given in England. He hoped the Government would consider the subject, and would include Scotland in the benefits of the measure of which he had spoken. If his suggestion were not carried out the Scotch Members would have to oppose the Bill to which he had referred when it came from the other House as powerfully as they could.
  SIR UGHTRED KAY SHUTTLEWORTHsaid, that after what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite it was impossible to speak upon this Vote without saying a word or two in reference to the two Bills introduced in the House of Lords. As one of the Commissioners on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, he must say he was delighted to see that the Bills which had been introduced on this subject went pretty generally on the lines of the recommendations of the Commissioners. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could give any information to the Committee in regard to the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with regard to legislation? These Bills had been introduced after five years waiting; and, naturally, those who had inquired into the whole question and collected a mass of evidence upon it, were anxious to see some result attend their labours. The need for legislation was the subject of much comment seven years ago, when the Commission was appointed, and that need had certainly not decreased. Many of the objects aimed at in the Bills before the House of Lords were of the greatest importance; and it would be a great disappointment if time were not found for pressing them on. The point referred to by the hon. Member who had last spoken (Mr. D. Crawford) was one which had taken him considerably by surprise. The powers already given in England for establishing day industrial schools had not been extended to Scotland, ex-

  1335
  cept in Glasgow, where they had an Act of their own. But there was no part of the United Kingdom where the day industrial school classes were more needed; and it was to be hoped that they would be applied to Scotland as well as to other parts of Great Britain. He did not think any good would result from discussing the Vote at great length, or from going into this subject until they had the legislative proposals before them.
  MR. D. CRAWFORDsaid, he was not examined in this matter. It was stated explicitly that the Industrial School Clauses were not to apply to Scotland.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, he could neither affirm nor deny the statement of the right hon. Baronet. If the right hon. Gentleman was right it was an oversight on the part of the draftsman, for it was not his (Mr. Matthews') intention to confine the industrial school system to England. As was pointed out, it would not be proper to discuss the Bill. He regretted that it had not been possible to pass it this year, in consequence of Irish and other subjects very interesting to the House having to be settled. It had been a disappointment to himself, after the great labour he had devoted to the matter, that it had not been possible to legislate upon it this year.
  DR. TANNERcomplained that the Kingswood Industrial School, near Bristol, was in an exceedingly insanitary condition. The matter had been reported upon by Inspectors time after time; but the condition of affairs had not been improved. He thought it was quite time that something should be done in the matter.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY)said, he would make inquiries into the grievance complained of.
  Vote agreed to.
  (5.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £13,802, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending
  1336
  on the 31st day of March 1889, for the maintenance of Criminal Lunatics in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, England."
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that in years gone by there had been a considerable amount of criticism passed upon this asylum, and he even thought that the number of patients was the same this year as last year. There had been a decrease of between £3,000 and £4,000 in the expenditure in consequence of those criticisms. He found that the total expenditure at the present time was £35,005. There were 541 criminal lunatics provided for, and 151 officials to look after them, which certainly seemed to be an excessive number. Taking these figures, it would appear that the cost of each resident in the asylum was a trifle over £60 per annum. A great deal had been said with regard to this asylum, for the reason that this appeared to be little less than a gigantic piece of jobbery. To show the condition of things in the asylum, let them take the first item in the Estimate. Although the asylum was in the country, fuel, light, and water cost no less than £2,300 a-year. Anyone who knew anything about these matters must know that such an item was excessive. Soup cost no less than £3,500 a-year. It was a small item, but it showed the sort of jobbery that went on in this nation—it was just the sort of thing one would expect in an institution where there were 151 officials to attend to 541 lunatics. He observed that the establishment had its chaplain. The chaplain had a house, and received £400 a-year. Really he failed to see what use a chaplain could be in a criminal lunatic asylum. He should imagine that criminal lunatics were irresponsible persons, and that, as much as it might be desirable to give them the benefit of this chaplain's ministrations, it would be impossible. But even if they had a chaplain be should not receive so much as £400 a-year, seeing that he already received £350 a-year as retired pay from the Navy. He protested against this gentleman receiving a double salary. If he were able to fulfil his functions he should be preaching now to sailors and not to lunatics. It was preposterous that, in addition to his pension, the chaplain should be receiving £400 a-year and a house. It was

  1337
  almost as much as a Dean received, and was far in excess of the average amount a clergyman in the Church of England received. He was certain that they might find some sturdy young curate of good principle who probably preached and prayed as well as this chaplain for £150 or £200 a-year; and if the position were offered he had no doubt they would have a mass of curates clamouring for the place. Under the circumstances, he begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £400.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £13,402, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, it was not part of his business to defend the management of Broadmoor Asylum; but it must be remembered that if there were a large number of criminal lunatics there must necessarily be a large number of people to look after them. Criminals required a large number of people to look after them, also did lunatics, and in this case they had the two classes combined. However bad the management of Broadmoor Asylum might be in point of detail, he could tell the Committee that it had always had a good reputation from a medical point of view. He proposed that, as there was a great deal of valuable clinical material at this Institution which at present was not utilized, and as there were a great number of points under discussion by medical men which might often be cleared up by studying the life and history of the inmates of this Asylum, he should like the Government to provide for the appointment of a Committee of skilled medical authorities to go round the Asylum periodically, in order to register the history and characteristics of the patients, as advised in a lecture recently published in The Lancet by Sir J. Crichton Browne. In this way he thought that many points which were at present sub judice might be cleared up.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY)said, that if the hon. Gentleman would refer him to authorities upon this question he should be happy to consider it. He pointed out
  1338
  that the asylum was under au independent Board of unpaid managers. In reply to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) he would point out that in the nature of the case it was necessary to have a large staff of attendants in the case of criminal lunatics, and that large expenditure in fuel, light, and water was necessary in order to effect cleanliness—cleanliness and cheerfulness diminishing the risk of violence, and in some cases promoting progress towards recovery. The Commissioners had always reported favourably on the management of the asylum. With regard to the Chaplain, he had not been appointed by the present Government.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he did not care who appointed the Chaplain, but his contention was that he received too much. In addition to the salary paid him, he received £18 18 s. for substitutes when he was absent on leave, the market for substitutes being one guinea. He (Mr. Labouchere) believed that when the incumbent of a parish wished to take a holiday and provide a substitute, the market price for a gentleman to preach and do the service on Sunday was £1 1s., so that the Asylum Chaplain, it would seem, had been absent from his post 18 Sundays in the year. Another item he wished to complain of was a sum of £90 for a year's rations of two gardeners. Everyone knew very well that gardeners did not receive rations at the rate of £45 a-year. He should certainly divide the Committee against the Vote for the Chaplain's salary.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 80; Noes, 177: Majority 97.—(Div. List, No. 293.)
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
  Committee to sit again To-morrow.

SUPPLY.—REPORT.
Resolution [14th November] reported.
"That a sum, not exceeding £233,520, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for contribution towards the Expenses of the Metropolitan Police, and of the Horse Patrol and Thames

1339
Police, and for the Salaries of the Commissioner, Assistant Commissioners, and Receiver."
Resolution read a second time.
MR. PICKERSGILL MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.) moved that the House disagree with the Resolution with respect to the sum of £3,300, being the salaries of the Chief Constables and Assistant Chief Constables of the Metropolitan Police. There were four Chief Constables, with a maximum salary of £800 each. He desired to be perfectly frank with the House, and not to lay upon the shoulders of Sir Charles Warren anything for which that officer was not responsible. He would remind the House that after the disturbance in Trafalgar Square in February, 1886, a Committee was appointed to consider whether the Metropolitan Police Force should be re-organized. That Committee recommended the appointment of four Chief Constables, each to be in charge of one-quarter of the Metropolitan area, and also made this further recommendation—that the persons selected should be men of good social position, who had seen service in the Army or Navy. Sir Charles Warren seemed to have been the moving spirit of the Committee, which included Sir James Ingham, the police magistrate, Mr. Pemberton, of the Home Office, and the right hon. Members for Bury (Sir Henry James) and Edinburgh (Mr. Childers). He knew he should be twitted with the last name; but he was sorry that the right hon. Member for Edinburgh had joined in that recommendation, and thought he was wrong. He agreed with every word that fell from the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) yesterday, who had throughout been consistent on this point. Sir Charles Warren quickly acted upon the recommendation of the Committee, and appointed Colonel Monsell, Colonel Roberts, Major Gilbert, and Mr. Howard. We had a warning against the appointment of a military man as Chief Commissioner, because the Military Profession was clannish, and a soldier would be sure to appoint military men to fill subordinate offices. The appointment of these Chief Constables had been a great mistake. There were really no duties for them to perform. The Committee which sat in 1886 spoke of "the want of initiative among the Superintendents and In-
1340
spectors;" but the appointment of these officers between them and the Chief Commissioner was not calculated to increase their initiative and independence. Each Superintendent had 500 or 600 men under him. Their position ought to be strengthened, and one way of doing that would be to raise the maximum of their salaries and impose greater responsibility upon them—not to place them in the leading strings of military officers. Then there were two Assistant Commissioners, who had been recently appointed—one Captain Knowle, an officer of the Guards, who had been placed in charge of the instruction of police recruits, and Captain Deane, who had been in Bombay from 1881 until 1886 in a Lancer regiment, and who was appointed to the command of the mounted men of the Force. He had asked the Home Secretary at the time what experience these gentlemen had of police duties; and his reply had been that they had been in the Cavalry and Infantry respectively, as if military training gave men any knowledge of police duty. Of late the mounted police had achieved a very bad name, and they had more than once been charged, apparently upon very good ground, with riding men down. The time had come for a change in this régime, under which the mounted men of the police, with an ex-Lancer at their head, rode people down in the streets, and the Infantry police, instructed by an ex-officer of the Guards, batoned them. What the people of London desired was that their police should effectively detect crime, and that property should be at least as secure as in the last years of the administration of Sir Edmund Henderson.
COMMANDER BETHELLrose to speak, when——
MR. SPEAKERasked whether the hon. and gallant Member seconded the Amendment?
COMMANDER BETHELL: No, Sir.
MR. ROWLANDSseconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed, to leave out "£233,520," in order to insert "£230,220."—(Mr. Pickersgill.)
Question proposed, "That '£233,520' stand part of the Resolution."
COMMANDER BETHELLdesired to consider the case of the resignation of

1341
Sir Charles Warren, and to approach it through the glasses of the late Chief Commissioner rather than those of the Home Secretary. He had no complaint whatever to make of anything the Home Secretary said in relation to that resignation, for he had spoken of Sir Charles Warren in proper and very high terms. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that the resignation had been accepted because the Government thought it must be made clear that the ultimate power of the police rested in the hands of the Secretary of State. That, of course, meant that Sir Charles Warren had in some way questioned the fact of the superiority and headship of the Home Secretary. He wished to say emphatically, and ventured to challenge contradiction from the right hon. Gentleman, that Sir Charles Warren had not, in writing or verbally, at any time questioned in any way the superiority of the Home Secretary. Moreover, in the very article to which attention had been so much drawn he had stated in so many words that the police were undoubtedly subject to the Secretary of State. And here he ventured to ask the attention of the House to the letter and Memorandum read by the Home Secretary on Tuesday last. That Memorandum would be sent under a covering letter; and he wanted to ask the Home Secretary if he would be good enough in his reply to read the covering letter sent in 1879 to the Commissioner of Police? He did not mean to say that that covering letter contained anything of a particularly remarkable character; but he was inclined to think it might contain a definition of what the Memorandum actually meant. He had a strong suspicion that when the Home Secretary wrote the letter read in the House of Commons and referred to the Memorandum, he knew nothing whatever about the covering letter; and, what was more, he had an equally strong suspicion that Sir Charles Warren also knew nothing about it. If, however, the covering letter did contain such an interpretation as he had suggested, it would have had this effect upon the Correspondence—that, in the first place, the Home Secretary would never have written his letter to the Chief Commissioner couched in such severe terms; and that, in the second, a reply so sharp would not have been drawn from the Commissioner of Police; and that being
1342
so, although the explosion might or might not have been delayed, the article in Murray's Magazine would not have been the actual cause of the resignation.
MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMreminded the hon. and gallant Member that according to the Home Secretary himself this was not the first dispute.
COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, that his hon. Friend was a little too much in a hurry. He would have occasion to refer to that presently. If the Home Secretary had not the covering letter, it was possible that he might be able to supply him with a copy. Passing to the subject of the Memorandum itself, he proposed at the outset to consider the relations between the Commissioner of Police and the Home Office, as viewed, as he understood it, by Sir Charles Warren. Those relations were, as was shown in the debate on Wednesday by the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) governed by Statute. It was laid down by one Statute that the Commissioner was subject to the Secretary of State; but the important point was that the Commissioner of Police had power to make certain Rules and Regulations relating to the internal economy of the police, subject only to the approval of the Secretary of State; and the Statute, by an implication that could not be avoided, also said that the Commissioner, and no one but the Commissioner, had power to give orders to those who were beneath him. The Memorandum which the Commissioner was, by order of the Secretary of State, to make known to his men was illegal. The view of the Commissioner was that the Secretary of State had power to give directions to the Commissioner, but not to the men of the police. If the House would allow him, he would like to give a character sketch of Sir Charles Warren as he understood him. There were some men who undoubtedly did take an extraordinarily rigid and high view of the duty they had to perform. As soon as they believed they understood their duties, they would not, for any consideration, neglect or overstep what they believed to be the bounds of those duties, and in them they would not allow any other person to interfere. Hon. Gentlemen would have in their minds such a man as he was endeavouring to describe, and they might like or

1343
dislike such a character, and undoubtedly a character such as that did present some angularities and difficulties that did not exist in more pliant men. He should be disposed to say, from his private knowledge of Sir Charles Warren, that that description of a man rigidly careful of his duty not unfairly described the late Chief Commissioner. He would ask the House to consider the view such a man would take when a person invaded a province in which he believed that person had no right to interfere. In his opinion such a character was to be admired, and it was that of a man not to be hastily thrown aside. In his letter to the Home Secretary, Sir Charles Warren said he would not have accepted the post of Chief Commissioner if he had believed someone outside might interfere with his duty. Sir Charles Warren then went on to say that the duties of the Chief Commissioner were governed by Statute. He did not know whether he had made himself sufficiently clear to convey to the House a just and fair, though, possibly, a contentious view of Sir Charles Warren. The ostensible cause of the resignation of Sir Charles Warren was the article he had published in Murray's Magazine. [Mr. MATTHEWS: No.] He did not mean to say it was the real reason; but, at least, fault was found with Sir Charles Warren for writing that article. He wanted to know why that article was thought to be a greater dereliction of duty than other articles which Sir Charles Warren had thought fit to write to other magazines and to the papers? It was only two years ago when there was published in the Contemporary Review a very able article, dealing with the dog scare then raging in the Metropolis, in which Sir Charles Warren clearly showed what the duties of the Metropolitan Police were with reference to that condition of things. Was that article censured? Never a suggestion was made that the Chief Commissioner should not have written that article, yet it was in no way different from the article in Murray's Magazine in the respect complained of. Nor was any fault found with the articles and notices Sir Charles Warren had lately written with respect to the duties of the police in relation to the Whitechapel murders. If it was wrong of the Chief
1344
Commissioner to write the article in Murray's Magazine, surely it was wrong to write the other articles, every one of which was telling the public what were the duties of the Metropolitan Police. Hon. Gentlemen might not unnaturally say there was in the tone of his letter an unnecessary vigour and assertiveness. An hon. Member on the other side had interrupted him just now with the remark that that was not the first occasion on which Sir Charles Warren offered his resignation. That was undoubtedly the fact. They knew it because the Home Secretary had been good enough to tell them so. But the question was, what brought about those tenders of resignation? Why had the relations between the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police been so disagreeable as that more than one proffer of resignation had been made by the Commissioner? A couple of years ago Sir Charles Warren, when holding a command at Suakin, was telegraphed for by the right hon. Gentleman opposite to come home at once to re-organize the Metropolitan Police. His services were considered so desirable that he was called home at once.
MR. CHILDERS: No; he was offered the appointment of Chief Commissioner.
COMMANDER BETHELL: Am I to understand that there was nothing but a bare offer?
MR. CHILDERS: He was offered the appointment of Chief Commissioner of Police by telegraph, he being at a considerable distance from this country.
COMMANDER BETHELL: He was invited to come back as quickly as might be in order to re-organize the police.
MR. CHILDERS: He was asked to come as quickly as possible, no doubt.
COMMANDER BETHELL: At least we may take it that the Government had a sufficiently high opinion of his services to invite him to come home and to undertake the re-organization of the police.
MR. CHILDERS: No; I wish to make myself quite clear. Sir Charles Warren was first asked by telegraph whether he would accept the office of Chief Commissioner of Police, and by telegraph he replied that he would; and then he was requested to come home immediately.
COMMANDER BETHELL: Then the words "re-organization of the police" did not occur?
MR. CHILDERS: I think not. It is difficult to say with certainty without referring to the telegrams. My impression—and it is pretty clear—is that he was requested to come home and take up the duties of Chief Commissioner of Police as quickly as he could.
COMMANDER BETHELLadmitted that the right hon. Gentleman ought to know best; but the point was not very important. At any rate, Sir Charles Warren was to come home and take the command of the police. In such circumstances it was natural to suppose that the Government of the day, and succeeding Governments, would, at any rate, pay great attention to any suggestion that he might make for the improvement of the police; and it would have struck anybody as an absurdity if it were suggested to them that Sir Charles Warren's proposals for alterations in the police would be submitted to or criticized, not alone by the Home Secretary, but by his own subordinate officials. [Murmurs.] Sir Charles Warren's proposals for alterations in the police had been submitted to, or, at any rate, criticized, not alone by the Home Secretary, but by his own subordinate officials. That was what he said; and he should be curious to hear whether the Home Secretary would contradict it. If that were so, he wanted to know how discipline could he maintained in any Force whatever? He invited the Home Secretary to consider, in replying to that, the letter of Sir Charles Warren, dated, he thought, March 9, 1887, and the letter of a similar character received in March. 1888. Many Gentlemen opposite, he knew, disliked the views of Sir Charles Warren about the discipline of the police; but he doubted whether any Member on either side of the House would assert that discipline of any sort could be maintained in any Force if the orders or the proposals of the commander of the corps were criticized behind his back by his own officials. He cared not whether the corps belonged to the Army, the Navy, or any other Force. He said that such a thing was absolutely destructive of all discipline. The right hon. Member for Derby yesterday, and in a speech in 1886, told the House
1346
what was the connection between the Commissioner of Police and the Home Secretary; and on one occasion, he thought, the right hon. Gentleman said that connection was one entirely of a personal character. The expression which he thought the right hon. Member for Derby used yesterday was not loss strong and not less interesting—namely, that their relations "should be those of confidential colleagues." Then, in 1886, the right hon. Member for Derby spoke of the charges made about the permanent officials interfering between the Commissioner and the Secretary of State, and said that, in his opinion, it was absolutely untrue that permanent officials interfered in any way improperly between him and the Commissioner of Police. Now, he would ask the Home Secretary whether it was not true that complaint had been made to him by the Commissioner of Police, and substantiated in correspondence, that his officials, or some officials, had taken upon themselves to correspond with, and take sonic considerable part in the duty of, the Home Secretary in relation to the Commissioner generally under cover of the Home Secretary's signature, but he believed not always? Did he make his point clear? [Mr. MATTHEWS: Oh, yes.] Again, he said if that was true and not absolutely contradicted by the Home Secretary, when possibly a contradiction might be evoked elsewhere, he asked was it wonderful that there had been considerable friction between the Commissioner and the Home Secretary; and was it remarkable that such a slight thing as the publication of an article in a magazine should have brought about a resignation which had evidently been hanging over for some time? They had heard a great deal about the relations which existed between Sir Charles Warren and the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department. It had been asserted, not by the Home Secretary nor in that House, that the Criminal Investigation Department had suffered by the action of Sir Charles Warren. He believed that it was an undisputed fact that Sir Charles Warren did bring to the notice of the Home Secretary in correspondence some months ago this much—that the Criminal Investigation Department was suffering, was falling into confusion, because the

1347
head of that Department was not able to devote his time to his legitimate duties. And why? Because he was employed elsewhere by the Home Secretary, or by his authority. He invited the Home Secretary to contradict that statement if he wished to do so. That was all he proposed to say about the dispute between Sir Charles Warren and Mr. Monro; but he did wish that the assertion which he had made should be clearly understood. He had endeavoured, in the observations which he had made, to look at this question from a point of view which would, he believed, be occupied by Sir Charles Warren. Of course, they knew perfectly well that the Home Secretary occupied a different position. His object in intervening in the debate had been not exactly to apologize—he did not think apology was necessary—nor to defend Sir Charles Warren, but simply to state, as clearly as possible, some of the views which he believed were held by Sir Charles Warren, and to endeavour to soften some of the prejudices which had existed against him in consequence of the action he had taken with regard to the letters.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, that as his hon. Friend (Mr. Pickersgill), who initiated this debate, referred rather pointedly to him, he thought it was his duty to address the House at an early stage of the debate. Although he should not do so at any great length, he would endeavour to put right some few matters about which he did not think the hon. Gentleman had been absolutely correct; and he should also endeavour to put clearly the relation between the late Chief Commissioner of Police and himself. He apologized to the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Commander Bethell) for having interrupted him; but he was anxious that what really took place when Sir Charles Warren was appointed should be made perfectly clear. He did not think the word "organization," or "re-organization," occurred in the telegram which was sent to Sir Charles Warren. But it was not an important point, because undoubtedly all that did pass in the first telegram was an inquiry whether Sir Charles Warren would take the office. Sir Charles Warren replied that he would do so; and then it was possible—he stood corrected if he was wrong—that in the
1348
reply some such word might have been used. He said it was possible, because, as he should show to the House in a moment, the word "organization," or "re-organization," occurred more than once in the Report of the first Committee, which sat in the month of March, 1886, to consider the condition of the police. However, there was practically no difference between him and the hon. and gallant Member on that matter. Now, he thought he ought to state to the House very clearly with what view the appointment of Sir Charles Warren was made; and, in the first place, he must particularly refer to the idea which had been shadowed out that, in appointing Sir Charles Warren, he had in view some militarism in the Police Force. Sir Edmund Henderson was a very distinguished military officer, and, therefore, the appointment of one military officer to succeed another did not imply any change in the policy of the administration of the Force. He entirely agreed in every word on that subject which fell from his right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) yesterday. His right hon. Friend spoke precisely his (Mr. Childers') view as well as his own, when he said that the police should be a civil force; that it should be governed upon civil principles, and not upon military principles. As to that there was no question whatever. They had not the least intention, in the appointment of Sir Charles Warren, of altering what was the well-known condition of the establishment of the police of this country; and he had always been one of those who, both in respect to the English police and especially in respect to the Irish police, had regretted the military tendencies, even in uniform and matters of that kind, which had been displayed within the last few years. Let him also state to the House, without mentioning names, that he found it extremely difficult, when Sir Edmund Henderson ceased to be Chief Commissioner, to select a successor to him who, in his (Mr. Childers') opinion, would be best suited to carry on the work of the police. A great number of applications were addressed to him, and he examined the claims both of a very large number of candidates for the post and of others to whom he might offer it. In the end the names were reduced to six, three of

1349
whom were officers either of the Army or of the Navy, and three civilians, so that the fact that Sir Charles Warren was the man chosen only resulted from the fact that he was one of the six best, three of whom were civilians. Now, he would like to say a word or two upon the question his hon. Friend (Mr. Pickersgill) had raised. After the occurrences in February, 1886, a Committee was appointed, under his (Mr. Childers') authority, to inquire into the origin and character of the disturbances which took place at that time, and into the conduct of the Police Authorities in respect thereto. That Committee consisted of five persons, including himself, four of whom were civilians, and one only a military officer. Therefore, there was no militarism in the inquiry which took place as to the conduct of the police. On that inquiry he had the assistance of the present President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie), and the present Colonial Secretary (Lord Knutsford), and he had also the assistance of the noble Lord the Member for Derbyshire, who sat upon this side of the House (Lord Edward Cavendish), and also of Lord Wolseley. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Ritchie) would confirm him in saying that, in the inquiry before the Committee, there was not the slightest tendency towards militarism. The Committee looked into the matter from the standpoint of the well-known organization of the police, and the recommendations they made were based upon its existing constitution, although they found a good many blots which they thought ought to be remedied. They mentioned in the Report the defective chain of responsibility, and that the duties and responsibilities of the superior officers were not well distributed, and that much ought to be done in that way. They found that there was a deficiency of officers of superior rank who had not risen from the ranks, and who had certain duties to perform which could not be as well performed by those who had risen from the ranks. They also called attention to the insufficient communication between the different branches of the police, and they dealt with a number of points which had come before them in evidence, and which showed that the police, as they then stood, were not organized satisfactorily. They made
1350
certain suggestions as to reforms to be effected, and they adopted an unanimous recommendation that the administration and organization of the Force should be the subject of further inquiry. That was the general purport of their Report. After that Report was made the new Chief Commissioner of Police was appointed, and the further inquiry was taken in hand. His hon. Friend (Mr. Pickersgill) had complained of the additional number of superior officers who were appointed upon the recommendation of the Report, and here he (Mr. Childers) wished to take fully the responsibility of having recommended that course to be taken. His hon. Friend said that too much militarism was to be found in the recommendations of the second Committee; that the Committee endeavoured to infuse into the organization of the police military officers in preference to civilians. If the House would refer to the Report of the Committee, he thought they would find that that was not the case. The Committee, like the former one, consisted of five persons, four of whom were civilians. The only military man of the Committee was Sir Charles Warren, and he had only very recently taken over his office. Everything which Sir Charles Warren said to them on that occasion was based upon very short experience, and, indeed, the Report was the civilians', rather than Sir Charles Warren's. On page 4 of the Report the Committee said that, for all local purposes, the Police Force was practically without superior officers; and they gave the reason why it was most important that the Force should have officers above the rank of Superintendents. There were two Assistant Commissioners in the Commissioners' Office; but the Committee found that between the Commissioners and the Superintendents, who were purely district officers, having purely local duty, there was no one who could carry out the orders of the First Commissioner, or who could make those inquiries without which the efficiency of the Force could not be insured. The Committee pointed out the defects in this respect. In the first place, they said there was no effective inspection of stations by superior officers. Of course, a Superintendent could not inspect his own station. Sir Charles Warren reported to them, from his own observa-

1351
tion, that many of the districts, because of the want of superior officers, had not been inspected for a very long time past, and that there was a great deal of inefficiency in consequence. In the second place, the Committee found that the want of a certain number of superior officers led to a vast amount of centralization. They were of opinion that the centralization of all the details of a Force like the Metropolitan Police was open to grave objections; and that, as far as possible, there should be an amount of authority left with the principal superior officers in the different districts. The Reports in respect to promotion came solely from those who had themselves been promoted from the lower ranks; and the Committee reported that it was absolutely necessary that between the Commissioners and the Superintendents there should be officers who should be able to advise on such an essential part of the administration of a great force as that of a satisfactory promotion. For these reasons the Committee came to the conclusion that it was necessary to introduce between the Commissioners and Superintendents officers of superior rank. The same recommendation had been made in 1879; but at that time it was only partially carried out. It was perfectly true that the Committee reported that the gentlemen who should hold these offices, called the offices of Chief Constables, should be gentlemen of good social standing; and the Committee's recommendation was that, as a general rule, they should be drawn from the ranks of the Army and Navy. But the Committee did not recommend that the appointments should be made exclusively from those ranks; and, as a matter of fact, those who were selected were not exclusively drawn from those ranks, although, as the House must know, for such offices the probability was that military or naval officers were the best men who could be chosen. That was the Report of the Committee of July, 1886. The Report was concluded after he left Office, but for it he took entire responsibility. He did not wish to shirk, in the slightest degree, the responsibility of having agreed to the Report, coming, as it did, from a civilian Committee, or what was almost exclusively a civilian Committee. He believed that that Report could be carried out in its entirety
1352
with great advantage. He, therefore, could not support the view of his hon. Friend (Mr. Pickersgill), that the Report would take them back to a system which had distinctly broken down. The recommendation made in 1879 was only partially carried out; but the Committee were satisfied that the recommendation was a very sound one. He was very sorry he could not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Commander Bethell) in the view he had taken of the duty of the Chief Commissioner of Police with respect to obedience to the commands of the Secretary of State.
COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, he had stated that the Chief Commissioner had never questioned the power or the superiority of the Secretary of State.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, that the Home Secretary would be better able to answer the hon. and gallant Gentleman on that point than he (Mr. Childers) was; but he maintained that the doctrine contained in the letter of Sir Charles Warren, in reply to the letter of the Secretary of State, was a doctrine which would be fatal to proper control. He was sorry Sir Charles Warren had taken up such a position. He was one of those who, having had some knowledge of Sir Charles Warren's work, not only in this Department, but in other Departments—in civil as well as military matters—knew very well the high qualities and high character of that officer, and how greatly he had raised the efficiency of the police from the condition in which it had been. But it would be practically impossible for any Force to be carried on, under our Parliamentary system, with efficiency, if it was in the power of the Chief Commissioner to govern himself by the doctrine he put forth in his letter in reply to the Secretary of State. Such a doctrine was quite inconsistent with the principle upon which the Metropolitan Police Force had been conducted. He had only now again to say that neither in the selection of Sir Charles Warren, nor in the instructions given to Sir Charles Warren, nor in the two inquiries which were held, was there the least intention to depart from those principles of civil administration of the police, the carrying out of which was, in his judgment, essential to its efficiency. He repeated that he entirely concurred with what, on this point, his

1353
right hon. Friend (Sir William Harcourt) said last night; and he felt certain, judging from the approval the Secretary of State exhibited of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, the Government were of the same opinion. Whoever might be selected for the office of Chief Commissioner of Police, he hoped the Home Secretary would not be too hurried in making that selection, for the appointment was probably the most important it was possible for a Minister to have to make at the present moment.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, he regretted a little that his hon. and gallant Friend (Commander Bethell) had made the speech he had; for he himself desired—the connection of Sir Charles Warren with the Department having come to an end—to say nothing of him in the House but words of commendation for his past services. He should try to avoid saying a single word that would be disagreeable to Sir Charles Warren and his friends; but it would be necessary to say a few things which, if they were not so agreeable to Sir Charles Warren and his friends as what he said on the previous night, he must say it would not be his fault; the occasion was not of his seeking. He could not do better than take the points as they arose in the speech of his hon. and gallant Friend, premising—there was no use in disguising the fact—that his hon. and gallant Friend spoke as the mouthpiece of Sir Charles Warren, spoke in his name, and expressed his views. The first view was that the Secretary of State, when he issued the Minute of 1879—and here he felt his hands more free, for the Minute was that of his Predecessor—committed an illegal act. That was the position of his hon. and gallant Friend.
COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, he would not specifically tie Sir Charles Warren to that; but it was his own view distinctly.
MR. MATTHEWSsaid, that was the theory of his hon. and gallant Friend, and constituted part of his case—first, that the Circular addressed to all the officers of the Department, and sent to many of them, including the Commissioner of Police, was illegal—that the Secretary of State had no power to issue such an Order; and, secondly, that that
1354
Circular was in some way qualified by the covering letter on which that Circular was transmitted to the various Departments. Such was the proposition; but to assert that the Minute of 1879 was ultra vires and illegal on the part of the Secretary of State was to assert a principle Her Majesty's Government could not admit, and which they regarded as so destructive of the whole constitutional position of the Police Force that they could not allow it to pass unquestioned for a moment. To say that members of the Police Force were to be free, without any check whatever, to carry on in newspaper or magazine, or through the machinery of the Press, publications relating to the Department without distinction—for if the right were conceded to the Chief Commissioner, it must he allowed to the Assistant Commissioner and other officers—to say this would be to say that the conduct of the police might be publicly discussed by police officers, the discussion ranging over various topics connected with administration—for instance, public meetings and the attitude of the police thereto, the manner in which the police should be handled, the duties the police had to discharge in relation to mobs; all such matters would become subjects of controversial publication, some taking one side, some another, the Assistant Commissioner differing from the Chief Commissioner, and so on through all the gradations of the Police Force. The doctrine of his hon. and gallant Friend was that the Secretary of State should stand by to witness this wordy war, powerless to control it, without power to stop the acrimonious criticism by one officer of another in reference to the conduct of a Public Department. Why, the very statement of such a proposition was enough; he repudiated it entirely, and emphatically protested against the doctrine that the Secretary of State had no right to issue the Circular of 1879 Then his hon. and gallant Friend said not only was the issue of the Circular illegal on the part of the Secretary of State, and might, therefore, be disregarded altogether—more than that, the Circular itself was qualified by some covering letter. He had seen that letter, and though he would not profess to have the precise terms of it correctly in his memory, it was a somewhat subtle

1355
point—rather legal than military—to suggest that this covering letter, written by a clerk—by a junior clerk probably—could modify a Minute or Order issued by the Secretary of State himself in the form of that Minute of 1879. But it was an untenable point; the letter could have no such effect. That he submitted confidently to the House. It was unworthy of his hon. and gallant Friend, and the cause he represented, to suppose that this covering formal letter could modify a Circular Order sent to the Commissioner of Police. Then his hon. and gallant Friend said—"Why did you draw this rusty weapon from the sheath; why revive the memory of this Minute of 1879 on account of the article in Murray's Magazine, when previous articles from the same pen were allowed to pass unnoticed?" To that he must frankly admit that he had not read the papers or magazines in which those articles appeared; he was totally unware that Sir Charles Warren had written on police administration in papers or magazines. His hon. and gallant Friend alluded to an article about dogs, and he said this had been passed over in silence. He confessed he did not know that the article referred to police administration; if it did he cried peccavi—certainly he was not aware of it. In reference to what his hon. and gallant Friend had said, he reminded the House that he had never uttered one syllable of censure of the article itself; what he ventured to censure was the setting at defiance the Order of the Secretary of State, which simply required that any publication of the kind should have the sanction of the Secretary of State. On the article itself he had not one word of censure. But his attention was called to this article in Murray's Magazine, not only by a good deal of rumour in the Press, but by a Question addressed to himself in the House. He was asked whether the publication of the article was in accordance with the Rules of the Home Office, and of the Civil Service generally. Of course, thus challenged, he could not do other than look at the article, not to see if he agreed with its drift, not to see if it was in consonance with his own opinions,—that was matter of indifference—he only looked to see if the article fell within the Home Office Rule. Upon that point no two men of sense
1356
could differ. Of course the article came within the Rule. It contained various suggestions in reference to police policy; it contained suggestions as to the future policy of County Councils, and their relations to the police. No doubt the article touched the highest questions of police administration, and came within the Rule. However valuable the article, however well-founded it was, that was not the point. The point was that a salaried official had publicly discussed in the article matters relating to the Department in which he was engaged, and therefore the Secretary of State could not do otherwise than draw the official's attention to the Rule. His hon. and gallant Friend complained that this was done in a somewhat severe and abrupt manner. [Commander BETHELL: No.] He should be extremely sorry if he had been guilty of abruptness or acerbity; but he must just say this much, which he hoped was no breach of confidence, that it must not be supposed that his letter of November 8 was the first or only communication from himself to Sir Charles Warren on this subject. He would allude no more to these earlier communications, but he was entitled to say there were less formal, less official communications respecting the Circular of 1879, before the writing of the official letter of which the House had heard the terms. Then the next point of his hon. and gallant Friend was that the answer of the Commissioner of Police to the communication from the Home Office in no way questioned or disputed the personal authority of the Secretary of State. But his hon. and gallant Friend could hardly have read that letter carefully. The Commissioner, after saying that the Secretary of State had no power to issue orders to the Police Force, went on to say—although he had received the letter containing the request of the Secretary of State that he would observe the Circular of 1879, the only request addressed to him—he answered that he entirely declined to accept these instructions with regard to the Commissioner of Police, and again placed his resignation in the hands of Her Majesty's Government. If that was not setting at nought the authority of the Secretary of State on the subject, then he knew no form of words to express that. His hon. and gallant Friend was quite

1357
right; this was not an accidental or isolated expression. His hon. and gallant Friend saw much to admire in that character of firmness and independence that would not resign one jot or little of his own rights. He (Mr. Matthews) could not deny the admirable and courageous aspect a character of that sort presented; but, at the same time, it must be admitted a character in which that persistent assertion of right was a prominent feature did not lead to easy official intercourse. He thought he was not saying too much. He wished to measure his words most carefully; but the statement his hon. and gallant Friend challenged him to contradict was so closely connected with this matter, that he could not do better than go through it. His hon. and gallant Friend said with truth that Sir Charles Warren had complained that Home Office officials communicated with him tinder cover of the name of the Secretary of State. That was perfectly true; that was a matter of which Sir Charles Warren not only complained; but that with an acrimony that certainly embarrassed the conduct of the affairs of the Department. Here he might be allowed a word of explanation. Any Department such as the Home Office, through which a vast amount of business passed from day to day, business on a variety of subjects far more numerous than the Secretary of State could personally transact or dispose of, must act, in some cases, through the Under Secretary and the permanent officials. Confining himself to the Department of Police, he would undertake to say that since Sir Charles Warren had been Commissioner the number of communications coming from him had far exceeded by many times those received in former days, written communications of considerable length, making a variety of propositions, and asking for the orders or decisions of the Secretary of State. Every one of these communications required investigation and examination of various kinds, and it would be simply impossible for a Secretary of State to deal with them all. This was not only the case at the Home Office, but at the Colonial Office, the Indian Office, and in other Departments, and it was simply impossible for the head of the Office to conduct the whole of it himself. Important matters,
1358
of course, came before him for his consideration and decision, but minor matters must be disposed of by permanent officials.
MR. JOHNSTONrose to Order. Was not the right hon. Gentleman out of Order in standing with his back to the Chair?
MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he was sure the Speaker would not suspect him of any want of respect to the Chair if he had inadvertently turned in speaking, so that he might be distinctly heard by his hon. and gallant Friend. He was saying that in every Department there must be a variety of matters that could not be decided by the Secretary of State personally, but must be left to minor officials. But it was perfectly true that Sir Charles Warren had, over and over again, raised the extraordinary contention that letters and communications that came to him signed by the Under Secretary of State had no binding effect upon him, and that he was entitled to disregard them as having no authority whatever. Well, his official experience had been short, but he believed that to allow a doctrine of that sort would make it impossible to conduct Public Business in any Department. The Under Secretary of State and the permanent officials had no power of their own, but they acted as deputies and representatives of the Secretary of State himself, and if every proceeding under their names was to be questioned, cavilled at, and disputed by those connected with the Department, why then the whole disposition and order of public life would become impossible. He regretted to have to dwell on these topics, but he had been challenged to say if there had been complaints of communications from Home Office officials. There had been complaints, and over and over again he had tried to dispose of them. Over and over again he had asserted the doctrine that the Under Secretary spoke in the name of the Secretary of State, and with his authority, but that assertion of his met with little acquiescence or response.
COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, his reference was to matters of material importance, not ordinary and minor matters.
MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he was not in a position to speak with any great autho-

1359
rity of the practice of official life, for he was now to Office, but he was assured that the ordinary forms which were in existence before he or Sir Charles Warren was born, and had been used ever since, had been followed in all communications between the Home Office and subordinate departments. Those communications were sometimes signed by one of the permanent officials, and usually followed the form "I am directed by the Secretary of State," &c.; and for any official, however lofty his station, to assert that communications from permanent officials and Under Secretaries were impertinences, and might be disregarded by him, would be totally subversive of all discipline and order in the Public Service. Another point suggested by his hon. and gallant Friend was that Sir Charles Warren's plans for re-organization had been submitted to the criticism of his own subordinate officers, and now it was understood that that reference to a subordinate officer indicated the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police. That was a characteristic complaint, as illustrating what his hon. and gallant Friend called the causes of friction. The Receiver of the Metropolitan Police was by statute a perfectly independent official, not subordinate to the Chief Commissioner, but having his own Secretary and his independent functions. He was, as it were, Chancellor of the Exchequer in regard to police finance, financial adviser to the Secretary of State, whose business it was to assist the Secretary of State to check and control—a difficult matter enough—the expenditure of the Metropolitan Police. All proposals of expenditure that proceeded from the executive branches of the force came under his consideration, and he was independent of everybody but the Secretary of State. That, he believed, was a perfectly sound view, and he only wished these matters could be dealt with by someone having a longer experience and more official knowledge than himself, but he believed the position was indisputable, and it represented a necessity of official life. But he regretted to say that this was a view Sir Charles Warren had persistently disputed and denied. It was not himself that instituted the practice—it was a matter of course, whenever any communication from the Commissioner of Police
1360
affected or caused expenditure, it had been invariably the practice of the Home Office to refer this communication to the Receiver. The business could not be conducted otherwise; he was the financial officer to check, economize, and control expenditure, and to prevent anything like extravagance and undue expenditure. He it was who had to correct any estimate, and through his hands all payments of salaries passed for all members of the force; and it was not only the right, but the duty, of the Secretary of State to refer all questions of expenditure to him. This was a doctrine nobody could dispute, or had disputed, until Sir Charles Warren disputed it, as he invariably did, and treated it as a matter of indignity and a grievance that his proposals should be submitted to the Receiver as a matter for that official's criticism and comment. It was also true—and it was almost saying the same thing in other words—that Sir Charles Warren had always insisted that in his position his relations with the Home Office were something like what the relations of a separated Ireland would be to the rest of the Empire, with one personal link, the Crown. Sir Charles Warren's view of his relations to the Home Office were of personal subordination to the authority of the Secretary of State when he spoke in his own name—not, it would seem, in regard to the Circular of 1879, not as to the publication of controversial matter in reference to the Department, but to some limited extent the Secretary of State might exercise personal authority, but the permanent officials had no right to speak. Against this idea he must protest. On one point alluded to by his hon. and gallant Friend he could reassure him. He did not say that the Criminal Investigation Department had suffered by the action of Sir Charles Warren, nor, indeed, did he believe that the Criminal Investigation Department had suffered through anybody's action; he believed it was as good as ever it was. Sir Charles Warren, no doubt, in the matter of criminal investigation, as in other matters connected with the police, claimed to exercise, desired to exercise, began to exercise more immediate personal control than had ever been thought of by his predecessors, or by himself in the earlier days of his occupation of the position of Chief

1361
Commissioner. In that he was quite within his right. It was a department subject to his superintendence and control; he was responsible, and he was entitled to the fullest information and even interference. His (Mr. Matthews') position on that subject had always been in that sense and with that veiw, that the Commissioner might exercise to the full the authority that belonged to him. Having said that he would utter no word of criticism about it, nor had he done so. Having said thus much, he hoped he had satisfied his hon. and gallant Friend, and he hoped he need say no more in regard to observations that fell from him, some of which he much regretted. Only a few words more. So far as he knew—and he asserted it to the best of his belief—there had been no change whatever between the Home Office and the Department of Police since Sir Charles Warren took office. Exactly the same system, so far as he knew—and he only wished some older Secretary of State were present to confirm him—the same procedure, the same practice, the same form of communication, the same mode of administration, had been followed during the last two-and-a-half years as had been followed probably since the institution of the Department. He had taken special pains to inquire if there had been any modifications in the mode of communication, in the submission of proposals, in the manner in which letters were dealt with, signed, and answered; and he was assured that for long before he came into Office there had not been the slightest change. If, therefore, relations which were found peaceable and acceptable to every former Commissioner of Police, were not found acceptable, and did not tend towards peace, in more recent times, it was through no fault of his. He repeated, no change whatever had been made as regarded the relations between the Chief Commissioner and the Home Office; he had been treated as former Commissioners had been treated, and, so far as the Home Office was concerned, with exceptional consideration, inasmuch as a vast number of requisitions and requests proceeded from him. His activity was most admirable, and there was no branch of the Department that his active mind did not incessantly seek to improve. The
1362
amount of correspondence, the number of plans to be considered, sanctioned, or the reverse, was enormous; nor were there any proposals from him that did not ultimately prove acceptable. Having now dealt with the observations of his hon. and gallant Friend, and though he had said much he would have avoided, he hoped he had not given unnecessary offence or annoyance. One word to the hon. Member opposite, who was entirely mistaken if he supposed that the Assistant Commissioner went riding about as a sort of General Officer attended by a troop of dragoons whom he led to a charge upon the mob. This picture was completely the creation of the hon. Member's own fancy. The Assistant Commissioner never went out at the head of the mounted men. He had to deal with matters relating to the mounted part of the Force, with the supply of saddles and accoutrements, to see to remounts, that the horses bought were sound—in fact, he attended to matters of organization, for which, as a Cavalry officer, he was well qualified; but he had nothing to do with the conduct of the Force.
MR. JAMES STUARTsaid, he thought the continuation of the debate had been of great public value, in that it had called forth a repudiation of that claim for independence for the Chief Commissioner which Sir Charles Warren had sought to establish. He was glad that the Home Secretary had repudiated that claim as warmly as any Member on that side of the House. But there had been no repudiation—and, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman had expressly declined to meet that point—of the sentiments expressed in the article in Murray's Magazine. Those sentiments might briefly be stated as follows:—That if the searched history down during the present century it would be found that down to 1886 the mob of London exercised a decided influence in London, and then, for the first time, lost it ascendancy in that year. The ridiculous character of such a statement ought to have been repudiated by the Home Secretary, and he should have protested against the idea enunciated throughout the article that the police ought not to be submitted to criticism. But he did net rise to continue that point of debate, but to ask once more for a reply to his statements in

1363
regard to the financial condition of the police of the Metropolis. He had stated—and had no intention again to substantiate the statement by details—that while in the last 10 tears the population of London had increased by 23 per cent, and the rateable value by 38 per cent, the cost of the police had increased by 44 per cent and their numbers by 34½ per cent, and were thus in advance of the highest figure of any other town in England. He had pointed out that, being limited by Statute, the police had always stuck like limpets to the 9d. rate; that expenditure had risen with the 9d. rate; and had gone ahead of the population and had come to this—that in 1887 the expenditure of the police had exceeded the revenue, while the 9d. rate was being levied as before. The total of the 9d. rate allowed by Act of Parliament amounted to £1,290,000 odd, and there were further sources of income, £176,000 from public and private bodies to whom services were rendered, and some £55,000 from various other sources of income, reaching a total of £1,521,719, while there had been an expenditure, striking out all items of expenditure of an extraordinary character in respect to buildings and other matters, of £1,542,812, an excess of expenditure over revenue of £20,000. Under such circumstances, while going to the full extent of the 9p. rate, the rising expenditure would necessitate passing another Act raising the 9d. rate to a higher sum. Upon those statements he asked for a reply. It was a very serious matter, that rise in police expenditure of 44 per cent in 10 years; and in making his request for information, or for correction if he was wrong, he said again that he could not see how the evil could be checked, except by giving the people who paid the money the right to exercise some control.
MR. J. ROWLANDSsaid, the debate had opened their eyes to the difficulties the Home Office found in controlling the police. Those difficulties had been clearly disclosed in the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers). He (Mr. J. Rowlands) was glad his hon Friend had reiterated his opinion that the people of London should manage their own police,
1364
and the sooner the rest of the House of Commons came to that opinion the better would it be for London. Then, when the gentleman at the head of the Force happened to lose his head—as Sir Charles Warren, good officer though he was did—the County Council, with the full weight of popular opinion at its back, would soon teach him a wholesome lesson. But into that point of the discussion he did not desire to enter further. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh, in his quotations from the Report of the Committee of two years ago, showed the failure of that Report and the source of present difficulties. The Report insisted that it was necessary to have some "superior persons" in certain positions. Here in was the great blot on our police administration, that whenever there was a responsible post to be filled, with a large salary attached, then those men who had gone through lower grades, mastering all details and profiting by long experience, were passed over in favour of some "superior person" to whom the superior salary was given, the claims of the man who by honest hard work had earned promotion being ignored. Against that system he strongly protested. It was a policy that had been carried out for a long time, but against it many Members would not cease to protest. The right hon. Gentleman had given reasons why he thought the appointment of four Chief Constables for London had been an advantage; but he (Mr. J. Rowlands) could only take practical experience of the relations of the police to the people of London as compared with what they were in years gone by, and thought the creation of four Chief Constables had been a great misfortune for London. The Superintendents of Police should have a much more responsible position, each having authority and responsibility within his own district; nor was it necessary to have any authority between himself and the Chief Commissioner. There would then be decentralization and sub-division, which the creation of four Chief Constables did not secure, but rather increased centralization. [Interruption.] To Provincial Gentlemen those matters might not be important; but to London Members, taking an interest in the welfare of their constituencies, it was of serious importance, and they would not divide until the

1365
subject was threshed out. Another point that required attention was the increase of the mounted police in London. In any part of the City the mounted patrol might be seen with his sword by his side. But why was he there? If a burglary, or any crime, was being committed, of what use was the mounted patrol for prevention or detection? If the City were in a state of siege he might be useful. These mounted men were not serviceable as a Civil Force—they were a kind of gendarmerie. What had been the result of their being employed to keep a crowd of people in order? A body of foot police could do it much more effectually. A London mob was usually good-natured; it was generally the fault of the police if it became otherwise. Anyone who had had experience of London crowds must have seen how the police gradually obtained control without conflict; but the moment a mounted man was put on duty he commenced turning his horse about—the crowd, the mob, the rabble, as they were sometimes called, became aggravated, and then such incidents as that which occurred the other night at Clerkenwell Green arose. From the best information he could obtain, it appeared to him that if there had been no mounted police there would have been no disturbance. It arose from the mounted police riding among the people, and one person was arrested whose only offence was trying to pick up another who had been thrown down. He was a resident in a respectable artizan neighbourhood; he was bailed out by a master man; and it was clear that the police on that occasion had not to deal with a lawless rabble, but with respectable artizans. But the action of the police was such as to excite distrust among these people, instead of their being regarded as guardians against crime and lawlessness. In the changes of organization the system of Chief Constables should be abolished, and also the system of mounted patrols, except so far as they might be useful in scattered suburbs. Unnecessary expense was entailed, with the result demonstrated by his hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. James Stuart), in figures that demanded serious attention. If that attention there not given, then, when the time same to ask for a 10 d. rate, it would be
1366
found that the people of London who had to pay were thoroughly alive to the exigencies of the case. He urged the Home Secretary seriously to take the matter in hand, with a view to the introduction of such changes in management as would bring back the old feelings between police and people as they existed in days gone by when the constable was not encouraged to live in barracks, when he lived among the people and had touch with the feeling among his neighbours, felt himself part of the popular system, and not set apart from the people among whom he performed his duty.
MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMsaid, he recognized the courageous and high-minded manner in which the hon. and gallant Member for the Holderness Division (Commander Bethell) had defended his absent friend. Not very often were absent friends so defended. He could assure the hon. and gallant Member, that though he took an absolutely different view of Sir Charles Warren's public performances he had formed the same estimate of the late Chief Commissioner's private character. He had also to compassionate the Home Secretary on the difficult task he had had during the past year. He was not aware of the difficulties, or he would not have added his mite to them. He was not aware of the constant scenes of wrangle and dispute at the Home Office between the Secretary of State and the Chief Commissioner. He would not pause to ask whether Sir Charles Warren retired or not because he wrote an article on dogs; but he thought electors had to congratulate themselves on the fact that Sir Charles Warren was not appointed by a Conservative Government, but by a Liberal Government out of slavish panic that arose in London when a few windows were broken. The people of London might draw some information from that action of a Liberal Government who paraded as the friends of the poor, and on the first occasion when the poor assembled to cry for bread were the first to send over to Suakin for a soldier to put them down. He often wished the Galleries of the House were larger, in order that the people of the country, who were so very grateful to the Chiefs of the Liberal Party and elected them, might mark the difference between platform and Parliamentary

1367
utterances. In former debates, in reference to the conduct of the police and public meetings, he had endeavoured to obtain what he considered to be justice for the people of London; and, without disrespect to any Members of the Liberal Party, he ventured to suggest to some of the poorer electors of London that if they looked for justice or protection from the Chiefs of the Liberal Party they were, indeed, relying on a broken reed. In that matter the people could think a little for themselves; the Birmingham bourgeois Caucus had promulgated no ukase on London matters. It did not matter that a man was trampled down in London; he must be an Irishman before the Liberal Leaders would stand up for him. The sympathies and tears of a Liberal audience must be evoked, according to the Birmingham programme, over the deaths of two men at Mitchelstown; not a tear for the two poor men killed under almost precisely similar circumstances in London last year. It was a strange thing that the sympathies of the Leaders of the Party could only be evoked when capital was to be made out of them—[Laughter]—political capital he meant—such capital as would enable them to ride into Office upon some popular cry, to change places with hon. Gentlemen who now occupied the opposite Benches; but he could assure them that when the day did come to change places, when on the wave of popular opinion, as they would call it, they rode into Office they justly merited, in London the change would not be due to popular opinion, but from sheer weariness and the wish on the part of the people to change something that might be bad for something that, perhaps, was not much worse. As regarded the appointment of a General Officer to command the mounted men, he would draw the attention of the Home Secretary to the fact that, in the many cases he had had to submit to him of collisions between the police and the people, he had not always charged the police with having been the aggressors, nor was it invariably on the mounted men he had endeavoured to fix the blame. He would not say they had invariably acted in a brutal and barbarous manner; but he would say that, on many occasions, men and horses were strangely out of control. In the occurrence at Clerkenwell Green on the 13th, a state of affairs existed
1368
among the mounted men not satisfactorily accounted for by the appointment of a Cavalry man to command them. He pressed his hon. Friends to go to a Division now and quickly, in order that the people might see the Liberal Party were in earnest about something.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 143; Noes 30: Majority 113.—(Div. List, No. 294.)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in said Resolution."
MR. LAWSONsaid, he thought they had some right to an explanation as to the financial aspect of the question put forward by his bon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. J. Stuart), that the ratio in the last 10 years of the cost of the police had increased more than double the increase of population.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY)said, of course, engaged, as he had been, upon other Estimates, it was impossible for him to take up and deal with the figures and propositions advanced by the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. James Stuart). Though he (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) could not adequately deal with the financial points raised, he could not accept the accuracy of the calculations and the inferences drawn therefrom. The hon. Member had proceeded on a fallacious method, taking the year 1887, comparing that year with a previous year, and concluding that there had been a steady increase during the intervening period. The year 1887 was an altogether exceptional year, and it was not fair to take it for comparison. A large influx of visitors to the Metropolis added largely to the labours of the Force and to police expenditure. There was the further addition of some £186,000 for the purchase money of a freehold site for the now Central Offices, in addition to the rent of present Offices. He admitted there had been some increase in expenditure on the upper ranks; but the proportion of higher officers barely exceeded that in Provincial Forces. He believed he could follow the hon. Member, if the opportunity were more favourable, through all the items, and show

1369
that an exceptionally unfavourable year had been chosen, upon which a fallacious argument had been founded.
MR. JAMES STUARTsaid, he was surprised that, after allowing a day for consideration of this important point, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department should plead that if he had had an opportunity of looking into the facts he could answer the figures. He denied that he had taken exceptional years for comparison—he had chosen fair average years from the Annual Returns. On those he had based his statement. In 1878 the total cost, excluding anything of an exceptional nature, cost of buildings, and so on, was £1,075,237. In 1887 it was £1,542,812, and upon the figures he gave he based his statement of the increase of expenditure beyond proportionate increase in population. The solid fact existed that, whereas the population in 10 years increased 23 per cent, the cost of the police had increased 44 per cent. The expenditure of the Metropolitan Police in each year from 1884 onward was as follows (taking round figures):—£1,340,000, £1,378,000, £1,440,000, £1,500,000, and £1,540,000. It was a significant thing that with the quinquennial valuation, up went police expenditure; they stuck to their 9d. rate like limpets. That came of giving the police a rate they were not responsible for raising. That the Government might have an opportunity of answering the statement he made in detail on a former occasion, he begged to move the Adjournment of the Debate.
MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he endorsed what his hon. Friend (Mr. J. Stuart) had said, and seconded the Motion he would have been prepared to move himself. With fulness and ability his hon. Friend stated his case, and again had repeated it in a condensed form, but the Government had not taken the trouble to make any reply. The plea that there had not been time was an argument in favour of Adjournment.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. James Stuart.)
The House divided:—Ayes 25; Noes 116: Majority 91.—(Div. List, No. 295.)
Original Question again proposed.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, he would appeal to hon. Members to allow the Vote to be taken. Admitting there had been an increase, it was not one for which the present or the late Government were responsible; it had been the growth of many years; and, as he knew himself, was in consequence of communications and arguments addressed to the Home Office and to the Heads of the Metropolitan Police, as to the requirements of the Metropolis, and the strain which on particular occasions was placed upon the men employed. He could assure hon. Gentlemen that all the facts as bearing upon the financial question should be carefully examined by the Home Secretary, and no expenditure should be sanctioned that could not be justified to the House and the ratepayers.
MR. JAMES STUARTsaid, if he was to understand that the Government pledged itself to a thorough examination into the facts, he would be content.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, he appointed a Committee some months ago, one of whose functions was to review the whole financial position, the growth of expenditure, and to consider how far it had kept pace with the growing demands of London.
MR. JAMES STUARTagain rose.
MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member had exhausted his right to speak, and could only speak by indulgence.
MR. JAMES STUART, while disclaiming any intention to continue debate, asked the indulgence of the House, and proceeded, amid some cries of "Order!" to say it was clear that the Government had not studied the figures. He hoped, however, they would now take the subject into consideration. He brought no charge against the present Government; on the contrary, he attributed the state of things of which he complained to the administration of the police without popular control. That was the whole point of his remarks. Would the Home Secretary say if the Committee had commenced their work?
MR. MATTHEWSsaid, they had been sitting for some months.
MR. JAMES STUARTsaid, he would press the matter no further.
Original Question put, and agreed to.

BANN DRAINAGE BILL.— [BILL 312.]
(Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)

BILL WITHDRAWN.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order for resuming Adjourned Debate on Appointment of Select Committee be read, and discharged."
DR. TANNERsaid, he objected to that course being followed with that and other Bills.
MR. SPEAKER: It is not competent for the hon. Member to object to the withdrawal of the Bill.
DR. TANNERsaid, he thought there was recent precedent for objecting to the withdrawal of a Bill, and that he was entitled to do the same.
MR. SPEAKER: Quite an unusual course.
Question put, and agreed to.
Order discharged.
Bill withdrawn.

SUFFRAGANS' NOMINATION BILL [Lords].— [BILL 363.]
(Mr. Attorney General.)

COMMITTEE. [Progress 12th November.]
Order for Committee read.
MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, as it was obvious there would be no opportunity for discussing the Bill, would it not be better to withdraw it at once?
THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON)said, it was for the Minister in charge to take that responsibility.
MR. ILLINGWORTHremarked, that other Bills had been withdrawn in the absence of the responsible Minister.
DR. TANNERsaid, though the Bill stood at Committee stage, it had on previous occasions been taken at a late hour without debate.
MR. SPEAKER: If opposition is offered, the Bill, of necessity, is set down for another day.
Committee deferred till To-morrow.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE.
Ordered, That the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates Procedure (Grants of Supply) be referred to the Committee of Public Accounts.—(Sir Herbert Maxwell.)
House adjourned at Two o'clock.

Preamble
Their Lordships met for the despatch of Judicial Business only.
House adjourned at a quarter past Four o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.