Sitting of 31 May 1889

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS BILL. (No. 188.)
  Order for Second Reading, read.
  Motion made and question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. HUNTERI would have been extremely glad. if the Government had given such an indication of their views in the sense desired unanimously by the Scotch hon. Members as would have dispensed with the necessity of making a single observation on the Second Reading of this Bill. When the first Bill was under the consideration of the House, I abstained from making any remark upon Bill No. 2, because I contemplated that an opportunity would be afforded in Committee of the whole

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  House for the Scotch Members to deal with the very important points which were contained in the measure. We were told by the First Lord of the Treasury that he had made an arrangement with a Gentleman on the opposite side of the House, and arrived at what he calls an understanding. That is only another illustration of the old adage, that understandings are the cause of misunderstandings, because very few Members on this side of the House would for a moment have waived their right to discuss the Bill on the Second Reading except with the view of its being discussed by a Committee of the whole House. The course taken last night entirely alters the situation of affairs. The debate on the first Bill, which came in like a lamb, went out like a lion. I had hoped the Government meant to deal with the Scotch Members in an amiable spirit, that they would avoid all Party issues. and that they were prepared to frame their Bill in its detail as well as in its outline in accordance with Scotch opinion and not in accordance with English opinion. But the Irish Secretary's speech last night was an open declaration of war on the Scotch Members. The right hon. Gentleman objected to the proposal of the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Munro Ferguson) on the ground that it would enable the majority of Scotch Members to express their opinions, and thereby put the Government in a difficulty. Under those circumstances, whatever might have been the terms of the understanding between the First Lord of the Treasury and the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks), I cannot believe that understanding contemplated or provided for the state of facts that has now arisen. The Government have told us that the moment the Bill is read a Second time they intend to withdraw it from the control of the Scotch Members.
  MR. W. H. SMITHI may remind the hon. Gentleman that it is impossible for the Government to refer the Bill to a Standing Committee without a Motion in the House. That Motion will be made after the holidays. The Government still adhere to their intention to send the Bill to a Standing Committee.
  MR. HUNTERWe cannot discuss the merits of the provisions of the Bill on such a Motion. That is the difficulty in which we are placed, and it is entirely due to the wholly un-
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  necessary and misplaced obstinacy of the Government. Why do they not tell the House frankly that, having refused the proposal to refer both Bills to a Special Committee, they will take them before the Committee of the whole House? By the course the Government have taken I am placed in a somewhat difficult position. If, as a Scotch Member, I desire to enable my constituents to know the views I hold on the Bill, the only opportunity I have is on the Second Reading. The First Lord of the Treasury said the Bill contains no principles, but deals only with machinery; but, I think, if the right hon. Gentleman had read the measure, he would not have used the language he has employed. The Bill starts by saying that the Act should be construed as an Act with the Local Government Act, 1889, and that the two Acts may be cited as the Local Government Act, 1889. There is no more fruitful source of controversy and expense in the construction of Acts of Parliament than the habit of referring an Act to a previous Act, and asking the Courts to read the two Acts as one. The difficulty arises from this circumstance, that the Acts were passed by different persons at different times. They were passed under the influence of different ideas, and the inevitable result is that there is a strong conflict between the provisions of the two Acts; and consequently a series of legal conundrums are placed before the Judges. Against this the Courts of Law are continually protesting. Now, Sir, when the Government have to deal with an Act of a previous year it is, undoubtedly, almost necessary that they should adopt the form followed in this Bill, and incorporate the provisions of the former Act. The alternative is the re-enactment of the whole of the old Act. That would be a desirable course if the time of this House were sufficient for the purpose, but we know that, with our time so limited,no Government would undertake to submit to the House a proposition which has already been embodied in an Act of Parliament. The only reason which justifies such bad draftsmanship and bad legislation is wholly wanting in the present case, because these two Bills are going to be passed in the same Session, and ought to be considered by the same body. With -respect to the

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  Boundary Commissioners, I think before this measure passes, we ought to hear from the Government the names of the gentlemen who are to exercise the very important and difficult powers contained in it on that subject. Could anything be more inconvenient either to the Courts of Law which have to construe these Acts or to the people of Scotland who have to read them than to find that, when they imagine they have made themselves acquainted with the powers of the County Council in Bill No. 1, there is another Act which introduces entirely new powers? The powers which are provided for here with respect to the appointment of medical officers and sanitary inspectors, contain one provision which will not, I believe, give satisfaction to many people in Scotland. It is provided that,

  "Except where the Board of Supervision, for reasons brought to their notice, may see fit in particular cases specially to allow, no person shall hereafter be appointed the Medical Officer of any county or district unless he be legally qualified for the practice of medicine and surgery."
  Now, Sir, why should the Board of Supervision be brought in? Surely the County Council, which will have the interests of its constituents most at heart, ought to be entrusted with the power of nominating its own officers without reference to a Board in Edinburgh, more especially when the constitution of that Board has been a matter of constant complaint. There is, indeed, no-body to which the people of Scotland look with less confidence than the Board of Supervision. I cannot understand what could have been in the mind of the draughtsman when, in dealing with the powers of the County Council in Bill No. 1, he relegated such important provisions to Bill No. 2 as those relating to the power of the County Council to oppose or promote Bills in Parliament. The Bill gives the County Council a limited power of opposition, but it gives it no power of initiation. I would ask how can it be alleged that these are matters of mere machinery and detail? They are matters of the very greatest importance, and of equal importance with any of those enumerated in the first Bill. In Clause 45, which deals with the Joint Committee, I find a singular omission. Assuming that the Joint Committee is called into existence,
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  we are told that the costs of the Joint Committee shall be defrayed by the Councils by whom any of its members were appointed, in the proportion agreed to by them. But the clause makes no provision for a case which may easily occur, that is to say, where no agreement is made for the proportion of these expenses. Then, Sir, we come to a very important clause, dealing with the constitution of the District Committees. In one respect the Government deserve credit for their Scotch Bill as compared with their English Bill, because the English Bill made no provision for District Councils. But why the constitution of the District Councils should be relegated to a Bill which is said to deal only with details and machinery, I cannot conceive. There is one provision in regard to the constitution of the District Councils which is of the most obnoxious character. It is provided that two representatives of the Parochial Board in each parish shall have seats on the District Councils. Looking at the present constitution of the parochial boards, no proposition could be brought before the House which would be less calculated to obtain the support of any section of the Scotch people than this. Here, again, is a matter exciting the greatest interest throughout Scotland, and a matter of the highest importance, and we are told it is to be sent upstairs to a small Committee because the Bill deals merely with machinery and details. When I come to Clause 50, which deals with the position of the officers of the County Council, I find propositions of the greatest importance. I find one provision authorising—I am not sure that it does not compel—the County Council to pay pensions not exceeding those which may be awarded to the civil servants of Her Majesty under the like circumstances. Now, Sir, the question of giving pensions or not is one which has been frequently debated in this House, and every Member is aware that there exist the very gravest objections on economical and other grounds to the granting of pensions. The introduction of the pension system into the County Councils by this Act, is a subject in which a very large number of people in Scotland will take a very great interest, and I think the Government will have some difficulty in persuading the great majority

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  of the Scotch Members that those gentlemen who are employed as clerks or otherwise by the County Councils ought not, like all other people, to make provisions for sickness and old age, and that it is not the worst and most objectionable mode of paying a servant to pay him partly in salary and partly in pension. In Clause 55 I find a comparatively small matter, which would seem, however, to indicate that this Bill was drawn by Englishmen for Englishmen, and not by Scotchmen for Scotchmen. I find amongst the days put down as dies non, Christmas Day and Good Friday, which are not observed in Scotland as dies non. I am certain that considerable inconvenience may, and probably will, arise from a provision of this kind, which is so at variance with the general customs of the people. We are Presbyterian people in Scotland, and I believe the great majority of the people in Scotland would not know what Good Friday meant. The insertion of these words is, therefore, significant, as indicating that this Bill has been drafted in the same way as was the English Act, without regard to the peculiar circumstances of Scotland. On Section 59 there arises another matter on which I shall be glad to have some information. It is specially provided that nothing in the Act shall alter any rate, or affect the tenure under an ecclesiastical arrangement or jurisdiction. Now, what I wish to ask is, whether this provision is meant to apply to ecclesiastical assessments, or whether it merely relates to arrangements of ecclesiastical parishes. Of course, if it is a matter relating purely to ecclesiastical parishes, it is not a matter of importance, but I should like to know whether the expression is intended to cover and include ecclesiastical assessments. Then we come to a matter most important to this branch of the Bill, a matter which, in relation to all local government, is of the highest importance—I mean the clauses relating to borrowing powers. It has been shown by long experience that while Local Authorities strain every nerve to diminish and not increase the rates, they never exhibit the same reluctance to borrowing, and there is nothing more remarkable in, he whole statistics of Local Government, n Scotland and in England, than the
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  rapid increase of local debt. That is a subject which, I venture to think, is worthy of the most careful attention of this House in Committee. To my mind the provisions in this part of the Bill are insufficient, and yet, at the same time, excessive. They are insufficient because they limit the powers of borrowing by reference solely to the purpose or object for which the money is borrowed, not with reference to the power of the ratepayers to meet their obligations or the amount of money that has to be expended. On the one hand, I think a Local Authority cannot be left too free in respect to the objects for which they should exercise this jurisdiction; but, on the other hand, I do not think it is possible to hold Local Authorities too tightly in respect to the amount of money they are authorized to borrow on the security of the rates; and I venture to think that when this Bill goes into Committee, it will be well worthy the consideration of the Government and of Members on both sides of the House as to whether some severe limit of borrowing should not be introduced into the Bill, a limit either with reference to the ratable value of property or to that coupled with a reference to the Secretary for Scotland, because I think there is no use to which a Central Authority may always be put with greater advantage. We do not expect initiative from a Government Department; we do not expect a Government Department to be so intimately acquainted with the details of a particular locality as to form satisfactory schemes for their government; but what we do look for in a Government Department, is knowledge, impartiality, and skill. We look to a Government Department as best qualified to act as a Court of Appeal between the Local Authority and the ratepayers in many cases of doubt.
  MR. W. H. SMITHrose in his place and claimed to move "That the question be now put."
  Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member may conclude his speech. I did not consider it my duty to interrupt him, though I must say he is taking a somewhat unusual course in going through the Bill clause by clause, because I thought he wished to show that some of the clauses are of equal importance

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  with those contained in the principal Bill—though they are styled "Supplementary Provisions." But I think he is exceeding the latitude usually allowed to a Second Reading debate.
  MR. HUNTERWhat you have indicated, Sir, was precisely the object I had in view. The point I was upon was the borrowing powers, a subject of such large scope that it cannot be considered a mere detail of the Bill; it is a question that touches the root of all sound local government and economical administration. I will conclude my observations with a reference to this point. Among the objects the Government introduce as proper for the exercise of borrowing powers is that of giving money to any persons, or body of persons, corporate or incorporate, in aid of emigration or colonization. True, it is a permissive power; it is left to the County Council to determine whether any money shall be applied, and personally, if I were a Member of a County Council, I should be opposed to the exercise of such power. But what I wish to point out to the Government is this, that if they are going to give general powers of this character to County Councils, why not go a step further and extend the powers to purposes of education? I do not see how we are to provide for secondary education in Scotland unless through the instrumentality of Local Authorities and County Councils to be created by this Bill, and I think the Government would be well advised either to introduce an Amendment to their Bill, or accept an Amendment that may be proposed from this side, to give County Councils the power with regard to secondary education and technical education such as they allow for purposes of emigration. State-aided emigration is at present but a disputed matter of policy, but there is no question or dispute as to the expediency of assisting technical and secondary education, especially in counties. The burghs of Scotland are not inadequately provided with the means of secondary and technical education. Let us give some method by which counties may be put in an equally favourable position, giving the authorities that permissive power it is proposed to give in respect to emigration.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI regret very much that when I addressed a question to the
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  right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury a few minutes ago I was answered in a tone which was not only severe, but almost angry. My question did not certainly deserve such a response from the right hon. Gentleman, because it was honestly intended to convey a friendly hint to the Government of the state of feeling among my colleagues who represent Scotch constituencies on this side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman must remember that although he cannot refer this Bill to a particular Committee without a special order of the House, and, therefore, such a proposal may be voted upon, he must remember also that he commands a majority in this House. We, on the other hand, cannot forget, and this adds point to our claim, that we represent an actual majority of the Scottish people and are a decided majority of the Scottish Members, and, therefore, we claim from the right hon. Gentleman more than ordinary consideration of the course we suggest as best for the improvement of these Bills. I quite admit the agreement that these Bills should be read a second time last night, and I am entirely in favour of the stage of Second Reading being granted to the Government, but since we have been considering these Bills so closely, we find more and more that the two Bills are so interwoven, not only in matters of detail, but of principle—I could name one or two cases where I find it difficult myself to deal by Amendment with the larger Bill with reference to the supplemental Bill—that we have become convinced that a great mistake has been made, in the first place, in dividing this one Bill into two parts, and, in the second place, that a fatal mistake will be made, not only in the interests of good legislation, but in the interest of the time of the House if the two Bills are to be dealt with in distinct and different manners. There is no question whatever, and I wish to impress this on the right hon. Gentleman, that time will be saved by the Government if they would do as we ask, because what will happen? Inevitably in our dealing in Committee of the whole House with the larger Bill, there will not only be a temptation, arising from some mischievous motive, but a necessity really from the best of motives on the part of Scotch Members

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  and those who share our views, to introduce amendments having reference to the provisions of the smaller Bill. For we shall not, under the Government proposal, have the same power over the second Bill as over the first; it will not be subject to the same public examination by the whole body of Scotch Members. On this account I make the strongest possible appeal to the Government to make to the Scotch Members this concession and allow the two Bills to be dealt with in the same way, and I can assure them that in doing so they will facilitate the progress of business, abridge discussion, and have as the result a much better measure.
  MR. W.H. SMITHI rise at once to reply to the temperate and, I might say, friendly observations of the right hon. Gentleman. If he is under the impression that there was any heat in the answer I gave him just now, I can only express my regret if such appeared to be the case. I thought it necessary in the interests of the House to insist on the performance of engagements which are necessary, I think, to the proper conduct of business in the House. If we are unable to rely on understandings which have been arrived at, then the House itself will get into an impossible condition for the transaction of business. On that account I desired to insist on the exact performance of the engagement entered into, and in that spirit I made my reply. I fully recognize the right of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to express their views as to the tribunal to which this particular Bill should be referred for consideration, and I have not precluded the Government from reconsidering the course we think the best; but I take the House to witness that from the very first moment we stated our view that it would conduce to the progress of business and to the proper dealing with this particular Bill if it were dealt with by a Standing Committee with Scotch Members added. That, from the first, we said we thought would be the better tribunal, and the House has, therefore, not been taken by surprise. I think it is obvious that we cannot proceed to consider Bill No. 2 until Bill No. 1 has made considerable progress in Committee. Before any step of the kind is taken I will undertake to consider the matter with my colleagues,
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  and if it is" possible by communication with Gentlemen opposite to make arrangements by which time can be saved no one will be better pleased than myself. My only object is to frame a Bill which will satisfy the people of Scotland and obtain their approval, and not in any way to affront or annoy any section in the House. I hope we shall arrive at an understanding which will satisfy the great majority of the House.
  MR. ESSLEMONTI only desire to say I think we should be lacking in our duty did we not make manifest the very strong opinion of Scotch representatives that the tribunal for the one Bill should be the tribunal for the other. I hope, therefore, the Government will in the spirit the right hon. Gentleman has displayed defer to what I may say is the universal wish of Scotch Members, to make these Bills as satisfactory as it is possible to make them.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time and committeed for Monday, June 17th.

  SUPPLY.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

    CLASS II.
    Motion made and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £35,250, be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1890, for the Salaries and Expenses of the office of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings.'
    MR. H. H. FOWLERWhen a vote on account in respect to this item was taken some two or three months ago the First Commissioner was asked as to his intention about the admission of the public into Westminster Hall, and he stated that it was his intention again to throw the Hall open to the public. On the last occasion when we were in Committee of Supply the right hon. Gentleman surprised the House by saying that he had received a communication from the Home Office objecting to this concession, and that the exclusion of the public was still to be maintained. Now, I should like to have an understanding as to

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    who are the authorities having jurisdiction over Westminster Hall. I think that the Metropolitan Police have no jurisdiction over Westminster Hall, and that they are only there as the servants of the House. On the first day of each Session one of the Orders passed is that the Metropolitan Police shall keep access to the House free and facilitate the entrance and departure of Members. That is an assertion on the part of the House that it is the House that controls the Metropolitan Police, and not the Metropolitan Police who control the House. A short time ago I asked a question on the matter with a personal reference, and I only did so for the purpose of showing what I may call the ridiculous extent to which regulations are carried, that an hon. Member may introduce a stranger into the precincts of the House and under the galleries, the ordinary public may pass through St. Stephen's Porch and be conducted through the St. Stephen's Hall, the Lobbies, into the Library and on to the Terrace, but there is something so sacred about Westminster Hall that a Member is not allowed to take a member of his own family into that hallowed spot. If there is some great conspiracy in existence specially directed against Westminster Hall I do not wish for a moment to weaken the hands of the Home Office in dealing with the matter. But if there are ruffians about London with designs to injure public buildings, then St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey ought to be protected as well as Westminster Hall. But the public, under ordinary and necessary precautions, are admitted to these buildings, and in my opinion Westminster Hall is quite as safe. But if there is such a state of terror that a Member cannot be allowed to pass a member of his family through the Hall, then exclusion should be enforced under the authority of a Resolution of the House. No injury would result if the public were admitted with proper precautions and with a sufficient number of the police in charge.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKSI have, in the first place, to make an apology to the House for an error into which I fell on a previous occasion in stating that the Home Office
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    had agreed to a relaxation of the rule excluding visitors from Westminster Hall. I do not say it was the fault of the Home Office, but there was a misunderstanding. I spoke under the impression on my mind, and find I fell into a mistake for which I now express regret. Westminster Hall is a part of the old Palace of Westminster, and its custody is vested in the Office of Works, and especially in the Secretary—Mr. Primrose, who is my friend and most efficient assistant. I do not think if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the Sessional Order providing for free access of Members to this House, it directly affects the question of the admission of strangers to Westminster Hall. The right hon. Gentleman is in error in stating that Strangers coming through St. Stephen's Porch are admitted to the libraries and other portions of the building. What is called a "Smoking-room Order" must be obtained for that purpose.
    An hon. MEMBERFor ladies?
    MR. PLUNKETCertainly for strangers of the coarser sex:, and I have myself obtained such orders. On public days the public are admitted to Westminster Hall, and then, I presume, the police make such regulations as are deemed necessary. But on other days they have not been admitted to Westminster Hall for a long time. I regret any inconvenience which may arise, not only to Members of the House, but to the public, in consequence of the regulations with regard to admission to Westminster Hall, but I must defer to the advice given by the police upon their own responsibility. It is possible that admission might be given by providing additional police. I am aware that the Home Secretary has been in communication with the police authorities on the subject, and I am sure my right hon. Friend is as anxious as I am to meet the wishes and convenience of Members so far as it is possible to do so.
    SIR G. CAMPBELLI have something more to say about Westminster Hall, and the admission and presence there of the ridiculous, drunken, and disreputable-looking beasts that disfigure the place. I feel inclined to advise the public not to desire to go to the Hall for they will be shocked by what they see. On second thoughts it would be better to allow the public to visit the

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    Hall, for public indignation will then he aroused against the desecration of this noble old Hall the inheritance of the English race. The subject of the works in the Hall and the question why this architect should be allowed to work his wicked will there lately came before us for discussion, but it is necessary to allude to the subject again, for since the last discussion these features have broken out in the most alarming manner, most horrible night-mare creatures. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish-Bentinck), who is an authority on these matters, advised me to go and see these creatures. I did so, and, I confess, I never was more shocked in my life. I have been through some terrible scenes. I have been through the Indian mutiny, I have been in most of the art galleries of London, and I declare I have never seen anything more dreadful. I cannot conceive what induced the architect to put these things there, or the First Commissioner to allow them to be so placed. The other day I could not get an answer from the right hon. Gentleman when I questioned him about this matter, but now we know that he is responsible, and I, therefore, propose to move a small reduction in his salary. A. man of the right hon. Gentleman's taste and feeling would not himself have justified the placing of these horrible creatures in Westminster Hall, but when I asked him about them, he was afraid to condemn them, knowing that he would have to face the architect. Well, I now present him with a means of getting out of the difficulty. If he accepts my motion, and consents to a slight reduction of his salary, these creatures will stand condemned by the House itself. I know very well that people who criticize the Estimates are very objectionable to Ministers, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us some satisfaction. I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £50.
    Motion made and Question, "That Item A, Salaries, &c., be reduced by £50, part of the Salary of the First Commissioner."—(Sir George Campbell.)
    DR. FARQUHARSONI think my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy has done well to bring this subject before the
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    House. I do not myself go quite so far as he does, as I think the point at which these animals are placed is just the point where something is wanted to complete the decoration of the Hall, but I do not think that that something has been secured. These heraldic animals are hardly in keeping with the sombre dignity of the Hall.
    MR. PLUNKETThe figures complained of are, as anybody can see, of exactly the same character as those which have been placed, close to St. Stephen's porch, for many years. I am not architect enough to express a confident opinion of the particular animals, but as far as my judgment goes they harmonize with other figures in this House. I should not feel myself justified in interfering with the discretion of an architect who was selected by my predecessor, and, I think, most properly selected, as the highest authority extant in this particular kind of architecture. The duty of a First Commissioner is to find the best man, and then leave him, except special circumstances should arise, to do his best. I would remind hon. Members that these decorations are not quite finished, and that the figures have an unpleasantly new appearance which will wear off in time. I am sure there has been some misapprehension, and that the figures will not be considered a disfigurement when finished.
    MR. BIGGARI beg to corroborate the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton as to the right of entrance into Westminster Hall. The point has been raised that the Hall is the remains of an ancient palace. Well, if it is let it be kept as such, but I understand that the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works has taken possession of a portion of it for the purposes of the Houses of Parliament. He is going to give some rooms leading out of the Hall on the west side to Members of this House, consequently he has upset his own theory. The police regulations in the Hall seem to me to be pushed to an absurd extreme of severity. Some weeks ago I purposed walking into the Hall with a personal friend—a stranger to the House—but was stopped by a policeman, who said that strangers were not allowed to go into the Hall. Well, I walked. through Westminster Hall

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    myself and sent my friend round to the other entrance. 'We met at the top of the Hall and so went around to the Lobby of the House. If anything in the nature of outrage were contemplated would be much easier to commit it it that part of the building, where my friend was admitted, than in Westminster Hall, which is a wide, open place—so open that everybody within is under the eye of every policeman there. Seeing that strangers are admitted into the Lobbies and into the House without interference on Saturdays, I think strangers, accompanied by Members of Parliament, may well be permitted to walk through Westminster Hall.
    MR. MATTHEWSThe observations which have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down have been present to my mind for some time. I am in communication with the Chief Commissioner of Police to see whether some relaxation of the present rule cannot be made. Hon. Members will understand the extraordinary anxiety of the police that such a monument as Westminster Hall shall be kept perfectly safe. No doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, it is impossible to draw a distinction between Westminster Hall and the other approaches to the House, but, of course, some approach is necessary. I hope some arrangement satisfactory to hon. Members may be made.
    SIR G. CAMPBELLThe right hon. Gentleman has admitted that he does not exercise his own judgment, but leaves all to the architect. The great argument used to be that a thing was contrary to the Bible. We have now got over that sort of thing, and we are told that a thing is contrary to the rules of Art.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREI desire to ask the First Commissioner, as I understand the building on the west front of Westminster Hall is now complete, whether the unsightly hoarding may not be taken down and the ground laid out. It would not be creditable that the place should be left as it is for another year. I would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should submit a small Supplementary Estimate for the purpose.
    MR. PLUNKETThe course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman will be
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    taken, but I am unable to state off-hand whether it will be taken this year.
    Question put and negatived.
    Original question again proposed.
    MR. STOREYBefore this Vote is put to the Committee, I should be glad of the opportunity of making a few remarks on the inordinate amount of the salaries attached to this particular Department. I am glad to be able to do that in the accidental presence of the right hon. Gentlemen the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who the other night declared that the criticisms offered to the Estimates did not go to the question of economy, but altogether related to fads and crotchets. Well, I have not a fad to advance or crotchet to defend, but I am going to point out in a few sentences the enormous amount of the salaries attached to this Department. I want the First Commissioner to tell me if he can why there should be 51 clerks in this petty Department of the Government, costing a total of £13,000 a year. Speaking as a guardian of the public purse, I have no hesitation in saying that one-half of these Gentlemen would be dispensed with in a week in any well conducted private establishment. We have here a secretary at a salary of £1,200 a year; we have a private secretary to the First Commissioner—of whom I will say nothing, as I am glad the First Commissioner has all the help he needs—who costs only the modest sum of £150 a year. Then we have two principal clerks who get £1,800 a year, one clerk in charge of the accounts who gets £600 a year, three senior clerks who get £1,575 a year, five first-class clerks who get £1,903, eight second-class clerks who get £2,294, and 27 clerks of the lower division who get £3,243. What in the name of common sense does the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner want with all these people dawdling about his office? In the other branch of the Department I find that there is a gentleman called the consulting surveyor, who gets £1,100 a year, with the right to conduct his own private practice. As there are four surveyors of the first-class who receive £1,000 a year each, besides six second-class surveyors, and ten third-class, taking £11,500 a year, I do not

    1589
    see what is the use of having a consulting surveyor. I would appeal to the Government, who are popularly supposed to be the defenders of extravagance—popularly supposed, but not properly, because I hold that Governments on both sides of the House are equally to blame in the matter—whether this is not an inordinate number of officials. I would put it not so much to the hardened sinners on the Treasury Bench, of whom there is little to be expected, as to Conservative Members below the Gangway, whether this consulting surveyor is really needed with this large number of official surveyors. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner to explain what these gentlemen do for the money. The only economy the Department seems to have practised has been arriving at the determination not to appoint any more clerks of the first class until the temporary draughtsmen have been promoted to be permanent, but as the temporary draughtsmen—four of them get £983 a year, or an average of £247 each, we cannot say that the economizing faculty of the Department has been great. They have omitted to appoint one first-class draughtsman at a salary of £250 a year. The saving on this head, therefore, has been about £210s. a year. This is the economizing method adopted in every Government Department. They cut down the emoluments or the numbers of the worst paid officials, so that the best paid may still continue to receive the high sums they have been getting. Then there is a superintendent of furniture, a deputy ditto, three assistant superintendents of furniture, who, of course, do the work; a superintendent for the supply of coals and firewood, and another for the supply of candles and oil. Again, there is an item of £750 for the commission of the receiver, and other professional charges and expenses. I should much like to know who is the receiver and what are his duties. The total salaries amount to £47,200 a year, and I will undertake to say that a Committee of business men in this House would reduce within three months the expense by one-half. In addition to the sum I have just named, the pensions of retired officials amount to £7,400 a year. I do not wish to move the reduction of the Vote by one-
    1590
    half—although I think that would be the proper thing to do—but I am going to fasten on one item. I am going to move the reduction of the Vote by £1,100, the salary of the consulting surveyor. The First Commissioner need only go to the Education Department to know what a vicious system this system of consulting surveyor is. I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will see that I am putting the matter with no more force when their side is in than when our side is in. I merely ask the Committee to consider the matter from a business point of view, and I want hon. Gentlemen to realize what it is that we are doing. I am aware that, except by way of illustration, I cannot refer to the Votes that have already been passed this Session; but I may say that for weeks past, at various intervals, we have been passing Civil Service Estimates in Class II. I have taken the trouble during the delivery of some of the less interesting speeches in this House to go over the figures, in order, just as an illustration, to point out what we are doing. I find that during the last few weeks we have passed in the shape of salaries under these Estimates, seven of about £2,500 a year, 103 of between £1,000 and £2,500, 209 of between £705 and £1,000, 237 of between £500 and £705, 679 of between £250 and £500, 923 of between £100 and £250, and 660 of less than £100. Is not the very fact that we have here what amounts to a small army—for it is an army—of private soldiers and so many officers, a proof that this Department is very much overmanned. If hon. Gentlemen will take the trouble to look through the Votes as I have done they will see that there is no Department, not even the Government Departments and the Home and Foreign Offices, which are so over-officered and manned as in this Department of the Office of Works. In conclusion, I trust that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will realize that we have been discussing this matter from the point of view which he loves so much—namely, the economical point of view. I now move the reduction of the Vote by £1,100, in order that the right hon. Gentleman may have an opportunity of defending it.
    MR. PLUNKETrosefor the purpose of replying, when—
    MR. T. M. HEALYsaidI beg to move that you do now report Progress. We have been promised that the Irish Drainage Bills should be proceeded with soon after 4 o'clock. It is now half-past 4, and I think it time that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) should carry out the promise he has made with regard to those measures.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. T. M. Healy.)
    MR. PLUNKETI would appeal to the hon. and learned Gentleman to allow me to reply. My office has been rather smartly attacked, but I shall not occupy more than five or six minutes.
    MR. HEALYAs a matter of personal courtesy I will withdraw the Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. PLUNKETI thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for allowing me to reply to the criticisms of the hon. Member near him (Mr. Storey). I do not complain of the reference he made to me personally, but I think that the manner in which he has attacked the Office of Works constitutes an idictment almost as formidable and as eloquent as that which was hurled at Warren Hastings in a neighbouring Hall. The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken when he supposes that the Department of Works has nothing to do, or that all it has to do is to carry on discussions in this House in reference to the Royal Parks and Palaces and the building in which we are now assembled. When I explain to him what it is that we have to do, he will see that the Office of Works is one in which an immense amount of business is transacted. Besides the public buildings, palaces, and parks in London, we have to see to the repair and structural arrangements of all the Post Offices throughout Great Britain, as well as all the Customs and Excise buildings, and all the County Courts in Great Britain, and we have also to provide, maintain, and repair Embassy houses in every foreign capital and Consulates all over the world in great numbers, especially in China. Therefore, when he speaks of the number of surveyors, assistant surveyors, and other
    1592
    individual employes, he should remember that they have work to do in connection with buildings in Edinburgh, Bristol, Birmingham, and other large towns throughout the country and in many quarters of the globe. I think there is no Department of the Government which has been so often under the hammer of the Treasury with a view to retrenchment as the Department of Works, and when the hon. Member talks of the hardened sinners sitting on the Tory Bench, I think he ought to have applied that term to the Treasury Officials rather than to me, because of the hardened conscience with which those Officials refuse me even one scratch of a pen if it involves the smallest additional expense. I can assure him that if he looked into my office some day he would see that our employés are as hard worked as any set of men in the United Kingdom. With regard to what he has said as to the consulting surveyor, I would remind him that there has always been a consulting surveyor. When Sir Henry Hunt resigned that office the question of renewing the appointment was carefully considered, and the conclusion arrived at was that a considerable amount of money was saved by having a man of the very highest eminence in his profession whom we could consult on questions which frequently involve many hundreds of thousands of pounds. I am sorry that time will not permit me now to reply more fully, but if the hon. Member can put his hand. on any particular instance in which a saving could be effected, as where there are too many persons employed, I shall be willing to consider his representation. But I think he would find it difficult to exceed the parsimony of the Treasury in respect of what concerns this Department.
    MR. T. M. HEALYProgress, progress!
    MR. W. H. SMITHMight I ask that the Division should be allowed to be taken?
    MR. T. M. HEALYIreland has not had a single day or a single hour this Session, and I trust that the Bills relating to Ireland will be at once proceeded with.
    MR. W. H. SMITHI quite admit the reasonableness of the hon. and learned Gentleman's request, but I

    1593
    trust he will allow this Vote to ho first taken.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 66; Noes 229.—(Div. List, No. 133.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    Mr. William Henry Smith rosein his place, and claimed to move, "That the Original Question be now put."
    Question put, "That the Original Question be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 213; Noes 82.—(Div. List No. 134.)
    Original Question put accordingly.
    The Committee divided.
    The Tellers being come to the Table, Mr. James Rowlands, one of the Tellers for the Noes, stated, that after the Doors of the No Lobby had been locked, one of them had been re-opened in order to allow three Members, who, finding themselves in the wrong Lobby, desired to cross over into the Aye Lobby; and he wished to be informed by the Chairman whether such re-opening of the Doors was in order?
    Whereupon the Chairman asked whether the re-opening of the Doors had taken place before or after the Tellers had begun to tell; and on learning that le Tellers had not begun to tell, the Chairman called on the Tellers to report the numbers:— Ayes 235; Noes 61.—(Div. List No. 135.)
    Motion made and question proposed, "That the Chairman do now report progress and ask leave to sit again."
    MR. T. M. HEALYI wish to complain in the strongest terms of the breach of faith on the part of the Government in not reporting progress at an earlier hour, on the ground, as they said at the time, that the Vote under discussion would be immediately taken. The result now will be that there will be no time to discuss the statement of the Chief Secretary with regard to Bills that are of tremendous importance to Ireland. If the Government are anxious to promote a policy of material development in Ireland, they must go about it in a different manner.
    Question put and agreed to.
    1594
    Resolution to be reported upon Monday next. Committee to sit again this day.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to,—Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, National Debt Bill, Naval Defence Bill, Public Libraries Act (1855) Amendment Bill.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law as to the Endowment of the Archdeaconry of Cornwall." [Archdeaconry of Cornwall Bill [Lords.]
  And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to suppress Indecent Advertisements."[Indecent Advertisements Bill [Lords.]

  BANN DRAINAGE BILL.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI have, Sir, to ask for leave to introduce the first of five Bills, four relating to the drainage of the Bann, the Barrow, the Shannon, and the Suck, and the fifth to the construction of light railways in Ireland. I am sure that nobody regrets more than the Government do the delay which has occurred this afternoon in introducing the Bills. I do not complain that the hon. and learned Gentleman has called attention to the delay; but I trust that the loss of an hour and 20 minutes will not seriously imperil the future progress of the Bills through the House. The House will perceive that the programme of last year, which embraced three Drainage Bills, has been increased by two further measures, one for the drainage of the Suck and the other for the construction of light railways.
  MR. T. M. HEALYI rise, Sir, to a point of order. The notice on the paper includes four Drainage Bills, each distinct and separate from the others, and one for the construction of light railways, which is quite distinct from the Drainage Bills; and I ask for the ruling of the Chair as to whether the right hon. Gentleman can be allowed to discuss his scheme as a whole in introducing the first of these Bills? At any rate, the Railway Bill is quite distinct from the Drainage Bills.
  MR. SPEAKERIt may be for the convenience of the House that no objection should be taken to the introduction together of the four Drainage

  1595
  Bills, but certainly the Bill as to light railways is entirely distinct from the Drainage Bills, and I have already intimated that I do not think it can be included in the general statement. If an objection be taken by the hon. and learned Member it will be a reasonable one, and must hold good as against the inclusion of the last Bill.
  MR. T. M. HEALYI shall object; and I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to introduce the Light Railways Bill first, and to take the drainage Bills afterwards, instead of putting first the Bills the Irish Members do not want, and putting last the Bill they do want.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURIt would have been for the convenience of the House if I could have developed in one statement the whole scheme of Irish public works, as all the Bills are based on the Report of a single Commission which inquired into this subject. But, the ruling of the Speaker is conclusive on the point, and as the hon, and learned Gentleman prefers that the scheme should be given piecemeal to the public, I have no alternative but to accept the decision of the Chair. The course imposed upon me will be highly inconvenient to the friends of the hon. and learned Gentleman in Ireland, and to all who desire to pass a general judgment upon the policy of the Government with regard to public works in that country. I will, however, ask whether I am precluded from dealing with the four Drainage Bills together?
  MR. SPEAKERI think the four Drainage Bills, having relation to the same subject, may be treated as one Bill, always on the understanding that, when the separate Bills come up, hon. Gentlemen will not be precluded from discussing the differences between the Bills if they think one Bill materially differs from another.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURVery well, Sir, I will confine myself to dealing with the four Bills now on the Paper, which I hope to be able to do with great brevity, as last year I not only entered at length upon the general grounds which induced the Government to begin their policy in this respect, but I also went with considerable minuteness into the details of these measures. They were printed and laid on the Table, they have been under the
  1596
  consideration of hon. Members opposite, and it will, therefore, be unnecessary to go into all the parliculars as I did last year; I will confine myself to a few remarks on the points wherein the. Bills now to be introduced differ from the,measures brought forward last year. The Bills of last year differed from previous Drainage Bills in three main particulars. The first was that there was a very large free grant from the Treasury in aid of local taxation; the second was that the ratepayers inhabiting the area over which the rate had to be levied in connection with the Bills were asked whether they would accept them or not, and machinery was provided for taking popular opinion on the point; and the third was that, while all previous Drainage Bills were commenced at the instance of the landlords and were managed by them, it appeared to the Government that these should be tenants' Bills, that all the charge should be thrown on the tenants, and that all the advantage should be reaped by them. With regard to each of these three main points, there have been some slight modifications required to carry out more fully the views of the Government. With respect to the first point, we have found it necessary to increase the amount of the free grant in the case of the Shannon. I do not gather that there has been any variation in the estimate of the actual cost of the drainage works of the Shannon, but it appears that compensation will have to be paid in respect of certain piers on the lakes through which that river flows. Moreover, it has been found necessary to throw a penny on the drainage area of the Suck in connection with our Bill dealing with that river. As we cannot tax this area twice, it becomes necessary to find the money elsewhere for the Shannon; and, therefore, we have consented to give £33,000 more as a free grant with respect to the drainage carried out on that river. With regard to the second point—namely, the popular control, under which these works are to be kept in future the Government think it would be better to introduce into the. Bill provisions under which each tenant, before he votes aye or no on the expediency of accepting our proposals, will know with tolerable accuracy what is the amount of benefit which he indi-

  1597
  vidually will derive and the amount of charge he will have to pay in respect of these Drainage Bills. Armed with that fuller information he may give a competent opinion whether he desired the Bills to be carried out. The Government think that by these means they have introduced a distinct improvement in the machinery of the Bills of last year for testing popular opinion in the matter. With regard to the third point, the exclusion of the landlords frond the purview of the Bills, the Government have taken care to carry out more fully the intention I expressed last year by making it impossible to augment the rent on any holding in respect of improvement due to drainage works. That part of the charge which does not fall on the Exchequer will be borne by the tenant, and it would be most unfair to allow the landlords to raise the rents on the holdings on account of improvements which they do not pay for. And now in regard to this last point, I wish to say a word in reference to the Amendment put on the Paper by the hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare). The hon. member has embodied in his Amendment two objections to our proposals—the first is, that the drainage contemplated is essentially local; the second is, that it is principally for the benefit of the landlords. With respect to the first objection, I cannot imagine any scheme of drainage to be otherwise than local in its character; it can obviously be applied only to the area which has to be drained. Therefore, the objection is not merely against these Drainage Bills, but against all Drainage Bills. The second objection is founded upon even a greater misconception The hon. Member states that these Bills are principally for the benefit of the landlords. Except in so far as those who own land also occupy land, these three Bills do not affect landlords in the slightest degree. As I said before the Bills are tenants' Bills and not landlords' Bills; they are entirely framed for the benefit of the occupiers, and on the occupiers alone will be thrown the responsibility of carrying them out. So much for the three Bills of last year. I do not intend to waste the time of the House by entering into them in any greater detail. And now a word about the fourth Drainage Bill which deals with the drainage of the Suck.
  1598
  This Bill stands in an entirely different position in some respects from the other three. We do not come to the drainage of the Suck for the first time. A very large amount of money has been already expended on the river under different Acts, and it is impossible to consider the measure on all fours with the other schemes. The case of the Suck stands thus:—In 1878 a private Bill was passed under the general provisions of the Drainage Act of 1860. The original loan provided to carry out the works was, roughly speaking, £96,000. The history of these drainage works, though not unparalleled in Ireland, has not been fortunate. It is not necessary to dwell upon the circumstances under which it has become necessary to provide a sum in excess. It is enough to inform the House that under the new Estimate, which I have every reason to believe is accurate, the works will cost £160,000 instead of £96,000, and if the money necessary to pay the accumulated interest is added, the total amount required will be £185,000. To meet that an annuity equivalent to a capital sum of £13,000 is proposed to be levied on the catchment area of the Suck. That will be about a Id. in the £ on the valuation of the area, and that ld. will not, as I have already stated, be increased by any contribution dealing with the general drainage of the Shannon. Then I propose to ask the tenants to pay a terminable annuity for 40 years, equivalent to the advantage they will obtain from the increased annual value of their holdings—
  MR. T. M. HEALYAssessed by the Board of Works?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURAssessed, no doubt, by the Board of Works as it is. under the existing Act. The augmentation in the amount of the money required to carry out the provision of that Bill will. in no sense augment the charge on the, tenants. On the contrary, whereas under the private Bill of 1878 the. tenants were to pay the full increased value of their holdings for ever, they will now pay only an annuity for 40, years, after which they will become the absolute owners of the improvements effected by the drainage. In. addition to that, the Government propose to give. a free grant from the Treasury of £50,000, and the remaining charge will be thrown. upon the landowners who,-

  1599
  made themselves responsible for the Act of 1878. They will share the responsibility of maintaining the works for all time—
  MR. T. M. HEALYWill the whole maintenance fall upon the landlords?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURYes. I may be asked why the Government think it necessary to come forward with a contribution of £50,000 from the Treasury to make up for either the misfortune or the mismanagement which made the original loan of £96,000 inadequate. The reason is that a great deal of progress has been made in the works, and that progress would be almost entirely wasted unless the works were completed. And not only so, but if the works are now abandoned, as they must be unless the Treasury comes forward and assists, there would be a great waste of money if they were ever to be resumed. It is of the greatest importance, if the drainages to be dealt with at all that we should not allow a breach of continuity in carrying on the Works. I quite admit that, the works having been started by the landlords, the landlords should bear part of the loss, which presumably is due to management for which they have been responsible. In fact a great additional charge will be put on the landlords; but what the Government have insisted on is that no additional charge should be placed on the tenants. The Bill no doubt does give relief to the landlords, not however at the expense of the tenants, but at the expense of the Exchequer. I have now accurately explained the four Drainage Bills which I have laid on the Table of the House. I conclude by repeating the expression of my regret that I have not been allowed to complete my survey of the whole policy of the Government by introducing the Bill dealing with railways on the Table at the same time as the Arterial Drainage Bill, and that I am obliged to defer my statement on that subject till a future day. I beg, Sir, to ask leave to read a first time the four first Bills which stand upon the Order Book in my name.
  MR. ILLINGWORTHWhat is the total amount of grants from the Treasury?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURIt will be £330,000 excluding, and £380,000 including, the Suck drainage.
  1600
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill for the improvement of the drainage of lands and for the prevention of inundations within the catchment area of Lough Neagh and the Lower Bann; and for other purposes relating thereto."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour,)
  MR. T. M. HEALYI do not complain of the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has made his statement, and. I think it would be unreasonable to oppose the introduction of these Bills. As to the statement in regard to the Suck, speaking of it off-hand at a first glance, and knowing something of the matter, it occurs to me that it is not altogether unsatisfactory. The Suck Board no doubt did a great deal in the past, although they have rather muddled things in recent years. They ought, therefore, to have some measure of control. But what is to be the popular control over the Board of Maintenance? The right hon. Gentleman has omitted to tell the House what measure of popular control is to be given. I understood him to say that in regard to the Suck the maintenance is still to be in the hands of the landlords, although the money will have to be paid by the tenants. The local landlords, especially the O'Conor Don, have fully recognized the necessity of giving popular control. Upon that point the right hon. Gentleman has not said a word by way of explanation, and I take it that the matter is to stand as it did last year. As far as I am concerned I shall give every opposition to a scheme which entirely divorces the people who have to pay the rates from all control in the matter, I think that the best way of dealing with the case would have been for the Government to treat it as a non-Party question, as a matter of rates and taxes. There is a fallacy propagated by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr.Chamberlain) and the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) that it is the landlord who pays the local rates. A more gross fallacy never existed, and no change can make the least alteration in the incidence of the Grand Jury cess which in the long run always falls on the tenants. The House has not been told who is to carry out the scheme. If it is the Board of Works the money is sure to be squandered, and some other and more competent Board ought to be created on which both

  1601
  landlords and tenants may sit. They would get on very well together, and I am a thorough Tory in my anxiety to see the landlords properly represented on such Boards. I do not think that even the Ulster Members will pretend that the Board of Works is a satisfactory body to entrust with the administration. It may be said that there is no other, and that we have to pay for the sins of the Board of Works because the Government will not create reponsible administration in Ireland, preferring that the money shall he misspent rather than that it shall be spent by competent men under native control. I do not object to this expenditure of the public money, but I believe it to be a rotten system, and that we shall not get the value of our money. In regard to the Bann drainage scheme, you have already extracted from the people of the locality of the Bann thousands upon thousands of pounds under the foolish idea that you can carry on a system of navigation and drainage at the same time. The attempt to do so in the locality of the Bann has proved a total failure; £40,000 or £50,000 have been spent, and the only return for the expenditure on navigation has been about £40. What was the proposal which was made last year? Instead of proposing to put an end to the navigation, you proposed to keep up a system of navigation where there is nothing to navigate. Is the real work of drainage to be sacrificed for a shadowy scheme of navigation like this? The money for keeping it up is extracted from hard working tenants year after year, without their getting sixpennyworth of benefit, or having the slightest voice in the control. The Government propose now to reintroduce a Bill that will perpetuate the absurdities of this system of navigation and want of control. I think it would be much better to create a system of popular control upon which both landlords and tenants should work amicably together in getting rid of abuses. Upon Boards of this kind there is certain to be jobbery unless there is a proper system of control. What we desire is that the jobbery which has been perpetrated in the past shall be corrected by inaugurating a proper system of representation. The Bill of last year provided no proper representation, but
  1602
  simply a system of tenants' veto. What you do is to give them a system o: veto which is not a system of control at all. In my opinion the Treasury are anxious that the Bills should be blocked; they are anxious that they should not be called upon to pay this money, and that is why this system of veto is proposed. They hope the tenants may reject the scheme the benefits of which they cannot understand. The tenants will only know that if the scheme is carried out, they will have no control over it, and they have already had great experience of the miserable way in which the Board of Works have carried out all their work. I can understand the farmers on the Bann saying, "I shall vote against this scheme, not because I do not believe in drainage, but because I object to the Board of Works having the carrying of it out." I take up the position I occupy on grounds which I consider quite intelligible. I think I should have been wanting in my duty if I took up any other position. Those Bills deal with matters of vast importance to our country. Each of them will have to be considered separately and distinctly upon its merits, and it is not fair of us to allow the Government to introduce their scheme as a whole until we have had ample time to consider it in all its details, and in every branch of its details. The proposed railway system may be most excellent, but it is not at six in the afternoon with only three-quarters,of an hour more left to us that we should be expecting a system of the kind to be introduced. We have not had this year sufficient time to discuss any Irish Bill, and if this is the Union, I hope it is a Union relished by hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is only reasonable that some period of the Session should be specially allocated for the discussion of Irish measures.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURWith the leave of the House, I should like to explain that the hon. and learned Gentlemen is under a misapprehension. In the first place, the Board of Works will not carry out any drainage scheme except in the case of the Shannon. That Board will not be responsible for the new drainage operations of the Suck or the works on the Bann and the Barrow. The Suck will be under the existing management and the other two

  1603
  rivers under the Commissioners. Although the navigation of the Lower Bann is to be abandoned, the water of Lough Neagh will be kept up to the summer level, and the hon. Gentleman is under a total misconception on this point. At least three-fourths of the electors who will elect, the members of the drainage boards to keep up the works on the Barrow and the Bann will be tenants, and therefore I submit that, whatever other criticisms may be passed against them, the Bills of the Government are not open to the objections raised by the hon. Gentleman.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONAs my constituents are very much interested in the Bann drainage, perhaps I may express their opinion on the subject. They have had an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the Bill brought in last year. There was some opposition in my constituency to that Bill, but the overwhelming voice of the people affected by the drainage was so great in its favour that the opposition was withdrawn. I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Monaghan that it is the unanimous feeling of the riparian tenants that the Bill brought in by the Chief Secretary last year will confer upon them an immense benefit. I understand, from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, that the navigation of the Lower Bann is to be abandoned, and that the Lake is to be kept at its summer level. I hope the House will never consent to the level of the Lake being lowered below the summer level, because that would place several very important centres of trade entirely at the mercy of the Great Northern Railway Company. Our object is that goods should be carried cheaply, and the cheapest way of carrying goods is to carry them by water. The Bill provides against floods, and at the same time that the level of the lake be maintained at such a height that the navigation which is so great at the present moment may be continued.
  COLONEL NOLANI agree that these Bills should not be made Party Bills, but considered with reference to the advantages which they will confer on the particular districts concerned. As to the Suck drainage the proposals made by the Chief Secretary are of the utmost importance, and I
  1604
  think on the whole most satisfactory. I must object, however, to one method in which the money is to be raised—namely, on the catchment area. The catchment area may extend to the top of high hills, and it seems to me unfair to tax people who cannot possibly be benefited by the drainage. But even with that blot on it I am inclined to accept the Suck Drainage Scheme. I know nothing about the Barrow, but as to the Shannon Bill, I have very great doubts indeed whether it will be worth the while of the people to pay the money. I do not mean to say that the proprietors near the Shannon will not get value for their money. I think they will or else they would not vote for the Bill. You propose to put £65,000 on the general catchment area, and yet the people living within it will only reap a very trifling benefit,if any. I know nothing about the Bann except what I have learned as a member of the Royal Commission, and therefore I do not wish to offer any decided opinion as to the Bann Drainage Scheme. I am quite willing to take the opinion upon the scheme of the Northern Members against my own, because I am not locally interested. I hope, however, the Chief Secretary will give us some time to consider this question, and also the cognate one of light railways.
  MR. CONYBEAREI rise to move the Amendment which stands in my name, and I should like to say at the outset that the reason why I propose it is in order to bring into common view an aspect of this question which throughout the whole of the debates upon these Bills last year seemed curiously disregarded by every one in the House, and that is the point of view of the ratepayers of Great Britain who have to find the money for these drainage works. A good many persons in the country, and I think the Chief Secretary amongst them, are under the impression that these Bills were blocked, and thwarted, and defeated last year by the Irish Members. That was not the case. I rather take credit to myself for having been the principal agent in getting rid of these Bills last year; and whatever may have been the opinion of the House as to the method by which I did so, I received the unanimous approval of my own constituents, and of a great many other constituencies, for the

  1605
  action I took to get rid of these obnoxious Bills, obnoxious from the point of view of English Members. I cannot understand, except upon matters of pure detail, why any Irish Member on either side of the House should raise a note of objection to these Bills, because these Bills propose to give large sums of English money to the people of Ireland. I would not object to this country loaning the money to Ireland, although upon that point I should join in the criticisms which have been advanced by the hon. Gentlemen on this side, who question whether, even with the alterations and additions proposed by the Chief Secretary, the Boards of Works are the best authorities to be entrusted with large public works. It is not a question whether the Irish Members have any objection to these Bills, it is whether the people who have to pay the money have any objection. The Irish people, who have been downtrodden for centuries, would be great fools if they did not take whatever sums the English people are wise enough to vote for their benefit. Now, the Chief Secretary did me the honour to refer to my Amendment, and to accuse me of labouring under two misconceptions. He said my first objection against the Bills as applying to works merely local in character was a misconception, and ho added that it was a mistake on my part to suppose that these works were for the benefit of the landlord. I am not labouring under any misconception at all. I have studied these Bills as they stood last year very carefully, and I say my objections are bond fide and substantial, and are in no degree founded upon misconception. With reference to the first point, the right hon. Gentleman said these measures are measures of drainage, and drainage being local they must be local in character. He does not appreciate my point, and that is that they are local in character so far as they apply to Ireland only, and not to England. Why should my constituents be asked to pay large sums for people living in local areas in Ireland? We want money in this country. My constituents might very well come to Parliament and ask for large sums of money for the purpose of reclaiming lands in different parts of Cornwall which the landlords will not spend any money upon. I say we have
  1606
  no right to ask for free grants of public money, except for Imperial purposes. Then the right hon. Gentleman says it is a misconception to suppose that these Bills will tend chiefly to the benefit of the landlords. I reply that unless you fix the rents to be paid by the tenants for all time you cannot help the benefit accruing in the future principally to the landlords, and drainage, if intended for anything, is intended to relieve the riparian owners and tenants from being ruined by floods. I presume it is intended to improve the land, therefore the more you improve the land the more reason the landlords would have to raise the rents of the tenants. I do not think they would do so immediately. The right hon. Gentleman himself gives up his own argument and confirms my view, for he admitted the Bill does relieve the landlords at the expense of the Exchequer.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI was then talking of the Suck.
  MR. CONYBEAREI do not care whether you were talking of the Suck, the Bann, the Barrow, or the Shannon.
  MR. SPEAKEROrder, order!
  MR. CONYBEAREYou are asking in each of these cases for English money for the purpose of relieving the landlords and tenants of Ireland—probably the landlords. According to the admission of the right hon. Gentleman relief is given at the expense of the Exchequer, and that is my contention. We are asked to pay over the money for purposes that have no international or Imperial concern. It is a sop to Cerberus, a bribe from the Government to the people of Ireland with the idea of staving off the evil day, of postponing the introduction of Home Rule, but the Government will find themselves mightily mistaken in their hope. I should not object to the money being advanced by way of loan, but I quite agree with what has been said by the hon. and learned Member for Longford, who confirms my view, that you would have an infinitely better chance of spending money beneficially and for the interest of both landlords and tenants in Ireland, if you gave the country, in the first instance, some definite representative system of local government, instead of setting up a number of little Boards here and there in different,

  1607
  drainage districts, giving them the power of spending money which, as they get it for nothing, will be recklessly expended. We have only to look at the memorandum prefixed to the Bill of last year to see how hundreds of thousands of pounds have been muddled away and wasted in Ireland by the Board of Works and other Authorities, and to show how dangerous it is to grant large sums of money for such purposes without the control of a strong Local Authority based upon national sentiment, and truly representative. Let the Government do the only safe and wise thing, grant a measure of local self-government, and the Irish people, through their representative authority, could raise loans without coming to England for assistance. If the Government are so ready to dispose of public money, and we are to be asked to vote away hundreds of thousands with a light heart, there are many works of an important character all over this country to which expenditure could be advantageously applied. Take one instance. About this time last year a deputation waited upon the President of the Board of Trade to ask for the expenditure of a quarter of a million sterling on Holyhead Harbour, but the right hon. Gentleman replied it was useless to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for it. When important works are needed in this country we cannot get the money. All round our coasts harbour works are needed, but we can never get public money for such purposes; but when you want to pacify Ireland, when you want to give a sop to the Irish tenants, then you give money without hesitation, and the representatives of the people look on with apathy and do not care a farthing whether they saddle their constituents with the barden or not. That is the reason why I object to the whole of those schemes, not on details but in their entirety. I am not going now into the question whether individuals, riparian owners, or tenants want the schemes or not; but this I know, that I have a letter from a tenant farmer in the Bann district, a constituent, I suppose, of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh, and he says he has held- land nearly all his life, part of which is flooded at high water, but it produces an excellent grass 'Crop, and
  1608
  he assures me that within an area of 32 miles affected by the floods not one man in 20 wants this Bill to pass, and he urges me to oppose it. That is not the only letter of the kind I have received. I have had communications from members of Town Councils and others in authority to the same effect. So there is by no means unanimity in the districts affected, though I do not for a moment say there may not be a preponderance of opinion in favour of the Bills; indeed, I should be astonished if this were not the case. But as a representative of British taxpayers, it is my duty to object to any expenditure on the lines laid down in the Bill. On these grounds, and not from any captious objection to details, I now move my Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  "To leave out from the word that' to the end of the question, in order to add the words, inasmuch as the proposed scheme of drainage is essentially local in character, and tends principally to the benefit of the landlords owning the land in the districts affected, this House is of opinion that all such works should be undertaken by and at the expense of an Irish Local Administration."—(Mr. Conybeare).
  Question proposed, "That the words to be left out stand part of the question."
  MR. W. REDMOND MR. W. REDMOND rose.
  MR. SPEAKERDoes the hon. Member rise to second the Motion?
  MR. W. REDMONDNot to second.
  MR. BIGGARI second it.
  MR. W. REDMONDI only rise for the purpose of saying I hope the Amendment will not be carried, and for the purpose also of saying that there seems to be some misunderstanding as to what took place in reference to these measures last year. I have seen it stated on various occasions that progress with the Bills last year was prevented by the opposition of the Irish Members. That is absolutely untrue, and I am sure the hon. Member for Camborne will allow that whatever check there was to the progress of the Bills came from him and not from Irish representatives.

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message 'to attend the Lords Commissioners; the House went;—and being returned;—
  MR. SPEAKERreported the Royal Assent to,—

  Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1889.

  Naval Defence Act, 1889

  Removal of Wrecks Act, 1877, Amendment Act, 1889.

  Public Libraries Acts Amendment Act, 1889.

  National Debt Act, 1889.

  Commissioners for Oaths Act, 1889.

  Local Government Board (Ireland) Provisional Orders Confirmation (Kilrush and Cappoquin) Act, 1889.

  Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation Act, 1889.

  Education Department Provisional Orders Confirmation (Acton, &c.) Act, 1889.

  Hythe Corporation Act, 1889.

  Sheffield Corporation Act, 1889.

  Ballina and Killala Railway and Harbour (Abandonment) Act, 1889.

  Cathcart District Railway Act, 1889.

  London Hydraulic Power Act, 1889.

  Workington Dock and Harbour (Extension of Time) Act, 1889.

  Wood Green Local Board Act, 1889.

  Bristol Waterworks Act, 1889.

  Edinburgh and District Waterworks Act, 1889.

  Caledonian Railway Act, 1889.

  Yeadon Waterworks Act, 1889.

  Faversham Gas Act, 1889.

  Sun Life Assurance Society Act, 1889.

  Weston-super-Mare Marine Lake Act, 1889.

  Kettering Waterworks Act, 1889.

  Metropolitan District Railway Act, 1889.

  Deanhead Commissioners Act, 1889.

  BANN DRAINAGE BILL.
  It being after ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the debate on the Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," stood adjourned.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLWhen do the Government propose to resume the discussion?
  MR. W. H. SMITHPossibly this evening; but if not, the Bills will be set down as first orders on Monday.

  OFFICIAL SECRETS- [EXPENSES) (No. 97).
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorize the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the expenses of the prosecution in Scotland or Ireland of a misdemeanour under any Act of the present Session to prevent the disclosure of official documents and information."
  And objection being taken to further proceeding, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report progress; to sit again upon Monday, 3rd June.

  MASTER AND SERVANT BILL (No. 205).
  Order for consideration of Bill as Amended read.
  MR. T. M. HEALYI do not know if the Government object to my Amendment to add to the schedule these old Irish Acts which are, in my opinion, unrepealed.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELANDI quite admit the hon. and learned Gentleman's object is desirable, but as his Amendment only appeared this morning, and I have not had time to give the subject proper examination, I do not think it is desirable to take the Bill to-day.
  Consideration deferred to June 19th.

  COUNTY COURT APPEALS (IRELAND BILL (No. 241).
  Bill read a third time and passed.
  ORDER OF THE DAY.

    SUPPLY.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    Attention called to the fact that there were not 40 Members present. Mr. Speaker counted, and 40 Members being present,

  UNCOVENANTED CIVIL SERVICES IN INDIA.
  SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGEI rise to submit most respectfully to the judgment of this House a request for a public inquiry into the grievances of a large and meritorious body of public servants employed in India, or who have retired from the public service in that country; and I do so with a very deep sense of responsibility both to those whose cause I shall endeavour to advocate and to the House itself, for I cannot forget that it is only about a year ago that these grievances were laid before the House with an ability and an eloquence and a fulness which leave absolutely nothing to be desired. Therefore, I feel that the House may fairly and rightly ask why I should dare to reopen the sorrowful tale. Sir, I may explain in one word. I do not propose to-night to enter at length into the discussion of all those grievances of the Indian Public Service which were dealt with last year so effectively by the hon. Member for Central Hull (Mr. King). I believe all those grievances do most certainly exist, but if I can prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, a prima facie case for a single one of these grievances and obtain the assent of this House to the appointment of a Committee thereupon, I feel that I shall then have attained the sole object I have in view, which is the settlement by a fair and impartial tribunal of what is really demanded by justice in this matter. And, therefore, Sir, I shall direct my remarks this evening to the elucidation of that grievance, which, in my opinion, far transcends all others, both in regard to the flagrant injustice which has been committed in respect to it, and in regard to the suffering, I may even say, in some cases, the actual starvation it has produced—I refer to the payment of furlough allowances and pensions in a greatly depreciated currency. The Uncovenanted officers of the Civil Service of India believe that they were promised at the outset of their official life, now, in many cases, 30, 35, and 40 years ago, a small provision for their old age of £200, £300, or £500, according to the length of their service, and according to the rank and the pay of their appointment. But now, when their life's work is over in
  1612
  that distant country and severe climate, and they come home to place their children out in the world, they are told by the India Office, "Oh, no; your pension is not £200 a year, but 2,000 rupees—the rupee has now gone down to ls. 4½d. in value—and, therefore, you must provide for the necessities of your children and educate them for their position in life on the utterly inadequate sum of £135 per annum." Now, Sir, in regard to this terrible grievance, I have to point out to the House that the circumstances of the case have entirely changed since the debate of last year. Not, indeed, in the matter of the depreciation of the rupee and the consequent suffering of those for whom I speak—that, as we all know, has gone from bad to worse—but in regard to the facts and statements by which my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hull, and those who followed him last year, supported his case, and with regard to the counter statements by which he was answered. I am now in a position to prove undeniably, incontestably and on the highest authority, that the statements of my hon. Friend were in every respect absolutely correct, while the counter statements were incorrect and misleading—of course unintentionally misleading, I need not say. I do not for one moment impugn the good faith of my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State, or of those who coached or advised him as to the reply he was to make. I have always fully admitted, nay, postulated, that my hon. Friend and the Government of India are absolutely bound in the interests of the overburdened taxpayers of India to turn a deaf ear to every appeal to their generosity or their compassion. Indeed, Sir, before they can listen, in my opinion, even to the voice of justice, they may fairly demand to be reinforced by a Vote of this House. And it is for this reason that I venture to bring before this House a statement of the grievances of the Uncovenanted servants, and to implore my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India not to turn a deaf ear, because I shall show him that these grievances are true and real. Now, I do not appeal for pity. I ask for justice only. Not, indeed, the unjust justice of the bare letter of the law when divorced from its spirit, that would rely upon the admitted laxity of some of the earlier contracts

  1613
  of the Government of India with its Uncovenanted civilians, so as to twist that laxity to the detriment of these unfortunate officers. That kind of justice, I venture to say, has been far too popular with the Departmental Committees, and I do express an earnest hope that my hon. Friend and the Government of this country will not oppose to the appeal I shall make to them to-night any reference to Departmental Committees or to decisions of the India Office ex parte and without a public inquiry into the facts of the case. Sir, I ask only for the justice of a fair and honourable common-sense interpretation, such as this House always affords, of the wording of the contracts that I shall quote here to-night. And I ask the House also to take into consideration the situation of the parties to whom I am about to refer. This is the justice which the Indian taxpayer himself desires to see rendered to these Uncovenanted civil servants, and this is the first point I will notice in which the circumstances have altered since last year. I shall be able to quote the very words of a native gentleman who will tell this House that my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India—I am sure unconsciously—last year libelled the noble character of the Indian peoples when he represented them as grudging these Uncovenanted servants their just rights in matters of pension. Sir, while not a single native witness before the Public Service Commission said one word against the claims of the Uncovenanted Europeans, two of those witnesses distinctly, and in terms, supported these claims. One said he did so "because they leave their homes to come out to this country, and so deserve consideration." Another native witness, with an honourable candour that, I think, does him all credit, said—
  "Uncovenanted servants, who draw their pensions in England, should have the advantage of the more favourable rate enjoyed by covenanted servants."
  Now, Sir, I cannot doubt that, in consequence of this testimony, and in consequence of other testimony that would have been forthcoming, the Public Service Commission would have reported most strongly in favour of redressing these grievances, if only. the Government of India had not distinctly, and in the most peremptory
  1614
  language, withdrawn all consideration of the Uncovenanted case from them. I have been told that my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India has alleged the sitting of the Public Service Commission as one of the reasons why this inquiry for which I ask should not be granted. Will the House believe that the Commissioners, in their Report, have used these very words that the Government have expressly forbidden them—
  "To discuss the general question of the present pension conditions of the Uncovenanted Service, as such, or any grievances of that service as at present constituted?"
  Now, I do venture to protest most warmly against this policy of secrecy, this policy of refusing even to discuss a burning question of such vital importance to such a large number of our fellow subjects. That policy is not approved by the natives of India, and I cannot conceive that it can possibly be approved by Her Majesty's Government. The weighty words of the Prime Minister, speaking only yesterday on another matter of kindred interest, are still ringing in the ears of some of us. Lord Salisbury said that he invited discussion and courted inquiry, and deprecated bitterness of feeling in the discussion of the matter under notice, and he added—
  "I feel that we should be only aggravating those feelings, if, by such influence as we possess over the Legislature of this country, we were to give the victory to one side or to the other."
  I regard those words as words of the highest and truest statesmanship, and I appeal to my hon. Friend the Under Secretary for India to apply them to the case of the Uncovenanted civil servants. The Financial Department of the Government of India takes one side on this question; the Uncovenanted officers of the Government,and I venture to say all the rest of India, native and European, take the other side. All we ask for is an inquiry as to whether the Financial Department of the Indian Government or all the rest of India is right, and I do ask Her Majesty's Government not to give the victory to one side by stifling inquiry. Now, Sir, I think I have said enough to show that native opinion in India would strongly support this House in granting an inquiry; but if further proof be wanting, I think it will be supplied by the hon. Member, who will no doubt follow me

  1615
  in this discussion. We all know that the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) is authorized—if I may venture to use the word—to speak for a very important section of the native taxpayers—I mean those who are educated in the use of the English language. I call that section an important one, not indeed in point of numbers, but because it is the one section that can and will make itself beard both in India and this country. I shall be very much surprised if the hon. Member for Northampton does not on their behalf tell the House this evening that the Indian people are not so ungenerous or so pettifogging as to desire to look into the contracts of their Uncovenanted European servants in order to detect some trumpery little legal flaw by which they can escape the payment to these men of what they have justly earned. Further, I think that the hon. Member will say that the Indian people are not so shortsighted as to be content to have a dis-contented Civil Service, and therefore a Civil Service that may become corrupt and inefficient—and all for such a trumpery saving as the Indian Office contends for in this case. The Government has usually, and I think most rightly, declined to make any difference whatever in the treatment accorded to European and Indian officers respectively, when those officers have precisely the same duties and the same responsibilities. Whenever Government has deviated from this golden rule, it has, in my opinion, gone wrong. But, Sir, the present pension system of India, against which I am protesting, does make an enormous difference between the non-domiciled and the domiciled Uncovenanted officers—a difference which both Europeans and natives in India are most anxious to see swept away. Take the case of two officers of the same pay and rank, each retiring, let us say, on a pension of 2,000 rupees a year, one, a native, to his home in India, and the other, an Englishman, to his home here. Now, Sir, it is universally admitted and known as a fact that the value of the rupee has not fallen in India itself, and therefore, the domiciled officer receives his full £200 per annum, as his predecessor received it 20, 30, or 40 years ago, whereas his European brother can only draw a miserable £130 a year. ["Hear, hear"] Before I leave the con-
  1616
  sideration of this question from the point of view of the native taxpayer, let me say just one word as to what would be the cost of levelling up the pensions of the European uncovenanted civil servants so as to place them in the same position as that which is enjoyed by their Indian brothers. Sir, if the very utmost of the demands that have been put forward were approved by the Select Committee for which I ask and conceded by the Government and every rupee pension in existence were to be at once paid at the rate of 2s. for the rupee, the total cost to the Revenues of India would be a little over £35,000. Well, Sir, that, I maintain, is but a small fraction of the sum that is annually frittered away in the Simla pic-nic and other fal-lals of the Government of India. I venture to say that if this were a question of some fad of a Viceroy or a Secretary of State, an expenditure of £35,000 would not stand in the way for a moment. But I go further, and say that even this comparatively small expenditure on an act of tardy justice would be, in the nature of things, a diminishing and ultiminately a vanishing quantity. For the declared policy of the Government of India is, and rightly so, more and more every year to substitute native agency for European in these scientific, technical, and literary appointments. That policy will every year receive greater and greater development as more and. more Indian gentlemen become fitted by their education and experience to take up these appointments. Though for a few years, undoubtedly, the sum I have named may be exceeded somewhat as more pensions fall in, it is absolutely certain that before long it will diminish and absolutely vanish altogether. I have proceeded so far on the assumption that those for whom I speak to-night are to gain everything for which we ask. I am, however, ready to admit that if this inquiry be granted, as I believe it will be, by the just and honest feeling of this House, it is quite possible that there may be discovered some via media, that some compromise may be devised, which will cause even a much less expenditure of the Indian Revenues than the comparatively small sum I have named. I will give the reason for my belief. In Ceylon, what has been the result of an inquiry such as that for which I am asking, which has been most honour-

  1617
  ably to the Government of Ceylon and to the Colonial Office spontaneously undertaken in the interests of the officers of Ceylon and of the taxpayers of that island? Well, Sir, that inquiry was set on foot as long ago as 1872, when it was seen that there would be an inevitable divergence between the promises of the 'Government in sterling and their performances in rupees, and an arrangement has been come to which, on the face of it, is perfectly just and equitable, which, I understand, is perfectly satisfactory to all the officers in the service, and in regard to which I am assured by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies that no complaint whatever has ever been made by any one of the taxpayers of Ceylon, and which, if adopted in India, would certainly cost very much less than even the £35,000 which I have ventured to suggest as the maximum charge in regard to the Uncovenanted servants in India. The Ceylon system is thus described in the words of my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies—
  "Officers who entered the Ceylon Civil Service before 1872 are entitled to draw their pensions in England at 2s. the rupee, except those who in 1878 were granted an increase in their salary of 20 per cent, and these draw them at Is. 10½d. the rupee. All officers who have entered since the 1st of January, 1872, will be entitled to draw their pensions at ls. 10½d. the rupee, which was the rate then fixed for payment in this country of half salary of officers on leave, and pensions of retired officers."
  Now, Sir, that arrangement was based on the conditions in force at the time the contract was made, and I think the House will regard it as a fair and equitable arrangement. Its acceptance, in the spirit in which it has been accepted, does the highest credit to the Colonial Office, to the Government of Ceylon, and to the people, and the Civil Service of that island, I turn now to another point. The most important change that has occurred in reference to this question since last year's debates is due to the fact that the Currency Commission has reported. I shall take as my text for what further remarks I shall offer to the House to-night—and I maintain it is a full justification for the bringing forward of this subject—an authoritative statement signed by the whole of the Currency Commission—that is to say, by such undeniable authorities as Lord Herschel, as my
  1618
  right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), as the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees in this House (Mr. Courtney), as the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir J. Lubbock), and others. This is what these GentlemenX2014;the first ecomonic authorities of the day—say in paragraph 112 of the first part, which is the unanimous part, of their Report—
  "Another interest to which our attention has been directed is that of the European employés of the Government of India. They receive salaries paid in silver…So far as their incomes are spent in India or are devoted to the purchase of commodities, the gold price of which has fallen as much as that of silver, they do not sustain any loss. But on a large proportion of their remittances to Europe they derive no benefit from the fall of gold prices, as the fall has affected wholesale more than retail prices, and has not affected at all many of the prices in which they are interested."
  It would be very difficult, indeed, to wrap up in so few words so many absolutely undeniable confirmations of our arguments and so many utter refutations of our opponents' replies. This brief paragraph proves in the opinion of these high authorities—first, that the hardship of which I complain to-night is an undoubted and a very real and tangible one; secondly, that it is utterly false to pretend that those Members of the Civil Service who are domiciled in India suffer from the same hardships, or would demand the same redress, or that silver salaries generally would have to be revised in consequence of any action in the direction I suggest; and thirdly, the Currency Commission paragraph states that it is utterly fallacious to pretend that the fall in the value of the rupee is counterbalanced by any fall in many commodities such as house rent, education, and domestic service, for which these pensions have to pay. Well, Sir, these are three statements of the Currency Commission vouched for by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, whose names I have given to the House, all of them great economic authorities, and I say that these statements go a very long way, indeed, towards proving the whole of our case. Now, Sir, who are the uncovenanted officers for whom I plead to-night? I know that a great deal of ignorance prevails very generally as to the status and as to the conditions of their service. Most of the Members of this House

  1619
  probably are well aware who are the Covenanted civil servants of India. They are gentlemen who, chosen by a high literary competitive examination in London, go out to India to be Collectors, Commissioners, and Chief Commissioners, or Lieutenant-Governors in one line of the service known as the Executive, or as Magistrates, Judges, and High Court Judges on the other line known as the Judicial Service. Sir, I wish at once to say that in our opinion this branch of the Indian Civil Service, from which must be chosen the heads of many of the Local Governments is, and must necessarily be, a corps d'elite. Its rights and privileges are guaranteed by Act of Parliament, and even its pensions are settled by Statute, and nothing that we could ask for or even suggest for the Uncovenanted would, in the slightest degree, touch the admitted hegemony of that service, or leave them anything but at least twice as well off as any other Department of the State in India. Outside this highly privileged service everything else is technically Uncovenanted, from the Viceroy down to the lowest office sweeper, in India. But from this large body must of course be deducted, for the purpose of the complaint which I make to-night, as to the payment of pensions in the depreciated currency, all except an almost inappreciable fraction of less than 5 per cent. At least 95 per cent of the Uncovenanted are domiciled civil servants, and that class, from the highest to the lowest, spend their pensions in India, and consequently, as the House knows from the Report of the Currency Commission, they obtain for their pensions full value, because the rupee in India has not fallen in its purchasing power. Even of the remaining 5 per cent of the Uncovenanted officers, all those who could make their voice heard at all have long ago been emancipated from this hardship of which I complain to-night. Many years ago—in in 1826, the High Court Judges and the Bishops got themselves valued in sterling by an Act of Parliament. So with regard to the Viceroy and Uncovenanted Members of Council. And only so late as 1867, as a recent question elicited from the hon. Member the Under Secretary of State for India, some minor legal luminaries not unknown to the Secretariats at Simla, got
  1620
  themselves admitted into the ranks of the elect, and also got themselves valued in sterling. Well, then, who remain? Who alone of the hundreds and thousands of Indian servants of the Crown, who alone have been condemned to suffer, not from any fault of their own, but from the vagaries of the silver market in Europe? To whom alone is the absurd proposition held out by the Government that they should never be able to say from one year to another what their pension really is? The £200 of a few years ago has now sunk to the starvation allowance of £135 a year, and in a very few years that £135 may have sunk to £50 a year. I say that is a thing which is not fair, and that this House should not suffer it to go on. The residuum—the unfortunate and unhappy residuum—of whom I am speaking, number about 1,500 officers; and for the purposes of comparison, I may mention the fact that the Covenanted servants in India number about 950 members. The men for whom I appeal number as I say 1,500, and belong almost entirely to the scientific or technical department of the public service. There are 1 g Departments of which I speak, and with the permission of the House I will read out the number of officers in such Department, so that there may be no doubt whatever as to the persons for whom I am pleading. or as to the extent of the complaint which I make. Mere is the Financial Department, with 9 officers; the Archaeological Survey, with 15; the Customs Department,; the Education Department, 99; he Forest Department, 29; the Meteorological Survey, 13; the Gaol Department, 29; the Meteorological Survey )Department, 6; the Mint, 11; the Opium Department, 50; the Postal Department, 13; the Police Department, 54; the Public Works Department, 73; the Registration, 2; Salt, 22; Survey, 10; the Revenue Survey, 58; nd the Telegraph Department, 95. To these might possibly be added 35 officers who, though belonging to a service that is essentially a domiciled service —the subordinates executive and judicial service—still happen to be domiciled Europeans. I do not think hat these 35 gentlemen could claim anything of right in this matter, because aviug elected to join a distinctly domiciled service, they must of course ac

  1621
  cept the rules suitable for domiciled officers. While I am on this point I should like to make one or two remarks with reference to the Amendment which I see on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), who speaks with the greatest authority on this subject. The hon. Member has put down an Amendment, the purport of which is to exclude from any advantages that may accrue to Uncovenanted officers from the appointment of a Committee such as I suggest all those gentlemen who are appointed in India That is the purport of the Amendment. Well, Sir, I am free to confess that I think there is very much, no doubt, to be said for that view. In principle I admit that I agree with it, but I must say that I think it would be an ungracious and almost a cruel thing to exclude those who, at any rate, have already been appointed in India in the way objected to by the hon. Gentleman. But I would venture strongly to urge on the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy that this is really a very small point, and that there is really no disagreement between us. Especially would I point out to him that the point on which he lays so much stress is exactly one of those points which would naturally be examined by the Select Committee for which I am asking, and that therefore my hon. Friend opposite will fully attain his object by voting for the Resolution which I shall presently have the honour of moving. Well, Sir, it will be seen that of those officers for whom I plead, and the names of whose Departments I have just read out to the House, and who have been left absolutely the only sufferers by the fall in silver with regard to pensions, considerably more than one-half belong to the great Department of the Public Works. These include hundreds of highly-skilled engineers and other scientific officers of that Department, of whom Sir Guilford Molesworth is the distinguished head. They include also the electrical engineers and the electricians of the Telegraph Department, headed by those distinguished officers, Sir Albert Cappel and Mr. Pitman, who has recently received from Her Majesty the Order of the Indian Empire. This class is by far the most numerous and most important of those for whom I speak, and I shall presently show the House, by quoting the ipsis
  1622
  sima verba of the contracts under which they entered the services, that the treatment to which they have been subjected, and the refusal to do them justice, is indeed peculiarly scandalous. But, Sir, in my humble opinion, not less scandalous is the treatment that has been accorded to the 99 officers of the Education Department, comprising the Inspectors of Schools and the Professors of the State Colleges throughout India. Sir, so long ago as December 8th, 1862, the Secretary of State for India wrote a despatch about the pensions of those gentlemen, and in it he used these words:—
  "I think there is, however, sufficient ground for an exception as regards educational officers and law officers…In those cases a previous course of study, and in many instances practical experience is required, and there is consequently reason for making a distinction in regard to that class of servants, whose claims will, therefore, be separately considered."
  Will the House believe that during the 27 years which have elapsed since the sending of that despatch, not one move has been made to deal with that question, which was thus solemnly promised to be dealt with? I will go further, and say that the complaint of these gentlemen is that their claims have not even been considered. I have recently elicited from my hon. Friend the Under Secretary for India the fact that the Uncovenanted law officers, those who in 1862 were bracketed by the Secretary of State with the Uncovenanted education officers, did so long ago as 1867, obtain separate treatment, and they obtained a scale of sterling pensions, which I will ask the House very carefully to compare with those of the education officers. My hon. Friend stated on Tuesday last that these law officers got £300 per annum invalid pension after 6¾ years, £500 per annum after years, and £750 per annum retiring pension, whether ill or Lot, after 11½years. Now, Sir, the education officers, if they are worn out and invalided under 15 years' service, get no pension at all; they only get a gratuity. The Law Uncovenanted officers, remember, get their full pension after 11½ years' service, while the education officers up to 15 years get nothing at all but a gratuity. From 15 years to 22 or 25 years an invalid pension is granted them if they are utterly worn out—and that is actually subject to a maximum of 2,000

  1623
  rupees, or 135 a year, unless their pay has been exceptionally high, and then there is a maximum of 3,000 rupees, or 200 a year. After 22 or 25 years, an invalid pension subject again to maxima of £200 or £350 a year. No pension at all can be obtained except as an invalid pension, i.e., unless a man is certified to be utterly broken down, until after something like 30 years' service in India. This, again, is subject to maxima of £200 and £350. My hon. Friend, Sir, justified last Tuesday the very handsome scale of £750 for 11 years' service, which is granted to the Uncovenanted law officers, and I think he very properly justified it, in the circumstances, on these grounds—my hon. Friend said—
  "Officials requiring professional qualifications who are recruited from the legal profession at, an advanced age, are, in most Departments of the Government, granted special terms on grounds which are generally well understood.',
  Why, Sir, that is exactly why I demand for these educational officers of whom I am speaking, not exactly the handsome terms properly granted by my hon. Friend to the Uncovenanted law officers, but at least something less mean and pitiful than the cruel terms that I read out just now to the House, cruel terms which give a man a maximum of £135 a year for such a long service as is required in these cases. Let me offer to the House one or two cases within my own personal knowledge wherein every condition that was stated by my hon. Friend to justify such good terms is amply fulfilled in the case of the educational officers. About the year 1866 there was an urgent need for a Professor of Mathematics of the highest powers in the State University of Calcutta, and the Government were fortunate enough to obtain for that post the invaluable services of Professor C. B. Clarke, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. Mr. Clarke happened to be a barrister, so he might possibly have obtained one of the legal offices. He was a man of 33 years of age, and could, therefore, hardly be called a boy. Ten years before, Mr. Clarke had taken the honourable degree of 3rd Wrangler—in the year preceding the one in which my hon. Friend himself took the same distinguished academical position, and I know there is more than one hon. Member in this House can
  1624
  bear witness that as a resident Fellow at Cambridge during 10 years, Mr. Clarke won a very high reputation. He rose in about 21 years' service under the sun of India to be Chief Inspector of Schools in Bengal, and bead of the Educational Department in Assam, charged with the educational administration of a vast area of country. When he retired it was on account of superannuation, and, therefore, I fancy he got a superannuation pension, which was, I think, £350 per annum. But if he had been a somewhat younger man, and had it depended upon his actual services, the pension to which he would have been entitled for his service of 21 years would have been the pitiful pension of less than £200 per annum-Well, Sir, that is less than one-half of the amount ho would have got after 8⅔ years' service in the Uncovenanted Legal Department. I can assure you, Sir, that Professor Clarke's case is absolutely typical of the whole of his Department. Professor Croft (now Sir Alfred Croft), the Director of Public Instruction in Bengal, having been a scholar in my own College (Exeter) at Oxford, and a graduate in double honours, had undoubtedly acquired those professional qualifications of which my hon. Friend speaks as lecturer of Trinity College. Professor Tawney had been senior classic at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, and everybody knows the value of these academical distinctions. Sir Alexander Grant, who returned to this country to be principal of Edinburgh University, and whose suberb edition of the Ethics will be known to many Members; Sir Edwin Arnold, the "Light of Asia," and many other distinguished men have adorned the Educational Department. In the year 1872 it was shown that out of 33 educational officers in Bengal, no less than 20 had obtained in their earlier years academical honours of the first class, or equivalent academical rank.. Well, Sir, these are the gentlemen of whom my hon. Friend said last year that they had chosen the "wider and easier gate of the Uncovenanted Service to the narrower and most difficult entrance by the Covenanted Service." Sir, there is not a University man in this House, I am sure—even including such a distinguished University man as my hon. Friend himself — who will not

  1625
  admit, and who does not perfectly well know, that that sneer was not properly applied to the Educational Service in India. I am not sure that it is not out of place with regard to the Cooper's Hill men of the Public Works, Telegraph, and Forest Departments, for although their training has had less of a literary character and been more entirely scientific and technical, it is clearly out of the power of anyone to say which is the easier and which the more difficult gate. I venture to say it is hardly to be wondered at if the sneer of my hon. Friend, however unintentional, no doubt and uttered in good faith, has caused a great deal of pain throughout India. Well, Sir, much has been made of the fact by the Government that out of the £1,000 pension obtained by all Covenanted officers, something like £500 has been derived from deductions made from their salaries. As a fact, Sir, it has been proved by actuarial computation that on the average, of the greater number of retired Covenanted civilians (the average pension being taken at the rank of Commissioner), the amount so contributed by deductions of pay varies between £300 and £400. But let that pass, Sir. Surely all pension is nothing more than deferred pay, both for Covenanted and Uncovenanted officers. If they had no pension we all know that they would have to get higher salaries while in the service, so that, though the deduction is only nominally made in one case, it is really and practically made in both, and as the Covenanted salaries are far higher than the Uncovenanted, the whole argument falls to the ground. And even if it did not fall to the ground—if it would hold water, what, after all, does it amount to? It amounts to simply this, that every Covenanted officer, no matter what his rank, no matter what the period of his service, provided he has resided twenty-one years in India, obtains a pension of £500 as a matter of course, and that pension would be the utmost limit and an exceptional possibility only for the Uncovenanted man, even if the very utmost of our demands were at once conceded! And let me air another point. I have said, and it will be universally admitted, that a pension is really deferred pay. Well, Sir, the pay of these professors, inspectors of schools, and engineers of whom I have
  1626
  spoken, has been kept back and deducted by the Government in rupees when those rupees were each worth 2s. and sometimes 2s. 3d. or 2s. 4d. What, then, is the character of the proceeding by which the Government now undertakes to return those rupees—which it has had in its pocket for so long—and to tender them at the value of ls. 4½d.? But, perhaps, after all, the Government will hark hack to the old, old story, and treat us to the argument that is universally known in India as the "Shylock" argument. Perhaps the Government will say, "You made the bargain with your eyes open, and you must stick to it." Sir, I am not at all sure that the bargain was really made at all in the sense insisted upon by the Government, and I shall prove, Sir, in a few words that it was not made by these men knowingly and with their eyes open. I can show in a moment that even the bargain itself is a very doubtful one. I venture to think that its validity would long ago have been tried in the Courts of Law if it had not been for the obvious fact that it is almost hopeless for a poor and worn-out officer to fight a rich and powerful Government in the Courts of Law. When on rare occasions the Government have found an officer who obviously intended to go to law, I can show that, on these occasions, they have acted on the motto Divide et impera, and bought off the Tartar by giving him a handsome bonus. I shall not deny for one moment, Sir, that somewhere about the year 1862, as stated last year by my hon. Friend, the Government did put into some—possibly into all—of its subsequent agreements with Uncovenanted officers an unassuming little clause to the effect that payments in England would be made at the official fixed rates of exchange. But, Sir, in the same breath my hon. Friend admitted last year that at the time when that clause was introduced in these covenants, and for years afterwards, a pound sterling and ten rupees were convertible terms. Indeed, in 1862, it seemed quite possible that the rupee might become appreciated in consequence of the great gold production of Australia. At any rate, I assert that to no one in his senses, in the year 1862, could it have occurred that such wide-spread ruin and desolation would be possible as has been inflicted on the

  1627
  Uncovenanted officers of India under the pretence of this unassuming little clause, and, therefore, I do maintain that no one would ever have thought of objecting to it, even if it had been brought more prominently under notice than it was. Sir, I do not believe that the Government of the day in 1862, or anybody else meant by this clause to produce the result that is now sought from its action. It was simply for the convenience of Indian accounts, which must, of course, be kept in rupees. The pensions of Europeans, it is understood, are spent in Europe, and even when 2,000 rupees are mentioned, surely they meant £200. My hon. Friend admits that £200 and 2,000 rupees were then convertible terms. The pensioner could not spend 2,000 rupees in London; the Shopkeepers would not take them; he spends his £200—that is what is meant. Surely, now, the Government, in fixing the pension or deferred pay of one of these servants, looks first to the nature and the value of his services to the State, and looks secondly to the actual needs of the man, and to the rank of life to which he may belong. And surely, Sir, it is as obvious as the sun under heaven that a fixed sum was contemplated at the time the contract was made. It is absurd to say that it should be a fluctuating sum—that twenty years ago it was to be £200, that now it is to be £130, and that 20 years' hence it may be reduced to £50, £40, or £30, and the recipient driven to beggary. There are those who tell us that £135 a year at the present moment will purchase as much as £200 did 20 years ago. This, if true, would be a very fair argument, though surely it would be a very hard-hearted argument even at best. But, Sir, it is not true. The Report of the Currency Commissioners shews, and I think every hon. Member will acknowledge, that such items as the education of children at school, such items as domestic service, and in many instances house rents—items which, let me inform the House, must take from the pensions of these men a very large share of that miserable £135 that my hon. Friend would give them—are at the present moment not lower, but in many cases higher, than they were 20 or 30 years ago. And even if it were true that £135 would buy what £200 would purchase 20 or 30 years ago, why is it that this little
  1628
  band of Uncovenanted servants should be the only persons in the whole world for this hard measure to be meted out to them? Surely, if the theory were true, all public salaries fixed 20 years or more ago would, in all justice, be reduced to two-thirds of their present amount. Surely, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and let those who use this argument first renounce one-third of their own salaries. But how about the officers who wore appointed before this little clause, this unassuming, creeping little clause—on which I fear my hon. Friend depends—was introduced into the covenant? In the covenants of these officers, members of the Telegraph Services, and others, there commonly appeared this clause, to which I ask the careful attention of the House:—
  "In all payments to be made under these presents the pound sterling shall be considered equal to, and calculated after, the rate of 10 rupees."
  Now, surely that seems plain enough to the ordinary English intellect. Surely, you would think that, under that covenanted condition, the officer would at any rate get his pound sterling for his 10 rupees' pension after his life's work was over in India, and he came over here sadly wanting every penny of the money. Not a bit of it! Now, I ask the House to listen to the way in which my hon. Friend can explain away even such a plain statement as that of this covenant. Asked about Mr. Gordon, who was one of the officers of the Telegraph Department, and who holds this very covenant at the present moment, my hon. Friend said:—
  "Mr. Gordon drew his furlough allowances at the rate of 2s. to the rupee, because in his covenant dated 1867"—
  I think it should be 1857—
  "it was provided that 'in all payments to be made under these presents the pound sterling shall be considered equal to, and calculated after, the rates of 10 rupees. Mr. Gordon and other retired officers in the same position"—
  This is what my hon. Friend says—
  "do not draw their pensions at 2s. to the rupee, because at the time when their covenants were made these officers were not permitted to receive pensions in England, and, therefore, the covenant did not apply to pensions. When permission was subsequently given for the payment of the pensions in England, it was granted on the express condition that it should only be paid at the varying rate of exchange."

  1629
  Now, Sir, I will ask, does the House consider that to be an adequate reason for depriving these officers of what little advantage they would gain by getting this £200 instead of this £135. I do not know what is meant by my hon. Friend when he says that these officers "were not permitted" to draw their pensions in England before the year 1862. What I do know, Sir—for the hon. Gentleman has himself admitted it—is that there have been Uncovenanted pensions payable in England, and drawn in England, and payable in sterling, too, paid at the rate of 10 rupees to the £1, ever since the year 1815 And, Sir, what is even more significant with regard to this point is that the rate of payment during all these years from 1815 to 1862 was always at a rate of 2s. to the rupee, even when the commercial rate was 2s. 2d., 2s. 3d., and 2s. 4d., showing that 2s. to the rupee was considered a fair and proper official rate. It was fixed by the Statute of 53, Geo. III., c. 155, as the rate which should be ordinarily recognized in official transactions. And these Uncoveranted officers of whom I am speaking loyally and honourably submitted, to their own disadvantage, as for instance, when the rupee was 2s. 4d., they took their rupees at 2s. But, Sir, the Government absolutely refuse to submit to this rate, now that the commercial rate has gone down to 1s. 4½d. Sir, the Government says that these "payments of pensions were not permitted to he made in England." Well, Sir, I hold in my hand the covenant of Mr. Gordon, or a copy of it, to which I have referred, and I find in this covenant it is stated that pensions are to be paid as promised. It was signed on the 9th May, 1857, long before the clause permitting pensions to be drawn in England, and I find that the pensions were to be paid on the basis promised. I find also it is stated that the payments are to be made at £1 sterling to the 10 rupees. Well, now I ask the Government this—where were the payments to be made in sterling at this rate, if not in England? He was promised a pension. He is an Englishman; where was he likely to take his pension? Mr. Gordon! The name speaks for itself! Was he likely to hang about the slums of Calcutta and take his pension? Where was he to take his pension,
  1630
  promised at 10 rupees to the £ sterling?
  SIR J. GORSTIn India.
  SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGEThe Government ought to give it to him at home—or, at any rate, this House will think the Government are not dealing fairly with him if they do not. My hon. Friend says in India. Why, the pound sterling is not current in India. If you tendered a pound sterling in India they would not take it. There is not one word in Mr. Gordon's covenant which speaks of a rupee pension at all. Frankly, I should be very much grieved to see the Government of this great country "run in" by one of their own officers for breach of contract; but for the life of me I cannot see why any of the gentlemen holding these contracts have not attempted it. Perhaps the explanation may be found in a somewhat unexpected way. Sir, I hold in my hand the official statement of the terms under which certain educational officers were engaged under the Government of India. And I read this passage from it:—"No pension in any case to exceed the sum of £500 per annum." Not one word about rupees from beginning to end. Now, Sir, in 1887, only two years ago—I hope I may call my hon. Friend's attention to this point, because I dare say he will remember the circumstances—in 1887, two years ago, one of the educational officers engaged under the terms of this document, came to take his pension, and of course he was told "you can only get 5,000 rupees," and if he were permitted this year to take his pension in England that would be only £350 per annum. Well, Sir, this particular officer, whose name I am permitted to furnish to the hon. Gentleman if he desires it, did not see altogether this way of doing business, especially as he found this telling note added to the prospectus by which he had been enticed into the Educational Service:—
  "N. B.—These pension rules were first issued in 1831, and there is every prospect of their being revised shortly in still more liberal terms."
  Well, Sir, this gentleman when he was told that the £500 had diminished to £350, did not quite see it. He expostulated with the India Office rather strongly, and he did more than expostulate; he

  1631
  went into the City and he consulted a very eminent lawyer. Well, Sir, the Government heroically stuck to their determination that he was to get his 5,000 rupees, or £350, and not his £500. But, Sir, this is a remarkable fact. It was discovered that the extrordinary and admirable services of this gentleman absolutely constrained the Government to give him a bonus of £1,500 in golden sovereigns down, there and then! That fact speaks for itself, and I congratulate the gentleman on getting the money; I am glad of it. I have no doubt he has paid his lawyer's bill, and that he will live happy ever afterwards. I have mentioned the fact that the Statute 83 Geo. III., c. 155, fixed 2s. as the statutory rate of the rupee. In 1831, as has been noticed in that prospectus I read just now, the first pension rates for Uncovenanted servants were issued, which gave them the precedent of the English Civil Service rules, a pension of half salary after 30 years' service, with no maximum limit. In consequence of that, some Uncovenanted officers who were receiving a pay of 24,000 rupees a year, on retirement received the exorbitant pension of 12,000 rupees, or £1,200. The Secretary of State, in 1855, properly drew attention to this lavishness, and ordered that in no case was—
  "A larger pension than £400 to be granted to Uncovenanted servants receiving salaries of 700 to 1,000 rupees a month, nor a larger pension than £500 per annum to Uncovenanted servants receiving salaries above that amount."
  These are the words that are used in the Despatch of the Secretary of State. The word "rupees" is rightly used for the salaries, and "sterling pounds" are used for the pensions. These terms are all that we ask for. And such was the fair, just, and reasonable ruling of the Secretary of State in 1855, which was afterwards distorted into such cruel terms as those I have described. We ask for nothing more than a return to these moderate lines, which would still leave the professors and engineers and their colleagues with half, or less than half, the pensions of covenanting civilians, and two-thirds, or less than two-thirds, of the pensions of the law officers, and far longer terms of service. Even as late as the year 1872 the prospectuses of Cooper's Hill College contained a statement of furlough al-
  1632
  lowances which was given in rupees and sterling, as if these were convertible terms, and where the salaries are stated in rupees this footnote is appended—"Ten rupees are nearly equivalent in value to £1 sterling"; and in the Pension Code officially issued by the Government of India, until recently, this note was prefixed—"Wherever in the following Resolution a pension is stated in sterling the equivalent in rupees is meant at 2s. the rupee." Sir, it seems to me that I need say no more. I make no ad misericordiam appeal to the Government or to my hon. Friend (Sir J. Gorat), because I recognize that they could not accept one. I ask for nothing more than substantial justice for men who have nobly done their duty to their adopted country, and who have been a credit to the country which gave them birth. I claim to have shown that native public opinion among the taxpayers of India recognizes the justice of the claims now made, and wishes the Government to be honest and not be content with mere departmental inquiries and decisions, or, at any rate, instead of making its inquiries within the four walls of the India Office, to come out into the open light of day and submit the matter to such an inquiry as it would receive from the impartial consideration of this House. I think I have also shown that the present cost of honesty will be a mere fraction of the cost of the Simla picnic, and that it will be a diminishing and ultimately a vanishing cost; that the men who ask for this justice are men of the highest culture and the most costly scientific training, who are worthy of good treatment at our hands; and, above all, I have shown that the spirit undoubtedly, and possibly even the letter, of their contract entitles them to be paid not in a depreciated currency, but, like all their colleagues in India, both native and European, as they were promised to be paid 20, 30, and 40 years ago. Moreover, Sir, I think I have shown that the pensions in this depreciated currency, even at the present moment, are at or below starvation point, and are going lower and lower every year; that those pensions, if looked upon as deferred pay, were hoarded by the Government at a time when rupees were worth 2s. or 2s. 3d. a piece, whereas they are now saying that the rupee

  1633
  is only worth 1s. 4½d., so that consequently these depreciated payments are in reality a breach of trust on the part of the Government; and I have also shown that the Government, having never paid these pensions at the commercial rate of exchange, when that rate was 2s. 3d. and 2s. 4d., has no right to pay them at that commercial rate now that the rupee is at 1s. 4½d. In a word, I claim to have shown that the Government is bound by every dictate, alike of expediency and of honour, fairly to fulfil the promise of its old covenants:—"In all payments,"—really and honestly all, and not "all except those we can wriggle out of—" to bo made under these presents the pound sterling shall be considered equal to, and shall be calculated after the rate of 10 rupees." Sir, I now beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name.
  Amendment proposed,
  "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire into the grievances of the members of the Indian Uncovenanted Civil Services, with special reference to their pension and leave rules, and to the effect produced by the fall in the value of silver on their family remittances, their leave allowances, and their provision for old age"—(Sir Roper Lethbridge).
  —instead thereof:—
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. BRADLAUGHSir, the House is not asked this evening to decide as to the justice of the claim put forward by the mover of the Resolution; it is merely asked to decide whether a sufficient case has been made out to justify it in appointing a Select Committee to inquire into the grievances under which these clients of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge) believe themselves to be suffering. I wish it to be understood that in supporting this Resolution to-night I support it solely from the standpoint that such an inquiry is necessary and ought to be granted, and I am bound to say that, in my opinion, it is the fault of the Government of India alone that such a discussion as we have entered upon this evening has been brought about, because if Her Majesty's Government had done
  1634
  that which it officially announced its intention to do—namely, if it had followed up the Public Service Commission by a general Parliamentary inquiry—that inquiry would have covered the matters which have been brought before the House to-night, and we should have been spared the need for occupying the time of the House with the case we now feel it our duty to present. I do not intend to follow the hon. Gentleman who has moved this Resolution in his careful and elaborate statement of the grievances he has just laid before the House, because it seems to me that all I am called on to do is to corroborate what has been said as to the need of an inquiry, and to give the House the reasons upon which it seems to me that the House ought to vote in favour of the Resolution. For my part, I wonder that the Government have not already given some intimation to those who have been pressing for the inquiry now asked that they are prepared to grant it; and I wonder at their not having done this, because, although I have no means of knowing what are the views of the noble Lord the Secretary for India (Lord Cross) I might well conceive that if he were here this evening, and had to reply to this proposal, he would say it was the farthest thing from his desire that any inquiry into these matters should be shut out; but that, on the contrary, he was disposed to regard this case as one in which an inquiry might well take place. I can, however, also fancy his saying, were he here to-night, that on talking the matter over with the able Under Secretary (Sir J. Gorst), who will presently answer me, that it had been suggested that he should urge upon the House as a reason why this inquiry ought not to be granted was that it would be premature. If that be a fair guess at the views entertained by the noble Lord—and I shall look with curiosity to the reply of the Under Secretary in order to know how far I may be wrong in my hazardings—I would suggest to the House that the inquiry which we ask for to-night is not only not premature, but that any such reason which may be used by the Under Secretary will fall entirely short of a complete answer to our request. I will here endeavour to anticipate what may be the possible reasons the Under Secretary may put to the House. He

  1635
  may tell us that there has been the Public Service Commission, that its Report is now in the hands of the Government, that the Government are considering it, and that, until the Government have considered it, it is not fair for this House to press upon the Government any demand for a further inquiry. I should hardly think that the able Under Secretary would regard that as a sufficient reply if he were to carefully think the matter over in his mind; because if he were to advance reasons such as these he is well aware that it would be open to any hon. Member to interrupt him by reminding him that the Public Service Commission had been expressly forbidden to examine into the matters as to which this House is asked to grant an inquiry, and that, therefore, it is quite impossible that that report can be of any help or utility in the consideration of this question, and I would further remind the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India that at the time of the presentation of the Report of that Public Service Commission there was a formal declaration on the part of the Indian Government itself, dated from Simla, in which it told the Public Service Commissioners that the investigations which were then being commenced were to be followed by a regular and ample Parliamentary inquiry. And here I would suggest to the House that if it thinks there is, at least, a very strong case made out for inquiry as to the claims submitted on behalf of a body of men who run considerable risks in regard to the climate they have to endure, and who are surrounded by all sorts of hostile influences, it will be futile to meet their claims by saying we ought to wait for the decision of the Government as to some slow method of re-organization or for some new mode of inquiry—we do not know what—which is not open to the public, or for conclusions which we shall not be able to challenge, and the only reasons for which we shall not be able to appreciate. I can imagine the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary saying that this is an inquiry which he is obliged to refuse in the interests of the natives of India; and I can also understand his expressing his surprise—I do not mean any real surprise on his part, because I am aware that nothing I could put forward would
  1636
  surprise him—but still expressing that sort of surprise which he is able to utilize so effectively when he thinks it is likely to tell on the House—that I, of all other persons, should be the one to get up in this assembly and second this Resolution. Last year a different motion was submitted by the hon. Member for Central Hull (Mr. H. S. King), who asked the House to determine the matter by giving a specific judgment on the statement. He then submitted in favour of the justice of the claims then put forward without going through the process of a preliminary inquiry such as is asked for this evening. But at the present moment all the House is asked to do is to appoint a Committee to inquire as to whether the claims put forward on behalf of the uncovenanted Service of India can be proved. The motion last year was that a verdict should be found. All that is now asked is not that the House should act as a jury to deliver a verdict, but that it should appoint a Select Committee generally to inquire as to whether the case, which has been put before the House two years in succession, has any foundation, and if the jury finds that it has then this House will be asked as the tribunal most capable of so doing to find its verdict. But what was the case put forward by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary last year? It was that he had to defend a people whom he rightly described as the poverty - stricken Indian taxpayers. On behalf of those whom the hon. Gentleman so described, he appealed to this House not to injure the poor Europeans, and as to the natives they had imposed upon them a heavier salt-tax. But hard pressed as the natives of India are they do not desire any injustice to their fellow subjects. They have to ask for redress for their own grievances and are not disposed to refuse inquiry into the grievances of others. A self-denying Government like that represented by the Under Secretary of the moment might make even small economies in regard to some of the well-paid Indian officials, such as the Members of that Council which may possibly be useful, but which manages to hide most successfully the services it renders either to the natives or to the European subjects in India. The distinctions between the Motion of last year

  1637
  and that of this year, is that the Motion of last year asserted a claim and asked the House to decide on it at once, whilst that of to-night only asks that a Select Committee may be appointed and that evidence may be taken as to whether the alleged grievance has any foundation or not. I understand from the slight motion of the head of the Under Secretary for India, that he thinks I have no right to express an opinion on behalf of the natives of India. I think I may tell him that in the movement which is now taking place in India—a movement which is necessarily confined to only a few millions, 2,000,000 out of the 200,000,000 of the subjects of the Empire, because it is confined to the English-speaking population—there is a growing desire to break down the barriers which have been officially erected between the Europeans and the natives, and that with the knowledge of the English language and customs, there is coming a hope that there may be more sympathetic and hearty co-operation between them. The whole of these natives through my mouth ask the House to grant this inquiry to-night. I had intended, but it is quite needless, to go into the legal point, dating back to the year 1813. I had proposed to do that because last year the Under Secretary for India just framed a proposition, which if I appreciated his printed words, and understood his spoken words when I listened to them, rather suggested that prior to 1826 there were no pensions at all in India. That is not so, and the hon. Mover of the Resolution was perfectly accurate when he took back the Covenanted pensions to an earlier date, and the Uncovenanted pensions to 1815, and when he reminded the House that as long as the rate of exchange was high, and made a profit to those paying the pensions, there was no talk about that rate. The language used right through until you come to the despatch of 1862, which has been quoted, has only one bearing. I do not, however, ask the House to judge as to this, and I will not attempt to weary the House with the details respecting it. Nor will I indulge in the folly of asking the attention of the House to the services of men whose services must have been recognized even by the blindest. There is no doubt
  1638
  that to English energy in facing conditions which even now are in some cases terrific, as is the fact row with those in Burmah, who have to face fever, and the pressure upon them of hostile life conditions, our position it India is due. I will not weaken a good case by pleading the virtue of the client, Before the Committee, if it be appointed, they will make out a bonâ fide legal claim, or they will fail to do so. If the Government think they will fail, why do they refuse this inquiry? In that case no injury could be done to the native taxpayers. If, however, the Government think they will prove their case, then on behalf of the natives I say we do not want to be dishonest to those who are associated with us; and we claim the same honest treatment for the European servants of the State as for the native Civil servants. I will not at this hour occupy the time of the House further. The whole case has been completely put by the hon. Mover of the Resolution, but I do ask the House to remember that we are not to determine whether that case is made out, but only whether an inquiry should be granted to suppliants who come to you for a hearing, and who have no opportunity of obtaining it anywhere else. Before the Empire was in India Parliament rendered such appeals unnecessary by holding inquiries at stated periods into all matters connected with the Indian Service. That system does not prevail now. And we are to be told that a Public Service Commission which has nothing to do with the question, some finance inquiries which never went near it, some sort of departmental inquiry of which we know nothing, and over which we have no control, should be substituted for the Parliamentary inquiry which was always granted to suppliants here in previous cases. The natives join hand-in-hand with the Europeans in asking that this House should give them the opportunity of making out their case.
  MR. J. MACLEANI had not intended to take part in this debate, at all events at so early an hour, but I feel bound to do so in order to express the regret with which I have heard the speech just delivered by the hon. Member for Northampton. My hon. Friend the Member for North Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge) stated the case for the Uncovenanted Civil Service clearly and

  1639
  ably, but the hon. Member for Northampton, who seconded the Amendment, seemed to me to be anxious rather to make a little political capital out of the case than to state the arguments in favour of the proposition before the House. The hon. Member says he speaks in the name of the natives of India, or of some considerable portion of them.
  MR. BRADLAUGHI carefully said exactly the opposite. I carefully said that I could only speak for a comparatively small number of the millions of India, because I could only speak for the English-speaking portion of them.
  MR. MACLEANWell, Sir, I do not see that there was the slightest necessity for bringing in on this occasion any reference whatever to the English-speaking natives. I do not see that they have any authority to decide what is to be done in this case. They are not the millions of India, and we do not appeal to them but to the Government of India to do justice in this case. I think it a great pity that the hon. Member should have taken advantage of this discussion to lecture the House on the grievances of the natives of India and to demand that some inquiry should be made into their grievances. It appears that the natives of India, with whom he is acquainted, have put him up to engage in a sort of political intrigue, and they say that if justice is done to the Europeans they will ask the aid of the Europeans in obtaining a Parliamentary inquiry into their own grievances.
  MR. BRADLAUGHI deeply regret to interrupt the hon. Member—
  MR. MACLEANI decline to give way to the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member is very fond of interrupting those who are opposed to him. He has had full opportunity for stating his case, and I appeal to the House as to whether I am misrepresenting his arguments. Well, Sir, the question to be considered is a very simple one. It is whether the Uncovenanted civil servants are fairly treated in having their pensions paid in rupees now that the value of the rupee is so seriously depreciated? I remember an argument addressed to the House last year by a very eminent authority on political economy, the Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Courtney), to the effect that the Uncovenanted civil servants have really no
  1640
  grievance because, although there has been a reduction of from 30 to 50 per cent in the amount of their pensions, the prices of all the commodities they have to purchase in England have fallen in an equal proportion, and therefore they are as well off as they used to be. That argument carried a good deal of weight in the House at the time, but I do not think it will stand careful examination. We all know that although prices have fallen in this country, the standard of living has been greatly raised, and men having to occupy a certain position in society find it as costly to maintain that position now as it was before there was a very considerable fall in prices. I think it will be generally admitted by all classes in this House that there never was a time when living was more luxurious and costly than at the present moment. I think, therefore, that argument may very well be put on one side. But it may be asked why should not this idea of dealing with the pensions of the Uncovenanted servants be applied to the Covenanted servants also? My opinion is that the servants of the Crown in India are extremely well paid at this moment, that the pensions and pay were fixed at a time when the hardships of Indian service were very much greater than they are now. In supporting this proposal for an inquiry into the grievances of the Uncovenanted Service, I do not pledge myself for a moment against supporting the introduction at some future time of a scheme for the reduction of possibly all the pay and pensions of the services in India. But it is obvious that if the argument of the reduction of prices in this country is to have any force whatever against the payment in sterling of the pensions of one class of servants it applies with equal force to the other classes of servants in India, and also to the pay of the whole Civil Service in England. The salaries of all the permanent civil servants of the Crown in England were fixed at a time when prices had not suffered that very serious deterioration which has been induced of late years. There is no doubt that men in the enjoyment of fixed incomes in this country get a very great deal more for their money than they used to do, if you speak only of the prices of commodities. Therefore, if the argument applies at all, it ought

  1641
  to apply all round, and I think it is a very unfair thing that the uncovenanted civil servants in India should be the body on which the experiment of applying it should be made. I sympathize with them a good deal, because I do not at all accept the doctrine of the Member for North Kensington, that we ought to look forward to the day when the European servants in the service of the Crown in India will be extinguished except in the higher offices. The existence of these uncovenanted servants was a great security for our rule. I sympathize with them very heartily because they have not the same interest at the India Office as the covenanted servants, who have men to speak for them and ask that their claims may be treated with indulgence. The uncovenanted servants therefore appeal to this House. If the Under Secretary for India talks of the sufferings to be endured by the natives of India, if they have to pay a little more on account of the concession of these claims, we may fairly say with regard to India as to other countries, that honesty is the best policy in the treatment of its public servants, and nothing will be lost to the people of India by giving fair play to these men who now ask for justice at our hands.
  MR. BRADLAUGHAllow me to explain that my only reason for mentioning the natives of India was that last year the Under Secretary stated that the natives disagreed with the claims put forward by the Member for Central Hull. It was because of that line of argument, and not from any claim to dictate to the House, that I spoke as I did.
  MR. MACNEILLI am pleased to think that this inquiry has been asked by this deserving body of men, and I hope it will be granted, for I consider it the highest prerogative of this House to help those to right who suffer wrong. I cannot but hope that the House will agree in thinking that the hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion and went into such details with respect to the grievances of these Gentlemen has made out a primâ facie case for inquiry. I am sure that all of us were struck and interested by the very splendid speech delivered by Lord Dufferin the day before yesterday—a speech in which he, coming home with all his blushing honours on him, fresh
  1642
  from governing directly nearly two millions of people, and governing indirectly one million more, said that one of the highest privileges any of these people whether natives or Europeans could have was the supervision of the House of Commons. Two days after the delivery of that speech the House is given an opportunity not of coming to a judgment, but of exercising its supervision as regards the grievances of certain Indian public servants. The persons on whose behalf this motion is made are no fewer than 1,500, they are our own flesh and blood, and men of the same social position as Members of this House. Having endured extreme hardships in the trying climate of India they have come home occupying the position, always painful, of poor gentlemen, and the House is asked to grant an inquiry in order to see if their poverty cannot be made more tolerable. These men have justified by their noble actions British rule in India. When this country accepted the responsibility of governing India, it accepted the responsibility of governing it in such a way as would justify it to its own conscience and to the conscience of Europe. We have endeavoured to develop the resources of India, to give it education, to make bridges and roads. By whom were all these vast and splendid efforts carried out? Not by the covenanted, but by the uncovenanted servants of India. I am glad the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) has pointed out that the natives of India are in favour of this inquiry. If the educated Indians did not desire an inquiry into the grievances of these civil servants they would be guilty of the grossest injustice, for it is from the labour of these men that India has derived so much advantage. These men have managed to weld together Eastern and Western civilization. Surely in common justice they are entitled be an inquiry. I am not entirely bereft of personal motives in this matter. A great many of my fellow countrymen are in the service, and I got a letter from one of them only the day before yesterday. He writes—
  "We ought not to be allowed to starve after spending all our lives in working for the Government."
  That is typical of the feeling of the public servants. I have special reasons for knowing the miserable circumstances of

  1643
  some of these men, who, having spent 38 years in the public service under the most trying conditions, are now enduring the miseries of genteel poverty. My friend encloses in his letter a photograph. I do not know whether it is a material one, but it shows how deeply these uncovenanted servants feel their position. It represents an uncovenanted servant as a sandwich man, but looking, as all the uncovenanted servants do, every inch a gentleman, and upon the board he is carrying are the words "A pensioner of the Indian Government." If not actually, these men are morally beggars. On these grounds I hope the House will favourably consider the claims now put forward—claims that are backed by public opinion in India and by the Government of India in India, and supported by all the Anglo-Indian Press. I do not want to bring in a word that may seem anything in the nature of intimidation, but I say that if this Resolution is opposed by the Government we know on whom to lay the responsibility of the opposition, the fifteen wise men who constitute the Council for India, who are powerful not for good but for mischief, and still baulk every effort of the Government of India. I hope the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary will exercise a firm and wise discretion, and offer some solace to these deserving public servants who have had the word of promise kept to the ear and so broken to the hope.
  COLONEL HILL: I desire to give my general support to the Resolution what has been so ably moved and seconded. I do not propose to deal with it merely as a question of justice, though I hope that lever is sufficiently strong to move the House to grant this request, but I do so on the ground of public policy, and I venture stoutly to maintain that it is contrary to all sound commercial economy to allow a large class of public servants to remain in a state of chronic dissatisfaction smarting under what they consider a great injustice without making some attempt to remove their grievances. The few observations I propose to make will be directed more especially to one class, that of the engineers called "Uncovenanted," though I believe some years ago that term was ordered to cease to apply to them. The engineers of the public works of India have been more correctly described—the class I am
  1644
  referring to—by the Commission lately sitting in India as "Imperial Engineers." They are formed of three classes, the "Royal Engineers," the "Stanley," and the "Cooper's Hill" Engineers. These are all of the same social position; they have received similar education—in fact, I believe the expense of the Cooper's Hill education is higher than that of the Royal Engineers—they are of equal skill and ability, as has been acknowledged by high authority; they are employed on similar work, and several high authorities (Secretaries of State and Viceroys of India) have given them most clearly to understand, in official documents, that they were to be treated in a similar manner. Such was the recommendation of the Public Service Commission appointed by the Government of India in 1886-7, which issued its Report in October last year. As a matter of fact, the Civil Engineers of India would be perfectly satisfied if effect were given to the recommendation of that Commission, and would accept it as a remedy for the grievances to which they are subjected. But no attention, so far as I am aware, has ever been given to that Report, or to the assurances of Secretaries of State and Viceroys to which I have referred either in matters of pay, leave allowances, or pensions. This last is the most important consideration and one as to which the greatest injustice can be shown. It is quite conceivable that officers may be prepared to accept the privations of service in India—and I may remind the House that those privations are very considerable, not only from climatic influences, but the disadvantages of long years of separation from their children, if not from their wives—they may accept these privations as necessary conditions of a service into which they have voluntarily entered, but it is a very different thing when they see the provision for their old age in the way of pensions diminishing visibly before their eyes. To illustrate the injustice which these Civil Engineers of the Imperial Service are suffering, I will draw attention to a few facts. An officer of the Royal Engineers may be serving under an engineer of the Stanley or Cooper's Hill type, and after 28 years of service the former retires on a pension of £500, while the latter has 5,000 rupees or £333; the former may attain

  1645
  to £700 sterling, while the Civil Engineer, who performs the same duties exactly, if he succeed in getting to the top of the tree (an advantage open to few indeed), he can only receive 7,000 rupees or £466. I do not say that the pay of the Royal Engineers is too much. I do not think it is, but I do maintain that the Stanley and Cooper's Hill Engineers receive too little; it is less than they were given to expect by the terms of the agreement under which they entered the service, less than the Government themselves intended they should receive, less than suffices to maintain themselves and their families, and less than suffices for a decent provision for old age when they retire after many years faithful service in India. I put it to the House, can the best services of these gentlemen be expected—is it possible for them with the best intentions to give their best services? No mercantile firm would for a moment think of maintaining in their service a staff of servants who were smarting under such a sense of injustice, working with such a mill-stone round their necks. Those who know the public works of India cannot but feel the money is very well spent upon them. What would be the cost of giving satisfaction to an important and useful class of public servants, compared with the difference that would be made in the cost of the works by having servants thoroughly well contented with their service, and striving to do the best they possibly could. These are honourable, high-minded gentlemen, incapable of availing themselves of the many opportunities which occur for increasing their pay while they are in India. It is most important that such a standard of service should be kept up. We heard something of the poor Indian ratepayer, but I am not quite so sure that he is so poor as has been represented, and as the hon. Member for Northampton put it, I am certain he is not so poor that he need wish to be dishonest. I would remind the House that the natives of India derive the greatest possible benefit from the good service of the gentlemen for whom we are pleading; and not only so, but they have benefited very largely by the circumstances which have injured the prospects of these gentlemen. There can be no doubt that the depreciation of the rupee has been, in many
  1646
  parts of India, of very great service to the industries of the country. It has been asserted that gold can purchase more now than it used to do, and that may be so as regards luxuries, but I think there is not much question of luxuries on a pension of £333 a year. The cost of education, clothing, house rent, and many necessaries of life has not decreased, and in many instances the prices of these things have increased. But I do not think this is an argument that ought to affect the merits of the case at all. If it were raised, it would be an argument for revising the whole system of pensions and salaries throughout India, and possibly at home also. I hope Her Majesty's Government will see their way to grant this inquiry not only with a view to considering the justice of the case—a great country like ours cannot afford to be unjust—but for the interest of the Public Service itself.
  MR. J. G. FITZGERALDI am desirous of supporting the Motion for inquiry, for there appears on the face of it a legitimate claim for redress of a grievance. Among these public servants whose cause we plead, there are many of the profession to which I have the honour to belong. I think it will be agreed that it is a misfortune amounting almost to ruination for a man to put his hand into his pocket and find that though he put £500 in he can only take 340 sovereigns out. These men have had to work, many of them, for 30 years before attaining to their pension in a foreign country under severe climatic disadvantages, and I think there can be no doubt that we ought to take the first step to inquire with a view to removing the burden that rests upon the shoulders of these men through the depreciation in the value of the rupee after they are seeking repose in this country from long and arduous labour in India. The Uncovenanted servants assert, and I think justly assert, that they have been induced to enter this special branch of the service under something very like false pretences. In the first place, some of them actually have covenants with the Indian Government; and in the second place, they assert they were induced to enter the service on the faith of official prospectuses setting out that a certain amount of their pay would be deducted

  1647
  which hereafter would be paid back to them in pension allowances. Nor has the hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution explained to the House that this pay was actually deducted at the time when the rupee was at the value of 2s., but then when the men had completed their term of arduous service, the Government of India turned round and said we can only give you back 1s. 4½d. instead of the 2s. we stopped from your pay although we have had the interest of your money all this time. The Under Secretary for India will probably resist the granting of the commission on three grounds. In the first place, I expect he will say that this unfortunate body of men have no case in law, and he will add, what we are constantly hearing from the Treasury Bench when we ask for redress of grievances, if you think you have a grievance, you can take legal action. But it is not an easy matter for an isolated and comparatively poor body of men to go to law with a rich Government. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman will ground his resistance upon solicitude for the poor Indian taxpayer, but as the hon. Member for North Kensington has shown we are anxious to save the taxpayer from the cost of legal proceedings. This new Radicalism of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary and his Party is becoming very apparent to the people of this country, it is simply an enamel with which they cover their Tory resistance to every appeal made to them for justice to any particular class. Surely if the Radicalism is not more apparent than real the friends of the new peasant proprietors of Ireland will not think it too Radical a measure to extend to this body of Indian civil servants the same privileges extended to native gentlemen in the same service by paying them in pounds sterling that they may enjoy in their own country that repose which the native gentleman does for the amount he receives in rupees in India? I implore the House in dealing with this particular question, which, after all, is only the appeal of a small body of men, to consider how it can in any way affect the 200 millions of Indian taxpayers. How in the world can it improve the condition of Indian taxpayers, to place a certain tax on the salaries of 1,500 men, when you leave alone the salaries of 4,350 other servants of the same
  1648
  class, and do nothing at all with the number of other officials who are under the Indian Government. I implore the House in considering this question to refrain from being dragged into the legal net, which the Under Secretary will undoubtedly spread for them, of obscure statutes and dried-up Acts of Parliament, and instead of dealing with this body of men on the narrow ledge of legal technicalities and ill-construed Acts framed by partizan lawyers for partizan purposes, to deal with it as the House of Commons ought to deal with the claims of an honest body of men on the broader basis of honesty, justice, and equity.
  MR. MALLOCKI will only detain the House a few minutes in expressing my hope that the Government will tell us they are not going to resist this inquiry. I served in India some years—not in either branch of the Civil Service—but I have a great many friends in both branches, and I know enough of the condition of those in both services to say that though the work of both is must important and hard and onerous in an equal degree, still all the prizes in India fall to the covenanted service. This is no ground of complaint by members of the uncovenanted service, and I was sorry to hear an hon. Member just now make that complaint. I do not think the uncovenanted servants at all complain that the covenanted servants have the best appointments. The uncovenanted servants accepted their engagements with their eyes open, knew their employment, and that they would be paid in rupees while in India; they recognised always that the covenanted service would have the better pay in India, better appointments, and they recognised also that they would have better pensions; but what they did not recognize was that their lower and more meagre pensions after retirement were liable to be cut down 20 or 30 per cent below what they were given to understand would be received. Perhaps they ought never to have looked upon the pensions as likely to be paid in pounds, but all official notifications when they entered the service referred to the amount in sterling, £300 or £400, or whatever it might be. We have heard of profound scholars being supposed to think in Latin, and dream in

  1649
  Greek, but I do not think it could have been expected of young men going to join the service in India that they would calculate their pensions in rupees, annas, and pies. Lord Dufferin a day or two ago, speaking in the City, referred to the Civil Service of India in the most eulogistic terms, and, as I read his remarks, he referred to both branches of the Civil Service. He spoke in the highest possible terms of the manner in which they performed their administrative and political duties in India, compared to which, he said, a great deal of the work of the House of Commons was mere child's play, and I, having been in India for some time, and in the House of Commons for some short time, am inclined to agree with Lord Dufferin. What has happened is this. The members of one branch of that service of which Lord Dufferin spoke so highly, owing purely to the accident that the pensions were fixed in rupees originally, after they have served long and faithfully in India come home and then find that not only do they receive 20 or 30 per cent less than they expected, but their prospects are decreasing every year. I remember last year when the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed his conversion scheme it was stated in this House and in another place, and I daresay hon. Members heard the same thing repeated among their own constituents, that it was a very hard measure for widows and persons who had no faith in any security but the Funds that they should have their income suddenly reduced so much, but they at all events had the opportunity in nearly every case of taking their capital out of the Funds and investing it elsewhere. These unfortunate men, on the other hand, who have fixed pensions, see their income falling every year, and have no hope of arresting the decline. I do hope the Government will recognize the position and give us an assurance that they will give this matter their most serious attention.
  SIR W. PLOWDENI do not think that any man who has had acquaintance with the Services in India will at all differ from hon. Members in the estimate of the arduous nature of the work performed by the men whose claims are now urged by the hon. Member for North Kensington, and
  1650
  the effective manner in which their duties are discharged; but that is hardly a matter we have to consider in relation to the proposal brought before the House to-night. I must say that, although I agree with a portion of the argument of the hon. Member for North Kensington, I think he is not well advised in the manner in which he has framed his Resolution, because in that Resolution the House is called upon to commit itself to a very decided opinion that a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire into grievances of the Uncovenanted Services, with special reference to their pension and leave rates, and the effect of the depreciation of silver on their pensions; but, as was just now mentioned, the Public Service Commission, as I think it is called, has reported upon these matters. If hon. Members will turn to the Report of the Commission, they will find that the whole of the question is virtually taken out of our hands unless we wish to mix ourselves up in it, and that the Commission did report on these very matters. It seems to me it would be very rash for this House to pass such a censure as is implied in this Motion on the Government of India. The Indian Government are quite capable of dealing with a question of this character; in fact they are dealing with it now, and we have quite sufficient work of our own to do without interfering with work which can be best done in India by persons acquainted with the wants of the Civil servants and the circumstances of the country. I agree with the hon. Member for North Kensington that the Government are bound to consider certain individual cases. Those gentlemen who joined the Service after the promulgation of the regulation of 1871 must have been well aware of the nature of the pensions they would receive, but that was not the case with those who joined before the regulation was promulgated. As an illustration of how harshly some of these Civil servants have been dealt with, I will mention that the bond under which one of these gentlemen took up his service in India, specifies that all payments to be made under the bond should be calculated at the rate of £1 to 10 rupees. In that bond, though reference is made to pension, it is not intimated it shall be treated differently, or other than pay. Again, in the

  1651
  prospectus of the Indian Office in September, 1866, the salaries of the Indian Telegraphic Establishment were all designated in pounds and not in rupees. I think it is a great hardship that one method of payment should be adopted by the Government in India and another in England. What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. The Government has not been the goose in this matter. Out of a total of £12,224, which one official was entitled to for his 21 years' service, the Government have positively gained 20,461 rupees by the proceeding of taking the £ not at the rate of exchange, but at 10 rupees. Then why not take the pension at 10 rupees per £ as they had taken the pay? Whatever legal claim the Government may have to bind these civil servants to the terms of their bond, they have no moral right to do so. Special cases, of which there are not a very great number, ought to be fairly treated by the Government; and, therefore, I hope the Under Secretary of State for India will give an assurance on the part of the Government that individual claims shall receive equitable consideration. I regret very much that the hon. Member for Kensington has not confined himself to a specific class of cases. It is impossible for this House to take up the whole question of the pay, pensions, and allowances to uncovenanted civil servants. That matter is already being dealt with in an effective way by the Government of India. The subject is a large one and requires so much attention and consideration that it cannot be dealt with rapidly, but if the hon. Member the Under Secretary for India cannot give me the undertaking I ask for, if it is in order, I shall move an Amendment to the Resolution of the hon. Member for North Kensington.
  MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member cannot move an Amendment to the Amendment now before the House.
  SIR W. PLOWDENThen, in that case, I will only impress on the Under Secretary for India the necessity of giving the House such an assurance as I have indicated.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIAI can assure the House in answer to the appeal that has just been made, that the Government are in
  1652
  the habit of dealing with every case that is brought before them on its merits. There are cases in which furlough allowances and even pensions have to be paid in sterling, in consequence of the peculiar and special circumstances of the agreement entered into; and all these contracts are examined, not in the pettifogging spirit which the Member for Kensington rather attributed to the Secretary of State, but with a sincere desire to do full justice, and to give the officers, whose admirable services have been rightly extolled, everything to which they are entitled. It is not a pleasant task to me to have to get up apparently to resist appeals that are made for inquiries into alleged grievances. I can corroborate all that has been said as to the deserts of these officers. I have often had to praise them; I have often appealed for a charitable construction to be put upon their acts; and I have no wish in any way to undervalue their services or to induce the House to believe that they do not merit their remuneration and their rewards. But when a claim is made for pensions to which after careful examination I am bound to say I do not consider these gentlemen to be entitled, I have to remember that in this House I represent the taxpayer of India. I should fail in my duty if I did not warn the House that it must not be generous with other people's money, and in meting out justice to those who are entitled to the utmost consideration we must also remember that the fund from which the money has to be paid is raised from the millions of poor taxpayers in India for whom we are trustees, and whose money we ought to administer with the utmost caution and care. The discussion has been rendered a little more difficult than it would otherwise have been by the enormous amount of canvassing to which individual Members have been subjected. It is not a matter in which our constituents generally take a lively interest; but I suppose there is not a Member in the House who has not a relation or a friend or an influential supporter directly or indirectly interested in the question. I have been canvassed myself; I was canvassed by a lady, who in the strongest terms pleaded with me to support the Motion for inquiry by speech and vote,

  1653
  and nothing but the fact of my being Under Secretary saved me from yielding to the temptation. There are two perfectly distinct classes of public servants to be dealt with—first, the exist ing public servants in India, and, secondly, those who have retired from the service and who have to receive the pension they have earned. The respective interests of the two classes are different from each other, but they have been adroitly mixed up by some speakers. I will deal with them separately. Nothing that I can conceive can be more detrimental to the interests of existing officers than the appointment of the proposed Committee, because there has been sitting for two years in India the Public Service Commission which has taken evidence that fills five volumes. Its inquiry was brought to an end a year ago, and since that time the Secretary of State and the Government of India have been actively engaged in elaborating a radical change in the public service in India. The matter is still under consideration, and therefore it would be unbecoming in me to indicate the conclusion at which the Secretary of State is likely to arrive; but it is a great mistake to suppose that he or the Government of India will be blindly led by the mere suggestions of the Commission. The vast mass of evidence is being considered and digested, and a plan for the reorganization of the service is far advanced, and, if the House does not interfere, is likely to be speedily matured and acted upon. It is clear you cannot deal with the grievances of any existing servants until you have settled what is to be the ultimate plan upon which the public service of India is to be constituted. I have listened to many of the grievances. I remember the grievances alleged in the debate of last year; and the Government have received many memorials and representations pointing out weaknesses in our present system, all of which have been to the best of our ability considered and digested. In the new arrangements regard will be had to these representations, and I trust the invidious distinctions between the high officers of the Uncovenanted Service and those of the Covenanted Service now complained of may be done away with. You must obviously wait until this is done before you consider the circumstances of the
  1654
  existing servants and how you can best remedy their grievances. It is the most earnest desire of the Secretary of State to consider every class of existing servants as soon as the new plan is settled, to bring them into harmony with the new system and to remove their grievances. Now, I know that this plan will not suit the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh). That hon. Member, who probably has not read the five volumes of evidence, is in favour of endless inquiry, and would overwhelm the Government with information. I hope the House will not fall into the trap. The hon. Member says he speaks for the educated classes of India, but he does not speak for the poor people, for those who really pay the taxes; the Government alone represents them and looks after their interests. It is in their interest and on their behalf chat the Government are proceeding with practical reforms, and they do not want the time of the House wasted in the endless inquiries to which the hon. Member for Northampton invites us. This consideration appears to weigh even in the mind of the hon. Member for Kensington, who practically sinks the grievances of the existing service and concentrates his efforts upon the case of retired officers entitled to pensions, and the whole burden of his complaint was that these officers are paid in rupees and not in sterling.
  SIR. R. LETHBRIDGEI am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but those who heard me will, I am sure, bear me out when I say that I directed my remarks to the circumstances of all existing members of the Departments which I enumerated—not only the retired, but the present servants of the Government.
  SIR J. GORSTThat was, no doubt, so, but the hon. Member has misunderstood me. It was entirely in reference to their pensions, and not in reference to their position in the service that he spoke. My answer is that if the House were to have a Committee of that extremely limited scope, there is nothing to inquire into. The facts are perfectly well known already. They are these: The name "Uncovenanted" is a misleading epithet. There is no such thing as a really Uncovenanted civil servant. Every man enters the service under a contract, which the Government are as much bound to keep as any gen-

  1655
  tleman is bound to observe his contract with a servant. I approach this part of the question with some regret, because I have been denounced as likely to mislead the House by casting a net of law round it and by pettifogging legal arguments involving the obscurities of old statutes. I will not, however, qnote a single musty statute, but endeavour to deal with the case from the point of view of reason and common sense. Now, one part of the contract of these gentlemen was that at a certain period they were to get a pension, which was to be paid in India in rupees. Up to 1862 all these pensions were paid in India in rupees. But gentlemen who came back to England had to employ an agent to receive their pensions and transmit them to this country. In the year 1862 it was represented that this was a great hardship, and in consequence of this representation the Government conferred upon them the boon of payment in London, but it was upon the express stipulation that the payment should be made in London at the official rate of exchange. The hon. Member for Kensington has shown a great anxiety that I should produce a certain appendix to the prospectus of the Cooper's Hill College, in 1871, which the hon. Member was sure would put my case out of Court. Well, I experienced great difficulty in getting this appendix. But it was at length discovered laid on the Table of the House, printed with extraordinary expedition, and circulated among many Members of the House. I will call attention to the paragraphs of this document relating to the payment of pensions. This is the final paragraph of this document—
  "An officer shall, on retirement, have the option of drawing his pension either in India or from the Home Treasury. After exercising his option on retirement, he may at a subsequent period change the place of payment from India to England or vice versa. This change can, however, be allowed but once. The payments in England will be made at the rate of exchange which is annually fixed in communication with the Lords of the Treasury for the adjustment of transactions between the British and the Indian Exchequers."
  SIR R. LETHBRIDGEWill my hon. Friend read the part referring to salaries?
  SIR J. GORSTI do not see why the whole document should be read; but the point about salaries is that they are de-
  1656
  scribed in rupees or pounds sterling, and the rupee is given at 2s., at which it stood in 1862 and for some years afterwards. But that does not affect the regulations under which the pensions are to be paid. The House will remember that it was in 1862 that this stipulation as to payment of pensions was made. The rupee had for many years been 2s., and nobody supposed it would go down. It remained there until 1872, and it was not until two years after that the downward tendency of exchange became marked. There is, however, no doubt whatever that by the fall in the rupee that has since taken place, these gentlemen have incurred very great loss. It is an extremely hard fate, and I can assure the House and assure the gentlemen concerned that nobody sympathises more deeply than I do with them in the loss—the unexpected loss—which many of them have sustained by the fall of the rupee. But they are not the only persons who have suffered by the fall of the rupee. If you were going in the excess of your generosity to make a proposal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he should make good the losses of these gentlemen, then you would at least be spending your own money. But because these gentlemen have incurred a loss, expected neither by themselves nor by the Government of India at the time when this agreement was made, what right have you to say that you will compel the taxpayers of India to make this good? Really in this debate I have listened with surprise, particularly to the hon. Member opposite, who has spoken as if the Secretary of State were some wealthy plutocrat, denying the just demands of the people upon the huge stores of gold and silver over which he had command. He talked about his having gained the sum of 23,000 rupees out of these gentlemen's pockets. We have not gained a single sixpence. The taxpayer in India is not one penny the richer because of the fall in the rupee. He has had to pay in salaries all the rupees these gentlemen engaged for; he has had to pay in pensions every rupee stipulated for, and it is not his fault that when these rupees come to London, they have not the same purchasing power as they had at the time of the agreement. What right have you to say that it is the taxpayer of India who is to suffer the loss, who is

  1657
  to give more than he undertook to give, because the rate of exchange is against him. Well, now, I do not know quite whether the hon. Member for North Kensington really puts this on justice or generosity. He used very strong words, and he said he asked for justice and nothing but justice. Let me remind him that in this country he need not come to the House of Commons for justice. The Secretary of State has made a contract. If he does not keep that contract, "the law is open, and there are 'deputies.' Let them unplead one another." The hon. Member says that no individual pensioner has sufficient wealth to go to law. But there is an association. Why does nit the association, if the Secretary of State will not fulfil the contract he has made, take a case to the Courts of Law? I can undertake that no pettifogging objection shall be made. I can undertake that every facility shall be given for having the opinion of the Courts of Law upon the contract made by the Secretary of State, and that the decision once given shall be applied to every officer of the same class. But they will never take their case into Courts of Law, because they know that they have not a leg to stand on. A great deal was made about Mr. Gordon's case by the hon. Member for North Kensington. Why not take Mr. Gordon's case as a test case? I can tell the hon. Member why the Secretary of State will not pay Mr. Gordon in sterling, because Mr. Gordon only contracted at the time he made his contract for a rupee pension payable in Calcutta, and because—according to Mr. Gordon's contract—he is only entitled to draw a certain number of rupees as a pension from the Treasury of Calcutta. He draws it in London upon the express condition that he shall receive it at the official rate of exchange. But we had another particular case quoted by the hon. Member. It is a good illustration how liable the Secretary of State is to misrepresention if he does deal with a particular case. This case was misquoted and misstated by the hon. Member for North Kensington and by an hon. Gentleman from Ireland, who enlarged upon what has passed as an instance of the meanness and of the despicable and pettifogging practice of the Secretary of State for India. It was the case of an educational officer, and
  1658
  I am happily able to tell the House exactly what the circumstances are. The House will remember that it was put by the hon. Member for North Kensington that when the Secretary of State would not pay, this Gentleman went into the City and consulted a firm of solicitors, whereupon the Secretary of State paid £1,500 to buy off his hostility.
  SIR R. LETHBRIDGENot to buy off his hostility. I said it was in appreciation of this gentleman's very great and acknowledged abilities.
  SIR J. GORSTAh, yes, that is what the hon. Member said, but only those Members who were present in the House could appreciate the tone in which it was said. It was not the words, it was the insinuation, which was correctly caught by the hon. Member for Kerry. He interpreted the hon. Member for North Kensington's tone, and translated it into actual phrases. Now, this is what the case really was. It was the case of an educational officer who came home quite recently, either last year or the year before, from Lahore. This case had nothing whatever to do with the question of the value of the rupee. The Punjaub Government had willed that this gentleman should retire, retire, and had offered special terms of retirement which they said they would propose to the Secretary of State for India. When this gentleman arrived at home the Secretary of State could not sanction the terms which the Government of the Punjaub had offered, because they were quite ultra vires and beyond the scale. But upon having information furnished him of a confidential character showing that the Punjaub Government had actually made the offer, and that the officer had been induced to retire upon that offer, the Secretary of State offered this substantial sum of money to settle the case. That is the special case which the Secretary of State dealt with on its merits, and this is the way the special case is made use of in the House of Commons. I hope I have said enough to the House to induce them to pause before they appoint a Committee for the purpose of dictating to the Secretary of State and to the Government of India, that they are to pay these gentlemen a pension for which they have not contracted, and to which they are not legally entitled.

  1659
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Northampton, was quite right in saying I should not be surprised at his seconding the Motion. Nothing surprises me in politics; yet had I been capable of feeling the emotion of surprise, I should have felt it when I heard an hon. Member, who is celebrated throughout the country for his opposition to pensions, who will scarcely allow pensions that are due to be paid in this country, insisting that the Indian taxpayers were to pay pensions that were not legally due; when I heard an hon. Member who renders himself, at least, in this House, remarkable for his appeals to constitutional and legal principles, trying to lead the House of Commons to usurp a function of which it has carefully and expressly divested itself—that is, interference with the revenues of India. Let me remind the House of Commons that they have, by their own act, placed it out of their power to interfere with the revenues and expenditure of India. It is quite true that they have the most absolute control over the Secretary of State, but the Secretary of State himself cannot spend one single penny of the Indian revenue without the consent of the Indian Council—of men whom he cannot dismiss, of men whose actions he cannot control, and the consent of a majority of whom is absolutely essential before a single penny can be spent. When the House of Commons has, from obvious motives, and in the wisest spirit thus divested itself of the power of meddling with the revenues of India, is it constitutional, is it wise, is it legal for the House to appoint a Committee for the purpose of dictating to the Secretary of State and to the Government of India that they are to pay out of the revenues of India money which is not legally due? Well, Sir, there is one more consideration which I must submit to the House before I sit down. I was made the subject of sneers and ridicule by the hon. Member for Northampton, who represents the educated, English-speaking, and ambitious class of Indian natives, because I ventured in the House of Commons last year to say that I stood up as the representative of the poor taxpayers. Well, I stand up as the representative of the poor taxpayers again. If there is one person in this House whose duty it is to ever be mind-
  1660
  ful of the rights and of the interests of the poor taxpayers of India it is the person who in this House represents the Secretary of State for India. I think it would have a bad moral effect if the only interference, the only direct interference of the House of Commons in the affairs of India were to be the appointment of a Committee to exact more money from the Indian taxpayers, to be spent in London, to be paid in London, and to go into the pockets of Englishmen. I know something of that agitation with which the hon. Member for Northampton is connected. I know that one of the complaints they make—it may be right or it may be wrong—is of the great drain upon the resources of India by reason of the enormous sums which they already have to pay in this country. Remember that India not only has to pay the interest upon her debt, she has to pay the interest upon large sums of money borrowed for the construction of her railways; she has to pay for the English Army in India; she has to pay for the establishment of the India Office; she has to pay for an immense amount of stores which are purchased in this country; and all these payments, for which rupees have to be collected from the taxpayers of India, have to be made in sterling, and for every payment so made an extra 50 per cent has to be extracted from the Indian taxpayer to make up the amount. The Secretary of State has struggled, and is struggling now, to reduce the sum to the minimum, and any interference on the part of the House of Commons of the description proposed would thwart the Secretary of State. You may depend upon it there is every desire on the part of Her Majesty's Government to place the civil servants of India in such a position as to make them contented and happy. There is every disposition, as soon as the new order of things is created, to review in a generous spirit the position of the existing officers, and to bring them as early as possible under the new conditions. There is a determination to deal not only honestly, but generously, with individual cases, and where any officer can show that by the exceptional character of his agreement he is entitled to be paid in sterling, in sterling we shall pay him. But the Secretary of

  1661
  State, unless compelled by the House Commons, will not exact additionl taxes from the people of India in order to pay gentlemen in England sums money that are not due to them.
  MR. KINGIt must, Sir, be admitted that anyone, especially an almost untried Member like myself, is placed at some disadvantage in following so accomplished a rhetorician as the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India, and I think that if the mover an seconder of this Resolution deserve nothing else, they surely deserve the thanks of the House for having extracted the speech we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman. He is always so eloquent, his periods are always so incisive, and his imagination is above all so fertile that it is a matter of delight to all his friends whenever he can be persuaded to get upon his legs in this House. But when my hon. Friend breaks from his reserve, and lets us into the secrets of his sanctuary, furnishing us with revelations from the proceedings of the India Office, he affords us an additional pleasure, and we must all not only envy him his office, but congratulate him on his escape from the toils of the Uncovenanted Circe, like another Sampson who has got free from his Delilah. But when he wants to prohibit canvassing by the members of the Service, he forgets that to them it is a matter of hunger and starvation—that they cannot educate their children nor keep up their insurance—and that pinched as they are in their old age, they cannot help appealing to their friends to lend them a helping hand. The poor taxpayer argument is one that we have all heard before; in fact, the speech of my hon. Friend might almost be stereotyped for future use, because I warn him that this is not the last time he will hear of this subject or that an attempt will be made to get the House of Commons to inquire into it. On this occasion my hon. Friend divides the Service into two. He speaks of the existing men in the Service, and also of the pensioners, but he specially avoided any specific allusion to the latter except to promise special attention to any special case, a promise
  1662
  which I am afraid will very seldom be found to be of any great advantage. The hon. Gentleman can only offer to allow these persons to take any case they like into Court, but will he also undertake that their acquiescence will not be in bar pleaded? I do not intend to take up much of the time of the House at so late an hour, but as the House is aware of the interest I take in this subject, I hope I may be allowed to refer to one or two points, which, I think, may tend to put upon the matter a somewhat different complexion to that which it has been made to assume in the speech of my hon. Friend the Under Secretary. The hon. Gentleman is fond of going over the argument that up to 1862 the pensions were only paid in India, and that then a special arrangement was made as to how pensions were to be payable in this country. I have here a Return which I myself moved for, but before going into it, I may say that I believe the pensions of the Uncovenanted Service were in more cases than one up to the year 1862 paid in sterling. The Return which I have here shows that upwards of 150 of the Uncovenanted civil servants were drawing in sterling in this country, and in reference to this matter I should like to read to the House an extract from the despatch of the old Court of Directors of the East India Company, dated the 28th February, 1855. And here I must first ask the House to remember that the existing pensioners, or at any rate most of them, must have entered the service about that time, because 30 years is about the period of service an Uncovenanted civilian has to fulfil, five years being allowed for furlough. Well, at that time the despatch written to India said—
  "You have also brought to our notice that the pension rules of 1831 appear to require some amendment, especially in regard to the cases of highly paid appointments of from £1,000 to £2,400 per annum, the occupants of which appointments, if invalided after 30 years' service, are entitled under the present rule to receive a half pension varying from £500 to £1,200 per annum, whereas the Covenanted servant, after 25 years' service, receives a pension from the Government of only £500 per annum in any case. In the above particular we concur in thinking the present rate to be defective, and we desire that a clause be introduced providing (as respects persons hereinafter appointed to the Service) that in no case shall a larger pension than £400 per annum be granted to Un-

  1663
  covenanted servants receiving salaries above that amount; whether the retirement be from ill-health (after either 20 or 30 years' service) or without a medical certificate after 35 years' service, under the authority conveyed in the despatch of May 5th, 1854, No. 18. With reference to your suggestion that you should receive authority to make a general revision of the pension rule, we shall be ready promptly to consider the subject of any further alterations to be made, until they shall have been sanctioned by us."
  Again, in accordance with the despatch, above quoted, the Government of India published a Resolution under date May 19th, 1855, to the effect
  "That in no case (as respects persons hereinafter appointed to the Uncovenanted Service) shall a larger pension than £400 or Rs.4,000 per annum be granted to Uncovenanted servants receiving salaries of Rs.750 to Rs.1,000 a month, nor a larger pension than £500 or Rs.5,000 per annum to Uncovenanted servants receiving salaries above that amount, whether the retirement be from ill-health (after either twenty or thirty years' services) or without a medical certificate after thirty-five years' service."
  Now, there is not one syllable in that despatch as to rupees or exchange except the deliberate promise of £500 per annum to those who come in after the 28th February, 1855, those who were in service before the 28th February, 1855, being entitled to half-pay. The case of Mr. Forjet shows that the India Office admits the accuracy of this statement. On the 25th March, 1862, the Government of Bombay wrote to the Secretary of State the following letter:—
  "Mr. Forjet, it appears, has served the Government continuously for upwards of 35 years, and his conduct during that period has been uniformly good.... He is therefore entitled, in accordance with the 9th paragraph of the Orders of the Court of Directors of the 5th May, 1854, No. 18, to a pension of 600 rupees a month, or £720 per annum, being half of his salary during the last five years of his service."
  This shows that Mr. Forjet was at least allowed to draw £720 per annum. Now, in regard to what has been said with reference to the Public Service Commission, the fact has already been alluded to that that Commission was expressly prohibited from inquiring into the grievances of the Uncovenanted servants, and therefore it is unfair to say that those grievances were considered by them. I must here repeat that all we are asking for is an inquiry. I cannot enter much further into the
  1664
  arguments in favour of this proposal as it would be impossible within the limits of the time now at our disposal to deal with this subject in all its bearings. I have shown that in one particular case in which a man had an undoubted claim to the service, he succeeded in getting it, but there are 12 other gentlemen who are now pensioners who have petitioned the Secretary of State in reference to their claims. Those petitions have been referred to the Government of India, and have, of course, been duly pigeon-holed, no redress being apparently permissible. This is the way in which the promise to consider individual cases appears to be carried out. I am speaking with perfect accuracy when I say that these cases were on all fours with Mr. Forjet's case. Those gentlemen who were in the service prior to 1855 are most assuredly entitled to sterling pensions.
  SIR JOHN GORSTI would remind the hon. Gentleman that that case has not been brought forward before, but I may add that a despatch was sent to the Government of India recommending the desirability of dealing with the case as expeditiously as possible.
  MR. KINGThat is what I was saying. I will now only say in conclusion that we who support this Resolution believe a Committee of this House would be a fair and impartial tribunal, and we shall have no fear whatever in going before it. If that Committee should decide against us, we will accept its decision, and in that way you may end the question—end a very dangerous agitation which is now injuring the public service of India and sapping the good feeling and loyalty of the Civil Service in that part of the world. Such an inquiry seems to me to be in every way desirable, and I cannot understand on what grounds my hon. Friend refuses it. The hon. Gentleman says he has a good case. We are asking him to listen to the appeal of our fellow citizens in India. We are sorry they cannot appear at the Bar of the House of Commons. No employer of labour finds it desirable or safe to disregard his pledges to his employés, and certainly no just employer can reasonably refuse to examine into the grievances of those he employs. These Uncovenanted civil servants appear before the House of

  1665
  Commons, through us, and ask for an inquiry with a view to the redress of their grievances. They are unable to appear here in person, but they could appear before a Committee up stairs; and I say it is the duty of the House, under the Act by which the Government of India was transferred from the East India Company to Her Majesty's Government, not to shrink from the responsibility which is hero involved, but at once to enter upon the investigations now humbly asked for.
  MR. H. CHAPLINI have considerable sympathy with the Motion of my hon. Friend behind me, for it forms part of a much larger question which I hope, before many days have elapsed, we may have an opportunity of discussing. Two things appear manifest from the Debate, that the Uncovenanted servants have a substantial grievance, and that they are not likely to get much from Her Majesty's Government on this occasion, to judge from the speech of the Under Secretary for India, who said that nothing could be done until the plan now under the consideration of the Indian Council was settled. But what is this plan and when will it be produced? When are these unfortunate civil servants to expect to derive any advantages from it? Certainly my hon. Friend professed a desire to assist these officials, but he also said that he had regard for the taxpayers, and could not at their expense give this relief. I confess these references of my hon. Friend to the interest of the Indian taxpayers fill me with rejoicing. What is the present position of the taxpayer in India? What is the special, enormous grievance from which he is now suffering? To understand this the House must remember that India owes an enormous sum which has to be paid in gold. It amounts to fifteen millions a year, and the whole revenue out of which the sum is paid is collected in silver. What is the meaning of that? Now that the rupee is only worth 1s. 4d. instead of something approaching 2s., which was formerly its value, it takes an enormously increased revenue to meet the debt of 15 millions, which India is bound to pay to us every year. If the Government and Parliament of this country could see its way to grappling with this larger ques-
  1666
  tion to which I have referred, one of the immediate results would be that the Government would not only get rid at once of a grievance of the Uncovenanted Civil Service, but they would be able to relieve the taxpayer in India, for whom my hon. Friend has professed such enormous interest, of taxation to the extent of something like six millions a year. I think that recent inquiries into this subject have produced a good deal of evidence, showing indisputably that the Uncovenanted civil servants of India have a grievance in this direction, and unless the Government can see its way to favourably considering our views on the wider subject to which I have referred, I confess I cannot understand the objections which are raised to the appointment of another Committee to inquire into this subject. The Under Secretary for India says the only result of such a Committee if its views proved unfavourable to my hon. Friend, would be to impose further burdens on the unfortunate taxpayers of India. I do not agree with him; I do not see the least necessity for such an outcome of the inquiry On the contrary, on referring to the terms of my hon. Friend's Motion, what do I find? He moves:—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire into the grievances of the Members of the Indian Uncovenanted Civil Services, with special reference to their pension and leave rules, and to the effect produced by the fall in the gold value of silver on their family remittances, their leave allowances, and their provision for old age."
  Now, I think it is more than likely that the result of such an inquiry would be not to impose further taxation, but to supplement and support the recommendations of one-half of the Royal Commission on Gold and Silver, and thereby assist in the settlement of this and other important questions.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 122; Noes, 86.—(Division List, No. 136.)

  MERCHANT SHIPPING PILOTAGE BILL (No. 243).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this Bill be read a second time."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHThis is a Bill embodying some of the recommendations of a large and representative Com-

  1667
  mittee of the House which carefully inquired into the subject. Controversial points have been left out of this Bill, which is, among other matters, intended to secure the better representation of pilots on Pilotage Boards, and to deal with their friendly and sick funds so as to secure better management.
  MR. CONYBEARECan the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the Bill does not contain these provisions to which such serious objection was taken last year by hon. Members on this side of the House?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHI can assure the hon. Member that the Bill does not raise those controversial points.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  DIVORCE (ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND) BILL (No. 14).
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That this Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. TOMLINSONI do not think a Bill of this kind should be introduced without explanation and at this hour of the night, and I therefore beg to move the Adjournment of the Debate.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now Adjourned."
  MR. W. H. HUNTERThis is a one clause Bill. I ought to mention to the House that I was fortunate in the ballot in drawing an early place. I intended putting the Bill down for the 27th March, but by a verbal mistake I gave in the date as the 27th April, and therefore lost the opportunity I should otherwise have had of getting the Bill debated. I would suggest that as the Bill is of one clause only, it would be possible to read it at once and debate the principle in Committee, otherwise I fear it will have to stand over to another year.
  Debate adjourned till Tuesday, 18th June, at Two of the clock.

  LAW CLERKS (IRELAND) BILL (No. 180).
  Order for Second Reading, read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. SEXTONI hope the House will assent to the Second Reading of this Bill.
  MR. MADDENI do not think that this is a Bill which can be read a second time without discussion. I think the object of it should be explained to the House. As the right hon. Gentleman must be aware, it makes a very considerable change in the existing state of the law as regards a very important Irish profession. I believe that Irish solicitors themselves are of opinion that the provisions of this Bill should not be assented to. I beg to move the adjournment of the Debate.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."
  MR. CONYBEAREI must say I think we have a right to congratulate the hon. and learned Serjeant on the successful manner in which he has wasted several minutes of the time of the House. I think it is a great achievement of the party of law and order.
  MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Member is not speaking to the Motion.
  MR. SEXTONI have only to say that the Bill is an extremely simple one; it is only intended to make more easy admission to the profession of solicitors. I do not think the body of solicitors are opposing it. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take from me an assurance that if the Bill is read a second time now we will give a favourable reception to any Amendments he may suggest?
  MR. MADDENI can only speak again by the indulgence of the House; but I would like to point out that the Solicitors Bill deals with this as well as other important questions, and it appears to me it will be better to deal with this subject when in Committee on the Solicitors Bill.
  Debate adjourned till Monday next.

  DISPENSARY HOUSES (IRELAND) ACT (1879) AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 120).
  Order for Committee read.
  It being One of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at One o'clock till Monday next.

Preamble
The Duke of Sutherland took the oath.
NAVAL DEFENCE BILL (No. 80.)
Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS BILL (No. 6.)
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS BILL (No. 6.)
  PASSENGERS ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  A Bill to amend the Passengers Act, 1855, and the Passengers Act Amendment Act, 1863—Was presented by the Lord Knutsford; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 100.)
  ADOPTION OF CHILDREN BILL.
  A Bill to regulate the adoption of children and the guardianship of them by incorporated institutes.—Was presented by the Lord Chaworth (E. Meath); read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 101.)
SMOKE NUISANCE ABATEMENT (METROPOLIS) BILL. (No. 13.)
Reported from the Standing Committee for General Bills, with Amendment: The Report thereof received; and Bill re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
HARES PRESERVATION BILL. (No. 72.)
Reported from the Standing Committee for General Bills, with amendments: The Report thereof received; and Bill re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
LAND TRANSFER BILL. No. (8.)
House in Committee (according to order): Amendments made by the Select Committee agreed to; the Report thereof to be received on Monday next.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE WHITSUNTIDE RECESS.
EARL GRANVILLEWould it be convenient for the noble Marquess to state the date on which he proposes that the House should adjourn for the Whitsuntide recess?
THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)The noble Earl is aware that the other House adjourns on Thursday next. I think it will be convenient for your Lordships to adjourn on the same day and re-assemble on Thursday fortnight.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS BILL (No. 62.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  EARL BROWNLOWMy Lords, the Bill, which is now before the House, and to which I beg to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading is, as your Lordships are all aware, founded upon the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the general condition of reformatory and industrial schools. The Bill is essentially a Bill of consolidation, dealing with an enormous mass of details. No doubt these details can be better discussed on the Committee stage, but it is my duty to point out to the House certain changes of the law which the Bill proposes. The Bill is divided into

  1519
  three parts. I will dispose of the third part immediately by merely saying that it is a list of Acts which are amended by the Bill. The first part deals with certified industrial schools, and gives power to the County Councils or the Councils of county boroughs to institute and maintain those institutions wherever they deem them necessary. Contributory powers are also given to the same bodies. The second part of the Bill deals with truant schools and day industrial schools. For these schools the Bill makes the School Board the contributory authority, and they are given the power to institute and maintain such schools. Power is also given for the detention of children in the public elementary schools during the day, in order to insure their attendance during the whole of the school hours. The total number of schools affected by the Bill is as follows:—By the first part—in England 108 and in Scotland 32, or 140 in all, of which 124 has been established by voluntary agency; by the second part—ten truant schools in England, and none in Scotland (all the truant schools being in England) and 15 day industrial schools in England and two in Scotland. The first matter of importance which I have to point out in the Bill is in Clause 10. Clause 10 enacts that where a child is found to be habitually begging or receiving alms, or under improper guardianship, or wandering without any home or settled place of abode, or frequenting the company of any reputed thief or thieves, or of any common or reputed prostitute or prostitutes, or lodging or residing in a house frequented by any prostitute or prostitutes for the purpose of prostitution, or where a child not having been previously convicted of felony is charged before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction with an offence punishable by imprisonment, or a less punishment, if the Court is satisfied of either of these circumstances, and that the child is less than 14 years of age, it may order the child to be sent to a certified industrial school, or, if the child is less than 10 years of age and is not charged with felony, may order that he be placed in charge of a Boarding-out Committee as provided by the Act. Now, this power of handing over the child to a Boarding-out Committee is, for us, a new departure. I have every
  1520
  reason to believe that in this matter England has something to learn from her Colonies. The experiment of boarding-out has been tried to a very great extent in Australia, and with such signal success that the system of boarding-out is rapidly taking the place of industrial schools. I must say that I do not think for a moment that this will be the case in England. It appears to me that there is quite sufficient room both for industrial schools to do the excellent work they are doing, and for the Boarding-out Committees to do their excellent work. But I would point out to the House what children these are who are to be sent to Boarding-out Committees. They are only little children, under 10 years of age, many of them children who have been brought up under no guardianship at all, or—what is worse—under bad guardianship; children of tender age, who require all the comfort and supervision which can only be got in a home. It is for such children as these that this clause is introduced, and I believe that if the Bill is passed into law the system will meet here with the success which it has met with in our Colonies. The next point of importance is this: Clause 12 provides that where a child is charged before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction with an offence for which he may under the Act be detained in a certified industrial school, the Court may instead order the child, if a male, to be whipped; adjourn the case on the parent undertaking to punish the child; fine the parent any sum not exceeding£1; order the parent to give compensation not exceeding £5 for injuries inflicted; or order the parent to give security for the child's good behaviour. The manner in which the whipping is to be administered and the number of strokes to be ordered are carefully dealt with in another part of the Bill. I may say that all these provisions are strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. In Clause 19 there is a provision of some importance. It provides that where a child is ordered to be detained in a certified industrial school, other than a truant school, the order shall be for his detention therein until he attains the age of eighteen years; but it is provided that when the child has attained the age of sixteen years he shall be discharged from the

  1521
  school either absolutely or conditionally. Where a child has been conditionally discharged from a certified industrial school and it is found that he is running into evil courses, or likely to lapse into crime, it is provided that the Secretary of State may revoke the order of discharge and order the child to return to the school, and there remain until he attains the age of eighteen years, or for any less period specified in the order, and if the child disobeys the order, he may be dealt with as if he had escaped from the school. The question of inspection has been most carefully considered. It was proposed at one time that there should be a dual inspection—partly under the Home Office and partly under the Education Department. That proposal raised such vast objections on the part of managers of industrial schools that it was abandoned altogether. On this point I can only repeat what I stated in introducing to your Lordships the companion measure—the Reformatories Bill—namely, that if in the course of the discussion of the Bill any suggestion can be made by which the inspection of the Home Office should not be interfered with or weakened in any way, and at the same time some other inspection should be introduced which is not disagreeable to the managers of industrial schools, the Government will be happy to give that proposal every consideration. Another important provision which I may mention in passing is, that the parents are to be primarily responsible for the cost of maintenance of their children in industrial schools. With regard to the principle of the Bill, this is, as I have said, entirely one of consolidation. There will be a number of questions of more or less important details, such as the age of the children, the exact sum to be contributed by the different contributory authorities, and so forth, which will crop up in Committee, and will, no doubt, have the best consideration of your Lordships at that stage, but at the present time I do not know that there is anything further that I need draw attention to that can be properly discussed on the Second Reading. I am perfectly aware that the question which I have introduced is a dry one. I can only say that I have done my best in as few words as possible to lay before the House the chief provisions of the Bill, and I have to thank
  1522
  your Lordships for the patience with which you have listened to me.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl Brownlow.)
  LORD NORTONMy Lords, although the notice which I have put upon the Paper apparently challenges the principle of this Bill, I quite admit that the subject is of the greatest possible interest to everybody; and, if there is a fault in the principle of the Bill, now is the time, when these Acts are being consolidated, for your Lordships to consider it. What I ask your Lordships to do is to defer the Second Reading until the Bill has been so far corrected that it does not mix up in one common treatment merely destitute and criminal children. The Bill proposes to consolidate and amend the Industrial School Acts, pari passu with another Bill for reformatory schools. It proposes to maintain industrial schools for a distinct purpose and use, while checking their abuse. The abuse is, as everybody agrees who has looked into the subject, that many children are sent to these schools who ought not to be sent. I will refer to only one clause of the Report of the Royal Commission of which I had the honour to be a member, and which was presided over most ably for two or three years by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Aberdare. The Report says—

  "There is ample testimony to the fact that the power of committing children to industrial schools has been largely abused, often from benevolent motives, sometimes because of the facilities afforded by the law to parents to get rid of the burden of their children's support and education by throwing it upon the industrial school system."
  That is a very serious thing. After spending a whole year in London taking evidence, the Commissioners visited industrial schools in all parts of the kingdom. We found that throughout all Scotland the pauper schools had been emptied into the industrial school, so that neither in Edinburgh, or Glasgow, or Aberdeen, were there any pauper schools. Our extremely clever fellow countrymen, by emptying them into the industrial schools, got the charge thrown on the Treasury instead of on the local rates. Then in Ireland, where, if any advantage can be taken of an Act it is sure to be taken, we found, on looking round the industrial schools of Dublin,

  1523
  a very considerable proportion of the children did not come at all under the description of the Act. We sent to the Chief Magistrate of Dublin and pointed out that many of the children were not of the class described in the Act, and he said that they ought to be, but "he had never seen the Act." Now, if an Act is capable of such wholesale abuse, I think it is about time for us to look into it and correct it. The correction proposed by this Bill is to restrict the admission of children into schools of this kind, and the mode in which it proposes to do that is by drawing a line between what are called police cases and purely educational cases. My Amendment goes further, and suggests that all police cases should be removed from industrial schools altogether, and placed in some modified form of reformatories, which would, perhaps, more properly be done under the Reformatories Bill. I can give your Lordships, in a very few words, a sketch of the legislation upon this matter. The first Act was a Scotch Act only—the Scotch Industrial Schools Act of 1854—which provided these schools distinctly for "vagrant children" not convicted of any offence, who were to be put into schools established by Parochial Boards or by voluntary associations. The Act which followed in 1861 made a very material addition. It introduced children, not vagrant or destitute, but who had been charged with an offence before a Magistrate, although not convicted. The English Industrial Schools Act followed on exactly the same lines as the Scotch Act; and in 1866 came the Consolidating Act which is now in force. Under it the industrial schools are of a sort of hybrid description, partly for children who have been charged with offences but not convicted, and partly for destitute and neglected outcast children. In fact, to-day the industrial school is something between a mild reformatory and a refuge. Then the Elementary Education Act of 1870 introduced a totally new class of children into these schools, That Act established School Boards, and enabled them to maintain and even to set up industrial schools to which they could send children for non-attendance in the elementary schools. The Education Act of 1876 carried this still further, largely mutiplying the number of children sent, and establish-
  1524
  ing day industrial schools, extending practically the same system in another direction. That being the state of the law, this Bill proposes to check this large influx of children into these schools by severing the School Boards altogether from industrial schools, and placing all non-attendance cases in separate establishments called truant schools. This, then, is the principle of the Bill to which we are now asked to give a Second Reading—to separate purely educational cases from police cases. But, my Lords, the Bill does not do what it pretends to do. It continues to mix up the two classes. The whole point of my Amendment is to do away with the common treatment of children charged with offences and merely destitute children. If I understand the noble Earl rightly he really wishes the industrial school to be a sort of mild reformatory in which there shall be children charged with offences and sent by Magistrates, and also children who are simply destitute and who have been described as "probable criminals." I say that that phrase is altogether unknown to our English Law. There are criminals, and there are those who, however vicious, however likely to become criminals, are not criminals; but there is no state of "probable criminality" under our law. I might venture to say that there are some Members of this House who, if they had been brought up in the same way as these children, would have been not probable, but actual criminals. Of this I am certain—that our gaols would very soon be overflowing if to the criminals in them we added the "probable criminals" throughout the whole country. Now, to show the folly and wickedness of mixing up the criminal with the non-criminal cases, let me direct your Lordships' attention to one or two of the provisions of this Bill. Power is to be given to any Court of Summary Jurisdiction to order a male child to be whipped. Well, your Lordships know my opinion about flogging generally, but whoever heard of such a monstrous proceeding as whipping destitute children? The State positively in this Bill comes forward in loco parentis to undertake the guardianship of children left wholly without guardians, and it offers them education birch in hand, like the old caricatures

  1525
  of the schoolmaster abroad. Besides, consider the stigma that is cast upon these children whom you take up from the streets. Why should they be stigmatized as quasi-criminals or probable criminals, and sent to the same establishment and submitted to the same control and discipline as those actually charged with offences? It is, I say, most cruel and harsh, and it has, moreover, this mischief about it, that it actually impedes their getting the employment which their training in these schools is intended to fit them for. The proposition which I submit to your Lordships, and very earnestly press upon you to endorse, is that there should be absolutely distinct treatment of children who are criminal and those who are merely destitute and outcast. In support of that view, I can quote the Report of the Royal Commission, and the opinion of one who is recognized by all who take any interest in those institutions to speak with authority. The Report of the Commission suggests that Magistrates shall be authorized to hand over to the Guardians those children who really belong to the pauper class instead of sending them to reformatories. The principal memorandum upon which that recommendation is based quotes Mr. Sydney Turner as giving exactly that advice. There I have two very high authorities for the proposition which I ask your Lordships to affirm. I may observe that my Proposition, though very materially correcting the principle of the Bill, would involve only very slight verbal alterations in the Bill. The principal alteration would be to substitute the Local Government Board for the Secretary of State. Already, I notice, my noble Friend has done away with the phraseology of the Reformatory Acts. Instead of the phrase "committing children to school," we have "sending them to school"; "detention," which strikes one as a prison phrase, is omitted. But, above all, the most material Amendment which the Bill makes in the law is that on which my noble Friend very justly laid stress—namely, the power given to Magistrates to hand these children over to Boarding-out Committees. I thank the noble Lord for having introduced that most valuable Amendment. And, no doubt, the Act works itself out in the direction of Local Government
  1526
  rather than in the direction of police But I wish to see all the provisions affecting children charged with offences taken out of this Bill and put into the Reformatories Bill. That is, so far as mere phraseology goes, a very slight alteration, which can easily be effected in Committee. The proposition for which I am arguing is really no new one; it really embodies the recommendation of the Royal Commission that there should be senior and junior reformatories—one for children who had been convicted more than once, and also for adults, and the other for that class of children which is in the Bill as it now stands so jumbled up with merely destitute children. Let me say that there will be no new establishment required, for fortunately these institutions have been so successful that at this moment there are a great number of reformatories which are not full, and it has actually been proposed that some of them should be done away with. Under the Bill as I propose it should be altered, the Magistrates could commit destitute children picked up in the streets to schools where they could be fitted for service or emigration, or could send them to the Boarding-out Committees. I have heard it objected to my proposal that it would throw extra charges on the rates. I propose that the rates should be charged as they are now mainly on the Treasury, for this reason: These children are not ordinary paupers; they are not connected with thieves; they are waifs and strays thrown upon the charge of the State, and in fairness they should be educated at the expense of the National Treasury. The incidence of cost, then, would be the same, the private management would be the same, the inspection would be the same, and a very great advantage would be gained by securing a better class of education for these children, and there would be relief of the present confusion and multiplication of these institutions. My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
  Amendment moved,
  "To leave out all the words after 'that' and insert this House is unwilling to consent to the Second Reading of this Bill unless so far corrected in principle that schools to be provided by it for homeless children thrown on the

  1527
  streets be classed among schools for the poor under the Local Government Board, and not among schools under the Home Office for children convicted of crime, though in other respects to be specially provided and maintained as proposed in the Bill.'"—(The Lord Norton.)
  LORD LEIGHMy Lords, I do not wish to follow my noble Relative into all the arguments that he has advanced. I think the House generally will congratulate the noble Earl on the very valuable Bill which he has introduced to the House, especially that portion of it which alludes to the power to send children under ten to Boarding-out Committees. I would like, however, to point out to your Lordships two clauses in this Bill, which I must say I hope will be amended in Committee. The first I wish to allude to is a provision in Clause 12, Sub-section (B), which empowers the Court "to adjourn the case on the parent undertaking to punish the child to the satisfaction of the Court." Now, we know who are generally the parents or guardians of these children. In nineteen cases out of twenty they are drunken and reckless, and it would be most undesirable to place in the hands of such people the power to punish their children. Moreover, who is to be the judge of the punishment? I should be very sorry to see this provision retained in the Bill. The other clause which I object to very much, and which I hope will be amended, is Clause 23, which provides that if a child above twelve years of age refuses or wilfully neglects to conform to the rules of the school he shall be liable to be imprisoned with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding three months. Is there one of your Lordships who remembers his own career at school who would not hesitate very much indeed to say that a boy should be imprisoned for "not conforming to the rules of the school?" I call it very harsh, indeed, to give that power to Magistrates, and I trust that clause may also be amended. I have myself given notice to leave out all the words which refer to imprisonment, merely leaving power to the Court before whom the child is brought to order him to be whipped or to send him to a certified reformatory school. I have taken very great interest, indeed, during the last thirty or thirty-five years both in Reformatory and Industrial Schools, and I congratulate the noble
  1528
  Earl (Earl Brownlow) very much on the Bill he has introduced, and I trust that it may pass into law, with Amendments, among others, of the particular passages to which I have called attention.
  LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I join, and I am sure your Lordships, generally, will join with my noble Friend who last spoke in congratulating the noble Earl on the very valuable measure he has introduced to us, but there are one or two observations I would like to make upon it. I think that this is a better Bill than that of last year, although, as regards certain portions, I would have preferred the Bill of last year to this. I cannot quite assent to the proposition of the noble Earl that the Bill is simply an embodiment of the recommendations of the Royal Commission. What did the Royal Commission say on this subject? There was a belief, which has turned out to be a well-grounded belief, that a vast number of children are admitted to the industrial schools who ought not to be there, children who have already embarked on a criminal career, instead of those who are simply found destitute and without guardians. One object of this Bill is to take additional precautions for securing that the schools shall only be used for the class for which they are intended. In Scotland I remember one great objection was that any single Magistrate sitting in his back parlour could commit a child to an industrial school. I presume that the definition of the word "Court" in this Bill would prevent such procedure as that. Another great improvement effected by the Bill is that it enables representatives of County Councils and other authorities, who have to contribute towards the maintenance of the schools, to be present when any child is to be committed to one of the schools, and to state the objections, if any there be, to the particular child being so committed. This will go a great way to prevent the use of these schools by children for whom they are not intended. There is one most important provision introduced in this Bill for the first time, and that is the system of boarding-out for children under the age of ten years. I think that is a most admirable provision, and one which will meet many of the harsh cases to which the noble Lord

  1529
  (Lord Norton) referred in moving his Amendment. For my own part I attach the greatest value to this provision. In Scotland the boarding-out system has extended very widely, and with most beneficial effect. With reference to the powers given to School Boards to secure the committal of children to these schools, I think the provisions of very great advantage. There is no body of men who have a greater knowledge of the lower classes of this country than the School Board officers, and I believe that the children whose admission they will procure will be just the children for whom the schools were intended. It may be objected, and with some show of reason, that School Boards have to deal with education, whereas industrial schools are meant to be part of the police system of the country. That is true, but as a matter of practice there can be no doubt that the services of the School Board officers in finding out and sending into industrial schools not merely truants, but thoroughly vicious and vagrant children has been of inestimable value, and I should be very sorry, indeed, to see them altogether deprived of such powers. My noble Friend (Lord Norton) has said that the principle of this Bill is altogether bad, and that it involves the bringing up together in one establishment of children who belong to the criminal class and children who are merely destitute and homeless. What my noble Friend proposes is that there should be two descriptions of reformatories—a reformatory for junior offenders and a reformatory for elder ones, and he quotes the authority of the Committee over which I had the honour to preside as supporting him in that. Now, it is quite true that in Ireland, where there are so many charitable institutions and organizations for dealing with crime and criminal children, we discovered one school which dealt exclusively with these young criminal offenders, but that was an extreme case. It is said that it is harsh and cruel to mix together children of decidedly criminal character and children who are simply waifs and strays, who have not embarked on a criminal career. I do not think myself that there is much difference between such children. The children of the gutter are, after all, hardly distinguishable from those who
  1530
  are brought up for the first time charged with an offence and are sent to industrial schools. My noble Friend all through has been treating the admission of children into industrial schools as if it was a hardship to the children themselves. Against that supposition we have the fact that there is no difficulty in placing the children out at service on leaving the schools. A number of the boys receive special physical training and become members of the Naval and Military Forces. I do not believe that the children suffer from the fact that they have been educated in industrial schools. A "Reformatory" school may perhaps be said to imply some connection with guilt, but there is nothing in the name "Industrial" school which involves any sort of shame. Then there is another omission in the Bill which I will notice. When I was a Member of the other House, I introduced a Bill called the Prevention of Juvenile Crimes Bill, and it contained a clause which enabled children of a woman who had been more than once convicted, and who left her children under 14 years of age without any proper guardianship, to be committed to industrial schools. I cannot very well conceive any class of children who are more properly inmates of industrial schools, and I should have thought the present Bill might have contained a similar clause. When the Bill goes into Committee, these and other points can be dealt with, and I trust that the suggestions which may be made for the improvement of the Bill will have the favourable consideration of Her Majesty's Government. In the meantime, I believe the object of the appointment of the Royal Commission— which comprised many men of eminence, including some Members of the present Government—has been achieved, and its main recommendations will be carried into effect by this measure. The Bill will, I suppose, be referred to one of the Standing Committees, and I have no doubt that in the form in which it will ultimately pass into law, it will prove to be a great national advantage.
  THE EARL OF MEATHI think that the noble Lord who last spoke is rather in error as to the ease with which children on leaving industrial schools can get employment. Having

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  had a good deal of experience in the management of industrial schools in Ireland, I can confidently assert that what the noble Lord said is not quite the case as far as that part of the kingdom is concerned. He has asserted that the public, as a general rule, do not consider that there is any shame attached to children who have been brought up in industrial schools. Now, I am afraid that the public do, as a matter of fact, so consider. They ought not to, and that is why I am anxious that Her Majesty's Government should not use their giant strength to crush any suggested alteration in the Bill. The Government will not permit children to go into Her Majesty's Navy from industrial schools. In the case of our schools in Ireland, we have attempted to get our children into the Navy, but the Government have declined to take them. It is said that there is difficulty in dealing with the junior class of reformatory cases; but this Bill has, as has the Reformatory Bill which is now before one of the Grand Committee's, clauses under which those cases can be dealt with summarily. I think your Lordships will agree that the Bill makes a great mistake in mixing up two classes of children—those who are simply brought before Magistrates from causes over which they have no control, such as destitution and poverty, and those who are charged with some criminal act. I perfectly agree with the noble Lord opposite, that it is iniquitous to whip a child because he is habitually begging, or under improper guardianship, or wandering about without any home, or frequenting the company of reputed thieves or prostitutes. All those cases, especially the last three, are quite beyond the control of the poor unfortunate child, and to whip that child is iniquitous. Then, I agree with the noble Lord (Lord Leigh) in his criticisms of Clause 12, Sub-section B, that it is perfectly monstrous to give back the child to the parent for the purpose of punishment. What are your Lordships doing if you pass this Bill? You are saying that when a child is under "improper guardianship" (these are the words) he may be brought before a Magistrate, and the Magistrate may give up the child to his improper guardian to be beaten perhaps within an inch of his life. It does not
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  seem to me that it is common sense or justice to enact that a poor unfortunate child should be punished by an improper guardian, or even that he should be whipped because he happens to be without a home, or happens to be found in the house of a reputed thief or prostitute. Suppose a child whose father is in prison is sent to the house of some prostitute, how is he to know the character of the woman? I cannot think that Her Majesty's Government will pass such a Bill as this without more consideration than has yet apparently been given to it. I hope also that the remark which has fallen from the noble Lord behind me (Lord Aberdare) in regard to the omission from this Bill of any clause dealing with children of parents who are in prison may be well considered, and that some clause will be added; because I cannot help thinking that those industrial schools which are at this moment in existence for the purpose of rescuing the children of those who are in prison or convicted of crime, ought to be assisted. The noble Lord (Lord Aberdare) has stated that in Dublin a good many cases get into the industrial schools which ought not to have been sent there. I have no doubt whatever that the accusation is correct; but it is not the case in regard to all schools, for I know that, so far as regards the schools with which I have been connected, no cases have been sent there which ought not to have been. I think there can be no doubt that in Ireland we have certainly improved upon what has been done in England. We have not had sent to our industrial schools any children who have been convicted of crime; we have kept a complete distinction between the two, and we feel all the more hurt because in England you choose to mix up industrial and reformatory cases, that therefore our children who are not criminals should be branded as criminals because in this country there is a confusion of ideas. It has been stated that we ought not to call upon the ratepayers to support the very poor children. It is, however, singular, that the noble Lord who advanced that argument supported these very clauses by which we are called upon to support those who are habitually begging or receiving alms. Therefore I think that argument entirely falls to the ground.
  EARL STANHOPEMy Lords although I do not happen to know anything about industrial schools it Ireland, I do know something of then in this country, and in answer to my noble Friend, Lord Meath, I may say that, as far as my experience goes, there is no shame attaching to the boys educated in these schools. I speak more especially as Chairman of the Kent County Industrial School at Ashford. We have obtained admission for some boys into the Royal Navy without difficulty, and also into the Army, as bandsmen. The discipline at that school is such as to give to boys who have had the misfortune to lose one or both parents the opportunity of starting well in life and becoming useful citizens. I entirely disagree with the arguments which have been put before us by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. He seems to think that this Bill applies to reformatories. It has little to do with reformatories; it only applies to industrial schools. Moreover, it is a consolidating Bill. Half the clauses it contains have long been the law of the land. In fact, the clause which met with such strong opposition from my noble Friend, Lord Leigh, that which relates to the punishment by imprisonment of boys who destroy the property of the school or who run away from school, simply embodies what has long been the law. As regards whipping, that is a different matter, It is really put as an alternative, at the discretion of the Magistrate, to sending the boy to an industrial school. Where a child is brought up for stealing apples, or for some minor offence of that description, the Magistrate is empowered, instead of sending him to prison or committing him to an industrial school, to order him to be whipped. My Lords, I regard the measure now before the House as a most useful one, and, from the support it has received from the noble Lord who was Chairman of the Royal Commission on Industrial Schools, I think we may trust that the Bill will not only obtain acceptance here but also in another place.
  THE EARL OF MOUNT - EDGCUMBEI would like to make an observation with regard to the supposed difficulty in obtaining the admission into the Navy of boys educated in industrial schools. I am connected with
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  an industrial training ship, which is on the same lines as an industrial school, and there are regulations by which the transference of the boys from the ship to the Royal Navy is facilitated. In fact, a grant of £25 is given for each boy who is prepared and fitted to go into the Royal Navy. We also send many boys as bandsmen into the Army. In the cases where difficulties have been experienced, as referred to by the noble Lord the Earl of Meath, I should think the boys have been deficient in size or in age, or not properly qualified for the naval service.
  LORD LINGENIn the few remarks I have to make I propose, my Lords, to address myself to the Amendment which has been moved by Lord Norton. Those of your Lordships who have had the advantage not only of hearing Lord Norton's speech, but of reading the very able paper which has been generally circulated, will have no difficulty in agreeing, without exception, to the principles he proposes as the basis of the treatment of the children who are the subjects of this Bill. I am sure no one can address your Lordships with greater authority on this matter than the noble Lord. As I had the honour of serving under him in the Department of the Education Committee some thirty years ago, I speak from my own knowledge when I say that it is to the noble Lord that a very great part of the immense improvement which has taken place in the treatment of unfortunate children is due. I venture, however, to think that in his Amendment he has somewhat confused two questions which are different, the one as to the character which industrial schools should bear, and the other as to the authority which should admit children into them. The authority at present which grants the license is the Secretary of State. But that was not always so, as would appear from the speech of the noble Lord and other speeches which we have heard this evening. Originally it was the Committee of Council on Education which granted the licenses, and it was only in view of the abuses which arose under that system that a change was made. The noble Lord was for many years a very strong advocate of restoring that power of licensing to the Committee of Council on Education, and I am exceedingly glad to see that in

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  the Amendment which he has moved to this Bill he has not reverted to the earlier proposition, but merely urges the substitution of the Local Government Board for the Secretary of State as the Licensing Authority. I think your Lordships will all admit that a distinction must he made between the various classes of children with whose education the State concerns itself. There are the children of the independent labourers, there are the children of those against whom nothing is proved except their poverty, and there are the children of those against whom something more is either proved or may be reasonably presumed. The noble Lord's Amendment admits that the children of the independent workmen are to be separated from the rest, but he maintains that if you cease to make the Education Department the Licensing Authority you should not go to the Secretary of State, who represents to some extent the Criminal Law, but you should go to the Local Government Board, which represents poverty, and that you should treat the child in a reformatory as a pauper and not, even in any inchoate degree, as a criminal. With that as an object I entirely concur; but I should venture to say that it does not follow, because the Secretary of State is the Licensing Authority of these reformatory schools, that therefore they should be conducted on the footing of prisons. If your Lordships will look at Section 3 of this Bill, you will see that the greatest latitude is given to the Secretary of State in his power of classifying these reformatories and of prescribing the rules under which they are to be managed. In the same way, in Section 4 due provision is made for the inspection of them. I have heard one name mentioned in the noble Lord's speech which certainly ought never to be mentioned without honour in connection with this subject, and that is the name of the late Mr. Sydney Turner, who was the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools on their original reference to the Home Office. His inspection, I am sure, would compare with that of any Inspector whatever. My Lords, I only wish to press this one point upon your Lordships, that the manner of dealing with these children is not, I think, vitally concerned in the decision between the Homo Secretary and the Local
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  Government Board. The Magistrates must, to a large extent, be the administrators of this law. The Magistrates are in connection with the Home Secretary much more than they are with the Local Government Board, and I think that in deciding upon this Amendment your Lordships would perhaps be well advised not without some strong reason to remove the ad- ministration of these schools from the authority which now controls them.
  EARL PERCYMy Lords, the criticisms which we have heard of this Bill from all parts of the House have been confined within the scope of the measure, and I feel that it is rather difficult for me to invite the noble Lord who now asks us to give the Bill a Second Reading to extend its provisions; but I wish to say a few words on a class of schools which have not been fully considered, either in this Bill or in the legislation which is already in force. There are in this country a certain number of industrial schools which are maintained by voluntary effort, and these schools receive children, not perhaps coming exactly under the classes mentioned in Clause 10, but classes of quite as deserving a character. The classes I am thinking of most at the present moment is the class of pauper children, and especially girls educated in workhouse schools. These girls grow up in the not too innocent atmosphere of the workhouse school, and they are sent out into the world about the age of 13 or 14 without the slightest knowledge of the world, as shop girls or as maids-of-all-work, and the result is that very many of them come to grief. I want to impress upon the noble Lord that there should be some power of committing—or, if you do not like that word because it savours of penal discipline—there should be power to remit or detain these childern in industrial schools until they attain the age of at least fifteen. Then there is another difficulty, that under the present regulations it is impossible to certify such schools as I have mentioned, because in these schools elementary education is not given. I submit that the class of schools to which I am referring is one which is generally filled with children who have completed their elementary education, but who are admitted at an age when they require some training in

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  manual labour, needlework, laundry work, and things of that kind, combined with religious and moral training to enable them to become respectable and independent. Surely it is possible to put some provision in this Bill by which schools such as these could be certified. The expense to the public would be nominal. There would only be the cost of inspection, and I believe no one who is acquainted with the subject can have any doubt that the advantages resulting to this class of children would be as great or greater than those which the Bill will confer upon children of a criminal or quasi-criminal class.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYI would like to say one word upon the matter to which the noble Earl has just referred, because the subject came before a Committee over which I had the honour to preside. I understood the noble Earl to suggest that these industrial schools ought to be extended so as to include pauper girls generally. In the first place, I would point out that there are a number of very large schools indeed now existing to which girls are sent from the various Unions. There has been great controversy as to whether those schools are successful or not. This is not a fitting opportunity of discussing the question, but many people think that by the instruction that is given there the children are tot much removed from general society, if I may so call it, and when they go out from these schools they are unable to cope with the ordiary incidents of life. As against that system other systems have been strongly advocated. There is much to be said in favour of the boarding-out system. I do not think it would be possible to mix together schools which deal with children of undoubtedly the vagrant and street-arab class with the schools for children who may, through mere poverty, have to receive parish relief. I am certain that the population generally would not regard that with favour, and that the thing would not work. Neither do I think that it would be at all desirable to have schools in which girls were generally detained until the age of 16. Certainly, in the rural districts my personal experience is that it is most desirable that girls should go out to service long before that age. Remember it is not merely instruc-
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  tion in reading and writing, and so forth, which is needed, but actual experience of domestic service by which the child can afterwards obtain a living, and if the child does not begin early it will be found extremely difficult subsequently to train it to proper habits. That seems to me to be a very important consideration indeed. At the same time I am far from being enamoured of the workhouse schools. Workhouse schools are a necessity, but in many respects I think they are institutions of which we have no reason to be proud. I merely wish to enter my protest against a proposition which, though at first sight it has some attractive features, will be found in practice, I think, not to work well—to mix up poor relief with the system of industrial schools.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYTaken as a whole, I think this Bill is very satisfactory and reflects great credit upon the Government. I am glad that the present system of inspection is not to be interfered with. There is one clause I would like to call attention to, and that is Clause 18, which enables the Secretary of State to order that a child may be transferred from a certified reformatory school to a certified industrial school. The importance of keeping the two classes of schools absolutely separate is, I think, undeniable, and anything that tends at all to increase the suspicion which exists now as to industrial schools is open to very grave objections. I would ask whether it would not be possible to introduce a clause giving the County Councils power if they think fit to grant super-annuations to the officers of these schools. From all I have seen of the working of these schools I am convinced that this power is needed in the interests of the work itself. I thank my noble Friend for the great impetus he has given to the day industrial schools, and I rejoice that experience has shown that they are really valuable institutions. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Aberdare) will remember that when, in another place, he first proposed to introduce those schools, he met with very bitter opposition, and there was a severe fight before they were established. It is a source of satisfaction to see that they have turned out, as the supporters of them anticipated, of very great aid in coping with the

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  difficulties which poverty casts in the way of education.
  EARL FORTESCUEThere can be no doubt after what has been said in the course of this debate of the very great importance of keeping up the distinction between Reformatory and Industrial Schools in the public mind, as well as in their working, in the interests of the children. As regards the prospect of finding the children respectable and independent occupation on their leaving schools, it seems to me that all the argument is on the side of my noble Friend Lord Norton, who introduced the Amendment, and against perpetuating this blending of the two classes of schools. How strong the confusion at present is is evident from some of the speeches that have been made this afternoon. The noble Lord opposite spoke again and again of Reformatory Schools in commenting upon the clauses of this, which is an Industrial Schools Bill, and when so experienced an official, as the noble Lord falls into that mistake, we may guess what the general impression of the public out-of-doors must be. I have no doubt that the fact that the person who is to inspect the Reformatory Schools is also appointed to inspect the Industrial Schools tends still more to blend the two classes of schools together in the general view of the public. I think it would be very hard to deal with the children, who, though they come from not the most respectable class of society, are not criminals, in such a way as to place them in a quasi-criminal aspect before the public; and what my noble Friend said upon the Royal Navy shows that one Department even of Her Majesty's Government rather shares that general impression. I think the fact that the Royal Navy will not take boys from Industrial Schools adds a strong argument in favour of the Amendment, which I intend to support. There are one or two clauses of the Bill which I think are likely to be very useful, but I-protest against the age of 16, which was advocated as being the age up to which it is desirable or reasonable to detain, as a rule, children of either sex in the workhouse. It has been very truly observed that by the age of thirteen and a half children of average strength and intelligence are capable of wholly, or almost wholly, earning or contribu-
  1540
  ting towards their livelihood. It is a great injustice to the ratepayers that they should have to maintain children for two or three years after they are capable of maintaining themselves, in order that they may ultimately be enabled to take situations superior to those which are open to the children of independent labourers. I quite agree with the noble Earl (the Earl of Kimberley) as to the immense importance of beginning practical training—not theoretical training, but training in the actual business of life, in service or in actual work—at an earlier ago than 16. The greatest care is requisite in the working of this boarding-out system. Nothing can work more satisfactorily in cases where there are good masters and good mistresses; but where under the name of parochial apprenticeship it prevailed, as it did in the Western Counties, till abolished with general approval by the new Poor Law, and the unwilling child of unwilling parents was bound to an unwilling master or mistress, it was often pretty much like white slavery. If it is true that children can earn their maintenance between 13 or 14, and you hand them over to people with whom they are boarded out till 16 years of age, those foster parents are given two years of very valuable service at the expense, in one way or another, of the public. Boarding out may be very desirable, but only up to an age certainly far below 16. That is a matter which can be considered in Committee. Then my noble Friend (Lord Leigh) found great fault with Clause 53, under which children who break the rules of the school are liable to be imprisoned. It seems to me that the clause authorizing whipping would be very advantageously applied to such cases. We do not want to make poor children, for minor offences of this kind, gaol birds at an early age. I do not know why the children of the most destitute, or least respectable, parents in the community should consider that such an indelible disgrace is inflicted upon them as it is suggested that the punishment of whipping is considered to be. My own strong conviction is that they would go out none the less fitted for good service because they had had a good whipping for some infringement of the rules of the school. On the whole,

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  the Bill seems to me to introduce some valuable improvements upon the previous law, but it is unfortunate that it tends to keep up in the public mind the notion of the blending of reformatories, which are criminal schools, with industrial schools which are intended to be preventive.
  LORD ABERDAREAs it has been suggested that it is cruel and even wicked that children under 14 should be whipped because they happen to be without a home or frequenting bad society, and as, according to my reading of the Bill, there is no power of whipping given in those cases, I would ask the noble Viscount opposite whether the noble Earl (the Earl of Meath) has not, in fact, confused two different parts of the Bill?
  VISCOUNT CRANBROOKI should have dealt with that point even had not my noble Friend called my attention to it. It is quite obvious that the provisions as to whipping applies only to "offences," and not to the case of children found to be under improper guardianship, or homeless, and so forth. It should be noticed also with what precautions the whipping is guarded both as to instrument and number of strokes. The noble Earl (the Earl of Meath) was also in error when he stated that the Bill mixed up the case of destitute children and that of criminal children. It is quite clear that the two classes are kept distinct. In the first place, the destitute children are provided for by the Poor Law. Such children are either educated in the workhouse schools, or they are sent to an ordinary school by and at the cost of the Guardians. What these clauses are aimed at is the class of vicious children, or children whose parents are vicious. With regard to the proposal to remove these schools from the control of the Home Office and place them under the Local Government Board, I think such a change as this ought not to be made unless very good cause is shown, and this has not been done. The industrial schools under the Home Office have in the past performed their work most effectively, and there is no reason for making the change suggested. The administration of any Industrial Schools Act must necessarily involve the employment of Magistrates and police, and it thus comes more naturally under the supervision of the
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  Home Office. I do not believe that children under the present law are in any way tainted by their training in the industrial schools. If their taint has been too deep before they get there, that is not the fault of the industrial schools, and, as a matter of fact, employers are quite willing to take children from industrial schools into their service. My Lords, this discussion has been mostly a criticism of the details of the Bill. I hope the House will now read it a second time, and in Committee the suggestions of noble Lords, several of whom have special knowledge on this subject, will be carefully listened to by my noble Friend who is in charge of the Bill.
  EARL BROWNLOWThe Amendment moved by my noble Friend (Lord Norton) deals first of all with the line to be drawn between children sent to reformatory schools and children sent to industrial schools. It is thought that it would be very undesirable to treat as criminals and send to a reformatory school young children guilty of merely trifling offences. The subject has been carefully considered. It has been. urged by Lord Norton that the industrial schools should be handed over to the Local Government Board. The noble Lord seems to have changed his views upon the subject, for some time ago it was his view that they should be handed over to the Education Department. There are great objections to. the course my noble Friend suggests. The industrial schools are intended to educate and train children who are in danger of falling into crime, so that they may become decent members of society, and it is not desirable to hand such schools over to a Department which has nothing to do with the prevention of crime. Again, the Local Government Board would either have to get a staff of Inspectors for this particular purpose, or otherwise they would hand over the inspection of these schools to their own Inspectors of Union Workhouse Schools, and I think it would be very undesirable to connect these schools, which are intended to prevent crime in the future, with Workhouse Schools. I may further point out that Lord Norton stood alone on the Royal Commission with regard to this matter. As to the question of whipping, the noble Viscount who last spoke has rightly expressed what is the

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  intention of the Bill. If the wording is not sufficiently clear, the necessary Amendments can easily be made in Committee.
  Amendment (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  Original motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:
Customs and Inland Revenue.
Naval Defence.
Removal of Wrecks Act (1877) Amendment.
Public Libraries Act (1855) Amendment.
National Debt.
Commissioners for Oaths.

THE CHURCH ESTATES COMMISSIONERS.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked the First Church Estates Commissioner whether the Commissioners would pay half the legal expenses in the case of gifts or sales of sites for parsonages and burial grounds, as well as in the case of sites for churches?
  EARL STANHOPEIn the conveyance of additional burial grounds the Commissioners already pay half the costs of their own solicitors, and whore they have property the whole cost of the conveyance. In the case of parsonage sites the Commissioners pay their solicitors' costs where they have property, but where this is not the case they have not hitherto been able to pay the legal charges. I may say, however, that the question is under the consideration of the Board.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1883) AMENDMENT BILL (No. 87.)
Read 3a (according to order): Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
PALATINE COURT OF DURHAM BILL. (No. 71.)
Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
ASSIZES RELIEF BILL. (No 96.)
  ARBITRATION BILL (No. 97.)
  House in Committee, on Re-commitment (according to order): Amendments made: The Report thereof to be received on Monday next.

  WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE (MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS) BILL.
  A bill to enable women to vote in municipal elections—Was presented by Lord Denman; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next. (No. 103)
  House adjourned at seven o' clock, to Monday next, Eleven o' clock.