Sitting of 14 May 1889

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  NAVAL DEFENCE BILL. (No. 186)
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONmoved the following Clause—
  "A summary of the contracts entered into by virtue of this Act, for each contract vessel, her propelling machinery, and guns, shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament within ninety days after the same is entered into, if Parliament is then sitting, and, if not, then within thirty days after the next meeting of Parliament."
  Question—"New Clause, Summary, of Contracts to be laid before Parliament. That the Clause be read a 2nd time" put and agreed to.
  On the motion of Lord G. HAMILTON in Schedule 1, page 7, columns 2 and 5,

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  lines 8 and 10 were omitted; and on Schedule 2, page 8, columns 2 and 7, lines 10 to 13 were omitted.
  LORD G. HAMILTONI daresay the House will allow me now to read the Bill a third time.
  MR. SPEAKERI must point out to the noble Lord that money is involved in the Bill.
  Bill to be read a third time on Thursday.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

    CLASS II.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    £492,562, to complete the sum for Stationery and Printing.
    MR. D. CRAWFORD (Lanarkshire, N.E.)There are one or two points to which I should like briefly to call the attention of the House in connection with this Vote. The first has reference to the volumes containing the Acts of Parliament. Up to the present Parliament we received a good edition of the Acts, which it was a pleasure to preserve in our Libraries, but during the present Parliament we have received three volumes of very inferior quality both as to paper and type, and although everyone will admit that such Acts ought to be preserved in a series, no two of these volumes are either the same in shape or design. I am sure it is only necessary to call the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury to this fact to ensure its being remedied. I trust that in future we shall be supplied with the best edition of the Acts, similar to the one which is placed in the Library, and that we shall have the privilege of exchanging the three bad volumes we have received. There is another point to which I wish also to call the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury. A very great saving has been effected in the cost of Parliamentary papers by the new system of distribution, which I for one quite approve of, and I congratulate the House on the prospect of effecting a real economy in that direction, but I think that the saving ought to give the Secretary to the Treasury the means of affording a substantial convenience to Members. We often want to send Blue Books to our constituents on subjects which specially interest
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    them. Speaking from an average experience I should say that the amount would be very moderate in the case of most Members, but if a Member is required to pay half-a-guinea for a Blue-book which he wishes to send to a constituent, he will probably refrain from doing so, although in many cases these Parliamentary papers are very useful and interesting. For example, there are two books of much interest to a mining constituency like mine—the Report of the Commission on the Depression of Trade, and the Report of the Commission on the Mines Acts. Both of them are bulky and expensive Blue Books, and, considering the saving which has now been effected, I would ask the hon. Gentleman if it would not be possible to allow a Member to send Blue Books and Parliamentary Papers to his constituents during a Session to the value of £5. Perhaps I ought to anticipate one argument which may possibly be used by the hon. Gentleman. Some time ago when I remarked to the hon. Gentleman that it was only reasonable that Members of Parliament should have the command of a certain number of Blue Books, the hon. Gentleman replied by asking a question, "Do you desire that they should have command of them to send to the booksellers?" I confess that when that searching inquiry was put to me I felt somewhat like the nervous lady in the crowd who was asked by a policeman to say whether she had picked her neighbour's pocket. The suggestion had certainly never occurred to me, and my experience is that, on the contrary, the great mass of the Blue Books and Parliamentary Papers we receive find their way into the waste paper-basket. I do not think there is any danger of their finding their way to the booksellers. We do not assume that the stationery in the library is put in the pockets of hon. Members, or that the silver spoons in the Tea Room afford a temptation which hon Members are unable to resist. I would therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to discuss the question entirely apart from any risk or danger of that kind, and I am sure that if that danger is eliminated he will admit that my proposal is only a reasonable one.
    MR. A. PEASEIn the contract for printing forms for the Public Departments there is a condition that

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    the contractor should have a convenient office in London with sufficient material to enable him to prepare his contract in a good and workmanlike manner, to the satisfaction of the Controller of the Stationery Office. Now, I think it is hard on the contractor that he shall not be able to conduct the printing of the Government forms in the country, but that he should be obliged to have an office in the Metropolis. I can see no more reason why a man who is in a position to contract for the printing of telegraph forms or the deposit books of the Post Office Savings Banks should be required to have an office in London any more than the contractors for supplying the police and the troops with articles of clothing and furniture. I should be glad to see a much more even distribution of the Government work throughout the country.
    MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)I should like on this Vote to ask what has been the result of the change which was introduced last year in regard to the circulation of Parliamentary Papers. I am informed that the change has led to a considerable reduction of cost and to greater facilities and advantages being afforded to Members, inasmuch as we can get all we want without being burdened by Papers we do not want. Another point I want to draw attention to is the cost of the old expensive style of printing. I hold in my hand a book called "The Journals of the House of Commons." It is of such proportions that it is almost unuseable, and it is got up in a most expensive and elaborate style. Many of us would be content to do without it, but under any circumstances it might be got up in a less expensive manner. I have here another volume which came to me a year or a year and a half ago. It is called "The General Index;" it weighs nearly a stone, and it it is printed in such a size and shape that it will not go upon any ordinary bookshelf. Indeed, it is of such proportions that it almost requires a Hercules to manage it, and I cannot help thinking that we might print a smaller and a more useful index in a cheaper form. There is a rumour that books of this nature are not to be issued again, but I should like to hear the announcement from the Government. I should further like to know if it is
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    not possible to have all our Blue Books and Papers of one size. I find that I rarely get two of the same guage. This may be a small matter, but it certainly prevents their being kept in order. Another question is, whether there cannot be some uniformity in the issue of Parliamentary Papers; I have here three books which purport to be the same. They are very useful volumes indeed, containing the Acts of Parliament passed in each Session. It will be noticed they are all three of different sizes; one is blue and the other red, and the names of the books although they contain the same information for different years, are all different. The one I hold in my hand was issued in 1886. It is a comparatively modest volume, and is called "Public General Statutes, 49 and 50, Victoria, 1886." In 1887 the name appears to have been changed to "Public General Acts, 1887, published by authority," and last year the book was simply entitled "Public General Acts, published by authority." The system of cutting them appears to have been given up. I think as they are books of constant reference, the House might adopt some system of having one size, similar title, and one style; and further, that they should be got up in a way that would permit hon. Members arranging them on their bookshelves.
    SIR H. MAXWELLThe hon. Member for North Islington has drawn attention to the volumes for the last three years, and perhaps it will relieve my hon. Friend's mind when I say that there is no political portent whatever in the colour or form of those volumes. Until the end of 1886 these Acts of Parliament were produced by private printers, but since January, 1887, the Stationery Office has been responsible for the printing of the Acts The difference in the size of the volumes is accounted for by the fact that the volume of 1887 was cut, while that of 1888 was uncut. In future they will all be uncut. ["Oh!"] Of course, if hon. Members are of opinion that a volume is more valuable cut than uncut, we will convey that opinion to the Stationery Office, but I may remark that the bibliographic value of an uncut volume is greater than that of a cut. The hon. Member for North-West Lanarkshire has drawn attention to

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    the quality of the paper on which the volumes were printed, and I think he said a better quality was supplied to the Library of the House. At all events, the volume is produced at a cost to the public of 3s., and when it was in the hands of a private firm it cost almost exactly double that sum, so that there is a considerable saving in that respect. As to the distribution of papers, the hon. Member alluded to the change which has taken place in the fulfilment of that part of our duty, and I am glad that he expressed satisfaction with it so far. It is still in the experimental stage, though we hope to effect a considerable saving in the future without inconvenience to Members. It may be admitted that it is rather a tax upon hon. Members to send down to the constituencies volumes for which payment has to be made. But if an unlimited supply were at the disposal of hon. Members without payment, it would be very difficult to instruct the Stationery Office what size of edition should be printed. Formerly, I think, the number printed of Blue Books for the full delivery list was 1,100; and for the short delivery list considerably less than half that number. Now, we have only 200 copies of each Parliamentary Paper sent to this House to be supplied to Members, and in no single instance has that number been exceeded. Therefore, there is that much saved. Then there is the suggestion of the hon. Member that each Member should be entitled to a free set of Blue Books above a certain annual cost. But I do not suppose that many Members, from the nature of their constituencies, are likely to require the same Blue Books; and I presume that, by friendly arrangements, a Member who required a dozen or twenty copies of one Blue Book would be able to obtain them from a dozen or twenty Members. In the changes made we have asked for the good-natured co-operation of the Members, and so far we have succeeded. A question was asked of the Secretary to the Treasury about the Blue Books going to the booksellers. That point has been under the consideration of the Committee. Preference is shown by certain Hon. Members to certain booksellers, who thus receive Blue Books in advance of the rest of the trade, and thereby they get an advan-
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    tage. Well, I will be frank with the Committee, and tell them exactly how the matter stands. It is the privilege of a Member, if he chooses, to notify the Vote Office to have a copy of every Paper published sent to him. I believe at the present moment there are about 80 hon. Members who receive copies of every Blue Book or Parliamentary Paper published. Of these 80 Members, there are some 20 who never see those Papers, for the simple reason that they send them direct to the booksellers. It is, for this House to express an opinion whether that is altogether a creditable transaction. As to the necessity for printers of Parliamentary Papers having an office in London, the reason is obvious; it would be exceedingly inconvenient to have to send Papers (which are generally wanted in a hurry) into the country to be printed, but there may be circumstances which form an exception to the rule, and they will not escape our attention. I think if the hon. Member (Mr. Bartley), who is a Member of the Committee which has charge of the form in which the Parliamentary Papers are issued, would give us the advantage of his advice, we shall be able to improve them.
    SIR W. HARCOURTI am always sorry in Committee of Supply to see independent Members putting pressure on the Government to increase rather than decrease the expenditure. I hope the right hon. Member for Wigton will be a little more hard hearted in reference to the demands made upon him by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire. I think it would be a very dangerous precedent to enlarge the gratuitous privileges of Members of this House, and to supply Blue Books to the Members of this House from a limited money scale would be an exceedingly bad thing. You do not know what may be done in the matter, and I heard with regret the statement as to what is done by some hon. Members. Many of us have another method of disposing of our Blue Books. Now, there is a free library in the borough which I represent, and when I have read, as I always do read, every line of every Blue Book, I hand them to the free library in the hope that my constituents will do the same. At all events, that is a course which could be adopted by borough

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    Members. I do not say that it would answer the same purpose in the case of county constituencies. I, for one, should be extremely sorry to see the practice of the gratuitous distribution of Blue Books.
    MR. J. E. ELLISIn this Vote there is a very large increase on the cost of paper—£15,000. Whether the increase is because of the greater number of documents issued or due to the better quality of the paper, it is surely a very serious sum. My own observation would lead me to the conclusion that the paper which is in use now, as compared with the paper on which the Returns of years ago are printed, and to be seen in the Library, is by no means improved. There is another point to which I should like to call attention, and that is the extraordinary delay that takes place between the order for a Return or Paper being printed and its distribution. The delay is so great as to be almost, a Parliamentary scandal. I put a question on this subject to the First Lord of the Treasury, and he gave me a most courteous reply, and asked if I could give him any instances. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly aware that the task involves a considerable amount of labour. But I will give him two or three instances which I myself have investigated, and the right hon. Gentlemen may take them as a sample. Now, there was a Return in the early part of the Session of cases under the Criminal Law Procedure Act (Ireland) laid on the Table on the 21st February, and the Paper was not distributed for several weeks. There was also a Paper with regard to the Land Purchase Question laid on the Table on the 19th March. The order for printing was given on the 21st March, and the Paper did not get into the hands of Members until the 18th April. Then, again, the Return as to Resident Magistrates, merely a list of names occupying only two pages, was laid on the Table on the 19th March, and although the order for printing was given on the 21st March, the Paper was not delivered at our residences until the 15th April. Another Return, for which the order was given on the 15th April, is not in our hands at the present moment. I hope it
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    will be felt that I have not overstated the case, and that the attention of the Government will be directed to the matter. I am one of those who think we cannot properly perform our functions in this House unless we have full and accurate information relating to matters brought before us. I will now call attention to another matter, and that is the method of reporting our debates. There was a Committee appointed—a Joint Committee of Members of this and the other House—to look into this matter. I believe they sat eight times and examined ten witnesses in last Sessoin. They presented a Report declaring the system to be inconvenient and unsatisfactory, and though they did not recommend an official report they recommended an improved Hansard. In pursuance of that Report the Secretary to the Treasury, I presume, acting on the part of the Government, entered into a contract with a certain firm—a copy of which contract I hold in my hand—the firm of Macrae, Curtis and Co., and I notice one fact in connection with that firm as to which this House—as a point affecting its honor and reputation—should be very jealous. One of our Rules is that no one who is a Member of this House shall be interested in a matter of profit under a Parliamentary arrangement, and I believe I am right in saying that one of the parties interested in this contract is one of the Members for Kensington. Of course, I do not wish to impute anything that can be regarded as in the least improper to that Gentleman; but still there is the name of a Member of this House in connection with this particular contract, although it is the law that no Member of this Assembly shall have any interest in a Government contract. I may here refer to the fact that the printing of Hansard is considered by that firm as involving a most valuable connection, for I remember having myself received a circular asking me to take shares in the Company in the event of this contract having the approval of the House of Commons; and I have noticed that the firm is blossoming into what is called the Hansard Publishing Union, so that it is evident the Hansard Printing Company recognise among their assets of value the right of printing and publishing the debates of this House. As to how the contract is carried out I think this House

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    can hardly be satisfied. I do not think that the conditions of the contract with regard to type and paper have been carried out—that is if the conditions lay down that they should give us good paper and type. Moreover, whereas in old days we could go into the Library and see each number of Hansard with an index, all published within a very short time, now, although we have numbers of the new Hansard up to within three or four days of every discussion, they are without any index at all, so that it is almost impossible until you get a whole volume—and the first complete volume has just been issued—to refer accurately to what has taken place. My hon. Friend near me points out to me that the first volume only goes down to the 15th March this year. I do hope the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury will turn his attention to the manner in which the new contract for Hansard's Debates is being carried out. I am one of those who cling to the extreme importance to our having an accurate record of our debates, I do not consider that Hansard realizes that; but I hold it to be most important that we should seek to retain the traditions of this House by preserving what has been done in the past and in earlier times.
    SIR J. GOLDSMIDI wish to make an observation on one point that has been already alluded to, and to say that it is no credit to the House of Commons that people who have the contract to report our Debates should be touting for subscriptions to their Company in the way they have been doing. I had over 20 applications myself, and other Members of this House have also received a large number. That is not satisfactory. We ought to ascertain that a firm which undertakes to do our work has sufficient capital to carry on the business, and that if they hope to go on successfully, they should not have to tout about London in the way adopted in this case. One further observation I have to make is this, that in some respects the reporting is satisfactory, but that though there is a considerable amount of accuracy in the reports of the observations made in this House, on more than one occasion I have noticed certain absurd mistakes with regard to names. The other day, in reporting the discussion on the opera-
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    tions of the Endowed School Commissioners with regard to the City Parochial Charities Fund, they gave the name of Mr. Anstie, one of the Charity Commissioners—a name which is well known to everybody who has anything to do with these matters—as "Mr. Anstey," spelling it "Anstey" instead of "Anstie." I trust this matter will receive the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury, and that we shall not see these errors in future.
    MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N).I should like to correct an impression which a remark of the hon. Baronet might convey. He said I was a member of the Standing Committee on Printing Parliamentary Papers, and that, therefore, I was to a certain extent responsible for the things I complained of. At no time, however, were these volumes or arrangements as to their printing, to which I have referred, brought before the Committee. I should have been extremely glad if the printing arrangements had been sent before the Committee. It is a mistake to say that the Committee has in past, at least, been responsible in any way for these things.
    MR. T. M. HEALYI think, Sir, that some steps should be taken with regard to forwarding to the Irish Members Papers relating to Irish matters. It is very important that they should have these Papers as early as possible, and they ought not to be obliged to have to write for them, as is the case at present. Beyond this, Members ought to have the Statute Books which the Government are bringing out; they would be exceedingly useful to us if we could have them at an early date. With regard to Hansard, I think the new arrangement has introduced a great change for the better. I allude to the asterisk they put opposite the names of hon. Members who revise their speeches. That seems to be a Heaven-sent idea, because no one need now be under any obligation to revise his speeches, as everybody will know whether they are revised or not, thus conferring a boon on gentlemen, who will no longer be under the supposition that they have revised their speeches. With regard to the printing, I appeal to the Government whether they cannot get about 100 volumes of M.S. belonging to

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    the Ordnance Survey in Ireland, now at the Royal Irish Academy, put into type. They might take the money for this from what is spent on horse racing. Certainly, I was amazed to find that they had been allowed to remain in the manuscript; and had they been destroyed, or stolen, or lost in any way, they would have been absolutely irrecoverable. Remember this work was done at enormous expense, you employed the very best intellect you could get, as far as the archæological and antiquarian researches were concerned, and yet the results of the labours of those intellects are lying absolutely unknown to the general public, and exposed to all sorts of risks. Had the Chief Secretary been in his place, I should have appealed to him in this matter. As his name is detested in Ireland, I should have been pleased to have given him an opportunity of doing something which would, at any rate, secure the approval of the Irish people.
    MR. ARTHUR ACLANDI wish to ask whether anything definite is being done about editing the reports of Royal Commissions. We, who are Members of the Committee, have ascertained that there is no single authority who looks after the editing of these papers. The Member for Rushcliffe has spoken of the space of time which intervenes between the order for the printing of the Papers and the issue of them, and I think that this difficulty might be avoided if there were somebody in charge of this particular duty.
    THE CHAIRMANOrder, order! That does not arise on this Vote.
    MR. ACLANDI think, Sir, I may raise a point as to the position which the Comptroller of the Stationery Office holds in reference to these matters.
    THE CHAIRMANThe Vote refers to matters of printing, and not to editing.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATONIn reference to the remarks of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. T. M. Healy) as to being called upon to sign orders for Papers, I beg to suggest a remedy which I have adopted, and that is to sign a general order for all Papers to be sent. I then go through the Papers and find many matters worthy of notice, which I should have missed had I merely looked to the list of printed
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    papers sent out. In regard to the delay in the issue of papers, I hope the Government will follow the practice which has been adopted by the Australian Parliament, and establish a Government printing office. The Government printing office there prints quite as much matter as is necessary here, and I believe that with the large number of Government departments we have, the heads of departments would be able to save many thousands of pounds if we had a Government printing office. I do trust that the Government will inquire into this matter, because I feel confident that, if they do, they will establish such an office and follow the example of the Australian Parliament with, I am sure, advantage to this country.
    DR. CLARKI want some information as to the amount of this Vote. We have had a reform, and the result is a very considerable increase in the Estimate. As far as the printing is concerned, the increase is £3,000, and I cannot understand if so very much less printing has to be done, why the Estimate should be so much in excess. Then, again, there is an increase of several thousand pounds in the item for paper. I do not know what is the explanation of that, unless the Secretary to the Treasury got a hint about the formation of a paper syndicate, and so took an extra amount in the Estimate to meet the amount which that syndicate was likely to mulct the public in regard to the price of paper. With the exception of the reduction of £4,500 for Hansard, there is absolutely an increase of £21,000 on this Vote. I should like to hear the reason for this, and why, when so little is sent out, we are paying £15,000 extra for paper, and £3,000 extra for printing. Then with reference to the London Gazette. I am glad to see there is a change, and that instead of asking £2,200 for the Gazette, the charge has been decreased to £1,000. In regard to the reduction of £4,500 in the charges for Hansard, I notice we are getting 120 copies. I should like to know if those copies are required for this House, or what is done with them. In regard to the reports themselves, complaint has been made that by giving the speeches in the first person, the public is misled into the idea that the reports are verbatim. I hope the Secretary to the Treasury will give me some

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    explanation on the points which I have raised.
    MR. DE LISLEI should like to refer to some remarks made by the hon. Member for Leicester some time since, when he pointed out that under the new system of editing Hansard, all speeches are reported in the first person, which gives the impression that they are verbatim, whereas they are not. Now I have examined my own speeches, and I find that the report is taken from the Times newspaper; there it is in the third person, but it is put into the first person, and is consequently very misleading. I have not the slightest objection to my speeches being compressed into the smallest possible space—I think the more they are compressed, the better—but what I do say is that we should not have a report which, in the first instance, is published in the third person, twisted into the first person, and thereby made ridiculous. I think the system of reporting in the third person is best for ordinary persons like myself, who do not aspire to lead in this House. If speeches are to be reported verbatim, no doubt the first person reports are the best, but I think the third person is best for those speeches of which only a summary is given. I believe those who are interested in this matter will agree with me that speeches which are not really reported in full should be put in the third person. Then with regard to the remarks made by the bon. Member for Longford about the insertion of the asterisk. Now, I have found it quite impossible to correct speeches which, although put in the first person, are merely transcribed from the report in the Times, because whole sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs are left out. I have taken the trouble occasionally to insert a word or two, but really I could not take the responsibility of correcting the speech, and I do hope that, in future, speeches which are not reported in extenso will be given in the third person.
    MR. H. GARDNERI wish to ask the Secretary to the Treasury a question with regard to Parliamentary Papers. Are they issued to free libraries? Although many of the blue books which are printed may not be of much service to these institutions, there are, amongst
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    the papers issued to the House of Commons, some which are of the highest value for free libraries, and I would ask the Secretary to the Treasury how the item of £100 contained in this Vote for the purpose is allocated? I venture to suggest that it seems a very small sum for this purpose, but small as it is, I should like to hear from the Secretary to the Treasury how it is apportioned amongst the various public libraries of this country. I am sure that every Member of this House would be glad if the Government could hold out a hope that this sum, if insufficient, shall be increased.
    MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)Before the Secretary to the Treasury answers the question which has been put him, I wish in the first place to point out that the issue of the revised statutes has only progressed to the extent of one volume. You can buy this volume for seven shillings. Now a number of Blue Books, which are absolutely useless, are issued at charges as high as thirty shillings. Anybody can get these, and I would suggest that when you get a useful volume like this published at seven shillings, Members should have the opportunity of applying for them on the same terms as they have in regard to these useless blue books. And then there is the question of the translation of the Brehon Law. There is in respect of that a sum of £200 in this Vote, and although a considerable sum has already been expended, no volume of these laws has been issued for something like 20 years. The gentleman whom you have appointed to translate them into English has made application to the Commissioners to be allowed to divide the work into three volumes all of which are to be published simultaneously. Now, Sir, the result is that we shall have to wait three or four years before we see a specimen of this gentleman's work. In the first place it may be reasonably doubted if it was wise to give the task to one who, until a few years ago, was totally ignorant of the Irish language. It is hardly to be expected he would be competent to continue a work begun by the most eminent Irish scholars. However, by his compact with the Commissioners he secures absolute immunity; he gets remunerated for the work before we see what it is like. I think we may ask the Secretary to the Treasury to

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    impress upon the Commissioners the desirability of issuing the work so far as it has gone so that we may judge the character of the work. I have no confidence in the competency of this gentleman.
    MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM (Lanark, N.W.)There is one point to which I wish to direct the attention of the Committee before they pass from this Vote. I hope I am in order in doing so. In the observations which we have had from different Members on both sides of the House in regard to the question of printing, we have not heard one word as to the circumstances under which the printing is executed. I should not have thought myself justified in referring to these circumstances had I not seen in his place the Secretary to the Treasury, who gave utterance some few months since to a statement that printing for the Government Establishment was being executed under such conditions as to be practically beyond the utmost powers of man. Now, Sir, I think this is a question which may fairly be commented on when such a sentence as this is uttered from the Treasury Bench. The conditions of work exceed the power of man to endure. And I should like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, who has already answered me once upon this question, although his answer was not satisfactory, whether, in the future, the Members of this House are going to be held up to execration in the country for having assisted, or at any rate not having resisted a system of work which exceeds the endurance of man to perform? If we pride ourselves upon our humanity, I think when we come to read the Reports of the Sweating Committee, we shall come to the conclusion that, in our collective capacity as Members of the House of Commons, it is our duty to protest against being sweaters ourselves. I was glad to hear from the hon. Member for Canterbury the expression of a hope that the Government would establish a printing office of its own. I believe he is thoroughly con-conversant with the subject and with the results obtained from Government printing offices in our Colonies. I understand from him that these results are exceedingly satisfactory, and I wish to know whether we are to continue this system of sub-contracting, and letting out the Government printing with the
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    results which the hon. Member himself has characterized to this House in language which I have had the honour of repeating; and I do earnestly hope that we shall have some assurance from the hon. Gentleman that in future the Government contracts will be in such a shape as will confine them to firms paying Trades Union rates of wages, and that, if possible, an eight hours' clause will be introduced into them.
    MR. JACKSONPerhaps it will be convenient if I reply now to some of the questions which have been put to me. The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottingham raised the question of the delay in the presentation of Papers. Now, I am not prepared to deny that it is possible to make some improvement in the direction which the hon. Member suggests, but I wish to point out as clearly as I can to the Committee that there is a little confusion sometimes in the minds of Members as to where the delay arises, and as to the causes of the delay. The date of the order for printing the paper which appears on each document is not necessarily an indication that there has been unreasonable delay, even although there may have been a considerable period elapsed between the date of the order for printing and the date of the circulation of the paper to Members. It is no indication, I repeat, that there has been unreasonable delay, either on the part of the Department or on the part of the printers, for it has been the habit—and the habit may be a good one, or a bad one, but it can easily be altered if necessary—it has been found very convenient with reference to papers presented to Parliament, to present them in what is called "dummy" form. That enables the House to give an order for printing, but it by no means follows that it can be printed forthwith—and in many cases the order is actually given before a single step has been taken towards providing the information which is ordered by the Return to be supplied to the House.
    MR. J. E. ELLISIn the instances I gave I ascertained that the Papers were not laid on the Table of the House in "dummy form."
    MR. JACKSONIf the hon. Member has ascertained that in the cases to which he referred the information was

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    ready at the time when the order for printing was given, then I think there was an unreasonable amount of delay. But I want to make it clear to the Committee that in many cases of Returns moved for by hon. Members, although the order for printing is given, the information cannot possibly be obtained for a considerable time, and that explains the apparent delay in the circulation of the paper. I may assure the hon. Member that we are taking steps to secure the speediest possible circulation of papers. Well now, Sir, reference has been made by several hon. Members to the question of the contract entered into for the printing and publishing of the debates and proceedings of the Houses of Parliament. Some hon. Members have complained that the reports are now made in the first person, instead of in the third as formerly. Well, Sir, I have no doubt—in fact I know from communications made to me by the contractors—that they are only anxious to do what is desired and to meet the general convenience of Members of the House. But I will point out, in defence of the course which has been taken, that in the Committee to which this question was referred—and possibly the hon. Gentleman the Senior Member for Northampton will well remember this—certainly one Member, if not more than one Member, laid great stress upon the desirability of what he called treating all Members alike, as some speeches had in the past had more prominence given to them than others, and had been printed in the first person, and it was the strongly expressed wish that the same treatment, as far as possible, should be extended to all Members of the House. I believe, therefore, that the contractors, in adopting the plan which they have followed, have pursued that which they believe to have been the express wish of the Committee to which the question was referred; and they have supposed that they have been consulting the general convenience of Members by adopting the practice.
    MR. DE LISLEThe point I wish to impress upon the Committee is that the reports of hon. Members like myself which are given in the third person in the Times are taken and twisted back into the first person, and thus purport to be verbatim, whereas they are nothing of the sort. If all speeches are
    36
    to be reported in extenso in the first person, so much the better for everybody; but what I object to is that a third person report should be turned into a first person report, and thereby made really a caricature of the speech.
    MR. JACKSONI do not wish to press the point or to discuss it at greater length, but I am sure that the matter having been called attention to will have the effect of causing the complaint to be looked into carefully, and that the contractors will see if anything can be done to meet the wishes of hon. Members in this matter. I must not be taken as either admitting, or confirming, or denying the statement made by the hon. Member that these reports are simply taken from some other report, because it is one of the conditions of the contract, and that condition I have reason to know is complied with—that there shall always be in the Gallery reporters who are taking notes of the debates and proceedings of the House. Well, Sir, a question has been asked about the 125 printed volumes supplied by the contractors, and what becomes of them. They are distributed not only in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament, but also throughout the Government Departments. The number is the same as was taken under the old arrangement, and I believe it is necessary to meet the requirements of the various Public Departments. The hon. Baronet the Member for St. Pancras has raised a question as to the company which has the contract having touted for subscriptions. The only answer is, I suppose, that they, like most promoters of companies, have gone to the men who they think have the money and are able to subscribe. Of course, we have nothing to do with the company or with its formation. Something has been said that in the prospectus this contract was treated as a valuable asset. But I think this really has no bearing on the question. I may say I believe that, as a matter of fact, this company did acquire from Mr. Hansard, who previously did this work, his stock and plant, the arrangement also including the right to continue to use the name of Hansard in connection with these debates. My own impression is that it is rather a matter of convenience that the work should be continued under the title of Hansard, perhaps, whatever

    37
    money value may attach to the right to use the name. So far as the company is concerned, and so far as the Contract is concerned, the Government have followed the recommendations of the Committee. They advertised publicly for tenders, and having done so, they felt that unless very strong reasons could be assigned against it, it was their duty to accept the lowest tender. That is the course we adopted in this case. The Government took steps to sufficiently protect themselves, and to ensure the carrying out of the contract, and I am bound to say that so far as my experience goes, I should have thought that the reports are more full than formerly, and that certainly the present system is a great improvement upon that which has hitherto prevailed. Well, now, the hon. Member for Islington (Mr. Bartley) referred again to the size of the volumes of Statutes, and said that the form of printing was not submitted to the Committee. We hope the Committee will deal with all these questions, and that the hon. Gentleman will make some suggestion by which some economy may be effected in the direction desired. The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. T. Healy) spoke about the distribution of the Papers. It is open to any Member who desires to have the whole of the Papers which are presented to Parliament, to give instructions for them to be forwarded to him. We had hoped we should be able to effect some economy, and that hon. Members who really did not attach very great importance to having the whole of the Papers, would co-operate with us in cutting down the printing bill as far as possible. The hon. Gentlemen also referred to the publication of the revised Statutes. The revised Statutes are not issued as Parliamentary Papers. They are now being published under the authority of the Stationery Office, but they have never been treated as Parliamentary Papers. The custom has been for anyone who desires to possess them to buy them. The price, I understand, is 7s. 6d. per volume.
    MR. T. M. HEALYWhen will they be completed?
    MR. JACKSONThe second volume is just about to be issued. The hon. Member referred to the printing of certain Irish MS., and the hon. Member
    38
    for Mid Tyrone (Mr. M. Kenny) asked what payment was made to Dr. Atkinson for his work in respect to the manuscripts. I believe I am correct in saying that the work is only paid for as it is performed; that so much is paid per sheet. The Commissioners under whose care this work is being carried on estimate that £200 will be required for the work in the ensuing year, the sum taken last year. In reference to the particular manuscript referred to, I will call the attention of the Commissioners to what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    MR. T. M. HEALYHow far do the revised Statutes come down?
    MR. JACKSONTo the end of the reign of Queen Anne. The hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clarke) raised the question of the increased cost of printing and paper. The increase in the Printing Department is due to the fact that when the Estimate was framed, the Stationery Office were warned by several Departments that there would be a considerable increase of work. One of the Departments which anticipated considerably increased expenditure was the Patent Office. Consequent upon the recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry, an alteration has been made in the form of the Patent Office publications, and the Office is now issuing an illustrated journal which I believe will add considerably to the cost of printing, although it will lead to great saving in the Office generally. The excess estimated in the Patent Office alone was £5,000. As to the cost of paper, there was, at the time the Estimate was framed, an evident tendency in the market to advance. Some contracts which were made at that time showed an advance on the former price of about 5 per cent on the general run of paper, and as much as 18 per cent on certain qualities of writing paper. I understand that since that time the market has shown less strength, and I hope it may prove to be that the amount which has been taken for paper will be found to be more than ample to meet the requirements. But it is quite impossible in estimating so long beforehand, and with a fluctuating market, to calculate with any degree to nicety what the actual cost will be. Now, in reference to the point raised by the hon. Member for North-East Lanarkshire

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    (Mr. Cuninghame Graham), I think there is some confusion in his mind as to what I said or what I intended to convey in answer to a question which was put to me on a previous occasion. The question was raised in the first instance by an inquiry as to the delay in printing certain papers. At that time all the estimates were being printed, and I said it, as I believed, in defence, not only of the contractors, but also of their work-people, that the contractors and work-people were straining every nerve to keep pace with the demand, which at that time was excessive, and was unusual. But I did not intend to convey that the term "sweating" was applicable in any sense or form to the state of things. Anyone who has any experience of business knows that there may come times of pressure when the workpeople are most willing to come to the aid of their employers by working longer hours. If that were not so very often it would be difficult to carry on business at all. Every effort will be made to avoid such pressure being put on the work people, but at the same time it must not be understood that the pressure is put on them without their benefiting by it. I have, I think, as much sympathy with the working classes as the hon. Member. I have had a good deal to do with working men and I know that in times of pressure they willingly do the very best they can.
    MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAMThe hon. Gentleman has made observations calculated to induce the Committee to believe that I am not aware that the system of overtime exists in different industries. I am well aware that such a system does exist, and it is one of the objects of my life to put that system down.
    MR. JACKSONThat may or may not be a very good object, but I may tell the hon. Member I have known a great many workpeople who were very glad on occasions to work overtime for the extra payment it brought them.
    MR. BRADLAUGHHas the hon. Gentleman informed himself as to whether it is reported officially in the Labour Reports of America that the Government interference with the time of employés under some pressure has tended to a reduction of the wages of the men 20 per cent all round?
    MR. JACKSONI have no knowledge of that circumstance, but if the hon. Member puts it forward as a fact the Committee may well accept it as such. I was only speaking on the general question because my attention has been called to very extravagant statements which followed upon the answer I gave in regard to the delay in the printing of certain papers. As to the point raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. H. Gardner) the position of matters with regard to Free Libraries is this:—The noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) came under an obligation to the House in answer to an appeal made to him that he would consider the question of a free distribution of certain papers to certain Free Libraries, and with a view of carrying that object out the sum of £100 was placed on the Estimates. The plan which has been adopted is this:—That any free library making application for Papers has been invited to say what Papers would be of interest in the district, and so far as I know all the applications have been readily acceded to. I do not wish to say too much to encourage further applications, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be gratified to know that so far we have not been obliged to refuse any application.
    SIR W. BARTTELOTMy hon. Friend has just said that the increase in the cost of paper is estimated to be something like 5 per cent, and he has also told us that there is likely to be an increase in the Patent Office in respect of printing. When we come to look at the different heads under which the charge is placed—printing, paper, parchments, binding, and small stores—we see what a very large sum of money is expended in the various Departments. In olden days we had the expenditure of each Office set out separately, so that we could compare the cost of one Office with that of another. These sums are so large that we really ought to have much more detailed information than we are able to get from the Paper now before us.
    MR. JACKSONIf my hon. and gallant Friend will refer to pages 165, 166, 167, and 168 of the Estimates, he will find the details of the amount expended in each Office are given.
    SIR W. FOSTERI should like to raise a point

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    in reference to the publication of the Division Lists. It would be an advantage to Members in calculating the length of debates, and also in regard to the question of pairing, if at the top of the Division Lists there could be printed the hour at which the Division takes place.
    MR. LABOUCHERE:I entirely agree with the Secretary to the Treasury that the present system of Hansard has proved satisfactory to the vast majority of the Members of the House. In regard to the little details which have been mentioned, I have no doubt there will be improvement as matters go on. But I was rather surprised at the hon. Gentleman's explanation of excess in the cost of paper. I gathered from the hon. Gentleman's remarks that the Comptroller had been told that paper had gone up in some cases 5 per cent and in others 18 per cent, and that certain contracts, based on the increased prices, had been made. The Comptroller has been humbugged by the contractors, for it is a hard and positive fact that paper has not gone up in the market during the last six months. The paper syndicate in no way affects the paper required for the House. I agree with the hon. Gentleman who holds that we ought to hesitate very much before we have a public printing department. Besides the £25,000 per annum which the department would cost, we would be providing more people with a plea for pensions further on. But it is only reasonable that when making contracts, we should ascertain whether a fair wage is paid by the contractors. The system of contracting for printing is much better than having a public printing department, with its superintendents, deputy superintendents, and so on. The real reason why there is delay in the printing of papers is that the contractor has not a sufficient amount of type. Members are sometimes kept waiting week after week for papers which they are told are in the hands of the printer. The Government ought to make arrangements with the printer for speedy work, for which they might arrange to pay a higher price. I also desire to again point out that the price of Blue Books and Parliamentary Papers is excessive. I hold in my hand a Parliamentary Paper the price of which was 1s. 4½d. It is stated to be under 12
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    ounces, but the cost of paper, ink, machinery, and printing will not exceed 2d. At the present day people go in for large sales and small profits; but I do not think the Government ought to require any profit on such papers. There are no doubt many public libraries and private people who would be glad of Blue Books and other Parliamentary Papers if they could only obtain them at a reasonable price.
    MR. HANDEL COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)The Ordnance Survey is of great value, and I should like to know when it is likely to be completed.
    MR. CRILLY (Mayo N.)I think that the Irish Members have great cause to complain of the delay which takes place in the presentation of papers to the House. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe Division (Mr. J. E. Ellis), referred to the fact that something like five weeks elapse before papers relating to Irish matters are presented. It will be in the recollection of the Secretary to the Treasury that there was ordered to to be printed a paper, relating to the Ballycotton pier, and that five weeks transpired before it was completed. There is another and a cognate matter to which I would draw attention—I do not know exactly if it comes within the region of the hon. Gentleman's department—and that is the great want of regularity and uniformity, that takes place in presenting the Returns of the Irish Land Commission to the House. Some little time ago it was my duty to submit to the House a Bill upon the Irish Land question, and for some little time previously I had been following the issue of these Returns giving the decisions of the Irish Land Commission, and I found, as a rule, there was great delay in the presentation. I am quite aware that at the present time the House is in possession of the rentals fixed in January and February, but though I saw the last Blue Book four or five days ago, copies are not yet in the possession of Irish Members. I think we have just cause of complaint on this account. I do not know how it may be on English subjects, but I am quite sure that cases such as those instanced by the hon. Member for Rushcliffe might be multiplied indefinitely in which information on this great Irish Question has been withheld. I do not know who is to blame for the delay, but I hope

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    somebody will find a remedy for it. I notice that when the Chief Secretary wants to supply the country with information on some point affecting Irish administration he very readily finds the means, either by a communication to Mr. Armytage, or some other way; but there is always delay in supplying Members with information upon which they can form their opinions and base their convictions in these matters. The Secretary of the Treasury is always ready to meet the wishes of Members, and I trust he will give his attention to this matter of the presentation of Irish Papers.
    SIR G. CAMPBELLI cannot but think the reply of the Secretary to the Treasury as to the delay in, and the control over, the printing is entirely unsatisfactory. The hon. Gentleman mildly says he will see if something can be done, but something radical should be done in this matter. If we question a Minister about the production of Papers, he invariably says he has no control, and we never get a satisfactory answer. I object to the system of contract, though not altogether, on the grounds urged by the hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Cuninghame Graham). We work overtime ourselves, and I do not see why, when work presses, printers should not be invited to do the same; but what I object to is that by these Government contracts contractors are not bound under severe penalties to fulfil their undertakings, as would be the case if a private firm gave out large contracts. The contractor finds it cheaper to keep up a moderate staff, and we have to wait his convenience. We want more control over him, and I hope this will be taken into consideration, with the object of making a radical change in this respect. It might be possible, perhaps, to have a Government establishment where urgent work might be done with a responsible head, and other printing not so urgent might still be put out to contract. Something of this kind might be done, but nothing can be more unsatisfactory than to be told that we have no control over the printer when we are kept waiting for papers. The rise in the price of paper is, I suppose, due to the paper syndicate to which the hon. Member for Northampton alluded. There
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    has been a scare in paper as there has been in a good many other things. I hope the Government will take care to watch what is going on and act accordingly. As to the reports of our speeches, I think quite enough has been said, about Members not being reported fully, and yet in the first person; but what I object to is the system of asterisks. Looking over the report of your speech in a condensed form you, perhaps, find that the accidental omission of a "not" or a "none" has entirely reversed your meaning and you would like to correct that. But then if you do so the speech is marked with an asterisk, and you are made responsible for the correctness of the speech in the form in which it is presented. I hope the system of asterisks will be discontinued, so that you may make small corrections without making yourself responsible for the speech altogether in the form printed. In regard to the printing of the Statutes mentioned, I should like to know whether the old Scotch Statutes still on the Statute Book are included?
    SIR HERBERT MAXWELLI cannot say at the moment. As the hon. Member is perhaps aware, there are many volumes of old Scotch Acts to be found on the shelves in the passages leading to the Library.
    SIR W. FOSTERThe Secretary to the Treasury has not noticed my suggestion as to printing the times of the Divisions.
    MR. JACKSONI will make a note of it. It hardly rests with me, for the "Votes and Proceedings" are not under the control of the Treasury, but I will bring it under the notice of the controlling authorities.
    Vote agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £22,347, 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 of March, 1890, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Her Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, and of the Office of Land Revenue Records and Inrolments."
    MR. BUCHANAN (Edinburgh, W.)I propose to move the reduction of this Vote by £1,000, and to call attention to a subject raised last year, and to the attitude of the Government then and since. The subject will be familiar

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    especially to Scotch Members—the way in which the Office of Woods and Forests have dealt with Crown rights of fishing in Scotland, more especially the alienation and sale of the right of fishing in Loch Morar in Invernessshire. The subject was brought before the House last autumn, but previous to that, in July, the Secretary to the Treasury had been asked a question as to the sale of these rights, and he said he could not lay Papers on the Table, and declined to state the circumstances of the sale. On the 8th November, in Committee of Supply, the subject was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness. Previously there had been a discussion initiated by the hon. Members for Northampton and Preston, on a variety of matters connected with the administration of the Department of Woods and Forests in England, and such a strong case for inquiry was made out that the Government agreed to appoint a Committee for the purpose. My hon. Friend (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh), then brought forward the subject of the alienation of the Crown rights of fishing in Loch Morar, and in the discussion the Scotch Members, as was acknowledged by the Government, made out a very strong case. At first the Secretary to the Treasury was inclined to minimize and to pooh-pooh the question, but on the matter being pressed by Scotch Members the Chancellor of the Exchequer took part in the debate, and this was his language:—
    "He was inclined to think it was an extremely important question, but he doubted whether it could be conveniently referred to the same Committee that was to inquire into the general administration and business of the Woods and Forests."
    That is the general Committee already granted in consequence of the representations made by the hon. Members for Northampton and Preston and others. "He would inquire as to the best means of threshing out this particular point." The Chancellor of the Exchequer further said that—
    "In view of the feeling of the Committee he would undertake that no further sales of this class should take place until there had been ample inquiry; until they could see what was the proper policy to pursue."
    Well, this indicates that the Government were sensible of the impression our representations had made. The
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    Government were further pressed during the debate, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke again, when he said he was doubtful whether the same Committee which the Government would appoint to inquire into the general business arrangements of the Department of Woods and Forests, would be the best tribunal to select to inquire into the question raised by the Scotch Members, which was a matter of law in which Scotland was specially interested; and he added—
    "I shall be disposed to think that a Committee to inquire into the disposal of Crown rights would be one on which Scotch Members would wish to be much more strongly represented than on a Committee to inquire into the general administration of the Crown Lands."
    Immediately after the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Division took place. I think it was the general opinion of those who participated in the debate that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman was a reasonable one, and that the Committee, which the Government had already granted to inquire into the general question of the administration of the Department of Woods and Forests would not be a very suitable tribunal for enquiry into this very important, but peculiarly Scottish question. This was in November last year. At the beginning of this Session, in reply to a question, the Government said they intended to proceed in the appointment of the General Committee to enquire into the Administration of the Department, and on March 5, I put a question to the First Lord of the Treasury in regard to this particular question of the disposal of Crown rights in Scotland, and the right hon. Gentleman replied that the terms of reference to the proposed Committee on the Woods and Forests Department would not exclude the disposal of Crown rights in Scotland from investigation. Upon that I reminded him that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had undertaken to make a special reference on the subject, and the First Lord added that if it should appear that a special Committee was necessary the Government would not refuse it. On March 15 I secured an opportunity between 11 and 12 o'clock to call attention to this subject and was supported by several of my

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    colleagues. Unfortunately, there was a very limited time to discuss the subject, and it was just before 12 o'clock that the Secretary to the Treasury said in a few words it was not desirable to have a separate Committee to deal with the subject; he gave no reason for coming to that conclusion but simply announced it. Naturally, I thought we should have another opportunity of pressing our views on the Government proposal to appoint the General Committee of which I have spoken, but the Motion for the appointment of the Committee was set down for the day before the Easter Recess. We were successful in preventing the Motion being disposed of a few minutes before six o'clock, and we then asked the Secretary to the Treasury not to put it down for the first day after the holidays. Although the hon. Gentleman gave me no articulate reply we quite understood that it was agreed that the Motion should not be taken. We were then surprised to find the Government brought on the Motion just after midnight on the day of reassembling after Easter, and I think it was a little unfair that we should have been deprived of the legitimate opportunity of raising the question in which we are so much interested. If our case was strong when we raised the question last year it has become very much stronger since, and what we anticipated then has been confirmed. Not only has there been this alienation of the rights of fishing in a remote Highland loch for a very small sum, but public rights covered by the transfer have passed into the hands of private landowners on the loch side. The Secretary to the Treasury expressed a doubt as to the importance of the consequences that would ensue from the sale; but since then an action has been raised in the Court of Session to obtain an interdict preventing the people who live on the loch shores from putting boats on the loch, or navigating it, except at certain fixed points. From the report of the hearing of the case in the Court of Session, Counsel for the landed proprietors declared that his clients attached little importance to the mere fishing rights; that no salmon, indeed, were ever caught, and the trout fishing was very small. So long as the Crown held the rights, people were freely allowed the use of boats, but since the alienation of
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    the rights, this right of traversing the lake has been taken away, and it is admitted that the object of the proprietors in purchasing the fishing rights was to keep off the inhabitants from the loch in order that portions of the adjoining land might be converted into deer forests. Last year we represented that that would be the case, and, though as a detail in the admistration of the Department of Woods and Forests, it may seem of little importance, it is really a special Scotch matter of the greatest importance. When the Secretary for Scotland Act was passed we tried to get the jurisdiction in such matters transferred to the Scotch Department, but were not successful, and this has happened, as we feared it would, the Department out of touch with the feeling of the public in Scotland has alienated public rights that have always been enjoyed. The terms of reference to the Committee may not preclude this Scotch branch of the Administration, but as we have found in the result of two such inquiries held during the last 40 years, this, by comparison, very subordinate part of the administration of the Department, will receive but little attention. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in November, unless we have a large proportion of Scotch Members on the Committee for the purpose, this matter, in which the Scotch people take the keenest interest, will not receive adequate investigation. We have found that the case in regard to other matters in which the Scotch part of a subject has been included in a general reference, as for instance, the subject of "Emigration" and "Town Holdings." Therefore, it is that I would earnestly press upon the Government that they should appoint a Committee, mainly or exclusively consisting of Scotch Members and examine this, to Scotland, very important subject. There are no great number of Committees sitting, and not one on Scotch matters, and we know this was to be a particularly Scotch Session. This is a matter that gives rise to the greatest interest in Scotland, and it involves large issues. We were deprived of the opportunity we were led to suppose we should have of raising the subject on the question of the appointment of the General Committee on the Department,

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    and I earnestly press the subject now, formally moving the reduction of the Vote.
    Motion made, and Question put, "That Item A, Salaries, &c., of £17,087, be reduced by £1,000, part of the Salaries of the Commissioners."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
    MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHThe matter has been so fully explained by my hon. Friend that I may well be brief. I had the honour of bringing forward the Motion last year, and I think we have reason to complain that the Return promised in reference to Loch Morar is not yet in our hands. As to the general question, I am sorry the Chancellor of the Exchequer is absent (I hope not intentionally), because I think his words on a previous occasion, though as they appeared in Hansard they do not convey so strong an impression as they made on our minds at the time, yet still are strong enough to lead to the belief that a Committee of Scottish Members such as my hon. Friend has alluded to would be appointed. The position of Crown rights of fishing in Scotland is quite distinct from that in England, and it is quite impossible for a General Committee to deal with it. I appeal to the First Lord, who was present on the former occasion and seemed to appreciate our point, that he will end the discussion by granting our request.
    MR. E. MARJORIBANKSI have often urged an inquiry into the subject of the rights of the Crown in regard to Salmon Fisheries in Scotland, both sea and fresh water, to place the subject clear of doubt. Only last week I placed on the Paper a Motion for a Return stating each case where the right of salmon fishing, in the sea or off the coast of Scotland, is held under lease from the Crown, showing the rent paid and the distance the right extends in the sea; a statement of the cases where the rights have been sold, with the dates of sale, and the sum paid in each sale since the transfer of the right from the Office of Woods and Forests. That Return was refused on the ground that the greater part of the information had been given in Parliamentary Paper 175 of 1886. It is true that in this Paper there is a list of cases in which the Woods and
    50
    Forest Department have dealt with rights in salmon fishing between the years 1851 and 1884, but it does not at all give the information I want. It does not give the original dates when the sales were made or leases granted nor the gradual increment in the rent which I know very well has taken place in these salmon fishings from year to year. Further, this list is a very long one, containing a number of salmon fisheries of the smallest character, cases where there were no rights to part with, and where there are no salmon to come up the river; and it does not make a distinction between salmon fisheries in the sea and salmon fisheries in fresh water, and it is as to salmon fisheries in the sea that I chiefly wish to obtain distinct information of the rights the Woods and Forests Office claim to have. The effect of the present arrangement is that the Scotch fishermen all round the coast of Scotland are precluded from taking the salmon in the sea. That is not the case either in England or Ireland, the fishermen being at liberty to catch salmon in the sea by means of moveable machines. The Scotch fishermen feel this to be a very great hardship, and it has been the cause of great disturbances off the coast of Berwickshire. In grants and leases of these rights made up to 1880, the rights were restricted to the three-mile limit—that is to say, to the territorial waters. Since 1880, however, the conveyances have not contained any words of limitation. Will the Secretary to the Treasury explain this? Have they become doubtful of the rights they granted within the territorial waters, or do they claim still more extensive ones? If it is only within the territorial waters that they claim these rights, why do they not say so? My own belief is that the Crown has never exercised any right of taking salmon in the sea except by means of engines fixed to the shore, and I hold that by the practice of centuries these rights are limited to such modes of fishing as are carried on in connection with the land. I trust the Secretary to the Treasury will inform us distinctly how far the Crown claim that their rights extend—whether it is intended to convey rights beyond the territorial waters of the three mile limit, or only within one mile or two miles. I would press this

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    question, and would also press for a change of decision with regard to the Return for which I have asked. I do not think it at all unreasonable to ask for it, or that it would be at all difficult to prepare it.
    SIR G. CAMPBELLI do not think the Secretary to the Treasury, or even the First Lord of the Treasury, can answer the question as to the rights of the Crown to salmon in the sea. I do hope, however, the Government will seriously consider, before refusing the Committee so reasonably asked for by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan), in order to inquire into this matter. It is a very important and difficult matter, in regard to which a large portion of the people of Scotland feel very keenly. The case of Loch Morar is only a striking example of the manner in which the Crown rights have been alienated from the people, and it shows either criminal negligence or crass ignorance of these matters. This case is only one instance of what is going on all round the coasts of Scotland, and I believe that when the day comes to inquire into the subject, it will be found that the Crown has no right to alienate these rights. The subject is not only important and difficult, but it is also a very old one. Allusion has been made to the considerable disturbances which have occurred among the people on account of this practice. I am sorry to say that in this world of ours people do not often get redress for their grievances until disturbances break out and people's heads are broken. Unfortunately, the fishing industry on the coast of Scotland is now in a depressed condition. I hear gloomy accounts of the men who have have hitherto been engaged in it. It is said that they are emigrating to other parts of the world, because they are discontented at the way in which they have been treated by the Representatives of Her Majesty's Government—the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Scotch Law on this subject stands on a totally different footing from English Law, and we cannot expect a general Committee of this kind to deal thoroughly with grievances which are peculiar to Scotland. I hope the Government will accede to the reasonable request of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, who only asks for a Committee
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    to be appointed to inquire specially into the matter.
    MR. JACKSONI am afraid the answer of the Government to the hon. Member for West Edinburgh will not satisfy him, because I believe that the decision has already been announced, to which we feel we must abide. The Government have agreed to appoint a Commitee to inquire into the general administration of the Department of Woods and Forest; and, as I have already said, this question will not be excluded from consideration. I may go further, and say that whatever Member representing Scotland is on the Committee, he will take care that it is included in the inquiry of the Committee. The Government have further agreed, at the request of hon. Members opposite, that no further action shall be taken in regard to the leasing or sale of these salmon fisheries in Scotland until the inquiry by the Committee has taken place. As far as I know, it is not contended on the part of hon. Members that that promise will be otherwise than fulfilled. Therefore no harm can arise until some further action is taken, and no action can be taken until after the inquiry has been completed. I do not deny that the question is in itself an important question, but there are other questions of right to consider, and no right will be prejudiced by any action taken by the Woods and Forests. If it is found that the Committee are unable to conduct the inquiry fully and completely, then further steps may be taken. But my contention is that the Committee will be found perfectly competent to deal with the matter, so I believe it will be found that they will deal with it in a satisfactory manner. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member will not press his objection, but will wait and see what the result of the investigation by the Committee is. I think that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire, has taken a little too seriously my refusal to grant the return for which he asked. So far as my recollection goes, the right hon. Gentleman spoke to me on the subject, and after making inquiry I was informed that the whole of the information was already in print, and had been given to the House. I may say at once that if the right hon. Gentleman,

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    after having looked into the information already before the House, still thinks that this return would be useful to the Scotch Members, or to the House generally, I am perfectly willing that he should have it. I had no desire to refuse the information, but simply to prevent the duplication of returns. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a change in the practice of dealing with leases, and the sale of the Crown rights in Scotland. He asked me to say what I think of the change, and also to define the limits of the Crown rights. I am quite sure that he will not expect me to enter into questions which contain so many elements of law, and especially of Scotch Law. I understand that in 1880 some question was raised as to whether a particular limit was the right limit, as previously defined, namely the three mile limit and a doubt was raised as to whether the rights of the Crown did not extend to even beyond three miles. Since then in dealing with leases and sales, no particular limit of distance has been described, but the Woods and Forests have simply handed over the rights they possess. The question of the rights of the Crown is left in precisely the position in which it stood before, and it would be presumptuous on my part to attempt to define what those rights are. As the Government have appointed a Committee, I do not think this is the time to raise any question as to particular points of detail, but hon. Members should wait until the inquiry of the Committee is completed, or until it is proved conclusively that the Committee is incompetent to deal with the question.
    MR. MARJORIBANKSI must acknowledge the great courtesy which the hon. Gentleman always observes, and I am prepared to accept his offer and to say that I do think this Return would be of great use and value. As to the question of the Crown rights in the sea, it is one which is not easily disposed of. What I desire is to obtain for the fishermen of Scotland power to catch fish in the sea. If it is the case that the Crown rights in the sea are of this extensive character, there is no necessity for any Act of Parliament whatever to make the fishermen enjoy the privilege of catching salmon. Nothing could be easier than to make arrangements by which the fishermen of any district could take out a license
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    from the Woods and Forests, giving them the right of fishing within a defined distance of the shore. If the Crown rights are so extensive they should not be confined to one class of people who employ engines for catching salmon along the shore, but the sea should be opened to fishermen generally. With proper regulations as to close time and methods of capture, they ought to be able to catch salmon in the sea with the permission and under the direct sanction of the Crown. I hope that that point will receive the attention of the hon. Gentleman and also of the Office of Woods and Forests.
    MR. A. ELLIOTThe rights claimed by the Crown in respect to salmon in Scotland are of a much more extensive character than in England, and the way in which they have been dealt with has given rise to very great discontent. There has also been a disposition to question the legality of the rights claimed by private individuals. I hope it will be distinctly laid down, when this Committee is appointed, that it shall be their duty to inquire into the whole of the circumstances of the Crown rights in Scotland. It would be more satisfactory to the Scotch Members if a Committee, substantially Scotch, had been appointed to inquire into the question, and that it was not to be regarded merely as a matter of detail by a Committee appointed to inquire into the general management of the affairs of Scotland. As that has not been provide for by the Government, we think the Government ought to put in the terms of reference that it is the business of the Committee to inquire into these rights which now, to a great extent, are private rights, and which are maintained or sanctioned by Charter from the Crown. I can assure Her Majesty's Ministers that the matter is one which is of very great interest to the people of Scotland.
    MR. SHIRESS WILLI join with the right hon. Member for Berwickshire in thanking the Secretary to the Treasury for promising a Return showing the extent of the alleged Crown rights. The case is much stronger now than it was last year for a Special Committee on the subject. The Return promised by the Secretary to the Trea-

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    sury is not sufficient now for clearing up the cause of complaint. It has now come to light that the Crown from time to time has put forward a sort of cloudy claim to the right to take salmon in the sea—sometimes to the extent of three miles out at sea, and sometimes to a less extent. It appears now that that claim has been withdrawn so far as regards any leases which are made now.
    MR. JACKSONI did not say that it had been withdrawn. I said that it had not been inserted in the leases.
    MR. S. WILLThat means very much the same thing. The claim has ceased to be inserted, and the reason is this: that the hon. Gentleman thinks the Crown may have a right extending still further at sea than three miles. I maintain that this is a cloudy claim, and it is rendered still more cloudy by this action on the part of the Crown. How is it to be cleared up? Suppose we have a Return; what will it show? It will show the very few instances in which the Crown has asserted any such right. It will teach us nothing as to the origin of the alleged right of the Crown. It will go no length whatever in showing us what the foundation of the claim really is. The three-mile limit is a limit which exists for a totally different purpose. It is not for the purpose of defining any right of the Crown in the territory, the soil, or the fish; but it was simply the limit of jurisdiction in relation to Foreign Powers. I sincerely trust that the question will be made the subject of inquiry by a Special Committee. It rests upon entirely different considerations from any similar question in England. It is quite true that the Crown have agreed to hold their hand pending a general inquiry; but as to this right, the contention of the Scotch Members is that the Crown has no right to sell or dispose of fisheries which are vested in it simply as trustees of the public. Of late years, the Office of Woods and Forests have been selling these rights here, there, and everywhere. The matter is a special one, and should not be mixed up in any degree with the general inquiry which is about to be entered into by the Committee. I hope that my right hon. Friend who moved the Motion will take a Division upon it, to see if the Government are really in earnest in insisting upon handing over these
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    special matters to the Committee which is to undertake a general inquiry into the administration of the Office of Woods and Forests.
    DR. CAMERONI have always admired the manner in which the Secretary to the Treasury replies to any question that is raised, especially by Scotch Members. It demonstrates to my mind the great superiority of the Yorkshire over the Scotch character. When I listened to his first speech, I noticed in it a studied inability to understand the point that was put before him. But when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. S. Will) talked about the claim of the Crown being withdrawn, the hon. Gentleman fully appreciated the point, and was ready enough to say that it had not been withdrawn, but had ceased to be inserted in the lease. The hon. Gentleman disarms suspicion in that way, but he could not have made his speech without knowing the reasonableness of the point urged by my hon. Friend. He said that he would not venture to discuss questions of law, and especially questions of Scotch Law, but he ignored altogether the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said explicitly that this question could not be conveniently referred to the same Committee that was to inquire into the administration of the Woods and Forests; that Scotch questions were peculiar, and could not possibly be dealt with by that Committee. Probably, when the Committee is appointed, the Secretary to the Treasury will be the Chairman. I can imagine the hon. Gentleman examining Scotch witnesses and drafting his Report upon questions of foreshore rights and such things as "Bishops' teams." I should like to know what his idea of "Bishops' teams" is? The notion that there will be one or two Scotch Members upon the Committee is preposterous. Any one likely to interest himself in Scotch questions would be carefully excluded from the Committee, and the consequence will be that the matter will be most unsatisfactorily dealt with. I see, Mr. Courtney, from the expression on your countenance, that you are of opinion that I am wandering from the subject, and therefore I will merely say that I entirely support the views of my hon.

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    Friend the Member for West Edinburgh, and I hope the Secretary to the Treasury will see the desirability of re-considering his determination.
    MR. ESSLEMONT (Aberdeenshire, E.)I desire to express my satisfaction that the Scotch fishery questions are, and have been, during the past year receiving a little consideration, and I wish to impress upon the Secretary to the Treasury and the Lord Advocate the very strong amount of feeling which exists in Scotland with regard to the uncertainty of the law in reference to the catching of salmon. It is a subject which has been brought under the attention of the Government almost from time immemorial, and I wish to emphasize the feeling expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montrose that the Committee must be required to take a wider scope before it would be able to settle this very intricate and difficult, although at the same time interesting question. There is another matter to which I also wish to call attention. We were exceedingly obliged to the Government for giving us a Commission upon the mussel beds. That Commission has completed its inquiry, and made its Report, but as yet we have had no indication whether anything is going to be done in reference to that Report. I should like to know from the Lord Advocate what the views of the Government are in regard to it, and whether any action is to be taken upon it. Seeing that the fishing industry is of more value to the country than the whole of the agricultural interest, we ought to receive some intimation from the Government that these important questions are engaging their attention.
    MR. BARCLAYI regret very much the decision at which the Government have arrived. Although the declaration in the Autumn Session was not made in so many words, it was certainly understood that the inquiry would be a special one. They have kept the promise to the letter, but cannot be said to have kept it in the spirit. The inquiry they are prepared to concede is to be of a very limited character, referring only to the administration of the Woods and Forests. We desire to go a little further, and to deal with the policy of the Woods and Forests in alienating the Crown rights to the
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    Salmon Fisheries. The question is one of policy, and I am afraid that under the terms of the reference such questions will be excluded. We ought to have a Committee specially appointed to inquire into the subject. I can assure the Government that the question is assuming very great importance among the people of Scotland. The Crown lessees assert vague claims as to the right of salmon fishing in the sea, and I think we are entitled to have a declaration from the Woods and Forests as to what the rights of the Crown are. They do not declare what the Crown rights are, and if the fishermen, in the assertion of the rights they claim, get into conflict with the lessees of the Crown the Government will be greatly to blame for any serious consequences which may follow. Do the Woods and Forests claim that they have a right to all the salmon in the sea? A question of great interest to the public is at issue, quite apart from the claims of the fishermen. The fishermen are beginning to find out that they can catch salmon at a considerable distance from the shore without using the fixed engines formerly employed. If the Crown prevent them from catching salmon in this manner, they are playing the part of the dog in the manger. I think the Government would relieve themselves of a considerable difficulty if they would consent to the appointment of a Committee specially to investigate this question.
    MR. W. H. SMITHI desire to say a few words before the debate proceeds further. I think the Committee have hardly realized the engagements under which the Government have come in this matter. The Government have distinctly undertaken that no alienation of Crown rights in regard to salmon fishing will be made until the matter has been inquired into and a determination arrived at. Pending that inquiry, therefore, there can be no damage to the public of Scotland by the action of the Woods and Forests. The Government, being asked from other quarters, have granted a Committee to inquire into the administration of the Woods and Forests, and it will be impossible to exclude from such an inquiry a question relating to a very important part of the functions of that Department in Scotland—namely, the dealing with Crown rights of fishing.

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    It would also be inconvenient that two Committees dealing with the Woods and Forests should be sitting upstairs at the same time. The Government having undertaken that there shall be no damage whatever to the public pending that inquiry, I hope hon. Members will allow it to proceed, and if it appears in the course of the inquiry that the Committee cannot conduct it satisfactorily or decline to go into all the question hon. Gentlemen desire, it will then be fitting that hon. Gentlemen should come to the House and ask for another Committee. To have an inquiry going on pari passu with another inquiry into the administration of the Woods and Forests is an arrangement which I think would not be satisfactory even to the people of Scotland themselves. The hon. Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Esslemont) has referred to the Report of the Commission presided over by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire. That Report was only presented in March. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will see that the Government are fully alive to the question, and are desirous that there should be no loss of time.
    SIR G. O. TREVELYANThe most satisfactory part of the utterances which have been made from the Treasury Bench in the course of this discussion is the assurance which has been given that no more grants, either by lease or by sale, will be made until there has been an inquiry.
    MR. W. H. SMITHWhat I said was that we would abstain from putting forward any right pending the decision of the Committee.
    SIR G. O. TREVELYANThe readiness with which the Government have conceded that point shows the perfect reasonableness of the concession, and the satisfaction with which it has been received is a proof of the unreasonableness of the action of the Woods and Forests in Scotch matters in the past. I trust that the Committee which is going to be appointed to inquire into the Woods and Forests will, both in the scope of its inquiry and the personal constitution of the Committee, be qualified to investigate whether the officers of the Scotch Office should not be responsible hence forward for the management of the Woods and Forests in Scotland. In old days I knew nothing more unsatisfactory than the relation of the Woods and Forests to the
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    Scotch Members. In those days I had occasion to apply to the Woods and Forests in regard to this fishery question—a question which in Scotland attracts a large amount of interest—and I must say the feeling of the people is that they are not safe in the hands of the Woods and Forests. I quite see from the tone of the debate that a great change has been brought about by the outspoken conduct of the Scotch Members in this House, and the manner in which public opinion has been brought to bear upon the conduct of the Government. It is plain that in this case a blunder has been committed by the Woods and Forests. It is confessed to be a blunder by the promise which has been made by the Government that nothing of the same sort shall occur again until there has been full inquiry. Such a blunder could not have been committed if the Woods and Forests had been a Scotch Department—in touch with the Scotch people. I earnestly trust that the question of the control of the woods and forests will be brought before the Committee now about to sit, and, if so, I fancy it will be decided that a change is necessary.
    MR. S. WILLIAMSONI am quite sure that this public question of the right of fishermen to catch salmon in the sea is one that deserves special inquiry. The First Lord of the Treasury has said that a Committee will be appointed to inquire into the matter, and that in the meantime the fishermen will not be prejudiced in the exercise of their rights. "In the meantime," the right hon. Gentleman says. But the men are prejudiced at this moment, seeing that while there is a penalty attached to the catching of salmon within a limit of one mile from the shore, and none outside of that limit, they are yet prohibited from catching salmon outside of this one mile limit. I hope the whole question will be discussed on Tuesday next on the Motion of the right hon. Member for Berwickshire. I am perfectly sure that the people of Scotland will not be satisfied to have this burning question remitted to a large General Committee, which is to inquire principally into the administration of the Woods and Forests. They will not be satisfied unless they get the appointment of a Committee or a Commission to deal with the subject specially.
    MR. ANSTRUTHERI wish to take this opportunity of endorsing the remarks which have been made by hon. Members on this side of the House. At the same time, I would like to suggest to the Secretary to the Treasury that if he has finally made up his mind that he cannot grant this second Committee asked for by hon. Members representing Scotland in this House, he may be willing, perhaps, to take into consideration a proposal that there should be a Commission similar to that presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire last autumn to inquire into the question of the mussel beds. Such a Commission might inquire into the rights of the Crown and their title to the salmon fishing in the territorial waters upon the Scottish coasts.
    MR. BARCLAYI would earnestly support the suggestion of my hon. Friend. The statement of the First Lord of the Treasury is quite satisfactory that no further leases or sale will be made until the Committee shall have reported; but the Committee which has been appointed will not deal with the other important question respecting the extent of the rights of the Crown to the salmon fishing in the sea. It would, therefore, be extremely useful to have a Commission to inquire into the present method, and also as to the possibility of catching salmon in the sea without fixed engines. If the right hon. Gentleman will agree to the appointment of a small Commission, I am quite sure the Scotch Members will be satisfied to await the result of the investigation. I do not see how the question can be otherwise decided except by an expensive litigation. As the fishermen have no means to enable them to carry on a litigation, of course they will press upon their Representatives the hardships to which they are subjected. Certainly the right of catching fish in the open sea would seem to be the natural right of all fishermen, and so it is held in England, subject to municipal regulations. The people of Scotland cannot understand why there should be any difference between the law of the two countries.
    MR. W. H. SMITHThere is a Motion standing on the Paper for Tuesday next in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick-
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    shire, and it raises, I think, the whole question which hon. Members opposite desire to raise. I can only repeat the assurance I have already given that if hon. Gentlemen will allow the question to stand over, at all events until the Committee has shown whether it can deal with the subject or not, an inquiry shall be made specially if the Committee finds that it is unable to entertain the matter.
    MR. BUCHANANI should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman what is to be the scope of the inquiry he proposes by means of the promised Committee, and unless I receive a satisfactory reply, I do not think I shall be justified in withdrawing my Amendment.
    SIR G. CAMPBELLAre we to understand that the Government will, next Tuesday, give us an answer as to what it is they propose to do? If not, we must take a Division.
    MR. CALDWELLI must express my regret that the Government do not see their way to grant the almost unanimous wish of the Scotch Members—namely, that they shall have a Special Committee to consider this question, which is one purely relating to Scotland. It is notorious that the law of Scotland is a matter of difficulty in regard to questions of this kind, and that the rights which exists in England and Scotland are so widely different that English lawyers would not consent to sit on a Committee on a purely technical question based on Scotch Law. What is wanted is that the inquiry should be conducted by a Committee composed mainly of Scotch Members, and the Government have given no distinct reason for refusing this request, although they have undertaken that no new leases shall be granted until the question is disposed of by the Committee. The question is, what Committee will the Government give us? It is of the utmost importance that that Committee should have the confidence of the Scottish people. There can be no reason to suppose that a Committee of Scotch Members would look at the matter from a Party point of view, or would unduly take away the rights of any set of individuals; and I think we have a right to ask that a question of this kind should be delegated to those who have some knowledge of the Scotch Law.

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    The Committee divided: —Ayes 148; Noes 218.—(Div. List, No. 112.)
    Original question again proposed.
    MR. NOLANI wish to introduce to the notice of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen the Irish part of the question. I find, looking at the salaries, £1,135 for the Woods and Forests Commissioners in Ireland, and I should like to ask right hon. Gentlemen opposite whether they are acquainted with the duties which those officers in Ireland have to discharge. I want to know whether the officers of the Woods and Forests Commissioners are charged with protecting the rights of the people, because I am inclined to think, from what I have seen myself, that they do not discharge this duty. Take the right of sailing on a lake. I have seen, in one instance, a lake consisting of two parts, the upper and the lower. The upper part was very small and very uninteresting, and that was the only part to which the common people had access. The lower part was large, picturesque, and interesting to a very great degree. Now, the great landlord who possessed the right of access to the lower part of the lake, drew a rope across the narrow creek which connected the two parts, and by this means kept the boats of the ordinary people from sailing on the lower part. And I have seen myself that the boats—
    THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is not directing his observations to this Vote.
    MR. NOLANI understood from the discussion which took place that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests had charge of the lakes.
    THE CHAIRMANThe Commissioners of Woods and Forests have charge of Crown properties. It may possibly be that a lake is Crown property.
    MR. NOLANThe fishing as well as sailing? ["No."] Well then, Sir, as regards Woods and Forests, this is a matter which has very considerable interest to the people of Ireland, particularly at a time when employment is wanted.
    THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is not touching the elements of the Vote. This is a Vote for the Commissioners having charge of Crown property.
    MR. NOLANUnless I am misinformed, the remarks I am making with regard to the mountain and forest lands of Ireland appertain to this Vote, because I am credibly informed that if they are not Crown property it arises from the fault of the Office. [Laughter.] Yes, the office of Woods and Forests, which fails to preserve the rights of the Crown. But I will postpone my remarks with reference to Woods and Forests, not that I am entirely convinced I am wrong in thinking that they are connected with this Vote. I find by the Vote that there is a certain amount for mineralogists, and I infer from this that the mines of Ireland are connected with this Vote.
    THE CHAIRMANI have already explained that this has reference to the charge of Crown properties, and the hon. Member's observations must be directed to mines in the charge of the Crown Office.
    MR. NOLANVery well, Mr. Courtney, I will reserve my remarks on this for some other occasion. and content myself at present with asking one of the representatives of the Government what are the functions discharged by the Irish Office in connection with Woods and Forests?
    MR. JACKSONThe functions discharged by the Staff in Ireland are very simple. They are, to look after the Crown rights, which in Ireland consist, mainly, of quit rents. There is a Central Office in Dublin, as the right hon. Gentleman will see on referring to his Estimates. The collection is made by the Inland Revenue.
    MR. MOLLOYThere are one or two observations which I wish to make on this Vote. I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman what kind of decision, if any, has the Government come to with regard to the Royalties they are going to charge on minerals under Crown lands in Ireland. Several who were interested in a mining property, and were going to develop it, especially in connection with gold mines, are actually going to withdraw from the whole concern, in consequence of the exorbitant demands made by the Government. The amount asked by the Government as Royalty for these Crown lands is 5 per cent, or one-twentieth of the gross produce of the mines. Under such conditions as that it is impossible for any mineral pro-

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    perty in the world to be developed. In Australia, and in America, and in all great gold bearing countries, all those Royalties which were imposed at the beginning have been utterly done away with, and they find it in the interest of the country and the development of the property that no Royalties should be charged. Well, now, it is a very hard thing that just as a considerable amount of capital is about to be invested in these mines in Ireland, the Government impose a tax which prohibits any further action being taken. Of my own knowledge, I know of one case where some 20 square miles granted by the Crown were abandoned owing to the extortionate and exceedingly foolish demands of the Government. Five per cent, or one-tenth of the gold that comes out of the mine, is, so far as I can calculate, about 18 per cent or one-twentieth of a man's working in the different quarries. What can be object of the Government in asking for this enormous tax? You are constantly telling people outside this House that your aim is to promote the industries of Ireland, and you have killed this industry. You have only one mine working in Scotland at the present time, and only one in Wales; and here in Ireland, just as capital is about to be invested, you propose this stupid tax, as it seems to me, upon it. Now why should you do this in Wales and in Ireland, when in every other country in the world these taxes have been done away with? The only condition attached to it beyond that is that they must be worked. Now, the First Lord of the Treasury is present, and I will ask him whether it is in the interest of the Government or of Ireland or Wales to uphold a tax which prohibits the development of industry. It is a curious thing that you have paid away in law expenses under this Vote a sum of £11,535 in the year. What is the use of our discussing this question every year if no attention is paid to us? The question of Royalties was brought forward two years ago, and on the last occasion a promise was given me that the matter should be looked into; yet nothing has been done. I will ask the First Lord of the Treasury to say whether or not, as these two taxes bring absolutely nothing into the Treasury, and as they only stop the development
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    of property, it is worth while keeping them up. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he did not see why the middleman should make money out of the mines; that if the leases were granted to him he would make considerable sums. But this kind of grandmotherly legislation is of no use. How can you expect a man to spend money in sinking shafts in order to discover where gold is to be found, unless he has some prospect of making money out of it? I hope the First Lord of the Treasury will abolish a tax, the imposition of which prevents the development of property and the introduction of capital into the country.
    MR. PRITCHARD MORGANI should not be doing my duty to Wales if I allowed this Vote to pass without making one or two observations. I think the Woods and Forests Office is conducted in a manner which shows a great want of knowledge on the subjects which it has to handle, and more especially the subject of Royalties. In no other country in the world do such charges exist as these which are imposed upon those desirous of opening up industries in Wales. Take, for instance, my own position. I am at the present moment defending an action which has been brought by the Woods and Forests Department against me to prevent me digging a hole in my own freehold land. The Office practically says, "We are entitled to all the gold you obtain from your land, and unless you give us an exorbitant amount of the gold and silver you obtain, you shall not work there at all." It is well known to men interested in mining that the slightest possible charge will stifle the energy of the enterprise. Take, for instance, the colony of Victoria. There they found 3s. an ounce shut up about 50 per cent of the mines in that colony. The tax was entirely abolished in deference to public opinion. In America, Australia, and in every part of the world, men are entitled to work the mines by paying a nominal amount to the authorities. But it is not so here. The fact is the amount received by the Treasury as Royalties on gold and silver was infinitesimal until this industry was opened up by me. I believe the British Government received 11d. by way of Royalties on gold obtained on private land in the United Kingdom. But I

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    have paid in one year—including duty on the transfer of a property, the rent of which was £70 a year—I have, I say, paid for working one adit a sum amounting to nearly £2,300. I say this is an unjust and unfair tax on what promises to be an important industry. I know perfectly well that hon. Members opposite have Conservative opinions as to the sacred rights of property, and I know I have been accused of wanting to rob the country by taking gold out of it and paying no royalty. But we cannot work any land unless we go hat in hand to this Office and ask them respectfully whether they will kindly allow us to dig a hole in the land we have bought and paid for. This is no Party question. I want and am willing to pay a Royalty, but it must be in proportion of the profits which I derive from the undertaking and a fair proportion of the product of the land. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to a pertinent question I put to him, was good enough to sneer at what I have done, but if one mine afforded for one adit, worked one year, a sum of £2,200 or £2,300 to the State, and if, as I say unhesitatingly there are hundreds of properties in Wales and a large area in Ireland where similar mines could be profitably opened up, I think this opens up a scheme which might be of great advantage to the country. I have the greatest respect for the Gentlemen who administer the Woods and Forests Department, and they are possibly fitted to occupy important positions under the Crown, but I firmly believe there is not one man in this Woods and Forests Office who has ever seen a gold or silver mine in his life. It is the duty of the House to carefully consider this matter, and to give a chance to the development of so important an industry as that to which I have referred. I may be charged with having an interest in this matter. But before I presumed to get up and speak upon it in this House I surrendered all my Crown leases to the Crown, declining to work for so unjust and unfair a landlord. And so I have lost what little money I have expended in the development of this land, for I shall not be foolish enough to work under these conditions, neither will anyone else who has any knowledge on the subject. Let me for the sake of argument take a mine—gold, silver, or copper. If it costs
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    10s. to raise it and 10s. to treat metal worth 17s. 6d., you cannot, of course, carry on the industry at a profit. But you must remove that ore in order to see if there is better underneath; yet, while you are trying the experiment and working at a loss of 2s. 6d. per ton, the Woods and Forests Office steps in and makes you pay this Royalty, although you have been giving employment to a large number of men, and are working at a loss. I say that that is most unfair. Now, I repeat that this is not a Party matter; I do not move a reduction of the Vote for the mere purpose of lowering the salary of anybody. I should rather see them raised, for I do not believe that people get over-paid in this world. But take the position of my ground landlord in reference to a particular mine of my own. We have worked the mine for a period of one year and have got out no less than 5,300 tons of ore which has produced nearly half-a-ton of solid gold. Surely if that is the result of working one little mine for a year, the industry is one worth considering, my landlord was satisfied with a Royalty of one-fortieth, as a consideration for the lease. But then he discovered that he had no right to it, and the Crown stepped in and claimed a Royalty of one-thirtieth, with the result that this man might possibly have been ruined. I did not care about ruining him, for people in Wales are no more amiable if you insist on ruining them than they are in Ireland. I, at any rate. thought discretion the better part of valour, and therefore undertook to pay the Royalties to the Crown myself. I trust that now I have called the attention of the House to this matter, and considering that the Government have been good enough to consent to the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of Royalties generally, this point will no longer be overlooked. It is my solemn conviction that in the near future we shall be producing in this country large quantities of gold, silver, lead, and copper, and I submit that the Government has no right to stand between the labourers, who will thus secure employment, and their industry. I would suggest that the Government should charge no Royalty whatever on gold or silver obtained in this country for a period of three years

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    from this time. I believe that would let loose a hundred thousand pounds capital for the development of this industry in Wales and in Ireland I do not want to get rid of the liability to pay Royalties to the Crown. From the day I first discovered gold, I urged on the Woods and Forests Department, that they should insist on their rights, but I believe as the law now stands, although they may claim Royalties, they have no right to enter on the land to search for gold, for that would render them liable to an action for trespass. The first instance of a Royalty was when Joseph went down to that portion of the land of Egypt the name of which I have no right to mention in this House. He there created a corner in corn, and, having done a very smart thing in that direction, the people came round him and gave him their cattle and sheep, their flocks and herds, in return for corn. The following year the people again came to Joseph for more corn. Joseph, if I remember rightly, asked what they had Co give him. They said they had nothing but land, so Joseph took the land, and then he had the whole bag of tricks in his hand, and was in a position stronger than that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    It being ten minutes to seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Resolution to be reported to-morrow; Committee also report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEE) (SPECIAL REPORT).
  Ordered, That the Committee of Selection have leave to make a Special Report.
  Sir John Mowbrayaccordingly reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, viz., Sir John Lubbock; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Barnes.
  Sir John Mowbrayfurther reported; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and
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  Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures Bill, viz., Mr. Coddington; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Elliott Lees.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  MOTION.

    THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN WALES.
    MR. DILLWYNMr. Speaker, the Church of England was established by the State to provide religious instruction and religious administrations for the people of this country. It extended its operations to Wales as well as to England, and it created machinery for carrying on its operations. It calls itself the National Church, but it seems to me that in order to warrant the assumption of such a position it should include within its fold the great bulk of the people of the country in which it is established. Considering its internal dissensions, and having regard to the fact that great numbers of people have withdrawn from it, I very much doubt whether it can claim that title even in England; but whatever may be the case in England, it is quite clear that the Church has no claim to the title in Wales. So far from the bulk of the people of Wales belonging to the Church of England the majority, the overwhelming majority, of the population are decidedly opposed to it. It is an offence to the people, and it deserves to be so. In its early days the Church had a free hand in Wales; it had no opposition and was enabled to do pretty much as it liked, and it signally and disgracefully failed to perform the functions allotted to it. There were four dioceses in Wales, and a great number of the incumbencies were in the hands of the Bishops, and others were in the hands of the great families of this country. Instead, however, of seeking to evangelize or to teach the people religion the clergymen of the Church appeared to have had but one object in view, and that was to make as much money as they could. The Bishops appointed their own relatives and friends to the incumbencies. Many of them never went near their dioceses but appointed curates, many of whom were men of very indifferent character. In many

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    instances the Church in Wales seemed to be viewed as a fit institution to send into the black sheep of great families. The clergy were immoral men and drunkards and they altogether failed in their duty; they, indeed, taught the people evil instead of good. We have very little time to discuss this question to-night, and therefore I shall abridge my remarks as much as possible. I shall for instance use very few quotations, but I must use these in order to show that I am not over-stating the case with regard to the conduct of the Welsh clergy. I have here a quotation from The Visitation of Dr. Bailey, the Bishop of Bangor, in 1623. With regard to Llandisilio, he tells us "there have been but two sermons here in the last twelve months." With regard to the parish of Llandensant, he says:—
    "The curate here is presented for not reading service in due time and for not reading of homilies and for not registering christenings, weddings, and burials. They had but three sermons here since last Whitsuntide twelvemonth. The said curate is presented for haunting of alehouses for being often overseen in drink; also for omitting to read the Litany most commonly, and also for brawling and quarreling with his parishioners and others."
    Here is another quotation with respect to Aberdaron:—
    "Sir Griffith Piers, vicar, is presented. A dead child of Hugh Thomas lay unburied from Saturday to Sunday, for that the vicar could not be found to bury the same. Also that the said vicar came to read prayers upon a Sunday, and was not well, but seemed to be overseen by drink, and after the evening prayer went to the alehouse. Also that the said vicar being warned upon Saturday to come and bury one upon Sunday did not come at all neither to bury the dead nor to read service here that day."
    Here is another. Hon. Members, what is the date? From 1602 to 1642. [Ministerial ironical cheers]. We shall have something to say about the present state of things. The Rev. R. Pritchard, himself a clergyman, writes:—
    "Licentiousness, drunkenness, dishonesty, falsehood, and infidelity, are rampant through the Principality; Judges and juries sympathize with drunken murderers, and permit extortioners to rob widows and orphans. Sheriffs and their deputies plunder innocent people by virtue of their offices. The Lord's day is a day for drunkenness, dancing, idleness, and wanton lewdness among the Welsh."
    In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Mr. Charles writes:—
    "In those days the land was dark indeed. Hardly any of the lower ranks could read at
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    all. The morals of the country were very corrupt, and in this respect there was no difference between gentle and simile, laymen and clergymen; sluttony, drunkenness and licentousness prevailed throughout the whole country."
    Under these circumstances it is hardly to be wondered at that the Welsh first of all lost all sense of religion or nearly so, and in the second place lost all confidence and trust in the Church, which had so misused its advantages. There were, no doubt, in the English Church some earnest, honest men, who were shocked at the state of things throughout Wales and endeavoured to awaken the country to a better condition, but so far from being supported by their fellows, their good lives being a reproach to the evil doers, they were persecuted and driven out of the Church, by the Church itself. It is true there has been great reform in the Church of late years. Early in this century there were no clergymen who understood the language of the people, but some few years ago the Church awakened to its duties, and endeavoured to recover its position in some respects. Men were appointed to incumbencies who understood Welsh, and the clergy were more moral and better than they had been in the early days. In its early days the Welsh Church was little better than a happy hunting ground for immoral and corrupt men, men who were ashamed to live in their own country. Now it has become much better and it endeavours to fulfil its duty. But it is too late. It is not now a National Church. If it exists at all it is as a proselytizing Church. That is an additional grievance, because the great territorial influences in Wales are for the most part Church influences, and the people are often constrained to conform to the religion of their landlords. The fact that all the influence of landlords and of most of the employers is exerted to induce people to declare themselves Churchmen, considerably embitters the feeling against the Church in Wales. It is said that the Church people in Wales are gaining ground, but I do not think anybody will say they are in a majority. I doubt whether the hon. Members for Welsh constituencies, who may vote against this Motion, if there are any, will assert so much as that. It is admitted on all hands that the

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    Nonconformists in Wales are in an overwhelming majority. There has been no regular religious census taken; indeed, if one were attempted it would only lead to inquisition and persecution on the part of the landed proprietors, who have great influence, and who would not fail to exercise it. But I have here figures which have been compiled by a gentleman upon whom I can implicitly rely. According to his calculation the average attendance lately at churches and chapels in North Wales has been:—At Churches 86,438, at Chapels 317,078, or a difference in favour of the Chapels of 230,640. The return for South Wales has not been so fully made up, but I believe the following figures may be taken as substantially correct:—At Churches 78,195, at Chapels 423,077, or a difference in favour of the Chapels of 344,882. The attendances at Church Sunday Schools in North Wales have been lately 25,083, while those at Chapel Sunday Schools have been 136,522; in South Wales 22,842 in Church Schools, and 155,180 in Chapel Schools. In North Wales, therefore, the attendances are in proportion of seven at Chapels to two at Churches, and in South Wales of seven at Chapels to one in Churches, and no one can doubt that Nonconformity is the religion of Wales. One evidence of the feeling of Wales with regard to Dissent versus Church, is its Parliamentary representation. We know very well there is little chance of any man being returned as a representative of a Welsh constituency who is not in favour of the Disestablishment of the Church. The Welsh are strongly in favour of Disestablishment, and they are now putting forward their demand with great earnestness and determination. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the feeling against the Church is increasing in bitterness and strength. What are the tithe riots of which we have heard so much? I do not suppose the Welsh like imposts of any sort any more than other people, but I do not believe they would object to the payment of tithes so much as they do if they were persuaded that the tithes were being used for purposes which benefitted the country. They know that is not so, and that is why you have to employ police and sol-
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    diery to collect, not the rents of the landlords in Ireland, but the tithes of the clergymen. The Welsh are fast realizing the value of the treatment they have received at the hands of the English, and here let me read a passage from a speech of Lord Salisbury at Newport, a town which is not in Wales but in which the people speak Welsh, and the people of which earnestly sympathize with the Welsh in their struggle against the establishment of the Church. Lord Salisbury said—
    "If the Church were disestablished in every part of the land, all the machinery by which God's word has been preached, by which Christianity has been upheld, by which all the ministrations of religion have been carried to suffering humanity, would be destroyed at one blow."
    The people there know perfectly well what has been done by the Church in Wales. What have we seen lately? Lord Salisbury flaunts the Church as the sole upholder of religion, but at this moment we see a Bishop of the Church of England being prosecuted — for what? For Nonconformity. The Prelate in question holds great place, great position, great revenues; he holds them upon certain conditions, and he is now being prosecuted for resolute and wilful disobedience to those conditions. That is not a pleasant state of things to contemplate. I might quote case after case, but I well content myself with one more extract. I will not go to Nonconformists. I quote dignitaries of the Church. The Bishop of Liverpool, in November, 1887, said, with regard to the Church, which Lord Salisbury spoke of as the sole upholder of religion in Wales:—
    "The Church was in a most unsatisfactory condition. It was a Church without order and discipline; it was in a state of lawlessness, anarchy, chaos, and confusion, and, unless some remedy were applied, must make shipwreck. In short, in matters of discipline they were at present drifting like a ship without a rudder; the evils of the position were simply incalculable; party spirit increased in every diocese, diocesan institutions were starved and neglected, one man would not support them because he thought them too high, and another because he thought them too low. The advocates of disestablishment rejoiced to see them playing their game so well, and biting and devouring one another. The gulf between clergyman and clergyman became wider and wider every year, and ministers of the same Church kept aloof and separate from one another, as if they did not belong to the same communion. At the rate things were going on,

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    it would soon be impossible for the Bishop to ask candidates for orders, any questions about the Lord's Supper. If all that did not constitute a danger, he did not know what did."
    This is the description given by one of the lordships of the Church so lauded by Lord Salisbury. How he could have made such a vaunt I cannot say. I will not say he wilfully stated what he did not believe; no doubt he believed what he said, but he must have been profoundly ignorant of the views of the Welsh people, and I cannot understand how he should be ignorant of what Dissenters have done in Wales in contradiction to what the Church has done. I have alluded to what the Church did formerly in Wales and to its present position. But what have Dissenters done? The Church in Wales in former days almost destroyed religion, and would have done so absolutely but for the Dissenters. The late Dean of Bangor in a paper he read at Swansea, in 1879. said, "In 1715 there were but five Nonconformist Chapels in Wales." In 1879 there were 2,717 belonging to three denominations alone. There were in 1879 12 weekly journals and 18 magazines published in Welsh, and five-sixths of these were produced by Nonconformists. So these Nonconformists are bringing back religion to Wales, and educating the people in it. I could quote much more from the late Dean of Bangor, but let me now, leaving the dignitaries of the Church, refer to the evidence of a Peer—Lord Aberdare. He lives in Glamorganshire, and I know no man who knows Wales better. I do not agree with him on all points, but I do with this which he says of Wales:—
    "The religion of the country would have died out if it had not been for the exertions of the Nonconformists."
    That is in South Wales. Now hear what the Bishop of Bangor says of North Wales.
    "If every Church in Wales belonging to the Establishment were closed, there would still be ample accomodation for the whole population in the places of worship belonging to the Nonconformists."
    I thought I had done with references to the Dean of Bangor's Paper, but this I may quote. He says—
    "Dissent in England is sporadic, and in Wales endemic; local in England, national in Wales. Five-sixths of the Welsh-speaking millions rea outside the Church."
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    The people of Wales complain of your Establishment; they are a people who love freedom, and hate an Establishment for teaching them their religion; they prefer in religious matters to be left to their own arrangements. They were driven from the Church. The Church had once a position in Wales, but has lost it never to regain it. I know the country pretty well, and I have no doubt of that. The complaint we make, the appeal we make to the House, is that the English people are maintaining a Church, which is not the Church of Wales, but the Church in Wales. This is our whole quarrel with you; it is a statement confirmed by the great dignitaries of the Church of England; the Archbishop of Canterbury himself speaks in the same way; there is no Church of Wales, he says, there are four dioceses of the Church of England in Wales. The Dean of Llandaff, any other venerable and most highly respected dignitary of the Church speaks in the same way. An objection is sometimes urged against this Motion, that it contemplates changes that require the utmost deliberation, and would require legislation that must be taken up by a Government. Well, of course I should not dream of bringing in a Bill; that is the work of a Government; only to be carried through by a Government. It is argued, too, that Wales is really part of England. Part of our island it is, but the people are of a totally different nationality. Those who use that argument are Englishmen who do not know Wales. I am sure they would get no Welshmen to join their opinion. The people of the two countries are as distinct as two countries can be; there is more distinction, I think, than between England and Scotland or Ireland. They are distinct in thought, in habits, in manners, in laws; the Welsh have language differing from English more than any other, a language which is gaining ground, and, more than all, they differ in religion. I do not wish to go upon the religious ground at all. I wish to put this simply as a national question. We, as a nation, object to this institution you impose on us, and, as a nation, desire to see it abolished. It is said that we take this up as a political and Party question, but that is not the case. I have also heard it said that so far from this being a

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    Party question, that were this grievance removed we, the Liberal Party, would lose our strength and influence in Wales. I do not listen to the argument. I do not believe there is any truth in it. It may be so, and if it is so, then it is evidance of the bitterness and keenness with which Welshmen feel the position of Establishment, that they subordinate their political opinions to the desire to get rid of it. But I know Wales with a life-long knowledge, and have no fear that Welshmen will desert the Liberal cause. Their love of that cause is not due to this grievance they desire to get remedied; it is due to the same love of freedom that prevents them from accepting the Established Church. Welshmen will still remain true to their colours; but whether they do or not does not influence me in moving this Motion. I am not prompted by Party motives. I move in this matter because I believe our claim is founded on right and justice. We have the Irish and Scottish people with us, and a great portion of the English people are on our side. The English Nonconformists are with us as a body. A great section of the English people are satisfied with their Church, but of this I am sure, that if the position were changed, if a condition of things such as exists in Wales, obtained in England, and the Church were out of sympathy with the Nation as a whole, Disestablishment would not be delayed for one more Parliament, and the English people would sweep away the Establishment. What I have said as to the proportion of Churchman to Dissenters in Wales can be amply maintained, I ask the English people to do as they would be done by, to assist Wales in removing an Establishment which has failed in its duty, and which can not be maintained without a violation of justice and equity.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That, as the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers only to a small minority of the population, its maintenance as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and an injustice which ought no longer to exist." — (Mr. Dillwyn.)
    MR. OSBORNE MORGAN (Denbighshire, E.)In rising to second this Motion, I hope I may be permitted
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    to express the deep regret I feel at the absence from among us of a late Member of the House, who discharged the duty now entrusted to me, on the last occasion when this subject was before us—a man who, for twenty years, was a respected and familiar figure on these Benches, and who for fifty years was the spokesman and representative of all that is best and purest in the character of my countrymen. As time presses, I will endeavour to narrow, as far as I properly can, the issues before us. I will not enter into the abstract question of the merits or the demerits of an Established Church, though, I confess, just now that is rather a tempting subject. Nor will I stop to argue with those who hold what I may call the "divine right" theory of the Church of England; who regard any infringement on her privileges, and any encroachment on her revenues, as an act of sacrilegious plunder. That doctrine, I think, received its death blow some twenty years ago, when Parliament disestablished, and disendowed the Irish Church; for if that great measure settled anything, it settled this—that a privileged Church cannot, as such, exist in this country, unless it fulfils two conditions; unless in the first place it comprises the clear and undoubted majority of the people, and secondly unless it is so intertwined, so interwoven with the moral and religious life of the people that you cannot uproot the one without inflicting a serious and, perhaps, a deadly blow on the other. That point was established by the Irish Church Act. Now I am perfectly willing to agree, for the sake of argument, that taking England by itself, the Established Church does, to a certain extent, fulfil one or the other of these conditions; but I emphatically deny that it fulfils them as regards Wales, or that, humanly speaking, it can, within any measureable distance of time fulfil either the one or the other. And now let me meet a preliminary objection. It really is the only argument worthy of the name that can be adduced against this Motion. We are told that as Wales is an integral part of England, therefore, the Church in Wales is an integral part of the Church in England; and, therefore, you cannot disestablish the one, without disestablishing the other.

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    Now it seems to me that argument is somewhat of a two-edged sword, for it could be used with quite as much effect for an attack upon the English Establishment as for the defence of the Welsh Establishment. But I pass from that, for I entirely deny the major premise, It may be perfectly true that there is an Act some 350 years old, an Act so musty, so antiquated, that no two Members of the Treasury Bench can agree whether it is in force or not—the Attorney General and the First Lord of the Treasury are at loggerheads on the subject—it may be true, I say, that by such an Act, Wales was politically incorporated with England. But surely, if we have not by this time learned that it requires something more than an Act of Parliament to stamp out a nationality and to fuse two nations into one, then the lesson of the last century has been sadly thrown away. The truth is that it is a lawyer's argument and not a statesman's argument; and I am not surprised that Lord Selborne, a lawyer of lawyers, should have urged it very strongly. He took the trouble to go down to Wales to tell Welshmen that they were no more entitled to call themselves a nationality than Yorkshiremen. All I can say is I think we ought to be exceedingly obliged to him, for if anything were wanted to make our seats safe it was the speech made by Lord Selborne. There is in Wales (and Monmouthshire, which is Welsh in everything but name) a population of about 1,700,000 — equal to half that of Scotland, and to about one-third of that of Ireland—and of these the great majority are divided from their English fellow-subjects, not merely by a physical barrier, not merely by a difference of race and temperament, but by the greatest barrier which can separate one nation from another,—the barrier of language. The Welsh have a language which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) says, is so far from dying out, that it is actually gaining ground. A language more unlike the English language than are one-half the languages on the Continent. If any hon. Member doubts that let him spend six months in trying to learn it, and I shall be very much surprised if at the end of that period, he can pronounce
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    the words which mean "Yes" and "No" in Welsh so that a Welshman can understand him. If ever there was a people entitled to distinctive treatment at the hands of Parliament, that people is the people of Wales. You have shown that by legislating on temperance and on educational questions from a Welsh standpoint. And now I will quote a high authority, an authority that both sides of the House will listen to with attention, viz., Lord Derby. He is not like Lord Selborne, a great lawyer, but he is something more—he is a great statesman. Lord Derby says:—"The question of maintenance or the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church ought to be decided in accordance with the wishes of the Welsh people, whenever those wishes are authoritatively declared." Now, when we find the Welsh people practically unanimous, but when we find the Welsh Members voted down by a majority of hon. Gentlemen who really know less about Wales than of many foreign countries, less than they know about Egypt or the Soudan, then it is, I think, time to remember what has been said by one of the most thoughtful of living historians, Mr. Spencer Walpole, viz., "It is absurd to say a country enjoys representative institutions when her delegates are uniformly outvoted by men of a separate race." This remark was made in reference to Ireland, but hon. Members will pardon me if I apply it to Wales. And now let me apply the tests I spoke of. Is the Church the Church of the majority of the nation? The suggestion is so ridiculous that if you were to put it to any Welshman, if he were not restrained by his native politeness, he would laugh in your face. If the Welsh Church comprises the majority of the people, how is it that five-sixths of the Welsh Members sent here—26 out of 30—are pledged to the hilt in favour of this Motion? How is it, to take the latest illustration, that in the County Council elections, which, rightly or wrongly, were fought on Church and Chapel lines, the Noncomformists swept the board? A good deal has been said about that religious census, giving the attendances at church and chapel in Wales on a certain Sunday two years ago. I have no great faith in such tests, for on that particular Sunday each party, having ample notice of

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    what was going to happen, went into the highways and hedges and brought in the maimed, the halt, and the blind, so that in some parishes there was hardly a church or chapel baby left in its cradle. Of course, by picking out all the cases most favourable to themselves, and ignoring the rest, the Church advocates have been able to draw the comforting assurance that they are only in a minority of two to one. This has been the subject of considerable discussion in the Press, and the Times sent down a young gentleman of considerable literary ability to write "Letters on Wales." He was connected I think with half the clergy of the diocese, and of course he looked at the matter through Church spectacles. I 'do not blame him for that. But in one of these "Letters" it is stated that on a particular Sunday in the parish of Ruabon the number of persons who attended church was nearly double that which attended the Nonconformist chapels. But what are the facts? I have stated them in a letter to the Times, and they have never been challenged. Of the village of Ruabon it might be true; but the old parish of Ruabon, now sub-divided into four parishes, has a population of over 15,000 persons. In that parish 21,305 persons on that Sunday attended the three Nonconformist services, giving for each -service 7,068, or 47 per cent of the whole population, while only 4,445, or 1,482 for each service—that is to say, 11 per cent of the whole population—attended the three services of the Church, of England, showing that the attendances at chapel on that particular Sunday were more than four times as numerous as those in church. Taking the country throughout, that is a fair proportion, but if you go further west the difference is much greater. But it would be absurd to rest this great question upon the result of a sum in vulgar fractions, especially as the most ardent champions of the Church Establishment only contend that the Church is stronger than any other denomination taken by itself. But then it is contended that if the Church does not attract to herself the majority of the population while they are alive, at least she gets hold of them after they are dead. This singular argument is strongly urged by Lord Selborne in his book on the defence of
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    the Church against dissent and in support of that singular argument Lord Selborne quotes figures to show that in the cemetery of Ruabon the burials in the consecrated portion of the cemetery largely exceeded those in the unconsecrated part. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Raikes) improved on that argument, for he showed by figures a few years ago that the Burials Act of 1880 had had comparatively little operation in Wales. No doubt he thought that a slap in the face for me. But what is the real explanation? I am bound to say that, with some notable exceptions, the clergy have availed themselves of every technical objection they can find to prevent Noncomformists from making use of the Burials Act. Every effort has been made to deprive them of the benefits of the Act, and unless the Act be amended, as I am now striving to amend it, I think the greater part of them will continue to be deprived of its benefits. But there is another answer to this argument, and I give it on authority of Lord Beaconsfield himself. In a very remarkable speech made in 1873, in moving the rejection of the Burials Bill, Mr. Disraeli quoted most elaborate statistics to show that in some parts of Wales two out of three of the Nonconformist chapels had burial grounds of their own, in which its members naturally preferred to be buried, and I remember he added, in his characteristic manner, that if he had been a Nonconformist and contemplating burial, he would have regarded such a state of things with profound satisfaction. But an hon. Member opposite has placed on the paper an Amendment which states that the Church is gaining ground in Wales. I am thankful to think that no Welshman has had the hardihood to put his name to that Amendment. The hon. Member who has done so (Mr. Byron Reed) comes from Yorkshire—a county winch Lord Selborne said was quite as much entitled to a nationality of its own as Wales. I can assure the hon. Member that his Amendment may do for Yorkshire, but it will not do in Wales. I do not know what knowledge the hon. Member has of Wales. My knowledge of the Principality, I am sorry to say, dates back to a period about a quarter of a century be-

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    fore the hon. Member was born. When I saw his Amendment down on the Paper I turned to that repertory of knowledge to which we all refer on these occasions, and I found he was born in London and educated near London, that he was Parliamentary Secretary of the Church Defence Association, that he was a Director of certain Conservative Societies, that he was a liveryman of the City of London, and a member of the Shipwrights' Company, that he had been Secretary of certain Conservative Associations, and, last, but not least, Secretary to Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett, M.P. I admit that all these things are very considerable claims to our respect; but I want to know what have any of them to do with Wales. No doubt it is possible that in some of the fashionable watering-places of Wales, such as the hon. Member no doubt frequents, and in the border towns, which are really more English than Welsh, there may be some grounds for his assertion. But my own experience—the experience of my own senses, which I must prefer to any evidence the hon. Member can adduce—teaches me that in Wales proper the exact contrary is the case. I must admit that the Church is making tremendous efforts just now. It is putting out all its strength. That is one of the things we complain of. It is being converted into a propagandist Church, a proselytizing Church, and, indeed, it is so occupied in fighting dissent that there is some danger of its ceasing to preach or at least to practice Christianity. Indeed, when I think of the enormous forces, the wealth—and wealth is a great power in a poor country—the charitable doles, the Primrose bounties, the social influence, as it is called, which the Church in Wales can call to its aid, I am amazed that its progress should have been so small, Hon. Members little know the petty persecutions, the social ostracism, the boycotting which the poor Welsh Nonconformists have to endure. To my hon. Friends and myself these things matter little. County society even in Wales is not so peculiarly lively that it is impossible to live without it, and I have often consoled myself with the reflection that it is better to be boycotted than to be bored. But it is a very different thing for the struggling tradesman, the man who has a young family to support, to be told at
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    the doors of the hall or the mansion—in substance, if not in words—"No Dissenter need apply." What is the result? Why, that the Church has got hold of the two ends of society—the plutocrat and the pauper—those who are most able to give and those who are most anxious to get—Dives at one end of the social scale and Lazarus at the other. Sydney Smith once said that carriage-horses always drive to church, but in Wales it is said you can tell whether a man is a Churchman by the hour at which he dines and the number of servants he keeps. To say, therefore, that the Church is in a minority is to state only half our case, for it is a minority composed precisely of those persons who are best able to pay for their own religious worship. Now, I wish to speak with the greatest respect of the Welsh clergy as a hard-working and most zealous body. I ought, I am sure, to be the last man to depreciate them. But they are in a most unfortunate position, which cannot help exercising a deteriorating influence on them. The incumbent is usually the chaplain and almoner of the squire, and too often the electioneering agent of the Conservative candidate. Talk of political Dissenters! Why, half the vicarages in Wales are political camps and centres at election time. In my county at the last election half the vicarages were virtually committee rooms, and I believe if I had been defeated half the church bells would have been rung to celebrate the event. No doubt we shall be told by the hon. Member opposite that munificient sums have been collected for-Church purposes of late years. That is quite true, and all honour to those-who have done it; but, to my mind, that is the very strongest argument in favour of the voluntary system, for it shows that the Church in Wales is quite able to take care of itself. I should like upon this subject to quote the words of one of the ablest and staunchest of Welsh Churchmen—the late Dean of Bangor, a brother of the present Bishop of St. Asaph—spoken at a Church Congress at Swansea some time ago. "The Church," he said, "has made material progress of late. Churches, parsonages, and schools have been built; but how many of these-churches are empty? Five-sixths of

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    the Welsh-speaking millions are outside the Church." That is the testimony of your own witness. But what are the Nonconformists doing? They collect from the poorest class in a poor country £300,000 a year, more than £30,000 more than the whole of the State-paid income of the Welsh Church. The Calvinistic Methodists alone gave £173,000 a year. They have 4,500 places of worship, and a corresponding number of ministers and preachers. No doubt both Churchmen and Dissenters have been making great efforts—and again, I say, all honour be to those who make them. But there is this difference—the churches are built with the cheques of the wealthy, the chapels with the shillings and pence of the poor. As to the boasted conversions of Nonconformist ministers, I confess I look upon them as very apocryphal. There may be some weak-kneed brethren, tempted by the prospect of the loaves and fishes, to desert the faith of their fathers. But, as a rule, these stories remind me very much of the stories we used to hear about the conversion of the Jews. There was a Society for the Conversion of the Jews with an income of £1,000 a year. But it seems that it costs £2,000 to convert one Jew. Of course, the consequence was that that society was only able to show one conversion every other year, and naturally enough, in one of the odd years, when no conversion had been shown, there was a good deal of dissatisfaction expressed at the annual meeting, and some person said they must either increase their income or give up business altogether. However, one member rose to the occasion and pointed out that even with their present resources they had two alternatives open to them. They could either half convert a whole Jew, or wholly convert a half Jew. So in Wales, it seems to, me Church proselytizers spend their time between half converting a whole Dissenter, or wholly converting a half Dissenter. In the last century Arthur Young estimated that at the then rate of progress it would take 4,000 years to convert Ireland to Protestantism. Assuming it took a 40th part of that time, it would be a little unreasonable to ask us to wait until the great-grandchildren of the hon. Member opposite had been able to convert the Nonconformists of Wales into a minority. I come now to the second test. Is the
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    Establishment essential to the spiritual well-being of Wales? All I can say is, that if salvation is only to be found in the bosom of the Church, the Welsh must be a nation of heathens and publicans, for it is common ground that until lately the Church shamefully neglected its duties. According to Lord Aberdare, religion would have disappeared from the country but for the exertions of the Nonconformists. But what are the facts? In no part of the country are the gaols so empty, the places of worship so full, or the amusements of the people so pure and elevating. I have been told by Judges that when they passed from Denbighshire to Cheshire it was like passing from light to darkness, and I remember that some time ago in three counties in Wales there was only one prisoner, and she was an English woman. The people do not take their pleasure in prize fights and gambling clubs. They leave that to Peers of the Realm. I am not going to notice what has been said by politicians in ermine—men who use the Bench as a pulpit or a platform to promulgate theories they have advocated in the House of Commons. I will come to the surer ground of judicial statistics, though I am almost afraid of quoting them after the light and airy way in which the Home Secretary recently pitched to the winds his own Home Office Returns. The Home Secretary seems to live in a transcendental world, undisturbed by such vulgar things as facts or figures. Perhaps, however, there may be some Members on this side of the House—some inferior beings who may desire to know what is the exact proportion of crime in England and Wales. I will tell them. The senior Member for Merthyr (Mr. D. Thomas) showed the other day that, while in 1887 the population in Wales and Monmouthshire was to that of England in the proportion of 6 per cent, the serious crimes committed there were in the proportion of little more than 3½ per cent. I know that these arguments will have little effect on the serried ranks of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I know that I might as well—
    "Go stand upon the beach, And bid the main tide bate its usual height"
    as appeal to those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen. But there is one body to

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    whom I can appeal with more confidence —the Liberal Unionists. I can assure them this is no question of the integrity of the Empire. I feel sure that we shall have the vote, if not the voice, of the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for West Birmingham. I do not suppose the author of "The Next Page of the Liberal Programme" is the man to say one thing on a platform in Wales and another on the floor of the House of Commons. Will the eldest son of John Bright be found false to the cause of which his revered father was the most eloquent advocate—I might almost say the apostle? But I will quote on this question one of the greatest of living Liberal Unionists—as great, though, perhaps, not so advanced, as those I have mentioned—Lord Derby, who, three years ago, at Blackburn used these memorable words:—
    "I consider Wales has a strong claim to be separately dealt with. In Wales, as was the case in Ireland, the Nonconformists form the bulk of the population. The Welsh people constitute in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition."
    Yes, but what made the Irish seditious? True it is that the Welsh are a most loyal and law abiding nation, but I am afraid there is a limit even to endurance, and things have happened lately in Wales which show that it is just possible that the time may come when we shall have a second Ireland in Wales. But I prefer to appeal not to your fears, but to your sense of justice. Whether we shall succeed to-night or not I do not know, but this I know, that time is on our side. We have behind us the rising manhood of Wales, aye, and our ranks are being constantly recruited from that great and growing body of our fellow citizens who, taught by the lessons of our own Colonies, taught by the experience of the great Republic beyond the ocean, taught, above all, by the lamentable spectacle in our midst of a State Church divided against herself, are beginning to learn that the true way to keep religion pure and undefiled is to keep it unspotted from the world, and that the Church of Christ herself will walk the earth with freer and firmer tread when she has ceased to lean on the crutches of an Establishment.
    MR. BYRON REEDI do not for a moment intend to follow the right hon. Gentleman in his excursions into biography and personality. I venture to think that neither the good temper nor the good manners of the House are promoted by such a course, and, personally, I am content to leave the right hon. Gentleman's remarks to the judgment of both sides of the House. My own personality is, of course, a most unimportant matter, but I represent a much larger number of voters than the right hon. Gentleman, and I have had many opportunities of making myself personally acquainted with this subject. I think I shall be able to show the House and the right hon. Gentleman that, although I have not the length of years, the Parliamentary experience, the knowledge of the Welsh language or of Wales, which the right hon. Gentleman possesses, none the less I have had opportunities which, perhaps, I have been able to put to some useful purpose of forming a clear and intelligent judgment on this question in Wales itself. But I take this higher ground, that the question now under consideration is one not limited to the Principality of Wales. I can well understand the tactics of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) and those associated with him in this Resolution, and I can well understand that the ancient policy of dividing in order to conquer has found favour with Gentlemen on the other side. But those who act with me in this matter are agreed that when the question of the Disestablishment of the Church comes to be settled by the people of this land it must be settled as a whole and not as a part, and we are perfectly content to take the judgment not only of this House, but of the constituencies in all parts of the country as soon as hon. Gentlemen opposite give us an opportunity. [Ironical Opposition cheers.] That derisive cheer means that that opportunity can be given only by Her Majesty's Government; but I must remind hon. Gentlemen that at the two last General Elections, when the question of Disestablishment was brought forward, they and their leaders "began with one accord to make excuse." I have intimated that I will deal with Wales as an integral and indivisible part of the United Kingdom, and in support of that

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    view I will quote an authority of weight, not only with hon. Gentlemen opposite, but with the whole of the House—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. Speaking in this House in 1870 on a Motion of the late Mr. Watkin Williams, the right hon. Gentleman said:—
    "There is a complete ecclesiastical, constitutional, legal, and I may add—for every practical purpose—historical identity between the Church in Wales and the rest of the Church of England. I will not say what it would be right to do provided Wales were separated from England in the same way that Ireland is, and provided that the case of Wales stood in full and complete analogy to that of Ireland in regard to religious differences. But the direct contrary of this is the truth. I think, therefore, it is practically impossible to separate the case of Wales from that of England."
    Upon the expression of the right hon. Gentleman, and on that indubitable historical and constitutional authority, we take our stand, and we decline, as Englishmen, to separate the Church in Wales from the Church in the rest of the country. Now, I am led to inquire somewhat curiously into the motive of this Disestablishment agitation at this particular time, and I have come to the conclusion, from a rather exhaustive study, that hon. Gentlemen on the other side are becoming alarmed at the rapid and ever-increasing progress which the National Church is making in that part of the kingdom, and that they have come to the very definite conclusion that now or never is their time. I shall be able to show this evening by quotations from writings in the interest of the other side sufficient weight and warrant for any statement I shall make. The Cambrian News, a journal with which the hon. Member for Swansea is no doubt familiar, goes so far as to be even somewhat rude to the hon. Member, and to use expressions which I would not venture to employ. It says:—
    "The inhabitants of Wales are not satisfied. Disestablishment is an urgent matter in Wales, and must be pushed forward even if Welsh Members have to make themselves disagreeable. Such weakness as Mr. Dillwyn displays in reference to Disestablishment creates derision, and he will very soon be requested to hand over that subject to a more robust Member of the Party."
    Hence this Motion, hence this discussion, and hence those biographical and historical observations of the hon. Member for Swansea.
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    "Wales is becoming," continues the Cambrian News, "very impatient of Members of Parliament, whose only notion of representing the constituencies is ministering to their own personal pride."
    So much, then, for the inspiring motives from certain sections of the community in Wales which stirred hon. Gentlemen opposite.
    MR. DILLWYNWhere is the Cambrian News published?
    MR. BYRON REEDI am not aware. I do not pretend to read the imprint of every newspaper; but I presume that the hon. Gentleman does not for a moment impugn the accuracy of the quotation?
    MR. DILLWYNNo, Sir; I wish for information.
    Well, I will leave the hon. Gentleman to settle that for himself. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to know the place of publication of the Cambrian News I should think he could easily obtain it from his colleagues on that side of the House. I pass on, however, to make this observation. The Motion of the hon. Member lays especial stress upon the alleged failure of the Church in the Principality. Now I know of no standard by which failure or success can be decided; I know of no official or ecclesiastical standard; I do not know that even the hon. Gentleman himself has attempted to set up a standard, and I am therefore driven to take this course of inquiry, to make comparison—the testimony in respect of which is ready to my hand—between the strength of the Church and of Noncomformity in Wales. Now, I will make the proposition, which I do not think will be broadly denied in this House, that at almost every official assembly of the various dissenting bodies in Wales, in the pages of almost every annual report which appears in their interest, the general complaint and wail is one of failing resources, of decreasing members, of ministers without charges, and of charges without ministers, and, above all things, the ever increasing burden of debt, which weighs as a fatal incubus on the shoulders of dissenting religious effort. On the other hand—I doubt whether hon. Gentlemen opposite will listen to this converse of the picture—we have at every official gathering of Churchmen in Wales, in the charges of

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    Bishops, in the visitations of Archdeacons, at the Rurideacanal Chapters, and upon every occasion when Churchmen come together, congratulations at the increase in members, and at the greater grappling with the population. With each year, aye, each month, it may be said that while the Church is waxing, Nonconformity is waning. [Laughter.] That broad proposition I hope to be able to prove by authority which even the hon. Gentleman who laughs will scarcely be inclined to contend against. Now, the chief leading reasons which suggest themselves as being the grand cause of the decline of Nonconformity in Wales are these:—Firstly, the increasingly political character of the ministers; and, secondly, the ever increasing burden of debt. Chapels are built hastily to gratify sectarian rivalries without the means of paying for them, and the debt hangs like a millstone round the neck of the congregations. Another cause is that the younger generation of Welsh people are more and more becoming members of the National Church, and, indeed, it is a common complaint in the columns of the Nonconformist Press in Wales that the sons and daughters of Nonconformist parents attend the services of the National Church. Now, Sir, I quote from a paper of some authority and repute, the Homilist, published in London. It contains a communication from Nonconformist Minister, who says he is also a Radical, in the course of which he writes—
    "The characteristic feature of Welsh Nonconformity is the general air of lethargy and sloth that pervades everything. The mournful cry issues from the chapels in the land, 'Who hath believed our reports, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' Echo answers 'Who.' Can you explain it?' Within the last few years the preacher has found out that the kingdom—which is not of this world' does not afford scope enough for his eminent talents, and has set his heart on setting in order the 'kingdom of this world.' Enter into conversation with your minister and try and find out his hobby. Politics first, politics second, politics to the end of the chapter. No place is too sacred for political discussion. Monthly meetings, quarterly meetings, associations, and general assemblies do not consider it incompatible with their religious character, nor in any way infra dignitatem to discuss political subjects and pass resolutions bearing on the same."
    Then I find that a writer in another Nonconformist paper, the name of which I dare scarcely venture to pro-
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    nounce in the presence of hon. Gentle men—the Goleuadd says:—
    "There is an itching among certain ministers of the gospel for seats on the County Councils. Some weak and thoughtless persons encourage them. The young people in the churches require training. The Sunday School teachers meet to prepare for their work, and anxiously look towards the door for the appearance of their minister. The members at the church meeting ask, Where is the pastor? There is a family in trouble and wants consolation and advice. A widow and children have lost a husband and a father, but there is no minister to comfort them. There are sick members waiting day after day or a word of sympathy from their spiritual advisers. Several young people about leaving their homes for England want good counsel. The minister was at Twrgwyn on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday he was at the monthly meeting. On Wednesday he was arranging meetings of the Liberation Society, and in the evening assisting at one of them, with Mr. C. R. Jones, of Llanfyllin. On Thursday he was at a Conference at Shrewsbury, and in the evening at an Eistedfodd at Caersws, in the capacity of adjudicator and reporter for the Liverpool Daily Post. On Friday at an important parliamentary Committee meeting at Chester in support of the great Liberal Party, Mr. John Morley being present. On Saturday he returns home to preach on Sunday without a new sermon, and prays God to help him in his weakness after having spent the week like the prodigal son."
    Well, I venture to say that these are by no means exaggerated statements of what happens among the mass of Nonconformist ministers in Wales. It was not always so. In the early days of Welsh Nonconformity, the fire and fervour of the minister's enthusiasm in the pulpit, and at the class meeting, moved the religious instincts of the Welsh people. But so surely as the minister of religion is degraded from his higher calling to the lower level of Party politics, so surely does he lose that spiritual influence which after all it should be his chief object to attain. Of such ministers might not a Macaulay write, "As we wax hot in faction, in battle we wax cold." As they wax hot in political faction, so will they wax cold in spiritual work; so will they find the ground slipping from under their feet in Wales; so will they find the rising generation going back to the Church of their fatherss, as a Welsh orator said years ago, "like bees returning to the old hive," and so in days to come, and not very far distant, will hon. Gentlemen find it difficult to go to their constituents with Motions for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. I spoke just now of the burden of debt

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    which oppresses Nonconformist effort in Wales. I suppose it is within the knowledge of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and it should be within the knowledge of all Members of this House, that in very many cases chapels are run up by enterprising builders as matters of speculation. Popular preachers. who are supposed to draw by pulpit influence, are looked upon as eligible objects of such speculation. A writer in a certain Nonconformist paper—Y Seren, of the Baptist Order in Wales, says:—
    "It is known to many of us as a denomination that the pecuniary state of our churches in many places is exceedingly undesirable, and that there are some of us who have suffered and are suffering because of our chapel debts. Many have experienced great losses through lending their money on our chapels, being under the impression that the denomination as such was responsible for the debt."
    It is not to be wondered at with such a state of things that there should be repudiation of chapel debts, and that disappointed money lenders and speculators are inclined to look with considerable disfavour on those who have turned out so bad an investment. Now, I wish to quote from a writer referred to by the hon. Member for Swansea—I mean Mr. Thomas Gee, who may be described as the chief priest of the Liberation Society in North Wales. The journal—the Baner—in which he writes is published at Denbigh. Mr. Gee, writing in the Baner recently, and speaking of the Calvinistic Methodist body in Wales, says—
    "The report for the year 1888 just printed shows a decline in the number of members. Here we have the ministerial labour of this great body showing no results, but a loss. The thousands of pounds collected for the ministry, the work of the Sunday schools, arid all the prayer meetings have produced no results. The ministry is become more learned, or ought to be, for a large sum of money is spent on it, but there is a fear that it is deteriorating, and that this is the natural inference to be drawn from the report."
    This, Sir, is by a Liberationist writer in a Liberationist journal in North Wales, and I will not trouble the House with more than a hurried extract from it. The Rev. R. Ambrose Jones, speaking at a meeting at Abergele, called attention to the personal defection of the members of the churches of his denomination. He said—
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    "If we do not take care of the poor, they will cease to take care for us, and will go to the Established Church and follow hundreds of other poor."
    The same gentleman went on to say—
    "The people are less, as well as the money, and members of Sunday Schools are less by scores than the year before."
    Also—
    "I find that we have not increased for some time in the number of our members, and possibly not in our attendance, which is a lamentable fact worthy of notice."
    It is impossible to search any official reports of the Nonconformist Press without finding day by day testimony to the same effect—namely, declarations of the decrease of Nonconformist membership in the Principality. Again, on the other hand, I find in the Cambrian News a letter which says:—
    "The Church parson, with his daily services, his oversight of elementary schools, his mission work, his house to house visiting, and his numerous societies, is a hard-worked individual. It is the Nonconformist minister, with his one week-night service and his two services on Sunday, who is becoming an object of reproach."
    In point of fact, the bulk of the philanthropic and benevolent work which is common to the whole community falls on the shoulders of the clergy and people of the Church, and not on the ministers and members of dissenting denominations. I will quote again, and this time from the speech of a gentleman occupying a high local position, and I am glad to see the hon. Member for Swansea still in his place as I wish him to hear this quotation. The Mayor of Swansea, speaking at a meeting of the Swansea Industrial Home for Girls, said:—
    "He could not understand why all those present at the meeting, except himself, were members of the Church of England and not of the Nonconformist bodies. They were asked the question why the Church of England was progressing and why the Nonconformists were going backwards. He replied that it was because the Church of England was honestly doing its duty, and the Nonconformists were not."
    This from the Mayor of the borough represented by the hon. Member opposite is in itself a striking testimony. I now leave this part of the inquiry into the condition of Nonconformity in Wales, cursory as it has been, but based on the testimony of the Nonconformists themselves, and turn to a consideration of what are the Church's

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    position and prospects and rate of progress at the present time. I find that unquestionably recent years have given a great impetus to Church work and influence in Wales. I will not attempt to fix any particular time for the beginning of this revival, but undoubtedly great assistance was given to it by the holding of the Church Congress at Swansea ten years ago, and many of us hope that when the Congress meets again in the autumn of the present year at Cardiff, it will again mark a new departure on the part of the Church in Wales, and give to its work in the Principality a new impulse to energy. I find that in 1632 there were 700 clergy in the 847 parishes of Wales, whereas in 1888 the number of clergy had increased to 1,434, and the number of parishes to 987. This more than doubling the clergy in half a century, is a very pregnant fact. In the ten years ending 1886, no fewer than 228 churches were restored, enlarged, or built afresh in Wales; and taking the confirmations in the churches, I find from the official returns of the Bishops, that the average number of confirmations in 1886 was 6,528, that in 1887 it was increased to 7,028, and that last year it rose to 8,454. There is a very curious fact in regard to these confirmations. In very many cases the Bishops found they were called on to confirm not only numbers of young people who were members of Nonconformist families and congregations, but also many Nonconformists of advanced years. According to the Bishop of Llandaff—
    "On December 4, 1887, at a confirmation held at Llantwit Vawdre, when there were 90 candidates, all but three were converts from Nonconformity. At Pontlottyn, on December 11, 1887, when 31 adults were baptized, and 53 males, and 68 females confirmed, nearly all had been formerly Nonconformists."
    The same Bishop also says—
    "A remarkable confirmation was held at St. Lleurwg's Church, Hirwain, on December 3, 1888. The list of candidates included 20 men, of whom five were Wesleyans, aged respectively 27, 58, 21, 44, and 30, one being a local preacher, and two others 'members;' two were Baptists, aged 28, and 12, the first being a 'member;' two were Independents, aged 62 and 30, both 'members;' two were Calvanistic Methodists, aged 32 and 21; of the remainder one Churchman aged 69, another 52, and a third 50. Twenty-two boys and girls were confirmed, of whom two were Roman Catholics, two Wesleyans, and one a Methodist."
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    I think the House will agree with me that this is a very striking testimony to the position and influence of the Church in Wales at the present time; and the fact that these confirmations include not merely Nonconformists, but many of advanced years, shows that they have found in the Church that spiritual comfort which is denied to them in their own communities; that in the Church, at least, it is possible for men to agree about religion and still to differ about politics, and to join in prayer, and the worship of Almighty God, without discussing mundane and political concerns. The Bishop of Llandaff stated, at a meeting of the Church Diocesan Society in 1887:—
    "In the last four years I have opened 24 new churches and mission churches. I have opened one every month this year, and shall continue to do so during every remaining month of the year. These churches contain on an average 300 sittings each. In one valley in my diocese, with a population of 18,000, there was only one church and one mission church containing 560 sittings. In that valley there are now six churches with 2,000 sittings. I am thankful to say that these churches are all now well filled. Five years ago in this and the neighbouring valley there were not more than a score of houses and two churches; there are now in them 75,000 people, 16 churches and mission churches, and about 20 clergy."
    One piece of statistics more; and the figures I will quote relate to the town of Cardiff. I find that during the five years to the end of September last there were completed the enlargement and restoring of churches at Cardiff and the building of new ones at a cost of £51,000, raised from voluntary contributions alone on the part of the clergy and lay people of that town. I will now pass to two cases which I think this House will regard as typical ones. At Llanelly (?) in 1837—just over 50 years ago,—there was only only one church, with only 590 sittings, the attendance being only about 200, while the parish had the services of one clergyman and a share of the services of another. In 1889, instead of that one church there were eight churches and 37 mission rooms, with sitting accommodation for 3,374 persons.
    SIR E. REED: It would throw great light on this question if my hon. relative would give the increase of the population.
    MR. BYRON REEDIf I am doing violence to the facts of the case, it

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    will be open to my hon. relative or any other hon. Gentleman to supply the deficiency at the close of the observations I am making. In the case of Llanelly, whereas the average attendance 15 years ago was 200. it is now 3,019, while the number of communicants is 2,330. But there is an even more striking case. I will go to Swansea, which is an appropriate place to name. In 1881 the parish of St. Mary in that town had a population of 39,000, and at the present time that has been increased to at least 42,000. Since January, 1885, there have been built in that parish three stone and two iron churches, and they have all been paid for. They have not been built on loan or mortgage, but have been paid for out of the pockets of the people who believe in the ministrations of the National Church. They have been erected at a cost of £11,041. I find that the fourth stone church is already nearing completion, and will be consecrated in July. The sum of £4,200 has been raised. The third iron church is now in course of erection, and will be shortly opened, at a cost of £800. In the parish of St. Mary, Swansea, there were in 1885 six working clergy, and in 1889 there were ten; on Easter day of this year there were no less than 997 communicants in the parish, and during the four years 605 candidates were confirmed. But what is perhaps the most striking illustration of all, and one which is of the greatest personal interest to the hon. Member for Swansea, is that whereas in 1885, at the then School Board election, only one Churchman was elected, and he only sixth on the poll; at the School Board election held a few months ago, three Churchmen headed the poll, and the fourth was among the elected candidates. Thus, in fact, while declension is the order of the day with the Nonconformist bodies in Wales, growth and development are the order of the day with the National Church. This agitation might have had some chance of success had it been started 50, 30, or 20 years ago; but, Sir, I venture to think that when the hon. Member for Swansea says that the progress of the Church has come too late, it is this agitation for Disestablishment which is too late; that the Church has more than held her own in the Principality in recent years, and that not only
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    in this House, but in the constituencies, as hon. Gentleman opposite will find, she will hold her own against any agitation. As a hostile writer has admitted, the National Church is now putting forth her strength in Wales, and churches which a few years ago were comparatively empty are now comparatively full. I should like before I sit down to say a few words in reply to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman opposite on the question of religious censuses in general and for Wales in particular. The only reason why a religious census, alike for Wales and England, has not been taken in a formal and official fashion is because the proposal has been resisted by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. Churchmen, at least, have nothing to fear from the numbering of the people according to their religious denominations, and if hon. Members opposite will support us next year when the Census Bill is introduced, a clause may be inserted which will secure a religious census for England and Wales. But, although from no fault of ours we have had no formal and official census of that kind, yet an unofficial and informal one has been taken which is not satisfactory to anybody—it was satisfactory neither to us nor to the Liberation Society, and for opposite reasons. In the first place, we object to an unofficial numbering of the people. We saw beforehand that Mr. Gee, under whose auspices an unofficial numbering of the people in attendance at places of worship was conducted, was a pronounced partizan interested in bringing out a certain set of figures to point to a certain conclusion. What happened? He sent out the papers at his own time and by his own officers to take the census in his own fashion; and it was impossible to expect that true, accurate, and just returns could be obtained in that manner. Only part of the returns were published, the information collected not being very much to the taste of Mr. Gee and his. friends, who found to their astonishment that the Church was proved to be much stronger in the Principality than they had reason to suppose. Although we begged for the figures, and invoked the aid of the Liberation Society, they have remained to this day secreted in the pigeon holes of the Baner office

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    at Denbigh; and the Secretary of the Liberation Society was so disgusted with the whole operation that he wrote to the Times disclaiming all responsibility for this census. Had they proved a crushing condemnation of the Church, we should have had the figures readily enough. We also object to the mere numbering of attendants at places of worship, as an adequate test of the religious feelings of the people or the strength of the Church; for inducing people to attend the church is by no means the "be all" and "end all" of the work of the clergy. The clergy of the National Church are not only a preaching ministry, they perform much valuable pastoral work; and it may at least be said, without any disparagement of the Nonconformist bodies, that the clergy of the Church of England are able by the specialities of their organization and methods of work, to reach masses of the people whom dissenting preachers are unable to discover, and to minister to thousands who would not otherwise receive spiritual comfort and consolation. I am inclined to think that if it were not for the Welsh Vernacular Press very little would be heard of this agitation. This Press is for the most part written, edited, and managed by Nonconformists who combine the functions of the pulpit, the platform, and the pen in one occupation. These gentlemen stir up the worst feelings in language so gross as to be almost unquotable, in language which it is a disgrace in educated men to utter, and which it pains enlightened and sensitive men to read. [Cries of "Quote."] An hon. Member cries "Quote." I shall be most happy to oblige him. One Welsh paper has spoken of clergymen of the Church of England in these generous and Christian-like terms. They are, he says, "hypocritical," "sodden with deceit and shame," "lazy drones, unable to preach, move, or work," "blind teachers, soft-brained and dumb," whose visits are "accompanied by nothing better than the fierce breathings of hell." That is very well for a beginning. A Voice: ["That is not the vernacular."] No; it is an English translation. I suspect that in the vernacular it would be a great deal worse. Another writer speaks of the "dirty, stinking,
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    cobwebbed Cathedral of Llandaff," where "bats, owls, and Bishops get fat." I find that these gentlemen of the Welsh Vernacular Press are by no means satisfied with the advocacy of Welsh Members; the hon. Member for Swansea is much too moderate for them, and I doubt if ever the hon. Member for the Rhondda Valley spices their political pabulum with sufficient fire to satisfy them. The Genedl Gymreig allowed a Calvinistic Methodist minister to write—
    "In Wales up to to the present the people have the upper hand. If they wished to retain their ascendency, and especially if they wish to reap the fruit of their victory, they must be prepared to hold their own through blood."
    The Seren Gomer is the quarterly publication of the Baptists of Wales, and is ably edited by one of their ministers. It said—
    "Wales must be regenerated on Republican and Democratic principles. We look forward with certainty to the day when the four Republics of Britain will move on side by side in peace and comfort, when kings and queens will be left to shift for themselves. We believe that the masses of Scotland, Ireland, and England will help Wales in its laudable efforts to regain Home Rule. If we had Home Rule in less than a month we should cashier the lazy and tyrannical drovers out of our country. The thousands of the Church of England would be utilized to educate the youth, the 'Wales of the future,' and the hills and dales of our country would be restored to their true owners—namely, the Welsh people, not some handful of greedy and rapacious landlords."
    I notice that the right hon. Member for Denbighshire does not cheer that sentiment. I find these writers have no confidence in the House of Commons. fine of them says—
    "No one can conquer in war without fighting and in war there must be shedding of blood in order to gain a victory. We cannot get the people in the house of palaver to attend unless we do something more serious than talking. They will not think we are in earnest unless we take up arms and make use of them also."
    It is an open secret on this side of the House that the election of the junior Member for Merthyr (Mr. P. Morgan) was looked upon by no means with unmixed delight by the political dissenters; and I find one of these gentlemen writing that there were—
    "Thousands of true Israelites who would not have that uncircumcized Philistine to reign over them."
    I have one more quotation which I hone

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    will satisfy even hon. Gentlemen opposite. A writer in the Celt, in December of last year, speaking of the Disestablishment agitation, said:—
    "We have strong hopes that this unholy marriage is about to be dissolved. 'Disestablishment and Disendowment is coming,' when the Church of England will be put to live on her own resources, and they, the parsons, will have to work or starve. They have enjoyed the fat of the land for ages; but the wheel has nigh completed its revolutions. There is an angel standing in the sun '(Rev. xix., 17), and that angel is William Ewart Gladstone and he had begun to cry with a loud voice to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heavens, 'Come to the supper of the great God,' and the end will be that all the fowls will have their fill of their flesh, by the wealth of the State Church being used for National purposes."
    Sir, that concluding sentence is the key to the whole position, and shows the meaning of the agitation. The endowments of the Church in Wales are being held out as a gulden bait by unscrupulousagitators—men who pander to the worst passions of the public mind and the worst ignorance of the unlearned, in order to bring about an Act which, were this Parliament to adopt it, would be an act of the grossest injustice and the cruellest wrong, which would undoubtedly recoil upon the hands that wrought it—an act which would assuredly earn for the generation that accepted it the condemnation of its successors. Holding these views I beg to move the Amendment which stands in his name.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "having regard to the great and growing influence and work of the National Church, especially in the Principality of Wales, this House is not prepared to entertain proposals for its Disestablishment in that part of the Kingdom."—(Mr. Byron Reed.)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR JOSEPH BAILEYI shall not feel it my duty to occupy much time in seconding the Motion of the hon. Member, but in doing so I wish to say that, speaking as one who has spent his whole life in Wales, I have often expressed my personal regard for
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    the Nonconformist ministers in Wales and appreciation of their work, and only join issue with them when they assume a position of antagonism towards the Established Church. I am sorry to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea in the commencement of his Resolution describes that Church as the "Church of England in Wales"; but no man knows better than my hon. Friend that whatever he may think of its shortcomings at the present time, that Church is the National Church of Wales, which has existed for 16 or 17 centuries. In the Library of the House there is a curious work, "The Laws and Institutes of Wales," and it contains the laws made for Wales 100 years before Norman or English set foot in that country, and it describes how the King assembled his Parliament consisting of Peers and Eccliastics of the National Church. Now, Sir, although no boubt, in Wales as in England, a foreign nation having conquered the country, forced on the land Bishops in Wales as they did statesmen and warriors and nobles in England, still it was the Bishop and not the Church which was imposed on the people. So far is the Church from being an alien Church that having looked carefully through the names of the clergy in the county in which I reside, I find that the name of nearly every one of the early clergy of those days was the name of a Welshman and not of a Norman. I will take, for example, a frontier town which is likely to present the strongest case for the Norman. The first four clergymen named in the frontier town of Hay are, Rhys ap Thomas, Rhys ap Gwillim, Thomas ap Howel, and Thomas ap Evan. Such persons could hardly be of Norman descent. I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea mention two cases of drunkenness and immorality among the clergy of Wales somewhere in the 16th century, but if it is necessary to go back 300 years to prove a case of vice and immorality, the purity of the Church is by that very argument almost estab-

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    lished. The hon. Member for Swansea has referred to the number of churches and chapels in Wales. He stated that in 1750, out of 1,191 churches in Wales 769 belonged to the National Church of Wales, and he thereby proves, I think, that up to the commencement of this century the greatest portion of the Evangelical work in Wales was done by the National Church. The hon. Member has also said that the number of chapels at the present day is 4,200, which will seat altogether 92 per cent of the population. In one district in my own county, I believe there are sufficient seats for 15 per cent in excess of the population. The compiler of the census of 1851 estimated that seating accommodation for 58 per cent of the population was sufficient for the wants of the community, so that the present accommodation is far in excess of the requirements.
    MR. OSBORNE MORGANAre the seats full?
    SIR J. BAILEYI can speak of the churches in my own neighbourhood, and they are full. It is of course absolutely impossible that when the seating accommodation is in excess of the requirements all the seats can be full. I received only the other day a letter on this subject. I conceal the name of the writer, but it is at the service of any hon. Gentleman who likes to have it. It relates to a Welsh Wesleyan Chapel, and the writer states that the people are suffering very much from the debt on the chapel, and an effort is being made to remove it, but there are only three male members of the congregation, and the burden is too much for them. Well, I think that chapel, however small it may be, can hardly be full. The right hon. Gentleman has assumed that because the Representatives of the country are almost all on those (the Opposition) Benches, the country therefore speaks with one voice for Disestablishment. In the election of 1885 there were 98,000 voters for hon. Gentlemen opposite, and 67,000 for the Conservative side. There were, besides, four uncon-
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    tested seats; but that will not bring up the Nonconformist majority to anything like what the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) thinks it is. I do not claim that the Church people are in the majority, but I believe they form one-third of the entire population. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Osborne Morgan) made an amusing allusion to the Church collecting into her fold the dead Welshmen. Now, I should tell the House there are two occasions in life on which a Welshman sets very great store. One is his marriage and the other is his funeral. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may regard this as a joke, but Welshmen will save money for their funerals, all their friends on the whole country side are asked to attend them. The whole of the family of a Welshman look upon his funeral as a very great occasion. I will show the House by statistics that while a Welshman likes to hear the ministrations of a person of his own tongue, his own rank of life and so on, and therefore frequently goes to a Nonconformist place of worship, on the great occasions of his life he seeks the Church. His funeral and his marriage both take place at the church. I find that on the occasion of marriage 330 persons in a 1,000 persons seek the offices of the Established Church, and only 304 seek the offices of all the Nonconformist communities put together. It is true, of course, that a large number are married before the Registrar, but even if they should all be Nonconformists it would not reduce the proportion of churchmen below one-third. Something has been said about the census got up a year or two ago by the Nonconformists, and the result of which has never been given to the world. I cannot say I regret it, because on both sides there are accusations of fraud and unfairness. I heard of one clergyman, for example, who is said to have counted his children, first in the school and afterwards in the church. On the other hand, I heard of a Nonconformist minister who counted his flock in the chapel and then dismissed them to hear a famous preacher in another chapel, where, of course, they would be counted at the conclusion of the service. These stories show that if you want to number the various religious bodies in the country,

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    you must do so in an authorized way, and that is a test which we on this side of the House do not shrink from, but court. The Church is accused of neglect, but statistics tell an entirely different story. The Church has had great difficulties to encounter, but if I needed any evidence of its activity I should quote a speech of the late Mr Richard, who said in the last 25 years a great improvement had taken place in the Church, that new churches had been built and that the services were being conducted with far more zeal and earnestness; "but, "he added, "it is too late." Sir, I cannot help thinking that the reason this Motion is being brought forward to-night is that my hon. Friend, seeing the advance made by the Church in Wales in the last two years, fears that his proposal may be made too late. Now, Sir, the defence of the National Church of Wales is not likely to be left in such feeble hands as mine, but I have ventured to raise my voice because I believe that the figures of my hon. Friend are entirely incorrect, and that he does not dare to bring them to the test of the census; because the Church which has been described as slothful is one of activity and advancement; and because, while it is described as the English Church in Wales, it was founded before the English or the Normans ever set foot in the country, and has kept alive the spirit of religion in the Principality for 17 centuries, since the time when Christianity first shed its light in the land.
    SIR H. VIVIANThe hon. Member who moved this Amendment stated that he had considerable experience of Wales, but he did, not tell us how the experience arose how long he had been in Wales, or during what time he had investigated this question. I take leave to say that after hearing his statements I cannot for one moment believe he knows anything whatever of the religious condition of Wales. I do not desire for one moment to deny the very considerable activity of the Church in Wales. We rejoice in it, we assist in it, we do all we can to help it on. We are Christians,
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    and we do not stand upon the narrow and limited ground of one particular form of worshipping our God. We desire, as far as possible, to bring the Holy Christian religion home to everybody. Therefore, as we rejoice at seeing the enormous increase of the Nonconformist body in our country, so we rejoice in seeing any increase in the Church. I am a Churchman myself, and desire to see the Church increase. No doubt the Church suffers from having neglected the people, but what I say is that the enormous majority of the Welsh people are not Churchmen, but Nonconformists. They have built their own places of religious worship, and they maintain them by expending enormous sums of money year by year. I believe they contribute between £300,000 and £400,000 a-year towards their places of worship. But I deny altogether the statement made by the hon. Member for East Bradford (Mr. Byron Reed), that Nonconformity is waning in Wales. I say it is increasing in Wales. The returns of the various Nonconformist bodies show that their hearers and their communicants are increasing. I find from a return which I only received to-day that the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, according to the Year Book for 1888, had 1,430 congregations, numbering 132,000 communicants and 282,000 hearers, and that their subscriptions for maintaining their worship amounted to no less than £175,899. The returns show a large increase on previous years. The Welsh Congregationalists have 1,017 chapels and 268,000 hearers; the Welsh Baptists, 810 chapels, and 221,000 hearers. These three denominations alone therefore amount to 772,000 members. I have lived in Wales all my life, and I see nothing but a constant increase in the efforts of the Nonconformists to meet the religious wants of the people. No one probably knows better than I do the number of new chapels that are being built. I represented Glamorganshire for 28 years and I can bear positive evidence as to the enormous increase which has taken place. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Byron Reed) said the debts of the Nonconformist chapels hung heavily round the necks of the congregations, and

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    were not being paid off. I can only say that year by year they do pay off their debts, and I know a case in which £13,000 was laid out upon one chapel, and the debt is now reduced to about £1,500. Constant efforts are being made to pay off the debts of these chapels, and they are constantly being paid off. There is no mistake so great as to suppose that you can meet the religious wants of the people by paying the whole of the costs of a place of worship beforehand. All I can say is, that if the Nonconformists of Glamorganshire had not met the enormous increase of our population by building chapels and incurring debts upon them, a large proportion would have been heathens at this moment. The population of that great county increased by from 300,000 to 511,000 during the 28 years I represented it. Well, the parochial system itself cannot meet an increase of that kind. The hon. Gentleman spoke of repudiation. I certainly never heard of Chapel debts being repudiated in my neighbourhood, and I am quite sure that such a scandal would have rung through every newspaper if it had occurred. They pay their debts honestly, and as a matter of fact, many of our great Chapels are now entirely free from debt. The hon. Gentleman talked of running up Chapels as speculative buildings. No more silly statement was ever made in this House. I have never heard of a Chapel being so run up. The history of our Chapels is to my mind, a noble one. When a new colliery is opened and a new district is started, large numbers of workmen being attracted to a place which was before a lonely valley, congregations are got together by earnest men, generally meeting in the first instance in small houses. They form what they very properly call a Church, and from that they go on to build a small Chapel, and they increase it, and increase it, and increase it. I think I have myself laid the foundation stone of a Chapel, which has been five times increased—five times pulled down and rebuilt. That is the right way in which the increase of provision for religious worship should take place. The hon. Gentleman made a great point of the increase of the Church in Swansea. I can tell him that is entirely due to the efforts of one
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    earnest and zealous good man. Before he came, there was no increase at all, but when he came the Church sprang into life—and we are all delighted it is so. The hon. Member began his speech by stating that the Church of England and the Church of England in Wales were one and indivisible. That might be all very true if you by your superior power could force your Church upon us. But you must denationalize us first, and that you cannot do. The thing is impossible. You cannot stamp out the Welsh race. It is a more ancient race than the English or any other race in this country [Ministerial laughter] Nobody can possibly deny that who knows anything of the history of his country. I should like to see anyone stand up in this House and say that the Cymri are not the ancient British race. It is too monstrous to talk about. The Welsh have their own language and have had it for unknown ages [Laughter]. It is supposed that the first inhabitants of these Islands were a race akin to the Esquimaux, that the Cymri, or Welsh, came in after the last Glacial Epoque which is calculated to have occurred 200,000 years ago, but at what precise date they first occupied the British Isle is unknown, although it is certain that it was very remote. You must bear in mind that the Welsh maintain their individuality, and that you did not conquer them for 800 years—that is to say, from the days of the Romans up to the time of Edward I. They resisted you for 800. years, and you cannot stamp out a nationality of that kind. We demand on their behalf that you should treat them as a nation, and not impose an alien Church upon them, but that you should grant us absolute religious equality. We have a right to it and it must come. I have been in this House many years, and I have seen many a reform as stoutly resisted by hon. Gentlemen opposite as this is resisted by them, but they have had to give way in the end. Strong as they may be in their majority, they will have to give way on this question of the Disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales.
    MR. W. ABRAHAMIt is very pleasant, indeed, to sit here and hear that the Church is gaining ground in Wales, and it would

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    give us the greatest pleasure if our own knowlege of the facts could prove the veracity of the statement. I am sorry that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, and after professing to have so much knowlege of Wales and the Welsh people, had to resort for his authority to a paper called the Cambrian News, inasmuch as no Welsh Member in this House has ever heard of the existence of such a paper. Wales can boast of having four conservative Representatives in this House, and not one of the four has dared to move at Amendment to this Motion. I question very much whether one of the four dare support the Amendment. It has been seconded by a professed Welshman but one who has failed to find a seat it his own country, and who is not likely to find one there. We need not go back quite so far as my hon. Friend for the facts to prove what has been the history of the Church in Wales. Every Welsh Member, and probably every Welshman, is able to give his own experiences of the Established Church in Wales, and I can give my own, and the circumstances in which I was brought up. It has been my lot, fortunately or unfortunately, fortunately, I think, to be brought up among the toiling masses of the Welsh people, and my experience of the Estalished Church has been a bitter one. There was a Church of England in that part of Wales where I was born and bred, as there is in almost every industrial village. It was the Church of the few, the Church of the privileged classes, and to belong to it was to form part of the community, having a share in the loaves and fishes that were distributed. That Church the children of Nonconformist parents were, much against their will, forced to attend on Sunday mornings; if they did not so attend, castigation was meted out to the children themselves, and before Monday evening the parents were made aware that they had incurred the displeasure of the authorities. My mother wept many times to see the state of this hand after receiving castigation for non-attendance at church. Over and over
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    again has it bled under the castigation for not attending at places of worship that my mother conscientiously thought I ought not to go to and where I should be better outside. For obeying my mother and disobeying the authorities I have suffered this castigation many times. What, I ask, has the Church done for the masses in Wales? [An hon. MEMBER, "Nothing."] Perhaps it would not be strictly accurate to say nothing, because, to its own thinly clad and partially fed flock, it has distributed some blankets and clothes at Christmas, and disburses a few tickets for soup, coals, and so forth. But for the mass of the people it has done nothing, absolutely nothing; for nine-tenths of the Welsh people, workmen who have never visited the Church, it has done nothing. Nothing to teach them self-respect, nothing to create in them or develope in them a spirit of manliness, nothing to help them to fight their manifold enemies, nothing to raise the workman in the-social scale, nothing to relieve him from the burden, the ever increasing burden, of the fear of pauperism. What the Church did, if it succeeded at all, was to teach us to do our duty in all stations of life, and under all circumstances to obey the dictates of our spiritual pastors and masters, and to prepare the poor for that huge relief house, where in declining years a man receives relief for which he must be separated from that partner with whom he has shared the joys and sweets of life. What has the Church done for Welsh workmen? Nothing but to teach him to be a miserable serf. I fully admit that there are some brilliant exceptions among the clergy in Wales; men of great heart and true, who strive to do good to their fellows, and whose efforts fail from their connection with the Church. If it had not been for such men as these, the breach between the Established Church and the Welsh people would have been greater than it is, and it is quite wide enough. The renewal of the tithe war in Wales has caused much social irritation, and grows with such rapidity that it not only discredits the Church in Wales, but it is a danger to the State. It embitters the social life, it shadows that sweetness and light which ought to be the legitimate fruits of religion among

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    men. Moreover, in the past, the clergy of the Church of England in Wales has shown many examples of intemperate and vicious life, and in many parts of the country have taught the people that there is a great distinction between the Church and religion. The people know that the terms are not synonymous and not convertible; they know that fully; they teach it to their children, and they write it in their books. In one of the last best novels that deals with Welsh life, it is well exemplified, for one of the characters, a clergyman, being spoken of, the remark is applied to him; "Ah! what a pity that he is a clergyman; that he does not belong to religion instead of to the church." Can you wonder then that these people are crying out for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. Can you wonder that they are crying out and thirsting for religious equality in the country. Now the Amendment to this Resolution has been cleverly couched for unique language. It refers to a National Church, but it does not say the National Church of what country, and I should like to know if the hon. Gentleman who proposes it will say it is the National Church of Wales. Are the Welsh not a nation? Have we no country of our own? Have we no customs of our own? No writers of our own, unique and absolutely our own? Have we no language, a language that no Englishman in this House can pronounce? Have we not every single characteristic that is necessary to make a nation? If that is so, how it is possible for the English National Church to be the National Church of Wales? It never was and it never will be. Reference has been made to the Rhondda Valley, which I have the honour to represent, and to the increase of churches in that constituency; but, as has been already pointed out, no reference has been made to the increase of population or to the increase of chapels. In one part of the Rhondda Valley there is one chapel, in another two, in another three, in another five, in another three of the largest chapels in the United Kingdom, one of which would more than seat all the attendants of the Church in that part of the valley. The Church has one schoolroom chapel and one Church, another in course of erection, but the Church has
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    unfortunately been built, not by the Church of England as an institution, but by one of the lords of the land, and under a peculiar condition—namely, that if ever there should be a sufficient number of Catholics come into that part of the valley the Church of England then would have to give up the building for the Catholics. These three churches are built not by the Church as an institution but by the landlords, and for money made out of Royalty rents and ground rents, money by the sweat of the brow from the Welsh colliers. As the Welsh poet says:—
    Gwron dewr, anturiwr diwyd
    Yn mheryglon munud awr
    Yw y glowr dreulia'i fywyd
    Yn nghelloedd llaith y dyfnder mawr.
    [Cheers and laughter.] You supply me with another argument. You laughed at my language, and still you want to teach me and my fellow countrymen religion in an unknown tongue. You have tried to Anglicise us for many years and you have failed. Certainly you have failed in the past, and you will fail in the future. It is with the money produced by the hard work of the Welsh colliers that those churches you now call the Church of England in Wales were built. When Disestablishment comes, then you will say it would be robbery to take those Churches back, created from the alms of the people, but we are prepared to let you keep all that, if you disestablish the Church. Give us religious equality, you can keep all the fabrics, and we can build fabrics of our own. We are told that now the Church is beginning to mend its ways, and is following the footsteps of the Nonconformists, and therefore the Church should not be disestablished, but I am afraid my hon. Friends it is now too late. We are not prepared to wait much longer, and we appeal to you, our English brother—Wales is your little sister, and appeals to her big brother for religious equality, and sure I am the Church itself would receive the greater benefit from that equality.
    THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,: As it has been my lot on more than one occasion to take part in these discussions, I should not like to omit the

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    opportunity of joining in that tribute to the memory of a very distinguished Welshman who took part with us [on the last occasion when this matter was discussed. I came to different conclusions, for I started from different premisses, but I desire to bear my testimony to the memory of the late Mr. Henry Richard, who was a sincere lover of Wales, and treated this question with obvious sincerity. Nor can I avoid before addressing any observations to the arguments advanced, paying some tribute to the speech, to which we have just listened, which I am sure was heard with pleasure and respect in every quarter of the House. It is not for every Member to approach the subject without something of party feeling. But the hon. Member for the Rhondda Valley, though he spoke with genuine feeling, carefully abstained from anything which could cause irritation or aggravate his hearers. In the speech of the Mover of this Resolution there was a marked difference ftom the speeches which used to be delivered. The burden of the song used to be "the alien Church." Nothing of that sort was to be found in the speech of the hon. Member for Swansea tonight. I cannot help feeling that some of the facts which were adduced in the last debate made some impression on my hon. Friend's mind. They have not made that effect on the mind of the hon. Baronet opposite. He still describes the British Church as alien. Well, St. Paul was an alien no doubt, and so far the description of the hon. Baronet is accurate, but I am not aware of any other ground upon which a Church founded shortly after the Christian era can be described as alien.
    SIR H. VIVIANIt was Romish for 700 years.
    MR. RAIKESI am speaking of a time anterior to that, though I do not venture to go back for 200,000 years, which I think was the period the hon. Baronet claimed that the Welsh language could be traced as spoken in
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    these islands. I do not go back so far as that, but at all events, I venture to say that I recognise in the speech of the hon. Member for Swansea a disposition to abstain from one or two of the weakest points previously presented to us. Nor have we had much of those piles of statistics so easily multiplied on either side. There is quite enough evidence of the majority of Nonconformists in Wales, but as to the precise amount we are likely to differ. The result of the census recently taken would induce us to think that the belief of the Nonconformists themselves has been shaken as to the amount of their preponderancy. I am not prepared, however, to take the fact of their being a majority as a test which should be applied to this question. I am not prepared to accept the Separatist doctrine that Wales in this matter has a separate existence from England. The word "nation" is a vague and ill-defined word. A race, no doubt, the Welsh are. They have a very ancient patrimony in their mountains and their language, They have some traces of an ancient literature, and they are now doing something towards building up a modern literature. I do not wish to disparage a warm-hearted people, among whom I have lived for many years. I do not wish to dispute their claims to racial considerations, but if they wish to claim a position as a nation, they must show that they have a history such as Scotland has—the history of a separate nation extending down to modern times. The Welsh race are a part of the British ration, and no man can aspire to a higher heritage than to be a member of the British nation. And as they are a part of the British nation, so is the Church in Wales a part of the British Church. The Church is not merely the Church of England, as people are fond of calling it when they wish to use the term in an invidious manner, but it is

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    the Catholic Church as it exists in these islands. The Church in Wales is a part and parcel of the Church in this country. It owes its origin to no plébiscite, as to no counting of noses; it is the body that was planted in these islands as the Christian Church. It may have had its faults, it may have made mistakes, or even committed misdeeds, but as to its historical continuity I am prepared to admit no doubt whatever. That is the view which has been, as we know, advocated in a most eloquent manner by no less a person than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), who at that time had not assumed the proud position of the angel in the sun who was to call on the fowls of the air to devour the carcase. Our view has been well set forth in the Amendment. I do not think there has been any disposition in this Debate on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite—and I honour them for their candour—to dispute the growth and increasing vigour and development of the Church in Wales at the present time. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, who will forgive me for calling him the Rip Van Winkle of religious controversy, has endeavoured to strengthen his argument by a reference to the shortcomings of the clergy in the year 1623. Surely my hon. Friend hardly thinks it likely that a practical body like the House of Commons is going to disestablish the Church of Wales in the year 1889 because there were some drunken clergymen in the Principality in the year 1623. The right hon. Member for Denbighshire has said he is glad that nobody has had the hardihood to assert in this discussion that the Church is gaining ground in Wales, because it is a proselytizing Church.
    MR. G. O. MORGANNo; I did not say that.
    MR. RAIKESYes; I took the right hon. Gentleman's words down at the time. He said the characteristic of the Church at the present time is that it is a proselytizing Church.
    MR. G. O. MORGANI did not give that as a reason for its gaining ground.
    MR. RAIKESThe right hon. Gentman said he was glad that no Welsh Member had the hardihood to say that
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    the Church was gaining ground in Wales, and then he proceeded to amplify his argument by describing the Church as a proselytizing Church, and by holding it up on that account to scorn and reprobation. I venture to say that my right hon. Friend, although himself not distantly connected with the Church in Wales, has very little knowledge of the history of any Church at all if he is not aware that the first note of a Church—if any Church worthy of the name—is that it was proselytizing; and that no Church is of any use, either in Heaven or on earth, which is not a proselytizing Church. For myself I claim that the Established Church in Wales is a proselytizing Church; and I am glad that hon. Gentleman opposite admits that that is one of its distinguishing characteristics at present. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that the Church in Wales is the Church of the plutocrat and of the pauper. Now, I think that the Primitive Church contained within its limits some people of wealth and certainly a considerable number of poor, and one of its characteristics was that it preached the Gospel to the poor. But the right hon. Gentleman has so little charity for the poorer members of the Church of his country that he has no kinder word for them than to call them "paupers." That is not the spirit which characterizes the Church, and I am quite certain that the hon. Member who spoke last would have hesitated before applying any term so contemptuous to his poorer brethren.
    MR. G. O. MORGANThe right hon. Gentleman misrepresents me. When I referred to paupers I meant those in receipt of Poor Law relief.
    MR. RAIKESI fail to follow the distinction which the right hon. Gentleman wishes to make; but at all events he went on to compare the Churches in Wales with Dives and Lazarus, and it is not known that Lazarus was ever in receipt of Poor Law relief, nor is it known that Dives spent any part of his substance in building churches or providing for the education of the poor. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Non-

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    conformists raise at the present time an income for religious purposes which exceeds by £30,000 a year the revenues of the Church. Well, all honour to the Nonconformists. I can scarcely find a greater proof of their sincerity and earnestness, but the very fact seems to make it ill-natured to grudge the Church its lesser income. It seems to me that the argument proves the sincerity, vigour, and piety of the Non-conformists, but I do not see how it is an argument for depriving the poorer religious body of its endowments. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Welsh people indulge in refining amusements. There is no doubt the Welsh people have great taste for some things, and particularly for music, in which respect they set a good example to their fellow citizens; but we have heard that the Welsh have some other amusements. We have lately heard of Welshmen spending Sunday in drinking clubs in Cardiff, and these two kinds of evidence as to the amusements of the Welsh people do not seem to amount to an argument for disestablishing the Church in Wales. I feel compelled, before concluding, to say a few words with regard to what has fallen from hon. Members opposite as to the recent tithe riots in Wales. It is supposed by some ignorant readers of newspapers, but, of course, by no Members of this House, that the persons who take part in the tumultuous proceedings against the collection of tithe are truly aggrieved because they have to pay this impost. But as a matter of fact the mobs of boys and the crowds of farm labourers who take part in these demonstrations have never paid tithe. I do not deny that the agitation is shared in to a certain degree by persons who dislike paying any imposts whatever, as an hon. Member has said; and I do not say that it has not the sympathy of certain small farmers in Wales; but the bulk of those who take part in the demonstrations against the payment of tithe have no personal interest in the question. It is always urged by the Nonconformists and Radical Press and by hon. Members opposite that there is a necessary antagonism between Noncon-
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    formity and the Church. If that were so I could much more readily understand the position taken up by hon. Members opposite; but I do not admit that it is so. I believe that if you go to the more quiet and less political Nonconformists of this country you will find that they are of opinion that the attitude of Nonconformity towards the Church is similar to the attitude of the Volunteers towards the Regular Army. [Laughter.] I am not speaking of hon. Members who laugh. Nonconformity now represents a great religious movement of the last century, which affected the Church as much as the dissenting bodies. It represents the development of the religious force of this country that is common both to the Church and the great dissenting bodies, and I think there can be no more false estimate of this matter than that derived from these wretched calculations as to the precise number of persons who go to church and the precise number who go to chapel. Nonconformity is, I believe, a temporary phase in a great religious revival. It is not yet clear how far that revival will redound to the advantage of the Church or the advantage of other bodies, but it still retains great force and has not yet spent its full power. So far, that revival has done at least as much for the Church as for the Nonconformist body. The religious future of this country depends not on the antagonism between the two bodies and the fostering of unfriendly rivalry between them, but rather upon the recognition of the fact that a man may be a very good Nonconformist and yet no enemy to the Church, and that a good Churchman may do honour to the character and spirit of Nonconformity, the one recognizing the services that the other has done in the past, and that other realizing the services that the former may do in the future.
    MR. STANSFELDThe time is so exceedingly short that I cannot hope to make myself intelligible on the question as a whole, but I must ask the House for leave to say a few words before we go to a Division. I wish in the first place to draw attention to the marked difference between the terms of the Amendment, and the high-

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    flying views that have been propounded by the Postmaster General. The Resolution sets forth that as the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers only to a small minority of the population, its maintenance as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly, and an injustice which ought no longer to exist No part of that statement or assertion of my hon. Friend has been traversed by the Amendment. What was the Amendment? It has been very carefully and curiously worded. It says—
    "That, having regard to the great and growing influence and work of the National Church, especially in the principality of Wales, this House is not prepared to entertain proposals for its Disestablishment in that part of the Kingdom."
    The House will mark the great difference between the point of view of the Amendment and that of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General. The latter has told us he cannot admit of any severance; that the Church of England, including Wales, is indivisible, but he appears to be oblivious of the fact that this Motion is not an attack on a Church, but on an Establishment, and that, whilst severing a part of the Establishment, we may leave the Church—the historic and indivisible Church—intact. What I desire to say, in the few moments that I can avail myself of, are two things. I want to state our principle and our intention. The principle and opinion of the Liberal Party on this subject, are well known, and are not new. The noble Lord, the Member for Rossendale 11 or 12 years ago, said at Edinburgh that whenever Scotch opinion, or even Scotch Liberal opinion, was formed on the subject of the Disestablishment of the Scotch Church, the Liberal Party would be prepared to deal with it. Well, the noble Lord has been a Member for a Welsh constituency, and I suppose he knows something about Welsh opinion. I do not believe he will re-echo the views of the hon. Member for Bradford. He knows well enough what is the opinion of the Welsh people on the subject. It is not a question as to whether the
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    majority of the Welsh Nonconformists is two-thirds or more, it is the intensity of their feeling which pervades their whole lives, religious and political, that makes the realization of their hopes, in my opinion, certain in the future. Every great Liberal conference that has been held of late has declared in favour of Welsh Disestablishment. Every Liberal Leader has declared in its favour. The people of England have no right to use their voting power to trample on the religious convictions of the people of the Principality. In our view, to be an Established Church, a Church ought to be national. It should embody and represent the faith of the people, and if it does not do so, it is an injustice to the people, and a degradation to the Church. Is it not a degradation to the Church to bring it down to the level of a Government Department, or of a vested interest. We ought to fight the question out on a higher level; we ought to think more of the Church, one of the highest conceptions of which man is capable. We ought to think more of the Church and less of the connection between the Church and the State. That is our feeling, and our contention. We are profoundly convinced that the English Church in Wales is alien to the feelings and convictions of the people of Wales, and on that ground we take our stand in supporting the Resolution, and it is my firm conviction that the day is not long distant when the Resolution will be recorded as law on the Statute Book of this country.
    The House divided:—Ayes, 231; Noes, 284.—(Div. List, No. 113.)
    Words added.
    Main Question, as amended, put.
    Resolved, That, having regard to the great and growing influence and work of the National Church, especially in the Principality of Wales, this House is not prepared to entertain proposals for its Disestablishment in that part of the Kingdom.
    It being after One of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
    House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR STANDING COMMITTEES.
Report from, That the Committee have added the Lord Elgin (E. Elgin and Kincardine) to the Standing Committee for General Bills for the consideration of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act (1883) Amendment Bill. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR STANDING COMMITTEES.
  INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend and consolidate the Acts relating to Industrial Schools in Great Britain—Was presented by the Earl Brownlow; read 1a; and to printed. (No. 62.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL. LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL. LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LEAKE) BILL (NO. 63).
  A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Education Department under the Elementary Education Act, 1870, to enable the School Board for Leake to put in force the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, and the Acts amending the same—Was presented by the Lord President: Then it was moved that the Sessional Order of the 5th March last, "That no Bill originating in this House confirming any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate shall be read a first time after Friday, the 10th day of May next," be dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 1a; agreed to; Bill read la accordingly; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.
SAINT GILES RESTORATION (SCOTLAND) ACT AMENDMENT BILL (No. 64).
House in Committee (according to order): Amendments made: The Report thereof to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed as amended.
SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND BILL (No. 52.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without Amendment; and to be read 3a on Thursday next.

SCOTLAND (COMMISSIONERS OF SUPPLY).
"Return of the number of Commissioners of Supply in each county in Scotland, stating the number of those who are qualified as being eldest sons or heirs apparent of proprietors; also the number of those who are qualified as factors to act in the absence of their principals; also the number of those who are qualified in virtue of their offices, and giving the names of these offices or appointments: Ordered to be laid before the House."—(The Earl of Minto.)
House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.