Sitting of 4 April 1889

QUESTIONS.

  WINNIPEG AND HUDSON'S BAY RAILWAY COMPANIES.
  MR. ERNEST BECKETT)asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies with reference to the Act of the Legislature of the Province of Manitoba, passed in 1886, which guaranteed the interest on the 1886 issue of the Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay Railway Companies, bonds for 25 years, if he was aware that the road was commenced, and the capital subscribed in England; whether he was aware that the present Premier of Manitoba, in November, 1888, publicly and officially recognized this guarantee in a letter to the Chairman of the Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay Railway Company; but that on 2nd March, 1889, the Premier and the Legislature repudiated the statutory guarantee by passing an Act, to which Her Majesty's assent is required; whether the Secretary of State would advise Her Majesty to withhold Her assent to this Act of repudiation; and, whether he would make such representations to the Government of the Dominion of Canada as will direct their attention to the recent action of the Provincial Legislature?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. DE WORMS,): Her Majesty's Government have no cognizance of this subject, which is entirely one for the Provincial and Dominion Governments and Legislatures to deal with. The Acts of the Provincial Legislatures do not come under the supervision of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but are allowed or disallowed as seems right to the Governor General
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  of Canada, after taking the advice of his Ministers; and it would therefore be improper for the Secretary of State to make official representations on this subject to the Government of the Dominion, who necessarily have it fully before them in all its bearings.

  SMALL POX IN SHEFFIELD.
  MR. THEODORE FRYasked the President of the Local Government Board when the report, promised last year, on the epidemic of small pox in Sheffield, would be presented to the House; and, what was the cause of such a long delay in its preparation?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): The preparation of the report promised last year has been a work of considerable labour. It was presented to the House at the beginning of the Session, and copies of it have now been delivered for distribution among Members.

  SWEDISH AND NORWEGIAN HERRINGS.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention had been called to the great quantities of Swedish and Norwegian herrings which have of late been imported into this country, and sold, when cured, as Yarmouth herrings; whether he was aware of the great injury that has thus been done to the East Coast fisheries of this country; and, whether, in the interests of British fishermen, as well as of the British public as consumers, he could see his way to take any steps to remedy this state of things?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): The attention of the Board of Trade has not been specially called to the particular point referred to by the hon. and gallant Member. If it is the fact that great injury has been inflicted on the East Coast fisheries, the matter appears to be one on which representations might be made to the Board of Trade by the Local Fisheries Committees of County Councils that may be appointed under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act of last Session.

  SUPERANNUATION ALLOWANCES.
  SIR G. CAMPBELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the present pension and superannuation rules were construed to mean that a permanent civil servant, on attaining the age of 60 years, is entitled as of right to claim pension, or whether in practice the Treasury might and did exercise any discretion in considering, with reference to the health and capacity of the applicant, whether it was for the interest of the public service that full pension should be granted and another man appointed; whether in practice effect was given to the old rule of the Civil Service, that normal pension was only earned when the applicant had given his whole time to the public service; whether in some recent cases civil servants had, while holding public office, accepted posts under companies or private persons, and had eventually retired from the public service on large pensions, not because they were incapacitated for work, but in order to continue and extend such private occupation; and whether Mr. J. Russell, just retired from the National Debt Office, had for many years been in receipt of another salary as Receiver, Secretary, and Manager of the Burry Port and Gwendreath Valley Railway Company?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): A civil servant on reaching the age of 60 years is entitled to retire and to receive the amount of pension for which he is qualified by length of service. No civil servant is qualified for a pension on retirement unless he has given his whole time to his official duties. No civil servant who retires under the age of 60 can receive a retired allowance, unless on a medical certificate that he is permanently incapable of discharging his duties, and I am not aware of any case such as those described in the third paragraph of the hon. Member's question. Mr. Russell, a principal clerk in the National Debt Office, retired last year at the age of 62, after 42 years' service, on a pension of £466 13s. 4d. I understand that he held an office in connection with a small commercial undertaking which was either wholly or mainly the property of his own family. I am not aware whether any remuneration
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  was attached to the office. On Mr. Russell's retirement the head of his department certified that he had served for 42 years with diligence and fidelity to his satisfaction, and that he had fully discharged his official duties.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: Is it not the fact that there is a rule that a person recommended for a superannuation allowance shall have devoted the whole of his time to the public service?
  MR. JACKSON: A certificate from the head of the Department that the person proposed to be pensioned had discharged his duty with zeal and ability and to his entire satisfaction, would, I apprehend, be deemed sufficient.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: Is there not a long established rule that an ordinary pension shall not be regarded as having been earned unless the person who is to receive it has devoted the whole of his time to the public service?
  MR. JACKSON: The Superannuation Committee have no power to go behind the distinct rules laid down for their guidance, one of which is that if the Civil servant is 60 years of age, he is enabled to retire with a superannuation allowance in accordance with the number of years he has served; and if the Superannuation Committee are supplied with information, such as I have described, from the head of the Department, it would be irregular for the Committee to enter into a separate inquiry.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: Is there, or is there not, an existing rule of long standing, that the ordinary pension shall not be conferred unless the Civil servant has devoted the whole of his time to the public service?
  MR. JACKSON: Yes, I think there is; but I am not sure that a difficulty might not arise if the definition of the hon. Member as to "whole time" were pushed a little further.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I have not given any definition of "whole time."

  FLOGGING BOYS.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Lord Advocate whether his attention had been drawn to a conviction, by Sheriff Hamilton, in the Edinburgh Sheriff Summary Court, on 9th March, of five boys, charged with having, without leave, hawked newspapers

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  for sale on the North British Railway Station; whether three of the boys, who had been previously convicted of similar trespass, were sentenced to six stripes with a birch rod, and the remaining two lads to two stripes; and whether these sentences of flogging for such simple trespass were authorized by law?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): I have communicated with the Sheriff as to this matter, but as he is temporarily absent from home I have not yet got information to enable me to answer the question. I shall therefore be obliged by the hon. Member postponing the question for a week.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I will postpone it until this day week.

  FAILURE OF THE POTATO CROP.
  MR. MAC NEILLasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he was aware that in the entire coast line and the mountainous districts of the county of Donegal, the failure of the potato crop of last year had been as complete as in 1879; that the present occupiers of those districts had little if any seeds, potatoes, or oats; and that the quality of the seed potatoes is very inferior; had his attention been directed to the sworn testimony of Sergeant Kenny, Royal Irish Constabulary, at the trial of Mr. John Kelly, at Bunbeg, Gweedore, in March last, who deposed that last year's crop of potatoes was the worst he had ever seen, after a residence of 14 years in the county of Donegal; was he aware that ordinary seed potatoes, which were usually sold at 2d. or 2½d. per stone, were now being sold at 6d. per stone, and that if the people were able to buy seed potatoes in sufficient quantities, the supply could not be procured in those districts for any money; and whether, in view of these facts, the Government intended to take any steps to guard against the impending famine in Donegal?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): In the county of Donegal seed potatoes are not plentiful. The 1887 crop was exceptionally good. The 1888 crop was below the average, but variable. The October crop was good. The price of seed potatoes ranges from 4d.
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  to 6d. So far as can be ascertained, no special destitution or prospect of famine exists in the neighbourhood, or distress with which the ordinary Poor Law is unable to cope.
  MR. MAC NEILL: These statements have been made not only to myself, but to other hon. Members, and they come from the parish priests of the locality, who all testify to the appalling condition of the people I am afraid that if inquiry only is to be made it will be too late.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have instituted inquiries to the best of my ability, and I think that the distress, if it had been as great as the hon. Gentleman imagines, would have shown itself in a more marked manner by its effects in the Poor Law districts.
  MR. SEXTON: Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to send a Commissioner to investigate and report?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Local Government Board did make a Report some time ago, and they adhere to the substance of that Report.

  A VESTRY MEETING IN SUFFOLK.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention had been called to the fact that, at a vestry meeting held at Haughley, in Suffolk, on Friday morning last, for the purpose of electing parish officers for the year, a motion was made, and duly seconded, that the meeting should adjourn until the evening, in order to enable the majority of the parishioners to attend; whether he was aware that the Chairman refused to put the motion, and insisted on the meeting adjourning forthwith to the schoolroom, and on the proceedings being continued there, with the result that the children had to be turned out of school, in spite of the fact that the room would have been available for a vestry meeting in the evening; whether the Chairman, in declining to put the motion, was exceeding his powers; and whether any steps would be taken by the Local Government Board in regard to the matter?
  MR. H. GARDNER: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies to the question, may I ask whether the school in question is in the receipt of a Parliamentary Grant, and if so, by what authority the schoolhouse

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  was used for a meeting and the discipline of the school interfered with?
  *MR. RITCHIE: I must ask the hon. Member for Saffron Walden to put the question upon the Paper. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for the Eye Division of Suffolk, I am informed by the Chairman of the Vestry meeting referred to that there were present at the meeting some 50 parishioners representing the farmers, trades people, and labourers of the parish, and the Vestry-room being too small to conveniently hold the meeting, he adjourned it to a room situate in the school-house close by, with the concurrence of one of the trustees of the school who was present, and arranged that the teaching should be carried on in a room in the same building. He informs me that he did not put the motion for adjournment to the meeting, as he considered that there was not a full representative meeting to conduct the business for which the Vestry was called. The matter is not one in which I have any power to interfere; but I am advised that any motion for adjournment until a later hour, which was duly proposed and seconded, should have been put to the meeting.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that on Friday last the children had to be turned out of Haughley schoolroom in consequence of a vestry meeting having adjourned from the vestry to the schoolroom in the morning, although the room would have been at the disposal of the meeting in the evening; and, whether the attendances of the children on that day were cancelled owing to their being sent home?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir W. HART DYKE,): I must ask the hon. Gentleman to postpone the question until Monday. I have called for information but have not yet received it.

  CITY POSTMEN.
  MR. OCTAVIUS V. MORGANasked the Postmaster General whether he can now give any further information as to the date when the improvement in the hours of attendance of the City postmen (in reply to their
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  petition of June, 1887), is likely to take place; and, if he has received a memorial asking payment for the excess time performed by them during the year 1888; and, if so, when an answer may be expected?
  *THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that a very considerable improvement in the hours of attendance of the City postmen has been carried out, and the men are feeling the relief afforded. Their average attendance is now about seven hours and fifty minutes a day. I have received a memorial asking for additional payment for "excess time" in 1888, but no such payments have ever been made, and I do not think it would be proper to make them for out-door work which can be indefinitely prolonged by the men themselves.

  MIDDLESEX LAND REGISTRY.
  MR. JENNINGSasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the office of the Middlesex Land Registry was connected with the office of Land Registry, and whether it was under the control of the Treasury or any Department of the Government; whether it was the fact that Lord Truro, as Registrar of the Middlesex Land Registry, received fees to the average annual amount of £5,000 a-year, and scarcely ever entered the office, the whole of the work being done by deputy; and in whose gift was this appointment?
  *MR. JACKSON: The Middlesex Registry was created by a Statute of Queen Anne, and has no connection with the Land Registry. The Lord Chancellor has power to make rules for the regulation of the office. No portion of the cost of the Registry falls on the Exchequer. The entire cost is defrayed from the fees, and the Registrars, of whom there were originally four, are by Statute entitled to retain the surplus fees for their own benefit. Lord Truro is the sole surviving Registrar; but under an Act of 1859 the Queen's Remembrancer, who had previously been ex-officio a Registrar, continues to receive for the Exchequer his share of the net fees. This share at present represents one-half, and amounted for the year 1888–9 to £4,054 18s. 2d. The appointment of Registrars is in the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief

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  Justice alternately; but on the occurrence of the last three vacancies no appointments were made, and the office will disappear on the passing of the Land Transfer Bill, now before the House of Lords.

  IRELAND—MR. MURPHY.
  MR. LEAMYasked the Solicitor General for Ireland under what authority, and by whom, Mr. Murphy had been appointed Chief Receiver in the Land Judges' Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland; what was his salary; and what legal qualification did he possess; whether business hitherto transacted before the Judges, in reference to management of landed estates and the supervision and control of receivers over the same, in pursuance of the Judicature Act, had been, and was now, transacted before Mr. Murphy sitting in Chambers; and whether his appointment revived the office of Receiver Master, which was abolished by the Act; whether any rule appointing Mr. Murphy had been made; and, whether any rules as to procedure before him had been made; and, if so, had they been, or would they be, laid before Parliament?
  *THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I am informed that Mr. Murphy has been appointed Chief Receiver in the Land Judges' Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland by the Land Judge, with the consent and approval of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and with the sanction of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, pursuant to the provisions of the Land Estates Court (Ireland) Act and the Judicature Act. His salary has been fixed at £1,000 a year. Mr. Murphy does not possess legal qualification, nor is he required to discharge legal business. A considerable portion of the business hitherto transacted through solicitors before the Judges in reference to the details of the management of landed estates and the control of the Receivers over the same, in pursuance of the Judicature Act now comes in the first place before Mr. Murphy direct from the Receiver, without the intervention of a solicitor. But in every case Mr. Murphy's memorandum is submitted to one of the Receiver Judges and by him converted into a ruling, with such
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  modifications as he may think proper. It is calculated that by this change costs to estates will be saved to the extent of at least £10,000 a year. This appointment does not revive the office of Receiver Master. No rule appointing Mr. Murphy has been made. He has been temporarily appointed by order dated February 12, 1889, and has no right to pension or superannuation. No rules as to procedure before him have been made, as he merely prepares memoranda or suggestions for the Judges' consideration.

  EMBEZZLEMENT IN THE NAVY.
  MR. PICKERSGILLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his consideration had been given to the circumstances attending the embezzlement by W. W. Brad-don, late Assistant Paymaster of H.M.S. Helicon, of £3,818, which sum had since been written off as a dead loss to the Crown; whether his attention had been drawn, in particular, to the following passage in a communication, dated 14th December, 1887, from the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to the Admiralty:—
  "But whether there was laxity or not in the examination of Mr. Braddon's accounts, it is acknowledged that he was enabled to perpetrate his frauds through the persistent neglect by the Commander of the Helicon to obey Article 523 (c) of the Queen's Regulations:"
  who were in succession commanders of the Helicon from Midsummer 1884 to January, 1886, the period of the frauds; what punishment had been imposed upon those officers for their neglect; and, had they been called upon to make good any portion of the public loss?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): The facts are as stated. My attention has been drawn to the Treasury letter referred to. The case was fully investigated, and it was considered that there was no laxity in the examination of accounts. In regard to what the Treasury described as "persistent neglect" on the part of the commander it may be as well to explain exactly of what this neglect consisted. The paymaster of a ship has from time to time to prepare a statement showing the "balance of cash." These statements are submitted to the commander, who, after satisfying himself of their

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  correctness, signs them before their transmission to the Admiralty. All this was done by the commander of the Helicon. His remissness consisted of his handing the statements after signature back to the paymaster for despatch to the Admiralty, instead of despatching them with his own hand, as directed by the regulations, and the frauds were perpetrated by the paymaster falsifying the figures of the statements after the commander had signed them, and before dispatching them to the Admiralty. The commander was reprimanded, and cautioned to be more careful in future, but as the neglect in effect consisted of his failure to recognize in one of his officers (and one who had hitherto borne the highest character) a possible rogue, it was not considered that this neglect was deserving of a more serious punishment than the censure which he received. I may add that the regulations have since this occurrence been made more stringent. The lieutenants commanding were Lieutenants Winsloe and Tisdall.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: IS the noble Lord aware that in the Navy Appropriation Account, this year, there is an entry on page 61, that in the case of a receipt which was given in error, half the value is charged against the officer who gave it. I wish to know why this rule should not be applied also in the case of the more highly paid officers?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: If the hon. Member wants to know why the regulation has not been carried out in this case, he had better put a question upon the Paper.

  H.M.S. BRITON.
  MR. PICKERSGILLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention had been specially called to the following facts: That H. M. S. Briton was completed at an original cost of £66,726; that, up to the 31st March 1886, the further expenditure for repairs upon this ship was £50,189; that, between the 30th September 1886 and the 2nd February 1887, an additional sum of £1,745 was expended in repairing the ship; and that, finally, the ship was sold in August 1887 for £3,541; and, whether he would explain under what circumstances a large expenditure was incurred for repairs within 12 months of the sale of the ship?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: With the exception that £11,500 out of the £50,189 was for stores, and not for repairs, the facts are generally as stated in the question. The ship was originally commissioned in 1871, and had been at the time of her sale actually in commission for 11 years and nine months. The question of the expediency of spending the £1,745 on the repairs of a ship within so short a period of her being sold was very fully discussed, and it was only after careful consideration of the duties required by the exigencies of the service on the East Indies Station, especially with regard to the suppression of slavery in the Persian Gulf and East Coast of Africa, that it was decided to spend this sum in preference to letting her lay up in a perfectly useless condition for some months. She was sold mainly because she was hopelessly infected with white ants.
  MR. HOWELL: In what way was this ship sold? Was it by public auction or private contract?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I think she was sold by public auction, but I would again ask that a question of that kind should be put on the Paper.

  IRELAND—DIVISIONAL COMMISSIONERS.
  MR. HAYDENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the nature of the appointment as Magistrates of the Divisional Commissioners was such as to compel Clerks of Poor Law Unions to put them on the list of ex-officio Guardians for the unions in which they reside?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am advised that the nature of the appointment as magistrates of the Divisional Commissioners is not such as to render them eligible to act in any case as ex-officio guardians of a Poor Law union.

  THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
  MR. HAYDENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many days had the County Inspector of Leitrim and the District Inspector and Head Constable of Carrick-on-Shannon been absent from their duties whilst attending as witnesses for the Times; when were they examined; who was in charge of the district of

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  Carrick-on-Shannon during their absence; what was the maximum period during which the rules permit a constable to remain in the County Inspector's office; and had that term been exceeded by constables in Carrick-on-Shannon; if so, can he state on what grounds?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that the County Inspector of Leitrim and the District Inspector of Carrick-on-Shannon were absent from their stations for 108 days and 27 days respectively while attending on subpoena in London in connection with the Special Commission. No Head Constable was absent from Carrick-on-Shannon. The County Inspector was examined in the end of January, and the District Inspector about the middle of December. District Inspector Connaughton was in charge of Carrick-on-Shannon district. No constable was employed in the County Inspector's office except the ordinary police clerks. There is no rule fixing the period in which a constable may be so employed should the amount of the work necessitate such employment.

  IMPRISONMENT IN DEFAULT OF BAIL.
  MR. HAYDENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many persons had been sentenced in Castlerea District (County Roscommon) to terms of imprisonment in default of finding bail under the statute of Edward III. within the last six months; how many of the defendants consented to give bail; how many were now in prison undergoing their sentences; what was the offence with which they were charged; and what had been the extra cost of Constabulary in the district during the last 12 months?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that within the last six months 25 persons in Castlerea District, who were ordered to be bound over to keep the peace and be of good behaviour under the statute mentioned, were committed to prison in default of finding bail. Of this number five were willing to give bail, and three actually did so, the two others being unable to get anyone to go bail for them. Eighteen of these persons are now in prison. The offences charged were as follows:—Unlawful assembly, 19 persons charged; disorderly
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  conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace, 4; disorderly conduct in besetting a dwelling-house, 2: total 25. There has been no cost to the district for extra constabulary for the past twelve months.

  TITHE DISTRAINTS IN WALES.
  MR. BOWEN ROWLANDSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to the authorities of what counties and county boroughs the Chief Constable of Cardiganshire applied for additional police assistance for the tithe distraints at Penbryn; and whether such applications were made after the information as to the intention of the peasants was supplied to him by the Superintendent of Police on March 16th?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): The Chief Constable of Cardiganshire informs me with regard to tithe distraints at Penbryn that after receipt of the information supplied to him by the Superintendent of Police he telegraphed for assistance to the Chief Constable of Carmarthenshire, some of whose constables were with him on the 19th ult., when the conduct of the people was so threatening that he telegraphed on the night of the 19th to the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire for more constables.
  MR. T. E. ELLIS: Were there any applications made for additional police assistance before the 19th?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The first application of which I was informed was made on the 19th.

  THE COUNTY COUNCILS.
  COLONEL LLOYD ANSTRUTHERasked the President of the Local Government Board, whether, under "The Local Government (England and Wales) Act, 1888," every member of a banking firm with whom an ordinary current account is kept either by a County Council or by an authority under it, was thereby disqualified from being a County Councillor?
  *MR. RITCHIE: I have no authority to determine questions relative to the disqualification of County Councillors; but I may say that the Muncipal

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  Corporations Act provides that a person shall be disqualified from being elected, and for being a Town Councillor, if and while he "has, directly or indirectly, by himself or his partner, any share or interest in any contract or employment with, by, or on behalf of the Council"; and that this provision has been made applicable to County Councillors. I presume that some particular case has given rise to the question of my hon. Friend; but whether such case would come within the enactment to which I have referred is a matter upon which I must not be understood as expressing any opinion.

  IRELAND—FATHER FARRELLY.
  MR. WILLIAM CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why, having held over the warrant for Father Farrelly's arrest for five weeks without any attempt to execute it, although he was available at any time, it was thought necessary to break into his house; could he cite any authority for such a proceeding; and why, having taken the extreme coarse of breaking into Father Farrelly's house, was he allowed to go voluntarily to prison unaccompanied by a police escort?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As has already been more than once stated, the police broke into Father Farrelly's house because they had information that led them to believe he was there. As has also been stated, I am advised that the proceeding was, under the circumstances, legal. As regards the last paragraph, I have to state that Father Farrelly was accompanied by two policemen in plain clothes. It was impossible to collect a large escort, and it appears that a small escort would have run serious danger of attack had they been in uniform.
  MR. SEXTON: I must press for a fuller answer. I want to know why the rev. gentleman, having written on the 21st January to say that he was ready for arrest, was not arrested; and why the police broke into his house in the early morning for the purpose of arresting him, although they afterwards allowed him to go to Wexford Gaol without any police escort whatever? What is the legal authority that enabled
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  the police to break into Father Farrelly's house in order to arrest a gentleman who was charged with incitement?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I apprehend that the warrant would constitute sufficient legal authority.

  THE BELFAST BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  DR. FITZ GERALD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the attention of the Local Government Board has been directed to the Report of the proceedings of the Belfast Board of Guardians at their usual weekly meeting held on 20th March, 1889, at which a Committee of the Guardians reported to the Board serious frauds and other irregularities in connection with the supply of new milk in the Union Stores, and stated that no matter what question they put to Robinson, the storekeeper, he tried to evade it, and that the answers given by him were misleading and inaccurate; is the Chairman of the Committee correctly reported as having stated that he had come to the conclusion "that Robinson was either culpably guilty of prevarication or totally incompetent to discharge his duties, or both combined;" do the defalcations for a short period amount to £61 15s. 4d.; and will an independent inquiry be immediately ordered so as to fix responsibility upon the defaulting offiicials, and thus have the amount of the deficit restored to the credit of the rates?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Clerk of the Belfast Union reports that some verbal statements reflecting on the storekeeper have been made to the Board of Guardians by a Committee appointed by them to inquire into the subject of the milk supply. It appears that the storekeeper, instead of deducting from the contractor a sum of 4d. for each gallon short of the supply required in accordance with the contract, represents that he deducted the actual cost only of the substitute provided in lieu of the deficiency, the difference between the two amounts being represented by the sum of £61 15s. 4d. The Governors, at their meeting on Tuesday last, adopted a Resolution requesting the Local Government Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the matter. The request is now under consideration.

  EVICTIONS IN COUNTY SLIGO.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the evictions recently carried out on the estate of the Messrs. Knox, in the parish of Curry, County of Sligo; whether the following statement made by the Sligo Champion, regarding some of the 17 families evicted, or visited by the evicting party, are substantially true—
  "Michael Walsh is a widower, and has six little children. On the 2nd of last January one of the children caught fever, and the whole family was attacked in turn. The father has but just recovered, and the last child attacked was actually suffering from fever when she was carried out of her home and placed on a little straw on a bleak hill-side. She was subsequently removed by the relieving officer to the fever hospital.… After the door of the next house attacked (Thomas Millar's) had been broken in, it transpired that Mrs. Millar, terrified by the attack on her house, had fainted, and could not be removed.… Pat Walsh is over 80 years of age. For more than ten years he has been confined to bed. His wife is nearly as old and as helpless as he. He was wrapped in a few pieces of bedding, and carried out from the miserable hut, and thrown on the street;"
  and whether, if those statements are well founded, the Government will, in future, take care that the forces of the Crown shall not be employed to carry out evictions under similar circumstances?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The statements are not substantially nor even approximately true. The evicted persons were not tenants, but trespassers, having been in unlawful possession for several years. None of them appear to have been suffering from fever, nor was any person suffering from illness carried out and placed on a bleak hill side. I am informed that there is no hill-side, bleak or otherwise, at Walsh's house. The Relieving Officer was not present. Mrs. Millar complained of illness, but, so far as I know, she did not faint. She expressed her readiness to move, but subsequently declined to do so, and was not further disturbed on that day. A woman named Kennedy was also left undisturbed on that day, as she pleaded illness. On the following day she was examined by the doctor, who said there was nothing the matter with her, and on the next day she walked about the place using strong language. Patrick Walsh was examined by the doctor, and
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  apparently there was nothing the matter with him. His wife, who is stated not to be helpless, several times proclaimed her intention of again taking forcible possession.
  MR. CLANCY: Inasmuch as these statements have appeared in the Irish papers for a fortnight without any contradiction from the parties concerned, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us the authority on which he bases his contradiction?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The authority on which I base my contradiction is the information supplied to me by the officers in the district. I may point out that if I were to correct every erroneous statement in the Irish Press I should certainly require an additional private secretary to assist me.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
  MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what has been the result by the offer of the Irish Land Commission of sale by public auction, at Listowel, on the 26th ultimo, of two farms bought by the tenants Jeremiah Cregan and Michael Mullally, under the Ashbourne Act, through the agency of the Purchase Commission; how many years' purchase of the rent was allowed to the landlord in each case, and whether it was calculated on the old rent or on the judicial rent; what is the arrear due to the Land Commission by the tenant purchaser in each case; whether, in one of these cases, the annual instalment payable by the tenant is £12, whilst the Poor Law valuation of the holding is only £8 10s.; and, how many other farms were bought by the tenants on the same estate upon similar terms of purchase?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Land Commissioners inform me that Cregan and Mullally having made payments on account, the sales were at their request adjourned. The prices agreed upon between landlord and tenant, in each case, were advanced. In Cregan's case the rate appears to be 14¼ years' purchase of the judicial rent; in Mullally's case the rate was 20 years' purchase of the judicial rent. The arrear due by the tenant purchaser in each case is six pounds, being the instalment which became due 1st November last. In Mullaly's case the Poor Law valuation

  1573
  appears to be £8 15s., and the annual instalments £12. The average price on the entire estate appears to be 17·7 on the rental, the prices varying from 13·3 to 21·7. The Commissioners add that the apparent disproportion, in some cases, between the Poor Law valuations and the rents is accounted for by the fact that upon many of the holdings in question there had been a considerable expenditure in improvements by the landlord.

  THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Epping Division of Essex, as an Ecclesiastical Commissioner, whether the Ecclsiastical Commissioners have considered the application of Mr. John Lloyd, to be furnished with the boundary outlines of the estates held within the Metropolitan area by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; whether the Commissioners are aware that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, the Office of Public Works, the Corporation of London, the Metropolitan Board of Works, and most of the great corporate and individual owners of property in London, have already furnished Mr. Lloyd with the boundary outlines of their estates, to be entered on his projected ground plan of London; and, whether, having regard to the great public importance of obtaining an accurate ground plan of the estates within the Metropolitan area, the Commissioners will supply Mr. Lloyd with the information he requires?
  *SIR H. SELWIN-IBBETSON: The Commissioners have considered the application referred to by the hon. Member, and are aware that some of the corporate and individual owners of property in London have been able to comply with Mr. Lloyd's request; but the properties of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (which have come and are still coming into their possession at different times; and the titles to which are derived from so many divers ecclesiastical corporations) are so various in their character, and are so scattered in small plots over the Metropolitan area, that it would be excessively difficult, if not impossible,
  1574
  for the Commissioners to define, as is suggested, on any one plan the numerous holdings, some of them exceedingly small, in which they are wholly or partially interested.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will afford Mr. Lloyd all the information he can in the matter; it would be of great utility in the discussion of the Land Question.
  SIR H. SELWIN-IBBETSON: The Ecclesiastical Commissioners will give every facility in their power to Mr. Lloyd.
  MR. J. STUART: Did not the Ecclesiastical Commissioners distinctly refuse to give Mr. Lloyd information?
  SIR H. SELWIN-IBBETSON: I fancy the hon. Gentleman is referring to a correspondence which took place some time ago. I believe a letter to that effect was sent to Mr. Lloyd.

  THE DEFENCE OF THE COASTS.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can be so good as to give some more particular indication as to where in his speeches is to be found the plan of the Government for uniting under one authority the Land, Sea, and Amphibious Forces for the defence of the British Coasts; whether the difficulty has been got over that one class of men cannot be allocated any share of the work of land batteries and submarine mines because those things are under the War Office, and another class cannot serve on floating batteries because those are under the Admiralty; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will consider the possibility of the greater development for the defence of our coasts of an amphibious class of defenders, ready to serve for coast batteries, submarine mines, and local floating batteries?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: In reply to the hon. Gentleman, I beg to say that I have never made any statement of the kind mentioned in the question, neither have I ever even heard of any proposal to establish the amphibious force he refers to. As to the second part of the question, men who volunteer for service under the Admiralty cannot be compelled to serve under the War Office, and vice versâ, and there are no floating

  1575
  batteries in the possession of the Admiralty.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty why more has not been done, or whether Her Majesty's Government will new try to do more to enlist the great material available, in the shape of fishermen on the East Coast of Scotland, for the defence of those shores, by enrolling them in some sort of Marine Militia or Local Marine Reserve, upon terms more consistent with their position and avocations than have hitherto been offered, and designed to make them available for local defence as distinguished from a Naval Reserve for the Regular Navy?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The second class of the Royal Navy Reserve was established for the purpose of enrolling the class of men named in the question, and I cannot suggest any plan for more usefully employing their services in the event of war. I should be opposed to any proposal that might have the effect of deterring these men from joining the Reserve in favour of a corps which would entail their employment in particular localities, and thus circumscribe their sphere of usefulness.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to give notice that, unless something is done in the direction suggested, I shall vote against all increases of the Regular Forces.

  IRELAND—PRISON TREATMENT OF MR. E. HARRINGTON.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the wife of Mr. E. Harrington, M.P., accompanied by Mr. T. Harrington, M.P., on reaching Tullamore Prison on Monday 1st April, were not allowed to see Mr. E. Harrington, though more than three months of his term had expired; whether Mr. Harrington had been allowed to receive a single letter or a single visit during these three months; whether the reason assigned for this refusal to permit letters or visits is that he gets no marks as a consequence of being engaged in preparing his defence before the Special Commission; whether Mr. T. Harrington, on telegraphing to the Chairman of the Prisons Board, was informed in reply that the Chairman should communicate with the Governor by post; and whether the visit
  1576
  is to be disallowed for the reason stated?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As far as I can understand from the Reports received from the Prisons Board, the facts are substantially as stated in the question. The prison authorities do not seem to have sufficiently taken into account the exceptional circumstances attending Mr. Harrington's imprisonment, due to the necessity Mr. Harrington is under of preparing his defence before the Special Commission; but the error of judgment has been rectified.

  BOTANY IN THE NEW CODE.
  MR. RANKIN: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the subject of botany, mentioned in the list of specific subjects in Section 15 of the new Code, comprehends instruction in practical gardening and in the uses of plants and of their value as food; and whether it is necessary that evening classes should be in every case taught by certificated teachers?
  *SIR W. HART DYKE: Any person over 18 years of age approved by the Inspector may be recognized as a teacher of an evening school. A footnote to the Schedule of specific subjects gives power to the managers to submit to the Inspector a progressive series of lessons in any of the subjects mentioned, and this, in connection with botany, would include the uses of plants and their value as food. I doubt its including instruction in practical gardening, except for the purposes of illustration.

  IRELAND—FATHER M'FADDEN.
  MR. MAC NEILL: I beg to ask Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland whether Father M'Fadden and the other prisoners, who have been committed for trial on the charge of the wilful murder of District Inspector Martin, will in ordinary course be tried at the next Assizes; whether as these Assizes will not be held for a period of four months from this date, the prisoners will be kept in custody during all this period; and whether it is the intention of the Government to change the venue in this case under the provisions of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, which empower the Crown to change the place of trial from the

  1577
  county in which the crime is alleged to have taken place to any other county in Ireland?
  MR. MADDEN: In my reply to a former question I gave all the information in my possession on the subject of the question of the hon. and learned Gentleman. As regards the last paragraph, I may state that the depositions and proceedings in the case will be laid before the Attorney General, who will take the course which, in the exercise of his discretion, he deems to be right in this matter.

  COMMUNICATION WITH LIGHTHOUSES, &c.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the resolution passed at the recent meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in favour of placing lighthouses, coastguard stations, and lifeboat stations in electrical communication with the main telegraphic system of the country; whether, in consideration of the fact that a vast amount of money value, and several hundred thousand persons, pass Tory Island every year, he will endeavour to have this recommendation carried out with regard to it; and, whether the Government will take steps, as soon as possible, to complete a work of so important a national character?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not seen a copy of the resolution referred to. The matter, however, is not one coming within the cognizance of the Irish Office, but apparently within that of the Board of Trade.

  THE HOUSE OF COMMON'S LIBRARY.
  MR. WILLIAM CORBET: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, inasmuch as there is no item for supplying books either in Class 2, page 89, of the Civil Service Estimates, under the head "House of Commons," or under the head "Cost of Printing and Stationery," Class 2, page 165, he can state under what head the Vote for supplying books for the Library of this House is taken?
  *MR. JACKSON: Books required for the Library of the House of Commons are purchased by the Stationery Office,
  1578
  on the requisition of the Librarian, and are charged to Sub-head J of the Stationery Office Vote, "Printing, &c., for the two Houses of Parliament."

  IRELAND—IMPERIAL AID TO LOCAL RATES.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Imperial contribution to local rates will be issued to the Irish local authorities?
  *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): I am informed that it is expected that the proportion of the Probate Duty grant, payable to the Boards of Guardians in Ireland, will be distributed during the present month; but the similar distribution to the road authorities cannot be made till they have furnished certain necessary information, and will, therefore, probably have to be deferred till next month.

  EVICTED TENANTS.
  MR. COX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is a fact that the police have torn down placards requesting the neighbours of Pat Haugh, an evicted tenant in the parish of Kilmihill, county Clare, to help in building a but to shelter him, his wife, and eight children; and whether such interference on the part of the police is authorized by law, or has been directed or sanctioned by the Irish Government?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary authorities report that the man mentioned had been evicted from the holding upwards of a year ago, when he owed four years' rent, his eviction not being considered one of hardship. Notices were posted in the district on the 17th of March last calling on the people to assemble at the place to build a hut, and others calling on them to join the National League which was suppressed in that district as an unlawful association. The police in the discharge of their duty tore down these notices.

  MEETINGS OF COUNTY COUNCILS.
  MR. THOMAS ELLIS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether

  1579
  summonses calling meetings of County Councils and their Committees must, in case they are not left by policemen at the abode of Members, be delivered in registered letters; and, if so, whether he will consider the advisability of proposing some method of delivering summonses which would obviate the expense of registration?
  *MR. RITCHIE: The Municipal Corporations Act provides that a summons to attend any meeting of a Town Council shall be left or delivered by post in a registered letter at the usual place of abode of every Member of the Council at least three days before the meeting; and this provision now applies to summonses to attend the meetings of a County Council. There does not appear to be any similar requirements as regards summonses to attend meetings of Committees. The cost of registering the letters containing the summonses will be but small, and the necessity for registration could only be removed by an Act of Parliament. I do not at present see any sufficient reason for introducing a Bill to alter the law on this subject.

  NOMINATION OF COUNTY MAGISTRATES.
  MR. THOMAS ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Lord Chancellor will, when Lords Lieutenant nominate persons for the office of County Magistrate, ask for the opinion of County Councils in the same manner as the opinion of Town Councils is now asked when Borough Magistrates are nominated?
  *MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Lord Chancellor that it is not accurate to represent the recommendations of the Lords Lieutenant as nominations. The Lords Lieutenant have peculiarly good opportunities for ascertaining the requirements of the counties and the fitness of gentlemen for the Benches upon which they will act. The reasons which have induced the Lord Chancellor in recent years to invite Town Councils to assist him with their local knowledge of the personal fitness of the gentlemen he proposes to appoint are not applicable when he receives a recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant of a county.

  INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LABOUR IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Swiss Government have invited representatives of the Government of Great Britain to attend a Conference of the chief European Powers, to be held in September next, to consider the establishment of International Regulations for the improvement of the conditions of labour in manufacturing industries; and, if so, whether the Government have decided to take part in that Conference?
  *MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Sir; the Government have received such an invitation, and it is now under their consideration.

  DEMERARA.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government have any information with reference to a reported rising of coolies in Demerara; whether the road in course of construction by the Colony to the north-western frontier is nearly completed; and whether any claims in the territory lying between the Mazaruni and the Cuyuni have been granted to Colonists?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: Her Majesty's Government have no information on the subject of the first question. Had any such rising occurred, the Governor would doubtless have reported it by telegraph. The Secretary of State has no recent information as to the progress of the work referred to in the second question. The answer to the third question is in the affirmative.

  RAILWAY RATES.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government will consider the desirability of making maximum rates in no case exceed those existing prior to the increased scale put in force in many cases last year, unless it can be shown that the traffic resulted in loss or other reasonable cause given, before agreeing; to introduce provisional orders to give effect to the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888?
  *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I think: there is some confusion in this question

  1581
  between the maximum rates and the rates actually charged. I am not aware that there was any increase last year in the maximum rates chargeable by the railway companies. As regards the future, the Board of Trade, in fixing the maximum rates, will take into consideration not only existing statutory maxima, but also other circumstances, such as the rate actually charged.

  POLICE GRANTS TO COUNTIES.
  MR. DUGDALE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether payment of the Police Grant in counties, under Section 16 of "The County and Borough Police Act, 1856," for the half-year ending the 25th March last, is "a right accrued before the 31st March last," within the meaning of Section 24, Sub section 1, of the Local Government Act, 1888;" and, whether any provision has been or will be made for payment to the county of Warwick of such grant; and, if not, why not?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The answer to the first paragraph is in the negative. No right accrued to receive money from the Exchequer in respect of a local police force until a certificate of efficiency was given by the Inspector. No such certificate has been given, nor, consequently, has any right accrued before the 31st of March, 1889, except in respect of the police year ending the 29th of September, 1888. The contribution in respect of the police year from September 1888, to September, 1889, will come from the County Council under the 24th section of the Local Government Act.

  IRELAND—FATHER M'FADDEN.
  MR. ROWNTREE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if it is true, as reported in the Press, that, in the trial of Father M'Fadden and 22 other prisoners at Letterkenny, on Saturday last, on a capital charge, Constable Richardson gave evidence for the Crown against the prisoners; and that during his cross-examination Mr. Hamilton, the presiding magistrate, remarked: "I am afraid that the witness is hardly in a fit state to be examined;" if the witness was then removed; and, if anything has been done, or will be done, with the deposition?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the facts are substantially as stated in the question. The deposition was not perfected, and remains with the Petty Sessions Clerk.
  MR. SEXTON: Will any notice be taken of the insolent language used by the constable?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course, as a matter of discipline, the case will be inquired into.

  THE STRANDING OF H. M. S. SULTAN.
  SIR EDWARD REED: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the rock struck by H. M. S. Monarch about the year 1880, at the entrance of Malta Grand Harbour, was marked on the Chart of the time; whether the rock found on the measured mile outside Malta Harbour by H.M.S. Polyphemus, in 1886, was marked on the Chart of that period; whether the rocks above mentioned as well as that upon which the Sultan struck have been proved to be due to volcanic action or to defective surveys; and, whether any Chart of the Maltese Islands has been made since 1857?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: No. The Monarch struck on a small head which had five feet less water on it than the chart showed. The Polyphemus, when at torpedo practice inside the line marked on the chart for running the measured mile, found less water on a bank running out from the land than marked on a chart. An examination is now being made of the depths in the vicinty of the rock on which the Sultan was stranded, with a view of ascertaining whether the conformation of the bottom has altered. The survey of the Maltese Islands generally was concluded in 1863, but occasional re surveys of portions—principally of the harbours—have been since made.
  SIR W. LAWSON: Will the noble Lord say whether there is any truth in the report in the Press that on the Charts belonging to some of the other Powers this wreck was marked?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: There was a rumour that there was a Chart in the possession of the Admiral Superintendent at Malta, which had this rock marked on it. We telegraphed out to know if the information is true, and we learn that it is not true.

  THE FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
  MR. CHAPLIN, who had on the Paper the following question:—To ask the Vice Chamberlain whether, in view of the fact that the Animals (Amendment) Order of 1st March, 1889, was passed before the Privy Council were aware of the prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany; that the Kingdom of the Netherlands is separated from Germany by a frontier of very considerable length, across which, in spite of all precautions, the disease may be conveyed; and that the importation of animals from the Netherlands under present circumstances cannot fail to increase the risk of re-introducing foot-and-mouth disease into the United Kingdom, the Government will consider the propriety of rescinding or suspending the Order in question, which provides for the admission of animals from the Netherlands into the interior of this country without being subject to slaughter or to quarantine? said: At the request of the Vice Chamberlain, I desire to postpone my question until to-morrow; but may I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether we can rely upon receiving an answer to it to-morrow?
  MR. CHARLES DARLINGhad also on the Paper the notice:—To ask the Vice Chamberlain whether it is the intention of the Lords of the Privy Council to permit the import of live sheep from the Netherlands, and not to require them to be slaughtered at the port of landing, on the ground that the sheep of the Netherlands are now free from foot-and-mouth disease; whether it is the intention to absolutely prohibit the landing of sheep from Germany on the ground that the German sheep are not free from such disease; and whether the Lords of the Privy Council intend no longer to enforce the Law concerning the slaughter of infected animals at ports of landing, but to permit the entrance of live sheep from countries free from disease, and absolutely to prohibit those coming from infected countries; and, if so, whether any provision will be made for the hundreds of people who will be thrown out of employment round Deptford Cattle Market?
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I must
  1584
  ask my right hon. Friend, and also my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. C. Darling), to postpone their questions until Monday. Inquiries are being made into the facts of the case, and, looking to the importance of the subject, I am sure my hon. Friends will see it is desirable we should have full information before we take any steps in the matter.

  RESIGNATION OF TELEGRAPH CLERKS.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he will agree to the Motion for a Return as to the resignation of telegraph clerks, which stands on the Paper for to-day?
  *MR. RAIKES: There appears to be no departmental objection to the Return which the hon. Member has asked for being granted, except that it will involve a considerable expenditure of time and trouble. At present I am not aware what purpose would be served by giving the Return; but if the hon. Member will inform me on this point, I will consult the Secretary to the Treasury whether we should be justified in incurring the expense involved in its preparation.

  LONDON AND SUBURBAN POSTMEN.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he can now give any definite reply to those clauses of the Petition presented by the London and suburban postmen in August, 1887, which, in his answer of the 27th October of that year, he reserved for future consideration?
  *MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member I have to state that, of the four heads of the Postmen's Petition which remained unanswered, one, viz., that relating to the question of wages, is still under consideration. Another, relating to the rate of extra pay for extra duty when employed indoors, will probably be conceded at no distant date. The third, which was for summer uniform, has been conceded. The fourth, having reference to the substitution of boots for other articles of uniform, I am unable to concede—at all events at present.

  IRELAND-EVICTIONS ON THE CLONGOREY ESTATE.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant

  1585
  of Ireland whether, on the night of Wednesday, the 27th March, 13 houses from which tenants had just been evicted were burnt or levelled to the ground by crowbars and other appliances on the Clongorey Estate of Mr. Penthony O'Kelly, in the County of Kildare; whether the agent of the estate, a person named Routledge, under whose superintendence the houses referred to were given to the flames, and also the cart on which was carried the petroleum used in firing the dwellings, were guarded as they passed from house to house by police, in addition to those constables engaged on "protection" duty; whether, when the sparks from the burning roof the home of an evicted tenant, John Connolly, seemed likely to set on fire other thatched houses in close proximity, and a crowd of people showed a desire to prevent such an occurrence, the police on duty ordered them off the scene; whether a man named Peter Fullam went to the burning house of his friend and neighbour, an evicted tenant named Andrew Fox, to take away some articles of furniture that had been left in the house after the eviction, but was hustled back with violence by emergency men and policemen; whether, when he afterwards asked to be allowed to take the sashes out of the windows that they might not be destroyed with the rest of the fittings of the dwellings, he was again violently thrust back by the same persons; whether in all 30 policemen armed with rifles and eight policemen armed with batons were engaged protecting the emergency men; and, whether it is the intention of the Government to continue to extend the protection of the forces of the Crown to persons engaged in burning the houses of evicted tenants?
  DR. TANNER: May I ask whether these Clongorey tenants are not the same people who have had their crops destroyed time after time by floods during the course of the last few years?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware of the state of things suggested by the hon. Gentleman, With regard to the question on the Paper, I have to say I am informed that la houses on the Clongorey estate, from which tenants had been evicted, were either levelled or burned. No police protection was furnished
  1586
  to the persons engaged in this proceeding, which was quite unexpected By the police authorities. The force of police present in the locality is greatly overstated in the question—there were, in all, eight armed with rifles (and not 30 as alleged), and eight armed with batons. These 16 men were in the evicted houses protecting the caretakers. There were also four men armed only with batons on patrol in the neighbourhood. It is not true that the agent with a cart carrying petroleum for the burning was guarded from house to house by the police, but a cart carrying provisions to the caretakers was going round to the houses, and two constables whose duty it was to convey provisions to their comrades who were in the houses on protection duty availed themselves of this opportunity of doing so. The statements in the third paragraph are altogether incorrect. The burning of John Connolly's house originated accidentally; the police gave all the assistance in their power to put it out; there was no danger of the flames spreading from it as there was no house nearer than 30 yards distant, and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. The statements in paragraphs four and five are not true as regards the police, and they have no knowledge of their being true as regards the emergency men. I may perhaps say, in answer to the question which stands next in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Sexton), it is not true that all the houses except one were burned.
  MR. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last paragraph of my question, namely: Whether the Government authorize the employment of police in the destruction of property after the decrees of the Courts have been fully executed by the eviction of tenants; and also by whose authority the police accompanied the emergency men on this errand?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot lay down any general rule as to police protection on occasions of this sort; each case must be dealt with on its own footing. As I pointed out, this action on the part of the agent was wholly unexpected, and the presence of the police on the spot was not at all due to the anticipation that the houses were to be destroyed, but to the fact that they had

  1587
  to be there in order to protect the caretaker.
  MR. CLANCY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform us how it was that the inspector of police went round the day before to all the houses with the agent and indicated what might be left standing and what might not?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am sceptical as to the accuracy of that statement.
  MR. SEXTON: May I ask whether, as the emergency men took crowbars and combustible materials with them the night before, the police were not aware of the object of the enterprize?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course there was a point at which the police became cognizant of what was going on, but there was no notice given to them.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: May I ask whether the police would not be discharging their duty by affording protection to any person engaged in a legal act?
  MR. J. O'CONNOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman issue instructions for the guidance of the police in any future cases of a similar kind?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No. I have already said that no general rule can or ought to be laid down for these cases. Each one must be considered on its merits.
  MR. CLANCY: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman's scepticism would be removed if I ask him whether the reason given—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. CLANCY: If the reason given—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order! The hon. Gentleman is now making a certain statement.
  DR. TANNER: May I ask—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  GOVERNMENT DOCKYARDS—DISCHARGE OF WORKMEN.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the fact that certificates are given in the following form to the workmen who have been recently discharged from the Devonport Dockyard—
  "H. M. Dockyard, Devonport.
  "This is to certify that—has been employed—years and—months in this dockyard as a hired (joiner, or as the case may be), and during that period his character
  1588
  and conduct have been very good, and he is a very good workman. He has been discharged in consequence of reduction of hands.
  (Signed) J. M. Huddy,
  Chief Constructor.
  Approved,
  Admiral Superintendent."
  whether he can state how many of the total number of men recently discharged had been employed for a longer period than one year, either consecutively or at different times; what steps are taken to ascertain which of the men should first be discharged, whether on account of efficiency or duration of service; and whether, in effecting such discharges, any consideration is paid to character and good conduct?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: No workmen recently discharged received certificates of the kind referred to in the question. Of the total number of men discharged 169 had been employed for more than one year, but only seven had been employed continuously for a longer period than one year. Efficiency and duration of service are both considered by the yard officers in selecting men for discharge. Consideration is paid to the character and good conduct of workmen-The Secretary to the Admiralty, in replying to the same question on Tuesday, stated that 11 men had been employed for a longer period than one year, but this number included men who had received notices of discharge which were subsequently withdrawn.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to give notice that I shall refer to this matter at the earliest opportunity on the Estimates.

  POLITICAL MEETINGS IN THEATRES.
  MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the holding of political meetings in any theatre under the Lord Chamberlain's jurisdiction is an infringement of the licence granted by him, or in contravention of any rules?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Lord Chamberlain that the answer is in the negative.

  IRELAND—CAVAN BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  MR. FLYNN (in the absence of Mr. O'HANLON): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of

  1589
  Ireland whether his attention has been called to the Resolutions of the Cavan Board of Guardians, at their meeting on the 9th March last, in which they expressed their condemnation in strong terms of the recent order of the Land Commission by which the schedule of rents has been fixed in 1888, and alleged that, although the yield of produce was small, the cost of production was no less than in former years; and whether the Government will consider the advisability of withdrawing the schedule, and amending the recent Acts relating to land; whether his attention has been directed to resolutions passed at a meeting of the priests and tenant farmers of Nolagh, near Bailieboro, County Cavan, protesting against a rise of rent in that district by the Land Commission; and whether the Government intend to take means to remedy this grievance?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Nothing is known of the resolutions in question at the Irish Office, though it is quite possible such resolutions have been passed. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that the alteration of rent was to be made in relation to prices, and not to yield. No legislation of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman appears to point is in contemplation.

  FATHER M'FADDEN.
  MR. JAMES STUART: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any evidence, other than police evidence, was brought forward before the magistrates at Letterkenny, connecting Father M'Fadden, or the other prisoners, committed for trial for the murder of Inspector Martin, with the death of that constable; and whether it is correct, as asserted in the Daily News of Tuesday last, that the statements made by the constables were "made in some instances after the constables had had frequent opportunities of talking over among themselves as to what had happened?"
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the hon. Gentleman will feel it would be very improper for me to answer a question with regard to the character of evidence being given in a case now proceeding.

  THE TRIAL OF MR. P. J. CONLAN.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALD: I beg to ask Mr.
  1590
  Solicitor General for Ireland whether he has read a report of the actual proceedings in trial of Mr. P. J. Conlan, proprietor of the Carlow Nationalist, as the result of which he is now undergoing a sentence of two months' imprisonment; whether he is aware that the sole ground upon which the Crown asked the Magistrates to order Mr. Conlan to give bail for his good behaviour, or to be imprisoned, was that he published in his paper of the 12th of January a report of the ordinary fortnightly meeting of the Ballyadarus and Wolfhill Branch of the Irish National League in the Queen's County on the previous Sunday; whether the attempt to show that boycotting resulted from the publication of the report was disproved by the evidence of the only Crown witness, Sergeant Downes of the Constabulary, who swore that the boycotting had commenced some days before the paper containing the report was published; whether he is aware that the report was published as an ordinary item of news, without note or comment; and whether there is any other instance of the Statute of Edward III. being employed to prevent the Press from publishing the reports of meetings?
  *MR. MADDEN: I have examined into the actual proceedings in this case, as the result of which Mr. Conlan is now undergoing imprisonment by reason of his refusal to give bail. The complaint, as stated in the summons, was, in substance, that the defendant, on the 12th of January, unlawfully published in a newspaper called the Nationalist and Leinster Times certain notices whereby he unlawfully incited certain persons to violate the laws of the land, and to obstruct and impede the administration thereof, and to set certain of Her Majesty's subjects against certain others of them, and whereby he incited certain of Her Majesty's subjects to combine to impede, obstruct, frustrate, and defeat the execution of lawful writs of possession issued forth of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, and County Court ejectment decrees. The acts complained of, and for which the defendant was ordered to give sureties to be of good behoviour, did not consist in publishing the report of a meeting as an ordinary item of news, but in publishing notices of the character and under the circumstances stated in the summons; and the magistrates, being of opinion

  1591
  that the defendant had been guilty of such conduct, ordered him to give sureties to be of good behaviour. As regards the third paragraph, the information before me does not enable me to state whether the boycotting of Mrs. Brennan had or had not commenced before the 12th of January. I cannot, however, see that this would be material if the magistrates were of opinion that the continuance of the boycotting resulted from the publication of the notices.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALD: Does the hon. Gentleman persist in his statement made last Tuesday, that this sentence was under a Statute of Edward III., in view of a telegram which I have to-day received from Mr. Conlan's solicitor, to the effect that it was under the ordinary law?
  *MR. MADDEN: I said that the magistrates exercised jurisdiction under an Act of Edward III., but they also possessed sufficient jurisdiction under the ordinary law?
  MR. CLANCY: Were these notices simply part of proceedings which were reported?
  *MR. MADDEN: The documents in question were in the nature of notices which appeared in this newspaper.
  MR. CLANCY: Were they merely an account of a public meeting?
  *MR. MADDEN: In part they were. But if the magistrates, having the evidence before them, were of opinion that they were published for the purposes alleged in the summons, the mere fact that they were embodied in the report of a public meeting would not give them immunity.

  INDIA—PROPOSED EXTENSION OF THE FACTORY ACT.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAMasked the Under Secretary of State for India if it was the case that the Indian Government was not going to support the proposal to extend the Factory Act to India; and, if so, could he state the reasons why the people of India should be deprived of the benefits of the Act?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST): Proposals for amending the Indian Factories Act have just been received from the Government of India, and they are now under the consideration of the Secretary of State in Council.
  MR. MUNDELLA: Will the hon. Gentleman say if he will be able to lay a copy of these proposals on the Table of the House?
  SIR JOHN GORST: I cannot make any promise of that kind as to proposals that are now under consideration.

  PERPETUAL PENSIONS.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether he would now, in accordance with his promise made in July last and repeated in December, fix an early day for the discussion of the Resolution disagreeing with the Treasury Minute on Perpetual Pensions?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I am unable to indicate a particular day at this moment; but I have every reason to believe an opportunity will be given for discussion in the course of the month of May.

  BURIALS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
  MR. SUMMERSasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether it was the fact that, as the Law and Rubrics now stand, it would be illegal to bury a distinguished Englishman, if unbaptized, in Westminster Abbey; and, if so, whether he would consider the advisability of dealing with this matter by a separate Bill, or by an amendment of the Burials Act?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I am informed that, so far as the Rubric is concerned, if any person is buried in a church, no service other than the Burial Service in the Book of Common Prayer can be used, and this service cannot be read over any unbaptized person. Whether an unbaptized person could be buried in Westminster Abbey without the performance of the Burials Service is a legal question on which I do not feel myself qualified to express an opinion. I am not prepared to recommend to the House any amendment of the Burials Act with reference to this question.

  PRINTING OF RETURNS.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked the First Lord of the Treasury what authority decided whether a Return ordered by the House, or a Paper presented to the House, was to be printed; and, whether the printing of Returns could be accelerated; also, whether the right hon. Gentleman

  1593
  was aware that a Return moved for by the noble Lord the Member for Paddington, and laid on the Table on Thursday, March 27, and which the Secretary to the Admiralty was allowed to refer to in debate on Monday on the express promise that it should be in the bands of Members on Tuesday had not yet been distributed?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: In reference to the first part of the question, I have to say that as the right hon. Gentleman is probably himself quite aware, the printing of Returns is by a fiction supposed to rest with the House, the House ordering them to be printed; but a discretion is usually exercised by the Librarian. Returns are usually printed as a matter of course; but when they are not of general interest they are not printed, or the hon. Members who move for them are communicated with, and the question is raised as to whether it is desirable that they should be printed. I will do my best to accelerate the printing by the exercise of any influence I have. With regard to the particular question of the right hon. Gentleman, the delay did not occur with the printer, who exercised great speed. The Return is one of considerable intricacy and importance, and it had to be corrected twice. The proof was returned to the printer on Tuesday evening. I regret that it should not yet be in the hands of Members.
  MR. CAUSTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a Return of all the Papers laid on the Table of the House which have not been printed?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not think that the multiplication of these Returns is desirable. If the hon. Member will inquire of the Librarian, he will obtain the information he asks for; and if there has been any abuse, it can be corrected at once. Any Returns of general value and use are printed and circulated.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLER: May I ask whether it has not been the custom of the House for a long series of years to appoint at the commencement of each Session a Printing Committee to assist Mr. Speaker in the printing of Papers? Although that Committee was not in the habit of meeting, would it not be desirable to re-appoint it this year, in order that hon. Members, through that Committee,
  1594
  may have the opportunity of expressing an opinion in regard to any papers?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: If the right hon. Gentleman desires to raise that question, I shall be very glad to consider it. But the Printing Committee has never really expressed any opinion on the question of printing Papers. I have been a Member of the Printing Committee during the 20 years I have sat in Parliament, and I have never been summoned to attend it. I do not think it would be useful to revive it. I do not think any useful Papers have been omitted, but the desire has been to save hon. Members from the irruption of printed matter into their rooms.

  THE NEW EDUCATION CODE.
  MR. H. GARDNERasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether he proposed to give an opportunity for the discussion of the New Code before Easter, or whether the discussion would be postponed until after the holidays?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: It will not be possible to provide an opportunity for the discussion of the New Code before Easter.

  REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE.
  MR. J. ROWLANDSasked the First Lord of the Treasury if he could now state whether the Report of the Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1888 would be laid upon the Table of the House before the Vote in Supply for the Metropolitan Police was taken?
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART WORTLEY): Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to answer. The Chief Commissioner will make every effort to expedite the publication of his Report; but I regret that I cannot give any pledge that the Report will be in the hands of hon. Members before the Vote is taken.
  MR. STUART: I would ask whether, if we do not get this Report, we have any opportunity at all of knowing the details of the expenditure of the Metropolitan Police? They are not given in the Estimates as they used to be.
  *MR. STUART WORTLEY: I think the hon. Member is speaking of another Parliamentary Paper, not the Paper to which the question relates.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Has not a promise been previously given that this Paper should be circulated, as it is impossible to discuss the question of the Metropolitan Police without it? The fourth month of the year is come, and the Report asked for is for last year.
  *MR. STUART WORTLEY: Every effort shall be made; but in previous years this Report has been presented to the House at the very end of the year. I regret there should be this delay, but no doubt the staff of the Commissioner is fully worked.
  MR. J. STUART: I will put down a question as to the other Papers.

  THE CROFTER EMIGRATION BOARD.
  MR. BANKINasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Board of Management connected with the recent Crofter Emigration had actually been appointed; and, if so, whether there was any objection to state the names of the gentlemen composing the Board; whether the Government proposed that this Board should be permanent; whether the Government would issue a Memorandum stating the functions and powers of this Board; and whether all communications connected with the Crofter Colonization should be addressed to the Secretary of the Board; and, if so, where was he to be found?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: A Board was appointed under the Royal Sign Manual on the 26th of December last for the purpose of carrying out a scheme for the colonization in the Dominion of Canada of crofters and cottars from the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This Board consists of the Secretary for Scotland (for the time being), the High Commissioner for the Dominion of Canada in London (for the time being), the Lord Provost of Glasgow (for the time being), and Mr. Thomas Skinner, one of the Directors of the North-West Land Company of Canada. The Commission appointing the Board specifies its powers and functions, and was published in the London Gazette of December 28 last. I will lay a copy of the Commission on the Table of the House if the hon. Gentleman wishes me to do so.
  1596
  The Board has not been permanently appointed, but only for the purpose of the special scheme defined in the Commission. Mr. J. G. Colmer is temporarily acting as Secretary to the Colonization Board, and communications with reference to the business of the Board may be addressed to him at Dover House, Whitehall.

  IRELAND—PRESIDENCY OF THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES.
  SIR HENRY ROSCOEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it was a fact that a Treasury Commission of 1876 reported in favour of the appointment to the Presidency of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland of Professors of the said Colleges; and, if so, whether in the appointment of the Presidency of Queen's College, Belfast, due regard would be paid to this recommendation?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Treasury Committee of Inquiry of 1876 expressed the opinion that in the case of a vacancy in the President's office of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, the new President should in the first instance be sought for among the existing Professors of the three Colleges, their object apparently being to combine in one person the duties of President and Professor. As I have already stated in reply to a previous question on the subject of the existing vacancy at Belfast, the Lord Lieutenant will, I have no doubt, in making the submission of a name, give due weight to all the circumstances of the case.

  LOANS TO CROFTER FISHERMEN.
  MR. ANGUS SUTHERLAND, on behalf of Dr. M'DONALD (Ross and Cromarty), asked the Lord Advocate whether the boats and gear supplied to the Crofter Fishermen in the Highlands was insured by the Government or by the owners; if they were insured and anything happened to them, would the Fishery Board sustain any loss of money thereby; if no such loss could be sustained, why did the Fishery Board require such further securities as consent of creditors' securities that instalments should be punctually paid, &c.; and had the instalments hitherto been paid; if not, what was the amount of the arrears or the percentage thereof?
  *MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The Fishery Board insure boats, including sails, spars, and other gear, but not nets or lines at the expense of the borrower to the fullest extent Insurance Companies will grant—viz., three-fourths of the value. If anything happens to an insured boat the Board will lose the difference between three-fourths and nine-tenths, this being the sum advanced in loans. In reply to the third part of the question, I beg to refer the hon. Member to an answer I gave on March 25th, in which I stated that the object of requiring concurrence of creditors is to protect the recipients of loans from having their boats arrested by creditors. Of the instalments amounting to £780 10s. 5d., which up to the present date have become due. £163 1s. 4d. still remains unpaid; eight instalments wholly, and 13 partially in arrears. The following are the districts to which the 21 cases of arrears belong:—Wick, 14; Helmsdale, 1; Stornoway, 2; Barra, 1; and Loch Broom, 3.

  THE NEW WRIT FOR CENTRAL BIRMINGHAM.
  MR. COBBasked the noble Lord the Member for the Petersfield Division what was the cause of the delay in moving the Writ for Central Birmingham, and when it was intended to move for it?
  VISCOUNT WOLMER (Hants,): In reply to the hon. Member I have to say there has been no unusual delay in moving for the Writ. It is my intention to move for it early next week, and I will give due notice both to the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. A. Morley) and to the hon. Member, for Rugby (Mr. Cobb) if he is the Whip of any fresh Party.
  MR. DILLWYN: I beg to give notice that to-morrow I will move for the issue of the Writ.

  ORDER OF BUSINESS—EASTER HOLIDAYS.
  MR. J. E. ELLISrepeated the question which, at the request of the First Lord, he deferred from Tuesday as to the arrangement for the Easter Recess.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I have endeavoured to gather the views of hon. Members with regard to the Easter
  1598
  holidays, and I believe that only on one occasion in the last 20 years has the House not risen on the Tuesday morning before Easter; and on that occasion it was because of circumstances of extreme pressure of Public Business. This being so, and feeling that I am following the general wish of the House, I shall move before Tuesday, the 16th, that the House adjourn after the Morning Sitting on Tuesday until the following Thursday week.

  PRISONERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. J. O'CONNOR: I desire to ask you a question, Mr. Speaker, on a point of procedure. On the 13th of last month I introduced a Bill into the House, which was debated during the entire day. I find from a document in my hands that the main points for which I then contended appear to have been conceded by the Chief Secretary and the Irish Prisons Board. Apart from making certain offenders first-class misdemeanants, my main points are conceded. Under these circumstances, I want to know whether I should be in order in asking leave to withdraw my Bill which stands on the Paper for to-day?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can withdraw his Bill if the Amendment to the Bill is first withdrawn.
  MR. J. MORLEY: May I ask the Chief Secretary whether he proposes to lay these new Prison Rules before the House?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir; they have been laid on the Table. Perhaps I may say that, although I have not the least objection to the withdrawal of the Bill of the hon. Member for South Tipperary, I am afraid he somewhat mistakes the scope of these amended Rules.

  ORDER OF BUSINESS.
  MR. CHILDERSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intended to introduce his Budget?
  *MR. G. J. GOSCHEN: On Monday, the 15th.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON,asked when the Scotch Local Government Bill was likely to be before the House; and whether the Government would consider the expediency of referring it to a Committee of Scotch Members?
  MR. LEAasked if the First Lord was now able to name a day for carrying into effect the promise of the Government in regard to the subject of the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors in Ireland on Sunday?
  MR. HERBERT GARDNER: When are we likely to see the long-talked-of Tithes Bill?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: There is a great demand on the part of hon. Gentlemen for legislation, which the Government will endeavour to satisfy as rapidly as possible. My right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate is about to give notice of some of the measures in regard to Scotland to which he is anxious the attention of the House should be directed. With regard to the Sunday Liquor Bill for Ireland I am not able to fix a day for its consideration, but the Government realize their obligations in the matter, and will certainly endeavour to carry out their engagement in regard to that question. I cannot name a day for the consideration of the Tithe Bill.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: What will be the course of business on Government days next week?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: The Government propose on Monday to proceed with the notices of my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, first of all disposing of the remaining stage—which I hope will be only a stage—of the Resolutions on Naval Defence. The remaining Resolutions are simply machinery for carrying into effect the Resolution about to be reported to the House, and if the House affirms that Resolution the Resolutions with regard to the machinery will, I hope, be agreed to. I do not believe there is any desire on the part of the House to delay the passing of those Resolutions. I will state to-morrow what business we propose to take on Thursday. Probably what I have already stated will be sufficient for the right hon. Gentleman's purpose at present. [Mr. Gladstone signified his assent.]
  *MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I beg to give notice that on Monday I shall move for leave to bring in Bills dealing with Local Government, Parochial Boards, and Private Bill Legislation relating to Scotland.
  MR. BARTLEY: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if
  1600
  he can name a day for resuming the adjourned debate on the poor in large towns? Many private Members are interested in the subject, which was debated for only four hours, and two and a-half hours out of that time were occupied by the Front Benches.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: It is not in my power to name a day for the resumption of this debate. The pressure of business precludes me from offering any Government time.
  MR. WOODALL: The right hon. Gentleman did not inform the House what day he proposes to submit his Motion for the adjournment for the holidays. The effect of the intimation he has given will be to confiscate the day I had secured for the discussion of the Women's Suffrage Motion, and as may be supposed I shall not be disposed to submit to this without a protest. But I suppose the proper time will be when the Motion for adjournment is submitted to the House?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I will give notice on Monday of my intention, and will probably on the Friday make the Adjournment Motion at the commencement of business; but I say that with some reserve. I must call the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that he has fixed his Resolution for a day upon which, with one exception, the House has not sat for 20 years.
  MR. SEXTON: For the convenience of Members who have to go a long distance for a short holiday, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that no Irish Estimates shall be taken on Thursday next?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I think I may safely give that undertaking.
  MR. J. O'CONNOR: May I ask what is the nature of the responsibility under which the Government feel bound to provide for a discussion of the Irish Sunday Closing Bill; whether the right hon. Gentleman will give sufficient notice of his intention, and how soon after Easter?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: Due notice shall be given.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: May I ask how it is that Supply is not the first Order of the Day, Tuesday having been taken for Supply?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: The Government gave no undertaking of that kind. We undertook to give an equivalent for

  1601
  the time taken on Tuesday, and this I have endeavoured to do. There is pressing necessity for taking the Report of the Naval Defence Resolution to-day.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: We have not had an answer as to considering the expediency of referring the Scotch Local Government Bill to a Committee of Scotch Members.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I can give no pledge of that character.
  MR. D. CRAWFORD: Will the Scotch University Bill be taken before Easter?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: Not before Easter.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I think I may be excused for pressing for some further answer in reference to the debate on the poor in large towns. It will be remembered that only four hours were occupied in that debate.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: It is out of my power to make time, and I am sorry to say I can give no further answer.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I am well aware of the right hon. Gentleman's inability to make time, but the question is of paramount importance, and I think half a day might be spared from other matters.
  MR. P. J. POWER: It would be a convenience to Irish Members if the right hon. Gentleman would promise that no Irish business shall be taken on the Thursday and Friday after we re-assemble at Easter.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I will undertake not to proceed with any Irish Estimates next Thursday, and that ample notice shall be given of the business to be taken on the Thursday after the Recess. There is every desire to consult the convenience of Irish Members.

  COUNTY AND BOROUGH LUNATIC ASYLUMS (ENGLAND AND WALES)
  Returned ordered, "of the County and Borough Lunatic Asylums in England and Wales on the 1st day of January 1889, showing,—

  (1.) The total acreage of the sanitary district (urban or rural) in which each Asylum is situated;

  (2.) The total rateable value of the district as assessed to the Poor Rate on Lady Day 1888, and in districts where a General District Rate is in force, the same as assessed to the General District Rate;

  1602

  (3.) The acre ge of all lands and buildings occupied for the purposes of the Asylum in each case;

  (4.) The rateable value of the lands and buildings so occupied as assessed to the Poor Kate on Lady Day 1888, and in districts where a General District Rate is in force, the same as assessed to the General District Rate under the provisions of 16 and 17 Vic. c. 97, s. 35."—(Mr. Mowbray.)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  NAVAL DEFENCE.
  Resolution [1st April] reported.
  "That it is expedient to authorise (a) the expenditure of a sum not exceeding £21,500,000, for the purpose of building, arming, equipping, and completing for sea vessels for Her Majesty's Navy; of this expenditure a sum not exceeding £10,000,000 to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund in the seven years ending on the 31st day of March 1896; and a sum not exceeding £11,500,000, to be issued out of moneys provided by Parliament for Naval Services during the five financial years ending on the 31st day of March 1894."
  Resolution read a second time.
  *MR. CHILDERS: I must throw myself on the indulgence of the House, as, from the consequences of a very bad cold, I may not be able to submit the matters to which I desire to call the attention of the House as clearly as I could wish; but I will do so to the best of my power. The first part of the Resolution we are now asked to adopt deals with the amount of money—twenty-one and a-half millions—proposed to be expended under the new programme on ships and guns for the Navy. On this question we had a full debate on Monday last, and the House arrived at a conclusion upon which I will not now say a word. But the second part of the Resolution refers to the manner in which this money is to be raised and applied, and perhaps, in referring to this second part, I may touch incidentally on the other Resolution, which has not yet been adopted in Committee, but which, as the right hon. Gentleman said a few minutes ago, relates to the carrying out by the Executive Government of the details of the first Resolution now before us. It is proposed, with respect to £11,500,000 to be expended in the Dockyards on the construction of a certain number of ships, that that money should be voted in the usual way in

  1603
  Supply. The other part—£10,000,000—which is to be applied to the construction of ships under private contract, is to be a charge upon the Consolidated Fund, under the Bill to which this Resolution is a prelude. With respect to the £11,500,000, the peculiarity of the plan, so far as I understood the speeches of the noble Lord and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this. On the one hand they propose that the money should be voted by Parliament in Supply in the usual way; but they have suggested, and I suppose the Bill will carry this out in detail what I will venture to call a sort of March-and-April arrangement. As matters are at present, if at the end say during the last month (March) of the financial year any moneys are left unexpended under a particular Vote, it must be paid back to the Exchequer; while, on the other hand, if there is likely to be an excess in the year's expenditure on contracts—I am not speaking of great contracts for ships, but stores, and so on—if the contracts are executed more quickly than was anticipated when the Vote was taken, then, unless moneys can be provided from savings on other Votes, the expenditure must be postponed to the first month (April) of the next financial year. Now, I understand, the Government propose by a clause in the Bill to obviate the necessity of these two inconveniences in March and April, though we do not quite know the manner. It will have to be jealously scrutinized; for it may involve our being drawn into entirely altering the rule under which public payments are made. Formerly the Votes of Parliament expressly provided for the particular sums which were wanted for the service of the financial year; but many years ago the wording was altered, and the Votes are now for the amounts coming in course of payment during the financial year. It is now proposed in some way or other, to go back to the old system, and if we adopt it in respect of the money paid by the Admiralty for ships and stores in the Dockyards, it will form a precedent, and the House may be asked to go back in respect of the other services to the system deliberately abandoned by Parliament on a review of the great inconvenience of voting anything but actual cash payments. When we see
  1604
  the Bill we shall know whether this is so or not. We were urged by the First Lord of the Admiralty to make this charge in consequence of the very large sums which have either to be postponed or hastened in March, or just at the close of the year. But he will find in other branches of the Service that this is still more felt, particularly in connection with public buildings. This, however, is a matter of comparative detail. The main objection which I make to the proposal of the Government is as to the manner in which it is proposed to deal with the £10,000,000 to be charged on the Consolidated Fund for ships to be built by contract. What is the proposal of the Government in that respect? They have laid on the Table a Return showing in detail how it is suggested that the contemplated programme should be financially arranged, and if hon. Members will refer to that statement, they will observe that of the £10,000,000 no less than £9,200,000 is to be spent during the next three years, while during the following four years the equal charge spread over the seven years will continue. What would the practical effect of that be? I have said that out of the £10,000,000 £9,200,000 are to be paid in the next three years, and the comparatively small sum of £800,000 is left over for payment in the next four years. I take it that we may estimate the probable duration of the present Parliament, after what we have heard of the intentions of the Government, at somewhere about three years. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] Should the period be shorter it will be all the better for my argument. Taking, then, the whole of the £21,500,000 charge during the course of three years something over £17,000,000 will have been expended upon the ships provided in the new programme, while for the same period the sum which the taxpayer will have to pay will be only about £12,000,000. During the following four years the amount to be spent will be £4,500,000, whereas the amount to be raised by the next Parliament will be £9,500,000. In other words, under this scheme, we, of this Parliament, shall relieve ourselves from raising £5,000,000 out of the money to be spent upon shipbuilding, leaving that sum to be provided for by a future Parliament in addition

  1605
  to the cost of the work actually done during that period. That appears to me to be a very serious proposal which on the face of it must startle those who are accustomed to watch the public expenditure. Is it right that this Parliament should have the satisfaction of spending £17,000,000 of public money while it only charges the Exchequer with £12,000,000, leaving to the succeeding Parliament the spending of £4,600,000, while it will have to extract from the taxpayer £9,500,000? My first grave objection to the proposal of the Government, therefore, is that they are postponing to future years large charges for shipbuilding which will have actually been defrayed. Such a proposal is opposed to the uniform practice of Parliament, at any rate, since the great Reform Bill. Perhaps the House will allow me to say that upon this question, not only has financial authority, properly so called, been absolutely unanimous, but that such an authority as Lord Palmerston, who took a wide and general view of these questions, but was not a strict financial purist, expressed himself in unmistakable terms in 1860 when a large expenditure was proposed to be incurred for fortifications. On the 23rd July, I860, Lord Palmerston said—
  "To borrow for the expenses of the year would be as spendthrift a proceeding as for an individual to borrow to defray his household expenses."
  He added—
  "But Parliament has encouraged individuals to raise money for the permanent improvement of landed property, and what is expedient for an individual cannot be inexpedient for a nation."
  This was Lord Palmerston's justification of the fortification tax, and ever since that practice has been established there have been only two occasions upon which loans have been raised, both being cases in which the money was required for works of a permanent nature. The hon. and gallant Admiral opposite would scarcely contend that ships of war came under that category. There, therefore, has never been an occasion when, with respect to ordinary expenditure for the Naval or Military Services the dictum of Lord Palmerston has not been followed. But something happened last year of which I desire to
  1606
  remind the House, and particularly the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Proposals were then made as to which very distinct pledges were given by the right hon. Gentleman. In the first place it was proposed that £2,000,000 should be expended upon the coaling stations abroad. Hitherto the charge in respect of expenditure on these coaling stations under Lord Northbrook's programme had been defrayed out of the annual Estimates; but a departure from this rule was defended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the ground that these were works of a permanent nature, similar to the works constructed by Lord Palmerston, and that greater expedition in their construction was necessary, and on the faith of the assurance given by the right hon. Gentleman, that the proposal then made in respect to this expenditure would not be drawn into a precedent, our opposition to the proposal was withdrawn. But there was another proposal of the Government as part of the same scheme last year, which contemplated the expenditure of £850,000 towards the construction of a Fleet for the Colonies, and it was also proposed that the charge should not be defrayed out of the ordinary Estimates. This departure from the generally accepted principle was defended on the ground that it was part of an arrangement, under which the Colonies were themselves to contribute £125,000 a year for a term of years for the construction and maintenance of the Colonial Fleet, and hat, therefore, this expenditure was really for them, and to be repaid by them; and, of course, not to be governed by the rules affecting shipbuilding for the Imperial Navy proper. I intervened twice in the debate, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the first occasion acknowledged that the view I took of the danger of the proposal was sound. My right hon. Friend assured the House that it would not be treated as a precedent. Subsequently on the 15th of May my right hon. Friend was required to give a distinct and definite pledge, and he said, speaking expressly of Votes for Shipbuilding, "I should very much deplore if this were in any way turned into a precedent. I shall always adhere to the principle that the needs of the year should be met out of the Revenue of the year." In giving that pledge on

  1607
  a just principle of finance the right hon. Gentleman spoke not only for himself personally, but for the Treasury, and he laid down a principle which ought to be scrupulously followed. Having regard to that distinct pledge, how can he, with any consistency, make the present proposal? Such a scheme as this, which proposes to spread over several years charges of no excessive amount actually defrayed in one year, may be correctly described as weak-kneed and flabby finance. It is an attempt to make things for the moment pleasant all round, very different from the course pursued in former years. Upon the last occasion when a large increase of expenditure on the Navy was deemed requisite, the whole increase was thrown on the Estimates of the years in which it was spent. Here are the figures. In 1858–59 the expenditure on the Navy, eliminating the Packet Service, was barely £8,250,000, while in 1860–61 it was £13,300,000, an increase of over £5,000,000, which was boldly placed on the Estimates, though the main portion of that increase was due to a great scheme for increased naval construction. This increased expenditure was met, not as it is at present proposed, by spreading it over a number of years, but by increasing the Income Tax which in those two years was raised from 5d. to 10d., producing between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 additional revenue. We ought to hear from the Government why the rule that was acted on then and always since is to be departed from now. Another consideration which makes this proposal very objectionable is, though of a technical of an important nature. The whole of our recent policy in regard to the voting of money and accounting for it has been to secure more and more strict connection between the two. Take for instance Vote B in the present Estimates. The new form is expressly adopted so that the House may have before it in each year the expenditure on each ship, cash, stores, and incidental charges audited by the Auditor General. How is that consistent with the plan which spreads a large expenditure over a series of years without reference to the particular year in which the expenditure occurs? The two plans are absolutely inconsistent. The advance in the direction of strict business accounting
  1608
  indicated by Vote B I recognize. I think there will be great difficulty in carrying it out; but I recognize it as an earnest of the wish of the Treasury in communication with the Admiralty to make the public accounting more strict than it has been hitherto. But it is impossible to combine this rigid system with one which throws the idea of an annual Estimate and charges entirely to the winds again. The House is aware that, from time to time, we have had to take large Votes of Credit. Formerly, Votes of Credit covered both Army and Navy expenditure, and might be expended in a series of years until exhausted. A Vote on Account for this year, for instance, you might spend this year, or the year after—you must go on spending it until the amount is exhausted, and you might apply it to either military or naval services.
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The Vote of Credit you mean.
  *MR. CHILDERS: Yes, a Vote of Credit. But of late years the whole construction of Votes of Credit has been entirely altered. Votes of Credit now are only taken for the current year, so much for the Army and so much for the Navy. They cannot be used after the financial year, and the last refinement has been that the particular Services for which the Vote of Credit is to be expended must be shown on the Estimate attached to the Vote of Credit; and any departure from this would be the subject of remark. Now, the present proposal is based upon anticipations more than hinted at by Her Majesty's Government as to the possible condition of Europe in times to come. But if in any of the years covered by the present plan this House should be asked for a Vote of Credit, how is it possible that a Vote of Credit strictly limited to a year can be worked in connection with this plan of providing for them the expenditure of ten millions in seven years? The thing is absolutely impossible. The object of a Vote of Credit for the Navy would be, among other things, to expedite contracts or to enable you to make fresh ones. How can you operate upon a Vote of Credit that can only be spent in one year, and make it fit in with

  1609
  charges not necessarily defrayed in one, but in seven years? These, as I have already said, are somewhat technical questions, but it was my duty to refer to them. There is another objection to the plan of the Government. I do not think that, so far as the contract arrangements are concerned, the Admiralty themselves appreciate what the plan is. I listened with great care to the interesting speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty on Monday last. He dealt with a great many topics; but towards the end he said, referring to the specific arrangement proposed to be made in regard to this £10,000,000, that it was a very common thing to make contracts, such as mail contracts, and to enter into engagements with individuals for a term of years, contracting to make money payments out of the Annual Votes of Parliament. He said he saw no difference between that and the present plan; but there is all the difference possible between that practice and what is now proposed. In the case of mail contracts you make arrangements extending over a series of years, but in each you vote the exact sum required, and you provide that it shall be paid out of the Supplies granted by Parliament. The two things are diametrically and absolutely antagonistic. Therefore it is that I say the Secretary to the Treasury—whose ability we all recognize—has not in this respect sufficiently studied the plan of the Government. That, again, is not, perhaps, so important an argument as one or two of the others to which I have alluded; but I now come to what seems to me to be the main objection to this proposal. The main objection to the plan of the Government is, in my judgment, to be found in the un-wisdom of stereotyping for five years the shipbuilding ideas of the moment. It was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in the past delays have occurred from changes of policy on the accession of new Governments or in consequence of changes in the Admiralty; but this has not happened in any appreciable degree, and I will give the House the proof of this at least for 30 years. In 1859, when the Government of Lord Palmerston succeeded that of Lord Derby, there was undoubtedly a considerable increase in
  1610
  shipbuilding, but nothing that had been planned by the Government of Lord Derby was to be at all interfered with. Additional ships were to be built, but there was nothing which answered the description of the right hon. Gentleman that there had been delay in the expenditure of money voted by Parliament owing to changes at the Admiralty.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): I did not only mean changes of Government involving new Boards of Admiralty, but changes in the Boards themselves by which new views are introduced.
  *MR. CHILDERS: Yes; I am about to refer to such a change in a few moments. There was no change in policy at the Admiralty between the years 1859 and 1866. In 1866 there was a change of Government, but Mr. Corry made no change in the programme of his Predecessor; he only added to it by building a class of ships commonly called the Audacious class of a new type. In 1869 I had the honour to become First Lord of the Admiralty, but we did not postpone for a day the construction of any ship which we found being built; on the contrary, we increased largely the expenditure on ironclad shipbuilding; and we took in hand the new turret ships Devastation and Dreadnought, which were pronounced by the Royal Commission the type of the future for the Navy; and there was no interference with the plans of our Predecessors. The same thing happened in 1874. In 1878, 1879, and 1880 there had been a great reduction in the charge for battleships effected by the present First Lord of the Treasury. When Lord Northbrook took office in 1880, he carried out strictly in respect to ship-building the plan of his Predecessors, with this difference, that he added year by year in 1881, 1882, 1883, and 1884 considerably to the charge; and in 1885 he brought forward the programme of additional shipbuilding known by his name, but without in the least interfering with the ships in course of construction. In 1885 and 1886 the noble Lord opposite did not interfere with the plans of his Predecessor, but only pushed on somewhat more rapidly the construction of the ships which they had proposed. There was only

  1611
  one case in which this rule was departed from, and that was by my right hon. Friend himself. When my right hon. Friend became First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1871, he found, with respect to shipbuilding, a state of things that required extreme care to avoid alarming the country. A great ship had been lost; and that resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission, over which Lord Dufferin presided, to consider what should be the future type of battle-ships. For this reason, during the first two years of my right hon. Friend's Administration he most wisely held his hand, in order that as to the type of ship to be adopted, the alarm in the public mind should be set at rest. When the Commission had reported the ships under construction were hastened; and with that one exception there was no material departure by a Board of Admiralty from the plans of their Predecessors. But what would have been the effect if they had adopted the proposed five years' rule? The Admiralty in 1867, when Mr. Corry was at its head, came to the conclusion that it was desirable to add a certain number of ironclads to the Navy, and, as I have said, they adopted what was known as the Audacious class of ships. At that time almost everybody agreed that the old broadside ship was the best for fighting purposes, and we had very little or no experience of any other kind of ship. Foreign Governments, indeed, for some time afterwards continued to build broadside masted ships. But what did science bring us only two years later? Why, in 1869, the whole system changed, and we introduced unmasted turret ships in place of broadside masted ships. If, therefore, in 1867 we had decided on building 40, 50, or 60 new ships, according to the ideas of that time, if the plan had been adopted in 1867—when there was a considerable addition to the Navy—of stereotyping our ships for five years, the result would have been little short of disastrous. Again, let us take another striking example. Up to the year 1878 the guns of the Navy had been for many years muzzle-loaders; and if in 1878 we had built a large number of ships, those ships would have had muzzle-loading guns, and within four or five years they would have been entirely obsolete. It was only in 1881 that it
  1612
  became perfectly clear from the inquiries of the Ordnance Select Committee that we ought to substitute breechloading for muzzle-loading guns. Ships which carry heavy breechloading guns must be not in detail only but in some of their main principles quite different from, those which carry muzzle-loading guns; and we should have gone on, building ships for muzzle-loading guns-after the unanimous opinion of the experts, of Parliament, and of the country had entirely changed on the subject. I have given these two illustrations as striking ones, which I do not think can be answered. It is not prudent for us to think that we have already got all wisdom—that wisdom will die with us. Progress is constantly being made in these matters, and in my judgment it would not be wise to lay down, as the Government now propose to do, all at once a large number of ships of a particular type, based on the scientific information of the present moment. It would be better to go on from year to year, not altering any individual ship after she has been laid down, but improving each new ship which we build in accordance with the progress of science. We do not know what improvements even two years' science and progress may not produce in these matters. I trust, therefore, that the Government, instead of adhering to a programme which depends on the scientific knowledge of the present day, will see reason to modify it in the sense I have indicated, so as on the one hand to complete each ship according to the knowledge we have when she is commenced, but on the other to commence from year to year new ships with the advantage of the improved knowledge which has been acquired. In one respect I entirely agree with the declared policy of the noble Lord. When you have once taken a ship in hand, do not tinker her. Lay down the number of ships required to be commenced in any given year, and having once laid them down, finish them as rapidly as possible; do not apply little alterations here and little alterations there, which not only cost money, but which lose time, and are in other respects inconvenient to the Service. But this is quite independent of the general principle which I have tried to explain to the House. Let us

  1613
  not imitate the novel Budget arrangements of French and German Governments. It is popular on the Continent to frame these great schemes extending over eight or 10 years, and we know that the folly of that course has been already proved in the case of France. In Germany, too, there is a dislike of annual Budgets. There is no practical difficulty connected with voting the money required from year to year; while there are grave objections, financial, administrative, and political, to altering our time-honoured system of annual Votes in Supply; and to that system I trust the House will adhere. In conclusion, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out all the words after the word "Navy," to the end of the Resolution, in order to add the words, "but this House sees no reason why provision for the building and arming of ships to be employed in Her Majesty's Service should be made otherwise than in accordance with the constitutional practice hitherto observed, namely, by annual Votes in Committee of Supply,"—(Mr. Childers.)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Resolution."
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): The right hon. Gentleman has confined his remarks to two points connected with the shipbuilding scheme of Her Majesty's Government. He objects to the method by which it is proposed to raise the £10,000,000, and also to the method by which the money is to be disbursed. The right hon. Gentleman has also raised some general objections as to the inadvisability of stereotyping shipbuilding by laying down a large number of ships of any one particular type at a time. He has pointed out that great changes occur in ships' armaments, and that therefore it is not advisable to mortgage your income for a long period in advance for the construction of any one particular class of ship. With a good many of the right hon. Gentleman's observations the Government entirely agree. The great object of the Admiralty has been to expedite shipbuilding; we maintain, and the right hon. Gentleman agrees, I take it, that whatever number of ships are laid down they
  1614
  should be pushed on and completed as rapidly as possible. I think there is not a dissentient voice to that. We go a little further, and say that if Her Majesty's Government think it advisable to lay down a considerable number of ships, they must adopt a procedure by which the ships may be completed with the greatest possible rapidity. Therefore, it being a paramount object, from an economical point of view, to rapidly complete whatever ships we have in hand, if the House assent to the Government proposals for constructing 70 ships, they must assent to the financial proposals which enable the Admiralty, for the first time in its history, to provide that every ship laid down shall be pushed on and completed with as much rapidity as is consistent with good construction. Therefore, Sir, if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to give effect to the principle which he has laid down he must allow us to adjust our financial proposals, so as to carry that principle into effect. I wish just to address a few words to the House, as the representative of one of the spending departments. It is the fashion in many parts of the House in reference to the Admiralty and the War Office to assert that they are mere cesspools of maladministration, and to contrast their expenditure with that of private firms. But there is no private firm in the country which is tied and hampered as the War Office and Admiralty are. Not only do these Departments have to give a most minute account, under a series of the most complicated and technical rules, for every single farthing paid out—and I think it necessary, as, of course, economies can only be promoted by the representatives of the spending Departments being forced to account for every item of expenditure; but, in addition to this, over and over again both the War Office and the Admiralty have been hampered in their policy by what may be called the covert actions of the Executive Government, which often proposes to impose limitations upon the Department that are unknown outside. And when the Department, under these conditions, fails to carry out the programme it has in hand, it is then subjected to attacks from the very men who impose the restriction for not properly using the money at its disposal. If, therefore, ships are to be built

  1615
  rapidly, the funds must be provided. Nobody can dispute that. I have before me a Return showing the period occupied by certain ships in construction and completion. The more quickly a ship is built, the nearer its cost approaches the amount of the original Estimate. Now the right hon. Gentleman has contended that Boards of Admiralty are not in the habit of reversing the policy of their predecessors. If it be true that one Board after another has endeavoured to carry on the policy of its predecessor, and ships have been twice the length of time they ought to be on the stocks, and cost much more than they would have done if the construction had been pushed on, is it not evident that the delay and waste has been due to the limitations that have been placed upon the Admiralty by insufficient funds being voted? There can be no escape from that conclusion. I have some figures relating to the last two or three ironclads which were completed before I came into office. The Agamemnon took eight years and five months in building, and the increase of the expenditure over the original Estimate was £57,000. The Ajax was nine years one month in building, and the increase of expenditure over the original Estimate was £93,000. The Dreadnought was eight years five months in building, and the excess over the original Estimate was £224,000. But in this case there was a material alteration in the plan of the vessel. The colossus was six years ten months in building, and the excess expenditure was £90,000. The Thunderer was seven years 11 months in building, and the excess expenditure was £70,000. The Arethusa and the Phaeton, two of the last cruisers laid down before I came into office, took seven years and six months respectively in construction. If the practice of the past is to be adopted, and the ships in the present programme are to be as long in building, the right hon. Gentleman would be right in asserting that the Admiralty are mistaken in laying down so many vessels at the same time, because they would be more or less obsolete by the time they were finished. But the present Admiralty propose to build every single ship as quickly as possible; and if those ships are, in the opinion of naval experts, in advance of any existing ships of their types, either building or afloat, it
  1616
  follows that they must also be in advance of any ships ready for service when they are completed. Of the 70 ships to be laid down, 52 will be taken in hand in the present year; and no one whose has listened to the debates in the House, and who knows the characteristics of the ships, can deny that they are distinctly, in the essentials of speed and armament, superior to anything of their kind built before. The right hon. Gentleman must recollect that the present Board of Admiralty have deliberately stayed their hand in order to obtain sufficient information to justify them in embarking on a large programme. We are to have a large number of ships of a new type, but we did not venture to adopt them until they had been thoroughly tested. The Naval Manœuvres of last year tested the qualities of vessels as they had never before been tested in time of peace; and it is on the basis of this experience that the designs for new ships have been prepared. Now, Sir, when the right hon. Gentleman impresses upon the Government the advisability of having only a few ships in hand at one time, he is simply recommending to the Government a principle which, from the very moment when we came into office, we have kept before us and acted upon. What was the number of ironclads building, or in course of construction, when I came into office? In the year 1884–5 13 ironclads were building; and the Government of that day—the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian—added eight to the 13, so that in 1886–7 there were 21 ironclads building, the types of which were determined, and for the construction of which insufficiency money had been voted. We found this great number of ships in hand, and determined to complete them all before beginning a new programme. We reduced the number of 21 down to four in the present year, and the next year to that there was only one in hand, so that, so far from attempting to stereotype one kind of ship, the present Government have acted in the opposite direction. We have cleared off the ships in hand, and in proportion as they have been completed and more information has been acquired concerning designs, we have entered upon a fresh programme, which we propose to

  1617
  complete in an unprecedently short time. From the business point of view, therefore, if the House approve of the plan for constructing 70 new ships, you must make special financial arrangements for the purpose of completing the ships. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues object, not to the proposal to build 70 ships, but only to the financial procedure which we attach to that proposition; and therefore the House will perhaps allow me to state, from the Admiralty's point of view, what seem to be the great advantages of the course suggested. The question of Ways and Means must be looked at from three stand-points—the constitutional, the administrative, and the taxing. The Tight hon. Gentleman dealt especially with the two latter. But he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1885, and he and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian are responsible for the financial arrangements they made then for giving effect to Lord Northbrook's programme. If I contrast the two sets of proposals, it is not for the purpose of making Party capital, but simply to point out that the present Admiralty, with its additional experience, are desirous of avoiding the evils and difficulties of the former practice. Now, from a constitutional point of view, I assume I am right in saying that if this House is to have complete control over its expenditure, then it follows that the most intelligible forms of account must be presented to it. I assume that the great majority of hon. Members will assent to that proposition. In 1885 the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary to the Admiralty proposed to Parliament to spend £3,100,000 in specially providing for the increase of the Navy, and that entailed a large expenditure, including armament, of between four and five millions. The House assented, as it naturally would; but without one single particle of authority, statutory or otherwise, the Government gave the orders to eon tractors. Then, having done that, the Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavoured to make financial provision for that expenditure, and he proposed to spread that expenditure over five years, and the sums he proposed to meet that expenditure were—first year, £800,000; second year, £800,000; third year, £500,000;
  1618
  fourth year, £500,000; and fifth year, £500,000. The whole of these financial arrangements broke down. The first year the disbursements were £1,600,000; in the second year, £1,344,000; in the third year, £813,000; in the fourth year, £296,000; and in the fifth year, £59,000. Now, my only wish is to point out that the financial arrangements which were made were absolutely insufficient. In the second year that this programme was in force it entailed a much larger expenditure than was anticipated by the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman thereupon proposed to meet the demand by the suspension of the Sinking Fund.
  *MR. CHILDERS: The Government of the day met it out of the Votes.
  *LORD G. HAMILTON: Yes; but where did the Ways and Means come from? If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the Budget he will see that they came out of the Sinking Fund. The operation of the Sinking Fund was suspended practically to make provision for that portion of Lord Northbrook's programme which had been wholly under-estimated the previous year; and although, owing to an increase in the revenue, it was not necessary to have recourse to it, that was the constitutional mode adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, who now insists on the strictest adherence to Parliamentary precedents. Yes, Sir; and the result of attempting to put the cost of this extra programme on the ordinary Estimates has been to disorganize Navy finance ever since. No one has suffered more from the impossibility of distinguishing normal from abnormal expenditure, which has existed ever since, than I have myself, because I have over and over again been accused of arbitrarily reducing the naval expenditure, whereas the difference between the Estimates for the several years for which I am responsible is mainly due to the inequality of the disbursement connected with Lord Northbrook's programme. I say we have before us a procedure which is on every ground to be avoided; it is inconsistent in itself, and it is unconstitutional inasmuch as the expenditure was incurred before the sanction of the House was given, and the provision made for it was wholly inadequate. The Government have avoided those difficulties, and by dissociating the abnormal from the

  1619
  ordinary Estimates they have placed clearly before the House what in their judgment is the normal and what the abnormal expenditure. From the administrative and constitutional point of view the arrangement of the Government is far preferable to that of the right hon. Gentleman in 1885. And, again, if we look at it from a technical point of view, it is clear that if these ships are to be built with the necessary rapidity, some such arrangement is obligatory. I know there are many hon. Gentlemen opposite who are such financial pedants that they desire to provide for the expenditure of each year out of the Votes of that year. But you have no alternative if you are to meet a sudden outburst of expenditure in one year but to put on all the taxation required to meet that expenditure, and then take it off again the next year. Such sudden increases of taxation are most detrimental to the trade and commerce of the country; and, therefore, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a proposal by which he intends to spread that portion of the expenditure over a period of seven years, although the expenditure itself is contracted in a period of five years. The right hon. Member for South Edinburgh objects to that proposal, and likens it to a Vote of Credit; but the Government have not had recourse to a Vote of Credit.
  *MR. CHILDERS: I said that the system could not work side by side with a Vote of Credit if one should be necessary.
  *LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: If that does not in the least resemble a Vote of Credit, then why allude to it?
  *MR. CHILDERS: I said if you adopt this plan of voting Supplies for shipbuilding purposes, and it became necessary afterwards to take a Vote of Credit, the two could not run together. I added, I thought the Government should ask every year for the amount that was required.
  *LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: The right hon. Gentleman is no doubt very courageous in regard to taxation. But in my Parliamentary experience he acted very differently as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  *MR. CHILDERS: I had to supply suddenly the war needs of the country up to eleven millions, and a Vote of Credit was essential.
  *LORD G. HAMILTON: The Government are not going to have recourse to a Vote of Credit. The right hon. Gentleman's observations amounted to this—that the Government ought to have had recourse to a loan.
  *MR. CHILDERS: I said the Government ought not to have recourse to a loan, but that this expenditure should be met out of ordinary taxation.
  *LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Then it comes to this—that the right hon. Gentleman would propose for the purpose of carrying out this programme, to put on an additional tax of three, four, or five millions one year, and take it off the next. That was a proposal which, although it might accord with so-called Parliamentary finance, would meet with the universal reprobation of all business and commercial men. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that there was another objection to the proposal of the Government, and it was that this Parliament would have the spending of the money, and the next Parliament would have the raising of the money. Now surely he cannot seriously advance that objection, because it is exactly what happened in 1885. He and his colleagues rushed into a very large shipbuilding programme and did not provide sufficient funds to carry it through, and the result was that next year there was a large and unexpected increase in the expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby did the best he could, but ultimately resorted to the old expedient and struck out of the Estimates something which was essential to the efficiency of those ships that were building, and the pen was drawn through the ammunition for guns with which they ought to have been provided. Let me illustrate the extreme danger of that proceeding. The particular class of ammunition not supplied was for quick-firing guns. Now, so closely balanced is the supply and demand of certain articles, that if once a deficiency arises it is years before it can be made up, and last autumn, when the Fleet was going through its manœuvres, the one class of ammunition which was deficient was that which the right hon. Member for Derby, or his subordinates by his authority, struck out, and the unfortunate First Lord of the Admiralty was assailed as an incompetent administrator because he did not supply a sufficiency

  1621
  of such ammunition. On page 6 of the Paper before the House, relating to Lord Northbrook's programme, hon. Members will see the number of new vessels then laid down. Independent of the vessels which were put out to contract, the cost was estimated to be £2,084,000; the provision for the commencement of these vessels in 1885–6 was £108,000; the future liability was £1,976,000; and, therefore, only 4 per cent of their cost was provided for. We propose to lay down vessels which will cost in the aggregate £16,100,000, and in the first year to make provision for spending upwards of £4,000,000. Well, that that is a right and sound policy no one can doubt, and that it would save money is indisputable. If it would give a better return and avoid taxation, are the arrangements of the Government to be upset for the sake of mere Parliamentary and financial pedantry? Then, Sir, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have a great objection to postponing charges. Have they never postponed charges themselves? There was a Fortification Fund that was raised by Parliament by a Bill and a loan, and later on there was a Localization Bill, for the purposes of which it was necessary to raise funds by a Bill and a loan. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite, however, when they raised certain portions of funds necessary by loan, always shirked it when it came to raising the remainder out of the Estimates, and year after year the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to put it on the Estimates. From every point of view, except that of Parliamentary pedantry, I claim that the plan of the Government is the right one For the first time the spending Department has been allowed to call in their experts and technical advisers, and we have been able to adopt a plan by which we have calculated the whole cost of the scheme which we have been directed to prepare for the sanction of Parliament. We have placed that scheme in its entirety before Parliament, and the Admiralty have practically entered into a contract with the Treasury. We have said—"Give us this money and we can build the ships and arm them, and we are prepared to abide by our side of the contract." No doubt it is a large recommendation. If we are wrong, we shall be held responsible to
  1622
  Parliament, and Parliament can blame us. But this is the first time that a scheme so calculated and framed has been laid before Parliament, and the first time any arrangement of this kind has been entered into between the Treasury and the Admiralty. I do not take credit for this new businesslike procedure. The credit is due to the fact that there were, at the head of the Treasury, men who have enjoyed experience in connection with the great business and spending Departments. I have always regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) was never associated with a spending Department, because the right hon. Gentleman can hardly realize the difficulties which they have to encounter. I remember when the noble Lord the Member for Paddington left the Government the right hon. Gentleman expressed the highest approval of the course adopted by the noble Lord. It was said that it was a great mistake for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to go into details. But it is just that policy of not going into details which has caused so much waste of money in the past. If the House is prepared, as it was the other day by an overwhelming majority, to give approval to the programme of the Government, for Heaven's sake do not let us dissociate it from a businesslike or practical procedure.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I hope, Sir, that the House will recollect that this is strictly a financial debate. The objections taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers), in his very comprehensive speech, were entirely financial objections. He has been followed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, who has adduced what he thinks conclusive reasons from other quarters in favour of his general plan. But he has not met, nor attempted to meet, any of the objections of my right hon. Friend upon the finance of this question, and those objections remain down to this moment absolutely without reply. That being the case, I shall not repeat what has been said by my right hon. Friend. I will advert to one or two matters stated by the noble Lord, and I will endeavour to state clearly to the House what are the points upon which issue is now raised. The object and purpose of

  1623
  this debate have been entirely obscured and darkened by the noble Lord, who says that he understands right hon. Gentlemen on this Bench to take no objection to the amount of expenditure now under discussion. I am not aware that right hon. Gentlemen on this Bench have arrived at any collective resolution on that subject. For my own part, I must own that I am not aware of a sufficient justification for this large expenditure. At the same time, I am aware that Her Majesty's Government have means of information and judgment on this subject such as I do not possess, and I do not think proper to take upon myself the responsibility of refusing on a question of confidence, as this necessarily is, a demand made by the responsible advisers of the Crown. I speak only for myself; it is the view I take. I own there is great force in many of the arguments that have been used, and I am not prepared to challenge, as the Leader of the Opposition in this country, a great Party and Parliamentary issue upon a question which, it appears to me, must depend in the main upon the responsibility of the Government, and which I am disposed to that extent to leave in their hands. So much as regards the amount of expenditure; but I entirely agree with the noble Lord that that matter, be it small or great, is in no degree in question at the present time. The question is as to the mode of making provision for that expenditure. What says the noble Lord? He says the object of the plan is to expedite shipbuilding, and he treated the speech of my right hon. Friend as if my right hon. Friend had objected to expedite shipbuilding; but there is no objection taken to the expediting of shipbuilding. On the contrary, we are disposed to agree that whatever ships are laid down should be carried forward with all possible expedition to their completion. That matter has been treated as if it were a matter at issue between us; but upon it, so far as I know, there is no difference of opinion at all. Then the noble Lord also says that his policy has been to place before the House the entire scheme of the Government. Neither to that proposition do I care to take any objection whatever. If the noble Lord has found it his duty to propose the commencement of a plan
  1624
  which is to occupy several years in its execution, I do not object to his endeavouring to obtain the assent of Parliament to the general groundwork of that plan, and to give to that assent all the weight that can be given to it by the proposition of the Government, by full discussion, and by the deliberate assent of Parliament. Now I come to the point which is really at issue between us. It is a question whether the wants of the year ought to be provided by the free judgment of the House of Commons, and provided with reference to the expenditure of the year. The noble Lord says that it is financial and Parliamentary pedantry to hold that the wants of the year ought to be furnished out of the supplies and provisions made for the year. Now, Sir, there it is we join issue with the noble Lord. That is what he denounces as Parliamentary and financial pedantry; and he says that there are a number of these financial and Parliamentary pedants sitting on this side of the House. I hope there are, but I am bound to say we have got on the present occasion a Leader. Our Leader does not sit on this side of the House; he sits on the other side. Our Leader does not sit on the Back Benches of the other side; he sits on the Front Bench. Nay, more, he is the oracle of the Government for financial purposes, and he is the Leader in the doctrines of financial and Parliamentary pedantry. Here are his express words, which have already been quoted to-night. He said—
  "I shall always adhere to the principle that the needs of the year should be met out of the revenues of the year."
  These are the words of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and these are the words which the noble Lord who sits by him has endeavoured to destroy. It is a rather awkward thing when one Cabinet Minister has to assail the fundamental doctrines of another. Unfortunately, in the contingencies of political life a necessity of that kind may arise. What I have to suggest is that when an operation of that kind is to be performed it ought to be performed with the utmost delicacy and gentleness. Strong language and antithetical and epigram-matical phrases are not adapted to the occasion, and if it was necessary for the First Lord of the Admiralty thus severely to deal with the Chancellor of

  1625
  the Exchequer, he might have been contented with making his arguments and drawing his inferences, but he ought not to have held the right hon. Gentletleman up to the world as the father and the leader of financial and Parliamentary pedantry. Financial and Parliamentary pedantry has been the guide of this country and of the Governments of this country in all the best financial times. The man who most of all laid down this doctrine of annual provision for the wants of the year out of the means of the year was the man who raised his own financial reputation to the highest point—namely, Sir Robert Peel—and raised it expressly and implicitly by maintaining that doctrine and by using all his eloquence and influence to induce Parliament to apply it. I will not refer to other periods, further than to say that the noble Lord's doctrine that taxation ought not to be raised to meet the wants of the year is, in my opinion, most dangerous and fatal to what I should call financial morality.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The right hon. Gentleman is labouring under a mistake; perhaps he will allow me to explain. I did not say that the wants of the year should not be met by the revenue of the year, but that financial pedantry was putting on five millions one year and taking them off next year.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am not aware of any case, apart from operations of war, where it has been necessary to put on five millions one year and then possibly take it off the next year. Am I to understand from the interruption of the noble Lord that he has receded a little from his doctrine of financial and Parliamentary pedantry in order to smooth a little the chastisement he has bestowed on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that he is even disposed to give a qualified adhesion to the words which I have quoted from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and which satisfy all our extremest exigencies, and even perhaps go a little beyond them—"I shall always adhere"—always—"to the principle that the needs of the year should be met out of the revenues of the year." No, Sir, such cases do not occur in a time of peace, and in the ordinary course of our operations, as having to impose five millions one year and take them off next. It may be quite true that in a great exigency (I do not
  1626
  know whether it was as great as is now supposed to exist, but no doubt the public opinion of the country deemed it a very great exigency), which arose in the years 1859 and 1860, you may say that five millions of taxation were put on. The noble Lord says that Liberal Governments have always flinched from proposing money to meet the expenditure of the year, but I should like to see the noble Lord come and propose an addition of 5d. on the income tax in order to meet the charges he is placing on the country, and then we shall see who is disposed boldly to confront the necessities of the country. In 1859–60 we did propose an income tax of 5d. to meet the wants of the country; and I am bound to say that I believe that imposition of 5d., in the then state of mind of the country, was considered a bold and a right and a wise act on the part of the Government. There was no removal of those five millions in the next year, but, by a great effort and a long course of labour continued through several years, the income tax was gradually reduced from 10d. in 1860 to 5d. or 4d., at which it was left in 1866 when we quitted office. The noble Lord has introduced a good deal of retaliatory matter and of tu quoque, which I must point out is one of the moat inconvenient and objectionable things on the part of a Government which is justly jealous of the time of Parliament. He is almost compelling us to take up the time of the House, when in this debate, without any relevance to the subject at all, he goes back to what was done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt), or sanctioned by myself, giving us thereby distinct provocation to go back on the discussion of these subjects and introduce a great number of important topics into the debate, which are much better excluded from it. [A laugh.] I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite will laugh if I say that that is a highly inconvenient practice on the part of a Government which is striving to save public time, if they really wish to save public time, as I am bound for Parliamentary purposes to suppose they do, but as to which I must own in my mind, sometimes, from practices like those of the noble Lord and other practices, I am tempted to entertain very considerable doubts. The noble Lord takes credit for not asking for a Vote of Credit

  1627
  on this occasion. It is not possible for him to ask for a Vote of Credit. If I understand a Vote of Credit, no Vote of Credit can be asked for in respect of expenditure which can be estimated for; but the noble Lord boasts that he has estimated for the whole of this expenditure, and having estimated for it, he must not take credit for not asking for such a Vote, because it is out of his power to do so according to the Parliamentary practice of this country. The point at issue is not expediting shipbuilding, which we regard probably as a good object; but what we conceive to be objectionable, as my right hon. Friend has shown, is the attempt of the noble Lord to withdraw five millions of money from the jurisdiction of Parliament. There are instances where it is right or allowable to proceed not by annual charge, but by loan, and the noble Lord thinks that he has made a point in referring to the case of 1860, when undoubtedly the provision made for the fortifications proposed by Lord Palmerston was made by a loan, and was not defrayed out of the annual Estimates of the country. That is quite true. I will not discuss the case of those fortifications now further than to say that the measure was unquestionably one demanded by the general and keen desire of the country. I hardly know a case where the country was more completely set upon a proposal, although many other things have occurred since. But the noble Lord must make this distinction. The legitimacy of resorting to a loan depends upon a fair consideration of the ability of the country to bear taxation. Where you have a very large increment indeed of your charge, you cannot go the whole length of providing—although the Chancellor of the Exchequer says you can—everything out of the resources of the year. What did we do? We added 5d. to the income tax—4d. in July, 1859, and another penny in February 1860; and, having done that, and having another charge to meet, we did think it was unreasonable to press the country to find every farthing for those fortifications out of the taxes of the year, and we used, therefore, a Supplementary Vote of Credit. Undoubtedly, as has been well said by my right hon. Friend, that was the best and the only course, not only in the judgment
  1628
  of Lord Palmerston but of the country. These fortifications were completely different in principle from an annual provision for our wants. They were in the nature, as was then supposed, of an addition to our permanent security, and the charge was one altogether analogous to one which cast a burden upon the State for the benefit of future generations. What we complain of in the present proposal is the withdrawal of these charges from the control not only of the present, but of a future Parliament. Three years hence, as I conceive, a new Parliament will be chosen. There are those who believe that the inclinations and ideas of that Parliament may be very different indeed from those of the present. But quite apart from speculations of that character, the true contention is that Parliament ought to be free. It is not desirable to bind, more than absolute necessity requires, the hands even of the present Parliament as to future years. The right and power of the Parliament is to judge the wants of the country from year to year, and much of the power and influence of this House, as well as the primary duty and obligation of the House, depends on the maintenance of that principle intact. But I must say it is going very much further indeed when, not satisfied with endeavouring to bind yourselves, you go beyond that, and endeavour to bind, by making charges on the Consolidated Fund, a future Parliament, as to expenditure of which you forbid it to be the judge, and of which our contention is that it ought to be the judge. What right have you to distrust Parliament? When has Parliament refused the reasonable, and even, perhaps, the unreasonable, demands of the Government? If the House of Commons has had a fault, it has been its extreme truthfulness and wonderful liberality, and its readiness to burden the country in deference to the demands of the Government. It is an ungenerous return, and necessarily, therefore, an unwise return, for the confidence so shown by the House of Commons to lay before it a plan by which you not only ask us to bind and forfeit our own discretion for coming years, but by which you likewise determine that a set of gentlemen who are to be elected by the country, we will say so far off as three years hence shall be also bound. If, as you on that side

  1629
  say, these wants exist, we on this side of the House contend that you ought to make provision for them now, out of the revenues of the year. I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the House, but I must just refer to the distinction between the two portions of this plan. The noble Lord wants to get statutory authority for his entire scheme, and he thinks he gets statutory authority under this Resolution and the Bill which will follow upon it. Now, I contend he will not. As I understand the Resolution, not one sixpence can be expended under it. The Bill will authorize the issue of ten millions from the Consolidated Fund, but the other and somewhat larger portion—namely, the 11 millions, which is to depend on Votes, cannot possibly be issued and charged on that Fund. Very well, the noble Lord has to trust the House of Commons for the 10 millions. Why not trust them for the £21,000,000? The noble Lord says he wants statutory authority for the plan, but he would have no statutory authority. You may give utterance to whatever magniloquence you choose, but it is of no force and of no avail whatever. Not one farthing can be spent in virtue of all the fine language that is used by the noble Lord, and our contention is that the House is entitled to this confidence. The House has always shown itself worthy of confidence, and the constitutional and the wise course is to repay the confidence of the House by similar frankness and trustfulness on the part of the Government. They have never been disappointed by the House; the House has never shown a disposition to take a niggardly course in matters affecting the defence of the country; and I think you will recognize the fact as men of business, as men of common sense, and not only as men of sound constitutional principle, that the solid basis of experience and the uniform practice of Parliament are in favour of showing you that you will be wiser in trusting to that solid basis of experience than in endeavouring to introduce new financial methods which savour, perhaps, of foreign finance. Foreign countries have not been so well habituated to regulate their balance from year to year as we have been happily accustomed to do, and it is to be hoped that, in fact, you will decline to depart from what
  1630
  is well known, and what has been well recognised all along, during the whole Parliamentary lifetime of all of us who sit here—certainly during my own Parliamentary lifetime—in making proper provision for the finances of the country. It has been clearly pointed out by my right hon. Friend—and it has not been denied—that £5,000,000 of the money, the expenditure of which is to be ordered by us, but the provision for which is to be made by the new Parliament, is, in fact—call it what you like—a loan. But you ought never to resort to a loan at all until you have exhausted the fair and just resources of annual taxation. When we had the income tax at 10d. in the pound in 1860, we thought we had exhausted those resources, and consequently we called in the aid of a loan; but with the income tax at 6d. in the pound, reduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year and the year before, it is absurd to say that you have exhausted those resources. There is no case for resorting to a loan. But you ought either to have declared that you would not do this, or you ought to make it known to the country that you are borrowing money which you leave to the next Parliament to pay. You, however, take it upon yourselves; you already presume, in defiance of all financial practice, in defiance of the Rules and precedents of this House, to take it out of the power of that Parliament to judge of the propriety of the expenditure which you are going to saddle upon it. We can protest against that altogether, but do not aggravate that offence by endeavouring to conceal it. You have placed this arrangement under a cover. None but the most expert financier, like my hon. Friend, after considerable labour, is able fully to understand the operation of this plan. It is an express departure from the principles of annual Supply to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has pledged himself in terms somewhat extreme; but the character of those terms being so extreme testifies to the profound nature of the convictions under which they were delivered by him, and the resolute determination which, in all circumstances, he should adhere to in giving them effect. This is done with no precedent—with no approach to a precedent. The noble Lord has not gone upon the case quoted by my right hon. Friend. As I have shown,

  1631
  the case of 1860 is no precedent. I leave that part of the speech of my right hon. Friend to produce its effect, in which he referred to stereotyping the judgment of Parliament on matters connected with the building of ships that are in a state of continual flux; but the grounds we have shown are, it appears to me, more than ample to induce the Government to modify, at all events, the method of their proceeding. I have said that you have nothing approaching to a precedent, but you are creating a financial precedent in this plan which is so bad that it contains in itself the seeds of future evil. There is scarcely any conceivable abuse in the finance of a country which may not be covered and justified by some future Government and by some future Chancellor of the Exchequer under the authority of what you are now inviting us to consider, both when that Government and that Chancellor of the Exchequer have no courage to look in the face the necessities of their position, and when they are endeavouring to flinch from the fulfilment of their known obligations and constitutional functions. On these grounds, entirely without reference to any question of the amount of this expenditure, I hope that the method of this provision will be seen by the whole House, to involve as it does constitutional and practical principles of the greatest possible importance; and we call upon the House, at all events within the bounds of moderation and practicability, to adhere to the sound principle which has been denounced by the First Lord, but which has been promulgated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—namely, that the wants of the year should be provided out of the Revenues of the year.
  MR. GOSCHEN: I will do my best to follow the injunctions of the right hon. Gentleman in the warning which he administered to my noble Friend, that whatever we do we should on no account carry the war into the enemy's camp. We are called weak-kneed, and we are to have every conceivable charge of financial incompetency brought against us, but we are not to be allowed to cite against hon. Gentlemen opposite precedents, which show that our proceedings are venial compared with some of the examples they have set us. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian has challenged us about fettering the freedom of the
  1632
  House, in providing the funds to pay for the ships put out to contract. The whole of those ships put out to contract are to be laid down at once. I hope that will modify the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman says he is as much in favour of expediting the shipping as we are. We cannot expedite it more, than by laying down the whole of the ships at once, and putting them out to contract. I could understand the argument of the right hon. Gentleman if we were going to put out half the ships to contract at once, and another half later on, but do right hon. Gentlemen understand that the whole of those ships put out to contract are to be begun at once? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian referred to the propriety of leaving the arrangements for payment to a future Parliament, and said that a future Parliament might be differently composed from this Parliament, and that it might not take the same view as we do. How does that advance his argument? We do not fetter the judgment of a new Parliament with regard to any ships put down in the £10,000,000 programme, because the ships are begun at once. So far as this amount is concerned, therefore, the question resolves itself simply into the question how these ships are to be paid for. The right hon. Gentleman said that a man might have a doubt as to whether this money was necessary for the defence of the country or not, but we have had a vote on the subject. I did not watch the Division List, and I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman voted on the one side or on the other, but we do know how many of his Friends are in favour of this programme, and how many of them are against it. Of course, there is a large neutral body who are at once unwilling to inform thei constituents that they are opposed to this programme and unwilling to vote in its favour; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, as the Leader of the Party, has given the country no indication, even to-night, as to whether he thinks we are right or wrong in proposing this programme. What was the meaning of the argument of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Childers), to which the Leader of the Opposition just called attention—that the House and the country would mark the extreme importance of waiting

  1633
  for the development of science? How can we wait, as is suggested, for the development of science? There really appears to be some confusion on this point in the right hon. Gentleman's mind. We consider that these ships should be laid down at once, because we want them to be ready to strengthen the defence of this country at the earliest moment. No doubt advantages have accrued and may accrue from delay. Developments of science may secure hotter ships being built, but what would be the result if, in the interval caused by the delay, war was to break out and find the ships not ready for the defence of the country, but still under the consideration of naval constructors and experts? The noble Lord has pointed out the length of time it takes to get these ships ready with their armaments and ammunition. I admit that there is some novelty in our proposal; but that novelty has been called for by bitter experience. Some change has been rendered necessary by its being proved to demonstration that the past system has been wasteful and extravagant, and has led to ships not being finished in time, and, when finished, being left without their proportion of armaments and ammunition. If it is a novelty it is, we consider, a businesslike novelty that the whole expenditure should be ascertained and provided for beforehand. The right hon. Gentleman claims that the freedom of Parliament shall be retained. But what does he mean by that? Does he mean that Parliament shall retain the right of cancelling the contracts? Future Parliaments can hape no discretion as to ships already begnn. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to what took place in 1859–60, when, to meet the panic of the day, the income tax was raised from 5d. to 10d. But the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to a more recent occasion when, in connection with the localization of the forces, a loan of £3,000,000 was raised. Why was that done? Why was that sum not thrown upon the Estimates of the year? I had the honour at the time of being associated with the right hon. Gentleman, and, if I remember rightly, the Estimates were already swollen by the abolition of purchase in the Army. But for all that the total charges of the year were not so heavy that the expenditure on localization might not easily
  1634
  have been provided for by votes But there was on that occasion none of this staunch adhesion to the principle which the right hon. Gentleman now regards as so important. The barracks which were then to be built were not regarded as coming within the term "needs of the year." They were treated as an abnormal addition to expenditure, and therefore it was not thought necessary that their cost should be defrayed out of the Revenue of the year. I think, therefore, I may say that our proposal is not unprecedented and irregular. On the contrary, it follows precedent, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that before initiating this proposal I looked carefully at what had been done in regard to the localization of the forces as a fairly analogous case to this. What we are about to do is to make up the arrears of past years. We have to make an exceptional effort to bring the armaments and ammunition to that state which we consider to be necessary, and I might add that the guns which will be constructed out of this expenditure may in some degree be regarded under present circumstances as being almost as permanentin their nature as the fortifications of Lord Palmerston. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and also the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh have referred to words which fell from me last Session to the effect that I considered that the needs of the year ought to be met out of the income of the year. The right hon. Gentleman triumphs and revels in that assertion of mine. But I am sure that, notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman's observation, it must be clear to every Member of the House that what I meant was not that the entire expenditure of every year ought to be met out of the ordinary Estimates, but that whatever was fairly chargeable for the necessities of the year ought to be so met. It would be a preposterous suggestion that whatever is spent in any given year must always be paid for in that year. Why, in the event of war, the words I used might with equal fairness be quoted as showing that I considered that the extraordinary expenses of a war in any year ought to be met out of the Revenue of that year. Everything depends on this—is the programme for which the money is required an ordinary programme?

  1635
  If it is, it ought to be met out of the ordinary Revenue of the year. If it is an abnormal programme—an effort to make up for the arrears of the past and anticipate the needs of the future—it is ridiculous to say that the expenditure ought not to be spread over a number of years. There are some persons, I know, who consider that this expenditure ought to be met by a loan, but we have not resorted to that method. If we have done anything that can in any sense be so described, all I can say is that it is the shortest loan ever raised for so great an effort. By our proposal the whole of it will be repaid by the end of seven years—it will therefore fall practically on the present taxpayers. I cannot, therefore, by any means assent to the description of our proposal as flabby and weak-kneed. It would, I think, have been better, perhaps, if this debate had been deferred until the Bill was in the hands of hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen. They could then have seen how careful we have been in so framing it as to retain the control of Parliament, so that no part of the funds shall be diverted in any degree from the particular purpose to which Parliament has destined them. I venture to say, whatever the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, whose great authority I entirely acknowledge, may be, that this is a business-like arrangement which will save money to the taxpayer, without introducing any new principle or any sort of financial laxity.
  *MR. HOWELL: This is an important question, and too important to be disposed of with only a brief debate, and I hope that not only Members on this side, but that many Members on the opposite side of the House, will support this Amendment, and for this reason—namely, that hon. Gentlemen opposite claim to be the Constitutional Party in this country; and now they are practically, by the method in which they are supporting this Vote, setting at defiance all Constitutional practice which has hitherto governed this country. Now, Sir, we have heard of Esau selling his birthright. I am not here to defend Esau for selling his birthright, but, at least, this can be said in his favour—that he sold his own birthright, although he thereby deprived his children of their inheritance. But, Mr. Speaker, we are, on this occasion, not
  1636
  only selling our own birthright, but we are selling that which we have no right to sell; we are selling the birthright of our constituents, because we are parting with their right of voting money for public expenditure year by year, and of apportioning that money in the way in which it is to be spent. We have no right, Sir, to anticipate the vote of our constituencies, and I venture to say that every Member of this House who votes for this measure, and thus ties the hands of Parliament in future Sessions, will, when he seeks re-election, be visited with the judgment of his constituents. Now, Sir, it seems to me that we are taking a very extraordinary course with regard to this enormous Vote of £21,500,000. It has been pointed out over and over again that, under existing conditions, the Shipbuilding Vote would be increased if it could be shown to be absolutely necessary, and if it could be proved that it was prudent in the interests of the country. On such occasions the House has never withheld its hand when money has been wanted for the Navy, but in this particular case the Government, by its reckless dealing with finances, is endeavouring to anticipate what the future Votes of this House will be, and what the future decisions of the constituencies may be with regard to shipbuilding. Talk about laying down ships; why, we are tying the hands of our successors, and, more than that, the new vessels have never yet been sanctioned by the experts of this country. On all sides experts disagree as to the style of ships to be built; as to the armour to be placed on them, and, to a considerable extent, as to the armament to be supplied. But, Sir we have to-night heard from the First Lord of the Admiralty one very tangible reason why this Vote should not be agreed to. He has told the House to-night of a number of ships lying idle, already built, but waiting for their guns, and yet, at the same time, he is asking this House for £21,500,000 for the purpose of laying down new ships, and for completing those ships, when guns are not to be found for those already built. I shall protest against this Vote so long as the measure is before the House, and until it has finally passed into law; and I shall do this for one reason, and that is the utter unreliability of the statements of the noble

  1637
  Lord with regard to the requirements of the Navy. We have reminded him over and over again of his statements made in this House, to the effect that there is practically no need for any extensive expenditure upon it. Yet now we are told that there is an absolute need; and, more than that, the need is so great that we must vote the money in this particular Session as quickly as we can, and tie the hands of not only future Sessions, but possibly of a future Parliament. Now, the noble Lord has challenged the statements with regard to what he said on previous occasions; and he has very recently referred to it as though it were ancient history. But what is the case? In the first place, Mr. Speaker, the noble Lord himself, over and over again in 1886, 1887, and 1888, spoke with regard to the actual condition of the Navy, and said it was equal to almost any purpose. I can refer the noble Lord to a speech he made in this House, in answer to the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone, so recently as March, 1888, in which he went into details with regard to the condition of the Navies in France, in Italy, and in Russia; and he compared the condition of the Navies of those countries with the condition of the Navy of this country. He said, practically, that we were ahead of those three nations combined, and he gave facts and figures in support of that statement. Yet, within 12 months of saying that, we are told that the Navy is in such a deplorable condition that it is not only necessary to spend £21,500,000 on it, but that it is absolutely necessary we should, in an unconstitutional manner, tie the hands of this and a future Parliament, in order to obtain a Vote of this money. And, Sir, there is another question—the question of responsibility. Now, we are to have our hands tied by this Act of Parliament with regard to the expenditure of this money, yet it is not yet settled by the Admiralty who is to take the responsibility for these vast engines of war, upon which three quarters of a million—and perhaps a million—will be spent. The Reports of Committees of this House show that the responsibility of the Admiralty is fixed upon no particular person or persons in regard to the expenditure for the equipment of the Navy, or with regard to any-thing
  1638
  else having reference to the Admiralty. On the contrary, the Committees of the House have agreed that the Admiralty itself, under existing circumstances, ought not to be trusted with these large sums of money to spend until it is reformed. Yet the noble Lord referred to these figures a day or two ago, in order to show the absolute necessity for this Vote. I say now, as I said at the time, that these figures were absolutely valueless. The noble Lord should have told us the exact state in which these ships were at the time they were drawn out; he should have shown what had to be completed and what had been completed. As it was, it was merely trailing a red herring across the path of the debate. And then, with regard to the noble Lord's declaration in this House, that there was no reduction of expenditure, that struck me as one of the most curious instances of forgetfulness I have ever heard in my life. If he himself refers to the statements which he made in this House in 1887 and 1888, he will find that he boasted of a reduction, and he ventured to assure this House, not merely in his speech, but also in his printed statement which was circulated to Members, that the then position of the Navy was such as to enable the reduction to be made not only at that particular time, but also at future periods. He has not corrected that statement as he has done many others in subsequent speeches, but even in his statement last year he referred to the statement he had made twelve months previously as a crowning piece of administrative reform; and he referred to the splendid condition of the Navy and the great improvements which had been effected. Now there is a turn in the tide of affairs. I should like to ask what has caused this change which has come over the spirit of the dream? Why, it seems to me, it is not far to seek. The noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone, and the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, and a few other Members, have been calling attention to the dilapidated state of the Navy, and the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty seems to have come to the conclusion that he was likely to lose the support of some of his friends, unless he took steps at once to strengthen the Navy. Now, many of us on this side of the House would be prepared

  1639
  to strengthen the Navy, provided always, firstly, that it was done in a Constitutional way, and so that there should be no wrench of the Constitutional practices of this House; secondly, that it should be done economically; and, thirdly, that the administration of the Navy should be put on such a footing that we should have confidence in the spending Department. Hitherto, we have been spending enormously the country's money without getting any real substantial return. We have been adding year after year to the Navy; we have been spending enormous sums, not only with regard to the general equipment of the Navy, but on the Shipbuilding Vote. During the last 21 or 22 years we have expended as much as seventy-one millions, yet we are now told that the Navy is in such a dilapidated condition that it is impossible for it to protect our commerce and to save the food of the people in case of war, unless this extraordinary expenditure of twenty-one and a-half millions is agreed to. Now, Mr. Speaker, I altogether call into question the position taken up by the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone and others, as to the absolute necessity of having this great expenditure for the purpose of protecting our Navy. I say that our commerce and our Mercantile Marine is capable of protecting itself, and would be able to protect itself even without the assistance of our men-of-war.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the question before the House is the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh.
  *MR. HOWELL: I will not pursue that question, Sir. I think I have stated the reasons why I strongly object to this Vote, and I support the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh, because I feel that it is an unconstitutional proceeding to tie the hand of this Parliament, and possibly of a successive Parliament, in regard to the expenditure of the public money; and I further object because it takes out of the hands of the constituencies the power of calling to account the Administrators of the day for the way in which they spend money on the Navy.
  MR. HANDEL COSSHAM: I want to protest against the
  1640
  breaking down of the great principle which I consider our forefathers struck such a heavy blow in favour of in the seventeenth century—namely, the right of Parliament to vote every year's expenditure. And now, if the House will be kind enough to listen to me for a minute or two—and I will not keep it longer—I desire to say that I felt I could not give a silent vote on this occasion. I support the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh on the distinct ground that the proposal of the Government is giving up the right of Parliament to control the expenditure of this country, and I think it is introducing a most unconstitutional and dangerous precedent. I am, therefore, going to give my vote in favour of the Amendment.
  The House divided:—Ayes 158; Noes 125.—(Division List, No. 63.)
  Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  *SIR J. PEASE: It might, perhaps, be more convenient, under many circumstances, to postpone the remarks I have to make upon this question until the Second Reading of the Bill; but I feel so strongly upon the matter, that I think it my duty to seize the first opportunity I can to address the House, and, so far as any remarks of mine are read in the country, to make my views upon the proposed enormous outlay on Her Majesty's Navy known to the country. During all the years I have had the honour of a seat in this House I have never known a question involved in so much fog as that now before the House. I listened with some interest to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman); but, whilst I admired his speech, and the energy with which it was delivered, it was not until near the end, if even then, that I was able to understand on which side of the fence he was going to climb down. There are three questions practically before us. Are we to spend this £21,500,000; next, how are we to raise the money; and next, on what class of ships are we to spend the money, if it is to be spent? I shall not trouble the House very long with comments on the two latter questions; but, with regard to the first, I desire to

  1641
  make a few remarks. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech—the one from which I hoped to get some light—was a kind of "Rule Britannia" speech—a speech we have heard over and over again in this House. He told us that, if Europe is to be at peace, England must be strong. He did not tell us how England is to be strong. It seems to me we have other ways of being strong than adding largely to our fighting force. There is the moral influence which, I trust, England possesses which gives us a force amongst the nations of the world, and which, in my opinion, is a better possession than even the ownership of large fleets and armies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer sat down without telling us that which we all wanted to know—who are we going to fight; for what are we making these preparations? If the Government desires to have the confidence and support of the House of Commons in financial matters they must be plain and open with the House. The first effects I found of the announcement of the Government that they propose to indulge in this large expenditure were paragraphs in the papers that other Governments were also proposing large expenditure to meet it, that we were entering once more into what was called by a right hon. Gentleman who sat for many years in this House a mad race of bloated armaments. I should not have risen to take part in this debate if I had not felt it to be my duty to protest against the needless panic and sudden alarm which seems to be worked up by the newspapers, and by members of the Services as to our not being sufficiently protected. We are going to spend our substance most unwisely, most needlessly, and I would almost say recklessly, and I am afraid that when we do this we get actually very little for our money. These round figures take us by surprise. So many millions sterling are to be spent in private yards, and so many in Government Dockyards. I have seen something of shipbuilding, but whenever I have seen a tender go out the figures are actually reduced to fractions. I think when the Admiralty are going to lay down these ships all at once that they ought to come to us with specifications much more carefully drawn and Estimates upon which we may rely. If we take the figures, they are very
  1642
  much more simple than they appear. The proposal of the Admiralty is to make the expenditure on the Estimates for 1888–9 a foundation, to ask this year £600,000 more for the Estimates, and to add to that sum a proportion of the 10 millions—£1,400,000. As I understand it, these 10 millions are in addition to the ordinary annual Estimates; and these 10 millions will be spent in a few years, comparatively—and the payment spread over seven years—bringing up naval expenditure to 15 millions sterling per annum. Now, contrast this with the expenditure of a few years ago. In the years 1870 to 1873—when naval expenditure had become a good deal higher than it once was—and in years of prosperity, too—when we could afford almost anything, naval expenditure very little exceeded, from year to year, 10 millions sterling; now we have got it up to 15 millions. In 1873 the naval expenditure was £9,500,000; but, by the present proposal, we are going to spend over the next four or five years 25 millions more! This is the ratio of increase in a comparatively few years, and I should like to ask—How far are we prepared to go? What has been the course of expenditure on the two Services since 1873? In 1873 the two Services reached a total of 23 millions. In 1880 the sum increased to 25 millions; in 1886 to £29,700,000; in 1888 to £30,400,000; and this year to 31 millions, with a special Estimate raising it to 32½ millions. The expenditure has gone up from 23 millions in 1873 to 32 millions at the present time, and that, too, as an hon. Friend reminds me, and as I know from experience, when shipbuilding is at least 30 per cent cheaper than it was 10 or 15 years ago. What has been doing in the Army all this time while the Estimates have been thus increasing? We have had the Regular Army, the Militia, the Volunteers, the Yeomanry increased from 519,000 in 1878 to the present total of 622,000. A hundred thousand more men than we had a few years ago and in a time of perfect peace! We have raised the Naval Forces from 70,000 to 90,000. Our normal Army and Navy expenditure has crept up from 23 millions to 30 millions, and our Army and Navy from 590,000 to 712,000 men. Whilst we have had this enormous

  1643
  increase in the annual Estimates, we have had a large number of special Votes I have not taken into consideration. The Abyssinian Expedition special Vote cost £185,000. The Ashantee War cost £927,000. The Russo-Turkish War involved us in an expenditure of 3½ millions—the South African Wars £5,300,000. The Afghan War cost 3 millions, irrespective of the expenditure borne by India. The Egyptian War cost £3,895,000, and the Gordon Relief Expedition £300,000. The localization of the forces cost us £592,000 and the Indian Army pensions £450,000. Then we have about 10 millions more added to the expenditure I have alluded to for naval and military operations, 1886, and we end with £10,000,000 for the Navy. When we look at the list of wars and things in which this country has been engaged, can any man get up and say there were more than one or two of them justifiable under any circumstances whatever? Then we have had Lord Wolseley, who is said to be our only great General, advocating conscription straight off. He was contradicted, I know, by the Commander-in Chief a few days afterwards, but Lord Wolseley laid down the necessity and advantage of that which I believe is utterly distasteful to every Englishman—enforced service in the Army and Navy. Many years ago a wise man said there were three daughters of the horse leech ever crying "Give, give," and it seems to me the insatiable spirit has passed into these Services. We are told the great principle on which we should proceed is to make our Navy equal to the Navies of any other two nations; but the Secretary to the Admiralty and the First Lord have made clear statements to the country to show that we already have a Navy up to that standard. How far are we to run this principle of making our Navy equal to the Navies of any other two Powers? If France is going to spend two millions on her Navy and Russia two millions, are we immediately to spend four millions, or, if they spend four millions each, is our expenditure at once to rise by eight millions? Where is this mad race in expenditure to cease? Is there to be no limit in the principle laid down? Show me your foreign policy that makes this increased expenditure on our armaments necessary? I believe if we had done many things that
  1644
  you have done we should have been accused of trailing the flag of England in the dust, and all that sort of thing. What, I ask, is the foreign policy that requires, all this expenditure? Is it France, is it Russia, is it Germany, that gives you all this anxiety. It cannot be America, because we are on perfectly good terms with the Republic, and the transactions in relation to the Alabama arbitration of recent years have put us on a better footing with them than ever we were before. In reference to the principle laid down for the strength of our Fleet, I may ask, have we ever engaged in a Continental war without an Ally? Hardly, I think, and certainly not of late years. At Waterloo the Prussians came to our assistance, and in the Crimean War we had, in addition to our Turkish Allies, France and Sardinia by our side. Are we going to quarrel with Germany about the Samoan Question? I am glad to see from the evening papers that the German Emperor is coming on a visit to this country; the friendly relations we have always had with Germany ought to sedulously be maintained. I further learn that His Majesty has expressed a desire while in England to see a review of the British Fleet at Spithead. If we are afraid of the intentions of Germany, would we submit our naval strength to the German Emperor's inspection? I do not entertain for a moment the idea of a quarrel with Germany. Do you apprehend danger from France in her present unfortunate position? France has a Consolidated Debt of 970 millions and a Floating Debt of 728 millions. Can any real danger be apprehended from France, with her Debt of 1,600 millions, on which a yearly interest of 54 millions is paid, and with her 24 changes of Government in the course of 19 years? How long could France afford to be at war? It is said that money can always be raised for war. We raised a great deal for our War Debt at 54 per cent, and much has been done by the admirable administration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to redeem it; but I see no apprehension of danger from France. Are we going to spend money to meet imaginary dangers, while every £10 thus taken from the pockets of the taxpayers are £10 taken from the trade and property of the country, and would become reproductive? These ten

  1645
  millions will be absolutely wasted so far as productive industry in the country is concerned, absolutely wasted in the building of ships, and which would otherwise go into the arts and industries of peace, increasing the happiness and prosperity of the country. You employ the money in work that adds nothing to national wealth and prosperity, and such money is wasted unless absolutely required for purposes of safety. I believe there is not a man in this House, on whichever side he sits, but long since came to the conclusion that a good deal of the money spent upon the Navy has been absolutely wasted. The hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir E. J. Reed) says the 17½ millions of money spent on the Navy since 1881 have been wasted, and goes on to say that no single ship can be trusted to perform in war the services for which this money has been spent. If anyone goes down to Chatham he will see ships lying there side by side, and rotting day by day. ["No!"] Well, rusting then. ["No!"] Well, I have seen ships lying there on which heaps of money have been spent, and which have never gone to sea.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I am sure the hon. Gentleman is under an entire mistake. There are no vessels rusting or rotting at Chatham which have not been to sea.
  An hon. MEMBER: Portsmouth, then.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: Or Portsmouth. There are some old wooden vessels which never went to sea because steel and iron superseded them; but that was 30 years ago.
  *SIR J. PEASE: I am speaking, Sir, of what I have seen myself but a few years ago. Well, it seems to me that we ought to be very much more confident than we are of the general strength of our position. We have a very loyal people; there is only one part of the Empire which gives us concern, and I believe, if we were able to govern that country a little more in accordance with the views of its inhabitants, we might strengthen our forces by withdrawing from it all the soldiers and policemen who are there in time of public danger. We have enormous power in our Dockyards, and an enormous Merchant Fleet which, in time of war, could be used for bringing in provisions or for any other purpose.
  1646
  I believe there is on both sides of the House a great and firm desire to keep the peace in Europe. No doubt we have had several of our newspapers raising a cry of alarm recently about our want of strength, but those things have been disposed of in speeches made by right hon. Gentlemen in this House time after time. I want to know from the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir J. Fergusson) what has been done in the Foreign Office? Has the Foreign Secretary asked the Governments with whom we are on friendly terms to agree on some plan whereby the present insane rivalry may be averted? Sir Robert Peel, who was a man whose opinions were respected on all sides of the House, said a great many years ago that it is of no advantage for one Power greatly to increase its Army and Navy, as other Powers will follow the example, and the consequence must be that no increase of relative will accrue to any one Power, but there must be universal consumption of the resources in every country in military preparations. He said also it was the true interest of Europe to come to some accord, so as to enable every country to reduce its military armaments, which belong to a state of war rather than to a state of peace. Now, Sir, I ask, has not the time come when our Foreign Office may take this question and bring it before the Powers of Europe? We have all of us seen, in private life, when neighbours are disputing on various matters, and when both seem very anxious to go to law, and both are consulting their solicitors and taking counsel's opinion, if some neighbour stepped in and suggested a better way of settling their difficulties than fighting them out, both are perfectly willing to avoid that which they saw would only cost them terrible annoyance and expense. As with men, so, I believe, with nations. If we attempted such a course as I have described, we should find that there was a readiness on the part of the European Governments and countries who, like ourselves, hesitate about the constant expenditure upon armaments in times of profound peace, to adopt some plan whereby the expenditure might be avoided. The hon. Member for the Leigh Division of Lancashire the other night spoke of a clause which is in the Treaty of Paris

  1647
  relative to arbitration. Surely that clause has already been in use amongst the nations of Europe, and will be in use again in case of any emergency. I may differ from many hon. Members in the light in which I view war, but I feel sure that we have some common ground on which we stand. Everyone, I believe, and especially those who have seen the most of war, will readily admit that it is a gigantic evil, that it ought to be avoided if possible, that everything; that war produces is opposed to every lesson of the moral law, and to the spirit and letter of the religion we profess. This being so, surely this House ought to hesitate in an expenditure, the tendency of which must be for war, and which might, at least, be postponed until we are assured by the Government that every means have been tried of bringing about a better state of things. I ask the House to hesitate. Whilst we push forward we can never produce the result which we desire. Precept as to pulling up in this mad race of armaments will never bear fruit until it is accompanied by example. I am sorry ever to put the House to the trouble of a Division, but I feel on this occasion I should only discharge my duty in endeavouring to negative the Motion.
  *MR. PICKERSGILL: I am in favour of an efficient and sufficient Navy. The reason why I oppose the proposition of the Government is simply that they have not advanced any reasons whatever for the expenditure they ask us to embark upon. I am the more confident in making this statement now, because only an hour ago my Leader, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) said precisely the same thing in different words, adding that the Front Opposition Bench had not expressed a collective opinion upon it. I confess I heard that statement with some surprise after the events of Monday night. When, as Teller with the hon. Member for Haggerston (Mr. Cromer), I saw right hon. Gentleman after right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentleman after hon. Gentleman who occupy seats on the Front Opposition Bench pass me on their way out from the Government Lobby, I confess I drew the inference, and I think the country drew the inference, that our Front Opposition Bench had formed a
  1648
  collective opinion on this question of expenditure, and that by casting their votes for the Government on that occasion they had in the most effective way expressed that opinion. It appears now that in the course they took on Monday night our leaders were not acting in pursuance of a common plan arranged by those who ordinarily act together, but were merely expressing their own personal opinion, and I am sure they will be indebted to us for the opportunity we shall presently afford them of reconsidering their position. I revert now to a question I raised on Monday night, but which owing to the rather unfair treatment I received from Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite, did not receive the attention to which I think it was entitled. It is obvious that the strength of your Navy depends entirely upon the duties it will be called upon to perform, and upon the conditions under which in the event of war that war will be carried on. On Monday I called attention to a paragraph in the report of the Admirals respecting the Naval Manœuvres, a paragraph in which they distinctly suggested that in case of a maritime war we should repudiate the Declaration of Paris. I regard that as a discreditable and also as an impolitic statement. I pass by for the moment the great breach of public faith which is involved, and I fasten upon the impolicy of that proposal. I believe the Declaration of Paris to be founded, not less on reason and humanity, than upon the best interests of this country. The House is no doubt aware that one of the greatest nations on the globe, the United States of America, declined to accede to the Declaration of Paris, but why, because it abolishes the right of privateering, and it is obvious that to a country which has not a large established Navy that right is one which ought not to be hastily or rashly abandoned, but the United States has said over and over again that it is quite willing to abandon that right, on condition that private property is exempted from capture in war. I think this is an excellent occasion to impress on the Government the great duty of doing what they can, not to threaten to repudiate the Declaration of Paris, but to extend its operations, and I ask them in conclusion to approach other powers with a view to the revision of the Declaration of Paris,

  1649
  in the direction of exempting private property from capture by belligerents.
  MR. HANDEL COSSHAM: During the short time I have had experience of this House I have come to the conclusion that there are two classes of men whose opinions in matters of expenditure we should not take too much account of—namely, those who occupy official and ex-official positions, and the admirals and colonels who have a very large interest in the plunder derived from the expenditure. Official life seems to change the best of men; and, believing, as I do, that we have on the front Opposition Bench some of the best men in the country, I can only account for their deterioration by the fact of their having held office. I not only protest against this expenditure itself, but I protest against our being asked to vote it without any attempt on the part of the Government to justify it. It would be an entire abdication of our functions as Members of Parliament if we were to lavishly vote the money of the people blindly and without any justification being shown by the Government. It used to be the proud boast of this House that it was the only assembly in the country that had control of the public purse; but I feel that if this proposition be passed in the shape in which it is proposed, the House will have abdicated to a very large extent the functions on which it has hitherto insisted. If the words which have been put into the mouth of Her Gracious Majesty in the past have any meaning, there can be no justification for this expenditure. I also strongly object to this proposal because I have no faith in the men who are to spend the money. Every investigation we have into matters relating to the Admiralty seems to me to prove that those who administer the Admiralty are the most incompetent and the most wasteful portion of the community. My constituents have sent me here to protect the national purse, and it seems to me that to trust a body of this character with this large sum would be against every possible fact which has been brought before us. I do not often agree with the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) but I do agree with him in his statement that the Admiralty are the most incompetent
  1650
  and extravagant body with which the country has had to deal. My experience of the past is that the more money we spend the more we have to spend, because before any long period has elapsed Ministers come down to the House, tell us that the money has been spent wrongly, and that we must provide more. I venture to say that five years after this money has been granted we shall have Gentlemen getting up from both Front Benches and declaring that the money has been absolutely wasted, and that we must vote £20,000,000 more. Then, I ask, if this expenditure is necessary now, why was it not necessary a few years ago? There is no change in the circumstances, so far as I can understand. We were told two years ago by the noble Lord (Lord G. Hamilton) that not only was the expense in the Navy sufficient, but that there would be a reduction. We shall now have to pay at least 25 per cent more for this money then if we had obtained it two years ago, and I contend, therefore, that the Government have been very lax in not putting the proposition before us on a previous occasion. Again, it seems to me that the fashion of ships is always changing, and I think we ought to hesitate before spending £21,000,000 on ships which many of the experts declare to be of bad design. The fashions of ships change like the fashions of clothes, and a man is not more justified in spending a large sum in ships which may be wanted years hence than he is in buying a large stock of clothes which will not be wanted until the fashions have probably changed. So far as I can make out, the proposal is that we should spend about £2,000,000 a year more on the Navy than we have spent in the past. I confess I can see no justification for such an extraordinary proposal. There is a great deal of mystery about the whole thing, and I say, if the proposed increase in our Navy is necessary, let us pay as we go. The fact is, that whenever the Tories are in office it means more expenditure and more taxation.
  An hon. MEMBER: Does it?
  MR. H. COSSHAM: Yes, it does; and the whole history of the country shows it, the general result being that when they have spent the money they leave it as a legacy for posterity to pay. One of the greatest burdens we labour

  1651
  under to-day was put upon us by a past Tory Government—a burden almost sufficient to crush the life-blood out of the people. Depend upon it, the day is coming when the expenditure of this country and the burdens we put upon the people will become more than they will submit to. That expenditure is growing enormously, and, if this sort of thing continues, the question must force itself to the front—"Who is to pay it?" Will not the enfranchised democracy demand that commerce and industry alone shall not be called on to pay the cost, but that real property shall be made to bear a much larger share of the country's expenditure than it has had to bear in the past?
  An hon. MEMBER: Question, question!
  MR. H. COSSHAM: That is the question. I say the question will be whether this increased expenditure will not compel real property to bear its fair share of the burden. The question before us at this moment is whether we shall spend an additional twenty-one millions on our Navy, and I say that this will force to the front the question of who will have to pay—who shall be called on to bear the burden? The country will not consent to bear it as it has hitherto done, and a much larger share will, as I have said, be put on real property. If, instead of lending itself to the principle which leads to the creation of the most ships and the largest army, the country will only adopt the principle of trying to get other nations to settle their differences by arbitration, the glory will be ours and the greatest benefits will accrue to the human race. In conclusion I have only to say that I shall vote against the expenditure now proposed by Her Majesty's Government, and I think they would have been well advised if, instead of asking for a further extension of our Navy, they had endeavoured to prune down our Dockyard expenditure, and thus to save from the extravagant outlay on that Department the money that may be required for any reasonable addition to our Fleet.
  MR. EVANS: I desire to put before the House a question which must deeply affect the expenditure upon our Navy, and which has not yet been alluded to by those who have taken part in the debate. In doing this I shall have to quote the remarks that have been made on prior occasions by one or two
  1652
  of the Members of this House. In the Times of the 9th of March there is a letter from the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) in which the noble Lord said—
  "For the purposes of effectually strengthening the Navy there is again universal agreement as to the absolute necessity for precise information as to the duties which the Navy ought to be expected to perform in the event of war with one or other of the European Powers."
  That is as to the duties the Navy may be expected to perform in time of war. Then, again, in the Times of the same date, there is a letter from the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone (Lord C. Beresford), who says—
  "I then made it perfectly clear that the 74 ships I asked for were necessary for defence of our commerce and to insure the delivery of our food supply and raw material in case of a war with France alone, if we are to adopt the only right principle—viz., 'to watch, and, if possible, destroy every warship of an enemy.'"
  And, beyond this, there is the First Lord of the Admiralty, who is reported in Hansard as having said—
  "We are the carriers of the sea-borne products of the world, and it is utterly impossible to suppose that we should be able to protect our main trade routes."
  To what do these remaks all point, unless it is that the Admiralty are not able to define the duties the Navy will be expected to perform, but that they are setting aside a certain amount of naval power for the protection of the maritime commerce of the country. I propose to show that all the expenditure which is made in that direction is useless, and can be of no avail in any circumstances whatever. I am second to no man in my desire to have a thoroughly effective Navy, but I cannot go with the hon. Baronet who has cited Cobden with a view of showing that peace can be maintained without such aids; and, as he has called in Cobden as a witness, I will call him in too, and remind the House that he once said—"If you want to have peace in England you must have the supremacy of the sea." I am unfortunately familiar with the terrible devastations of war. I know what war means and what it would mean to this country, and I may add that the county I live in would be one of the first to suffer in case of a European conflagration. It will, therefore, be understood that if I say anything against

  1653
  the Vote, I am quite alive to the great risk incurred if any mistake is made. The First Lord of the Admiralty has said we are the carriers of about seven-elevenths of the produce of the world, and the First Lord is about right. What would be the effect of war upon this maritime commerce? There are two occasions which may be taken to form our judgment on this point—the American War, and the scare about Russia three years ago. When war intervenes, it does so by creating a war premium, which has to be paid on what is carried. You have the capital invested in the ships and the capital invested in the cargo, and every charge that has to be made in order to keep a ship going must be sustained by the cargo. When, therefore, war takes place, the cargoes have to pay a war premium. Well, what does that premium amount to? Before the American Civil War of 1860 the Mersey was full of American clippers. The Americans were our great competitors in the North Atlantic carrying trade; in fact, they had rather the better of it. The first premium that was paid as a war premium was only 5s.; but when the Alabama and Shenandoah came out the premium advanced until it reached as high as £40. It does not require any great amount of intelligence to know that such a premium as that absolutely killed the Mercantile Marine of America. Of course it might have been possible to have resuscitated it; but the reason why it was not was this: the enormous cost of the civil war made it necessary to raise an enormous amount of taxation. The Americans taxed everything, including steam engines and iron; and the result was that as we were at that time passing very rapidly into the steam system of carrying, no American could build a steamer at anything like the price that we could, so that it became impossible for America to compete with us in the carrying trade of the world. Then the navigation laws of America prevented the Americans from buying snips in foreign countries and sailing them under the American flag, and the result was that we were left as carriers of the main commerce of the world. Having alluded to the effect of the increased premium of insurance, I now come to the scare as to a war with Russia. Although that was only the
  1654
  faintest suspicion of a scare, it resulted in a premium of 15s. per cent. on our main trade routes. Now let us take the case of a great war. So great is our superiority in regard to our Mercantile Marine, not only in speed and efficiency, but also in numbers, that I should think between 80 and 90 per cent of the fast steaming vessels of the world belong to this country. In the case of a small war the Mercantile Marine of England would be the masters; but the effect of a great war—and it is in contemplation of the possibility of a great war that this expenditure is to be incurred—would be to destroy the whole of the Mercantile Marine of this country. When the First Lord of the Admiralty tells me it is utterly impossible to suppose that the whole commerce of the world is coming to an end through the action of 20 or 30 cruisers, I will tell the First Lord of the Admiralty he does not know what he is speaking about. When the merchants of England find it impossible to bring their goods under the flag of England owing to the extra war premiums, the cruisers the Admiralty are going to build will wander along the main trade routes, the sole carriers of the English flag. It is said the British people possess such pluck they will face that state of things; but it is not a question of pluck; it is a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. It is a great pity that, with regard to our one line of defence on which we ought to be unanimous, we have no confidence in the administration of the Admiralty. There is no sacrifice which any man who has once seen a war would not make to stop the invader from putting his foot on our shores. What is the policy of the Admiralty? They are going to build 70 ships all at once. If a manager of any of our great companies were to say, as the First Lord of the Admiralty has said, he proposes to lay down at once a fleet of 70 vessels, he would not long remain in the position of manager. The policy of the great companies is to put down just as few vessels as is necessary, and then watch for improvements. No more suicidal policy can be devised than to lay down 70 vessels on a fixed plan, which the improvements of the next few years might render obsolete. I am sorry I have such a lack of confidence in the administration of the Admiralty that I

  1655
  feel constrained to vote against the Resolution.
  SIR W. LAWSON: I desire to thank my hon. Friend who has just spoken for the contribution he has made to this debate, and I may add that a great many of those who sit on this side of the House were glad to hear the Leader of the Opposition say that, in his opinion, the large sum asked for by the Government is not necessary. This is encouraging, and we are further encouraged by the Division we have taken on the constitutional question. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House present themselves in two different aspects on this question. They are like the Attorney General, who appears in two characters. They say one thing in one character and another thing in another. When they are addressing the people on public platforms outside this House they represent one state of things, and when they come here they represent another. I was lately looking at what was once written by the great statesman we have just lost—Mr. John Bright. He was writing about the Liberal Government of the day, and he said—
  "The Government has fallen prostrate before men whose whole idea seems to be to add indefinitely to Army and Navy expenditure—every million added increases the power to demand more, and lessens the power of the people to resist. I fear we are, as indeed all Europe seems to be, hastening to some great catastrophe from which, in our blindness, there is no escape; and we are helpless to resist or complain, because the Ministers who consent to the growing madness are our friends. If our opponents were in office, the Liberal Party would be asked to avert or to lessen the evil; as it is, we are blindly led, and we blindly follow."
  Now, our opponents are in office, and I hope—I would like to believe—that they will take a different course in future. The late Prime Minister said to-night that this expenditure was not called for; yet I see these hon. Gentlemen have been voting for it. I think it was a Vote of Confidence in Her Majesty's Government, because the noble Lord when he brought in his scheme said distinctly, and very properly, that it was introduced on the responsibility of the Government, and the Government alone. And he explained their policy—namely, an expenditure on the Navy and naval armaments of £21,500,000. Now, I object altogether to that policy. If you are to consider what forces there
  1656
  are in the world available to attack you, then there is no limit to the expenditure which you will be required to incur against every possible contingency which may occur. That seems to me a senseless policy—it takes into consideration nothing of the circumstances of the time. It makes no estimate of possibilities; it ignores the negotiations which you may make to avoid quarrels; it shows you have no trust whatever in those Ambassadors whom you maintain at very great expense throughout the whole world; it is certainly a Vote of Want of Confidence in the whole diplomatic body. I said I would not keep you to-night long. The noble Lord (Lord G. Hamilton) said the other night, "I have heard it all before," and I told him that he would hear it again, and he will hear it again both in this House and in the country, until either he or some of his colleagues give us some sort of reason for this most extraordinary proposition now before the country. Mr. O'Connell used to say that he went on repeating the same sort of thing over and over again until the echo of his words came back from the lips of his opponents. I have heard a great many echoes in my lifetime, and perhaps I may hear one from the noble Lord before he has done. I ask him again, because he has given no sort of answer, against whom are you arming? The noble Lord sits dumb, mute, inglorious upon that Bench. If you do not tell the country against whom you are making these preparations, no one will believe you when you say it is for the defence of the country. They will believe it is for something else. I believe you have got the idea into your heads on that side of the House, and some on this side, that it is a very popular thing to go up and down the country crying, "We are all for a strong Navy;" but I say you cannot separate the Army from the Navy, for both are parts of the preparations for war. If you have a strong Navy, you release your soldiers to go about committing raids, annexations, and robberies in every quarter of the globe. I consider that preparation is the first step to war. But now I am very glad to be able to quote what war is. I read in an article written by the

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  noble Lord (Lord Charles Beresford) a few words of Lord Brougham, in which the noble Lord said be entirely coincided—
  "I do abominate war as un-Christian. I believe it to be the greatest of human crimes. I believe it to include all others—violence, blood, rapine, fraud."
  But what does our only General, Lord Wolseley, say in his "Soldier's Pocket Book"?—
  "We will keep hammering away at the counsel that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentences do well for the child's copybook; but the man who acts upon them in war had better sheathe his sword for ever."
  Do you think that you need prepare for war after you have heard that from your only General? Who has got up this scare? That is one thing which puzzles me very much; ever since this measure was introduced I have been puzzled over that. I have lived through a great many scares that have had some shade of foundation or other—either French Generals swaggering across the water, or Russians taking possession of rocks and sand somewhere, and which nobody wanted, or the great armies of the Continent becoming dangerous. Because these great armies are fighting one another, then that is the very time they will fall upon us. A more extraordinary idea I never heard of. I have come to the conclusion that the whole thing has been got up by the London newspapers. Everybody knows that the London newspapers are always wrong. I remember reading the incident of Diogenes who, when his town was preparing for war, rolled his tub up and down the streets, and, when asked the reason, he said, "Why, everybody is busy; I ought to do something." The noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) is the modern Diogenes, clamouring, shrieking, and hallooing up and down the country, making a great stir, and making speeches "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It is the greatest puzzle to me how this case has been got up. Perhaps someone on the other side will enlighten me. At any rate, we are out-voted to-night. I hope, however, the front Opposition Bench will keep in the good way. I will do my best to keep an eye upon them, for I think the country will watch which
  1658
  way they go to-night, especially after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. But whatever they do or say, I am happy to think there is a certain number of Radicals left in this House who on every occasion, by their voice and their vote, will oppose this most mischievous scheme, one of the most odious which the classes have devised for the robbery of the masses.
  MR. ILLINGWORTH: I think the House is to be congratulated on the altered tone of this debate. I am sure before to-night the character of the discussion was one altogether unworthy of the House of Commons. The question was as to the expediency of spending £21,500,000 in a lump sum for the extension of the Navy, and the debate fell into a wrangle between experts as to how the money was to be expended if the House were willing to grant it. It seemed to me at that stage that the question was whether the money should be spent at all or not. Now, Sir, it is a very singular thing, so far as I know, that not one Member north of the Trent, not a single Member from the districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, who are very largely interested in the foreign commerce of this country, and in keeping uninterrupted the routes of our trade, has risen in his place to say one word in favour of the proposal of the Government for this increased expenditure. [An hon. MEMBER: Palmer.] The hon. Member (Sir. C. M. Palmer) can not be included; his case is isolated; he is a builder of war-ships himself; and as soon as he has concluded his contract for Spain he will be able to take up contracts for the First Lord of the Admiralty. You have the singular phenomenon in this debate that the men who are interested in our commerce, which is supposed to be in danger, have not taken part in it. Mr. Speaker, it cannot be denied that this is a very serious proposal, though it is

  1659
  true that the figure of £21,000,000 has been put in an exaggerated form. I am entitled to speak, as a Member who has unfortunately had to withstand previous scares in which money has been spent in a lavish, senseless manner, as we are about to do in the present case. Besides, I am personally interested for the supply of a large industry with which I am connected in the safety of our Mercantile Marine, as are other representatives of various districts in the North. Therefore, what is advanced by those connected with the North of England may be considered as worthy of some attention by Her Majesty's Government. There are, I think, three grave objections to this proposal. The noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), when these figures were announced, said he believed they would create the greatest possible alarm abroad. To let it go forth to the world that we are going to spend £21,000,000 is a piece of bluster; what could be more childish than to present such a view of such a scheme to the civilized world? But I believe the time is most inopportune for such a declaration on our part. There is no doubt whatever that the state of Europe is one which cannot fail to cause anxiety to every reflective mind. I believe, with our departed Friend Mr. John Bright, that a catastrophe is before us. The Minister for War, addressing his conetituents not long ago, said there was a war cloud hanging over Europe, and that it might burst at any moment. I think there is a great deal to be said for that view of the right hon. Gentleman, and I have come to the conclusion that it is simply impossible for the civilized nations of Europe to keep up their expenditure upon armaments indefinitely. The time must be fast approaching when it will be found that the taxpayers of any one of the Continental States have no longer patience to bear these increasing burdens. The state of tension is such that the slightest accident may cause a conflagration all over Europe. Well, Mr. Speaker, I suppose that is the very reason why we are proposing to increase the Navy. I venture to differ altogether from a policy of that kind. The hon. Member for Oldham the other night asked what
  1660
  was the reason for this increase of the Navy. I say it is a reflection upon the House of Commons that any Government can come down and ask for an endorsement of their policy, involving, in the first place, an enormous increase of expenditure, and, in the second place, a change of policy towards foreign nations. If the money is to be put into ships which in a few years will be obsolete and worthless and not battle-worthy, I regard that as the greatest possible calamity. But the noble and gallant Lord (Lord Charles Beresford) advocated a Navy strong enough for any two nations combined in Europe; and he says if they intended to go to war, they would turn to see what England intended to do. Now, that is the very danger we incur by this increase in the Navy; we encourage this warlike spirit. The noble Lord, referring to some words in the Speech from the Throne, said there was an increasing expenditure upon armaments in Europe. There has been an expenditure going on for many years, but the noble Lord stated that it could not be said that there had been an abnormal increase in the expenditure of Continental States upon their Navies. There has been no sudden outburst of expenditure on the part of Russia or France which would involve to this country any danger. Reference has been made to the speeches of my hon. Friends who are par excellence the representatives of the working classes in this House. These eight or ten gentlemen, who can answer for the sentiments of working men in this House, are apparently not disposed to vote in favour of the proposed expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed that the representatives of working men should, at all events, be anxious to protect the freedom of our imports and exports. I quite agree with that; at the same time we are not convinced that there is any new or serious danger menacing us, and which should lead us into increase of expenditure. That really is the policy of Her Majesty's Government upon which this proposal is based. I complain that on questions of this kind the House of Commons is not taken into the confidence of the Government. We are entitled to criticize their policy, as representatives of the people; we are not living under a despotism; we

  1661
  are not called upon to accept blindfold any policy from any Cabinet Minister, whether of a Liberal or Conservative Government, or, like the present Government, of a composite character. The noble Lord has told us that it will take 3 or4 years, possibly 5, before the ships can really be ready for sea, with their armour. Does anybody believe that the present state of things in Europe will continue five years without some modification? I believe that the change cannot be postponed two years. There have been extraordinary efforts made in France to have a peaceable year in 1889, so that the great Paris Exhibition might not be spoiled; but I think, Mr. Speaker, that Her Majesty's Government and the House of Commons may safely conclude that the struggle cannot be postponed for four or five years, unless there be a change of policy on the Continent of Europe. I think we have a right to ask what our Foreign Office has been doing for years. What is the use of this secret diplomacy of ours which we maintain at such enormous annual expense? I know Her Majesty's Government may reply that "we are comparatively powerless" to bring about the conditions of anything approaching peace. We do not expect that. It was no reflection upon Her Majesty's Government, when war broke out in 1870 between France and Germany, that we were unable to bring about an undertanding between those two countries; and it may be that we are now unable to ward off the approaching catastrophe. But that does not lessen our responsibility to do all that lies in our power to make an attempt in that direction. If our Foreign Office is worth anything, it ought to show that an attempt has been made in this direction. Reference has been made by the hon. Member for South Durham to Sir Robert Peel's opinion that an appeal should be made to the Continent of Europe. It would be one of the noblest tasks the Government could undertake to try to assuage this war feeling in Europe and bring about a better state of things. But if we compromise ourselves by increasing our Navy and our Army, we simply allow ourselves to be drawn into the stream of extravagance and folly which we are condemning in all other States of Europe. My own opinion is that Her
  1662
  Majesty's Government would have acted wisely and truly in the interests of the country if they had not attempted any expenditure, but had made the gravest declaration in the face of Europe and the civilized world that in any coming struggle we should observe absolute neutrality. We should declare that there is no justification for an appeal to arms, and that we would take no part in the fray. I have no doubt many hon. Members regard the suggestion I am making as cowardly. Now, Mr. Speaker, why should we pride ourselves on our insular position unless we are prepared to declare that our relations are not those of the Continental States? Our interests lie largely outside Europe. Of course we have interests in Europe. But on humanitarian grounds we wish to see good fellowship prevailing between Continental States, and it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything they can to remove any difficulties that prevail. Have the Government ever asked themselves, in case there came a war on the Continent, is Great Britain going to be one of the principals in the war? Now, I submit that it is impossible we can take up such a position, as our responsibilities ought to be limited to our powers. And I say we have no power to cope with Continental countries in their huge armaments, neither can we throw on the Continent without an immense effort a single Army Corps, much less two or three. But, if we cannot interfere as principals in the struggle, are we prepared to take a subordinate position and to have our policy dictated by Continental States? I do not believe that the people of this country would listen to any such suggestion for one moment, and therefore, if we cannot be principals in the struggle, and if it be too humiliating to us to be subordinates, there is only one course open to us, and that is to keep ourselves entirely aloof from the fray. In doing that, I think we have a duty to perform towards Europe, and that is to declare that we have no intention to interfere by force of arms in any struggle that may take place on the Continent. And, if that is so, my belief is that there is no serious danger to this country whatever. Now, Mr. Speaker, if I may be allowed a moment or two longer, I would ask where does the

  1663
  danger lie? France is generally pointed to, because it has a large Navy, as being a source of danger to this country. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, France has her hands full; she is burdened, as we have already heard, with a prodigious National Debt, and also with an extraordinary expenditure for the maintenance of her armaments; while the relationships between France, Germany, and Italy, are such that, if France is contemplating a struggle of any kind, it is not against this country, but the object of her struggle will be the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. If there is no real danger from France, where, then, does the danger come from? If the Government are not candid enough to tell the House against whom they are arming and against whom their policy is directed, we must try to find out for ourselves. Sir, I do not desire that a single word shall fall from me which will have the slightest tendency to increase and embitter the feelings which prevail on the Continent; and if I refer to the state of the Continent, it is only to express an opinion—which no doubt the people of this country feel—an opinion of regret that there is such a feeling of alienation and estrangement spreading itself throughout Europe. There is another source of danger, no doubt, in the action of Russia. Now, Sir, I am old enough to remember not only the outbreak of the Crimean War, but also the discussions which preceded that outbreak. This country was so foolish at that time as to make itself a principal in the struggle with Russia. We saved Austria, Germany, and Italy from their share of the responsibility in keeping back Russia in what was supposed to be an aggressive policy. But I believe that I am speaking the mind of the great majority of the people when I say that, if there should be further aggression on the part of Russia, it must, in the first place, rest with Germany, Austria, and Italy to withstand that aggression, although this country may have something to say, in the long run, upon the matter. We hope that the bulwark against Russian aggression will prove to be the growing forces of the Balkan States. In conclusion, I can only say, if diplomatists find themselves impotent, if Her Majesty's Government finds
  1664
  itself unable to do anything in the present emergency to turn the tide of this war feeling, let the House of Commons and the British House of Parliament speak to the peoples on the Continent, Parliament to Parliament and people to people. I have only one object in view, and that is to save my country from the folly and mistake which, as I believe, the country may be led into by the increase of the Navy, and by the policy which may come out of it. And I desire, further, to induce, if possible, by all the means in my power, the Government to make proposals which may lead Continental States from this ever-increasing expenditure; and if we fail in this attempt, at any rate we shall have done that which will redound to the honour of Her Majesty's Ministers and of the British House of Commons.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I have listened for two hours to speeches, which are only reiterations of protests previously made, and against which the House has already decided by a large majority. There never was a Government that was more anxious than this Government to do what it can to preserve the peace of Europe, and that was less disposed to embark upon any policy of aggression. As this is the fourth night upon which there has been debate upon this preliminary Resolution—although the nights have not been wholly given up to debate—I think the time has arrived when a decision should be taken, and I therefore move that the question be now put.
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided:—Ayes 200; Noes 136.—(Div. List, No. 64.)
  Question put accordingly, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  The House divided:—Ayes 215; Noes 128.—(Div. List, No. 65.)

  NAVAL DEFENCES.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorize (b) the creation of a Naval Defence Account,

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  to which moneys issued for the aforesaid par-poses may be carried, and the advance, out of the Consolidated Fund, and the temporary borrowing, on the security of the Consolidated Fund, of any sums which may be required to meet excess of expenditure in any financial year.
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorize (c) the adoption of provisions to carry the above objects into effect.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  NATIONAL DEBT REDEMPTION BILL.

    [BILL 170.] COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 6.
    *MR. BARTLEY: I should like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is quite clear from this clause that there is no possibility of increasing the nominal value of the Debt? The previous clause says the Debt is not to be increased. If it is impossible to raise the amount necessary at par, there may be a temporary increase, and I should like to understand whether, under no circumstances, will that be the case?
    *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): No, Sir; the Debt will not be nominally increased under any circumstances.
    Clause added to Bill.
    Clause 10.
    *MR. BARTLEY: I should like to ask supposing the consent of the person is not given, what will be the result of this clause?
    *MR. GOSCHEN: In that case the amount will be paid off.
    Clause added to Bill.
    Bill reported, without Amendment.
    Read third time, and passed.

    SUPPLY—REVENUE DEPARTMENTS.
    Resolutions [28th March] reported.
    (1.) "That a sum, not exceeding £1,785,516, (including an additional sum of £49,900), 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, 1890, for the Salaries and Working Expenses of the Post Office Telegraph Service."

  CIVIL SERVICES.

    CLASS I.
    (2.) "That a sum, not exceeding £78,395, 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, 1890, for the Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens."
    Resolutions agreed to.

    MERCHANT SHIPPING (TONNAGE) BILL.— [BILL 162.]
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir M. Hicks Beach.)
    MR. CONYBEARE: I think the House ought to know something about this Bill before it is read a second time. We have not had a single word from any responsible person to explain its provisions, and unless we have some explanation I think we should be entitled to move the adjournment of the debate. I have no desire to proceed to extreme measures, but I have a strong objection to the exceedingly vicious practice of rushing Bills through the House without explanation.
    *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): If I did not explain the proposals of the Bill, it was because, the matter being of a technical nature, I have circulated a memorandum with the Bill fully explaining its provisions. I will, however, shortly inform the House what the proposals of the measure are. Under the Merchant Shipping Act, vessels are charged for dock, light, and harbour dues upon their net tonnage. In calculating the net tonnage from the gross tonnage, certain deductions are made for light and air spaces and crew space. The law, under what is known as the Isabella decision, is in a state that Parliament never intended it to be in; and the result is that, in calculating the net tonnage, deductions are made for spaces which have never

    1667
    been included in the measurement of the gross tonnage. I think it is obvious that the law ought not to be allowed to continue in such a state, for it is not only unfair to the light dues and to the dock companies, but also obviously unfair as between ships of one class and another. The Bill before the House, therefore, proposes to restore the law to the condition which it was the intention of Parliament to create by taking the measure of the gross tonnage inclusive of everything, and calculating the net tonnage from that.
    SIR J. CORRY: As I was one of a large deputation to the President of the Board of Trade on this matter, I may say that I do not intend to oppose the Bill, but in Committee I shall move an Amendment for the omission of the clause which provides that the measure shall be retrospective.
    MR. J. C. STEVENSON: I heartily hope that the Government will stand by this Bill, which will be of advantage to harbour authorities all over the country. In some cases the deductions that are made are of a very serious character, and enable vessels to enjoy all the advantages of harbour accommodation at a much less rate than in former years.
    MR. SEXTON: I wish to testify that two ports in Ireland in which I feel a particular interest—namely, Dublin and Belfast—have suffered a great and growing injury to their incomes by reason of the condition of the law which this Bill is intended to amend. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir M. Hicks Beach) has accurately stated that the object of this Bill is not to create a novelty in legislation, but to give effect to the intention of Parliament in former times, The hon. Baronet the Member for Armagh (Sir J. Corry) has stated that in Committee he will move an Amendment to prevent the Bill having retrospective action. If the measure is to be made effectual, it must have retrospective action; it would be worthless without it. The effect of carrying such an Amendment would be
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    to introduce a double law, and one set of ships would be measured under a different law to another. That would be an indefensible anomaly, and would occasion great damage to the various parts of the Kingdom.
    SIR H. DAVEY: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir M. Hicks Beach) on having brought in this Bill, which will have the effect of redressing a very gross injustice which the harbour authorities are at present labouring under. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that if the measure is to have its full effect it ought to be retrospective, because, undoubtedly, great anomalies will be introduced if there are to be two classes of measurement—one for ships measured before the Bill comes into effect, and one for those measured afterwards. The object of the measure is one which will, I think, commend itself to the sense of the House. There is no doubt that the decision in the Isabella case has not commended itself to the minds of commercial men or of lawyers, and I think the Government is to be congratulated upon having brought in a measure of such a beneficial character. I hope they will not allow its benefits to be lessened by accepting an Amendment which will have the effect of making it merely prospective.
    MR. WHITLEY: I think it is right I should say that the population of Liverpool, who are largely interested in the Bill, generally approve of it. At the same time, there is very great force in what was observed by the hon. Member for Armagh. There is no doubt that if the Bill is made retrospective it will have a very serious effect upon vessels which have been built under the old régime. Owners of vessels who built their vessels under the old regulations will suffer great loss if they are made amenable to legislation of a retrospective character. I am sure I represent the views of shipowners when I say they approve of the provisions of

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    the Bill, but they do think it would be very unfair if the provisions were applied to old vessels. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will reconsider the question before the Bill proceeds upon the present stage.
    MR. SUTHERLAND: I cordially endorse the observations made by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Whitley). Great injustice will be done to a large number of shipowners whose vessels have been built and worked in conformity with the existing law, if the operation of the Bill is made retrospective. There is another point worthy of consideration. The House must be aware that there is a very large and increasing competition between English vessels and foreign vessels, or vessels sailing under foreign flags. To these vessels you cannot apply the proposed law, and therefore, if the Bill is made retrospective in its operation, the conditions under which foreign vessels sail in competition with us will be more advantageous than those under which our vessels trade.
    *SIR J. PEASE: Let me respectfully suggest to my hon. Friends that the question of the retrospective action of the measure will be best dealt with in Committee. What we desire now is the Second Reading of the Bill, in order that it may go to Committee, and then be dealt with on its merits. But one single fact, perhaps, may be worth a bushel of arguments. I hold in my hand a Return of several ships which have come into the River Tees. One of these vessels, a steamer, carried to sea 600 tons of pig iron. The vessel's gross registered tonnage was 587 tons. Under the old measurement she was 323 tons, under new measure 252 tons, and, therefore, she had 600 tons of pig iron on board, and yet she only paid port dues on 252. If this Bill is not passed it is perfect beggary to some of our harbours. I hope, therefore, the House will, without hesitation, agree to the Second Reading.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

    LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT (1877) AMENDMENT (LEASEHOLDERS) (No. 2) BILL.— [BILL 23.]
    Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.

  HORSEFLESH (SALE FOR FOOD) BILL.— [BILL 49.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: The taking this Bill to-night is altogether unexpected. We are now approaching the most serious part of the Bill, and I really think some time should be given for consideration. With that view I beg to move that the Chairman do Report progress.
    Motion made, "That the Chairman do report Progress."—(Mr. Pickersgill.)
    *MR. KNOWLES: I hope the hon. Member will not think it necessary to press that Motion. The Bill is a very simple one and excites a good deal of favourable interest, as was evidenced last Wednesday, when I presented a Petition in its favour signed by 80,000 persons. I hope the hon. Member will allow us to proceed.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: I make the Motion out of no hostility to the Bill, but simply because I, in common, I am sure, with many other Members, have no knowledge of it.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I quite sympathize with the hon. Member's motive in making the Motion. I have myself often made protests against rushing legislation in this manner, though I am bound to say the reason does not lie in the same degree

    1671
    against this Bill. I would rather add my appeal to that of the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, that the Bill may be allowed to proceed. The hour is not late, and we might go on a little further. I have myself some question to raise in relation to Clause 7. I am certainly not anxious to have such heavy penalties imposed without due consideration, and shall be inclined to propose the substitution of £10 for £20.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The question has been put that the clause stand part of the Bill.
    *MR. KNOWLES: In this respect the Bill is based on the provisions of the "Public Health Act, 1875" and the Margarine Act. I did not think this Bill should be more or less stringent than those Acts, and therefore I inserted the £20 penalty. I hope that that will satisfy the hon. Member.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I hope the hon. Member will withdraw his Motion and allow this most useful and necessary Bill to go forward.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: If there is a general desire to proceed I will not stand in the way.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    *MR. BRADLAUGH: Are not the penalties in the Bill illusory after all? Have not the magistrates under the Summary Jurisdiction Act the right, which they usually exercise, to reduce penalties to a nominal amount for a first offence?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (SIR R. WEBSTER,): The hon. Member is quite right, and I do not think it is advisable to leave no discretion and say the penalty shall be £10 or £20. We give a maximum, but in ordinary circumstances the magistrate would enforce a penalty under that.
    *MR. BRADLAUGH: Is it not well
    1672
    to specify that the penalty shall not be less than a certain amount?
    MR. BRUNNER: Will the Attorney General say if in such cases there is an alternative of so many days' imprisonment in default of fine? Perhaps I ought to know without asking the question?
    SIR R. WEBSTER: I am afraid I ought to know, but my recollection of the clauses of the Summary Jurisdiction Act is not sufficient to enable me to answer.
    Clause added to the Bill.
    Clause 7.
    Motion made that this Clause stand part of the Bill.
    *MR. CONYBEARE: On this I would like to suggest to the hon. Member in charge of the Bill that there are other kinds of flesh of inferior quality, such as that of dogs and cats, the sale of which, under the guise of wholesome meat, it is desirable to prohibit. I do not suggest that part of a dog or cat could not be mistaken for a joint of beef or mutton, but there is this difficulty, that the provisions of the Bill are directed against the sale of horseflesh, in a form which I might call in puris naturalibus—in its simple and raw state as killed. But there is no provision for preventing a butcher or other person from selling horseflesh made up in a different form that would conceal its real character. Has the hon. Gentleman considered if his Bill meets such a case?
    *MR. KNOWLES: The object of the Bill is principally to protect poor people who go to low butchers' shops and ask for pounds of meat. They are served with pounds of horseflesh, with pieces of mutton or beef fat skewered on to disguise it. The fat of horseflesh is easily distinguishable from that of beef or mutton; it is the lean

    1673
    of horseflesh that is palmed off upon these poor people. Of course, the hon. Member alludes to horseflesh made up into sausages. I have gone into the question, and I may say that I intend sausages to come within the scope of the Bill. It may interest the hon. Member to know that there is no difficulty in detecting horseflesh in sausages and polonies. In order not to waste time now, I will only refer the hon. Member to an article by Dr. Bell, of the Inland Revenue Department, in the Chemical News of January 14, 1887, in which he will find out how horseflesh may be distinguished, and I will tell him that not only the flesh of horses, but also the flesh of mules and of asses, which is included in the Bill, may be recognized anatomatically, physically, and chemically.
    Clause added to Bill.
    Clause 8.
    Question proposed that the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    *MR. LAWSON: I observe that the local authorities here appointed are the Commissioners of Sewers, the Vestries, and the District Boards, and to them the medical officers are to report. Now the County Council is about to appoint a Medical Officer of Health for the whole of London, may I suggest that he may have concurrent power with these other local officers, and that they should perform this function under the supervision of the County Council? I hope the hon. Member will not object to words being inserted to that effect, such words as "under the supervision of the County Council."
    *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): No one could assent to that. Concurrent authority should always be awarded
    1674
    where it is possible. Concurren authority has the effect of taking away authority from both parties. Unquestionably, in a large town like London authority should be exercised by authorities within a limited area.
    *MR. LAWSON: But the officers might act under County Council supervision.
    *MR. RITCHIE: No. I think, surely, the Local Authorities may be trusted, and can act better individually within their own area.
    Clause added to Bill.
    Clause 9.
    Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    MR. SEXTON: I think the Committee would be glad to hear from the hon. Member who, I must admit, is exceedingly learned on the subject with which his Bill deals, and possibly has a reason for an unusual course. He has said that the object of the Bill is to protect poor people from being imposed upon by being sold horse flesh instead of other food. If horse flesh is, when kept, not so labelled it is to be liable to be seized. But why, by this Clause 9 is the Bill not to be extended to Ireland and Scotland? Are not our poor people equally exposed to this imposition, or are we to accept the doctrine of Dr. Barr as the Chief Secretary does, that it is not quality, but quantity of food that is there regarded?
    *MR. KNOWLES: I may tell the hon. Member that I have taken great pains to acquire information in regard to England, Scotland, and Ireland; and, so far as that information enables me to judge, there is at present no sale of horseflesh in Scotland or Ireland. I gathered my information from inquiries made at Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford; but, of course, if the hon. Member can show me the slightest reason

    1675
    for extending the Bill to Ireland, I have no objection to its extension.
    MR. SEXTON: I think the hon. Member had better follow the precedent of the Coercion Act, which is intended to be permanent, whether there is crime or not. This Bill is intended to be permanent, and though no horseflesh is sold now, the time may come when it may be.
    *Ms. W. JOHNSTON: I hope the hon. Member will agree to accept the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sexton), made, I suppose, with a view to horseflesh finding its way into the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Dublin.
    Sir R. WEBSTER: Without agreeing with the correctness of the analogy, the right hon. Gentleman has certainly shown good reason why the Bill should extend to Ireland and Scotland. Though horseflesh is not sold now, it may be hereafter. I hope, therefore, my hon. Friend will not object to the clause being struck out. It will also be desirable, I think, on Report to insert a clause to make it clear that the Bill applies to horseflesh when mixed with other matter or alone. It is quite possible that the contention might be raised that the Bill only applies to horseflesh when sold alone.
    *Ms. RITCHIE: If the Bill is made applicable to Scotland and Ireland the clause will have to be amended that deals with the exercise of power by the local authorities. As it now stands it has reference to England only.
    MR. SEXTON: On Report the necessary alteration may be made.
    MR.ESSLEMONT: I quite agree that the Bill should apply to Scotland.
    Question put. Clause omitted. Clause 10 added to Bill.
    New Clause.
    This Act shall come into operation on the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and ninety.—(Mr. Knowles.)
    Clause read a second time and added to Bill.
    Bill reported; as amended to be considered upon Monday next.

  SMALL DEBTS (SCOTLAND) BILL. [BILL 153.]

    SECOND BEADING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    *MR. CALDWELL: This Bill passed the Second Reading last Session, but at so late a period that it was found impracticable to get it passed through Committee. Its object is to extend the summary procedure in Scotland for the recovery of small debts from £12 to £25. The Bill had the approval of the Lord Advocate and his predecessor, and I now beg to move the Second Reading.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, that the Bill be read a second time.
    DR. CAMERON: The main object of the Bill I thoroughly approve, but there are certain clauses, however, that are considered as rather dangerously stringent. If my hon. Friend will put off Committee to a tolerably distant date, so that these clauses may be considered, I offer no objection to the Second Reading.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday, 25th April.

  PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.— [BILL 163.]

    SECOND BEADING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    COLONEL NOLAN: This Bill was discussed last year and received a large measure of support. Its object

    1677
    is simply to enable to sell a tenant a few acres in addition to the holding itself when that is desired. This a landlord now cannot do, but this Bill will enable him to do it. Among tenants there is anxiety to have the Bill passed; at least I know that is so in Galway, and landlords make no objection to it.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): The object of the Bill is, briefly speaking, that which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has stated. It may be necessary to consider some details in Committee, but, on the part of the Government, I offer no opposition to the Second Reading. Of course, I must be understood as not pledging the Government to details, but safeguarded it may prove a useful measure.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read second time, and committed for Thursday next.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT (1887) AMENDMENT (LEASEHOLDERS) BILL.

    [BILL 31.] SECOND BEADING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: This Bill was discussed at some length the other night in the absence of the Chief Secretary. It was resisted then mainly on the ground of the absence of the right hon. Gentleman. May I now ask, in moving the Second Reading, if the Government support the Bill or otherwise?
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): It is the fact that when the Bill came on unexpectedly on a former occasion I was absent. But though I am now in my place, I am afraid this is not the time to admit of
    1678
    discussion, and certainly we cannot accept the Bill without discussion. I fully recognize the cruel position in which many of the clients of the hon. Gentleman are placed, but I also recognize the almost insuperable difficulty of finding a solution for the difficulties of the case. It may be there is relief to be found by enabling leaseholders to purchase their holdings through the assistance of State loans, paying thus much less in the form of an annuity than they pay in rent, but when I am asked to go beyond that, and modify what are not rents in the ordinary sense of the word, but permanent leases analagous to feus in Scotland and permanent leases in England, we are introduced to a whole set of new problems in regard to which I find myself unable now to offer a satisfactory solution. Under the circumstances, and not desiring to vote against the Bill without discussion, I now move the adjournment of the debate.
    Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

  PUBLIC HOUSES, HOURS OF CLOSING (SCOTLAND) BILL.

    [BILL 148.] SECOND BEADING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    DR. CAMERON: The object of the Bill is to restore the Act, passed a couple of years ago, to the same state in which it was when, as a Bill, it left this House. The object is well known to Scotch Members. A large majority voted with us on the previous occasion, and I shall best serve the interest of the Bill by saying no more, but moving the Second Reading.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. TOMLINSON: The Bill only refers to Scotland; but it is important as being part of the whole

    1679
    Sunday Closing Question. The Members for Scotland no doubt have excellent memories, and may be perfectly aware of the provisions of the Bill. For myself, I do not recollect them, and I am sure many others are in the same position. It is not time now to enter upon the discussion, and I, therefore, beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Tomlinson.)—put, and negatived.
    Original Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time;" and, objection being taken to Further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.

  CRUELTY TO CHILDREN PREVENTION BILL.

    [BILL 87.] SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am glad to know that for the Motion I shall have the support of Her Majesty's Government. I am moving in this matter on behalf of a Society started some three or four years ago to prevent cruelty to children in the direction set forth in the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Mundella.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (SIR R. WEBSTER, Isle of Wight): In assenting to the Second Reading I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the Committee stage should be postponed for about a fortnight, on the ground that in some respects the measure goes too far, and its provisions will have to be carefully considered. We desire to see an Act passed which will deal with existing evils, and I dare say that if the right hon. Member postpones the Committee stage for some
    1680
    time we shall be able to meet him on some of the points of difficulty in the Bill.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read second time, and committed for Thursday 25th April.

    POOR IN LARGE TOWNS.
    Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question.—[2nd April.]
    MR. BARTLEY: Cannot some arrangement be made for taking this adjourned debate? It is a matter of great importance, a great number of Members being interested in it. As yet only four or five private Members have had a chance of speaking on it. It is quite as important a matter as some of those for which days have been fixed.
    Debate further adjourned till Thursday next.

  MOTION.

    EMIGRATION.
    *MR. RITCHIE: rose to move—
    "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into various Schemes which have been proposed to Her Majesty's Government to facilitate Emigration from the congested districts of the United Kingdom to the British Colonies or elsewhere; to examine into the results of any Schemes which have received practical trial in recent years, and to re port generally whether in their opinion it is desirable that further facilities should be given to promote Emigration; and, if so, upon the means by and the conditions under which such Emigration can best be carried out, and the quarters to which it can most advantage ously be directed."
    DR. TANNER: I object.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,)rose to make an appeal to the hon. Member to withdraw his objection.
    DR. TANNER: I object.
    The Motion, therefore, was not put.
    House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.

TOWN POLICE CLAUSES ACT (1847)
AMENDMENT BILL. (NO. 38.)
Read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next (The Earl of Milltown).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Moved, "That the first and third paragraphs of Standing Order No. XXI. be suspended, and that the Motion for the appointment of a Chairman of Committees have precedence of the Orders of the Day and Notices which stand before it;"—(The Marquess of Salisbury).
Agreed to.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY), in rising to move—
"That the Lord Balfour of Burley be appointed to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for the remainder of this Session; that the Lord Balfour of Burley do take the Chair in all Committees of the whole House unless it shall have been otherwise directed by the House; that the Lord Balfour of Burley do also take the Chair in all Committees upon Private Bills and other matters unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by the House,"
said: My Lords, when I made, in this House, a similar Motion, four years ago, I little thought it would ever be my lot to repeat it. It is an invidious motion to make, because it involves a question of preference, and it exposes the man who makes it to the imputation of not being sufficiently alive to the merits of those whom he may sincerely respect, but who are not the objects of his Motion. It is a Motion on which I
1534
certainly shall not propose to detain your Lordships long. The very nature of it—the very fact that we are arguing a personal question in the presence of the persons to whom we refer—makes it impossible that our arguments should be long, or that we should dwell upon them with great emphasis. On the other hand, though we are not able to go at any length into these questions, we have the happiness of knowing that the noble Lords whose qualifications are under consideration are well known to all Members of the House, and that they are as capable of forming a judgment as we are who make a Motion on the subject and recommend a judgment to the House. With regard to another noble Lord whose name I see the noble Earl opposite has put upon the Paper, I will only express in passing the very great respect which not only I, but I am sure all the Members of the House, feel for him both in his individual and his public capacity. And I wish carefully to guard myself from being supposed to utter a word which is disrespectful to him in the language which I am going to employ. On the contrary, I prefer to pass by the question of the alternative altogether, and in the very few remarks which I have to make confine myself to pointing out the reasons which appear to me to make it desirable to elect Lord Balfour of Burley to be the successor of the Duke of Buckingham, whom we so much lament. My Lords, Lord Balfour is well known to you as a noble Lord who has taken the deepest interest in the Private Business of this House, who is well acquainted with the Standing Orders and the Business of the House, who has taken a leading part in all discussions which concern the interior management and conduct of this House.

1535
He is a man also well known to you for great capacity and singular industry; a man of business, a man who has acquired in other fields among his own countrymen great influence and great estimation, and who has received much public employment. I will not enumerate the various occasions on which he has had public employment, but I will merely recall to the minds of your Lordships one duty which he had to perform, which was a duty of a critical and difficult character, and which brought out very forcibly a capacity for dealing with business, which is one of his great qualifications—I refer to his conduct of the Local Government Bill through this House last year. It was a Bill full of detail, full of questions of business, a Bill as to which there was much danger that it might be wrecked or seriously injured in this House, where many different opinions might prevail on matters with which your Lordships were exceptionally familiar; but he conducted it through with that grasp of subject and that perfect knowledge of detail which met every questioner and answered every objection, and he succeeded in uniting your Lordships without difficulty in maintaining the main principle of the Bill. My noble Friend occupies a position in Her Majesty's Government. I only refer to that in order to meet by anticipation a criticism which I remember the noble Earl opposite addressed to me with reference to the noble Duke who was the last holder of the office. He said to me, "Why, if you admire his business capacity, have you not included him in your Government?" Whatever justice or injustice there was in that argument on that occasion, it is an argument which is inapplicable now. My Lords, there is only one other consideration which makes me think at the present time that Lord Balfour of Burley would be a singularly fit occupant of this Chair. Our system of private business has many anomalies and defects, and I think that those anomalies and defects are somewhat exaggerated in some quarters; but the only part of the country where it meets with real hostility, and from which a demand for a change comes with great vehemence, is Scotland. I feel that in the discussions which lie before us in respect to private business,
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and in the conduct of any efforts that we may make for improving its procedure, and for meeting the complaints from Scotland to which I have referred, it will be a great advantage to have as the representative of the conduct of private business in this House the man through whose hands some of the most important portions of it passed a noble Lord who has established a great influence in Scotland, and who is thoroughly trusted by the men of business in that country. I feel that that would be a circumstance of great advantage, and at the present time a Scotchman, if we may make any preference among the three Kingdoms, is the fittest occupant of that Chair. My Lords, I will only venture to remind you in conclusion that there is one special quality which we require in dealing with our Chairman of Committees, and that quality is stiffness and firmness. He has to deal with a body of men who principally are remarkable for the variety and multiplicity of their ingenious modes of carrying their objects into effect. They are men whose appeals would melt any heart ordinarily soft, and whose sophistry would confuse any brain that was not exceptionally clear. They are some of the cleverest men which the country can produce, and they are men who will put into operation every means they can employ in order to carry out the duty which they have undertaken to their clients. In dealing with such men, I ventured to submit to your Lordships when the Luke of Buckingham was appointed that a stern and stiff character was an essential qualification of the noble Lord who has to occupy that Chair. In addition to these things he must have a great knowledge of business, he must be a man in whom men repose confidence in the transaction of business; and for all these reasons I move that the name of Lord Balfour of Burley be the one selected to follow that of my lamented Friend the Duke of Buckingham.
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I quite agree with the preface of the noble Marquess's speech, and I should have preferred if the Leader of the House had proposed a Peer for the Chairmanship of your Lordships' Committees who would have been unanimously considered not only

1537
as a good candidate, but as the best. But, as on the last occasion, this has not been found possible. The choice is all the more important for the House itself and for the public, because, although you appoint the Chairman at the beginning of every Session, yet, from the custom which obtains, the first appointment is hardly more provisional than the selection of a wife in private life. You take him for better or worse. I wish it to be clearly understood that I raise no objection to Lord Balfour. He has of late years deservedly gained the respect of your Lordships, and, although I must bring in a few words in comparison between the two, as it is our duty to compare their claims, yet nothing will fall from me offensive to the noble Lord. With regard to his nationality, I confess I thought the argument on that point was a little more ingenious than conclusive, and it is one that I am not sure will not be appreciated by the Irish Peers whom I see opposite. The only question is whether this would be the best possible appointment? When, three years ago, I proposed Lord Morley, I dwelt upon the complete fulfilment in this House of the promise which his great distinction at Oxford had given. I appealed to the way in which he took part in our debates, the authority with which he conducted the business of the important offices which he had represented here, and the power which he undoubtedly possesses of getting hold of the favourable attention of the House. I mentioned the high reputation he had obtained, during six years in the Home Office and five years in the War Office, for ability, judgment, and tact, for celerity combined with accuracy. The noble Marquess, three years ago, laid great stress upon the Duke of Buckingham's experience in important offices of the State, and upon his having had the training of a Chairman of Quarter Sessions. He laid it down as a necessity of the position of our Chairman that sufficient authority should be attached to the decisions which he gives. He should, he said, be a person of that age, experience, and past services which imposed his judgment upon others. Well, Lord Morley was for many years a Chairman of Quarter Sessions; he is now Deputy
1538
Chairman of the County Council. He is older than Lord Balfour; he has been twice as long in this House, and in constant attention to its private business. He has been successfully performing official work for more years than Lord Balfour has done for months. In stating his peculiar qualifications I am not merely giving my own opinion; they were recognized three years ago by Peers from each of the political sections of the House. I trust that the same evidence of opinion will be forthcoming this evening, more especially after the distinct assurance which has been given by the noble Marquess, and on which I entirely place my confidence, that he wishes to exercise no Party influence on this occasion. My Lords, I move, as an Amendment, that Lord Morley's name be substituted for that of Lord Balfour.
Amendment moved, to leave out "Lord Balfour of Burley" and insert "Earl of Morley."—(The Earl Granville.)
THE DUKE OF ABERCORN: I rise to second the proposition of the noble Earl opposite. I hope in doing so that I am not taking any unusual course, and that your Lordships will not think for one instant that I am in any way wavering in my political allegiance to the noble Marquess. On the contrary, I may say that that allegiance increases every day. Neither can it be said that I am under the seductive influence of the noble Earl opposite—that seductive influence which it is well known he exercises upon several noble Lords in this House and many other persons outside the House. The noble Marquess has distinctly stated that this is not a political matter, and that the House, in making its selection, is to be guided by its own opinion. Therefore I trust that the noble Lord (Lord Balfour) who has been proposed by the noble Marquess will not think that, in seconding the proposition of the noble Earl, I, in any way, intend to show disrespect to him. On the contrary, no one in this House admires more than I do the great ability which has distinguished that noble Lord during the time he has had the honour of a seat in this House. But, to speak plainly and straightforwardly to your Lordships, I think that Lord Morley has the first claim. It may be within your Lordships'

1539
recollection that about three years ago the noble Marquess stated that the noble Lord to be selected as Chairman of Committees should be one who had the greatest experience of private and public Committees. For that reason the Duke of Buckingham was selected. To use an expression which may not be unfamiliar to your Lordships, Lord Morley was second favourite on that occasion. Now that the circumstances have altered, I venture to think that he might be considered first favourite. His Lordship has, during his 21 years of experience in this House, met with the approbation of your Lordships, both with regard to his studiousness and his ability, and the time during which he was free from the trammels of the Government he has devoted to the private Committees of this House. Upon them he has shown ability, quickness of perception, firmness, tact, and courtesy. The noble Marquess has spoken of firmness as one of the great attributes which ought to distinguish the Chair. That attribute distinguishes Lord Morley. I cannot, my Lords, sit down without expressing my sorrow—a sorrow which I am sure will be shared by all your Lordships—at the reason which has brought us here to-day in order to make a new selection of Chairman. The late Duke of Buckingham was only a few days ago among us and suddenly was taken from us. His loss will be felt by your Lordships, and especially by those with whom he was brought in contact in connection with the work of public and private Committees.
On question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion," their Lordships divided:—Contents 77; Not-Contents 95.
Resolved in the negative.
It was then moved to resolve, "That the Earl of Morley be appointed to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for the remainder of this Session; that the Earl of Morley do take the Chair in all Committees of the Whole House, unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by the House; that the Earl of Morley do also take the Chair in all Committees upon Private Bills and other matters, unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by the House."
Motion agreed to; and resolved accordingly.

LUNACY ACTS AMENDMENT BILL (No. 9.)
Amendment reported (according to order).
THE LORD CHANCELLORmoved to insert after Clause 42, page 26, a new clause as follows:—
42A.—(1.) Mechanical means of bodily restraint shall not be applied to any lunatic unless the restraint is necessary for purposes of surgical treatment, or to prevent the lunatic from injuring himself.
(2.) In every case where such restraint is applied, a medical certificate shall, as soon as it can be obtained, be signed, describing the mechanical means used, and stating the grounds upon which the certificate is founded.
(3.) The certificate shall be signed, in the case of a lunatic in an asylum or hospital, by the medical superintendent or a medical officer thereof, in the case of a lunatic in a licensed house, by the medical proprietor or medical attendant of the house, in the case of a lunatic in a workhouse, by the medical officer of the workhouse, and in the case of a single patient, by his medical attendant.
(4.) A full record of every case of restraint by mechanical means shall be kept from day to day; and a copy of the records and certificates under this section shall be sent to the Commissioners at the end of every quarter.
(5.) Any person who acts in contravention of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.
LORD HOBHOUSEmoved to insert after the first sub-section the words "or in case of gross violation of decency or order."
THE LORD CHANCELLORobjected to the addition as inconsistent with the whole theory upon which this amendment of the law was desirable—namely, that the person directly responsible for the application of mechanical means of restraint should be the medical officer.
Further Amendment negatived.
LORD HOBHOUSEmoved, after the words in Sub-section 5, "Any person who acts in contravention of this section," to insert the words "except under the reasonable belief that restraint is necessary."
THE LORD CHANCELLORobjected to this, but consented to the introduction of the word "wilfully" before the word "acts."
The new Clause, thus amended, was agreed to.
Further Amendments were made.
Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.—(No. 35.)
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
*LORD THRING: My Lords, when I put a question in this House the other day to the Under Secretary of State for War (Lord Harris), my noble Friend administered to me a rebuke for intruding the matter of Army discipline upon the attention of the House before making myself thoroughly acquainted with the subject. Now, I may say that in the position I had the honour to hold during various Administrations under successive Ministers of War the subject of military discipline was continually under my consideration. I prepared the existing Code of Law and every document connected with that law. "The Manual of Military Law," which is the text book of the Army, was written under my superintendence, and several chapters by my own hand. Further, General Elles, now Adjutant General in India, then Colonel Elles, was deputed to assist me, and initiated me into every detail of military life and military discipline. I trust, therefore, your Lordships will pardon me if I take an interest in a subject which has been my study for many years. Now, with respect to the existing state of the law relating to military punishments, I wish to point out that the Order of 1887, which was brought forward and formulated by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, the true friend of the soldier, has removed a great many grievances of the soldier, and, as has been well said by a distinguished officer, it has effected a complete revolution in military discipline of a beneficent character. It diminished crime in the Army by 18 per cent immediately; it reduced the number of military prisoners in one year from 1,127 to 727. Has not the time come, I ask, when this beneficent system, which is now only a General Order, should be embodied in a Statute, and that the soldier should not be left to the caprice of a Court Martial? There is only one possible objection that I can conceive to embodying this reform in a Statute. We are often told that it is desirable to keep over the head of the soldier the possibility of an extreme punishment even for trivial offences by way of making an
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example in cases where general insubordination prevails; but what was the meaning of making an example? I have been behind the military curtain, and I say that, when a regiment becomes disorganized and gets out of discipline, it is either from the undue laxity or the unjust severity of its incompetent colonel, and the example which ought to be made in such a case is to discharge the colonel, and not to unduly punish the private soldier. I should not insist so much on this point if it were not that the Bill before the House seems to afford little hope that the Government intend to make further progress in this line of legislation. On the contrary, there is a clause in it which I hope has crept in without the sanction of the Under Secretary—a clause utterly and absolutely antagonistic to the whole spirit of the Order of 1887. The present Code discriminates between offences against military discipline and offences of an immoral, dishonest, and shameful character. Yet it is proposed to take men guilty of such merely military offences as breaking out of barracks and so forth, and degrade them among criminals and felons of the worst description. Then there is another point—the effect of the military law upon recruits. In 1883, 3,711 men deserted; of those 2,106 deserted during the first year of their service—that was two thirds. In 1884 there were about three-fourths. In 1885 about two-fifths. These figures show that the severity of the military law operates against the successful recruiting for the Army. Another point is that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the ignorance of officers in the law which they have to administer. They are not taught that law. Instead of making the officer acquainted with the principles of the law he has to administer, the whole examination is taken up with questions which encourage him to learn by rote a few technical details utterly useless for practical purposes. It may be objected that the officers care nothing for the law; they say—"Confound the lawyers; the less we have of them the better;" and I agree with their condemnation of law as opposed to common sense, but I will undertake to say that any man who has seen any number of Courts Martial must be aware that of all technical tribunals in the world a Court Martial is the most

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addicted to technicalities, and officers entangle themselves in legal cobwebs, which would be swept away in a moment by a magistrate of any experience, Young officers, although men of great ability and willing to learn, have not the means of learning the principle of the law which they have to administer, and the examiners have not the skill to elicit such knowledge as they have. It has been stated that it is not the province of your Lordships' House to consider questions of discipline. Is it conceivable that if it is the duty of the House to pass a Bill of this description, which menaces with imprisonment, with penal servitude, and with death thousands and thousands of our countrymen, we ought not to look into this Act and scan every word of it? Is it conceivable that we are not to look to the administration of this most Draconian Code and to see wherever possible that justice is tempered with mercy?
*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Lord HARRIS): My Lords, I wish, at the outset, to observe that I thoroughly agree that it is not only perfectly justifiable, but eminently desirable, that a noble Lord who has had such wide experience in military law as has my noble Friend opposite should express his views upon a Bill of this character. The general tenour of the noble Lord's remarks, as I understand, is to justify the leniency which has crept into military punishments since 1887, and to ask the military authorities to consider whether, as time passes, it would not be possible and wise to extend that leniency still further. The noble Lord will quite understand that on a question of military discipline of this kind, and on such short notice, I am hardly able to give an answer offhand as to the extent to which the military authorities, from the experience they have gained in two years, would be justified in extending that more lenient system of dealing with military offences. The military authorities are satisfied with the experience they have gained up to the present time, and it is only reasonable to suppose that they will be prepared, if they find that that experience tends in the same direction in future, to meet the good behaviour on the part of the soldier by a proportionate relaxation of the bonds which surround him. The noble Lord asks whether it is not time
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that the advantages gained by the General Order of 1887 should be made law by an Act of Parliament. I do not see any advantage in that, because I am under the impression that all Courts Martial undergo very careful scrutiny both from the Judge Advocate General and also from the office of the Adjutant General. I think the soldier has ample security against an unfair or excessive sentence in the close scrutiny which is given to all Court Martial sentences. The noble Lord objects to Clause 4 in the Bill because it sends men dismissed from the Army to a civil prison, where they have to consort with felons. Although this is a change in the Act of 1881, it is a return to the principles of the Act of 1847. The noble Lord must remember that a soldier who has been dismissed with ignominy is only subjected to that extreme penalty after a series of the very worst offences—after having shown himself a thoroughly bad character. Such a man is not worth keeping in the Army; and the object is to free from military prisons those men who are not worthy of returning to the Army. That is the object of the Amendment, and I trust that the noble Lord will see that it is a desirable change to keep from the society of soldiers men who at the close of their sentence are not thought worth returning to the Army. As to military education, I would point out to the noble Lord that it is somewhat difficult in the course of an officer's career to make him both a first-rate lawyer and a first-rate soldier. The officer's time is limited. The object of the education given to the officer before entering the Army and afterwards is to make him, first of all, a first-rate soldier, and then as good a lawyer as time will permit. Military law is included in the syllabus at Sandhurst and Woolwich, and it is also included in the examinations for promotion. These facts show the anxiety on the part of the military authorities to give officers every opportunity of obtaining experience in legal matters. I am inclined to think that an officer of the present day has so much to learn that it is not always found easy to attend lectures on legal subjects such as the noble Lord referred to. All these suggestions, however, which the noble Lord has made, will receive the very closest attention from the military authorities, and I am certain

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also from my right hon. Friend, Mr. Stanhope.
*LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA: The noble Lord has dealt very severely with Courts Martial. I think there are very few officers who have had more Courts Martial pass through their hands than I have, except those connected with the headquarters of the Department, and I must say that a Court Martial is a very fair Court. It is conducted with great solemnity. Before a man is sentenced by Court Martial his character—that is, his defaulter's sheet is placed before the members of the Court—they judge not merely by the crime, but they judge by the accumulation of crime. A man receives, in the first instance, a very gentle punishment. The officers are very tender and gentle to offenders, who are at first warned and reprimanded; and anyone looking at the regimental books can see how careful officers are to deal gently with men for their first offences. If the soldier repeats his offence after being warned he is punished slightly, and heavy punishment only comes after repeated offences. I do not know at this moment whether Courts Martial in this country are attended by the Deputy Judge Advocate General, but until recently every Court Martial in India, where it was possible, was attended by a gentleman who had studied the law particularly. But military laws are very simple; the facts constituting the offence are generally very simple ones, and there are eye-witnesses inmost cases. Besides, the sentence passed is reviewed by several authorities, and finally by the Judge Advocate General, who, if the sentence is considered too severe, may see his way to make a recommendation to mercy. Soldiers are much better educated now than they were fifty or sixty or even forty years ago; His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief has been able to lighten their punishments; much more clemency is extended to them than formerly. I venture to think that the noble Lord has taken a very severe view of Courts Martial. In my own opinion they are considerate and just Courts, always inclined, if possible, to mercy. I have myself never been a severe man towards soldiers. Forty years of my life were spent in India in the endeavour to ameliorate the condition of soldiers; but at one time mild punishment
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led to a large increase of crime. Crimes of violence and insubordination increased to such a degree that in one year no fewer than 250 of these offences had to be dealt with. I was then compelled to make very severe examples, and in the following year the number of crimes was reduced to 35. I hold that the whole tenour of military administration is one of careful watching, warning, and guiding the soldier, and punishing him only when milder measures fail.
Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

OVERTIME ON RAILWAYS.
EARL DE LA WARR, in rising to ask the Government when it would be convenient to lay upon the Table the Return promised last Session relative to the overtime work of railway servants, said: My Lords, this Return was ordered last Session. I know it is a Return that must require time and give a considerable amount of trouble to the Railway Companies. I should be very unwilling to appear unduly to press upon Her Majesty's Government and the Railway Companies for the Return; but I think it is not unreasonable to ask that this Return should be in your Lordships' hands at an early time.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: I am asked by noble Friend (Lord Balfour of Burley) to answer this question. The Return to which the noble Earl refers was laid on the Table of your Lordships' House on the 28th of March. The Papers are now in the printer's hands, and will be circulated without delay.

INCOME TAX ON CHARITIES.
*LORD ADDINGTON, in rising to call attention to the recent Return (289), Income Tax on Charities, showing more than 200 claims for restitution of income tax rejected by the Board of Inland Revenue upon their own authority and upon an interpretation of the law which has been judged erroneous by the Supreme Court of Appeal in the case of the Moravian Brotherhood; and to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Board of Inland Revenue would at once appeal from the Supreme Court to the House of Lords, or would revert to its former practice, and restore to the

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claimants the moneys levied as income tax upon exempt properties, and now retained by the Department, to the detriment of the charities concerned, said: My Lords, I propose, with all possible brevity, to call your Lordships' attention to the subject of the question I ask Her Majesty's Government. The Board of Inland Revenue have, in the exercise of their own discretion, taken upon themselves to impose income tax upon property which has hitherto been exempted. I venture to think that that procedure is tainted with illegality. I say so because I think it is not warranted by circumstances, and because I feel that the purpose at which it aims is to inflict a very serious injury upon the community at large and to discourage the exercise of that charity which is an essential element in all civilization. That being the subject of my impeachment, I feel that I am bound to make it good. The Income Tax, as we first knew it by history, was introduced by Mr. Pitt in 1799, and, as then constituted, it was strictly a personal tax. It is distinctly a personal tax now, but there has been this variation in the mode of the collection. Under Mr. Pitt's Act, every individual was bound to make a statement showing on one side of the account the whole of his property, and on the other the whole of his outgoings. There were exemptions of various kinds. For example, there was an exemption necessarily attaching to poverty. You cannot take from a man that portion of his income which, if he lose, he cannot subsist. Therefore, in Pitt's time, £60 a year was the limit below which incomes were exempt. Then there was another and a larger category of exemptions, and these were the multifarious charities with which this country is so happily distinguished. But in 1803, when the income tax came to be renewed, it was found to be convenient no longer to allow the exemption in the returns, but to assess all income at its source and refund to the parties entitled the income tax after it had been levied. In fact, it came to this—that instead of an individual making his own return of what he was worth and paying upon it, all his different properties were taxed at the source—his funds in the hands of his bankers, and so on in that indirect fashion. But the tax
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being levied in that way, it extended also to those properties which belonged to charities, and the Board of Inland Revenue, having first of all received the income tax upon all kinds of income, were charged with the duty of restoring to the charities the portion of the tax which referred to their several revenues. In that way they stepped into the position of trustees; they are receivers to the charities; they are, provisionally, only the holders of this money, and they are bound to give it back; and when, instead of giving it back, they retain it to themselves, they commit, in my humble opinion, a breach of trust. I will not myself use strong language with regard to the action of the Inland Revenue. I prefer quoting to your Lordships some tolerably strong evidence that I am not exaggerating in the words I use. In the year 1863, with the same amount of zeal which appears to be inherent in Somerset House, the Board of Inland Revenue desired to make certain exceptions to the charities which were then exempted, and they appealed to the Treasury for permission to exercise their judgment in the matter. They gave an interesting sketch of the history of the tax, and they asked to be left to follow their own devices in regard to exemptions. The answer of the Treasury at that time was as follows:—
"The actual administration of the Act has acquired, it may be held, so much of prescription as ought to stand good, at least, against any interposition by an authority purely administrative.…. The subject is one which should be reserved to be dealt with by the Legislature."
I think that when, in the face of that instruction, we find the Inland Revenue, without any further notice, taking upon themselves to appropriate this money, they are committing an illegal act. I know it may be said, although an act may be illegal, still it may be politic, and it may be beneficial in its results. So far, however, from such a conclusion, we arrive at one the exact reverse. Charity, by reclaiming the vicious, by teaching the ignorant, and tending the suffering, minimizes all the social evils which injure the community at large. Taxation of charity obstructs its exercise and weakens the checks upon demoralization, I invite your Lordships' attention to the Return (289) on the Table of

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the House. You will find in it some hundreds of claims, various in their character, but rejected with remarkable uniformity upon the plea that they were "not within the scope of exemption." Societies for building and repairing churches were told that the only plea available for them was a "provision for funds held by trustees under Schedule C," whereas their claim rested upon an earlier exemption embracing their funds as devoted to "charitable purposes." The argument of the Inland Revenue lands them in this dilemma. The "repair" of churches is exempted, although not a charity, but the "building" of a church is not a charity, nor is it exempt. "Repairs" are exempt, if provided by funds assessed under Schedule C. They are not exempt if provided through rents under Schedule A, or interest under Schedule D. Repairs, now exempt under Schedule C, would be taxable if the securities were changed from Consols to Rents. Since this list was published the question has been fought out in the Law Courts, in the case of the fund of the Moravian Brotherhood, and in the Court of Appeal the unanimous decision of the Lords Justices has been given against the position taken up by the Inland Revenue, and that body ought not to be allowed to continue to act on a basis which has been held to be illegal. My Lords, I am not going to prolong needlessly my remarks upon the subject. I think I have said enough to show you that the matter is one which cannot be left as it is, and I will ask my noble Friend at the head of the Government whether the Government will choose definitely between the two alternatives—either to recur to the old system of exemption, or at once proceed, by way of appeal in the Moravian Brotherhood case, to obtain a final decision as to the law of the matter.
*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: The Inland Revenue Commissioners found their refusal to exempt charities from income tax, though hitherto exempted, on the judgment of a Scotch Court. The Members of that Court showed an undisguised jealousy of the interpretations of the English Court of Chancery passing as current or taking effect in Scotland. Those Judges claimed that the most ordinary and vulgar sense of the word charity should be taken in
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Scotland. In short, they would only recognize doles and such charity as the Charity Commission and public opinion in this country have set their faces against. But what do we know in this country of a Lord Ordinary? Most of us are more familiar with the Président de la Cour de Cassation; and by what right do the Inland Revenue Commissioners attempt to administer Scotch law and Scotch judgments in England? The Presidents of the French and Scotch Courts of Appeal both interpret a modern form of Roman Law. The Chairman of Inland Revenue would hardly base his action on a judgment of the French Court of Appeal. Why, then, should he, without the excuse of being a Scotchman, endeavour to enforce the equally foreign decision of a Scotch Court upon English taxpayers? Lord Justice Fry in his judgment last December in the English Court of Appeal upset the arguments of the Scotch Court, for he showed, from the number of technical words used in the Act, that charitable uses should be taken in the technical and not in the ordinary sense of the words. Another anomaly is to be found in the Return now under consideration. The Inland Revenue Commissioners show as much animosity to all funds intended to assist either building or repairs of churches or devoted to religious purposes as they could do if they were Commissioners of King Henry VIII. charged with rooting out "superstitious uses." But, although the funds of confraternities which are quasi-monastic bodies, if employed in church repairs, are exempt under Schedule C, yet if they get taxed under Schedule A no mercy is shown to them. As the destination of those funds is the same in either case, both funds, whether under Schedule A or C, ought to have the same exemption. There are 13 cases of refusal of exemption from income tax which might be called the worst. Of these six were refused on the ground that the deeds of trust were not binding; but if the accounts show that the money is used for the charities designated by the titles of the funds taxed, those accounts should be sufficient. Five charities are alleged by the Inland Revenue Commissioners not to be for a charitable purpose. Two of these are the Royal Humane Society and a Liverpool humane society. If it be a

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charitable purpose to make the life of the poor more endurable, is it not a charitable purpose to save life, to preserve the life of, perhaps, the breadwinner of a family? Two institutions for the relief of decayed governesses and poor ladies are said not to be charitable. Two other charities, one for confirmed invalids, the other a dispensary, are denied to be charities, because some small payments were made by those benefited by the charity. Where a sum is required by a poor person which he cannot provide, is it no longer a charity to provide him with three quarters of it because he found the other quarter? The action of the Inland Revenue Commissioners and the good work done by the Secretary of the Charity Commissioners, Mr. Gauntlett, in defending the interests of the charities, will drive many people to put their charities under the wing of the Charity Commission. It is contrary to public policy that charity should be taxed and discouraged: my earliest recollections in this House of the noble Marquess the Prime Minister are of his defence of the pious founder, and I hope that he will not allow him to be extinguished, and will save the charities from the expense of further litigation.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I have some difficulty in answering the two speeches we have just heard, because, although they are very eloquent and convincing, they should rather have been addressed by counsel to the Courts, and not in this House, where we cannot deal with the matter at all. This question is still sub judice; the Board of Inland Revenue are taking steps as rapidly as possible to bring up the question for the decision of this House. As soon as that is done we shall know what the law is, and if the law as then ascertained does not satisfy my noble Friend, it will be open to him to bring forward a measure to amend it. But while the matter is still in litigation it would be entirely contrary to the general practice for Members of the Government to express any opinion. I must say that it is rather hard that the Board of Inland Revenue should be subject to the adverse criticism of my noble Friend. My noble Friend near me (Lord Stanley of Alderley) has taunted me with the fact that I have more than once invoked the interference of this House with the
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action of the Charity Commissioners. It is true that I have done so, but in doing so I was only asking the House to exercise the power which has been reserved to this House by the Act of Parliament. Now my noble Friend is asking us to do that which the House never has done and I hope, never will do—namely, to interfere in litigation that is still going on.
*LORD ADDINGTON: May I just say, in reply to the noble Marquess, that the Board of Inland Revenue have given no signs whatever of their intention to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I have here the Statement of the Inland Revenue—
"That on the advice of the Law Officers an appeal will he lodged against the decision in the case of the Moravian Brotherhood, and the final judgment of the House of Lords upon the points at issue will be obtained at the earliest possible date."

THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
THE EARL OF MEATH, in rising to ask the Government whether they intended to remove the unsightly wooden hoarding which surrounds the vacant space in front of the National Gallery on its eastern and northern sides, to level and turf the ground, and to cover the blank walls of the Gallery with ornamental trellis work, said: The National Gallery is perhaps the most important building in the Metropolis. Those who have passed on the eastern side of that building, opposite St. Martin's Church, will have noticed a hoarding hiding a considerable space on the north and east of the Gallery. Formerly there was a building on the north which partly hid this space from view. But this building has been destroyed, and the hoarding now erected in its place is simply hideous to the eyes. If such a disfigurement had surrounded a County Council hall, it would long ago have been denounced. No such eyesore would be tolerated in any Continental City. I believed it is the permanent officials who are to blame for this, and I say that although I have for many years been a permanent official myself. The present Government is, I think, more alive to the improvement of the Metropolis than any other Government has been. I hope that I shall not be told that the Government are impecunious.

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I do not believe the country would grudge the expenditure necessary to make the National Gallery worthy of this Metropolis. We are told that the Government are going to build. But how soon? Why should not the ground be nicely laid out as an open space with flowers and shrubs until the final use of the site was decided upon?
LORD LAMINGTON: I am very glad that the noble Lord, who takes so much interest in the well being of the Metropolis, has put this question. There is another matter to which I might also call attention. Nothing has been done in regard to that hideous structure, Queen Anne's Mansions, which are, I believe, to be raised another 20 feet. Again, there are the new buildings at Albert Gate, which are being raised to an enormous height. I believe we shall never have proper regulations with regard to buildings until we have some permanent authority vested with power to prevent the erection of buildings which effect a disfigurement of the Metropolis.
*LORD HENNIKER: My Lords, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner is, as a matter of course, always quite ready to take the responsibility of the care of any of the buildings and works entrusted to him, and he has no wish to say that it is not the duty of the Office of Works to look after the National Gallery. I am glad that it is not necessary for me to plead on this occasion that the reason for not making the improvement he suggests is that we cannot get the money, although I think the noble Earl who brought forward the question will find that it is not so easy to get money out of the Treasury for improvement as he seems to suppose.
THE EARL OF MEATH: On the contrary, I put that as a most important point, but I said you ought to get the money.
*LORD HENNIKER: With regard to what my hon. Friend has said about the height of the buildings in Hyde Park, I think he is misinformed. I have no special information at the present moment, because I had no notice of the question, but from the information I have, I think I am right in saying my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner has succeeded in reducing the height of these buildings very considerably. The question brought forward by
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the noble Lord will, I need hardly say, receive every attention, for we all know the great interest that has been taken in the improvement of the buildings of the Metropolis; but I may say that this is a question which requires a great deal of consideration, and there are some very great difficulties to be overcome. As I suggested just now, it is not a question on this occasion of asking for money; it is a question of spending money wisely. I am told that it would be very expensive indeed to remove this hoarding and to put up railings round the National Gallery. There are also some walls round the National Gallery which must be dealt with, and if operations are undertaken at the present time, they might do no permanent good, for the ground of which the noble Lord speaks may before long be required for building purposes.
THE EARL OF MEATH: How long?
LORD HENNIKER: We can hardly say how long. The noble Lord will see that under the circumstances the matter requires more consideration than he at first supposed. All I can say is that I will undertake that the question the noble Lord has brought forward receives immediate and careful consideration.
*EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I think there is one point that has been too much lost sight of by successive Governments. They take down buildings for improvement, and we know how large a sum is spent in renting private buildings for official purposes, and that is because there is always a difficulty in finding the requisite money for providing proper permanent offices on the spaces thus extravagantly kept vacant. Now, when a large space is even temporarily left vacant in a populous district, I think it would be worth while to spend some money to give the tens of thousands living near the temporary enjoyment of an open space thus for a while rendered available to them, and to the hundreds of thousands passing by the sight of something pleasing instead of the reverse during that time; and I am glad to hear that Her Majesty's Government will take this matter into their consideration. I am informed that near the Law Courts the private munificence of a generous man, who does not wish his name to be known, is about to do what, even temporarily, will be a source

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of great enjoyment and health to many in that crowded district.
The House adjourned at twenty-five minutes to Seven o'clock, until To-morrow, a quarter after Ten o'clock.