Sitting of 10 June 1890

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  BELFAST CORPORATION BILL [LORDS] [by Order.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. SEXTON: I rise for the purpose of moving that the Bill be read a second time upon this day six months. I do so at the request of my constituents and other inhabitants of Belfast. My own constituents number, probably, one-third—certainly one-fourth—of the population, and as they have no representation whatever—not a single voice or vote in the Municipal Council of Belfast—I think it will be conceded by the House that any representation I make on their behalf is entitled to consideration. Belfast was divided 50 years ago into five wards, when the town only numbered 60,000 inhabitants, and it is still divided into the same wards, although the population is now about 250,000. Those wards are so distributed that one-third of the population associated with me in politics have no representation on the Council, and they will continue to be unrepresented on the Council until there is afresh partition of the municipal area. That being the case, my constituents have asked me to request the House to reject this Bill unless provisions are included which will carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission made 10 years ago, namely, that the wards of the borough shall be re-distributed and their numbers greatly increased. I am sensible, however, that it would be an inconvenient and unusual course to press the House in the middle of a busy Session to include within the limits of such a Bill as this a plan involving much labour and great delay. I am, therefore, disposed to waive that claim for the present, although I consider it ripe, and I

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    am the more disposed to waive it because we are promised a Local Government Bill for Ireland, which will include local government of the Irish cities and boroughs, and then Belfast will be effectually dealt with. I am, therefore, disposed to modify the demands of my constituents so far as not to press upon the House the question of a fresh partition of the municipal area; but I think I shall be able to prove in a few words that it is necessary in the public interests of Belfast that the House should assent to the Reference of the Bill to a Hybrid Committee and to the Instruction which I propose to move. If the Reference and Instruction are accepted, I do not propose to divide the House; but if they are refused, I shall be obliged to challenge most strenuously the principle of the Bill; and if it passes this stage, I shall be obliged to oppose it on its future stages. The promoters attach great importance to the fact that the terms of the Bill have been approved by a majority of the ratepayers, but the main financial considerations have never been submitted to them. The only question submitted to the ratepayers was whether the Corporation should acquire a site for a new city hall, but there is a question beyond the acquirement of the site, and that is the consideration of the terms and conditions of the bargain and further financial questions, involving nearly £200,000—that is, if the site should be used, as I contend it should be, for a public park, of which that great manufacturing town is so seriously in need, and not for the erection of a costly city hall, when there is an excellent one, only built 20 years ago, already in existence. Although the acquirement of the site has been approved, the intention of the Corporation to build a City Hall at a cost of £170,000 is so much disapproved of that 4,000 inhabitants of Belfast opposed the terms of the Bill. It is in the name of those persons that I ask the House to adopt ordinary measures of inquiry. The circumstances of the case are extremely peculiar. In 1782 a public meeting was held in Belfast of linen traders and other inhabitants, for the purpose of founding a public market hall for the sale of white linen. A public subscription was set on foot, and application was made for a site on which to erect this hall. In 1783, 107 years
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    ago, Arthur, Marquess of Donegall, by an indenture granted a piece of meadow ground in the town of Belfast, to be held for ever, at an annual rent of £4 10s., upon trust to be used for ever as a public market for the sale of linen. Upon that site the Linen. Hall was built. Twenty years after, in 1803, George Augustus, the succeeding Marquess of Donegall, gave a second piece of ground, adjoining the first, for the use of the inhabitants of Belfast, at an annual rent for ever of 1s. It actually has been used from that day to this as a public walk, and yet this is a part of the property which the Corporation of Belfast are about to purchase from a body of private persons. The Trust has continued to be ad-administered, but under circumstances, which to me seem to demand strict inquiry, because here is a Public Trust which has for some time been alienated from the public use and turned to private account. The building has been used for many years for private offices and warehouses, and the Trustees have alienated their Trust. I submit, therefore, that the circumstances under which that Public Trust was alienated must be examined by a Committee of the House. The late Marquess of Donegall, the owner of the estate, died seven years ago, and the Countess of Shaftesbury passed into possession as the new tenant for life. Two years ago the Countess of Shaftesbury and her son, a minor, instituted an action in the Irish Chancery Division claiming that the public grants of a century ago were void by reason of some flaw, that the deeds should be cancelled and possession of the land given up, and that the Trustees should pay to the Countess rents and profits for the period since the death of the late Marquess. That action is still pending. In it the Countess and her son are plaintiffs, and the Trustees of this; Public Trust, long since alienated for public use, are the defendants. The Bill recites that the action is still pending, that it involves questions of doubt and difficulty, the decision whereof will involve considerable delay and expense. But doubt, difficulty, delay, and expense to whom? The Corporation are not a party to the action—the Countess and her son are the plaintiffs and the Trustees are the defendants.

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    Surely there are hon. Members who will agree with me that it would be best for the Corporation to waive this question of the erection of the hall until the rights of the parties have been determined by the suit at issue. The Corporation, however, purpose out of their munificence—it would be more admirable if it were their own money—to treat both the parties to the action as if they were upon the impossible footing of both parties having won the action; they propose to pay the legal costs of the Countess of Shaftesbury, and also the legal costs of the Trustees of the Linen Hall, the defendants. They propose to pay the counter rents and profits since the death of the late Marquess; and, on the other hand, they turn round and propose to pay the Trustees in hard cash the sum of £19,000. What does the Bill say about the legal rights of the Trustees? It says the White Linen Hall has for many years past ceased to be used as a public market, and has been used for private warehouses and for the accommodation of the Belfast Society for the Promotion of Knowledge. It occurs to me, that if the original use has ceased to exist, the Trust ought to have been transferred to some other analogous use in the public interest generally without any charge being made. In the Bill, too, whilst it is proposed to pay £19,000 to certain persons called proprietors and occupiers, it gives no particulars whatever as to the nature of that interest, or as to the basis of compensation. I claim, before the Bill is advanced another stage, that we are entitled to receive a categorical description of the names of persons. The whole of the proprietors are to receive £6,500 between them. They are said to be representatives of the original subscribers, but the original subscribers are all dead two generations ago. Not only the masters, but the servants are to be compensated, even the Belfast Society for the Promotion of Knowledge. This Subscription Society asks to be compensated, because for many years it has received a benefit. A more peculiar inversion of any ordinary rational doctrine of compensation has never come under my notice. The occupiers are to get £13,000. Who are the occupiers? This place was never intended to accommodate them. Have
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    these tenants paid any rent? There is nothing about it in the Bill. I demand to know, before this matter goes further, what rent has been paid, to whom, and to what use it has been applied. I also wish to know whether, if the rent has been paid, it has been invested in order to make provision in the event of compensation having to be paid. There is one provision of the Bill which I would commend to the attention of the-Attorney General for Ireland. The Bill provides that the interests of the proprietors of the Linen Hall shall be compensated; but it is admitted that their interests, if any, cannot be proved-Among those to be compensated are the Belfast Society for the Promotion of Knowledge, tenants who have derived advantage from the alienation of these Trusts, and even sub-tenants who have received advantage under them. A more grotesque and fantastic proposal m reference to Trusts Funds was never submitted to this House. The total sum to be paid for the site is £30,000, and I hope the Chairman of Committees will take into consideration that not only the late Mayor, Sir J. Haslam, but the present Mayor, who is promoting the Bill, are on the Committee of the Linen Hall. In fact, there is to be a payment by the Mayor as head of the Corporation to the Mayor as one of the occupiers of the Linen Hall. Under such circumstances, T respectfully submit that the Corporation and the Mayor himself ought to be most anxious to secure a full inquiry. The Bill goes on to say that the terms offered to the Countess of Shaftesbury are very generous and ought to be accepted. Possibly it may be so; but, if they are generous, I think the Mayor and Corporation ought to be willing and glad to have the fact proved. So far as the expense of an inquiry is concerned, any objection, on the ground of expense would come with a bad grace from the Corporation of Belfast. Nevertheless, I am prepared to undertake, if a Committee is granted, that the expense shall be very slight. We on our side propose to engage no counsel, and it would only be necessary to examine three witnesses, one for the Corporation, one for the proprietors, and one for the ratepayers. I would further undertake that at the end of a couple of sittings the Committee should be in a position to

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    report. In the next place, I wish to point out to the House that the question of the cost of erecting a City Hall has never been submitted to the ratepayers. My own constituents are shut out from representation, and have no voice in the Municipal Council, and it is idle to tell me that the period of three years which is to intervene between the passing of the Bill and the erection of the hall will be any protection to their interests. It is said that the present City Hall is inadequate. I have had occasion to visit it more than once. It is conveniently situated, and there is no pretence for saying that the new site is more convenient or more central. Both sites are close together, in the heart of the city, and one is just as convenient as the other. It must not be forgotten that Belfast is now engaged in spending £300,000 of the ratepayers' money on main drainage and other sanitary works, and that one-third of the ratepayers of the city are shut out from representation. I think they have a right to say, as they do say, that this new scheme shall be deferred until the main drainage plan shall have been completed. Three years ago I introduced a Bill for extending the franchise in Belfast. The Corporation resisted me strenuously, but in the end they gave way. They are now making a boast of what was then done against their will. I trust that the House will accept the proposal I now make.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    SIR E. HARLAND: I am sure that the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) does not seriously mean to jeopardise the passing of this Bill. I have no doubt that he is as proud of being one of the Representatives of that city as I am myself, and I doubt if it is possible to find another town, except, perhaps, Middlesborough, which has made such gigantic strides in prosperity as the City of Belfast. In 1831 the population only amounted to 41,000; in 1861 it was 120,000, and in 1891, when the next census is taken, I believe it will be found to have increased to 250,000 or 260,000. That fact speaks
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    well for the continuous development of the city in the past, and the great progress it has made. The hon. Member has referred to the history of this Trust, the complicated conditions which have been attached to it, and the manner in which it has become disassociated from its original purposes. It only affords another illustration of the manner in which property, when it becomes disassociated from its original purpose, gradually falls into the hands of others, not from any dishonest process or want of care, but from the way in which a great deal of the land in Ireland has gradually fallen away from its original possessors into the hands of the tenants, whose claims at this day are being constantly equitably decided upon. With regard to the value of this ground it is said that it might have been obtained tor £20,000.
    MR. SEXTON: £26,000.
    SIR E. HARLAND: Well, £26,000. It is quite possible that at one time the property might have been obtained for such a sum, but that time has been allowed to pass and the value has been greatly increased. From my knowledge of the City of Belfast I may say that I should be very glad indeed, as an individual, to become possessed of this estate for £50,000, and I look upon the price which it is proposed to pay, namely, £30,000, as very low indeed. I can only compliment the Corporation of Belfast upon having acquired so perfect a site for the erection of public buildings at so small a cost. It is quite true that a Town Hall and Municipal Buildings are already in existence, but they have become quite inadequate for the purposes for which they are intended. The existing building only cost £16,000, and it may be readily imagined that such a structure is not adequate for the wants of a city like Belfast. If the House will compare the cost proposed to be incurred here with the expenditure in other large towns it will be admitted at once that the proposal of the Corporation is most reasonable. Bradford, with a population of 150,000, has expended £85,000 on a Town Hall; Leeds which, like Belfast, has a population of 250,000, has expended £130,000; Glasgow, with a population of 507,000, has spent £520,000; and Manchester, with a population of 500,000, has spent £832,000. The figures range

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    from 10s. to 30s. per head of the population, but in the present case the cost will only amount to something like 15s. a head. It will, therefore, be seen that the sum we ask for is extremely moderate. If the hon. Member complains that his friends have not obtained that representation which he would like them to possess, I can only say that they are themselves to blame. They have full opportunity, by enterprise, perseverance, and energy, of obtaining representation. The election to seats on the Council rests entirely with the constituency, and hitherto, without paying the slightest respect to any particular section of the community, the cleverest and most able men have been elected. Comparisons are not always agreeable, but I may point out that the population of Belfast and Dublin are at the present moment about the same, and while only 8,315 ratepayers are enabled to vote in the municipal elections in Dublin there are 30,480 who are entitled to vote in Belfast.
    MR. SEXTON: Will the hon. Baronet allow me to say that that is the result of a reform which I carried three years ago against the Corporation.
    SIR E. HARLAND: These figures are an illustration, and certainly there can be no objection made that the franchise in Belfast is so limited that the hon. Member's friends have not adequate means of being represented. I feel that the objections raised to this Bill are extremely weak, and that few of them are worth any consideration whatever. Reference has been made to the White Linen Hall having gradually become disused, but we all know how trade changes. Once there was a trade in Belfast connected with the manufacture of cotton. It has completely disappeared, and has been replaced by linen. When the latter trade was being developed it was a very great boon to the linen merchants to have a common market for their trade, but with the use of the telegraph and the development of business, it was found that the trade could be more readily carried on in the establishments of the merchants than in the market, which consequently became disused. The same thing has happened in Belfast with regard to the brown linen market, land for which was originally given by the Marquess of Donegal, and
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    in which one piece of linen is offered for sale once a year, in order that the rights of the brown linen merchants may be maintained to the possession of the land. None of us, I think, will attempt to bolster up for a moment such a procedure as that, and it would be but fair and graceful to return the land to the representatives of the original owners. The piece of ground referred to in the Bill is most beautifully situated in the centre of the city, and I have no doubt that the Corporation will take very good care that sufficient space is reserved for the recreation of the public and for the general purposes which are now considered necessary in the centre of the city. But I hold that there is no necessity for the whole of the piece of land which is to be acquired to be thrown completely open. No city in the Kingdom less requires parks and open spaces than Belfast, because there is no other town where there is so large an area occupied according to population, and this arises from the fact that nearly every workman in Belfast occupies his own house. I do not think that any city is so perfect in its sanitary arrangements as Belfast, and in the miles of wide streets it possesses, the air from the mountains is enabled to come through the streets. I feel very great confidence indeed in asking the House not to put the Corporation of Belfast to the expense of from £1,800 to £2,000 in order to satisfy the wishes of the hon. Member opposite.
    MR. M. HEALY: The hon. Member for North Belfast (Sir E. Harland) has, from beginning to end of his speech, carefully avoided any reference to the various points which have been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast. He has told us that Belfast is a very prosperous place, and that its prosperity is without a parallel. That may be so, but it has nothing to do with the questions we are discussing in connection with this Bill. The hon. Member has dwelt upon the necessity that exists for providing a Town Hall, and he made various comparisons between the condition of Belfast and of other cities. For my part, I think it would be well for one of the supporters of the Bill to address himself frankly and fairly to the important questions which have been raised by my hon. Friend, and

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    offer some reason why the course he suggests should not be adopted. My hon. Friend has displayed great moderation in his opposition to the Bill. He has told us that his desire is not to reject the Bill. All he asks is that before it is passed into law, its provisions shall receive full and fair inquiry at the hands of this House. Now, what are the facts? Let me call attention to the provisions of the Bill. A more extraordinary measure was never introduced. The Corporation or Belfast propose to acquire a valuable piece of property in the City of Belfast. What is the usual course taken when the promoters of a private Bill seek to acquire power of that kind? Before they bring in their Bill they ascertain who are the persons interested in the property—the owners, lessees, and occupiers—and they then deposit in the office of this House a schedule setting forth that information. When that is done, and when the Bill is passed, an arbitrator is appointed under the Lands Clauses Act, by whom all claims and rights are considered, and a decision arrived at as to the amount of compensation which shall be awarded to each. This Bill, however, enacts that after the Bill shall have been passed, without ascertaining who the owners, occupiers, or lessees are, it shall be referred to an unskilled arbitrator, who shall decide, without question and without appeal, who the persons interested in the property are. The Bill goes on to say that the arbitrator shall exercise these extraordinary powers, not having regard to ordinary legal principles, or in accordance with the legal rights of the parties, but on such terms and in such manner as he shall think most fair. Now, I venture to submit that a more extraordinary proposal was never made in any measure submitted to a legislative assembly. As it is an unopposed Bill, it would not, of course, go before an ordinary Committee of this House, but it will be decided without the hearing of counsel or having the interests of the parties discussed, or any opportunity being afforded of inquiring what the legal, rights of the parties are, and, indeed, without the taking of any evidence at all. My hon. Friend does not propose that the Bill should be rejected, but simply that so exceptional a Bill shall be dealt with in an exceptional
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    manner—that it should not follow the ordinary course of going before an unopposed Committee, but that it shall be referred to a Special Committee, specially appointed by the House, consisting of nine members, which Committee shall be empowered to take evidence and to hear counsel. I think that a fairer or more reasonable proposal could not be made, and I am sure that the promoters, of the measure will gain nothing by ignoring it, and seeking to get the Bill passed by a side wind. It is a case of Trust property, which, by some unexplained means, has passed out of the hands of the Trustees into those of private persons, who have used it not for public purposes, but for their own private gain. I think that this fact alone demands that a searching inquiry should be made. The hon. Member for North Belfast says that it is a matter of every day experience to find that property has been transferred in some extraordinary way from public to private purposes. My hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast has pointed out that a portion of this property belongs to the people of Belfast, and is used by them daily as a pleasure ground. Yet the proposal in the Bill is that the people of Belfast shall buy from the Trustees this land, which is already their own property. I cordially support the Motion which my hon. Friend has made.
    SIR J. CORRY: who was very indistinctly heard, was understood to say: The hon. Member for West Belfast says that a large portion of the people of Belfast have no representation in the Town Council. Many hon. Members will recollect that a few years ago there was considerable discussion in this House in reference to the propriety of increasing the representation of the inhabitants of Belfast, and the result was that the number of electors was increased from 6,000 to 30,000.
    MR. SEXTON: I must remind the hon. Baronet that the proposal which was made three years ago was strenuously resisted by the Corporation of Belfast.
    SIR J. CORRY: The hon. Member has told the House that the ratepayers have had no knowledge of the proposals of the Corporation. All I can say is, that the provisions of the Bill were published in the local papers, and that a plébiscite

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    was taken as to whether this land should be acquired or not. I think the Corporation are to be congratulated upon the successful efforts they have made to secure this property for public purposes. As to the value of it there can be no doubt at all. It is well worth £50,000, or double the amount which the Corporation propose to pay for it. Fifteen thousand of the ratepayers voted in favour of the Bill, and only 4,000 who voted against it were absolutely opposed to it. A considerable number voted because; hey thought that some inquiry should be made in reference to the matter. If the friends of the hon. Member for West Belfast are so strongly opposed to the measure, why have they not taken steps to show their opposition in the usual way? They have not done so, and I would earnestly appeal to the House to pass the Second Reading.
    MR. COURTNEY: I understood the hon. Member for West Belfast to intimate that, although he moved that the Bill be read a second time upon this day six months, he does not intend to press that proposal, if he can only secure the two alternatives which he has placed upon the Paper—one that the Bill be referred to a Hybrid Committee, and the other an Instruction to the Committee to make provision in the Bill to secure that any resolution of the Municipal Council of Belfast to use the Linen Hall estate otherwise than as an open space shall not be valid unless it be confirmed, upon a poll, by a majority of the persons qualified to vote for members of the Municipal Council. With respect to the first question, that of referring the Bill to a Hybrid Committee, the hon. Member rests his case on the statement that, the acquisition of this White Linen Hall, and the ground on which it stands, will cost the city more than the real value of the estate. It is proposed to give £30,000, and some one is reported to have said it would have been got for £26,000; but two hon. Members have stated that they would be glad to give £50,000, if they could get it for that sum. However, it is not necessary to enter into the question of the adequacy or inadequacy of the price. It is, at all events, clear that the question of acquiring the estate for the purpose of erecting a Town Hall has been carried by a vote of 15,000 ratepayers against
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    4,000. Therefore, the Corporation have, I think, a primâ facie case, which ought not to be re-opened in this House. But it is urged that a question of title may be raised, and of the interests of those who are concerned in this hall. If so, it could have been considered on Petition in a regular manner. The friends of the hon. Member for West Belfast have not thought it desirable to oppose the Bill in the usual way, and as they have not done so I confess that I do not think the House would be justified in going out of its way in order to refer the Bill to a Hybrid Committee. It is proposed by the Bill to raise a sum of £200,000, and out of that sum £170,000 is to be appropriated to the erection of a Town Hall. Now, it is quite true that the question of providing a Town Hall was submitted to the popular vote; but no question was submitted as to the cost of that Town Hall. That matter has not, as yet, been submitted to the municipal electors, and it affords some justification for the contention that there is still a question which ought to be submitted to a popular vote. The reply of the promoters is that they have inserted in the Bill provisions that no action shall be taken in respect to the erection of a Town Hall until after three several municipal elections shall have taken place, and as one third of the Town Council are elected every year, before the question becomes finally settled the whole of the Town Council will have been re-elected. That looks on the face of it a very good answer, but I am bound to say that, in my judgment, it is not a perfectly good answer. The reply to it is that Belfast is divided into wards so unequal in size and population that the election of Town Councillors through them does not seem an accurate reflection of the opinions of the electors. This is certainly possible, and it does not appear to be denied that the existing division in wards was authoritatively condemned some years since. I think that a case has been made out for the adoption of a mandatory Instruction, requiring before the sum of £170,000 shall be expended in erecting a Town Hall, that question shall be put before the electors by means of a plébiscite. What I would recommend is, that the proposal for the rejection of the Bill

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    should be withdrawn. There is no strong reason why it should be referred to a Hybrid Committee, but I think that the House might not unreasonably entertain the Instruction proposed by the hon. Member for West Belfast, and require the opinion of the electors of Belfast to be taken before the erection is proceeded with, so that the whole decision should not rest upon the view alone of the Town Council.
    MR. DILLON: One of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast is whether in this case there has not been a bargain made by private individuals for the sale of property which ought to belong to the public; and whether the whole of the proceedings have not been conducted in a questionable manner. I understand that one of the strongest objections urged by my hon. Friend is that the citizens of Belfast are asked to purchase for the site of a Town Hall, property which has been held in trust for public purposes, and which, in a manner which has not been explained, has passed into the hands of private individuals. Such a matter is one in regard to which the House of Commons ought to be exceedingly jealous. It is perfectly conceivable that a ring of persons interested in the possession of Trust property for their private advantage may have an interest in selling it for a large sum of money to the citizens of Belfast, in order that they may divest themselves of the position they now occupy as owners of the White Linen Hall, and be able to divide the proceeds. The Chairman of Committees has, I think, given the go-by to that point, but, so far as this House is concerned. I think it is one of the strongest points in the speech of my hon. Friend. I do not profess to understand all the details of the question, and I will, therefore, only refer to the statement of the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Harland), who knows so much about Belfast, that private individuals would be glad to give £50,000 for this property. The Corporation of Belfast are going to give £30,000, and, therefore, I think I am entitled to take the statement of the hon. Baronet with a grain of salt. If the Corporation are so anxious to have the property why did they not buy it long ago? I have yet to learn that the owners of property in Belfast are so patriotic and public-
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    spirited that they are prepared to part with an estate worth £50,000 for £30,000. I do not believe one word of it. On the contrary, I believe that one of the chief promoters of the Bill is a gentleman who is himself personally and privately interested in the White Linen Hall, and who, when it is sold, will obtain a considerable share of the purchase money. I entirely support the proposal of my hon. Friend, and I have certainly heard nothing from the promoters of the Bill which should induce me to vote for it.
    MR. MACARTNEY: I wish to say in answer to the objection raised by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), and previously referred to by the hon. Member for West Belfast, that this Linen Hall was founded by a Public Trust, that that is an entirely erroneous view of the original foundation of the estate. It was founded for the purpose of advancing the Donegal Estate, and it owed its origin to a rivalry which existed between the towns of Newry and Belfast. In no sense can it be regarded as a public Trust, and everybody who knows anything about the town of Belfast and its constituency must know that that portion of it which the hon. Member for West Belfast represents in his opposition to the Bill contains the most ignorant and illiterate of its inhabitants. I am surprised, however, that the hon. Member should know so little of the Bill which he denounces. If he had taken the trouble to go to the office of the Clerk of the Peace, or to consult the Schedule lodged at the Private Bill Office, he would have found the amounts inserted which are to be given to each proprietor in the shape of compensation.
    MR. SEXTON: The Bill itself says that many of them are not known.
    MR. MACARTNEY: I think that the hon. Gentleman is unintentionally misleading the House. No compensation is to be given to any person unknown, but the names of those who are to receive compensation are stated. I cannot understand why, if there is so much objection to the Bill, it was not opposed in the ordinary way.
    MR. SEXTON: The Bill itself proposes to set aside £6,000 for compensation, and it states that the representatives of the original proprietors are not known.
    MR. MACARTNEY: Does the Bill propose to give those persons compensation?
    MR. SEXTON: Yes, certainly.
    MR. MACARTNEY: Perhaps the hon. Member will point out how the Bill proposes to give compensation to persons who are not known.
    MR. SEXTON: That is what I want to know.
    MR. MACARTNEY: The hon. Member asks that the Bill should be sent to a Hybrid Committee. Why should it go to a Hybrid Committee? The hon. Member's constituents had an ample opportunity of petitioning against it. They do not pay one-eighth of the taxation of the City of Belfast. The proposals contained in the measure have already been submitted to a plébiscite, and carried by a large majority. Moreover, the hon. Member says that if it is referred to a Committee he does not consider it of sufficient importance to warrant the employment of counsel. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) complains that the ordinary course has not been taken in the Bill of referring to arbitration, under the Land Clauses Act, the claims of the proprietors, occupiers, and other persons interested in this scheme.
    MR. M. HEALY: What I said was that in ordinary cases when a Bill of this kind is introduced there is a schedule lodged with the Clerk of the House of the persons interested, and that this schedule is conclusive; but that in the case of this Bill the arbitrator has to find out who the parties interested are.
    MR. MACARTNEY: I am informed that that has been done.
    MR. M. HEALY: Oh, no.
    MR. MACARTNEY: At all events, no ratepayer or proprietor or anybody connected with the scheme has made the same complaint as the hon. Member, who has no interest in Belfast and comes from the South of Ireland. I venture to assert that in regard to a private Bill of this nature the House has rarely listened to arguments of a more fallacious character for its rejection, or arguments supported by such a small amount of evidence.
    MR. T. HARRINGTON: I must protest against the insolent observations of the
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    hon. Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) in regard to the illiteracy and want of intelligence of the constituency represented by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast. If the hon. Member and his friends are presumed to monopolise the intelligence of Belfast, I am afraid that the people of this country will be induced to arrive at a very erroneous estimate of its extent. It would seem that the hon. Member has not read the Bill at all, and that he is wholly ignorant of the subject on which he has claimed the right of addressing the House. I think it has been made perfectly clear by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast that a course has been taken in regard to this Bill which is most unusual in this House. Before bringing in the Bill it was the duty of the promoters to have ascertained carefully who were the persons interested in the property, and not to have inserted the names of some of them with a fishing commission to some arbitrator to find out the rest. That is, to say the least of it, a very unusual course, and a course which has never been taken in reference to a private Bill introduced into this House. I certainly think that the House will be departing from its usual course if it lends its countenance to the proposal which is made on the other side. The proposition of the hon. Member for West Belfast is a fair and reasonable one, and I shall be very much surprised if the House refuses to adopt it.
    MR. RENTOUL: It is only right to say that at the last election, out of the electors of Belfast who supported Unionist candidates, and who numbered about 18,000, there were only 560 illiterate voters; whereas in the Division of West Belfast, with a constituency of 7,000, the number of illiterate voters was 999. Belfast is a city which is singularly prosperous, and its prosperity has been made, to a large extent, by the two hon. Baronets who have to-day addressed the House. I am afraid that I cannot point to a single constituent of the hon. Member for West Belfast who has done anything whatever to make the city prosperous, or to enable it to take the place which it at present occupies. I think, therefore, that some consideration should be paid to the views of those hon. Baronets, rather than to an hon. Member whose constituents have

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    contributed nothing whatever to the prosperity of the city.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I think that the constituents of the hon. Member for West Belfast who are now objecting to the Bill ought to have opposed it in the usual way. They had a locus standi to go before a Committee, where they would have been able to state their objections. It is not those who are promoting the Bill who are taking an unusual course, but those who might have opposed it, but who neglected the opportunity. Admittedly the constituents of the hon. Member for West Belfast represent only one-eighth of the valuation of Belfast; and upon a question which involves the expenditure of money, I think the House ought to listen to seven-eighths of the ratepayers rather than to one-eighth. It is rather a suspicious fact that, with one exception, the proposal to reject the Bill is supported only by Members from Cork, Mayo, and Dublin.
    MR. JOHNSTON: I have no wish to continue the discussion in an acrimonious spirit, but I rise to correct a statement which has been made on the other side of the House. In the Preamble of the Bill, upon page 14, will be found a reference to the indentures of 1783, and again in 1803, and also books of reference containing the names of the persons who were owners, or claimed to be owners, and trustees of the Linen Hall Estate, as far as could be ascertained. It states further that those names have been duly deposited with the Clerks of the Peace of the City of Belfast and the County of Antrim. If the hon. Member for West Belfast knows of any means by which to deposit names which cannot be ascertained I am sure the Town Clerk of Belfast will be glad to be informed. I usually support the suggestions of the Chairman of Committees; but I regret that I cannot do so on this occasion. I think the promoters of the Bill are bound to ask the House to approve of the Bill as it has been submitted, and I ask the House to endorse it as it stands.
    MR. CLANCY: I am sorry that the hon. Member for South Antrim should never rise for the purpose of making a speech upon an Irish subject without attempting to irritate somebody. On this occasion he has
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    made observations which could be only calculated to excite hostility from this side of the House. He told the House that my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast represents the most illiterate constituency in that city. At all events, that constituency had intelligence enough to elect the most intelligent Member for Belfast. In this case not a single Corporate Body is interested in preventing the adoption of the proposals contained in this Bill. The only persons who are interested are individual citizens, and it is ridiculous to expect any man, however wealthy, to take upon himself the grievous pecuniary burden of petitioning the House and employing Parliamentary agents and counsel in order to oppose the Bill. But this House is competent to deal with this question, which is one of the malversation of public funds. The hon. Member for South Antrim astonished us by stating that there was no trust imposed. That is not so.
    MR. MACARTNEY: No public trust.
    MR. CLANCY: We are not talking of any other. We are not discussing private trusts, and this House is rarely called upon to do so. This is, I presume, another proof of the supposed superior intelligence of Orange Ulstermen. I maintain that the question of a malversation of public funds is one which the House of Commons ought to deal with; and I trust that hon. Members on this side will insist on carrying on the Debate until we get a more satisfactory explanation.
    Colonel SAUNDERSONrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. M'CARTAN: It is a curious thing to find the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh moving the Closure in a Debate on matters of such importance to Bolfast citizens. An hon. Member has referred to the illiteracy of the voters for West Belfast. Well, I have the honour of being a voter for that Division, and all I can say is, that if they are illiterate they have not shown it by the choice of their Representatives, for they have elected one who has contributed more to the advancement

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    of Belfast since he entered the House than all the other Members for the City put together. The hon. Member for East Down, in his maiden speech, dealt with only two points—one was the illiteracy of the electors, and the other was his praise of the hon. Baronet who had spoken immediately before him. Well, I have seen his election addresses. I can only remark that he has well used all these phrases before. This is a question of a public trust, and the question is, how is this money to be applied? The hon. Member for South Tyrone told us that we represented only one-eighth of the ratepayers of Belfast. But whose fault is it that the municipal franchise is so limited that in that Division there are so few voters? As a matter of fact, we represent one-third of the inhabitants of Belfast—the third who live in the poorest localities and who require more breathing space. We have the interest of their health at heart. If this transaction is a pure and honest one why should hon. Members object to the inquiry we suggest? I think it is our duty to insist on an inquiry, and to use all the forms of the House in order to obtain one if possible. There is the question of the appointment of the arbitrator. Mr. Murphy, of Belfast, may be a very able man, but I doubt the expediency of appointing a Belfast man at all. Again, he is not a lawyer, and how can he be expected to decide delicate questions of law? While we are anxious to see this Bill passed in a form which will be beneficial to Belfast, we do think the inquiry we ask for should be granted.
    MR. SEXTON: I will ask the promoters of the Bill whether, if I withdraw my opposition to the Second Reading, they will assent to the suggestion of the Chairman of Ways and Means? In deference to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, I will not divide on the Second Reading. I beg, therefore, to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time.
    MR. SEXTON: This was intended originally to be a public trust. It belongs to the City of Belfast. I denounce this Bill as an attempt, after a long course of illegal acts, to alienate
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    a public trust by a Parliamentary enactment, and to make large payments of public money to certain individuals. I have spoken in the interests of purity and honesty in the administration of public affairs, and I shall now take a Division on the Motion to refer the Bill, in order to throw the responsibility of what it does on the House itself.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Nine Members, Five to be nominated by the House and Four by the Commitee of Selection."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    (4.45.) The House divided: —Ayes 158; Noes 234.—(Div. List, No. 124.)
    Bill committed.
    MR. SEXTON: I beg now to move the Instruction which has been recommended by the Chairman of Ways and Means. Out of £200,000 the sum of £170,000 is to be spent in the erection of a City Hall, whereas Belfast already has a very commodious City Hall, erected about 20 years ago on almost the same site as that which is now proposed. The provisions of the Bill give no protection to the ratepayers, and I call upon the House to give them protection by passing this Instruction. By providing that one election of Councillors must intervene between the passing of the two resolutions provided for in this Bill you merely allow an opportunity for altering the constitution of one-third of the Council, and the other two-thirds may still have the power of imposing their will on the minority. I call on the House to give the ratepayers the protection which this provision will afford them.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they make provision in the Bill to secure that any resolution of the Municipal Council of Belfast to use the Linen Hall Estate otherwise than as an open space shall not be valid unless it be confirmed by a majority in a poll of the persons qualified to vote at an election of the members of the Municipal Council of Belfast, such poll to be taken in the way and subject to the conditions prescribed in Schedule 1 to the Borough Funds (Ireland Act, 1888."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    MR. J. LOWTHER: The power which is given under the Borough Funds Act has been found to work very well in the past. I think this Instruction stands on a

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    somewhat different footing to the last Motion. I decidedly approve of the proposal of the Chairman of Committees, as an assurance that the ratepayers shall have a voice in the disposal of their property. I think that Local Authorities sometimes require a control of this character. I wish to say nothing invidious of the Corporation of Belfast, who are deserving of the greatest respect; but the reasons that induced us to apply the provisions of the borough" funds to English Corporations should lead us to support the proposition in the present case.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: As a question concerning Belfast, I can understand hen. Members voting in favour of the exceptional proposal, but the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast connects it with a general policy to which I, for one, am entirely, utterly opposed, that is to say, the general policy of interposing between municipal representatives and their decision the right to call for a plébiscite. That is a proposal which strikes at the root of all Municipal Representative Government. So far as my experience goes, the application of the Borough Funds Act has been in almost every case exercised very much to the injury of Local Government. The carrying out of the Free Libraries Act has, in some cases, been delayed, and even prevented by the operation of this unfortunate proviso, a public benefit though that Act has been shown to be. On general principle it seems to me that, having provided for popular representation, a certain amount of discretion should be allowed to those representatives.
    MR. SEXTON: The right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that one ward in Belfast containing more than a fourth of the ratepayers has no voice at all in the Council.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I continue my own argument. If, in such cases, after having selected your representatives, you then interfere with their discretion by a proviso for reference to a plébiscite, you check the free action of Local Government, and you will not have the best men seeking position on the Council. The hon. Member says the system in Belfast is not thoroughly representative; and, if that is so, the
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    way to deal with it is by a reform of the present system in Belfast, not by the introduction of an unnecessary and undesirable proviso.
    MR. M. HEALY: Yes, Sir: but before that reform can be applied, this Bill will be carried and £170,000 spent under it. Instead of repeating his general view in relation to the Borough Funds Act, the right hon. Gentleman would have made-a more valuable contribution to the Debate if he had addressed himself to the particular Bill before the House. The proposal of my hon. Friend has been advocated and supported not in reference to general policy, but in reference to the conditions of municipal life in Belfast, which have wholly changed during the last 30 or 40 years. The population has enormously increased, and whereas when the Act was passed and the existing division into wards made, the population was not more than 50,000 or 60,000r it is now 250,000. That being so, the present division of the wards is an anomaly and an anachronism, and has resulted, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, in the exclusion from the representation upon the Municipal Council of a third of the population of Belfast. There is not at present at that Council Board a single representative of the Nationalist Party or of the Roman Catholic religion. It is to these special circumstances that my hon. Friend addressed himself. I am not going to discuss the Borough Funds Act. I am not going to discuss the question whether it is or is not right there should be an appeal from a Municipal Corporation to the people themselves before a large expenditure is incurred upon public works; that is not the question. The question is, the Corporation of Belfast being constituted as it is with a third of the people unrepresented, whether in that state of things there should be an appeal to a plébiscite. This proposal has been supported by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the highest authority in the House on the subject of Private Bill legislation, and I think we are entitled to some intimation from the Government as to how they propose to treat this proposal, which is as much that of the Chairman of Ways and Means as of my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast.
    MR. FLYNN: We might anticipate that some importance would be attached to the opinion of the Chairman of Ways and Means, and he in definite language has supported this Instruction, and we have not heard a word in opposition to it except from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, who knows nothing about the peculiar position of municipal affairs in Belfast. This question has never been submitted to a plébiscite at all. A reference to this was made in the former Debate, but, as a fact, the question of the erection of a Town Hall was not submitted to the people, who will have to pay for it if it is decided upon. We have, too, the anomalous condition of things that the district and population my hon. Friend represents has no voice in the Council. Under the circumstances, I think we are justified in looking for something more than a conspiracy of silence. It is a reasonable proposal in itself, and it has the support of high authority. Whatever justification there may be for the general views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham upon the Borough Funds Act as a piece of general legislation, here is a special condition of things not to be judged by the general principles in relation to that Act. Here is a large and important city with a third of its ratepayers without civic representation. It appears to me our case is made out, and there is no argument offered against it.
    MR. M'CARTAN: The House should not be induced to overlook the importance of this matter because Members opposite are impatient. The question of town halls or open spaces has never been submitted to the ratepayers. In the last plébiscite some of the ratepayers voted for an open space, and these were declared spoiled votes. I need only refer to the exclusive nature of the municipal representation to confirm what has been said by my hon. Friends, and I think it cannot be denied that the present ratepayers should have a voice in this important matter.
    (5.15.) The House divided:—Ayes 186; Noes 254. (Div. List, No. 125.)

QUESTIONS.

  THE CORN CROP IN ZULULAND.
  MR. WEBB: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies how much was the "considerable quantity of corn" referred to in the following sentence on page 10 of the Report on the [Zululand] Blue Book for 1889:—
  "The short crop caused a great scarcity of grain to exist, but which was, to some extent, met by the Local Government introducing a considerable quantity of corn, especially for seed purposes, and which was readily purchased by natives in want thereof at cost price"?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,): The amount was 255 muids (of 2001bs.) equal to about 93 quarters Imperial measure.

  DUBLIN POST OFFICE.
  MR. T. HARRINGTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General how many vacancies are there in the first class of sorters and overseers in the General Post Office, Dublin; whether it is true that some of these vacancies have existed for 12 months past; and what is the reason for so long a delay in filling them?
  A LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H.MAXWELL,): On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster General, I have to state that the vacancies in the Dublin Post Office are for overseers three and for first class sorters eight. Of the latter three have existed for 12 months. The delay in filling them has been owing to inability on the part of the authorities in Dublin to recommend members of the lower classes as fully qualified for advancement. The Postmaster General hopes soon to have a more favourable Report.

  ROUMANIA—THE MURDER OF A MARINE.
  MR. BROADHURST: I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Court Martial appointed by the Roumanian Government has acquitted the soldiers who were accused of mur-

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  dering the Marine, Page, of H.M.S. Cocatrice; and whether the Government propose to take any further steps in the matter?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): The answer to the first part of the question is, yes: but only one has been brought to trial. With regard to the latter part of the question, Her Majesty's Government are awaiting a full Report of the proceedings of the Court Martial. On its receipt, they will consider whether any further steps should be taken.

  POLICE SUPERANNUATION.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg, Sir, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, having regard to the importance to the police of Great Britain of their being afforded full opportunity of considering the legislative proposals which will finally determine the question of their superannuation before they are discussed in this House, and also bearing in mind the advanced period of the Session, the Government Bill to this end can now be introduced?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): Her Majesty's Government are fully sensible of the importance of introducing the Superannuation Bill as early as possible. It involves many details which have been engaging my careful attention, but I hope the Bill will be ready in a few days.

  THE ALBANY PASSAGE.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if the course outside the Albany Passage, on which Pilot Keating steered the Quetta upon an unknown rock on the 28th February, is the one recommended by the Admiralty; if so, is this recommendation withdrawn; and does the Government intend to take any steps towards making a fresh survey of the Torres Straits north of Rockhampton?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): The route followed by vessels for many years has been that outside Albany Island, and, as in most cases where waters are only partially surveyed,
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  a line is traced upon the Admiralty chart showing what is considered to be the best course. This line passed one-third of a mile west of the previously unknown rock on which the Quetta struck. The line has now been slightly modified; but the passage, as with the whole of the inner route, must always be dangerous until completely surveyed, and even then until properly lighted. There must be a mistake in the second part of the question, as Rockhampton is a town lying 900 miles from the nearest part of Torres Straits. A marine survey of the inner route to Torres Straits, in which the Quetta rock lies, has been proceeding at the joint expense of the Imperial and Queensland Governments since 1885, and the surveying vessel Paluma will be employed this year in the vicinity of Albany Island.

  VOLUNTEERS' AMMUNITION.
  MR. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether complaints have reached him that the ammunition served out to the Volunteers is so bad and defective that the majority of those who hitherto earned the highest Capitation Grant fail to do so at present in consequence of the inferior quality of the ammunition?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): No, Sir; complaints of the kind stated in the question have not reached the War Office.

  THE NEWTOWNARDS FARMERS' ASSOCIATION.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolutions unanimously adopted by the New-townards Farmers' Association at a meeting held on the 26th May last; and whether he intends to make provision in his Land Purchase Bill in the direction pointed out in these resolutions?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The resolutions referred to do not appear to have reached me officially, nor have I seen any newspaper report of them. I have, therefore, not had the opportunity of considering them.

  MEW ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I desire to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the five men who are in charge of the lighthouse on Mew Island, off Donaghadee, County Down, are obliged to remain there for a fortnight at a time, and are not allowed to have the use of a boat; and whether, considering that they are the only inhabitants of the island, which is three miles distant from the mainland, he will advise a boat to be left at the island, in order that they may be able to communicate with Donaghadee in case of the illness of any of the men?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): It is, for obvious reasons, contrary to the Regulations of the Commissioners of Irish Lights to allow lightkeepers to keep boats. Should assistance be required there is at Mew Island a system of signalling both for day and night, which would cause the regular attending boat to come off from Donaghadee.

  LAND COMMISSION—DOWN AND ANTRIM.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I desire to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now state at what date the Sub-Commissioners who were transferred from the Counties of Down and Antrim will return to these Counties to work off the number of arrears of fair-rent applications at present pending in respect of holdings in Down and Antrim?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Land Commissioners report that they will arrange to send a Sub-Commission to the Counties of Antrim and Down as soon as the cases disposed of in other counties are brought to a level with those in the two counties mentioned. They are not yet in a position to fix a date.

  EUROPEAN COMMERCIAL TREATIES.
  SIR A. ROLLIT: I have to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any steps have yet been taken to nominate the Treaties and Tariffs Committee to confer with the Government in consequence of the general lapsing of European Commercial Treaties in 1892, and which the right hon. Gentleman stated, in March, would
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  be appointed; and if it is yet possible to lay before the House the names of any gentlemen nominated, and to state upon what principles such nominations have been made?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The subject is under my consideration, and I am now in communication with several gentlemen upon it. But I am not yet in a position to make a statement.

  CRIME IN CYPRUS.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government, having regard to the increase of crime and the failure to arrest certain criminals in Cyprus, will cause a searching and independent investigation to be made into the organisation of the Police Force, into the circumstances relating to the murders recently committed in Cyprus, and particularly into those appertaining to the murder of an advocate named Michailides, at Kyrenia, in February last, and the recent case of poisoning of Aghissilaos Artemis in that district?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: The constitution and duties of the Cyprus Police Force have engaged the constant attention of the Colonial Office, and have quite recently formed the subject of inquiry and Report by a strong Local Commission composed of officials and natives; and new measures have been devised for obtaining a better class of recruits for the force, and for distributing them more widely through the villages than heretofore, so that the law-abiding may be encouraged to report crime, and prompter measures may be possible for obtaining evidence against criminals. In these circumstances, the Secretary of State does not propose to direct a new investigation. His attention has not been called to the two cases mentioned by the hon. Member, but he will make inquiry.

  NEWFOUNDLAND.
  MR. GOURLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has received any authentic information, either from the French Government or that of Newfoundland, relative to the alleged landing of French blue-jackets on the French shore; whether he can state the nature of the negotiations now in progress for

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  the purpose of bringing about an amicable settlement, or if it is correct that the Newfoundland Government are willing to repeal the Bait Act, providing the French repeal the Bounty Act of 1883; and if he has received any information, official or otherwise, regarding the alleged refusal of some of the inhabitants to pay Customs Duties, and that steamers trading between Newfoundland and Canada have been unable to unload their cargoes?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I have already stated that the only foundation for the reported landing of French sailors or marines was that a French officer landed in uniform at the wharf and gave a notice with regard to some fishing nets. Nothing can be said as regards the negotiations until Her Majesty's Government have had an opportunity of conferring with Sir W. Whiteway. No information has been received as to a refusal to pay Customs Dues.

  INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAPHIC CONFERENCE.
  MR. J. WILSON (on behalf of Mr GOURLEY): I wish to ask the Postmaster General if he is aware that the Representative of Lloyd's has proposed to the International Telegraphic Conference, now sitting at Paris, that the Continental States should reduce their samaphore signalling fee to one franc, and that Lloyd's would, in return, reduce their fee to foreign ships to one shilling, or, if necessary, to one franc; and whether he will instruct the Post Office Delegate, now at Paris, to support the proposition of Lloyd's?
  SIR H. MAXWELL (on behalf of the POSTMASTER GENERAL): I have to say that the right hon. Gentleman stated on the 6th inst., in reply to a question put by the hon. Member for Dundee, that the British Delegates would be very glad to use their best offices to secure any reduction which the Foreign Governments might see their way to make in the present signalling fee. It may be added that on the representation of the British Delegates the International Telegraphic Conference has agreed to admit a Representative of Lloyd's when the Committee's proposals are under discussion, and that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has arranged for Sir
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  Joseph Crowe, Commercial Attaché for Europe at the Paris Embassy, to lend him his assistance.

  THE TEMPERANCE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK.
  MR. C. DARLING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact, as reported in the Daily Chronicle, that reporters for the newspapers were, by the persons present on the wagons in Hyde Park as participators in the Temperance Demonstration of last Saturday, received with vulgar and abusive language, and were asked for beer money; whether such language and solicitation is contrary to the Vagrant Acts; and, whether the names of the offenders have been ascertained by the police?
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: And I wish, before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, to ask him whether a teetotaller who asks a reporter for "beer money" as a condition of his going on the platform is guilty of a crime or a misdemeanour?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that he has heard nothing of the facts alleged in the question of my hon. and learned Friend; I am not, therefore, in a position to say whether an offence against the law has been committed by any person.

  THE NEW CODE.
  SIR RICHARD TEMPLE: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education when the New Education Code will become law, that is, on what date; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the new Circular about freedom of education; and if so, when?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,): I believe I am correct in stating that the New Code is now law, but, as my hon. Friend will gather from the prefixed Minute, it will not come into operation until September next. I have already promised to lay upon the Table the new Circular as to classification, but as one or two other matters will have to be dealt with the House will

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  see the advantage of including them in one document, which will probably take the form of supplementary instructions, and will be prepared as soon as possible.

  PAUPER CHILDREN.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Guardians of a Metropolitan Union have named a pauper child "South Grove," because she was found on the steps of the South Grove Workhouse; whether he is aware that Boards of Guardians throughout the country frequently give such names to foundlings, which permanently associate with them the unfortunate circumstances of their birth; and whether, by circular, letter, or otherwise, he will point out to Guardians the impropriety and cruelty of this practice?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): My attention has not being drawn to the fact that a pauper child has been given the name of "South Grove" by the Guardians of a Metropolitan Union. I am not aware that there is any such practice as is suggested in the question. If my attention is directed to any case where a name which is reasonably open to objection is given to a child by the Guardians, I shall be quite prepared to communicate with the Guardians on the subject.

  INCOME TAX-COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
  MR. O'HANLON: I wish to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will bring in a Bill to enable commercial travellers who pay Income Tax to vote at elections, when they can show their business brings them to many parts of the country, and their only home the hotels at which they stop, also on their showing they have no other right to be registered?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSGHEN,): I fear there must be other classes of the community besides commercial travellers whose business makes it difficult for them to qualify by residence for the exercise of a vote at flections, and, though the matter is not
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  strictly within my own province, I think it would be far from easy to frame a measure for making special provisions to enable commercial traveller in particular to vote.
  MR. O'HANLON: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to bring in a measure?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I do not propose to bring in a measure.

  ARMY CONTRACTS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the names or the number of Inspectors or other officials charged with the duty of seeing that contractors who are bound by their contracts to manufacture upon their own premises, and not to sub-let their contracts, observe that portion of the contract; whether, in all recent contracts and orders for valises and mess tin covers, the factory clause has been insisted on, and what penalty has been inserted for breaking it; and whether he is aware that a large part of the work in connection with these contracts is still being done by a firm notorious for the bad material and work it supplied when itself allowed to contract?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: No special officials have been appointed to inspect contractors. The duty of watching them has been intrusted to the Director of Contracts, who has personally inspected all the accoutrement factories in London. Some of them have also been visited by the Superintendent of Inspectors of General Stores, and it is intended to make periodical inspections in the future. Clothing factories are to be visited by officers from the Clothing Department at Pimlico from time to time. In contracts for valises the factory clause has been insisted on. In that for mess tin covers it was specially waived to enable the hands who have made them for years to continue the work. In this case the workers have been visited in their own homes to ascertain that they were paid directly by the contractor, and that they received the proper rate of wages. As regards the allegation made in the last paragraph of my hon. Friend's question, I can only say that I have no such information.

  ASSAULT AT MILLSTREET.
  DR. TANNER: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any inquiry is being made into the assault upon a poor woman and her husband, named Sullivan, who were waylaid and dreadfully beaten near, Millstreet, County Cork, on Tuesday night last the 3rd instant, on their way home, and, after being attacked and wounded, struggled into the house of a postboy named Back-ley, who, in consequence, was stoned by the gang; whether he is aware that the Sullivans were medically treated in the Millstreet Union Hospital by Dr. Leader, who refused to give a certificate to the effect that Sullivan's life was out of danger; whether many similar assaults have taken place near Millstreet during the past year; whether the police have arrested and brought to justice any of the gang notoriously implicated in this and other similar recent outrages; and whether steps will be immediately taken to ascertain who are the employers of the gang? I also wish to ask whether this is a gang of emergency men in the employment of a local Magistrate?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary Authorities report that Sullivan and his wife were assaulted on the night of the 2nd inst. Buckley also states that a stone was thrown at him on the occasion. The doctor did not refuse to give the certificate referred to in the question. Four persons were arrested by the police in connection with the assault. The assault appears to have arisen from a feud between the party of Sullivan and that of a man named Moynihan. Both these men had taken an active part in moonlighting. On the release of the latter from prison after completion of a sentence of penal servitude a large sum of money was collected for him. He believes Sullivan, in conjunction with another man, to have misappropriated the greater part of this money, hence the strained relations between the two. So far as the police are aware, on two previous occasions assaults were committed between these two parties—on October 1, 1889, when both sides were summoned to Petty Sessions and punishment inflicted by the Magistrates, and on April 14 last, when an attack was made by Sullivan's party
  520
  on that of Moynihan. Summonses were-also issued in this case against both sides, and punishment inflicted by the Magistrates.
  DR. TANNER: Is it not a fact that Moynihan is a friend and protegé of Mr. Jeremiah Hagarty, recently advanced to be a Justice of the Peace? How is it that Moynihan has been left alone by the police, while the other man has been prosecuted?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In the answer I have just given I have stated that both of these parties were punished for the assaults they committed.
  MR. FLYNN: Is there any grounds for the belief in the locality that favouritism is shown to the emergency men guilty of misconduct on account of being connected with Mr. Hagarty?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should think there is no foundation for it.
  DR. TANNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to prevent any further outrages and demonstrations of this kind on the part of his political friends?

  THE CROYDON COUNTY COURT.
  MR. MILVAIN: I wish to ask the Attorney General whether he is aware of the fact mentioned in the Law Times of April 19, that the present Registrar of the County Court of Surrey, holden at Croydon, is a barrister; if so, whether this is in conformity with the 25th section of the County Court Act, 1888; if not, whether he will cause steps to betaken to enforce compliance with the Act of Parliament?
  SIR R. WEBSTER: The Registrar of the Croydon County Court was appointed-before the Act of 1888, and at the time-of his appointment he was a duly qualified solicitor; but I believe that within the last few months he has become a member of the Bar. His rights as existing Registrar are reserved' under Section 188 of the Act of 1888. I am not prepared to say that any breach of the Act has taken place. If necessary, the point can be raised and determined formally.

  THE IRISH LAND PURCHASE BILL.
  MR. PINKERTON: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Government intend to proceed

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  with the Purchase of Land and Congested Districts (Ireland) Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I am not in a position to say to-day.
  MR. E. HARRINGTON: This year?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Yes.
  MR. SEXTON: Will the Government conclude the Licensing Bill before taking the Land Purchase Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: We desire to do so.
  MR. SEXTON: That is the present intention?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: That is the present intention.

  INDIAN COUNCILS BILL.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in consequence of what took place at the close of business last night, when we wore informed by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that it would be put down for Thursday, whether on Thursday the Bill will be actually taken, or, if not, it may be carried on to a date at which it can be taken, as great inconvenience is now being felt by Members interested in the Bill and who wish to take part in the Debate. My question to the right hon. Gentleman now is, can he possibly say when the Bill will be taken; and, if not, will he name a day before which it shall not be taken, and so relieve Members from the uncertainty of coming down to take part in a Debate which may not come on.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am very sorry that hon. Members should feel any inconvenience with regard to the course of public business; but hon. Gentlemen have been a sufficiently long time in the House to know that it is not always possible to make provision that Orders of the Day causing the attendance of Members shall be reached, as, unfortunately, it is not always competent for the House to reach them. We had hoped that the Order would be reached in the ordinary course of things, but in that we were disappointed. Under the circumstances, I am not in a position to say when the Order will be taken; but I will endeavour, as far as possible, to meet the convenience of hon. Gentlemen.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: May I ask whether the Bill will not be taken on Thursday, because there was not an absolute pledge that it should. It was the' understanding, I believe, that at least two days' notice should be given, so that I might communicate with hon. Members interested in the measure.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not able to say whether it will be taken or not on that day.

  IRISH LIGHT RAILWAYS.
  MR. CLANCY: I wish to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the statement is correct which has appeared in the Irish papers, to the effect that the-Treasury have decided to give a free grant under the provisions of the Light Railways Act of last Session, to the proposed line from Donegal to Killybegs, in priority to the other lines recommended by the Commissioners appointed under that Act, and passed with guarantees for working expenses by the Grand Jury of the County of Donegal; whether this is the line which the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works reported against at page 40 of their Report; whether this is the line promoted by Mr. James Barton, C.E., and reported upon by Mr. James Price, C.E.; and whether, as a matter of fact, it presents engineering defects similar to, but very much worse, than the line from Galway to Clifden promoted by Mr. Price, and favourably reported upon by Mr. Barton, but which the Midland Great Western Railway Company decline to work, owing to those defects?
  ME. JACKSON: I am not in a position to say that the Treasury have decided to give a free grant to the proposed line from Donegal to Killybegs,. but this is one of the lines recommended for a free grant. It will probably be necessary to decide as regards particular lines before the decision as to all the lines to be aided can be arrived at. The Report of the Royal Commission dealt with routes rather than lines, and, there-I fore, does not apply to this line. The Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry was General Hutchinson.
  MR. CLANCY: Is it a fact that a scheme promoted by Mr. Price was favourably reported upon and decided by

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  Mr. Barton. Can the hon. Gentleman state?
  MR. JACKSON: No, Sir; I cannot answer that question.
  MR. CLANCY: Will the hon. Gentleman give us any information on the subject? This matter has been before the House several times, and we have been informed that there are several Commissioners employed in investigating the lines. Is it the fact that the decision in each case practically rests with the engineering member of the Commission?
  MR. JACKSON: No, Sir.
  MR. CLANCY: Is it not the fact that Mr. George Morris, of the Local Government Board in Ireland, informed some of the promoters of the lines in Galway that the other members of the Commission were merely there as advisers to the engineering member of the Commission, who has the whole thing in his hands?
  MR. JACKSON: I have no knowledge of it.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: When are the Commissioners likely to give us a general Report on these lines? I know it takes a long time. Can the hon. Gentleman say when we will have the Report?
  MR. JACKSON: No, Sir.
  MR. PINKERTON: I wish to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that a Memorial had been presented by the clergy of Connemara, and resolutions passed unanimously by the Grand Jury of the county, by the Grand Jury of the county of the town, and by the Town Commissioners of Galway, in favour of steps being taken by the Government to insure the early construction of the line of railway from Galway to Clifden (approved by the Royal Commission), he will use his influence to prevent any further delay in commencing this work of public utility?
  MR. JACKSON: Certainly, Sir; I will use any influence I have to prevent unnecessary delay in arriving at a decision as to the Galway and Clifden Railway.

  OFFICIALS OF THE MINT.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: I wish to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if any extra remuneration has been granted to the officials of the Mint in respect of the extra work and longer hours imposed
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  upon them by the large silver coinage of the year 1889; if not, whether he will take into consideration their claim to further remuneration?
  MR. GOSCHEN: At the end of March, 1889, a gratuity equal to two months' pay was awarded by the Treasury to all persons except the staff officers employed in the Mint at fixed salaries or wages, the work of the Department having been excessive from the early part of 1887 to the end of February, 1889. Since then the matter has not been brought again before me, and I may say, in all courtesy, that I think it more expedient that the Deputy Master of the Mint should bring the question before the Treasury rather than that it should reach us through a political channel.

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA BILL.
  MR. O. V. MORGAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman state when the Western Australia Bill will be proceeded with?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am sorry to say I cannot.

  MR. BALFOUR AND MR. J. REDMOND.
  MR. J. REDMOND: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary a question of which I have given him private notice. Is the right hon. Gentleman correctly reported in the Times as having made the following statement on the previous evening:—
  "They must remember that the houses of those persons who attempted to redeem had been wrecked by the mob. I stated before that a Member of this House had boasted that those things had occurred. I believe he controverted that What he did was to give to the reporter of a newspaper owned by himself, and the editor of which was a personal friend of his, an account which I quoted accurately"?
  I also wish to ask whether I am the Member referred to?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes; the hon. Member is the Member of the House to whom I referred, and the quotation he gives from the Times newspaper fairly and accurately represents what I said on the occasion, with the exception that I did not say that he was the owner, but I did say that the editor of the newspaper was a personal friend of his. I have here the report of the interview in the People newspaper. It says, that on Tuesday evening Mr. John E. Redmond, M.P.,

  525
  passed through New Ross, and in an interview with its representative spoke of affairs at Tipperary. He said he had
  "Never seen such excitement in his life as there is in the town of Tipperary at this moment. The houses of the men who paid their rents are there left alone by everyone. The houses of these men have been nearly wrecked, and there cannot be got in the County of Tipperary a glazier to replace the windows which have been smashed to pieces. The combination of the Smith-Barry tenants is one of the best in Ireland."
  MR. J. REDMOND: I am sure the House will in fairness allow me to say two or three words in the way of personal explanation. What I have to say may seem rather startling to the right hon. Gentleman. I never gave any such interview as that which has been quoted to the representative of any newspaper whatever, and I never made any statement which could possibly be twisted or distorted into approval of the occurrences in Tipperary—either in an interview, in a speech, or in any other manner. In my own justification, as this charge has been made against me of boasting of the wrecking of these houses, and as the charge had been made that not one of the Irish Members had denounced these occurrences, I ask permission to state that at the earliest possible moment after the breaking of the windows by certain persons in Tipperary—which is the disturbance referred to—in September last, namely, on the following Sunday, September 8, I myself publicly denounced at a meeting in the town of Tipperary those occurrences in the following words. I will read the report of my speech that appeared in the Freeman's Journal of Monday, September 9. It is as follows:—
  "There were two plain and manifest duties which they at once were bound to fulfil to wards these men" (namely, the tenants who had combined). "The first of these duties he was there to speak about, with a full sense of his responsibility, candidly, and without the slightest fear as to whether his words would be well received or not. The first duty they owed to these men was to put down disorder in the town. He (Mr. Redmond) had read with pain of the breaking of windows and the throwing of stones. He was not afraid to speak his mind to Tipperary men. … Stone throwing and window-breaking wore unworthy of Tipperary. It was a cowardly proceeding, and was found to bring injury to the cause of the Smith-Barry tenantry and the cause of Ireland generally. He asked them to put down disorder with a strong hand, and thus to deprive their enemies of the only weapon they
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  had to use against them—that is, the weapon of misrepresenting their movement as a lawless, turbulent, and an unjust one."
  That speech was made immediately after the occurrences. It was made on the spot, in the town of Tipperary. It was the last public meeting which the Irish Members were allowed to address freely in that town, with the exception of those meetings where Englishmen were present; and I must say I think it a strange circumstance that the right hon. Gentleman should publicly accuse Members here of not only not denouncing these occurrences, but of boasting of them, when he ought to have had a knowledge of that speech of mine.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know that it is part of my duty to read every speech delivered by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I, of course, accept at once with the greatest pleasure the contradiction which has just been given by the hon. Gentleman of an elaborate report in a newspaper, published in his own constituency. I have not given the House an adequate idea of the elaborateness of the account of the alleged conversation reported in a newspaper which is friendly to the hon. Member, and of which the editor has been twice a martyr to the National cause—once under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman opposite and once under mine. I presume that the hon. Gentleman has taken pains to prevent the evil effects and pernicious consequences which would necessarily be produced in the locality from this report of his words. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman sent a distinct contradiction to the editor, but, unfortunately, that contradiction was not brought to my notice.
  MR. J. REDMOND: Am I to understand that this alleged interview, published in a small country print, was brought under the right hon. Gentleman's notice, and that the long report of my speech in the Freeman's Journal was not brought to his knowledge?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The occurrence in question was reported in the People of the 14th of September last year.
  MR. J. REDMOND: That is not the date. It was the 4th of September, and my speech in Tipperary was on the 8th.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was in the beginning of September. Whether I had the good fortune to read the

  527
  excellent observations made by the hon. Gentleman on the occasion referred to I do not know. If I had known that the hon. Gentleman had delivered that speech I would have given him great credit for it, as such speeches are only too rare. Bat I read the extracts from the alleged interview that were brought to my official knowledge, and I thought they were most significant. I will no longer say that the hon. Gentleman used the expressions attributed to him, though I do say that as the statement appears in a paper which supports his Party, and circulates in his constituency, I was justified in attaching significance to it.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to,—Suck River Drainage (Provision of Funds) Bill, without Amendment.
  RATING AND VALUATION (SCOTLAND).
  Select Committee nominated of,—The Lord Advocate, Mr. Baird, Sir Charles Dalrymple, Sir Archibald Orr Ewing, Colonel Malcolm, Mr. Shaw-Stewart, Mr. Mark Stewart, Mr. Somervell, Mr. Caldwell, Mr. Hugh Elliot, Mr. J. B. Balfour, Mr. Barbour, Mr. Joseph Bolton, Dr. Cameron, Dr. Hunter, Mr. M'Ewan, and Mr. Edmund Robertson.—Mr. Edmund Robertson.)
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  LOCAL TAXATION (CUSTOMS AND EXCISE) DUTIES BILL.—(No. 244.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    MR. SPEAKER: The first (Lord R. Churchill's) Instruction is in order. The second is too vague, nor can the Committee be asked in such very general terms to lay down principles on which licences are to be extinguished. That part referring to maximum value it is already within the power of the Committee to entertain and deal with. With reference to the Instruction standing in the name of the hon. Member for Rotherham, having given my best attention to it, it appears to me that, as a sum has been allocated to the Local Authorities by a previous Bill, now an Act, to be appropriated for purposes to be defined by a Bill in this Session, it will be competent for the Committee to vary the allocation of that sum to another purpose than that specified by the Bill,
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    and for a Member to move that it should be applied, not to extinguishing licences, but to the purposes of technical education. Under these circumstances, it will not be necessary to move the Instruction, as the Committee will have the power to do what the Instruction requires them to do.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1.
    MR. PICTON: I wish to move to leave out the first words "out of." The Amendment requires explanation, but I can show in a very few words what it means. Its significance has to be brought out by a number of consequential Amendments, the result of adopting which would be that the line indicated to the House just now as possible in the Committee would be adopted, and the application of the allowances arising from. Local Taxation (Customs and Excises) Duties would be somewhat varied. The Committee will best understand my Amendment if I read out the clause in the form it would take if my Amendment, with consequential alterations, were agreed to. The clause would run thus—
    "The English share of the Local Taxation Customs Excise Duties paid to the Local Taxation Account on account of any financial year shall be distributed amongst the several County Funds and carried to the Exchequer Contribution Accounts of these funds respectively and applied to the Local Government Act of 1888 and shall be the subject of an adjustment between the Counties and County Boroughs by the Commissioners under that Act in proportion to the amount contributed by each County and County Borough from Licence Duty."
    My strong reason for moving this change in the clause is that it will leave the municipalities in the possession of more freedom than they will otherwise possess. The Amendment will not in the slightest degree interfere with, or lessen, the amount which may be applied to police superannuation, which would be dealt with in Clause 4. I do not think it is inconceivable that if the Local Authorities were left free to deal with this money as they like, some of them would occasionally buy up public house premises; but they would buy up without laying down such a prejudicial principle as that which is involved in other parts of the Bill, notably in Sub-section

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    1 of Clause 1. They would buy them up because, probably, they could make a better use of the around on which they stood, and there would be no generally admitted claim to compensate on the part of licence holders. Therefore, the adoption of the Amendment would not necessarily interfere with the object that the Government say they have in view, namely, the provision of facilities for lessening the number of public houses. The strongest argument that I can urge for the Amendment is one which concerns the moral sentiments of a large portion of the population. I earnestly hope the Government will re-consider the matter before they attempt to enforce on the local Representatives of the people of the country a duty or a necessity which all manifestations of opinion show to be bitterly painful to them. In nine cases out of 10, if the Government proposal remains in the Bill, it will not be availed of, and the County Councils will allow the money to remain idle——
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must marshal his arguments. His argument is much wider than his Amendment, and affects a question dealt with by subsequent Amendments.
    MR. PICTON: I am only now moving to strike out the words "out of," but I have a difficulty in dealing with the matter unless I can show the alteration I desire to bring about in the clause. I will only say the adoption of the Amendment will give the Government an opportunity of conciliating a large number of persons whose moral qualities and public spirit place them among the most estimable members of the community.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 11, to leave out the words "out of."—{Mr. Picton.)
    Question proposed, "That the words 'out of' stand part of the Clause."
    THE PRESIDENT OE THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): The hon. Member, I think, will scarcely expect otherwise than to hear from me that the Government cannot accept the Amendment he has moved, which would have a far reaching effect. The hon. Member asks that the County Councils may have charge of the money given into their hands, and have perfect freedom of action
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    as to the manner in which they shall dispose of it. One of the purposes to which the money is proposed to be applied is the superannuation of the police. The hon. Member says if the Amendment is accepted further Amendments will be moved by which the Authorities will be compelled to devote a portion of the funds to police superannuation, so that with one hand he gives these bodies perfect freedom of action, and with the other proposes that they shall have no freedom of action so far as the superannuation of the police is concerned. I do not think there is much between us with reference to that particular duty of the Local Authorities. The Government think it a right thing that when this money is given over one of the duties imposed on the Local Authorities should be to provide for that which most public men have for years past considered a right and propel purpose. We have the utmost regard for the feelings of those whom the hon. Member has referred to, but we believe the operations of our proposals will be necessarily in the direction which they would desire. Therefore, we are unable to accept the proposal.
    (6.21.) The Committee divided: — Ayes 254; Noes 190.—(Div. List, No. 126.)
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: I beg to move the omission of Sub-section 1. Mr. Courtney, I should be justified upon this occasion in moving that you report Progress if I was disposed to take that course. I know it would be characterised as obstructive, but if ever there was a case in which the Committee would be justified in reporting Progress, this is it. We have now arrived at the 10th of June, and we have not yet had laid on the Table of the House the Returns showing the appropriation of the money voted for the purposes of local taxation for the year ending March 31st last. I have asked for this Return over and over again. The First Lord of the Treasury has done his best to fulfil the promise he made, that we should have this information. We are told that the Inland Revenue cannot supply it, and then that the Local Government Board are not in a position to do so. I have

    531
    had some experience of the Inland Revenue, and I am sure that if the Treasury had intimated that they wanted these figures, the Return would have been forthcoming weeks ago. I am sure that they know to a shilling what was the amount allocated in the year ending 31st of March last, and I am equally certain that the Local Government Board know now how that sum has been allocated. It is a very vital point in dealing with this question, because many of us contend that the appropriation has been unfair, that the boroughs have not received their share as compared with the counties; but our allegation is worth nothing; we require evidence as to how the money has been appropriated. This, however, is not my only ground for demurring to the present proposal. We are asked to vote a considerable sum of money for the purpose of police superannuation. In the discussion on the Second Reading I asked the Government whether, before the Committee stage, they would lay on the Table of the House the Bill they intended to bring in showing how they intended to deal with this question of police supsrannuation? I was told there was every probability that the Bill would be laid on the Table. That Bill has not been laid on the Table, and we are now asked to vote this money without having before us one scrap of information as to how the Government intend to allocate the money. The House has already had experience of the intolerable difficulty of discussing one Bill upon another, and therefore I shall have to apologise to the House if, in the absence of information, I make some blunders. I can only deal with the facts and figures we have before us, and I will endeavour as briefly as possible to show why £150,000 of this money should not be voted for police superannuation. The President of the Local Government Board has assumed that the object of the police superannuation is a most desirable one, on the ground that every prominent Member for many years has been in favour of such a scheme, and that great prominence has been given to the fact that the proposals of the Government include this question. For my own part I quite agree that the police should be superannuated, and if the scheme had been brought forward for the first time
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    I would have been in favour of it. But statements have been made which have very greatly misled the public, statements to the effect that we are now going to establish police superannuation for the first time, and that it is a most desirable thing to put a tax on spirits in order to superannuate the police. But the police have been superannuated for about half a century. I think that there is hardly a county or borough where a superannuation fund does not exist at the present moment. There are enormous numbers of police in receipt of pensions under the Superannuation Fund, and therefore any statements that we are now going to vote money for the purpose of superannuating the police are misleading and inaccurate. You are going to vote money for the purpose of adding to the large grants you have already made to Local Taxation out of Imperial funds, and it is an absolute misnomer to say that this money is going to be devoted to the superannuation of the police. I have already said that the Superannuation Fund has been in existence for the past half century. In 1839, the County Police Force of this country was established. The Act was, however, only an enabling Act, and it was not until 1856 that the establishment of the police was made compulsory. Counties had originally the option of having a Police Force. The experiment was tried for 17 years before it was made compulsory, but mark you, although the establishment of the Police Force was optional in the year 1839, so early as 1840, which is just 50 years ago, this House established a Police Superannuation Fund. In the first place, Parliament required that, for the purposes of the fund, a deduction of 2½ per cent, should be made from the pay of every constable. Secondly, that the stoppagesof constables' pay during sickness, all fines on constables for misconduct, and certain portions of the fines imposed on drunken persons, and so forth, should be appropriated for the same fund; and, lastly, that money arising from the sale of worn or cast-off clothing supplied for the use of the constables should be paid into the fund. At the present time the capital value of the fund is over a million sterling. The Act of 1872 prescribed that any part not exceeding a moiety of the

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    penalty under that Act might, if the Court so directed, be paid to the fund. If that is so in counties, what has been the history so far as the boroughs are concerned? The old Municipal Corporation Act—5th and 6th William IV—enabled boroughs to award compensation to constables for wounds or injuries received in the performance of their duty, or on their being worn out in the service. When the borough police were put upon their proper footing by the 11th and 12th Victoria, the old funds were merged in the new fund, and the boroughs were required to appropriate the same sources of Revenue I have just described to the Superannuation Fund, in addition to a weekly contribution from all ranks of the police, as nearly as might be equal to l-36th part of the pay. The Committee will ask what is the superannuation allowance which a policeman may get. By the Act of 1840, a constable may be recommended for a pension of not more than half pay—a very liberal pension—if he has only served 15 years, and less than 20 years. If a constable has served 20 years and upwards, he is entitled to a pension equal to two-thirds of his pay. If he is under 60 years of age, it is a necessary condition that he should produce a certificate of incapacity to discharge his duties. In one case alone, the whole pay may be awarded, namely, in a case where the constable has received injuries in the actual execution of his duties, which incapacitate him from work. The question came before various Home Secretaries as to the extent to which this superannuation scheme was being carried out. The hon. Baronet the Member for one of the Divisions of Essex (Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson) brought the question again and again under the notice of Parliament, and, in 1875, a Committee was appointed to inquire into the subject. Amongst other witnesses, the Committee called Dr. Farre, the eminent statistician, to speak as to the condition of the fund at that time. In 1877, another Committee was appointed, and it came to the conclusion that, under the circumstances, and having regard to the conditions of police constables, it was not a wise or a proper policy to throw the men back simply upon such arrangements as they themselves might make for provision
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    for old age; the Committee thought it to the interest of the State that there should be a proper Police Superannuation Fund kept on foot. The men complained then, as I suppose they complain to-day, of the fixed age of 60, as imposing hardly on those men who joined the Force when young. A great deal of evidence was submitted to the Committee on that question. The evidence was taken of Members of the Watch Committees of some of the most important towns and cities, and also of various chief constables. All the witnesses concurred that after 25 years' good service a constable had practically given all his best years and energies to the Force. I believe that was the opinion arrived at by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt), who was at the Home Office for several years, and who thoroughly investigated the case in reference to the Metropolitan Police. But let me come to the question of what was the then state of the Fund, because I apprehend that the Government will endeavour to justify their present situation on the ground that the fund is not sufficient for the payment of pensions. The Council which provided that the fund should be established also provided that any deficiency should be made up out of the rates, and, therefore, so far as the policemen are concerned, the Superannuation Fund was complete; whatever deficiency there may be is entirely a question of the rates. Dr. Farre proposed, in the first instance, to deal with all the counties by themselves, and with all the boroughs by themselves. Taking the counties first, he showed that, in order to ensure the payment of pension, the annual contributions to the fund should be £59,000, while, as a matter of fact, the contributions in 1876 were only £38,852. Thus, according to Dr. Farre, there was in the counties an annual deficiency of £20,000, which had to be made up out of the rates if the proper system were adopted. But he says the Borough Superannuation Funds, considered in like manner, showed a surplus of £88,000 annually. Therefore, you have on the figures this state of things displayed, that the counties did not contribute what they ought to have contributed to make the fund solvent, and that the boroughs had con-

    535
    tributed largely in excess of the necessary amount. The House will see the force of the reason for which I press for further information, and that I am justified in my contention, which was maintained in 1888, that the boroughs are treated unfairly, and that a great advantage is given to the counties. The Committee had all the figures before them, and two schemes were proposed, what may be called a "rate" scheme and an "amalgamation" scheme. Under the rate scheme the fund system was to be abandoned, and, instead of a fund, pensions were to be charged upon the rates, each police area providing for itself. I am not going to argue this scheme, but there is great simplicity about the proposal that pensions to the police should form an item in the annual charge for the cost of the police, just as pay and clothing. Then there was the amalgamation scheme, the retention of the Superannuation Fund, enlarged by contributions from other sources, an amalgamation of the funds of a county apportioned according to districts, and upon the lines of this scheme the present system it appears to me is to run. This, however, is matter of pure speculation, because the present scheme is hidden from us. The Committee found that the starting of such a fund would require adjustment of a special and elaborate character, because in some places the fund was in excess of requirements, and in other cases it was almost exhausted, exactly the state of things we find to-day. The upshot was that the Committee, after going through a variety of reasons, with which I need not trouble the House, came to the opinion that the amalgamation scheme was impracticable, and then they considered the rate scheme with favour. They thought there were some objections to it, one being that possibly the police might not be so zealous in enforcing penalties when these went to the rates instead of to the Superannuation Fund; but in a carefully considered and statesmanlike manner the Committee of 1877 presented their Report, the general upshot of which was in favour of securing the police pensions upon the district rates directly, and against a general amalgamation scheme, which they regarded as impracticable. The effect of the evidence given before the Committee
    536
    showed that whereas the annual contributions to the Police Superannuation Fund by the counties was too low, that of the boroughs was too high. The House will remember that from 1877 to 1880 Parliament was far more busy attending to European affairs than upon such matters as police superannuation, and no action was taken until 1882, when, my right hon. Friend (Sir W. Harcourt) being Home Secretary, a Bill was brought in carrying out the recommendations of the Committee of 1877, so far as they were approved by the then Government. My right hon. Friend then, in introducing the Bill, admitted the great dissatisfaction that existed as to the uncertainty of pensions, a constable entering at 21 not being able to obtain a pension until he reached the age of 60, unless previously receiving a certificate of in competency, and a term of 25 years service was provided in the Bill. Provision was also made for the widow of a constable killed in the discharge of his duty, and an allowance provided for each of his children under 15. There were many other administrative details, but the Bill did not carry out the recommendations of the Committee in regard to making superannuations a charge upon the rates; it provided various means for strengthening the fund and placing it in a solvent condition. The Bill of 1882 was met with legitimate opposition— such as is called obstruction now—from a small number of County Members, and the Bill did not pass. Other Bills were introduced in 1883 and 1884, and I myself had the honour of introducing another in 1886. It must, however, be borne in mind that all those Bills dealt with the administration of the fund, and did not propose to provide subscriptions from the Imperial funds in aid of the local rates. Now, I must trouble the House with a few figures to show how the pension funds stand to-day in boroughs and counties; figures relating exclusively to England and Wales, and, for convenience, I separate the City and Metropolitan Police from the others, as they stand upon a totally different footing, and are under wholly different conditions. The Home Secretary has laid on the Table an interesting Return as to the condition of the funds; and the Return shows that the Metropolis presents a remark able contrast to the counties and boroughs.

    537
    In England and Wales the total strength of the Police Force, including Chief Constables and Inspectors, is 37,735 men, of whom 11,826 are in the counties, 10,778 in the boroughs, and 15,131 in the Metropolis, including the City. The large proportion of 7,698 men are receiving pensions from the fund; and of these 2,105 are in the counties, 1,302 in the boroughs, and 4,283 in the Metropolis. Last year there was paid in pensions, £371,870—£96,673 in the counties, £65,114 in the boroughs, and the large proportion of £210,000 in the Metropolis. The deficiency to be provided out of the rates was £182,460; and of this the counties had to raise £28,576, the boroughs £4,297, and the Metropolis £149,000. The Capital Fund available at the end of the year was £1,208,722; and of that £588,529 belonged to the counties, £614,677 to the boroughs, and £5,415 to London. The counties with no fund at all are Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Worcester, and Denbigh. In nearly all the cases where there is a deficiency to be met out of the rates, no Capital Fund has been established. In the other cases there is a Capital Fund; and it is fair to argue that if public money is to be voted now there must, in equity, be an adjustment as between those who have done their duty and those who have left it undone. As regards the boroughs generally, their Police Superannuation Funds are in a thoroughly sound and solvent state, and they are sufficient to meet the claims that are made upon them. The same is true of most of the counties. I wish to call the attention of Members for the Metropolis to the state of the Metropolitan Police Fund. I do this with considerable diffidence, for I feel there are many Members much better able to deal with this part of the question than I am. But I want to call the attention of Metropolitan Members to this, in common with the remarkable subvention now proposed. What is the state of the Metropolitan Police Fund, as shown in the accounts for the year ending March 31st of this year? Although the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police has not the means and appliances of the Inland Revenue or the Local Government Board, he has his statement ready up to that date. I find that last year the Metropolitan Police received from
    538
    the Local Taxation Account £584,000, and from the rates £731,000. I want my hon. Friends to mark these figures, for they give a clear indication, in my opinion, as to where this sum of £150,000 is going. The other sources of Revenue bring the total up to £1,500,000. Out of this fund, £149,000 is paid for retired allowances, so that the Metropolitan Police Fund pays its way. There is another point. After having paid off all the charges I have mentioned there was in hand at the end of the year £186,000. Therefore, the fund is perfectly solvent Parliament is now asked to put into the hands of the Receiver £150,000 more, though it is impossible for any Administration to grant pensions on a more liberal scale than is done by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. That £150,000 means an increase in the Metropolitan Police without the control of Parliament. I protest against the granting of this money for the imaginary purpose of creating a fund which has in reality existed for 50 years, and against which the only complaint brought is that of defective administration.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 14, to leave out Sub-section 1.—(Mr. Henry H. Fowler.)
    Question proposed, "That Sub-section (1) stand part of the Clause."
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I do not propose to follow the right hon. Gentleman through the figures he has given, but I will touch only those points which seem material to the clause. With the general outline drawn by the right hon. Gentleman I have nothing to quarrel. It appears to me that the right hon. Gentleman has not laid sufficient stress upon the recommendation of the Committee of 1877, which formed the turning-point in the action of successive Secretaries of State from that time. That Committee was appointed in consequence of the numerous, complaints received, especially from the Provincial Forces, with reference to superannuation. The grievance was that, although there was a Superannuation Fund, it was not spent as it ought I to be but the Authorities acted, as it was alleged—and I wish hon. Members to understand that I do not identify my-

    539
    self with that complaint—in a capricious and arbitrary manner. It was a frequent complaint that while a pension was withheld from one man it was granted to another who was in favour with the Authorities, and this uncertain and precarious state of things constituted a grievance. The right hon. Gentleman has actually taken credit to the boroughs for having smaller pension lists in relation to the number of their Forces than the counties; yet it was that very fact which led to the complaints and to the legislation for which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby is so distinguished. Dr. Farre made extensive calculations, occupying nearly two years, to find out what became of 100,000 of the police entering and leaving the Force from all causes. He found that in the Metropolis 13,800 men had pensions: in the counties only 12,000; and in the boroughs, only 7,900. The proportion at the time was in the Metropolis, 14 pensions per 100 men; in the counties, 12 pensions per 100 men; and in the boroughs, less than eight p3r 100 men; and it was this marked disproportion which gave rise to the complaints. The Provincial Authorities dismissed their men without pensions, and caused the disproportion into which the Committee inquired. All early statutes left the granting of pensions optional, but for a good many years it has been the duty by law of every Local Authority to form a Superannuation Fund, and the deductions which have been made from the pay of the men ought to have accumulated, yet hon. Members will find, on reference to a Return recently made to this House that in the case of 35 boroughs in which a Superannuation Fund ought to exist no single man is receiving a pension. These are startling facts. Deductions from the pay of the police have been made for years. I hope that those deductions have been invested, and are in existence now. It must be remembered, too, that these are not new boroughs. They have been in existence many years. The boroughs, and, in a less degree, the counties, have not made for their Police Force so large a provision as Parliament wished them to make. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has brought forward successive Bills giving policemen a right to a pension,
    540
    and depriving the Local Authorities of their right to decide whether pensions, should be granted or not. All those Bills aimed at this, to correct the fault of both boroughs and counties in having given too little money to the pension charge. The object of those Bills was to enable a policeman to know what his pension will be under given circumstances. That is what has been done in the Metropolis, where it has resulted in the number of pensions that the right hon. Gentleman has adverted to. Our Bill will be largely based upon the lines of the Bills brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, though I have made some alterations in matters of detail. The effect of a Bill based on these Bills would be to increase the number of pensioners in the counties, and still more in the boroughs; and, consequently, there will be thrown on the Superannuation Funds considerable extra burdens, and, therefore, we think it necessary to make this provision to meet them. The right hon. Gentleman opposite says that the funds, especially in the case of the Metropolitan Force, are already sufficient for the purpose. On that point I take distinct issue.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: It comes out of the rates.
    MR. MATTHEWS: Very often it is the case that a policeman earns his pension when he has been in the Force from 15 to 25 years, and does the right hon. Gentleman contend that the ratepayer of today is to bear the whole burden of the pension earned during the 15 previous years? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is a satisfactory method of adjusting the pension charges?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: That is what the Select Committee recommends.
    MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, I am sorry to say they do. But they also recommend that the contribution from year to year should be changed into a terminable annuity.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: No; the recommendation is that the existing fund should be changed into terminable annuities.
    MR. MATTHEWS: Well, that may be so, but it is not worth while discussing that question. It seems to me you are imposing on the ratepayers, the day the pension is granted, a most unreasonable burden, unless you ensure

    541
    that they receive some aid from the ratepayers of the years in which the pension is earned. Remember that the funds were not sufficient in 1877, any excess which might then have existed being due to the facts that the boroughs had an unusually small number of pensioners. I have taken the trouble, however, to get out the figures of the income from all sources of the Superannuation Fund in the years 1874, 1883, and 1888. I find that in the case of the counties the income in 1874was£55,834; in 1883 £64,762; and in 1888 £67,240. In the boroughs it was in 1874 £52,000, and in 1883 and 1888 £52,000. The payments in the counties have grown from £30,000 in 1874 to £100,000 in 1888; and in the boroughs from £27,000 in 1874 to £58,000 in 1888. You consequently now have a deficiency of nearly £33,000 in the counties, and of £5,495 in the boroughs. Nobody, looking at the state of the Superannuation Funds throughout the country, can say that they are now in a satisfactory condition, or that they will be able to meet the demands upon them if the proposal to make the granting of pensions a matter of right instead of discretion passes into law. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton actually had the courage to tell the House that the Metropolitan Fund is solvent.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: I never said it was solvent. I simply said that after appropriating £140,000 out of the Superannuation Fund there was still a sum of £180,080 in hand at the end of the year.
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have no doubt there is a balance at the bank, but I think the right hon. Gentleman should have told the House that the Fund has not existed since the year 1856, and successive Secretaries of State have found themselves obliged to fall back on the current rates, The total expenditure is £193,000 a year and the income from odd sources £55,000 a year, so that the deficit of £139,000 a year has to be met out of the Police Fund generally. Clearly, then, the Metropolitan Police Fund is in need of a subvention. To overtake the annual expenditure which now falls on the Fund in respect of superannuation would need the investment of a sum of £6,000,000, and surely this one fact justifies us in pro-
    542
    viding a nest egg. In fact, all these funds are more or less in a state of insolvency. I do not think it is necessary I should detain the House. I may say that we do not propose to make any difference in the treatment of boroughs and counties, compared one with another, in proportion to their solvency. It does not seem right that a Government subvention of this sort should depend in its distribution upon what I may call the misconduct of the Local Authorities in failing to provide a sufficient Superannuation Fund, and I think it only reasonable that where these subventions are given the localities should assist in bearing the burdens.
    MR. J. ROWLANDS: I think we must congratulate ourselves upon the very able manner in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton has laid this question before the House. I think he has given rise to a Debate of extreme interest and importance. As the right hon. Gentleman has well said the Metropolis stands in a different position to the other parts of the country, and the Metropolitan Members admit at once that the attitude they take up is because of that difference in the position of the Metropolis. There are facts connected with the control of the Metropolitan Police, which do not exist in other parts of the country, and we have to look at the proposals of the Government from that standpoint. Having listened to the speech of the Home Secretary, I must say I fail to see in what way the members of the Force will receive direct benefit from his Proposal. I admit at once that there is a huge deficit in the Police Superannuation Fund, the amount being £145,000, or it is near enough to say £140,000. Now, that deficit at the present time comes out of the General Revenue. I want to know whether that deficit will be wiped away when this £150,000 is obtained. What I want to know is this. Supposing the £150,000 takes the place of the £145,000, where does the right hon. Gentleman get his money from to defray the cost of the extra 1,000 police he is going to appoint? Early this Session I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether it was true that an increase of the Police Force was taking place, and he answered that he was adding to the Force at the

    543
    rate of 100 a month until the total of 1,000 had been reached, and he added, in answer to a further question which I put to him whether he was going to rely upon the present funds at the disposal of Scotland Yard, that it might be found necessary to make an appeal to this House for extra money. At that time we supposed that the House would have to be appealed to for further statutory powers. The present 9d. rate, I find, is almost entirely consumed by the present expenditure on the police, and I cannot see, throughout the Returns just issued, where the right hon. Gentleman gets the money to meet the cost of the extra 1,000 police. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton that there is little doubt the £150,000 is going to be used in meeting the demand necessitated by the appointment of 1,000 additional police. What position do we take up? We had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would ask for the money by Bill in the ordinary way. He has not done so. We say distinctly that we are not prepared to see any additional burden put upon the back of the Metropolitan Members so long as we have not direct control of the police. Therefore, we are going to vote for the Government because we say that we are willing to take anything for the Metropolis we can get. We have no control over the Metropolitan Police. We have our opinions as to whether the force is managed economically; and it will be in the recollection of the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Hoxton laid the whole business plainly before the House last Session, and showed that the present state of the Metropolitan Force, financially, is very unfortunate indeed. We have the whole of the 9d. rate swallowed up; we have no control over the manner in which that rate is spent. By the Returns I find that provincial towns are much better placed than the Metropolis in respect of their police and the cost to the ratepayers. When you hear the Metropolitan Police talked about, you feel they are a force coming within the area of the London County Council; but the fact is, that within their jurisdiction are two municipal boroughs—West Ham and Croydon—one on the east and the other on the south. A great part of Surrey is policed
    544
    by the London County Council and the Justices of the Peace under the Local Government Act of 1888, while there is a large section just bordering the London County Council which is under the control of the Metropolitan Police. Another matter of importance is, that we have to' furnish men from the Metropolitan! Police to do a large amount of public work, and, while I am aware that payment is made for those services, I am convinced that the allowances do not cover the extra cost which the Metropolis is put to with regard to the supply of police for public purposes. I quite agree that the Government must have at, its service men for particular duties, in addition to the men required at Pembroke Docks and other places. The Government cannot get rid of the whole difficulty of the management and control of the police by simply granting this£150,000. We have two objects in view, the first of which is to see that the-necessary funds shall be forthcoming to-enable the police constables and the-officers of the Metropolitan Police Force to be placed in a better position than at present for the performance of the duty they have to discharge. And here I wish it to be understood that we have no complaint to make against the endeavours of those who desire to put the force on such a substantial basis as we think they are entitled to. But, on the other hand, we say that so long as the; Central Government make exceptions in the case of the Metropolitan Police, and say that they are not to have the same rights of citizenship as were similarly circumstanced in the large provincial-towns, and that the ratepayers are not to have the same control over the police as is exercised elsewhere, because they are not to be trusted in the same way as other citizens, the responsibility of finding the necessary means for the maintenance of that force rests entirely with you, the Government. We say that the present 9d. rate is a heavy burden upon the inhabitants of the Metropolis, a burden too heavy for them to be called upon to bear, and we are determined not to allow any increase on that impost. It is for these reasons that we intend to vote with the Government, and we should do the same with regard to any other Government

    545
    making a similar proposal with reference 4o this question.
    SIR R. LETHBRIDGE: It seems to me that the Metropolitan Members ought to take some notice of the Challenge thrown down by the hon. Member and responded to in a very half-hearted manner by Members on the other side of the House, and particularly by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I trust that the ratepayers of the Metropolis, and those who are interested in the police administration of this great City, will take notice of the objection of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government, the object of which is to put the position of the Metropolitan Police upon a more substantial basis. The right hon. Gentleman has asked what advantage the Members of that force will derive from those proposals, but it is abundantly apparent that those proposals will make the superannuation of the police a matter of right and no longer a matter of discretion; while, at the same time, they will relieve the Metropolitan Police Fund from the objection that the burden, as it exists at the present moment, is almost too heavy to be borne. The right hon. Member opposite took objection to the action of his Colleague the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby in having established the salaries of the Metropolitan Police on a somewhat lavish scale. ["No, no!"] At any rate, the hon. Gentleman said the Member for Derby had left his stamp on the police pensions of the Metropolis, and that they were on a somewhat lavish scale; but if the Committee were to follow the advice of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, they would leave this system of lavish expenditure, for which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby is responsible, to be met by the oppressed ratepayers of the Metropolis. It is a significant fact that when a Metropolitan Member rises on the other side of the House to address this Committee, he practically repudiates all the recommendations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, and says he intends to vote on this question with Her Majesty's Government. So, I think,
    546
    should all Metropolitan Members; and I hope that the electors of the Metropolis will take note of the fact.
    COLONEL NOLAN: Bearing in mind the consideration that the large proportion of the money intended to be used for the purpose now under discussion is to be taken from the extravagant duty to be laid upon Irish whisky, I think it the duty of the Irish Members to object to the financial proposition which is here involved. The system is an exceedingly bad one and most unjust to the next House of Commons.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to enter into a criticism of the financial propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the question now before the House, which simply has regard to a proposal for superannuation allowances for the police of the Metropolis.
    COLONEL NOLAN: Of course, I bow to your ruling. And I would say that if you are to give a Local Authority the sum of £300,000, you ought not to tie the hands of that authority with respect to the purposes for which the money is to be applied. If you do that, you are simply giving the money with one hand and tying up the method (£ its expenditure with the other. And, if you give a sum like this to the County Councils of England, and tell them they are to spend it for certain specific purposes, no future House of Commons will be able to remedy whatever inconveniences may arise from your action, and hereafter the House of Commons will be in the absurd position of having to vote money to these bodies, who will not be able to apply it for the purposes they may desire, but will be compelled to devote it for the purposes set forth by a Parliament elected in 1886. Now, Sir, the sum of money which is to be derived from the increased duty on Irish whisky——
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member is disregarding my ruling.
    COLONEL NOLAN: I am sorry you find it necessary to stop me, but probably I may be enabled in some later phase of the question to make the observations I desire to put before the Committee. I must, however, say that I think the proposed distribution of the money is most unfair, and that the present proposal will

    547
    form an exceedingly bad precedent. At any rate, I regard it as a most dangerous innovation as far as Ireland is concerned, and I cannot help regarding the Bill with extreme suspicion. I hope the Committee will reject this clause, and that, if they do not, certain portions of the Bill will receive the most thorough examination, because I believe when the measure is thoroughly examined it will be found to be a Bill for the bribing of electors and a Bill to tie the hands of County Councils in the disposal of the funds. (8.31.)
    (9.1.) Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. WADDY: It would be out of order to discuss the way in which this money has been provided. The question is, what we are to do with the money that has been found for us. I object, in common with my right hon. Friend (Mr. H. H. Fowler), who spoke with such force and clearness a short time ago, to such application of the funds as is proposed in the clause now under consideration. I object very strongly to the system under which you provide for local wants by means of Imperial taxation. I believe it is a mode of doing business which leads to very great and grave scandals, and which is opposed to every sound principle. I do not hesitate to say that one reason I have for objecting to this proposal is that if you once give for the purpose and in the form mentioned in the clause, it would be very difficult if not almost unjust, to withdraw, and, inasmuch as the Act on which this is founded has been passed, and as this Act will be passed, in spite of anything that can be said or done, by what I may almost call main force, it will be exactly on a level with several other enactments of this Parliament, which another Parliament will feel itself quite at liberty calmly to repeal. If once the money is partly expended, it will be very difficult to stop its further expenditure. Another objection to the sub-section is that it is another instance of a distinction drawn between the three Kingdoms with regard to the application of Imperial funds. This, again, I take to be an exceedingly dangerous and obnoxious principle. The Bill proposes to devote the money in England to superannuation, to
    548
    the extinction of licences, and to some other purposes. In Scotland it is to go towards police superannuation, the extinction of licences, and educational purposes; whilst in Ireland it will go towards the extinction of licences and educational purposes. I apprehend that, with regard to this Imperial taxation, the principle to be applied to the one nation ought to be applied to the other.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): In Ireland there is a Superannuation Fund.
    MR. WADDY: So have we a Superannuation Fund.
    MR. GOSCHEN: Not an Imperial Fund.
    MR. WADDY: I am quite prepared to say that I intend subsequently to propose that the whole of the sum should be taken for education. That will get rid entirely of the difficulty. I object most strongly to the present proposal, because it will render more difficult the revision or repeal of this, and many other Statutes passed, as we think, unfairly, by a House of Commons which does not represent the opinion of the country.
    MR. T. H. BOLTON: I am not at present very much concerned with the elaborate figures brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). They show that there has been considerable mismanagement with reference to the Superannuation Fund of the police; but if they go to prove anything, I think they go to prove the necessity of the proposals of the Government with reference to this matter. I do not know what stronger arguments could have been adduced in support of the re-consideration of the superannuation arrangements. I hope this money will be distributed fairly with reference to those boroughs-which have made provision for the superannuation of their police, and that an attempt will be made to place the superannuation of the police in the other boroughs and counties and in the Metropolis on a satisfactory footing. I believe the police discharge their very necessary duties with great forbearance, and to the great satisfaction of the public. There may be individual cases in which we have had to complain

    549
    of the police; but, on the whole, I believe there is a general feeling of satisfaction with the way in which the police—the Metropolitan and City Police especially— perform their duties. I think they have a real grievance in connection with their Superannuation Funds, and I would advocate a more generous treatment of our police than they have hitherto experienced, not only in connection with their superannuation but also their pay. I cannot help thinking they have grievances in connection with the Superannuation Fund, and I believe this grant in aid of the Superannuation Fund of the Metropolitan Police will enable the superannuation of the Metropolitan Police especially to be placed on a satisfactory footing. If this were done, I believe it would render them a more contented and useful force, and that it would receive the support of the public. I am told the money would go not to benefit the police, but to relieve the ratepayers. That is one way of putting the matter, but, if so, I do not object, for unless this subvention be granted to the Superannuation Fund of the Metropolitan Police, there will be an appeal to Parliament to increase the police rate throughout London, not only for superannuation, but also in order to provide the additional number of police which it has been resolved to add to the Metropolitan Police Force. In any case, this grant will lighten the burdens of the ratepayers of London. I am not terrified by the suggestion that a large portion of the fund will go to the relief of the ratepayers of London. There is no class of persons in this country who are more entitled to consideration in connection with the adjustment of local burdens than the ratepayers of London. The rates of London are very heavy indeed, amounting in some cases to as much as 6s. in the £1; while in a district just outside London, but within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police, they are from 10s. to 11s. in the £1. Under these circumstances, I do not think there need be, on the part of the Metropolitan Members, any great anxiety with reference to a proposal which will very considerably relieve the already over-burdened ratepayers of London. The right hon. Gentleman has expressed very great anxiety with reference to the
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    subvention of rates. I think he rather exaggerates the matter. It has become a sort of text for argument to talk about the impolicy and impropriety of subventions and to jump at the conclusion that subventions in aid of the rates are always wrong. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman it would be much more satisfactory if there could be a re-adjustment as between local rating and Imperial taxation; but until that happy time arrives, I am not terrified at the grants made from time to time in relief of local taxation. I believe that on a readjustment it would be found that local taxation has not received more than it would have received if it had had allotted to it those resources which local taxation has a right to look forward to. With reference to the Metropolitan Police, it must be borne in mind that this force discharges duties that are not peculiar to the Metropolis. The London Police discharge many duties which entitle them to consideration from the Imperial Authorities and Imperial Exchequer. They are under the control of, and responsible to, this House. Surely, therefore, it is quite within the province of this House out of Imperial resources to provide for reasonable requirements of the police in connection with their superannuation. I am here as a London Member to look at this matter in the interest of the people of London. I make this frank and candid confession to the House. I believe the people of London will be very well satisfied with the proposal of the Government to assist the Superannuation Fund of the Metropolitan Police, and I do not think the people of other parts of the country need display any great opposition to it when they consider the Imperial character of the Metropolitan Police and the duties they discharge in the capital of the Empire. It may not be altogether satisfactory to some men who, like myself, are Radicals and Party men, to have to express satisfaction at any proposal of a Conservative Government; but justice and fairness compel me to support the present proposal, and I believe that I and others will succeed in inducing the rest of the Liberal Members for London to support this proposition.
    SIR W. BARTTELOT: I was delighted to hear the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. T. H.

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    Bolton), because it shows that he, at any rate, considers this question to be far above Party. I venture to say that these proposals are reasonable and just. The police have been promised for many years that they should have a Superannuation Bill. I do not wish to say anything that may offend right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but I may say they that had an opportunity, and they state that they did bring forward certain Bills with regard to the police; but I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) whether, with any heart and with any soul, they ever proposed to press the Bills through the House of Commons. It has been said their Bills met with opposition from Members who now sit upon the Government side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we opposed those Bills because we believed that a forces which was of universal benefit to the whole country should be supported, at any rate to a considerable extent, with regard to its superannuation by Imperial funds. I have had very considerable experience of police matters, as the Chairman for many years of Police Committees, and I assert that one of the greatest difficulties which has always arisen with regard to the superannuation of the police is that there is no definite and guiding principle upon which the fund should be conducted. When the Act which enabled us to have a Superannuation Fund was passed, it was stated that only in case of necessity the rates of the country should be called upon to pay towards the fund. Inasmuch as there were certain amounts which were paid annually into the fund, it was considered for many years that there would be no call upon the rates, but when the call did begin to be made on the rates it was made exceedingly heavily, and those counties which had not prepared for that day found out to their cost they had to come on the rates to a very large extent. We find that three things have happened. Some counties have been wise and prudent enough to provide out of the rates from the first a certain amount of money to be added to the 2½ per cent, which the police contributed, and to the other funds the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton enumerated; there were other counties which did not do that, but
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    which contributed a small amount from the rates, and then, when the time of pressure came, continually had to pay out small amounts; and there were other counties which provided nothing at all, and which eventually found the fund was entirely exhausted. The Home Secretary has said that there were certain boroughs which did nothing but take the money the police subscribed, and give no pensions at all. The police, therefore, have in some cases, just cause of complaint. I believe that in several counties there were vast differences of opinion as to what the superannuation should be, and what I have asked for years past is that the Government should bring in a Bill which should contribute a fair quota towards the Superannuation Fund, and lay down, within certain limits, what the superannuation should be. You cannot, in this matter of superannuation, treat the London police like ordinary rural police. There must be elasticity in superannuation. A man who is liable to be knocked about at night is in a totally different position from the man who has practically only routine work to do from one year's end to the other. The man in the country can go on for very many years, whereas in London a man will probably be worked out in 25 years. There must be elasticity of treatment between a maximum and a minimum pension. I have seen and known cases in the country where a man has been able to carry on business and do hard work, and earn considerable sums of money, while very many of the ratepayers who were paying for his superannuation were in straitened circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. H. Fowler) has said that he is against Imperial funds being devoted to this purpose; but we have heard from several hon. Members opposite representing London constituencies that they do not object to a contribution from Imperial funds. The hon. Member for St. Pancras and the hon. Member for Finsbury say how severely the Metropolitan ratepayers are pressed, and these hon. Members expressed an opinion that the Government proposal is just and fair.
    MR. J. ROWLANDS: I did not say that; I simply accepted the proposal, seeing that we

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    are not allowed to have control of the police.
    SIR W. BARTTELOT: That is a totally different question. I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that the ratepayers of London ought to have something from Imperial funds, and, therefore, he supported this proposal. I daresay the hon. Member and his friends would like to have control of the police, but that is a question we have not to discuss now, and I will only say there are two sides to that question, and the hon. Member will find, when it comes on for discussion, that such a proposition will not be easily carried. The other night, on the Tithes Bill, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. H. Fowler) expressed sympathy with the agricultural interest; but now I do not think he gives the consideration to that interest it ought to receive. I think that the proposal of the Government is one which will commend itself to the whole country. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman is not able to lay on the Table the Bill with regard to superannuation, because if we had that Bill the whole of this discussion would probably be considered out of order. I hope that the Government will pass that Bill in the interests of the police, a body of men whose interests well deserve consideration from the House.
    MR. ROWNTREE: The hon. Baronet began by assuring the House that the Government proposal is just and reasonable, but he concluded with a hope that that proposal will be produced. I should have thought it would have been more prudent to reserve opinion until the proposal is before us. Surely it is most inexpedient and a most undesirable policy that we should be called upon to vote the taxation of our constituents while being utterly unable to tell them what the adjustment of that taxation will be. I confess, although I listened carefully to the statement from the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I could not tell my constituents what the probable effect of this Bill would be upon them. But we have had a very remarkable light thrown upon the hopes of hon. Members by the speeches delivered by the hon. Baronet (Sir Walter Barttelot), and by some of our Radical colleagues on this side. Most ingenious if not convincing statements
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    have been made. The hon. Baronet says the agricultural interest is extremely depressed, and this we all acknowledge and deplore. But upon that the hon. Member founds a claim for additional taxation for the relief of the counties. But, I suppose, in every constituency there are industries depressed equally with the agricultural interest, and ratepayers have a hard struggle for existence. Yet we are apparently to vote a large sum from Imperial taxation, which is welcomed by the Representatives of the agricultural interest and by Metropolitan Members as being a relief to them provided by other taxpayers whose interests are of less importance. This proposal is, that of £300,000 to be raised by taxation of all the population, half is to go to the relief of the rates of London —that is, to the relief of 5,000,000 of ratepayers, whose proper share would be a fifth. We are told it is right and proper to do this, and that this Committee is the Watch Committee of London, but I think it is the worst Watch Committee that could be devised. It has been frankly stated that there is a great deal of waste in the management of the police, and that this is a device for increasing the number of police in the Metropolis; but the hon. Members representing London constituencies welcome it because at present they have no control over the police. Our people are to pay for their own police and for a large share of the cost of the London police, though the management is wasteful and non-effective. These speeches ought to have weight with borough Members. When the information showing the new departure in this matter is really before us, I believe it will be seen that the boroughs of England are paying a far greater proportion, and are going to be called upon to pay a far greater proportion, than is at all fair or just to the taxpayers in those boroughs. I do think that in common justice we ought to be in a position to put clearly before our constituents information that would set this matter at rest. If we are wrong the sooner our errors are proved the better for us all, but at present all the evidence goes to show that money will be raised by fresh taxation in boroughs, to be expended in the counties and in the Metropolis. I shall with great pleasure

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    follow my right hon. Friend into the Lobby, as a protest against the injustice which will be imposed on borough populations by these proposals.
    MR. HUNTER: The main interest of Scotland is in the next clause, but I should be sorry that hon. Members should at this stage be under any false impression as to the view we take on the question of police superannuation, and the sources from which it should be drawn. I am very much in favour of the superannuation of the police; but I am not more in favour of that than I am in favour of the superannuation of workmen, who have to pay for the superannuation of the police. As a matter of abstract justice, it is as reasonable and quite as necessary that the community from whose pockets the funds are drawn should have a superannuation scheme. The only point in which the police differ from other people is in cases where they are injured in the execution of their duty. But, after allowing for that single concession, there is no principle on which the superannuation of the police can be justified any more than the superannuation of other workers My objection depends more on the sources from which the money is to come. The proposal of the Government is to take money from the Imperial Exchequer in aid of local rates. Now a more pernicious principle than that cannot possibly be devised. In the first place, it is inequitable and unjust.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The principle of the Bill cannot be discussed now.
    CAPTAIN VERNEY: One thing has been said by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. H. Fowler) and others which is based upon an error. He referred to the failure of establishing a Superannuation Fund as a failure of duty. Now, I submit to the Committee that this is not the result of a failure of duty, but that it has been done with intention and design. I do not want to trouble the Committee with autobiographical details, but I may mention that, when some 14 years ago I became Chairman of Anglesey Quarter Sessions, there was a fund for the superannuation of the police. We were always increasing that fund; we never drew anything but the interest; and if the interest was not enough, it was made up from the rates;
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    but the fund itself kept on increasing. The Magistrates saw that the fund, which kept on increasing, would before long become self-supporting, and there would be no necessity to come upon the rates at all. Thus there would be no check on the pensions of the police. They, therefore, thought it better to draw on the capital of the fund, so that the ratepayers might always have the matter before them, when the fund was exhausted, and they would have to come upon the rates. Then the question arose as to the legality of coming entirely upon the rates, and upon this we took legal opinions, which were about equally balanced. We found that many counties considered it legal, and acted upon that view, and others considered it illegal, and only used the interest of the sum. Well, for the reason that we wished to keep the matter constantly before the ratepayers, we decided to draw on the capital and have as small a fund in hand as possible. That was done intentionally and of design, and I submit that we ought not to be accused of a failure of duty. We conscientiously believed it to be oar duty to the ratepayers that they might have the question of pensions always clearly before them.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: My right hon. Friend has dealt with this subject in such a manner that I have very little to add to what he has said. I shall not, I think, be accused of being indifferent to the question of the superannuation of the police. During the time I was in office there was hardly any other subject that more engaged my attention. There is, I think, a great deal of delusion on this subject from which the hon. Baronet the Member for Sussex (Sir W. Barttelot) is not altogether free. The hon. Member was very eloquent and patriotic in praise and in sympathy for the police. Well, we all feel with him in that; but I am bound to say that, whatever this Bill is going to do for the ratepayers, it is going to do uncommonly little for the police. The London Police will get nothing they do not get at present. There is provision in London for the superannuation of the police, and the Government, so far as I know, do not propose to alter that provision. We are discussing this matter at great disadvantage, because we have voted the money, and do not

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    know how it is going to be used. But it is becoming the practice of the Government to get money from Parliament and to decline to say how it is to be expended. It is a new policy, and contrary to all financial principles which have governed the House of Commons hitherto. The sound principle is, before you demand the money, to say what you are going to do with it. From what has been said, I assume that the system of superannuation in the Metropolis is to be maintained. The various Superannuation Bills have gone very much on the principle of applying to the other parts of the country the Metropolitan system. Therefore, this Bill will not give any boon to the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Members take a peculiar view of the subject. I do not complain of any Member trying to get hold of a sum of money for his constituents. I would certainly do it for mine. I am afraid, however, the Metropolitan Members do not understand their own position. Here we have £150,000 to be appropriated; but is it to go to a fund over which the Metropolitan Members will have any control? Not at all. I could understand their voting the money if it were going in relief of their rates; but it is not. The Metropolitan Police rate is fixed at 9d., and the ratepayers will not pay a farthing less if this £150,000 be voted. If this £150,000, on the other hand, went to the County Councils, the Metropolis would get the benefit of the money, and yet you are going to vote against a Motion which would give £150,000 to the County Councils, in order that it may be placed at the disposal of the Home Secretary for the Police Fund. A more extra-ordinany policy from hon. Members who claim to have control of their own police I cannot conceive. They are going to vote for £150,000 being placed to the credit of a fund over which they will have no control, and from which the rates will receive no relief. Hon. Members are judges of their own interests, but, so far as I can understand, it is absolutely contrary to all principles they have ever professed, and to the interest of their constituents in the rates. The money will go to—I will not say it is not a useful object—the assistance of the Police Fund, but it will not assist the rates. I am not speaking in disparagement of
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    the Police Fund; but from the point of view of the ratepayers I am safe in saying that this provision in the Bill will do nothing for the London policeman and nothing for the London ratepayer. That cannot be denied. What, then, is it going to do in the rest of the country? It appears there are some parts of the country that have not made the provision they ought to have made for the superannuation of the police. But the Home Secretary is going to treat the just and the unjust alike, and all districts, whether they have or have not made proper provision for the superannuation of the police, are equally to have a grant out of the Imperial Fund. Here, again, we are in the dark. Of the Metropolitan Police I can speak with confidence. I know what their position is, and, as I understand the Home Secretary, their position will remain practically the same.
    MR. MATTHEWS: The right horn Gentleman must not assume that.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: We are entitled to an opinion, at least; and if the Metropolitan Police are to be placed on a different footing in regard to superannuation, why do not the Government tell the Committee what their proposals are? The measure must not go to the country under false pretences. It will not confer on the ratepayers of London any boon at all—it will not relieve the rates a single farthing. I will ask the Government if, when this £120,000 is contributed, there is any intention to lower the 9d. police rate? I should think there will be no diminution of the rate. I appeal again to the Secretary of State if that is his intention. If there is to be no reduction, then I repeat that the grant will be no relief to the London ratepayer. In my opinion, the House will be merely voting the money as an additional subsidy to the general rate. As the Committee do not know what provision is to be made for the police, we cannot discuss the matter; but the President of the Local Government Board, when he follows me, will be in the secret of the Bill which the Government keep up their sleeves. I still assert that the boon is not that which it is represented to be; it is simply an addition to the subsidy to the general rates. In not being able to discuss this matter on equal terms with the Government, we are not placed in a fair position. In my opinion, instead of

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    appropriating this money as the Government propose, it had better be given to the general rates, and handed over to the body who have control over those rates. I have the interest of the police at heart as much as anybody in this House; but I do not think that this proposal is wise in itself, or that it Constitutes the best way of dealing with the money. If the grant is to be made, 8et the County Councils deal with it.
    MR. RITCHIE: I make no complaint of the general tone of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, but I venture to say that no one who heard the earlier remarks of the right hon. Gentleman would have supposed that he was not in the secret of the Government's proposals. The right hon. Gentleman laid down two propositions with great confidence and without fear of contradiction—first, that nothing would be done for the London Police; and second, that nothing would be done for the London ratepaper. I cannot quite understand how he was able to make such a definite and distinct assertion unless he had the knowledge, which he said was necessary to enable one to come to a right conclusion. Now, as to his assertion that nothing is to be done for the police as regards superannuation, I would point out that Clause 4 deals much more largely with the question of police; and before the Committee coma to that clause it will be entitled to know the proposals of the Government in regard to the allocation of the money. The right hon. Gentleman must not jump too hastily at the conclusion that nothing is to be done for the London Police in the way of superannuation. Then, as to the London rates the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the superannuation of the police, even under the existing system, was only attained by making heavy drafts upon the ordinary police rate. There was no Superannuation Fund in London available for superannuation. This state of things could not go on for ever. There must come a time when a demand would have to be made on the London ratepayers for an adequate provision, and the provisions which the Government now propose will prevent the necessity for such a demand, besides putting the superannuation of the Metropolitan Police on a sound and satisfactory footing. The
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    right hon. Gentleman asked why the money was not given to the County Councils as a subsidy in aid of the rates, but that was not the way in which the night hon. Gentleman proceeded in conrection with superannuation. In his Bills the right hon. Gentleman proposed to entail upon the Local Authority heavy obligations with reference to superannuation. The Government asserted that the County Councils throughout the country were led to expect that they would have a certain sum of money given to them in aid of their local rates. That sum was considerably reduced in consequence of a certain Bill, which provided for raising the funds, not being passed. Although the Government did not assent to the proposition which was made at the time that they were responsible for finding the money which the County Councils were naturally led to expect, yet they did recognise the fact that county finance was not upon that basis which they led the County Councils to expect at the time the Local Government Act was passed. The Government now find that money for the County Councils, and they think they are justified in binding the County Councils to apply it towards the superannuation of the police. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton was rather angry with the London Members for being prepared to accept that boon. The right hon. Gentleman said he was angry——
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Not angry, but astonished.
    MR. RITCHIE: Well, then, the right hon. Gentleman said he was astonished at Metropolitan Members allowing that money to go to a fund over which they have no control. Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman has receded from the position which it is well known he took up at one time, that the control of the London Police ought to be retained in the Home Office? I am very much surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should appeal to the London Members to reject this boon, because the police are not under the control of the County Council. The Government believe the proposals they are making are necessary if the Superannuation Funds of the police in London and the country are to be put on a satisfactory basis. The right hon. Gentleman passed some

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    rather severe strictures upon the Local Government Board for not having presented to Parliament a Paper giving details of the amounts which have been allocated and contributed to County Councils and boroughs out of the funds appropriated to them. The preparation of the figures required a considerable amount of time, and they have only been received by the Local Government Board from the Inland Revenue a few days ago. Certainly there has been no unnecessary delay at the Local Government Board, and I have no reason to believe that due diligence has not been used on the part of the Inland Revenue. I believe we shall be in a position within the next few days to lay the Paper on the Table of the House. I believe I have shown that the right hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken in saying that our proposal in reference to London will give no relief to the rates or that it will not prove beneficial to the police.
    MR. JAMES STUART: I cannot agree that the Bill is required to put the Superannuation Fund on a proper footing so far as the Metropolis is concerned, although it may be required for that purpose in other parts of the country. I rise, however, to answer the question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, as to why the Metropolitan Liberal Members are about to vote against the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. We believe that those who control and manage the force should be those who pay it. When you have placed the Metropolitan Police under the control of the ratepayers of the Metropolis, when it is in their power to raise or to refuse to raise a rate that may be required, then we will not come to this House for grants for the police. But this House claims—and has maintained its claim—that the police of the Metropolis shall be managed by the House, and, consequently, the House should be obliged to pay for it. The House has claimed and maintained a right to impose a rate on the London people for the purpose. By Act of Parliament it imposes a unnecessary police rate, and, after the remarks of the Home Secretary, I venture to say that that 9d. will soon be increased to 10d., unless this offer of the Government is accepted. I pro-
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    phesied that this would be the case two years ago if we continued5 the present system, and my words-have been verified. The Government are not acting in a straight way in the manner they are now seeking to avoid that necessity. I think the Metropolitan police rate is already-ridiculously high; it is high in everyway, and it is so because the Government and the Home Secretary insist on levying the rate and administering the proceeds of it. When the rate is administered by the people who have to levy and pay it, depend upon it you will not only get rid of all the unpleasant friction which now arises between the police and the people of the Metropolis, but you will also avoid that continually increasing increase of expenditure. So long as we have no share in the management or control of the police I say that a 9d. rate is too large a police rate to levy, and I can only say, in conclusion, that there is no possible solution of this question than by proving to the House that it must pay for its own experiments. We are determined that so long as this House claims to manage the police so long shall the constituents of this House contribute towards the expense.
    MR J. E. ELLIS: I think we are carrying on this discussion under most inconvenient circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, in his forcible speech, made a double protest. He condemned the action of the Government in not giving us the Returns necessary to enable us to judge the application of this money, and he protested also against the Superannuation Bill not being in our hands. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has offered some apology for the non-appearance of the Returns. But I do submit that we are not in a position to discuss this: matter, unless we are able to understand the financial effect of the proposal, so far as our constituencies are concerned. That is a position in which no Member of the House should be placed. Why not postpone this matter, so that we may judge. With regard to the superannuation measure, the Chancellor of the Exchequer threw across the Table of the House the remark to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolver-

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    hampton "You will find that principle in the Bill." It is all very well to tell us that the principle is in the Bill, but we want to find the words in which it is clothed. The Bill, from what has fallen from the Home Secretary, will probably show that there is room for criticism whenever it reaches our hands. It is perfectly impossible to discuss adequately this matter without both the Returns and the Bill in our hands I am quite aware that the Chief Secretary asks us to vote Bills without giving us the evidence on which he founds those Bills, and I am sorry to say that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) is in this matter somewhat imbued with the same spirit. I feel entirely justified in making the Motion with which I am about to conclude. I am perfectly aware that it may be called obstruction, but I am willing to take all the responsibility attaching to it. For the reasons I have given, Mr. Courtney, I beg to move that you now report Progress.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I think I am justified in refusing to put that Motion.
    MR. E. ROBERTSON: I think the House is indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby for placing the issue clearly before the Committee. As I understand, the Amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton really only offers us a choice of evils, and, of the two, I have no hesitation in accepting my right hon. Friend's. I do not think it has been clearly brought to the attention of the Committee that in the Bill, as drawn, the County Council is the residuary legatee of this fund. You have first the super annuation of police to provide for, and next the extinction of licences in England. The 1st sub-section says the residue is to be given to the County Council. If you get rid of one or the other of these two primary purposes, then the whole of the residue goes to the County Council, and I am justified in saying that the London County Council will be the residuary legatee of this fund under the Bill. Under the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, the whole of the residue would go to the local Representatives of the people, to be managed by them for local purposes. What do the Government propose to do
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    with it under Sub-section 1? They do not in the least tell us. They refer us to a Bill which, so far as we are concerned, is not yet in existence. The right hon. Gentleman a few minutes ago, in defending his position, referred us to Clause 4 as affording a complete statement of what is going to be done under this Superannuation Bill. But there is not one single word in Clause 4 which is not in Clause 1, except one, that the rate of the Metropolis is distinctly defined in Clause 4, and it is not in Clause 1. If we are entitled to know under Clause 4 what the Government are going to do, we are equally entitled to know what they are going to do under Clause 1 in respect to this specific grant now being made, according to the proposal of Her Majesty's Government. I cannot compare the demand made by the Government on the Committee to anything else than what the Americans call "a blind boom," which means that people trust their money to a person without knowing how he is going to use it. It is a "blind boom" the right hon. Gentleman is now asking us to sanction. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton offers us the alternative to leave the money to the County Councils, to make use of it for local purposes. I believe my right hon. Friend objects as strongly as I do to the whole policy upon which the clause is founded, but as between the two evils, I have no hesitation in supporting the alternative proposed by my right hon. Friend, and I shall vote in support of the Amendment.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby dealt somewhat severely with the London Members, and I wish to say a few words in their justification. Now, with the principles laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton I very largely agree and sympathise. But when the right hon. Gentleman complains that the Metropolis is receiving a larger share of this money than that to which it is entitled, he can hardly expect us to follow him. The Government, upon whom rests the responsibility of reconciling opposite and divergent interests, offers to the Metropolis a large subvention, and it is hardly reasonable to

    565
    expect the Metropolitan Members to refuse it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby raised an issue which was not quite fair. He said that the issue presented to the Metropolitan Members was whether the £150,000 should be paid over to the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police or to the London County Council. That is not at all the issue. The £150,000 is allocated to London for a particular purpose—the superannuation of the police—and there is no reason to suppose that if, as my hon. and learned Friend suggests, the London County Council were to become the residuary legatee, the Government would give the Metropolis so large a share. One word with regard to the ridicule which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby tried to throw upon the London Members. We may be selfish, but we are not so short-sighted, as the right hon. Gentleman represents. What is the case? £150,000 is at present paid over to the Metropolitan Police Superannuation Fund annually out of the general Police Fund. In future that £150,000 is otherwise provided for. It is obvious that one of two parties must receive an advantage by the Police Fund being discharged from that liability—either the ratepayers or the police. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby that the ratepayers are not likely to receive any benefit. I think that the President of the Local Government Board confirms my impression that the Metropolitan police rate will not be reduced. But I shall vote for this proposal, because it is inevitable that the Metropolitan Police must receive large advantages out of this £150,000. I am one of those who believe that the position of the rank and file of the police is unsatisfactory, and that their emoluments and pensions are not such as they have a right to ask. They compare unfavourably with the City Police in that respect. There is already rising in the ranks of the Metropolitan Force an agitation for an improvement in their position, and the Government cannot resist that agitation. I have sometimes been constrained to speak in terms of reprobation of the Authorities of Scotland Yard, but I have always borne my humble tribute to the merits of the rank and file of the Police Force, and I shall be glad if the vote which we give to
    566
    night results in placing at the disposal of the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police funds, out of which he will have the means of satisfying the reasonable demands of the Force.
    MR. ILLINGWORTH: I would point out that though the Metropolitan Members are very important in this case they represent only one-fifth of the population, and surely those who live in other parts of the country should have an opportunity of stating their case. I think it is a miserable matter upon which the Committee of the House of Commons is engaged at the present moment. If a Peabody or a Carnegie had left a sum of money in the hands of the Government there could not have been a greater scramble for it than there is for a share of this fund. In my opinion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is extending a system which is pernicious in the last degree. We have Bills before us affecting millions of people, yet the precious time of the House is wasted in a scramble for a few hundred thousand pounds among gentlemen representing the Metropolis and the provinces. If our system of taxation were fair and equal it would only be the difference between taking the money out of the right-hand pocket instead of the left. We know the anxiety there is to transfer money from the Imperial Exchequer to purposes of a local character, and, at the same time, we know that the poorer classes pay a very much larger sum to the Imperial Exchequer than is allowed out of it for local purposes. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Sussex (Sir W. Barttelot) has pointed to the case of the agricultural labourer, but he has not stated how the agricultural labourer would be benefited by the allocation of this £300,000; and, in point of fact, the agricultural labourer will be as heavily burdened when this amount is allocated for the purposes proposed as he is at the present moment. After all, it is in reality a mere will-o'-the-wisp that we are now pursuing, and I, for one, must enter my strong protest against the policy which is now being pursued by Her Majesty's Government—the policy of subvention which is so constantly resorted to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On one other point, which is involved in the consideration of this

    567
    question, I desire to say that we ought not to allow the Government to interfere in any way with the local control over the police of this country; and, if it were only on this ground, I think we ought to draw the line, and protest against this system of Government subvention for local purposes.
    (10.50.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 249; Noes 169.—(Div. List, No. 127.)
    MR. A. ACLAND: I beg to move the following Amendment:—Clause 1, page 1, line 16, after "mentioned," insert—
    "(ii.) The sum of £350,000 shall be applied in England for the purposes of agricultural, commercial, and technical instruction, as defined in Clause 8 of 'The Technical Instruction Act, 1889,' and in Wales either for the said purposes or for the purposes defined in Clause 17 of 'The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889.'"
    We have now reached the sub-section of the Bill round which the principal controversy rages. I am glad that your ruling, Sir, permits us to offer an alternative to the proposition which we call the compensation or endowment of publicans. It may be said that the Instruction which I put down on this subject was obstructive, but I can only say that I had no obstructive intention. I put down the Instruction simply to give the House the choice whether it would give this large sum of money to assist education, which we all believe in, or to assist the publicans, an object which a great many of us do not believe in. Under this Bill we find, as usual, that our friends in Scotland and in Ireland are going to get assistance for education, but not a word is said about it for England. I am not going to make a long educational speech, but I should like to say that an opportunity has now arisen for assisting technical education, in a secondary sense, in a way which has not offered itself for many years. Last year the Government gave us a Technical Instruction Bill, and a Revised Code this year, but unless more is done than has been at present to help intermediate education, a large portion of the money spent on education will have been wasted, and the Technical Education Act of last Session will remain, what, unfortunately, it is at present throughout most of the country, a dead letter. If the Government could see their way—and
    568
    they would receive every help from this part of the House—to stimulating local contributions under the Technical Education Act, by Imperial contributions, they would soon find a network of technical and secondary schools rising up throughout the country that would do credit to England, and soon put us on a level with other countries. I suppose I shall be asked "Do the County Councils want this money for the compensation of publicans?" and I affirm, without any doubt, that if the County Councils were consulted at this moment, they would prefer to have the money for education rather than have it for the endowment of publicans. I think that one of the blots in the Bill, and in this clause especially, is that the County Councils have never been consulted in this matter. This was never mentioned in the Queen's Speech. The County Councils, which met in May, had no opportunity of discussing the subject, and many of them will not meet again until August, when, I suppose, the Government will have passed the Bill into law. I think that many of the County Councils—I can speak for that to which I belong—will refuse to use this money at all, and I hope we shall find the whole of Wales and the whole of Scotland, as well as the whole of the North of England, refusing to touch this money for the purpose set down in the Bill. But offer it for education, and every County Council in the whole of Great Britain will instantly be willing and glad to help forward education—agricultural, commercial, technical, intermediate—for the benefit of the inhabitants of every county and every town. That is the proposition which I venture to lay before the Committee; that, I say, would most certainly be the verdict on their own proceedings; but the Government have sprung upon us this proposal. They have not consulted the County Councils, and they have laid at their door a duty that they do not want to discharge. I think very often Punch hits off the feeling of this country in matters of this kind very well. Recently it depicted the President of the Local Government Board with the infant publican in his arms and with the bottle of compensation to feed him, and the right hon. Gentleman is supposed to say. "Having brought the infant up, I am going to drop him in somebody's door," and he drops him

    569
    in the doorway of the County Councils. Well, many of the County Councils will refuse to let him come inside the door. I may be told that this sum is too small to be of use for technical or intermediate education in this country; but I will endeavour to show, from the way we are working the Technical Education Act in Wales, that that is not the case. The Welsh Act may be called a small thing. It may give power to raise a ½d. rate, but I do not hesitate to say, from what I have seen during the past six months, that in a year or two in Wales we shall have a system of secondary education which will set an example to England which she will desire to follow. I have the honour to be the Chairman of one of the County Committees, appointed under this Act, partly by the County Council and partly by the Government, and I am, therefore, familiar with the systematic, thorough, and genuine way in which these Committees are getting to work. What is happening there shows the stimulus which a Government grant gives in these matters,' and I say that the Government might easily, in a very few clauses, draft a scheme for the employment in England of the money dealt with in the Bill on some such operations as are now being carried out in Wales. That would be infinitely bettor than spending the money in raising the price of public houses. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Jesse Ceilings), and other hon. Members, ask whether something cannot be done for agricultural education. I quite admit that something ought to be done. When it is known what is being done in countries like Denmark and Switzerland for agricultural education, England ought to feel ashamed of herself, and here is her opportunity of freeing herself from the reproach. If hon. Members press their principles this money might be the nucleus of a good system of agricultural and commercial education, and obviate the necessity our farmers and tradesmen are under of sending their children, for certain kinds of instruction, to wretched private adventure schools. To devote it to this use would be far wiser than to adopt the proposal of the Government, which will cause the maximum of friction with the minimum of good. I shall be asked why I refer to the alter-
    570
    native of the Government. I do so first because I consider that alternative a bad one. We are justified in calling it a scheme of compensation on a basis to be fixed by the publicans themselves. If it be not a scheme for the benefit of the publicans, why do we get letters of this sort, of which I have had several?
    "Dear Sir,—As one of your constituents, having a pecuniary interest in the brewing and licensing trade, may I ask you to give your support to the Customs and Excise Duties Bill?"
    Having got your surplus out of drink, you say you are bound to spend some of it on those who sell drink. That may take in some people in the country, but I do not think it takes in anybody here. We know perfectly well that our taxes are not ear-marked in that way, and that the idea that the money must be spent on drink is simply a fraudulent and ludicrous assumption. As I have already pointed out, you will be involved in an endless muddle if you carry this proposal through. I believe that many of the County Councils will refuse to touch this money. You will then have one part of the country dealing with the question in the manner proposed, and the other parts withholding themselves from the "unclean thing" altogether. I believe my alternative to be one which supplies a genuine and real need to the country. We ask you to give to our young people in the middle classes, and the pick of the artisan class, who are now receiving no training, good technical and modern instruction of a kind very different from that which is offered in many of our old grammar schools at the present time. We know just as well as Members opposite what are the evils and miseries which result from the drink traffic, and we offer alternatives of this kind, not because this happens to be their scheme, but because we believe it to be a vicious scheme, and one which will not remedy the evil against which it is directed. I venture to say there will not be a murmur from any Town Council in any part of Great Britain if my proposal be carried. But I suppose it will not be carried. You are going to force this sub-section through against the will of large masses of people, in a way which is very unusual in this House, and when you have done it, you will find yourself lauded in a precious muddle, and will be

    571
    extremely sorry you ever made the proposal. If the County Councils use the money there will be great danger of constant disputes among themselves. There will be a danger of jobbery. I suppose you will provide whether County Councillors who are brewers are to have votes in these matters or not. If not, you are going to disfranchise a large number of constituencies, whilst if they are to vote you are going to allow that which is not allowed in the case of Magistrates. I can only say I hope that ever, now, at the eleventh hour, the Government will take advantage of this proposal, and will put an end to one of the most ill-advised propositions ever brought before the House.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 17, to leave out sub-section (ii.), in order to insert—
    "(ii.) The sum of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds shall be applied in England for the purposes of agricultural, commercial, and technical instruction, as defined in Section eight of 'The Technical Instruction Act, 1889,' and in Wales either for the said purposes or for the purposes defined in Section seventeen of 'The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889.'"—(Mr. Arthur Acland.)
    Question proposed,
    "That the words '(ii.) The sum of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds shall he applied for such extinction of licences in England,' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. GOSCHEN: I think it will be more convenient if we discuss the general question of our plan upon the Amendment to leave out the sub-section, to be proposed by another hon. Member.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that is the Motion now made.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I am grateful to you, Sir, for pointing that out to me. Do I understand that when this question is put we shall have disposed of the point that the money be devoted to this particular purpose?
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question I put is—
    "That the words, 'The sum of £350,000 shall be applied for such extinction of licences in England' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. GOSCHEN: Well, I think it will be better that, for the moment, I should reply to the observations of the hon. Member as regards his alternative scheme, and reserve what I have to say about our own plan. The hon. Member calls his a simple plan. He proposes that £350,000
    572
    should be applied to agricultural, technical, and other education, without informing the Committee of a single condition on which the money is to be granted. We are simply asked to vote £350,000 in the air for the general purposes which the hon. Member has indicated. I hope the hon. Member will do the Government the justice of acknowledging that they have shown every disposition to further the cause of education. They have carried a measure for intermediate education in Wales and also the Technical Education Act. Indeed, we are as anxious as the hon. Member himself is for the proper development of education in all its branches. We shall continue to advance in that direction. The hon. Member has used very violent language with regard to the Government proposals. I, however, will use very moderate language with regard to the proposal of the hon. Member. It would be impracticable to carry out the hon. Gentleman's "simple plan" without having some indication of the conditions upon which the money is to be expended. Although we admire the enthusiasm of the hon. Gentleman in the cause, we cannot assent to his proposal. I think, the hon. Member has, in some respects; done scant justice to the immense progress made of late years in the cause of intermediate education. Splendid schools have been formed in many large towns, and in the Metropolis, by voluntary efforts and by the generous assistance of the public, and have been, brought to a high state of efficiency. It will be impossible for the Government to assent to the proposal which the hon. Gentleman has made.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Mr. Courtney, on a point of order, I wish to ask you whether the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Brigg Division (Mr. Waddy) will or will not be excluded by the ruling you have given?
    THE CHAIRMAN: If the Committee resolve to retain the words "the sum of £350,000 shall be applied for such extinction of licences in England as here inafter mentioned," it will not be competent for the hon. Member for Brigg to move his Amendment.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I would submit that if my hon. Friend, instead of moving to insert his Amendment after the word "mentioned,"

    573
    would move to insert it after the words "shall be applied," the Question put from the Chair would then read—"The sum of £350,000 shall be applied in England for the purposes," &c. The usual manner of putting an Amendment is to do so in such a form as not to shut out subsequent Amendments. If the question be put from the Chair in the way I have mentioned it will then be open for the hon. Member to make a proposal as to the method of application.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the words proposed to be left out and the words proposed to be inserted are identical so far as what he refers to—"that the sum of £350,000 shall be applied." It is not proposed by the hon. Member for Brigg, nor by other hon. Members, to strike out those words. The point in dispute arises immediately after the word "applied," and in putting the question that the words "for such extinction of licences" stand part of the clause, I gave an opportunity to the opponents of that application of all kinds to combine against it.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Would not the point be met by the alteration of the first line and a half of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Brigg down to the word "England?"
    THE CHAIRMAN: Whether the hon. Member for Brigg or the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. A. Acland), or any other hon. Member proposes an alternative, they all unite in opposing the adoption of the words "extinction of licences."
    Mr. D. CRAWFORD: May I point out that the proposals of the hon. Member are not necessarily antagonistic to the application of the money for the extinction of licences. I submit that it would not be correct to put the question in the form that the sum applicable to licences is to be left out, but that the proper way is, after the word "applied," to take a Division on the question whether so much is to be applied to technical education. There might then be enough money left for the licences.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that is not the case, as a matter of fact. I would point out that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Brigg says "the said sum."
    MR. S. SMITH: I should like to point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we in Wales acknowledge that we are indebted to the Government for what they have done for Welsh education, but our gratitude would be increased if the Government would adopt the suggestions which have just been made by my hon. Friend. I am certain that the County Councils in Wales will decline to apply this money in the way proposed. The Bill, if it passes, will be a dead letter in Wales, for the feeling of the public is so strong against the proposed scheme of compensation for public houses that they will decline to touch the money for any such purpose. I can, however, assure the right hon. Gentleman that if he accepts the Amendment of my hon. Friend we shall receive the money with the greatest satisfaction, and shall apply it to the cause of education. The people of Wales are very poor people, and even the aid they received in the last Act fell short of what they require to provide a complete scheme of secondary education. I, therefore, heartily support the Amendment of my hon. Friend.
    MR. ELLIOTT LEES: The hon. Member who has moved this Amendment proposes to devote a sum of £350,000, to be raised from the tax on drink, to the purposes of intermediate education. It follows that the more drink consumed the better for the intermediate education of the country. It follows also that the father of a large family who wishes to give his children a good education has only to consume as much drink as possible. Allow me, also, to point out that this tax will be raised almost entirely from the working men, and the hon. Member proposes to devote it to founding a system of intermediate education which, will not really affect the children of the working classes, because it is very seldom practicable for the son of a working man to spare sufficient time from work after coming to the age of 13 or 14 to acquire a good intermediate education. Therefore, you will have in England, as you have in America, the complaint made by the masses of the working classes that they are taxed for the education of those who can very well afford to pay for their own education. I believe myself that intemperance does far more harm to the agricultural labourers of this country than the lack

    575
    of a good education; and I am prepared to do what I can for the cause of temperance, and to pay for what I think is a good object.
    MR. MATHER: I think the Government ought to accept the Amendment with a considerable amount of gratitude. My hon. Friend (Mr. A. Acland) appears to have made a golden bridge across a state of difficulty, and leading to the position of perfect tranquillity. We are, I think, all perfectly agreed on the policy of taxing drink, but there is great difference of opinion as to the way in which the amount thus raised should be used. I think if the Chancellor of the Exchequer adopts this Amendment all the differences will at once vanish. Something has been said about the amount of money which is spent in this country on education, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer reminded us of the closing days of last Session, when the proposals of the Government with regard to technical education were passed. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not forget that on that occasion he received the support of Members on this side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman said one of the difficulties in the way of accepting the Amendment was that my hon. Friend did not mention how the machinery for distributing the money would be devised. I need only remind the right hon. Gentleman that the machinery exists. The Science and Art Department already takes charge of money to be used for educational purposes, and I am sure the Science and Art Department would, in a few days, show the right hon. Gentleman how this money could be distributed. The Department has already published a Minute respecting the disposition of the sum of £5,000 in aid of technical education. That is, however, a mere drop in the ocean, and is merely playing with a great national question. I need not remind hon. Members that in America there is a vast amount of money distributed amongst the various States in the form of land grants with which agricultural and industrial education is encouraged and maintained. Look at the vast industrial pursuits of England, and compare our means of industrial education with those of other countries? Why, we exist
    576
    under the most miserable conditions. I believe that if this £350,000 were appropriated, as my hon. Friend suggests, it would be about the most popular action on the part of the House of Commons that has taken place for a considerable number of years. I sincerely trust the House will take this matter into its serious consideration, and I thank my hon. Friend for having thought of a plan by which he can settle all our differences and satisfy the country on this question.
    MR. MUNDELLA: Originally I had no intention of speaking on this question; but I feel I must say something by way of protest against what has fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman complains that my hon. Friend has submitted a vague Resolution to the House, that he provides no machinery, and does not state the amounts to be allocated to the different counties. Has the right hon. Gentleman read the Amendment? What is the Amendment? It is that this money shall be applied in England for the purposes of agricultural, commercial, and technical instruction, as defined in the Act of last year, and in Wales either for the said purposes or for the purposes defined in Clause 17 of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889. During the discussion which took place last year it was admitted on all hands that there was nothing that was more disagreeable to us than the delay which had taken place in the House in acting on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Technical Education, and the right hon. Gentleman tells us to-night we have passed an Intermediate Education Act for Wales, and with respect to technical education the right hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten we passed a Technical Education Act last year. But what did you do by passing a Technical Education Act last year? You simply gave powers to the Local Authorities to do something for Technical Education. But what have you done for such education?
    MR. GOSCHEN: The right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well it is the intention of the Government to meet what is done by the Local Authorities.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I happen to have in my hand the Minutes of the Science and Art Department, from which I find

    577
    what is proposed to be done under the Technical Education Act of last year. I find that the entire sum proposed to be given is £5,000.
    MR. GOSCHEN: The first year.
    MR. MUNDELLA: No, Sir. I should like the Committee to understand how we are dealt with; how the Government make promises and break them.
    MR. GOSCHEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what promises we have made, and how we have broken them?
    MR. MUNDELLA: You took power-to make grants for the purposes of Technial Education. This is June. What have you done in fulfilment of your promise?
    MR. GOSCHEN: There are only three Local Authorities who are prepared to act, and we have taken such a sum as will meet all the demands that we think will be made upon us this year by the Local Authorities. When the Local Authorities exercise other powers we shall make further grants.
    MR. MUNDELLA: Not more than three Local Authorities are prepared to act. Why? Because you have given them no inducement to act. You have placed no scheme of grants before them. You have made no offers to develope local efforts. One of the three Local Authorities to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred is Sheffield. You have been good enough to sanction the request they made, that they may at their own expense teach technical subjects. That is the extent of the assistance you have given them. Another member of the Science and Art Department shows that the sum to be allocated under the Technical Education Act of last year will during the financial year 1891–92 be £5,000. There is not a Canton in Switzerland which would not be ashamed of such a grant. I wonder what the City of Berlin would say if the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the German Empire were to propose that £5,000 should be granted for technical education to the City of Berlin. More than five times £5,000 is spent on technical education in Berlin, and yet £5,000 is all that is to be given to the whole of England and Wales. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says the Government have amply provided for what is required for 1892.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I
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    repeat that there has been no denial of any sum whatever. The Science and Art Department made their estimate of what the Local Authorities would ask, and if we have not given more it is not because there is any reluctance on the part of the Government or the Spending Departments, but because the Local Authorities did not put before the Government such proposals as would require more money. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to sneer at the Government Department in this matter, and to contrast what has been done with what is done by other Governments. I myself was struck by the smallness of the amount, but I looked upon it as a result of the comparatively small demand made. I repeat, there is every disposition on the part of the Government to meet to the full all the requirements of the Act, and to perform the duty which Parliament has laid upon us under the Act.
    MR. MUNDELLA: My complaint is that the Government have not taken the initiative in this matter. Last year they threw the whole of the responsibility on the Local Authorities. We told them last year that the Local Authorities never would take steps, and now the right hon. Gentleman says it is all very fine to contrast what we are offering with what they are doing abroad. I have never heard that any country on the Continent has given £350,000 for the compensation of publicans. They do not spend their money in that kind of way.
    MR. GOSCHEN: If I am not mistaken, in Germany they bought up the whole of the public houses, and when they did so they compensated all the publicans.
    MR. MUNDELLA: They must have done it very cheaply indeed; they certainly did not do it on your terms. The publicans were not left to fix their own terms, and no taxation was laid on the German public. But I was going to say that there is another Minute of the Science and Art Department which shows how we are going to provide for technical education. The Minute is to the effect that no pupil in an elementary school is to be allowed to receive any grant from the Science and Art Department. That is a distinct blow at our higher elementary Schools. I was astonished when I read the Minute, and I should like to hear the

    579
    Vice President of the Council's explanation of it. Now, I do not think this money could be better applied than as suggested by my hon. Friend (Mr. A. Acland). The right hon. Gentleman said that the state of intermediate education in England is not what it used to be, because we have now excellent voluntary instruction. What is to be done for the great towns, where there are no endowments? I opened a splendid elementary school in Yorkshire on Saturday, and I was told by the promoters that what they want are secondary schools that the farmers and tradesmen can use. I trust that this question will be thoroughly threshed out by the Committee, and that——
    It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  SUPERANNUATION (WAR DEPARTMENT) BILL.—(No. 297.)
  Bill considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL—(No. 239.)
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 2.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  ANGLESEY ASSIZES AND QUARTER SESSIONS BILL.—(No. 248.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): There is a point that requires a little consideration, and I will ask the hon. Member in charge of the Bill not to ask the House to take it until Monday.
  Consideration as amended, deferred till Monday next.

  PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 167.)
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  MR. SEXTON: May I ask if the Bill extends to Ireland?
  SIR J. LUBBOCK: It does not; but, if it had been possible, I should have been quite willing that it should.
  MR. M. HEALY: Will the title permit of an Amendment extending the Bill to Ireland?
  THE CHAIRMAN: The title of the Bill is Public Libraries (England) Act Amendment Bill, so it would not be competent for the Committee to extend its operation to Ireland.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND) RATING BILL. (No. 149.)
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 262.)
  Bill considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.
  MOVABLE DWELLINGS BILL.—(No. 170.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read, and objection taken.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I would ask you, Sir, seeing that the House is unanimous in favour of the Second Reading of this Bill, with the single exception of the hon. Member objecting, whether there is any method by which the blocking effect of this single objection can be obviated?
    MR. SPEAKER: A single objection is sufficient to arrest the progress of a Bill at this hour.
    Second Reading deferred till tomorrow.
    House adjourned at twenty minutes after Twelve o'clock.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION BILL.
Message to the Commons for copy of the Reports, &c, of the Select Committee.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION BILL.
  FACTORS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  A Bill to extend the provisions of the Factors Act, 1889, to Scotland—was presented by the Lord Watson; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next. (No. 108.)
  FOREIGN JURISDICTION (CONSOLIDATION) BILL.
  A Bill to consolidate the Foreign Jurisdiction Acts-Was presented by the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 109.)
THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

  ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order of the Day read for resuming the adjourned Debate on the Motion of the Lord Kenry (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl) to resolve—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, legislation with a view to the amelioration of the condition of the people suffering under that system is urgently needed."
  Debate resumed accordingly.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I was in hopes that this Debate might have closed last night, and that it would not have been necessary for me to ask your Lordships' indulgence; but I, in obedience to what I believed to be the wish of the House, ventured to move the adjournment of the Debate. In common, I have no doubt, with most, if not all, of your Lordships who attended the Debate last night, I listened with much interest and curiosity to the speech of my noble Friend, whose notice stood first on the Paper. I listened to it with interest and curiosity, be cause the proceedings of this Committee have been mysterious and strange. Indeed, I almost think there is hardly a parallel case to what occurred last night —two successive Chairmen of the same Committee fighting a duel across the House over the Report which had been laid upon the Table by that Committee.
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  And I do not think, my Lords, that this matter becomes less mysterious when we come to look at the Reports of the Committee and that drawn up by my noble Friend Lord Dunraven, because, between the Reports themselves, with the exception of one paragraph of Lord Dunraven's, which refers to adult labour —in reference to which I am glad to see he quotes the Trades Union authorities as to State non-interference with adult male labour—there practically is little, if any, material difference. And certainly from the speech of my noble Friend on my right, who replied, we did not gather any reason why there had been such strange proceedings in the Committee, that the Chairman thought it necessary to resign, finding himself in a minority of one, and that the Report is only the Report of the rest of the Committee. I cannot but think that hard measure has been dealt out to my noble Friend, and I would almost suggest to him that he should come back to the healthy climate of these Cross Benches, which he left some three or four years ago. However, we have nothing to do with the course which has been taken by my noble Friend, but we have a great deal to do with his Motion. Now, the Motion of the noble Earl asks vaguely and generally for legislation to remove evils which have been shown to exist under this so-called sweating system. My noble Friend told us last night that he would not say much about legislation, although his Resolution asks definitely for legislation to remove certain existing ills; but in his speech he spoke very strongly about those evils, and he used very strong terms in regard to what should be the action of Parliament in the matter. He said that he was dealing with the economical problem, and that it was for Parliament to find a remedy for the evil conditions of matters. Now, what are those evil conditions? As set forth last night by my noble Friend, they are, first, sub-contracting, and the existence of what he calls the unnecessary middleman; secondly, over competition; and, thirdly, foreign immigration. Those are the matters upon which he invites legislation, and it strikes me, my Lords, that it is legislation of a most heroic character which ho asks your Lordships to undertake; legislation

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  which is do away with what ho calls the unnecessary middleman, which is to put a stop to competition, and which is to prevent unfair conditions in consequence of cheap foreign labour. Why, my Lords, Home Rule is a joke to that, and I doubt very much whether all the well-known skill in drafting of my noble Friend, Lord Thring, would be able to draw such Bills as would effectually give effect to such legislation. What I want to bring before your Lordships' House is this: What is the real nature of the evils which you have to contend with; and whether it is possible or not to remove those evils by legislation, as suggested by my noble Friend. Now I turn to the Report of the Committee, and I find that the causes of the evils are there set forth. They say, in substance, that the chief factors in producing sweating are the inefficiency of the poorer class of workers; early marriages; the helpless residuum in large towns; the low standard of life; excessive supply of cheap female labour; and married w omen working in their homes. Then the evils resulting arc: inadequate wages; excessive hours; and insanitary conditions. I think my noble Friend, Lord Derby, will admit that that is a fair summary of what the Committee say are the causes of these evils; and they go on to say that skilled labour always obtains adequate wages. But there is another paragraph in the Report which I think is of great importance, referring to the excessive mortality among young children, and that is ascribed to early marriages. The Committee say that it is a common thing for boys and girls to marry at the age of 15, and to become parents when in a state not far removed from starvation. In the Report of my noble Friend Lord Dunraven, he also states how, in his opinion, the evils complained of have arisen from over-population, eagerness in competition, and the influx of foreign, labour. With regard, then, to the great evils referred to, it is not simply a question of sanitation, or of the conditions under which the work is done; the root of these evils are a surplus population and low wages. We have now to see what are the remedies proposed by the Committee, and whether they will touch the evils pointed out by the draughtsmen of the Report. What are the remedies proposed? The re-
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  medies proposed are those of Cooperation and Combination. That is not a matter for legislation; it is a matter of arrangement among employers and among workers themselves. Then there is Sanitation, which is, no doubt, a matter your Lordships may deal with and legislate upon. Then there is the extension of the Factory Acts, the Registration of Workrooms, the increase of Inspectors, and the combination of authorities—that is to say, of Local Boards and other bodies which have to do with cognate matters; the recommendation is that they should be more combined in their operations than they are at present. Lastly, I come to a most important matter, namely, the question of State and Municipal Contracts. Now, my Lords, let us test the value of these suggestions. In order to properly test their value we must consider what is the effect which they will have upon the evils which the Committee and my noble Friend Lord Dunraven have pointed out as being the real evils—that is to say, Low Wages and Surplus Labour. I venture to say that not one of those suggested remedies which are referred to will touch these evils, except possibly the last, that is, the proposed way of dealing with State and Municipal Contracts. Of course, the extension of the Factory Acts and the Registration of Workrooms will not affect wages, nor will the recommendations as to Sanitation, unless you carry them to the extent proposed by the Bishop of Bedford, who proposes that some of these shops should be shut up absolutely, notwithstanding that the consequence would be that a great many of these poor people would be thus deprived of their means of living, and would have to go to the workhouse. Apparently he is quite prepared for that result; but I think that it is rather a curious remedy to propose, that in order to benefit one portion of the population another portion should be turned into paupers. So much for the way in which some of the suggestions as to Sanitation and Inspection would operate. Now, with reference to the question of State and Municipal Contracts, it is rather curious that neither of the noble Lords who spoke last night referred at all to this point, though it is, to my mind, by far the most important. Though it is by far the most serious point in the

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  whole Report, my noble Friend on my right did not touch upon it at all. I want to know what regulation of State and Municipal contracts means, and upon that point I will refer to the Report itself. It is under the head of Government and Municipal Contracts, and a hope is expressed in the Report
  "That every precaution in their power will be taken to ensure fair and reasonable terms to the workers."
  Now, my Lords, what does that mean? If it means anything it means that to every contract before it is taken—or rather that to every tender that is sent in to the State or to any Municipal Body a scale of prices and wages is to be affixed. If it does not mean that what does it mean? I asked the Chairman of the Committee what it means, and I have asked my noble Friend, Lord Tilling, who drew the Report, what it means, but I cannot get an answer. However, I am perfectly certain of this, that it means in the end a Wages Court, and I think my noble Friend to whom we are indebted for the Land Court for Ireland will see that this is the beginning of that kind of legislation. When writing this paragraph his fingers must have itched to propose a Wage Court like the Land Court for Ireland, which was established, I think, in 1870. I ask, then, if it does not mean that, what does it mean? It is the first step towards the fixing of wages by Public Bodies and by the State. My Lords, this is called exceptional legislation, but we know what that means. It will very soon be seen that it is the germ of general legislation upon the subject. We have heard a great deal about germs in legislation, and we know very well what that means. What are the Municipal Bodies, the Local Boards, and the London County Council doing now? They are trying to become Traders; they are trying to deal in gas and water and all sorts of things; and if they are to get what the Socialists want, that is to say, all the instruments of production into their hands, and if you are to have this principle embodied in legislation, what will it mean? Why, that the State is also to fix the rate of wages. With that exception, I venture to say that these suggestions are practically worthless as regards the main evils alluded to, those being—I cannot repeat
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  it too often—low wages and superabundant labour. No doubt much can be done for the comfort and well-being of the working people by sanitation; but even the question of sanitation can be carried too far. We have heard a good deal about the name of Fawcett of late, and I may mention that the other day I came across a speech of Mr. Fawcett, delivered in 1878, when he resisted the over inspection of work-places and the over extension of the Workshops Act. In that speech he said that—
  "It would be perfectly intolerable to interfere with the home of every Englishman and Englishwoman in the way proposed; because the Bill, as it then stood, would give the Inspectors the right to knock at every man's door and ask if his wife and children were at work after 9 o'clock. Under the cloak of a Consolidation Bill that monstrous interference with individual liberty would be sanctioned, and care should be taken that that was not done."
  Well, my Lords, all I hope is that whatever measure may be carried by way of sanitation, registration, increased inspection, or anything of that kind, with the view of adding to the healthiness of the places in which these poor people work and sleep, due care will be taken that the Inspectors are not to interfere with the sanctity and privacy of the homes of the working people of this country. That is, I think, a very important consideration for your Lordships. Now, this being the position of things in reference to the extension of Sanitation, there is little else, as I have said, that Parliament can do. I have ventured to put down an Amendment pointing out what it seems to me ultimately to come to. Believing, as I do, that the real evils are evils which Parliament cannot touch, I am anxious that your Lordships should not commit yourselves to vague promises of legislation to benefit the people who are suffering in this way—promises which it would be utterly impossible for your Lordships to fulfil. Do not suppose for one moment that I feel less than any of your Lordships in this House for the sufferings and privations to which these poor people are exposed. But the evils which the State can cure are very few; and if you follow all the legislation of this kind which has taken place, whether you look at the legislation in regard to Irish land, the legislation for the improvement of the sanitary condition

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  of the people, or to the Factories and Workshops Act, you will find that failure in a great measure follows your legislation, and that an Act is no sooner passed than it has to be supplemented by another Act, to be followed by further Acts. This is my answer to my noble Friend Lord Salisbury, who made a speech the other day in which he rather took the line that we must go on in the course we have been following. My point is that you do not succeed in what you are attempting to do, and you always have to endeavour to supplement your legislation by further Acts which will interfere more or less with the self-reliance of the people. I do not think it is by telling the people of this country that Parliament is to do everything, and that they have not the matter in their own hands that you can succeed; or by leading them to think that legislative interference is a panacea for all ills. True statesmanship consists, I believe, in tolling the people that the cure rests with themselves—that was the line taken by my noble Friend Lord Derby last night—that they have the cure in their own hands by the practice of temperance and thrift, and by abstaining from early marriages, and not marrying until they have the means of keeping in comfort their wives, and those whom they bring into the world, as the upper and middle classes mostly do; but here you have it stated, in the passage I have referred to, that boys and girls of 15 marry, and infants themselves bring other infants into the world whose only lot is to be born paupers and to go on the rates. For that evil of over population I believe the remedy is emigration. A well-known statesman has, I believe, said that emigration is banishment. I venture to think that what we ought to teach the people of this country—a country which has peopled the world by emigration—is that emigration ought not to be looked upon as banishment, but as one of the means of reducing our surplus population; and that those who cannot find adequate labour and adequate reward for their labour in this country should endeavour to find in Greater Britain those opportunities which they have not been able to find in their native land. Bat, my Lords, be that as it may, I venture to think, as I have already said, that the duty of the statesman is to speak out the truth to the
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  people, not to delude them with this, panacea of legislation for every ill;, nor, on the other hand, to throw up the sponge and take up the position of the fatalist, as was done in his speech, to which I have already referred, by my noble Friend the Prime Minister. I know that it is not the popular course to adopt the line which I am now taking, or the line which I ventured to take when last I addressed your Lordships upon this question of what the State can and cannot, or ought and ought not to do. I have been more or less laughed at and denounced in every newspaper from John O'Groat's to Land's End. My noble Friend Lord Salisbury, on the other hand, has been praised in every newspaper throughout England and Scotland. But who are they who praise my noble Friend the most? Why the Radical and Democratic papers— what I have ventured to call the Socialistic newspapers. I have here an extract from a paper, the character of which, cannot be doubted—Reynolds's Newspaper. Here is what they say with reference to my noble Friend's speech. The paragraph is headed "Lord Salisbury a Socialist." I invite the attention of the noble Marquess particularly to this—
  "This is the new Socialistic, aristocratic policy. If any doubt remained on that score, the speech of Lord Salisbury has dispelled it. His was, indeed, a very notable speech, and it was also a plea in many parts of it for Socialism. It strikes many that this speech of Lord Salisbury's is a bid for the support of the Democracy."
  Here you see, he is welcomed with open arms as a man and brother Socialist. Now, contrast that with the measure-that is meted out to the humble individual who now has the honour to be addressing your Lordships' House: I have said that I have been attacked by every newspaper in the country; but there is some criticism which one would prefer to any praise that can be given, and I certainly would prefer, upon this great question of Socialism—(for it is the one great question of the day, blink it or not as you choose)—these attacks to the interested incense which has been so lavishly offered up to my noble Friend. An editor of a newspaper writes to me as follows:—
  "This very important question is terribly underrated by those who should know better. It

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  may interest your Lordship to know that the Social Democratic Club on Tuesday evening —the very day after the discussion which took place on this subject—passed a resolution in which you were vigorously denounced by the Socialist leaders as a dangerous person, and a source of possible future mischief to the Socialist cause."
  Well, I would prefer that greatly to the praise of Reynolds's newspaper, of the speech of my noble Friend. All that one can do in this world, having strong convictions, is to abide by them, and through good and bad report to endeavour to make them plain. I would rather, my Lords, be a snag in the stream, even if it serves no other purpose than to show the force and volume of the flood, than be whirled along the rapids down to what I believe to be the inevitable Niagara of the not very distant Socialistic future. Your Lordships are, I think, today in this position: that you are asked, on the one hand to legislate where you think it possible to legislate for the removal of evils which must be removed in other ways than by legislation. If you assent to such a Motion as that, you only deceive those who look to you for guidance in this, that you lead them to believe that those evils are removable by legislation; and the result of their being disappointed, as they inevitably must be, will be far more discontent than there would be at the present time if you were for tell them frankly and boldly the truth. On the other hand, this course is open, as I think, to your Lordships: you can show your sympathy with these workers, and say that all which legislation can do you are willing to do for the improvement of their homes, and for their general sanitary state and well-being, but that you are not going to pass legislation which would lead to hopes which would inevitably be dashed. It is on this account that I have ventured to put my Motion on the Paper protesting against dealing with such evils as surplus population, and with the congested state of the labour market by any means except, perhaps, by encouraging emigration; but, at the same time, expressing your hearty sympathy with the sufferings of these people, your desire to improve their homes, and your readiness to do everything possible to attain these ends. That was my object in putting my Amendment on the Paper. I submit
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  it to your favourable consideration, and I have only now to thank your Lordships for having so long and patiently listened to me.
  Amendment moved,
  To leave out all the words after "That" and insert "While sympathising with the workers in some trades in the Metropolis and elsewhere in the privations and hardships to which they are subject, as shown in the evidence taken before the Committee on the so-called 'Sweating' System, and while anxious, so far as possible, to remedy the evils from which they suffer through the insanitary and unfavourable conditions under which they work, this House is nevertheless of opinion that the evils of excessive competition and low wages, of which complaint is chiefly made, are due to the congested state of the labour market in the trades in question, which the improved sanitation and the appointment of additional inspectors, as recommended in the Report of the Committee, would in no way diminish or affect."—(The Lord Wemyss, E. Wemyss.)
  LORD THRING: My Lords, I wish to make a few observations, and but a very few observations, upon the speech which was made yesterday by Lord Dunraven, the Chairman of the Committee upon which he acted for two long years with the constant assistance and co-operation of his Colleagues. I think we have a right to complain that he deserted us, and that he should have occupied an hour and a half of your Lordships' time in attributing to the Committee every crime of which men could be guilty. What was the first accusation he made? I must deal with it, and I must answer it. He talked about the disappearance of a particular draft. What were the facts? I admit that the conclusions which I drew up were first issued for private circulation in the form of a Private Paper. I admit that I afterwards modified them at the suggestion of Lord Derby, and that I afterwards greatly enlarged them. Then, my Lords, what happened was this: The clerks at the Table thought that those conclusions were no part of the Report, and I did not think fit, therefore, to include them as part of the Report. I have no objection to the noble Lord using thorn in any way he chooses; but to say that I wish to suppress them is merely imputing to me conduct which no Member of this House will ever think I was guilty of. Then, my Lords, came another personal imputation, and to that I plead in the fullest degree guilty. The

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  noble Lord said that I took undue advantage of the help of my Colleagues in the preparation of my draft. I admit that, without the assistance of my Colleagues, Lord Monkswell, Lord Clifford, and Lord Sandhurst, who prepared the whole summary of the evidence, I could not have produced the Report. I admit that my dull and imperfect sight would not have enabled me to go through the three or four volumes of evidence. I admit to the full the kindness and courtesy with which my colleagues treated me. I believe the Report to be a very good Report; and though I must say it is in great part due to them, I will in no degree shrink from the responsibility for every statement which is made in it. I went through every statement of my noble Friends, and I therefore admit myself, to the full, as responsible as any of them. So much for the personal insinuations. But what has the noble Lord ventured to say to the House? He has told you that we have suppressed evidence. What object had we, I should like to know, in suppressing evidence? He says, in regard to sub-contracting, that we did not give it sufficient prominence. There was an initial blunder in the Reference which the noble Lord induced us to accept. The noble Lord said we were to inquire into the system of sweating. We had not sat a week or a fortnight before we found out that there was no system of sweating. We found that there were conditions of labour appalling in their misery, but that there was no system of sweating; that sub-contracting had nothing to do with it. We found out that in many trades where there was no sub-contracting whatever, all the conditions of sweating existed, long hours, low wages, and every description of misery. We were told at the beginning by Mr. Arnold White, who was the Corypheus prominent among the witnesses, that sweating did not necessarily mean subcontracting, but that it meant "grinding the faces of the poor." What did that mean? It meant that sweating was a nickname which was applied to these appalling conditions. And yet we are told that we did not talk enough about it, and that we wanted to suppress the evidence with regard to sub-contracting. Then we were told we did not give sufficient prominence to the question of competi-
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  tion. It is almost childish to make such an accusation. What could such witnesses as we examined say about competition that was not obvious to every one? Is it to be supposed that my Colleagues, some of the most prominent Members of your House, wished to conceal the fact that competition among employers would raise wages, and that competition among the unskilled workers would lower wages? What possible object was there in our dilating on competition? It had nothing to do with our conclusions: and the object of our Report was, if possible, to give practical guidance for the purpose of legislation. Then came the third accusation, which was equally unfounded—that we suppressed evidence with respect to the influx of foreigners. My Lords, I am well aware that this influx of foreigners is in some degree unpopular. I am aware that there is a strong prejudice existing against the influx of foreigners. But how can it be said that we have attempted to hide it? All we said was, and I challenge the noble Lord Dunraven to prove the contrary, that this influx of foreigners was, in our opinion, a small thing, having regard to the enormous quantity of female and other unskilled labour in the market. Then, my Lords, I would ask, when we are told that the influx of foreign labour is the cause of the appalling misery among our poorer classes, what are the facts? When the Jews come over here, they never fall upon the rates; they are entirely supported by the Jewish Board of Guardians. Although when they first come they are uncleanly and untidy in their habits, they are industrious, and their children are brought up in one of the best schools in England. They receive, both men and women, the highest possible character from the witnesses who spoke in regard to the conduct of the Jews. What ground is there for saying that we suppressed evidence? We put forward as clearly as we possibly could both the dark shades and the bright lights as-appearing upon the evidence. Now, my Lords, I must say a few words upon another matter. Nothing has been said, as far as I understand, as to why the Report of the noble Lord was rejected. The Report of the noble Lord was rejected, I must tell your Lordships

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  because it was irregular and unusual in form; because it contained contradictory statements: because it used language which was t bought unnecessarily strong; because it was in such a form that we could not distinguish conclusions from evidence, and it was, therefore, impossible to sign it in that form. I must give you a few of the inconsistencies, because they all bear upon this question of sweating. I will refer to paragraph 10, where the noble Lord says, that the two chief causes of sweating are, over competition and foreign immigration. Then he says, two or throe paragraphs further on, that the sweating consisted in the substitution of unskilled for skilled labour and the use of machinery—that, in one word, competition is the root of the evil. Then, in his speech yesterday, the noble Lord stated that the evil was duo to the unnecessary number of middlemen and the system of sub-contracting; but in his own Report, in paragraph 195, he says that the causes of sweating are, in the main, natural and intrinsically wholesome. The chief reason we could not sign that Report was that it contained so many inconsistencies and so many strong observations. And what did we do? In the first place, we implored him to alter it; we begged him to consider it in the vacation. I myself asked him, if it was a mere question of settling the evidence, whether he would not sit down and settle it with us. But what does he do? He comes here and makes these charges, while, if he had only sat with us for a few minutes in conversation over the Table, we could have introduced the evidence the noble Lord accuses us of suppressing. He knew, and all my Colleagues will support me in saying this, that we were not in the slightest degree anxious to give one colour or the other to the case; all we were anxious about was that we should have an impartial, clear, and just statement of the evidence, and then, if we disputed, we should dispute upon the conclusions. I challenge my noble Friend to say whether it was fair to his Colleagues to pick out certain omissions in the evidence, and then charge us with suppressing them when, if he had chosen to spend 10 minutes with us in conversation over the Table in the Committee Room, every objection he had could have been removed. Then as to;
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  the conclusions of the Report. The matters to be dealt with were low wages, the influx of foreigners, and sanitation. As to low wages, I do not agree with Lord Wemyss that I was anxious to draw a Bill either to lower or to raise wages. It is true the witnesses who came before us thought we had power to raise or lower wages; but we came, in effect, to the same conclusion as the noble Lord, that the only way the question of wages could be dealt with was by a full and well-considered combination; in other words, that the people themselves must deal with the question by co-operation. Then with regard to the influx of foreigners. The noble Lord has throughout his Report and his speech whispered—for I cannot say it was anything more—hints that the Legislature ought to deal with this question of the influx of foreigners; in other words, that we ought to prohibit the poor Russians who have escaped from Russia coming for refuge to England. I would rather that any number of refugees should come to England than that we should prohibit the entrance into the country of men who, flying from persecution when they come here, are no burden whatever upon our people. Then I come to the last point, sanitation. What did we do with regard to that? We recommended that there should be an increase in the number of Inspectors, and greater stringency in enforcing the laws of sanitation. The only point upon which we differed from my noble Friend Lord Dunraven was that he recommended that every house in which people worked should be subjected to the Factories and Workshops Act. With reference to the increase in the number of Inspectors which we recommended, I am in great doubt as to how far that should go. I am aware, as everybody is who is behind the scenes in these matters, that inspection is a very dangerous weapon; that it leads to petty tyranny and petty interference, and that there is nothing which so rouses the feelings of people against the law as interference with their homes. I do not say it is not necessary. I have said, and my Colleagues have said, that we think it is necessary that there should be an increase in the number of Inspectors; but to say that every workman's house

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  in the country is to be placed under the Factory Law is, in my opinion, to say that England is to be placed under a system of petty tyranny, and nothing would ever induce me to consent to such a thing' or to refrain from raising my voice against it. Such, my Lords, is the whole result of these charges which the noble Lord Dunraven has chosen to make against his Colleagues on the Committee. I say the only difference between us is this: there is no difference in the conclusions except in regard to this matter of visiting the bones of poor workmen; there is no difference whatever between us except in regard to that. Then, my Lords, I will say a few words upon another point. We have been told that our Report is not drastic enough; but our Report contains everything which the Report of Lord Dunraven contains. I believe with my noble Friend Lord Wemyss—
  "Of all the ills that human hearts endure,
  How small the part that laws can make or cure."
  What it is possible for legislation to do we have recommended in the clearest possible terms. With regard to the rest, I think the Report has been of very great use. It has brought home to the hearts and consciences of employers that they owe a duty to their workpeople, and that it is not right to wring the uttermost farthing out of them which can be wrung out of them by the exigencies of the market. I hope, also, we have brought home to the hearts and consciences of purchasers of goods that they ought not always to look to cheapness, but that they may sometimes well consider that that cheapness is bought by the misery of the workers. We have taught them that fair prices may not only secure good goods, but that they may be doing good in paying them. These moral truths we have brought home to the hearts and consciences of men, and, to use the words which the Archbishop introduces at the end of our Report, we have done our best to encourage thrift and to raise the tone of living among the helpless inhabitants of the great towns of England.
  LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I desire to say a few words on the Motion before the House, not only as one of the members of the Committee, who took an active part in drafting the alternative
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  Report, which was accepted, but also as representing on the London County Council a constituency in which sweating is rife. With reference to the observations which have been made by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches, I will say that I entirely agree with my noble Friend Lord Turing that we do not expect very much from legislation. We expect that a great deal more good will result from combination among the workers, and we also expect that a great deal of good will come from the awakening of the public conscience of which my noble Friend has just spoken. But I cannot altogether agree with the noble Earl when he tells us that this sanitary legislation will have no effect whatever in the way of increasing wages. I believe that indirectly, but not the less surely, sanitary legislation will have some effect in raising wages, because I believe it will conduce, to some extent, to the success of combination. My Lords, I believe that when the poor workers are ground down to the utmost—when they live in horrible, loathsome, and insanitary surroundings, the spirit is crushed out of them; and that if those surroundings are improved, they will pluck up a spirit and combine more than they do at present, and get better terms for themselves and their fellow-workers. Before I grapple, as I intend to do immediately, with some of the assertions of the noble Earl opposite, Lord Dunraven, I should like to say a few words as to a matter on which I believe there is some misapprehension in the minds of the public. Last August our conduct was very adversely commented upon in the Press in not having put forward our Report before the end of last year. I desire to say I wish the Committee could have seen their way to adopt a different course. I think it would have been of the utmost benefit if the Committee had seen fit to sit during the remainder of the Session, and to produce their Report before the end of it; but, considering the gigantic task before us, I cannot say that the Committee were unwise in not doing so, because, although the work might possibly have been done, it would not have been well done, and it would probably have been scamped. I only want to say one word in that connection, and it is this: that if any blame does attach to us for not putting forward

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  our Report at the end of last Session, I consider that part of the blame—the largest share of the blame, as I think the noble Earl opposite will agree with me— must lie upon his shoulders, ns I will explain to your Lordships. The Committee met regularly up to the end of May. What happened at the end of May was that the noble Lord deserted us for six weeks. Although the Committee was several times called together, the meetings were always put off. We only met three times after the end of May for the consideration of the evidence, and yet, not till the 5th August, did the noble Earl call us together to consider a Report dealing with this voluminous mass of evidence, upon a matter of such enormous importance. My Lords, I am very sorry to have to say this in your Lordships' House. I think that it would have come very much better from the noble Earl opposite himself. I am sorry I should be the first person to have to call attention in this House to the real reason why the Report was not put forward at the end of last Session. As regards the epitome of the evidence, it is somewhat of a personal matter between him and me, though I do not doubt the noble Earl himself did not intend it should be so; but it does so happen that nearly every one of the paragraphs in the Report which the noble Earl especially denounces was drafted by me and accepted by the Committee with very little alteration; and, therefore, if anybody is specially responsible for those conclusions and for that view of the evidence which the noble Earl denounces, it is myself. I entirely agree with the noble Earl that it is of the utmost importance there should be easily accessible to the public a correct epitome of the evidence. As he says, one cannot expect the public to wade through four Blue Books. So much did this consideration impress itself upon me that I may say I believed myself that the evidence was absolutely of more importance than the conclusions from it; for if we do legislate in the matter upon the lines laid down in this Report, I am perfectly certain that it is not the last word the Legislature will have to say on the subject, and in reference to other matters of this description. It is, therefore, a matter of the utmost importance for future
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  social reformers that this Report should contain an absolutely correct and colourless epitome of the evidence as far as it goes. I was so impressed with that necessity in putting forward the Report that I did not take any part in criticising the noble Earl's draft, or in drafting the alternative Report until I had made an analysis of the whole evidence and a rough index of that analysis. Those operations took me at least 300 hours of hard work; and I must say this, that if I am mistaken in my epitome of the evidence, a great deal of which I should mention was drafted by Lord Sandhurst and Lord Clifford, it is not for want of having made the utmost endeavour to make the Report as accurate as it could possibly be made. Now, my Lords, the noble Earl first of all falls foul of us in the matter of subcontracting, and he objects very much to paragraph 171, the first paragraph of the conclusions and recommendations in the Report. Well, the fact of the matter is, that he entirely misapprehends the whole drift of the paragraph to which he takes exception. The paragraph is very plain in its language; its meaning is perfectly clear. But what the noble Earl does is this: with very great skill he twists out of that paragraph a meaning which cannot possibly be assigned to it; and when he has assigned that meaning to it, he declares that the meaning so attributed to it does not form a correct epitome of the evidence. That paragraph is very short, and it is as follows:—
  "We have endeavoured to extract from the principal witnesses a clear idea of what they understood by the term 'sweating' The replies received were neither clear nor consistent. It was urged by some that sweating is an abuse of the sub-contract system, and consequently that there can be no sweating where there is no sub-contracting. Others, on the contrary, maintained that sub-contracting is by no means a necessary element of sweating, which consists, according to them, in taking advantage of the necessities of the poorer and more helpless class of workers, either by forcing them to work too hard or too long, or under insanitary conditions, or for 'starvation wages,' or by exacting what some witnesses called 'an undue profit' out of their labour.'
  Now, my Lords, the only clear proposition laid down in that paragraph is that there are two classes of witnesses, one class of witnesses who say that sub-contracting is essential to sweating, and another class of witnesses who say that sub-contracting is not essential to sweating; and we say

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  quite truly in the margin, because I have looked over the evidence again and again, that there are 12 witnesses who have a decided opinion one way and nine witnesses the other. How does the noble Earl meet that? He is entirely beside the mark in declaring that there are 83 witnesses who say that subcontracting is a cause of sweating. Very likely they did, but this paragraph does not say more than that those nine witnesses all contended that sub-contracting is not a cause of sweating. That is a different proposition.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: Will the noble Lord tell me what paragraph that is?
  LORD MONKSWELL: Paragraph 171. So that the noble Earl's statement is entirely beside the mark; and the fact is, he has simply found a mare's nest. I will now go to paragraph 174, which raises a more important question, and it is to the following effect, so far as it was contested by the noble Earl—
  "It is enough to say that we considered our inquiry should embrace, first, the means employed to take advantage of the necessities of the poorer and more helpless class of workers."
  He denied that that was within the scope of the inquiry. My Lords, I utterly and entrely deny that I or any member of the Committee ever gave his sanction to the statement in paragraph 6 of the noble Earl's draft Report that—
  "Your Committee confined their examination to those trades in which the existence of middlemen and sub-contractors was claimed to be an important factor in the case."
  We did nothing of the sort; and if we had done anything of the sort we should, in my opinion, have done very unwisely. But I really do not think it is a matter of the slightest importance, because it is perfectly certain that the noble Earl did not, in point of fact, draw that distinctinction which he says he drew. It is perfectly certain the noble Earl did not stop the witnesses when they went on to describe phases of their experience which, had nothing whatever to do with sub-contracting. He did not stop Miss Potter when she gave a list of prices paid to workers who were not under sub-contractors at all, nor did he stop the furniture hawkers who came forward and told us of their sad case.
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  The furniture-hawkers, I may remind your Lordships, are people who hawk about furniture which they have made on the chance of being able to sell it, and who are ready to sell it wherever they can, either to a middleman or to a bonà fide customer. In fact, the noble Earl does himself great injustice in this matter, for he did not take the extremely unwise course that he suggests in this Report. My Lords, I do not propose to say anything with regard to competition between employers beyond this. If the noble Earl looks at paragraph 68 of our Report he will find a reference to the excessive competition among small masters as being among the causes that conduce to sweating, in the opinion of some of the witnesses. Then, with regard to foreign pauper immigration. That is a very important part of the subject. Foreign pauper immigration is denounced up hill and down dale by the noble Lord in his Report, and it was denounced by him up hill and down dale again in his speech yesterday. The Times' report of that speech contains this sentence—
  "If it was desired that the British labourer should be put on something like a decent footing of existence it is absolutely necessary that some check should be placed on the importation of this cheap and generally destitute foreign labour."
  When that declaration was made by the noble Earl in your Lordships' House it was cheered, and, of course, your Lordships expected that he would have had the courage of his convictions. The case against immigration cannot be put more strongly, and if the noble Earl is of opinion that some check should be placed on the immigration of foreign paupers he should have made some suggestion to your Lordships on that point. Why has not he had the courage of his convictions, and suggested on the fore-front of his Report that some legislative step should be taken in the matter? But he does not do anything of the kind. He draws back, and says that he has no remedy to recommend. Was ever such a lame and impotent conclusion put before any Legislative Assembly? The noble Earl found, when he came to draft his conclusion, that upon this subject public opinion is very much divided. Might it not have occurred to him that if public opinion was so very much divided, surely the evidence could not have been so almost entirely on one

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  side, as he suggests. If the evidence upon the point was so very much on one side there would probably be very little difference of opinion among British workmen as to the necessity of legislation for these purposes. Bat the noble Earl says there is a great divergence of opinion upon the subject, and he is perfectly right. Now, my Lords, I should like to tell you some-about the opinion which prevails in the East End of London. Mr. Cremer represents in the other House the constituency which I represent on the London County Council, and he was on the Committee of the House of Commons which dealt with the question of the immigration of foreigners. Mr. Cremer and Mr. Bradlaugh, who were on the same Committee, opposed a suggestion made by a majority of the Committee that possibly a time might come when some preventive legislation might be desirable. Mr. Cremer has not been called to account for that by his constituents, and I think if there is one man more than another who understands the temper of the people of the East End of London it is Mr. Cremer. Then the noble Earl has made some rather small and technical objections to the conclusions in the Report, and, in particular, he falls foul of paragraph 65, and says the evidence is not correctly epitomised there with regard to what is called the "Greener-immigration" in the boot-trade. I will only say as to that that I have carefully gone through every one of the references, and I cannot find that in any respect the evidence does not agree with the epitome that has been given. Of course, some of the witnesses upon that subject were what may be called a little "wobbly," and if you merely take a question here and there some of the witnesses might be shown almost to have said anything; but if you take the whole of the evidence referred to in the margin I have come to the conclusion, from having gone carefully through it, that paragraph 65 does give a correct epitome of the evidence upon this matter. With regard to paragraph 71 of the Report, the noble Earl again falls foul of the Committee. He is very angry with the Committee for drafting that paragraph. It is this—
  "As regards the rise or fall in the remuneration of labour in the trade we feel ourselves
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  unable on the evidence before us to express any opinion as to the course of prices in the lower branches of the boot-trade."
  Now the evidence put forward by Lord Dunraven in his Report upon that matter is very one-sided. He gives very great prominence to the evidence on one side-in favour of there having been a fall in prices, but he says very little indeed about the evidence on the other side. For instance, the noble Lord does not mention the evidence of Mr. Flatau, who is a very large manufacturer, evidence which seems to me to bear upon this point, and which ought certainly to be referred to-in any Report of the Committee. Mr. Flatau tells us—
  "That the operative is better off since the introduction of machinery than he was 10, 20, or 30 years ago;"
  and with regard to the fall in wages since 1880 he says—
  "In such cases one-third less labour would, be bestowed on the boot, this third being subsequently done by machinery."
  He also says—
  "The men do two-thirds of the work they used to do, and get a fraction more than two-thirds of the wages."
  Another witness, Mr. Maddy, is stated in that paragraph to have given evidence that during the last two years he had increased the wages he paid, and had not noticed any tendency in wages to go down. The noble Earl quotes the other side of the evidence upon that point, but he does not quote the rebutting evidence of Mr. Flatau. Now my noble Friend, Lord Thring, has given several reasons why we rejected the noble Earl's Report, and I do not know that I need go further into that; but I should like to say a word or two as to the evidence in the boot trade. That has been so altered that I do not think in such a case the fondest parent could recognise his own child. I object to the noble Earl's epitome of the evidence given in the boot trade. There is no system in the arrangement adopted by the noble Earl. He takes a subject up and drops it, and takes it up again without apparent cause. With regard to the alleged deterioration of the quality of English goods, he minimises the effect of the evidence which tells against his view. He states that certain evidence almost stands alone; whereas if he turns

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  to our Report he will find out that the evidence does not stand alone, but is corroborated by that of several other witnesses. That is one instance of a very strange character in the noble Earl's Report. He actually says in one paragraph that our colonial exports are falling off owing to bad workmanship, and he quotes the opinion of a witness to that effect; but there is counter evidence with regard to that of a very valuable character indeed, in fact the only evidence of any considerable value on that point, and that is the evidence of Mr. Giffen with regard to the imports and exports. Mr. Giffen produces statistics to show that so far from our foreign trade falling off it has been increasing at a very rapid rate; and I would call your Lordships' attention to the fact that a great deal of that foreign trade is colonial trade. But whether that is the case or not, surely, my Lords, it is very important, when we are discussing the question whether English work has or has not deteriorated, to find that, as a matter of fact, our goods are more than holding their own in the markets of the world; and yet there is absolutely no reference whatever even in the margin of the noble Lord's Report to those statistics, which were brought forward by Mr. Giffen. What, I ask, can possibly be the value of conclusions based upon an epitome of evidence of that kind? It is not of the slightest use to attempt to deal with this subject by exaggeration; if yon do you will only find out, sooner or later, that it is far better to put the facts fairly before the public and allow them to draw their own inference. As your Lordships have seen, the points of difference between the noble Earl and myself are many, but I fully recognise the admirable motives which prompted him in drafting his Report, and I certainly would not have voted for its rejection without what I considered ample cause. I hope the noble Earl will give his assistance in helping forward the reforms advocated by the Committee which he is in favour of to the utmost of his power.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I am prepared to support the noble Earl behind me in the Resolution which he proposes to your Lordships, joist as far as he is disposed to stand to
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  it. I do think that legislation is required, and I believe that all the residuum of legislation which the noble Earl desires to see carried out or actually proposes would be assented to by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches. I believe there is but small difference between the two Reports, and I have examined them both carefully, except in the matter of form. The Committee, as has been fully explained, thought it necessary to reform the one presented to them, and did so, regretting the absence of their Chairman, who had conducted the examinations with great ability; but it was absolutely necessary to make clear what was evidence, and what was conclusion, and what recommendation, and without reforming the Report that could not be done. I shall not attempt to defend any further the Report, which has been, to my thinking, so excellently, so perfectly defended already. I shall say nothing of the imputations of fraudulence cast upon the Committee; it is a very strong word, and we are quite prepared to leave our characters to answer such an imputation as that. I will make one observation on the system of counting evidence. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than to set a number of witnesses on one side against a number on the other, unless they are on something like a level as to knowledge of the subject. To count 83, or half that number, of poor working men and women, with their heads below water, asking themselves in their misery the cause of their poor wages and wretched homes, and to set their opinions against the opinions of three people who have considered the whole matter from the outside, who have, after considering the questions in many lights, gone among the workers, one of them having actually herself gone and worked for a time among the poor women themselves, is, I think, absurd to the last degree. What can be the value of the opinions of those poor people, reaching vainly after some vague idea as to the causes of their misery, against the opinions of experienced witnesses? How do your Lordships weigh the value of testimonials? You know perfectly well that you would give no weight to 100 imperfect testimonials as against the evidence of one person whom you

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  could positively trust. Leaving that negative part of the Report, I should like to say a few words about its positive side—about what it does contain, and about the legislation which the noble Earl behind me does not go further than to recommend, but which the noble Earl on the Cross Benches would, I believe, thoroughly accept. The subject was divided last night into three portions— the subjects of sub-contracting, competition, and immigration; and we were told that the Report states that these three great phenomena have nothing to do with the sweating system. I can find nothing to that effect in any single passage of the Report. The whole Report is upon the effects of those three things. If, indeed, the noble Earl had taken those three lines one by one, and had laid before us the remedy which he proposes for each of them, if he had told us how he would do away with the mischiefs of sub-contracting, or the dangers of competition, or if he had treated foreign immigration in the way which we might have expected from his Report, he would, indeed, have rolled a great stone over us, and we should have to be silent for ever. But these treatments are only commonplaces if there is no remedy proposed. They are commonplaces with which everyone is acquainted, and it does not appear to me to be the business of your Lordships' Committees to dilate on commonplaces. If well-known evils are to be described in such connection it is that we may be told what are the remedies. The noble Earl proposes no remedy. As to the first and second questions, the sub-contracting and the competition, he is silent, and as to the other he does not recommend the only remedy which has been proposed by anyone. The Committee looked to remediable ills and to remedial measures. The Committee did not consider it to be its business to produce an essay on causes in regard to three such important subjects. It had to look for remedies for effects of a very serious and terrible kind, and in treating the matter in that way, they had the support of a very great authority. I read in the writings of that great authority, treating upon this Report and upon the whole subject—
  "Causes cannot be treated; we must attack effects."
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  My Lords, that is the view the Committee have taken. They have not gone into the wide causes; they have attacked effects. The authority whom I am quoting explained in Lloyd's Newspaper on the 11th May, 1890
  "The sweating system, its effects and remedies, written specially for Lloyd's readers by the right hon. the Earl of Dunraven."
  It does appear to me that the Report has exactly followed out that course which the noble Earl has said is the only way in which it can be treated, because we must attack effects. But the paragraph goes on to tell us exactly what those effects are—
  "The effects are, insufficiency of pay, food, air, and everything necessary to existence, unsanitary work places, filthy dwellings, a general degradation of labour below the point at which existence can be sustained at all, or, at any rate, below the point at which it can be sustained with any regard to health, and for the decencies of life."
  That, my Lords, is the noble Earl's own-summary of the effects which can be-treated, and ought to be treated, and I say the Report does deal directly with every one of those effects, except insufficiency of pay, with which, however, it does deal indirectly, because it is our belief that if the other evils were cured the insufficiency of pay would be greatly affected too. Your Lordships will now allow me to draw attention to the two main facts which are before us with regard to what is to be remedied and the remedies proposed. We may broadly group them into two great divisions, one is the hideous conditions under which these poor people exist, and the other fact is that it is precisely the case of these people which has so far been left out of practical legislation. In former years there were other classes as badly off as these are now. Our Committee had no such evidence before them as that which was before the Committee on the Factory Acts. We cannot read, without horror, of children then working naked in coal mines, pushing along heavy weights of coal, which were facts with which the Committee on the Factory Acts had to deal in 1882. Again, my Lords, we have had nothing brought before us about children, between nine and 15 years of age, working from 4 o'clock in the morning till midnight. We have heard nothing of mothers being seen

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  dragging crying children at midnight, in the depth of winter, into the print works. All these and many other horrors did exist in mills, mines, and factories upon a greater scale than anything that exists now under the worst conditions of the sweating system. And that is cured. We may say that it is more than cured. The very people whom the Factory Acts had to step in and assist then can now combine for self-protection; we may say more, they are now a great power in the State. What is the cause of the change? How was the change effected? I believe we may say it was effected altogether by the Factory Acts in series. The noble Earl said he could, not understand the Factory Acts. But it is very evident from the history of the changes, and it is a great comfort, that somebody does understand them and their operation, because it is, undoubtedly, the fact that the working of the Factory Acts has produced enormously beneficial changes in the condition of a very large part of our population. When things were in the condition I have described, the law, taking a largo view of things, insisted on two classes of responsibility; the responsibility of the owner of the premises, and of the employer of the people. That is the key to the whole of the factory and sanitary legislation. The Legislature made the employer responsible for the welfare of the persons employed by him, and for the actual payment of wages to the workers. That took in the whole of the Truck system, and the employer began to be responsible. When first mills and mines began to be inspected they belonged to the employer. The owner and employer were one person. The employer was made by the Sanitary Acts responsible as owner also for the state of the plant. That is a phenomenon which, in these cases under the sweating system, seldom occurs; the employer is very often as poor as the person he employs, and is never the owner. The owner is a person whom it is often very difficult to find; but the law which held the one person responsible is perfectly capable of holding two persons responsible. Those statutes are in existence, and profess to be acted upon in workshops, and the same responsibility should be enforced with regard to these small work-places. Not only are they utterly unwholesome.
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  We hear of the statutable tables of hours being put up in these rooms when the Inspector is expected, but usually-being out of sight. The responsibility in regard to domestic workshops is, of course, at present nil. The Report urges that all those responsibilities should be clearer and recognised, and that the Legislature should insist upon their being discharged. I believe the Report touches upon every particular. It recommends that you should appoint such a number of Inspectors as will be really able to do the work, that you should give them power to enter places which they ought to enter without warrant, and that you should enable them to act together, which, under three different departments, is very difficult. It suggests that the County Councils would be very fit to undertake the management of this system of inspection. Then it suggests the necessary Amendments in the Acts; and it recommends registration of workrooms. I do not believe that that is so difficult a matter as is sometimes anticipated. Without interfering at all with domestic privacy, or any rooms which are simply dwelling rooms, these small workshops ought to be subject to inspection, as they are, for instance, in the colony of Victoria. The Act in force in the Colony of Victoria gives a very clear definition of places which may properly come under that description, without giving power to enter places which are merely dwellings of families; it creates exemption for work-rooms where it can be shown that all the persons engaged there are connected by blood, or by marriage, or in which steam power is not employed. These various recommendations simply bring to bear upon these present conditions of labour the remedies which have already acted with such good effect in the case of the factories, mines, and mills of England. Then, with regard to the sanitary officers, the independence of their appointment should be secured, their numbers and powers increased. That is the real way of dealing with these matters, and not by leaving their appointments to the persons whom they have to overlook, the owners of these very houses assembled in their vestries. What is wanted now, my Lords, in the way of legislation is simply that the first two plain steps should be taken,

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  and taken energetically, to make owners and to make employers responsible. Then, after that, if they fail to produce the effect they have produced elsewhere it will become patent what other steps should be taken. If the Committee had recommended that competition should be dealt with the Greek Kalends would be here before one remedy would be applied. The first steps are easy, and I think that not a month should be lost in drawing a Bill for the purpose. In the cause of the weak it should be taken in hand at once. As to foreign immigration the noble Earl has said there should be no immigration allowed. Exclusion is not a very heroic remedy, and what would be the result if it were carried out? Exclusion, if carried out, would require expulsion too. Is it proposed that that measure, too, should be carried out in free England I Are we to see men wandering, as some of the witnesses told us they had wandered in Russia, from one city to another, being thrown from each, and told "There were enough Jews there already, and that they must go elsewhere to find a city in which there was room for one more?" That is the way in which exclusion works in other countries. Among the Jews who come to us are some of the thriftiest, soberest, and most orderly of our population. Foreign immigrants have founded in this country some of our best trades. Those old immigrants were not all unskilled workmen, neither are all these unskilled workmen. It is to be remembered, also, that exclusion might carry away trade of vast importance from our own people, and leave our own people unable to obtain even the scanty subsistence which they obtain now. We were told by some of the witnesses who came before the Committee, that no little trade now remaining with us was carried on in a very hesitating manner, that our hold on it was but slight, and that very little was wanted to sweep it from our shores. I hope the steps recommended by the Committee will be taken with vigour. Due responsibility must be laid upon owners and employers, and technical education must be encouraged. Above all things, my Lords, benevolent zeal must go on to do its work. There are many living among the poorer people now who set them noble examples, who bring them into
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  reading-rooms, afford them the means of recreation, provide for them classes, and give them assistance toward self-help of every sort and kind. And they do change the habits of these poor people, and raise them to a higher standard. The sympathy with them and the interest in the subject which I believe this Report will produce will go far to benefit them. Sympathy and respect for labour will be stirred up among people who have given little or no attention to the subject hitherto. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the driest and hardest writers upon the subject, such sympathy is necessary in order to raise these burdens, and is finally a sure means of effecting that end, after which legislation would toil in vain.
  LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, whatever may be thought within these walls as to the difference of opinion between the noble Earl (Dunraven), and the rest of the Members of the Committee, I think I may say that outside these walls there will be but one feeling of gratitude to the noble Earl and the other members of the Committee for their labour connected with this most difficult subject. And when your Lordships have been told that one member of that Committee has spent 300 hours in analysing details of evidence, I think from that fact the country will judge to what an extent the interest felt in this subject has been shared in this House and by the way in which it has been taken up by your Lordships. What, after all, does the difference between the noble Earl and the members of the Committee come to? It is essentially a difference of opinion as to how we can arrive at the best way to give effect to what we all desire. The noble Earl's proposed Report was very drastic in some of its remedies, while the members of the Committee look to what is practicable. My Lords, you will not expect from me to-night any attempt to say what can be done or what should be done. It is in a commercial country like this a matter of the very greatest importance when any matters concerning capital and labour come before us, that those matters should be treated most carefully; otherwise, we may do immense mischief. The Report refers chiefly to sanitation, and the Secretary of State has already in another place made a statement in

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  answer to an hon. Member on that subject. Therefore, your Lordships will, I dare say, forgive me if this evening I do not go deeply into what may be considered necessary to be done. If this Government, or any other Government, should think well to take up the portion or portions of the Report regarding sanitation, I have no doubt such a course in that direction would meet with a certain amount of approval. But I think before going into the matter of sanitation or any other matter for the very few minutes that I intend to ask for your attention, it may be as well to remind your Lordships that we have every reason to be satisfied in this country with the result of the negotiations of the Berlin Conference, and it is satisfactory to find that this country, by its Factory Acts and its Workshops Acts, has taken the lead in the civilised world in the course I am referring to, and I think we should make a bad return to those who have assisted in that legislation, and to some of those who have gone, if we were, by any undue meddling with that which has turned out so well, to attempt to do anything which would destroy its effect. If we were to try to do anything impracticable in the shape of further limiting the hours of labour for women and young persons; if we were to endeavour by any means to limit the hours of labour for men, we might unconsciously perhaps, be driving trade away from our shores; and in these days, when the great mass of trade is centreing round the great towns, and in the great centres of population, we might, by one false step, do what a great strike appears to have done: lately to the Port of London. Local Authorities may do a great deal more than they have done to carry out the wishes of the Committee in the matter of sanitation. We have now, both in rural and urban districts, medical officers, sanitary officers, and Inspectors, and we have also the Medical Officers of Health of the County Councils. It may be possible in the future to insist upon the machinery which is now in existence being applied to those places which that machinery has failed, at present, to reach, and I believe that if that course were adopted it might meet with the approval of Parliament better than by creating a new and large army of Factory and Workshop Inspectors, an army
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  as to which, it would be quite open to question, whether its members are adapted for the work required to be done, or are qualified to be judges of what is proper sanitation. With regard to the question of foreign immigration, I do not wish to add a word to what has fallen from the very reverend Prelate who spoke just before me; and I will pass on to a matter which is not mentioned in the Report, though what I have to say affects it in reference to paragraph 193. Your Lordships will be glad to hear that no refusal has yet been made, when leave has been asked for, to enter private workshops. That is the Report of the Factory Inspectors, and therefore, if it should please Parliament to insist on further inspection there would be, judging from the past, no difficulty about that matter. But, my Lords, an Englishman's house is his castle; and I believe it will not be the wish of this Government, and I hope not of any other Government, to unnecessarily curtail that liberty which we, one and all of us, uphold. I notice that there is only one recommendation in the Report as to the limitation of machinery used—what machinery should be used or should not be used; and the Committee have recommended that women should not use an instrument called an "oliver" of above a certain weight. My Lords, the Report is very interesting, and I wish I could have said something more definite, but I must say this, that I do agree with the noble Earl (Lord Derby) when he says that we must look to the stoppage of early marriages and to better education; and our working classes must learn that heroic remedies cannot altogether better their lot. This Committee may be certain that the results of their labours will be read with great care by our artisans and operatives, and I am sure of this, that if by any extension of existing legislation Parliament can see its way to better their lot, they will not have to wait long if such legislation can be made practicable for their welfare.
  THE BISHOP OF RIPON: My Lords, I trust I may claim the indulgence which I think your Lordships' House is always ready to extend to one who ventures to address you for the first time. I may say at the outset that I feel very cordially in agreement with the noble Earl who deprecated anything like a declaration

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  on our part which would give rise to fake hopes or expectations out of doors. To raise false hopes is always a mistake, but I may venture to point out that, on the other hand, it is dangerous un-wisdom for any Legislature to destroy the hopes and legitimate aspirations of the people. But to ignore a distress and to kill out hope is, if I am not mistaken, to beget at once the spirit of despair, which is the parent of violence. Having said that much I am sure you will allow me to give the impressions which have been passing through my own mind, not merely from going through the Report but from diving onto the evidence by which it is accompanied. I thought it would not be quite right or honest for any Member of your Lordships' House to read the Report without supporting it in some degree by a study of the evidence; and the result of my survey and study of the evidence is a deep impression that there is certainly revealed by it a state of (things which is one of distress and danger. The conclusion which I reached is that certainly something ought to be done. I am aware that when a person has committed himself to that utterance he is open to the cheap retort that that is a cheap and easy thing to say, and that it would be better to face the question, "What can be done?" But may I venture to lay down another aphorism, which, at any rate, I am myself old-fashioned enough to believe in, and that is that wherever it can be shown that something ought to be done there must be a way of doing something, at any rate, towards that end. And, my Lords, when I say that something ought to be done, I speak not only of distress but of danger. You have read the Report and the evidence. It gives a picture of misery. It is a picture of long hours and low wages, of wretched insanitary houses and short lives. It has been said by someone, with what degree of authority I do not know, that one-ninth of the people of London end their days in the workhouse. It is not merely a picture of misery, however, it is a picture of misery overshadowed by oppression. We have heard of the sweater, the fogger, and of the truckster; I have been searching in my mind for some ancient authority from whom I might derive a parallel to the sweater:
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  and I recollect that transaction of ancient days in which a man took a mean advantage of the necessities of his brother man and bought a birthright for a mess of pottage. I think when that mess of pottage was sold so dearly that was a true description of the sweater. It was an ancient instance, and it gives a hint for the real definition of a sweater—he is the man who takes advantage of the necessities of his brother man. There have been such in all ages; and as we read of the greed of the sweater and the intensity of the misery of which he takes advantage, I see reproduced the picture which the Prophet drew of the men of his day who panted for the dust on the head of the poor—who sold the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. My Lords, if that were the only picture, its misery would be bad enough, but in that picture we have two darker shadows —life prematurely cut short, and, what is worse, a life so spiritless, so hopeless, so apathetic, that it can scarcely be said to be life at all. Nothing struck me with so much force in this evidence as that portion of it which made it clear that the people you have to deal with is a people from whom all spirit seems to have departed. Their acquiescence in tyranny is absolutely mournful. To show how deep is that apathy, I would refer your Lordships to the evidence of the witnesses Mr. Hoffmann, and Mr. Arnold White. What is it you find there? You find an absolute spiritless-ness, which was incapable of understanding what advantages could be legally claimed, an absolute acquiescence in tyrannies which men of spirit and energy would at once have resented. Imagine how spiritless they must have grown, when men and women accept less than the regulation wages; when they submit to work nine to 11 hours as a half-day's work; when they permit a portion of their wages to be withheld, the money so withheld being made the means of a new oppression, and of preventing them seeking to obtain higher wages elsewhere. This evidence, my Lords, presents pictures of deep distress; but beyond them lie threatenings of danger. It is not a picture of any small danger, or of dangers of a particular class; but of dangers which beset the community. I would call

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  attention to the evidence as to the spreading of disease. I think the evidence given before the Committee is complete, that disease is spread through the instrumentality of those workshops. Insanitary conditions breed disease; clothing is infected by disease among the workers. One witness from Leeds gave evidence that, at any rate, one-third of the contagious diseases in that town were not reported. What, my Lords, does that mean, if not peril to the community? This danger in itself is one great reason for saying that something ought to be done. The spreading of disease in this way seems to be inevitable. It passes on its own subtle way. It may meet you in your own homes, however careful you may be. You may live where all the arrangements known to science give you entire security, but it pursues you: it comes in the clothes; it travels in your letters. The ancient picture of danger is revived. Escape cannot be calculated. It is as though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, and when he went to his house and leaned upon the wall the serpent bit him. That is a danger, but it is not the only one. There are also the dangers which arise from impaired health, and from the enfeebled physical powers of a section of the population; and this is a consideration which a great nation ought surely to take into account. Those, my Lords, are the dangers and distresses. Something ought to be done, and something can be done. As I have looked at this matter I would not for one moment countenance heroic legislation, or speak a single word which would seem to convey that you can easily deal with these questions which are connected with economic laws or with the organic life of the people. But this is clear, that something can be done to remedy these great evils. Palliatives, not remedies, the noble Earl opposite called them, but I should be inclined to hope they would be found to be remedies. Let us look for one moment in considering what can be done, and see what has been done. Legislation of this character has taken place in the past. Legislation took place which was intended to put an end to the truck system. But the evidence has shown that that Act of Parliament is ignored, and that it is very easy to drive, as
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  the common expression is, a coach and four through it. I think, my Lords, if it were a question of fishing, and some of the fish were escaping your net, I think you would be able to do something. Yon would make the meshes smaller. Is it not possible to do that in regard to these Acts of Parliament, and in that way to minimise some of the evils which exist? But it is not merely the question of breaches of the Truck Acts with which you have to deal. It is a question what other arrangements; —what other precautions—can you take? Factory Inspectors have done much, but not enough, to mitigate the evils. The complaint which arises—and I think that the Report bears it out—that the Inspectors themselves are inadequate or unable to perform the task imposed upon them implies that they are not sufficiently numerous. It is in the power of the Legislature to deal with the matter, and it is also in the power of the Legislature to enforce inspection. Something has been said this evening about invading the sanctuary of a man's home. We know it has been said that an English man's house is his castle, and that you must not invade its sacred precincts. I am ready to admit it; but, my Lords, I put it to you that when a habitation ceases to be a home, when it becomes in practice a workshop, can anyone believe that it is entitled to that, sanctity which belongs to a home I As long as it is a home, respect it; but the moment it becomes a den of tyranny, it is, I think, right to claim entrance there. Now, my Lords, the word "responsibility" has been used, and I am thankful that it has been used. It seems to me that in all legislation, speaking under the correction of those who know better than myself, one of the greatest difficulties has been the necessity of settling responsibility somewhere; but I am equally persuaded that we are losing our opportunities, and mistaking the problem before us here, if we hesitate to fasten the responsibility somewhere. You can discern where it ought to lie. If the owner and employer have interests in the matter you can, at any rate, determine that the employer and the owner, as the Primate has suggested, are, and can be, made jointly responsible. But I should prefer that one person, at any rate, should be held responsible, and that that person, in the

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  case of workshops, should be the employer. In these ways surely legislation in the matter is possible. Again, another thing, my Lords, has come out of the Report. We know that knowledge is power, and we find from the Report that want of skill leaves a man at the mercy of his employer. Hence, if to improve knowledge is to increase power, the possession of skill is a protection against tyranny. Now, the remedy for this want of power in the unskilled lies surely in affording largely increased opportunities for what we call technical education. This touches the altered Code of which so much has been said. May I throw out at the close of my remarks two suggestions? There is, my Lords, an influence which lies beyond the question of legislation. I acknowledge as freely as anyone that you can never legislate in such a way as to make abuses impossible. The ingenuity of rapacity will be sure to find a way to evade your Statutes; and greed will drive its triumphant chariot through your Acts of Parliament. But discussions like this are rendering strength and power to that unwritten Code which is more potent than any Acts of Parliament. But what is that unwritten Code? It is found in the spirit of a people; its throne is the national conscience, and its power is that force which one of the Members of your Lordships' House has called the greatest force in the world—public opinion. To appeal to public opinion to raise it and to make its voice stronger upon this question should be your aim; and this, I say, is one remedy which is largely in your Lordships' hands. There is one thing which your Lordships may do yourselves in this: you may lend your aid to lead the fashion. Hurry and haste are the opportunity of the sweater. It is possible for us so to direct and influence public opinion as, at any rate, to induce those who are responsible for the haste with which work is done more careful to give their orders beforehand, and not to crowd their orders together upon those whom they employ; we can thus lessen the opportunities which evil men are only too ready to use. Then the other point upon which I would say my closing words is this: I venture to think that the problem lies largely in the
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  production of an inferior class of goods. A noble Earl boasted the other day to an audience that, in addressing your Lordships' House, he wore a pair of co-operative trousers. If that meant a determination to use only the best goods, and to pay a fair price for them, it would be a good step in the desired direction, and would pave the way for others. The fashion might well be set, and the determination made to use only sound articles, and to pay a good and fair price for them. My Lords, that is the last suggestion I have to make. I appeal to your Lordships not to say that nothing can be done, for outside there are anxious ones waiting to know what will be said. Behind the reserved words of the Report there are hearts which are sad, and lives which are depressed with misery, appealing to you through such a Report as this, and imploring you to open the door of your compassion, and to take what practical steps you can to remedy these vast evils.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: My Lords, my noble Friend on the Cross Benches, with a kindly sympathy for me, invited me to go and take my seat beside him there; but I confess, when I heard my noble Friend Lord Monkswell declare his intention of attacking me at close quarters, I congratulated myself that I sit at some distance from him, and that there is a Rule which prevents a noble Lord crossing the House in front of the Lord Chancellor. My noble Friend Lord Monkswell's speech chiefly consisted of denials of, and certain assertions upon, the deductions from the evidence which I gave your Lordships yesterday. I am very pleased that, owing to the fact that the Debate was adjourned yesterday, noble Lords have had some opportunity of considering my remarks of last night, and of preparing themselves to answer them. I am only sorry the result has not been more successful. The noble Earl Lord Derby said yesterday, and said very truly, that, as I had travelled over considerable ground, he found it very difficult to answer the points I had raised. I am in precisely the same position in regard to my noble Friend Lord Monks-well. He has raised so many points in his speech that, as I have not had the advantage of studying it, I must ask your Lordships to excuse me if I do not

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  answer every point which he has raised. As I said, my noble Friend's speech largely consisted of an assertion. He stated that in regard to what I said as to paragraph 65 I was all wrong, for he had examined the marginal references and he had found them all right. What I laid before your Lordships yesterday was my opinion with regard to that paragraph, and I supported it by references to the evidence of every one of the witnesses. I did not ask your Lordships to accept my simple assertion that the evidence of the witnesses mentioned in the margin did not bear out the contention of the Committee; but I supported the statements I made, and gave my reasons for making them, by reading the very words the witnesses used. There is one personal matter which I think I ought to touch upon. I do not think it is very generous or altogether just of my noble Friend opposite to accuse me of being the cause why your Lordships' Committee did not report last Session. He says it was owing to the course taken by me that for three or four weeks in June the Committee did not sit.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Six weeks after the end of May.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: AS a matter of fact, the reason why the Committee did not sit for several weeks was that three or four important witnesses, Mr. Giffen, Mr. Shipton, Mr. Redgrave, Mr. Oram, and various witnesses of that class were not ready, and I was waiting for the evidence. There would have been no object in bringing the Committee together, and I was not responsible for the delay.
  LORD MONKSWELL: The noble Earl will allow me to say I am glad to hear that. I am only sorry that explanation was not given before.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: I was exceedingly anxious that the Report should be got out last Session. I greatly regretted that the Committee would not consider a Report in August last. They had four or five weeks remaining of the Session to do so. My noble Friend has said that he spent 300 hours in making an epitome of the evidence. To assist him in making that epitome he had my draft, which contains, with five or six exceptions, every reference to evidence that is given in the Report, and most of the deductions and conclusions
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  from evidence. The draft must have been of some little assistance to him. Yet he consumed 300 hours, as he informs us, in preparing a summary. He must, therefore, appreciate the difficulty of drafting a Report. So anxious was I that the Report should be out before the end of the Session that I had it printed and circulated 10 days after the Committee ceased to take evidence. I mention that fact to show that I did my utmost to get the draft out in time, and that, so far as I was concerned, nothing that I could do was wanting. Now, there is another point to which I think I should refer. It was mentioned also by my noble Friend Lord Derby, I think, last night. That point is, that I must be wrong in supposing that the excessive competition of employers has resulted in a cutting-down of prices. According to the laws of political economy, the competition among employers ought naturally to have caused a rise in prices or in wages. But it has not done so; and if your Lordships will consider the peculiarities of the case, you will see why. This excessive competition among manufacturers has produced, as I explained to your Lordships last night, an excessive desire to obtain cheapness in production, even at the sacrifice of excellence. This led to the substitution of cheap, unskilled labour for dear skilled labour, and that fact has favoured and led to the employment of destitute foreign labour. If the labour market was limited, competition among employers would, of course, raise wages; but the market being unlimited, any amount of this cheap, foreign labour being obtainable from the constant stream of foreign immigration, the effect has been exactly the opposite. The effect has been to supplant well-paid and skilled native labour by very badly-paid unskilled foreign labour, and to drive a very considerable amount of British labour out of employment altogether. It has been said in reference to that part of the subject that this foreign labour is not destitute, and that it does not go on the rates. The noble Earl, Lord Derby, said last night that, as these foreign labourers did not fall upon the rates or live en charity, they were not to be considered paupers. It is perfectly true that they do not go on the rates to any great extent, but it is equally true that they force the native

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  population on the rates. The Bishop of Bedford, and witness after witness, admitted that the foreigners themselves went upon the rates to a very slight extent, but they all asserted that they were the cause of pauperism in others, and did drive British labour, to a very great extent, upon the rates. As to their receiving charity, they are assisted to a very considerable extent by the Jewish Board of Guardians. Though the rule of the Jewish Board of Guardians is not to give them assistance or relief until they have resided six months in this country, they do give them assistance when they are in real want—that is to say, in a state of semi-starvation, and they assist them also out of the country. Then there are the Leman Street refuge, the minor synagogues, and other Jewish Bodies to which Mr. Stephany admitted they applied for assistance, and various other institutions. As to their not being paupers, the whole body of the evidence was to the effect that they were paupers, if by paupers you mean persons in a destitute condition and unable to support themselves. Even Mr. Stephany, the Secretary of the Jewish Board of Guardians, admitted that the bulk of these foreign immigrants would be unable to take care of themselves without becoming a public charge on landing in this country unless they were assisted by various charitable institutions. My Lords, I do not think there is anything else of very great importance that it is necessary for me to comment upon. I have been rather twitted for not making any distinct recommendation in regard to the matter of foreign immigration. I explained to your Lordships last night why I did not do so. It was because the House of Commons was inquiring into the subject. The Committee of the House of Commons reported, and reported rather strongly, shortly after my draft was circulated; and if the recommendations in that Report of the Committee of the House of Commons were thoroughly carried out, I, for one, should be fairly satisfied for a time. But I should not like your Lordships to think I shrink from the logical conclusions of what I have said. I said last night that as long as your labour market here is liable to be flooded with cheaper unskilled foreign labour I greatly doubted whether it was in the
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  power of the workers themselves, by self-help and mutual help, to obtain for themselves better wages, or to do anything which will materially and permanently benefit their position; and I should, as far as I am concerned, speaking for myself, be very glad, therefore, if this country did what every other country in the world has done—that is, adopt measures to protect itself from alien pauper immigration. My noble Friend, Lord Derby, said there was danger of retaliation if this is done. Well, my Lords, as I was born in Ireland, perhaps I may be permitted to say they retaliated long ago. No country would take this description of British labour. Try to send them anywhere else, and see what will be the result. Try and send them to America, and you will find they will send them back in the same steamer. And it is the same in any other country—they will not receive them. We are the only people who will accept, without restriction, crowds of destitute aliens. With our own labour market full and brimming over, as everybody admits, it is a cruel folly and a great cause of distress to allow the labour market to be still further congested. We are the only nation on earth who will allow it. If any noble Lord can explain how it is possible to relieve an overfull reservoir which is in danger of bursting by letting water out if at the same time you let in an equal or a greater stream, I shall be pleased to hear that explanation. I should like to know how the problem can be solved. That, my Lords, is, I think, all that I have to touch upon. I do not think it would be in the least useful to your Lordships, or servo any useful purpose whatever, if I were IO go into the personal questions which have been raised by Lord Thring, and if the noble Lord will excuse me I will not make any reply to the observations he has made than to say that I disagree entirely with them all. There are three points, my Lords, which I omitted yesterday which I should like to mention. One is that in speaking of the omissions in the Factory Acts I forgot to mention that all, or the greater part, of the work places at Cradley Heath and in the neighbourhood are entirely exempt from the operation of the Act. They are not attached to premises; the people who work in them

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  hire their stalls and become occupiers. They are not employed, and the Factory. Legislation does not apply to them at all. That is a matter which ought to be attended to. Another matter is in reference to the Government contracts. I would remind my noble Friend on the Cross Benches that in my draft I made no recommendation whatever as to settling the rate of wages in Government contracts. All I recommended was that steps should be taken to see that there should be no sub-contracting. I think that the system of the Government appointing as viewers to inspect the work done by contractors for the nation, men who have been, or who were at the time of their appointment, employed by the contractors, by the very men who make the contracts, is utterly contrary to all ideas of business. As to sub-contracting, I think some action should be taken in the matter. At present all we have to rely upon is the good will and desire to do right of the Director of Contracts. We are all perfectly satisfied, no doubt, that he will do all that is necessary or right in the matter, as far as he is concerned; but it is impossible to tell what may happen in the future. I think it is most desirable that by some Order in Council, or by some means of that kind, a rule should be laid down that in the case of Government contracts those contracts should be executed by the firms which take them out. At the present, as we were told by witnesses in evidence, oven if the Factory clause is inserted in the contracts it is nobody's business to see that they are carried out; and that also ought to be remedied. Then there is another matter. I am glad that the Report contains a valuable suggestion in the direction of the centralisation of those authorities which have to do with all these labour questions. I went further in my draft and recommended that there should be a separate Department constituted to deal with all these matters. I think that is necessary. I think the work is so divided now that it cannot possibly be well done. You have the Foreign Office collecting statistics about labour in foreign countries, the Colonial Office doing the same thing for the Colonies, and I think three or four other Departments all concerned in matters which are
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  closely connected with the interests and legal rights of labour. I believe that a separate Department would be efficacious in this matter; but whether that is so or not, I am glad that the Committee have recommended centralisation, and I hope Her Majesty's Government will consider how far that can be carried out. My Lords, that is all I propose to say. If I were to attempt to answer the speeches which have been made by the noble Lords on the other side of the House, probably my best way of doing so would be to send for a file of the Times, and read the report given there of the speech which I made last night. In the matters which I then laid before the House I proved my statements by ample references to the evidence, and I submit to your Lordships that I made out my case, and that no reply whatever has been made to it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Does the noble Earl wish to press his Amendment?
  EARL WEMYSS: I do not wish to press my Amendment.
  Amendment and Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

  HERRING FISHERY (SCOTLAND) ACT (1889) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 75.)
  House in Committee (on re-commitment) (according to order); Bill reported without further amendment, and to be read 3a on Thursday next.
TRUSTEES APPOINTMENT BILL. (No. 84.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I need detain your Lordships but for a minute in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. An Act was passed a good many years ago, now known as Powell's Act, to facilitate the appointment of new Trustees in the case of religious congregations and societies, for vesting the property in the newly-appointed Trustees without the necessity of incurring the expense and trouble of a conveyance. That Act has been found, to be defective in cases which really came fully within its scope, and it has

  485
  been held not to apply to the Trustees of chapels, belonging, among others, to the Wesleyan connection, because they are not merely Trustees of the individual chapel, but they are persons holding an official position in connection with the Wesleyan connection, having charge of one or more than one place of worship, and Trustees of them all. There are several minor provisions in the Bill, but they are all within the general scope of facilitating the appointment of Trustees in such cases. I anticipate no objection on the part of your Lordships to the Second Reading, and I propose that the Bill be referred to the Committee on Law.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

KEW AND PETERSHAM VICARAGE BILL.—(No. 77.)
Read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for General Bills.

AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES.
Address for—
"Return showing the date at which responsible government was proclaimed in each Australian Colony; the estimated population of each colony at the time of the concession of responsible government; together with, if possible, the area of each colony, distinguishing the area already alienated at the time of the concession, and the area remaining unalienated and assigned to the control of the colony."—[The Earl Beauchamp.)

COMPANIES (MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION) BILL.—(No. 67.)
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; and to be printed as amended. (No. 110.)
House adjourned at five minutes before Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.