Sitting of 24 June 1890

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  BURNLEY RECTORY BILL [LORDS] (By Order.)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. MACLURE): In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, it will be necessary that I should occupy the time of the House for a few moments in order to explain how the necessity for the Bill has arisen. By an Order in Council, dated the 28th of March, 1890, Burnley has been created into a Suffragan Bishopric. This Bill proposes to make provision for the maintenance of the Suffragan Bishopric, and it has received the approval of the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Manchester, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The present Rector of Burnley, Canon Townley Parker, is the owner of the advowson of the living, which is now worth £4,000 a year, with a population of 13,000, the rest of the spiritual wants of the town being provided for by other churches, which are not so well endowed. The proposal which Canon Parker makes is that, on the voidance of the living by him, he should surrender to his successor—the Bishop Suffragan of Burnley—the sum of about £2,000 a year, leaving the remaining £2,000 to be divided among the smaller churches of the town, and

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  extended beyond the present parish of Burnley. A somewhat similar arrangement was made in the case of the Suffragan Bishopric of Stoke, which received the sanction of this House. In this case it is an absolute free gift on the part of Canon Parker, who surrenders this valuable property simply for the benefit of the town in which he has worked for something like 38 years. As the arrangement has received the approval of all the authorities I fail to see what possible objection can be made to such a noble gift. The Bill has already passed the House of Lords without opposition, and I now beg to move that it be read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Maclure.)
  MR. SPENCER BALFOUR: In moving the Amendment of which I have given notice, I wish to say that I entirely concur as to the merits of the gift which the Rector of Burnley proposes to make. I have no doubt that he is actuated by the highest motives of benevolence and generosity, and that he is desirous of taking the best course of dealing with the very large funds of this somewhat remarkable rectory. But the objections to the Bill are of a numerous and weighty character. In the first place, is it desirable that a question affecting the status, position, and organisation of the Church of England in East Lancashire should be decided by a private Bill in the same way as other questions are decided by a Railway or Canal Bill? My hon. Friend says that there was no opposition to the measure in the House of Lords, but the reason was that under the locus standi arrangements which govern the procedure of a Private Bill Committee it was not possible to formulate an opposition. My hon. Friend further states that the Bill has received the approval of the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Manchester, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. So far as the Archbishop and Bishop are concerned I can quite understand that they approve of the Bill which provides the parochial funds shall be applied to the maintenance of the episcopacy. But the people
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  themselves, who ought to be consulted, have never been consulted. The measure has never even been submitted to the Vestry, and there is this remarkable fact, that it is a Bill to dispose of funds originally called into existence for parochial purposes without the consent of the parishioners being asked in any form or shape. I think before a measure of this sort is treated as a Private Bill there ought to have been some kind of Wharncliffe meeting of the parishioners, and it is unfair to say that the Bill has not been opposed, when the parishioners had no means of opposing it in the House of Lords. It is also objected that of this £4,000 per annum, which is the present revenue of the rectory, but which, it is calculated, will be considerably increased hereafter, no less than £2,000 is assigned for the purpose of creating a Suffragan Bishopric of Burnley. I submit that the churchmen of Lancashire are wealthy and influential enough to maintain a Suffragan Bishop without appropriating these funds, and if the revenue is to be diverted it ought to be diverted for local purposes. Upon these grounds, and these grounds only, I have been asked by my constituents at Burnley, who have not had an opportunity of being consulted in the matter, to oppose the Bill. Everybody appears to have been consulted except those who are most particularly interested. In the case of Stoke, which is the only analogous case, the Hybrid Committee to which the Bill was referred expressly introduced a provision that a future Suffragan Bishopric should not be erected in Stoke-upon-Trent. This Bill is directly opposed to the decision then arrived at, because it proposes that every Suffragan Bishop of Burnley shall be Rector of the parish. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time on this day six months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Spencer Balfour.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTH): I cordially acknowledge the manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. S. Balfour) has spoken of

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  my friend and neighbour, the rector of Burnley, and the handsome recognition he has made of the extremely liberal spirit in which this gift is proposed to be conferred by Canon Parker. I live in the immediate neighbourhood, and know something of the circumstances of the town. I, therefore, wish to explain why I cannot agree with my hon. Friend, although I know that he represents the feeling of some of his own constituents, and of mine also, in opposing the Bill. In the first place, there has been an entire absence of opposition to the Bill in Parliament. No objection was raised to it in the House of Lords, and no Petition has been presented against it in the House of Commons. To-day is the last day for the presentation of Petitions, and up to this time no Petition has been deposited. I venture to say, therefore, that it would be a strong and extreme measure for the House to adopt the course now suggested of throwing out the Bill. My hon. Friend says that the parishioners have not been consulted, but, as far as I know, the Churchmen of Burnley unanimously approve of the measure. When it was first announced that the rector proposed to make this generous gift, there was a chorus of approval, not only from churchmen, but from the inhabitants generally, and although there has been some little opposition since, I believe that it has been based upon a misapprehension. In my opinion, this is a most liberal measure, and the kind of measure of reform which Liberals should desire to see carried out. There has long been a desire on the part of Burnley and the neighbourhood that this rich living should be re-distributed, so that other districts in the town should receive some benefit from it. Upon two occasions the rector has met that feeling. He has devoted out of the revenue of the living £150 a year, or £450 in all, to three of the poorer parishes in Burnley, and for another parish he has set aside an annual sum of £150, irrevocably as an endowment. By this Bill he proposes to devote about £2,000 a year to various districts within the ancient parish of Burnley. This Bill, therefore, simply re-distributes the resources of a large living, which is an object in itself most desirable, and one which, I think, will commend itself to the House. It abolishes
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  the private patronage now connected with the living. At present the living is entirely in the hands of a private person—the Rector of Burnley, who can do what he likes with it. He can sell the advowson, with the consequent scandal of putting it up for sale in a newspaper advertisement. Such a scandal will be prevented for ever if this Bill is passed. Sooner or later the Rector proposes to retire, and his successor will not only be Rector of Burnley, bat will be' able to give a helping hand to the Bishop of Manchester as the Suffragan Bishop of Burnley, the Bishopric having already been constituted by an Order in Council, dated March 21, this year. My hon. Friend says that it is a serious thing to decide a matter of this kind by a private Bill. I quite agree with him. I very much dislike the system of private ownership in connection with these matters, but the present Bill destroys the very thing to which he objects, and if the measure passes, it will be impossible hereafter to deal with the living by a private Bill. At present, however, it is the only course open. My hon. Friend says that the revenue is likely to increase. I am not sure that it will be so, seeing that a large portion of it is derived from leases for 999 years, and, although there may be an increment when the leases fall in, I hardly think that my hon. Friend looks forward 999 years. There are two alternatives open to the House—either to pass the Bill, which will be a great reform and a benefit to the town of Burnley, or to reject it, and to continue the present order of things, which appropriates this revenue of" £4,000 for the benefit of a population of 13,000, instead of making it available for a population of something like 80,000. Moreover, the living will remain as a piece of private patronage, instead of being in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester, and available for wider and more general purposes.
  MR. WOODALL: My right hon. Friend says that there are only two alternatives m dealing with this measure. I would venture to suggest a third, namely, the precedent which was set in the case of the rectory of Stoke-upon-Trent. There are many points of similarity between the two eases. Both are rich livings; in both cases the proposal was to make a wise and

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  generous application of the funds for the better service of the Church, and in both it was proposed to place the patronage in the Bishop of the diocese. But such a proposal, which necessarily comes before the House in the form of a Private Bill, establishes a precedent of a novel and dangerous kind, and consequently requires very careful attention. I venture to submit that the House would do well to follow the precedent established in the ease of Stoke, and to refer the Bill, after having read it a second time, to a Hybrid Committee, which would inform the House of circumstances which would aid us in coming to a decision on the matter.
  MR. ILLINGWORTH: I listened with attention to the speech of my right hon. Friend near me (Sir U. Kay-Shuttleworth), but I must say that I strongly object to deal with fragments of a huge national question in the form of a Private Bill. What would be thought if it were proposed to make similar arrangements in connection with the Army or Navy, or any other branch of the Public Service? I, for one, feel bound to protest against such a mode of procedure: and I do not think any hon. Member will be prepared to get up and say that the National Church is not, for all practical purposes, a branch of the National Service of the country. There is, therefore, to my mind, the gravest possible objection to my proposal for dealing with questions of this kind by a Private Bill. Without desiring to enter into the merits of the case, I think that we who look forward to a general measure for effecting a final settlement of all these questions will not be prepared to vote for the Bill. I, therefore, give my hearty support to the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley for the rejection of the Bill. There are some features of the case which are open to serious objection. The present Rector of Burnley is the owner of the advowson. I presume that the Bill is not to take effect until he vacates the living; and, therefore, I think it is for the House to determine whether £2,000 a year is not too large a sum to leave for the incoming Rector. If we are to cut down the income of the living, I do not see why we should not lop off another £1,000, and make it available for
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  the extension of the Established Church in other parts of Burnley. If a re-adjustment is required, I think it ought to cover a much wider ground. The time is not far distant, I believe, when we shall have the whole question of the endowment of the Church in Scotland and Wales before Parliament, and those who are looking forward to the increased usefulness of of the Established Church will then have an opportunity of discussing the whole question.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I do not see why the hon. Member for West Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) should endeavour to convey an imputation against Canon Townley Parker for what is really a very generous act on his part. He is the owner of an advowson worth £4,000 a year, but he proposes, if Parliament will allow him, to give up this important piece of patronage, and to devote the living for ever afterwards, not only to the benefit of Burnley, but to that of the diocese at large. I do not think that we on this side of the House can support the Bill from quite the same point of view as the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir U. Kay-Shuttleworth). It is not because we dislike private patronage that we support the Bill, but because we have really at heart the interests of the Church at large. The diocese of Manchester is a growing diocese, with a large population urgently in need of increased facilities for following the worship they believe to be right, and it is proposed to place at the disposal of the Bishop this large and rich living. It is a very generous act on the part of the Rector of Burnley, and one which I think Parliament ought gratefully to accept. Precisely the same thing has been done in the borough of Blackburn, although in that case it was not necessary to apply for an Act of Parliament. A living has been given there to a clergyman who acts as a Suffragan Bishop to the Bishop of Manchester, and I have never heard any objection raised to the fact that that gentleman performs functions which are for the benefit of the country at large. I do not propose to enter into the question which has been raised he the hon. Member for Bradford, but I do not think, even from his own point of view, that the question of Disestablishment will be advanced or retarded in the slightest

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  respect by the fact that either the rector or the Bishop has the use of these funds.
  MR. ILLINGWORTH: I presume that the noble Lord has no intention of misrepresenting or doing an injustice to me. My views are well known, and have been often explained both here and elsewhere. I have not the slightest wish to touch any national property at all, and I would remind him that there was no confiscation of the Irish Church Fund.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to confer the Church property of Burnley upon Lunatic Asylums, which is what was mainly done in the case of the Irish Church Fund? Certainly I do not hold that view, but I do not think the question of Disestablishment will be in the slightest respect advanced or retarded by anything this Bill may do. In this case the patron himself, the Bishop, and the people of Burnley, are strongly in favour of the Bill, and, seeing that it will be of great advantage to the diocese at large, I would urge the House to read it a second time, although I do so upon very different grounds from those which have been adduced by the right hon. Member for Clitheroe.
  MR. COURTNEY: I hope that the House will endeavour to approach the question without losing itself in that cloud of prejudice which the hon. Member for Bradford was the first to throw out, and which the noble Lord who has just addressed the House has certainly not clarified. I think we ought to look upon the matter as men of common sense. Here is a living of £4,000. The advowson is the property of the person who is now the Rector, and he has the uncontrolled disposition of that advowson. He proposes to vest it in the Bishop of Manchester, and it is further proposed so to re-distribute the value as that £2,000 shall be attached to the existing church, and the remaining £2,000 shall be apportioned in augmentation of the minor livings of Burnley. I cannot see that any possible case whatever has been made out for the rejection of the Bill. I, therefore, hope that the hon. Member for Burnley will not press his objection; and in regard to his second proposal that it should be referred to a Hybrid Committee, I confess that I
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  do not see that it would do any great amount of harm, even if no gain is likely to result from the adoption of such a course.
  MR. BYRON REED: The right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees says that all the Bill does is to transfer this property from a private owner to a public servant. Perhaps the Bishop of Manchester is willing to accept that designation in a general sense, but I think in no other?
  MR. COURTNEY: I meant nothing more than a general sense.
  MR. BYRON REED: I think I am entitled to place my own interpretation, upon the right hon. Gentleman's words. Of course, I am unable to say what was in his mind, but I wish to point out that the loose use of terms by a right hon. Gentleman of such weight and position is calculated to render our discussion somewhat difficult. All I have to say is that the Bishop of Manchester is in no ordinary sense a public servant. He is neither appointed by the State nor paid by the State, and he cannot be dismissed by the State. He is, therefore, in no Parliamentary sense a public servant. I should like to point out to the hon. Member for West Bradford that this is a Private Bill. If the advowson of Burnley were a public endowment created by this House, it would be unnecessary to proceed by Private Bill. The very fact that the question is being dealt with by a Private Bill proves the reverse of the case the hon. Member for West Bradford would have the House believe, namely, that the endowment is national property. The Rector proposes to make an extremely liberal re-distribution of this property, and I cannot understand how such a provision can be objected to by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: If anything is calculated to defeat this Bill it would be the speeches of the noble Lord opposite and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. Both of them have endeavoured in a very special manner to raise the question of Disestablishment.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I was very far from raising that question. It was raised, and, in my opinion, most unnecessarily, by the hon. Member for West Bradford.
  MR. BYRON REED: I equally deprecate the raising of such a question. My remarks were only made in reply to the hon. Member for West Bradford and the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees.
  MR. ILLINGWORTH: Perhaps I may be allowed to explain. I did not raise the question of Disestablishment. What I urged was that this property ought not to form the subject of a Private Bill, but might fairly a wait the time when the whole question of the present condition of the Established Church will have to undergo review.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: All I wished to say was that I desire to support the Bill, and that if anything would induce me to vote against it, it would be the speeches of the noble Lord opposite and the hon. Member for East Bradford (Mr. Byron Reed). I am under the impression that the Bishop of Manchester was appointed by the State. I always thought that he was appointed by the Crown, acting upon the advice of the Minister of the Crown; and I regard the Minister of the Crown as the representative of the State. But I do not think it is necessary to discuss the position of the Bishop of Manchester at this moment. The question is whether the proposed Bill is one which, under the circumstances, would be advantageous to the town and people of Burnley. I hope the House will bear that fact in mind, and will vote upon the Bill quite irrespective of the question of Establishment or Disestablishment, which really does not arise upon it.
  MR. SPENCER BALFOUR: I will not put the House to the trouble of a Division if it is understood that the suggestion of the Chairman of Ways and Means is carried out, and that the Bill is referred to a Hybrid Committeee.
  (4.0.) The House divided: —Ayes 172; Noes 131.—(Div. List, No. 154.)
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of seven Members, four to be nominated by the House, and three by the Committee of Selection."—(Mr. Spencer Balfour.)
  MR. MACLURE: I must decline to accept the Motion.
  MR. PICTON: Then I trust that the hon. Member for Burnley will divide the House upon it.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I think the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Maclure) ought to agree to this proposal, especially after the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means. I understand that a precisely similar course was taken in the case of the Stoke Rectory Bill. It involves a question of divided interests, which ought to be considered by a Committee constituted as Committees generally are, to whom questions partaking more or less of a public character are referred.
  MR. WINTERBOTHAM: I also voted for the Second Reading, although the speech of the hon. Member for East Bradford; made it somewhat difficult for Liberal Churchmen to do so. I must, however, join in the appeal that, having been read a second time, the Bill should be referred to a Hybrid Committee. The measure itself, carrying out, as it does, a useful Church reform, is a step in the right direction, and ought to be considered without in any respect prejudicing any larger question. The House ought to allow the people of Burnley to be heard, and every interest to be represented, as can only be done before a Select Committee.
  MR. MACLURE: I beg to withdraw my opposition to the Motion.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 132.)
  Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read.

  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL (No. 132) AND METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT ACT (1862) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 223.)
  Bill reported, with Minutes of Evidence.
  Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 245.]

  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 132.)
  Bill re-commited to a Committee of the whole House for Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 356.]
  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT ACT (1862) AMENDMENT BILL. —(No. 223.)
  Bill re-committed to a Committee of the whole House for Thursday, and to be printed, [Bill 357.]
QUESTIONS.

  THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Address to the Crown on the French Fisheries dispute voted by the Legislature of Newfoundland has yet been received; and, if so, whether it will be presented to Parliament?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE TOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): The Address referred to has not yet been received. It may be expected by the mail arriving about the 2nd or 3rd of next month. There will be no objection to giving it to Parliament whenever Papers are presented.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is in a position to give the House any information regarding the alleged conflict between French and Newfoundland fishermen?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: No such information has yet been received.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Are we really to understand that the Government have taken no steps to ascertain whether these conflicts have occurred or not?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: If such an occurrence has happened, the Local Authorities must make inquiries before reporting, and it is only right to wait a reasonable time for their Report.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I beg to give notice that I will repeat this question to-morrow, and until the Foreign Office take proper steps to find out whether this conflict has occurred or not.

  IRELAND—POLICE AT ABBEYSIDE, CO. WATERFORD.
  MR. WEBB: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Sunday, 8th of June, a number of police constables and detectives (some of the police wearing side arms and carrying revolvers) entered the grounds of the Catholic Chapel at Abbeyside, County Waterford, as the usual open air Corpus Christi procession was being carried out, and remained on duty until the ceremonies had concluded; that on the same occasion two disguised policemen (one of them a Protestant named Rawson) entered the church with the procession and remained there until the congregation had left; and can he explain what was the object of this action towards people of the district while engaged in celebrating one of the most sacred and impressive ceremonies of their religion?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Constabulary Authorities report that four constables only entered the chapel grounds on the occasion in question. None of them wore side arms or carried revolvers. All were Roman Catholics, and desired to be witnesses of the procession.

  CANON KELLER.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Very Rev. Canon Keller, parish priest at Youghal, was on Thursday last pursued whilst driving through his parish by three policemen on a car; and for what reason the rev. gentleman was so beset?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary Authorities report that the rev. Gentleman mentioned is actively engaged in endeavouring to promote an illegal conspiracy in connection with which he is associated with a man named Maurice Doyle, who accompanied him on the occasion in question. They were accordingly followed by the police, who appear to have acted rightly.
  MR. DILLON: Is the Chief Secretary entitled to charge respectable gentlemen in Ireland with being engaged in a criminal conspiracy when no charge has been made, and no prosecution under-

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  taken; will the right hon. Gentleman withdraw and apologise for his statement, or will he institute a prosecution against the rev. Canon?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir; I see no grounds for withdrawing my state merit. I do not know whether the hon. Member for East Mayo is authorised to repudiate on the part of Canon Keller any intention whatever to promote the Plan of Campaign.
  MR. DILLON: Is a Minister of the Crown entitled to charge a man with crime, and then persist in the charge unless the person repudiates it? Has any criminal charge been made against Canon Keller, or is it intended to proceed against him?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If any evidence in support of a charge is forthcoming no doubt a charge will be brought. The hon. Gentleman is as perfectly aware as I am that there may be complete moral evidence—[Home Rule cries of "Oh!" and an hon. MEMBER: "Immoral"]—that a person is engaged in a particular conspiracy of this kind, which is yet not of a character to support a criminal prosecution.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Does the right hon. Gentleman really take up the position that the existence of what he chooses to regard as moral evidence justifies him in making these very serious charges which he is not prepared to substantiate?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman asks me a question. I will answer it by asking him another. Does he mean to say that I am precluded from asserting of any man in Ireland that he is engaged in supporting the Plan of Campaign, unless there is evidence for a prosecution forthcoming?
  MR. E. HARRINGTON: Yes; and then you would choose the Magistrate.

  THE PORTUMNA PROSECUTIONS.
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what compensation the men are to get who were recently batoned, imprisoned, and prosecuted at Portumna, as is now admitted, at the instance of police whose evidence on oath the Magistrates refused to believe, and
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  who have since been exposed and dismissed from the Force?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have asked for a special Report, but have not yet received it. The facts stated by the hon. Gentleman do not agree with the Report I received on a previous occasion. As to the question of compensation, I think that the ordinary remedy should be resorted to.
  MR. DILLON: What is the ordinary remedy, the police having been exposed and dismissed from the Force?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Only one man has been discharged.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Why do not the Government prosecute these men?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. and learned Gentleman does not rightly apprehend the facts of the case; but I would ask the hon. Gentleman to defer the question for the present.

  LIGHT RAILWAYS.
  MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Board of Works have reported favourably on an extension of the railway to deep water at Bantry to accommodate the rapidly increasing fishing traffic on that coast, and recommended a grant to be made under the provisions of the Light Railway Act of last Session; whether this railway extension was also recommended by the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works and sanctioned by the Grand Jury at the last Spring Assizes held in Cork; whether the Cork and Bandon Railway Company are prepared to work the extension line, and to contribute a substantial sum towards the cost of its construction; and whether, the necessary preliminary steps having been taken, the Treasury will now sanction the grant and enable the undertaking to be carried out without further delay?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): The statements contained in the first three paragraphs are substantially correct. The distance is about a mile. The cost would be very heavy, and it is thought there are other works more urgent than this.

  MAGISTRACY—MR. P. M'LAUGHLIN.
  MR. M. J. KENNY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Memorial presented to Colonel Lowry, the Vice Lieutenant of County Tyrone, asking for the appointment of MR. P. M'Laughlin to the Commission of the Peace, was signed by MR. Hamilton, J. P., senior Magistrate for the Dromore district, the local Catholic clergy, the Presbyterian minister, and the respectable farmers and merchants of the district of all religious denominations; and if the refusal to appoint MR. M'Laughlin was not due to the fact that he is a Catholic, whether he will state what the cause is?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not seen the Memorial referred to. But the Vice Lieutenant assures me that the fact of the gentleman referred to being a Roman Catholic was regarded by him as a strong reason to appoint him to the Commission of the Peace if possible. No public advantage would be gained by stating the reasons which I understand led to the decision in the case, which rested, of course, wholly in the discretion of the Vice Lieutenant.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that with a Roman Catholic population in the county of 10,000 there are only four Roman Catholic Magistrates?
  MR. A. J. BALPOUR: I do not know whether these statistics are correct. If they are they would justify the view taken by the Vice Lieutenant, that the fact of the gentleman being a Roman Catholic would be a strong reason to appoint him.
  MR. M. J. KENNY: MR. M'Laughlin is the most respectable Catholic in the district.

  MR. F. A. GUY, J.P.
  MR. M. J. KENNY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland upon what grounds the Lord Chancellor appointed MR. Frederick A. Guy to the Commission of the Peace for the County Tyrone; what is the nature of MR. Guy's connection with the county; whether he has been long resident there; and whether he possesses any real property in the district?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In regard to the first paragraph of the question, I must refer the hon. Gentleman to a reply which I gave on Friday last. I do not know how long MR. Guy has been a resident of the county, but he has a residence and property in the district.

  HELIGOLAND.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he would place in the Tea Room an Admiralty chart of the sea round Heligoland?
  THE FIRST LORD or THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I have given directions for two of these charts to be sent to the Librarian of the House for this purpose.

  FOREIGN MEN-OF-WAR AND BRITISH FORTIFIED PORTS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether we allow the free entry of Foreign men-of-war into our fortified ports, a practice different from that of other Powers; and whether Her Majesty's Government propose to issue instructions to Naval Commanders or Colonial Governors with regard to the entry into such ports of foreign ships of war and transports carrying troops?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: Limitations have, in certain instances, been placed upon the entry of foreign men-of-war and transports into certain specified ports. The Admiralty are not in favour of a general or wholesale restriction, as they believe such Regulations to be unnecessary, and likely, if made reciprocal, to greatly limit the present cruising grounds of Her Majesty's Navy.

  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War on what date Messrs. Ross were struck off the list of contractors for the Government; on what date the War Office issued a Circular to the Volunteers strongly recommending the purchase of the Slade-Wallace equipment; at what date the War Office became aware that Messrs. Ross were under special arrangements with the Slade-Wallace or Wallace firm involving a practical monopoly of

  1779
  the supply of this equipment to the whole Volunteer Force, or whether they are now aware of it; whether, in fact, a very large proportion, practically the whole, of the sets of this equipment so recommended by the War Office have been made, and are still being made, by Messrs. Ross; whether the War Office have taken any, and what, steps to inform Commanding Officers of Volunteers that this firm was not allowed to manufacture for the Army; and on what ground the War Office thus permits and encourages the supply to the Volunteers of work and materials which it will not permit to be supplied to the Regular Forces?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): Messrs. Ross were struck off the list of contractors in March, 1888, and the fact has been publicly announced so frequently that it is impossible to suppose that Commanding Officers of Volunteers are ignorant of it. For the rest, I will refer my hon. Friend to the answer given him on the 8th of May, and will only add that so long as the equipments purchased by Volunteer corps out of their own funds are found on inspection to pass the standard required, the War Department cannot concern itself as to the source from which they come.
  MR. HANBURY: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the second paragraph of the question.
  MR. BRODRICK: The second paragraph did not seem to me to be germane to the subject. The War Office have no official information as to the arrangements between Colonel Wallace and the firm of Messrs. Ross. The War Office have given and will give no orders to Messrs. Ross; but they have no control over the places to which the Volunteers may go to purchase articles out of their own funds.
  MR. HANBURY: Is it not a fact that the War Office recommended the use of this new equipment, and knew that Messrs. Ross were the only people who could make it, and that the War Office issued this recommendation within a few months after Messrs. Ross had been struck off the list?
  MR. BRODRICK: No; it is not the fact. The War Office have no knowledge that Messrs. Ross are the only contractors that can make the equipment.
  MR. HANBURY: For the Volunteers.
  MR. BRODRICK: The Volunteers, like the Government, can obtain the equipment from Colonel Wallace's factory if they desire to do it. There was an interval of 15 months between the striking off of Messrs. Ross and the issue of the Circular.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to give notice that I will raise the whole question on the Vote for the Volunteers.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Where is the factory of Colonel Wallace?
  MR. BRODRICK: I believe it is situated in Bermondsey.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Will the hen. Gentleman give the address?
  [No answer.]

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING ORDERS.
  MR. OCTAVIUS V. MORGAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the effect of the provisions which the Board have inserted in Electric Lighting Orders now before Parliament, authorising Local Authorities to transfer their undertakings, will be practically to confer upon the Board of Trade powers to perform functions heretofore exercised by Parliament, and also deprive the public of the means that they now have of resisting any such transfer by appearing before a Parliamentary Committee where evidence is taken upon oath; and whether the Board would have the power to administer an oath if the functions of Parliament were so vested in that Department?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): Section 11 of the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, provides that—
  "No Local Authority, Company, or person shall by any contract or assignment transfer to any other Company or person, or divest themselves of any legal powers given to them, or any legal liabilities imposed on them by this Act, or by any licence, order, or special Act, without the consent of the Board of Trade."
  The Provisional Orders granted under the Act referred to require that public notice of the proposed transfer shall be given, and the transfer cannot be made without the consent of the Board of Trade, by whom the deed of transfer must be approved, and who will make any inquiries that they may consider

  1781
  necessary in the interests of the public. The Board of Trade would have no power to administer an oath. With regard to the merits of the clause, I wish to point out that the Local Authorities, who are representatives of the ratepayers, ought to be the best judges of their interests in matters affecting the lighting of the town.

  ENGINEER STUDENTS.
  CAPTAIN PRICE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he could state to the House how many vacancies for engineer students were there last year, and how many candidates competed for them; what were the respective numbers this year; how many candidates qualified in each case; is it on account of a difficulty in getting suitable candidates for studentships that an attempt is now being made to admit assistant engineers direct from the private engineering establishments; how many vacancies have been offered with this object; and how many candidates have been got to compete for them, and with what result?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The number of competitors for vacancies for engineer students in this and last year were given in answer to a question by the hon. Member for Northampton on the 3rd of June. The admission of assistant engineers from private engineering establishments was not instituted on account of any difficulty in obtaining suitable candidates for studentships, but to extend the area of competition, and raise the status of the competitors. The proposal is to give about 10 nominations annually. Five candidates competed and three qualified at the recent examination. This is the first year of outside competition for direct appointments, and I have little doubt that in subsequent years the number of outside competitors will steadily increase.

  EDUCATIONAL GRANTS.
  MR. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Vice President, of the Committee of Council on Education what steps have been taken to remove the impression created by the recent Circulars from the Science and Art Department, "that all grants from that Department will be withheld in future from Higher Grade Advanced Elementary Schools"?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HAHT DYKE,): I have already stated that this matter is under consideration, with a view to a serious modification of the Circular in question; and, I may add, in order to remove the fears of which the hon. Member speaks, that in the result no impediment whatever will be placed upon Science Instruction in the schools he mentions.

  GREYSTONES HARBOUR.
  MR. W. CORBET: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, with reference to a representation made to him in April last by the inhabitants of Greystones, to the effect that the harbour recently constructed there had silted up, and is practically useless, and to his statement that Government are considering the matter, whether any decision has been come to; and whether the Treasury, in view of the fact that the plans were carried out in the face of the representations of the fishermen and boatowners, will grant the sum necessary to erect a north groyne, and dredge the accumulated shingle out of the harbour?
  MR. JACKSON: If the locality or the Grand Jury will contribute a fair proportion of the cost of the additional works required, I shall have no objection to directing the Board of Works to undertake them.

  POLICE PAY AND SUPERANNUATION.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can lay upon the Table a Memorandum showing the details of the Police Bill, and in tabular form the rates of pay in the Metropolitan and City Police, and the rates of superannuation now obtaining therein, and also in Constabulary Forces in Great Britain, and those given by the present Bill and the previous Bills upon the question?
  MR. DILLON: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question, I will ask him if he will include in the Return similar particulars with regard to the Irish Constabulary?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I will take an early opportunity of laying upon the Table a

  1783
  Memorandum, which I have had in preparation, and which will exhibit the benefits conferred upon the police by the Superannuation Bill as compared with the existing system, and will state as many of the details mentioned by my hon. Friend as can be promptly given. It would take some time to collect the required information from all the provincial forces. I must have notice of the question of the hon. Member for East Mayo.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Will a similar Memorandum be drawn up with regard to the Scotch police?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I think it would be impossible.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will supply the House with the Actuarial Reports upon which the scheme of the Government was based?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I will consider whether the documents can be laid upon the Table with propriety.
  MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: When will the Police Bill be proceeded with?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The Government will proceed with the Police Bill on the earliest opportunity. They recognise the grave importance of this question, and there will be no delay on their side.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: Will the right hon. Gentleman name a day? Does the earliest opportunity mean after the Local Taxation Bill has been disposed of, or does it mean immediately? It is very important that a day should be named. Why not next Thursday?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not able to name a day, but I hope to do so on Thursday.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: If the Bill passes the Second Reading, does the right hon. Gentleman intend to refer it to a Committee?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question.

  THE PROCLAMATION OF THE NORTHAMPTON MEETING.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact that a meeting,
  1784
  intended to be held in the market place of Northampton, on 22nd June, by the opponents of the Local Taxation Bill, was forbidden by the Borough Magistrates to be held at that place; whether Magistrates of a Borough have a right to forbid public meetings in the market place of the Borough to protest against Bills before this House; and whether persons attending a meeting forbidden by them incur any legal penalties; if so, of what kind? I may perhaps be allowed to read a copy of the proclamation which I have here. It runs thus—

  BOROUGH OF NORTHAMPTON.

    PUBLIC NOTICE ISSUED BY ORDER OF THE MAGISTRATES.
    From Representations and Information laid before the Borough Magistrates this day, they are of opinion that the holding of the Public Demonstration and Discussion to be held on the Market Square to-morrow (Sunday) evening, at Eight o'clock, is calculated to provoke Disorder and a Breach of the Peace, and do Prohibit the Holding of such Demonstration and Discussion at the Place named, and Declare the same an unlawful assembly. And they warn all persons who hold, or attempt to, or take part in the same, after the Publication of this prohibition, that they are liable to imprisonment for so doing.—June 21st, 1890."
    MR. BRADLAUGH: May I ask whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman has been drawn to the case of "Beatty and Gillbank, in which the Queen's Bench held that a declaration such as the Northampton Magistrates have issued was illegal, and that Magistrates have no authority to declare an assembly unlawful on the mere ground that there are persons opposed to its object who might be disorderly?
    MR. C. R. SPENCER: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can tell from whom the Magistrates obtained the extraordinary information that the demonstration was likely to provoke disorder?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I am sorry to say I cannot answer the last question put to me. I am informed by the Magistrates that they prohibited the meeting in the Market Square on the ground that a breach of the peace and disorder were anticipated, at the same time offering the racecourse as a place of meeting. The second and third paragraphs of the question of the senior Member for Northampton raise questions of law

    1785
    which cannot be exhaustively dealt with in the compass of an answer. I am advised that a prohibition of a meeting by Magistrates operates only as a warning that a particular meeting is likely to become an unlawful assembly, and does not of itself involve legal penalties, which will, however, be incurred if the meeting proves in fact to be an unlawful assembly.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: The matter being of such grave importance I shall take the earliest opportunity of calling further attention to it.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Is the law the same for the three countries?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I believe there is no difference in the law.

    H.M.S. EGERIA.
    SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the offence for which a petty officer and a seaman of H.M.S. Egeria were recently condemned, the one to penal servitude for five years and the other to two years' hard labour; whether the statements appearing in the Sydney newspapers as to the composition of the court martial which sentenced them, and as to the violations of the rules of evidence during their trial, have any foundation; and where these men are at present confined?
    LORD G. HAMILTON: One petty officer and one seaman of the Egeria were tried for attempting to make a mutinous assembly and for wilful disobedience to orders, and were sentenced respectively to five years' penal servitude and two years' imprisonment. Five other seamen were tried for disobedience, and sentenced to punishments varying from one year to six months' imprisonment. The Reports of these courts martial are now under consideration at the Admiralty. I have not seen any of the Australian newspapers referred to; but the courts martial are legally constituted, and if there is any reflection on the composition of the courts such reflection is not justifiable. The men are on their way home.

    SAMOA.
    SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies when Her Majesty's Govern-
    1786
    ment expect the Samoan Treaty to be put in force, and what the obstacles are to its being enforced at once?
    SIR J. FERGUSSON: I may perhaps be allowed to answer this question. The Samoan Treaty is understood to be in force, but all the local arrangements cannot be immediately carried out. The taxes and dues authorised by the Convention are being collected. The Courts of Justice and of the Land Commission are not yet constituted, nor has the President of the Apia Municipal Council been appointed; but steps are being taken to this end, and other matters are in progress.

    RAILWAY RATES.
    MR. T. ROBINSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Commission appointed to inquire into the classification of goods and the fixing of rates of carriage under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888 have reported to the Board of Trade the result of their inquiry; whether he is aware that the merchants and traders of this country are very desirous of having these important matters settled promptly; and whether he will be in a position to bring this question before the House of Commons in time to be dealt with this Session?
    SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I fully appreciate the desire of the merchants and traders of this country that effect should be given as speedily as possible to the provisions of Section 24 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888; but I must remind the hon. Member that Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr. Boyle sat for 84 days; that no less than 178 witnesses on behalf of the traders were examined before them; and that their inquiry was only concluded on the 21st of May. I hope to be in a position to present a Report to Parliament before the end of July. But, unless the recommendations which it will be the duty of the Board of Trade to make prove acceptable to both sides, I can hardly anticipate that it will be possible to legislate this Session.

    POLICE CLOTHING.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of

    1787
    State for the Home Department whether one of the grounds of difference between Mr. Monro and the Home Office related to the contract for the clothing of the police; whether this contract was entered into by the Home Office against the recommendations of the Receiver; whether throughout the greater part of 1889 the complaints of the responsible officers as to the clothing supplied were frequent; and whether in October, 1889, Mr. Monro disclaimed responsibility for the maintenance of a contract which he considered "injurious to the interests and efficiency of the Force?"
    MR. MATTHEWS: The facts relating to the clothing contract are as follows. In September, 1888, a contract for clothing was entered into with a new firm of contractors (Hammond and Co.), who made the lowest tender. This was done with the concurrence of the then Commissioner, who pointed out that the new contract would effect a considerable saving; but the Receiver recommended that the clothing of half the Force should be given to the new contractors, and of the other half to the old contractors (Compton and Co.), whose tender was higher. The Commissioner complained more than once, and with good ground, of the clothing supplied, and generally of the manner in which the contract was performed. The Receiver endeavoured, by the enforcement of penalties and otherwise, to obtain a better performance of the contract. The terms of this contract were, in reality, too unfavourable to the contractors. The Commissioner renewed his complaints in October, 1889, to the effect stated in the question. After consultation with the Receiver, I decided not to terminate the contract then. At a later period, in May, 1890, on fresh complaint by the Commissioner, and after consultation with both Receiver and Commissioner, I came to the conclusion that it would be for the interest and convenience of the Force that the current issue of clothing should be completed by the contractors, as any new contractor has at first much to learn and many difficulties in executing the work; but that as soon as that was completed the contractors should be relieved of their contract, and that course was followed with the assent of the Commissioner.

    OFFICERS OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Mr. Monro suggested that by the appointment of Mr. Howard as Assistant Commissioner of Police it would be possible to abolish another office existing in the Force; and, if so, is it intended to act upon this suggestion?
    MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Sir; the late Commissioner did make such a suggestion. The matter is still under consideration, and I am not at present in a position to say whether the suggestion will be acted on.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: Was the office that of one of the Assistant Commissioners?
    MR. MATTHEWS: No, Sir.

    CONSTABLE JARVIS.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what business was Constable Jarvis in New York; and how long was he away from London?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Assistant Commissioner of Police that Jarvis went to New York in November, 1888. His business was the extradition of Thomas Barton, whom he brought back to this country on the 9th of April, 1889, and who was afterwards convicted at the Central Criminal Court of forging transfers of London and North-Western Railway Stock.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: How was it it took Jarvis four months to do this?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have given the hon. Member all the information I have.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I will renew the question.

    SHADOWING IN IRELAND.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the number of persons "shadowed" and the number "watched" in Ireland for each or any of the three weeks ending 21st June?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware whether this would be practicable, and must ask the hon. Member to defer the question.

    LICENCES IN IRELAND.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can now state the intentions of the Government as to the suspension of licences in Ireland, i.e., whether by the Government Licensing Bill or by a separate measure?
    MR. A.J. BALFOUR: I have consulted with my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board as to whether the suspension of licences in Ireland should be carried out by the Government Bill or by a separate measure; and we have come to the conclusion that it would be very difficult to deal with it by Amendments which proceed by reference to the English clauses, and it would be more convenient to deal with that part of the question, so far as it relates to Ireland, by a separate measure.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Do the Government intend to introduce a separate measure?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has a measure which has passed the Second Reading, and which might fittingly form the basis of a method of dealing with the question.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: If I endeavour to make progress with the Bill, will the right hon. Gentleman make arrangements with his supporters not to block it?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The most convenient course would be that, as the Bill of the hon. and learned Member deals with part of the general question, it should proceed pari passu with that of the Government.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: If I endeavour to put it down to-night for an early day, will the right hon. Gentleman assist me to make progress? As the Government have got one clause of their Bill, will they allow me to take one clause of my Bill?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I shall be glad to help the hon. Member as far as I can.

    POSTMEN'S GRIEVANCES.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will state the number of telegraph messengers employed in London, the scale of wages paid, the rates paid for overtime and Sunday work;
    1790
    whether overtime is compulsory upon them; and what proportion of those willing and qualified to become postmen are appointed?
    THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): To the hon. Member's four questions the answers are as follows: 1st. 2,430; 2nd. 7s., rising by 1s. a week annually to 11s.; 3rd. I have not had time to ascertain the particulars of overtime work and Sunday work; 4th. It has been for many years the practice to promote those telegraph messengers who are willing and qualified to vacancies in the postmen's force as opportunity offers.

    MEETINGS OF POST OFFICE OFFICIALS.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the Rule which has now been superseded, prohibiting postmen from attending meetings outside the Post Office buildings, applied to meetings held to discuss questions connected with their "duties or pay;" whether in the Notice recently issued by the Postmaster General for the regulation or abolition of meetings, the term "official questions" is used; and1 whether a postmen who attends a meeting in order to call attention to his low wages, will be liable to be punished for discussing official questions?
    MR. RAIKES: There has been no variation of terms, as the hon. Member's inquiry would seem to imply. "Official questions" was the term employed in Lord Stanley of Alderley's Notice of March, 1866; and the same term is employed in the Notice issued by myself. As I have had occasion to point out more than once, postmen are no longer forbidden, as they were until a few months ago, to hold meetings outside the Post Office buildings for the discussion of their rates of pay or any other official question. All that is required of them is that in connection with such meetings they shall comply with the necessary Regulations.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General how many boys, and of what age, are being employed at the Western District Office delivering letters in place of men suspended for attending their Union meetings?
    MR. RAIKES: Six boys. Five are 18 years of age, and one is 19.

    THE MUNSTER FUSILIERS.
    MR. O'KEEFFE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to a disturbance which occurred on Thursday last among the men of the 5th Battalion Munster Fusiliers at Limerick; whether these men (Militia) are contrary to usage compelled to lie under canvas, and that owing to rain and defective arrangements their bedclothes, &c, have been wet, and there is danger of sickness ensuing; and whether a sum of 2s. 5d. per week has been taken off the men's pay, and, as universal dissatisfaction has been excited, whether steps be taken to improve their condition, and revert to the original position of the Force?
    MR. BRODRICK: A full Report from the General Officer commanding is expected. Meanwhile, I can only state on the authority of the Adjutant that the newspaper account is much exaggerated.

    THE CONSOLIDATION OF POLICE ORDERS.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the present stage in the consolidation of the Police Orders, and when is it probable that they will receive the sanction of the Home Office?
    MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: I desire to ask whether it is the case that Sir Charles Warren declined to submit these Consolidated Orders to the Home Secretary; whether Mr. Monro took a different view, and nearly a year ago submitted them to the Home Secretary; whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to submit them to a committee of three clerks, one of whom was a clerk in Mr. Monro's office; and whether Mr. Monro objected to have his own orders submitted to one of his own clerks?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I think the hon. Gentleman had better give Notice of this question. The answer to the first question is: A set of Consolidated Police Orders, prepared by a Board of Police Officers and extending to some 600 pages, is now being examined by a member of the Bar with a view to settling the language of the Orders in consonance with the law. He has not yet completed his task, and, as it is likely that questions may arise for my considera-
    1792
    tion, I cannot at present fix a date when my formal sanction will be given.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: How long has the draft of these Consolidated Orders been at the Home Office; and has not the gravest inconvenience been caused by the detention of them?
    MR. MATTHEWS: No, Sir. These Consolidated Orders have been issued from time to time, not simultaneously. The work of consolidation began a considerable time back; it began in Sir C. Warren's time, and it has been continued ever since. When Sir C. Warren left, the Orders formed an enormous accumulation, and some of them struck me as not being in consonance with the law.

    CONVERSION OF THE EGYPTIAN DEBT.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is true that France declines to discuss any proposals for the application of the economies resulting from the conversion of the Egyptian Debt; and whether the money so saved will be employed in paying the corvée in spite of France's refusal, or ear-marked until her sanction is obtained?
    SIR J. FERGUSSON: The French Government have postponed the discussion, but we understand that they will shortly be prepared to resume it. It is not likely that any arrangements will be made until the matter has been further discussed with the Powers.

    BELFAST POST OFFICE.
    MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether seven members of the first-class of clerks in the Telegraph Department of the Belfast Post Office hold the additional appointment of provincial clerks in charge; whether five of these had this appointment bestowed upon them in recognition of long service and in consequence of their having been, at the time at which it was conferred, superseded in promotion to the first-class; if so, upon what grounds were they permitted to retain this appointment subsequently, on receiving promotion to the first-class; whether the discharge of the duties incident to that of provincial clerks in charge obliges the holders of the position

    1793
    to be absent for long periods from Belfast; and, if so, have their duties during their absence to be discharged by members of the second-class without any extra remuneration, and does their absence also cause present members of the first-class, who are not provincial clerks in charge, to be more frequently employed upon night duty; and, if this be so, whether he will constitute the present holders of the position of provincial clerks in charge supernumeraries upon the staff of the Belfast Post Office, and promote an equivalent number of the second-class to be members of the first-class, so that members of this class shall not be called upon to undertake responsible first-class duties without the emoluments appertaining to the position?
    MR RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that although the case is not quite as stated in the question—inasmuch as the number of first class clerks at Belfast who act as provincial clerks in charge is six and not seven, and their appointments were not given for the reasons assigned—the aggregate absence of these officers from Belfast has been unduly large, and I am considering whether similar appointments should not be made at other offices in the North of Ireland, so as to relieve the pressure at Belfast. The Secretary to the Post Office in Ireland has the matter in hand, and will give it his early attention.

    POSTAL IRREGULARITIES AT TWINEHAM.
    MR. BRADLAUGH: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that considerable delay and irregularity occurs in the postal delivery at Twineham, near Cuckfield, and that on Thursday the morning letters were delivered at Twineham Court about noon by two little boys; and whether ho will take steps to remedy this irregularity of the Postal Service?
    MR. RAIKES: I regret to find that there has been such irregularity in the Postal Service to Twineham as the hon. Member indicates, and I have taken steps which, I hope, will remove all cause for complaint in this respect.

    THE OLPHERT DISPUTE.
    MR. DALTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the proceedings at Falcarragh Petty Sessions, on Tuesday the 17th, in which a man named Peter M'Ginley was charged by a bailiff on the Olphert Estate named Conaghan with assault, and in which, on a cross summons, Conaghan was charged by M'Ginley with assault and with having presented a revolver at him and threatened to shoot him, and to the decision of the Court, consisting of two Resident Magistrates, that, though Conaghan's conduct was reprehensible in this case and generally in going about the country with a revolver and threatening to shoot people, M'Ginley should be imprisoned for a fortnight and then be held to bail to keep the peace for 12 months, while Conaghan should be held to bail merely; whether he will direct the attention of the Lord Lieutenant to this decision with a view to the remission of at least the latter part of the sentence inflicted on M'Ginley, who would appear to have acted only in self defence against a murderous attack on his life; whether the bailiff Conaghan was given a licence to carry firearms; and, if so, by whom, and whether his licence will now be withdrawn; and whether, in view of the fact that this is the third instance within a recent period of human life being threatened in the Falcarragh district by persons licensed to carry firearms, a revision of the list of persons so licensed will be ordered with a view to the removal from it of the names of all persons who have abused the privilege conferred upon them, or who have not furnished satisfactory guarantees that they will use the privilege with discretion?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that M'Ginley was charged at Falcarragh Petty Sessions with a serious assault upon Conaghan, who is a bailiff, by striking him with some weapon upon the head. The evidence (for the defence) put forward by M'Ginley, as to whether the revolver was produced before or after the assault was committed, was, it is stated, very conflicting. It appears, however, as a matter of fact, the revolver was not

    1795
    loaded. The Magistrates made such orders as they considered the merits of the respective cases required. There does not appear to be anything in the decision calling for the exercise by the Lord Lieutenant of the prerogative of mercy. Conaghan has a licence to carry arms for his personal protection, which was issued by the licensing officer of the district. The Magistrates do not appear to have made any representation that the licence should be withdrawn. I will have their opinion asked. No complaints appear to have been received about the improper use of firearms except in one case, and in that the Grand Jury decided that the revolver was accidentally discharged.

    STRADBALLYTOST OFFICE.
    MR. P. J. POWER: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he has received a Memorial from the people of Stradbally and district, County Waterford, asking that a Miss Finn should be appointed postmistress at Stradbally; whether it is the practice of his Department to meet the wishes of localities in the appointment of postal officials where consistent with efficiency; and whether he intends meeting the wishes of this locality by the appointment of the lady named?
    MR. RAIKES: I have received the Memorial referred to. The practice of the Department in such cases is to select the candidate who is considered in all respects to be the most suitable both in the interests of the public and of the Post Office. In the present instance, I can only assure the hon. Member that Miss Finn's claims and qualifications shall be fully considered in connection with those of the other candidates for the appointment in question.
    SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLE WORTH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Her Majesty's Government have considered the Third Report of this Session of the Public Accounts Committee, upon the new arrangement of the Estimates, reducing the number of the Votes; and whether the recommendations of the Committee are accepted by the Treasury, and will be adopted in framing next year's Estimates?
    MR. JACKSON: The Treasury has considered the Third Report of the
    1796
    Public Accounts Committee, and has decided to accept its recommendations, and adopt them in framing next year's. Estimates.

    MAP OF AFRICA.
    MR. W. ISAACSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Her Majesty's Government will consent to issue a map of Africa showing the portions conceded to Germany, the water communications, also the heights of land, as far as is known?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: There is a map in the Tea Room which gives all the information required except the height of the mountains, and I do not think that is very important.

    HELIGOLAND.
    MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, agreeably to the precedent set in the case of the cession of the Ionian Islands to Greece, the Government will undertake to despatch a Commissioner to Heligoland for the purpose of eliciting the opinion of its inhabitants with regard to the proposed cession of the Island to Germany?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: Her Majesty's Government do not think this necessary; they are well informed of the sentiments of the inhabitants.
    MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will undertake that the proposed Anglo-German Agreement shall not be signed by the British Plenipotentiary until Parliament has had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the Bill for the cession of Heligoland; and also whether the proposed Anglo-German Agreement, will contain a clause providing that the portion of the Agreement which relates, to the cession of Heligoland shall not take effect until it has been ratified by the passing into law by the British Parliament of a Bill authorising the cession?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: No such clause is necessary, for the Agreement will only provide that a Bill shall be introduced to enable Her Majesty to make the cession.
    MR. CHANNING: I desire to ask whether the Prime Minister, in a recent speech, declared that Parliament and public opinion ought

    1797
    to be consulted before any surrender of territory took place?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not know what the Prime Minister said on that occasion; but if a question is put on the Paper, I will communicate with the noble Lord.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: Do the Government intend to lay on the Table any Papers whatever relating to Heligoland?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: Certainly, Sir; as soon as possible.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it intended that the island shall be fortified by the Germans as soon as they get possession of it?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not aware of any provision of that kind in the Treaty.

    HIGH LICENCE.
    MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government to adopt the principle of High Licence, as embodied in the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: The question is one which should be considered by the House when any general measure dealing with licensing is under review.

    POSTAL COUNTERMEN.
    MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has received a Petition from the countermen of the Metropolitan Postal Districts which was transmitted to him through the Postmaster of the West Central District on the 13th of last month, asking him to favour a committee of their class with an interview; and whether, seeing that he recently granted a similar application to the telegraphists and sorters, he will accede to the request of the countermen?
    MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon Member, I have to state that I decided upon a Memorial from the countermen in October last, and hardly had I done so when they put in a further Memorial, and upon this I decided in February last. Notwithstanding this double decision, they have sought, in a Memorial to which the hon. Member refers, to reopen the question by a request for an
    1798
    interview. I have not yet had time to consult my official advisers whether I should grant an interview. I am always pleased to have an opportunity of discussing questions affecting any class of my officers with them. But the demands on my time are so great that I am not always able to afford myself this pleasure.

    AXBRIDGE RURAL SANITARY AUTHORITY.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if the Axbridge Rural Sanitary Authority have secured a Provisional Order to enable them to acquire certain land under the Compulsory Clauses of "The Allotments Act, 1887;" and, if so, whether he can state the cost to the Sanitary Authority of obtaining such Provisional Order?
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): The cost to the Axbridge Rural Sanitary Authority of obtaining the Provisional Order referred to was £6 14s. 0d. This amount includes a charge of £4 14s. 0d. in respect of a journey to London for the purpose of depositing the Petition and documents with the Local Government Board, which at present it appears to me might have been avoided. Apart from this charge, the expense incurred by the Authority was £2 0s. 0d.

    THE ANGLO-GERMAN AGREEMENT.
    MR. JENNINGS: In the absence of the hon. Member for the Peckham Division of Camberwell I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the exemption from transit dues granted by the Anglo-German Agreement to the goods of England and Germany between Nyassa and the Congo State, and between the northern end of Lake Tanganyika and the British sphere of influence, would extend, under the Most Favoured Nation Clauses, to the goods of other nations?
    SIR J. FERGUSSON: I do not find in the Agreement between Germany and Portugal any parallel of latitude named, but the geographical description of the southern boundary of the German sphere of influence would nearly correspond

    1799
    with the 11th degree of south latitude. Should any questions arise south of the line mentioned in the Despatch, they would arise either with the Congo State or with the Portuguese.

    POLICE SHADOWING IN IRELAND.
    MR. W. REDMOND: I wish to call the attention of the Chief Secretary to a letter which appears in the Pall Mall Gazette this evening from a New Zealand lady, in which the writer says—
    "I find some of the customs of this country very strange. I am here on a visit from Mew Zealand, and I am not two days in town till the police have been making inquiries about me even in such a public place as a bank, as if I were an escaped convict or suspected of felony. Why should I or any lady be subjected to such an indignity? Need I say I am a Protestant: and while my politics should not deprive me of the liberty of a citizen, they are not Nationalist, for, being a colonist, I know little of the Irish controversy. But it would be well that the colonists and English people should know that British citizens cannot move about in broad daylight without being the subjects of police surveillance."
    May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of his statement that people are only shadowed if they are suspected of being criminals, this lady was so suspected; and will he take steps to protect at least visitors to our country from this indignity?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member asks whether this lady will be protected. I do not think she complains of being shadowed, but she does complain of certain inquiries being made. I know nothing of the facts, but will cause an investigation to be made if the hon. Member will give notice of a question.
    MR. W. REDMOND: Of course I will. At the same time, allow me to point out that the lady complains that "British citizens cannot move about in broad daylight without being the subjects of police surveillance." I think that is the most serious part of the allegation.
    MR. A. J. BALEOUR: I understand that to be a general observation and not a specific complaint.
    MR. W. REDMOND: I will put the question down for Thursday next.

    THE NEW AMENDMENT TO THE LICENSING BILL.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask your ruling, Sir, on a matter affecting
    1800
    Parliamentary procedure. By the Budget Bill, which received the Royal Assent on June 9, the Government provided by the 7th clause of the measure that the duties on spirits and beer were to be dealt with in a particular way, and that the proceeds arising out of these levies
    "Shall be appropriated as Parliament may hereafter direct by any Act passed in the present Session."
    These words were inserted upon my Motion. At that time the Local Taxation Bill was running concurrently with the Budget Bill, and the one measure was regarded as a kind of companion to the other. So that these words put in the Local Taxation Bill provided that the moneys raised by spirits and beer were to be immediately spent. At any rate, the word "appropriated" used in the 7th section of that measure was not then intended to cover a locking up of the funds, but the words "expenditure and paying out of the fund." Now, the Government propose, by the Amendments of the President of the Local Government Board, to insert in the Local Taxation Bill words which give an entirely different meaning to the word "appropriate," because they propose to provide that the levies on whisky and beer shall be locked up for an interminable period, and shall be spent under an Act which may not be passed for years to come. What I submit is this: that the Government, having passed into law a measure which has now received the Royal Assent, ear-marking a certain meaning to the word "appropriate," and attaching a sense of expenditure to it, it is not in accordance with the procedure of this House that the Government can now entirely change the meaning of this Act passed in the present Session by another measure which proposes to fix to the word "appropriate" a meaning of a wholly different character.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: With reference to the observations which we have just heard, and the subject of which is new to me, I would venture to say that, as I understand the matter, the Bill now before the House does not fix a new interpretation to the word "appropriate," but entirely contravenes the meaning of the word "appropriate." The meaning of the word "appropriate" having been fixed by Statute during the present Session, the present Bill proposes

    1801
    that the money shall not be appropriated. If there is one word well understood in the financial practice of this House it is the word "appropriate. The term Appropriation Act, which is familiar to us all, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.
    MR. GOSCHEN: On the point of order, may I submit the following point:—In this Bill there were three propositions—one relating to England, another to Scotland, and the third to Ireland. In the case of Ireland the money was not appropriated for the service of the year. The case of Ireland was that a portion of the money was to be appropriated as should afterwards be determined by Parliament. I therefore submit that at that very time the word "appropriate" did not carry the narrow interpretation which the hon. Member for Longford now seeks to assign to it; but that it covered the whole of the money, including the portion which was to be disposed of as Parliament should hereafter direct.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I ask you to consider, Sir, what was the meaning then, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's point of view, of the introduction of those words "during the present Session." They were introduced for the express purpose of securing that the appropriation of this money should be completed during the present year; and that the money should not be voted while the complete appropriation was postponed until a future period. Those words, no doubt, might have been ambiguous as they stood, but it was to remove that very ambiguity that the hon. and learned Member for Longford asked for the insertion of the words which were accepted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to make it clear that the appropriation, except in the case of Ireland, was especially provided for, and should be made in the present year.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I submit, Sir, that this Bill, if it is carried into law, does comply with the provisions embodied in the Budget Bill, and that it does appropriate the money which has been voted.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford has raised a question the importance of which I do not think he has overrated.
    1802
    It is a question, I must confess, rather of constitutional interpretation than one of a point of order, upon which I venture to hope, generally speaking, my ruling would be accepted by the House. But I respectfully give the House such opinion as I have formed on the matter, although I do regard it as a matter affecting the constitutional relations of this House, and greatly affecting the whole question of Money Bills and appropriation. The 7th clause of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, which has been passed into law, enacted that it
    "Shall be ascertained as to proportion and otherwise in like manner as the one-half of the proceeds of the probate duties applicable to local purposes is now by law divided, paid, and ascertained."
    And then occur the following words:—
    "And the proceeds so paid shall be appropriated as Parliament may hereafter direct by any Act passed in the present Session."
    I observe that there is an Amendment on the Paper standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board to insert these words in the Bill now before the House:—
    "May be hereafter provided by any Act amending the Licensing Acts, and until such Act is passed shall be invested and accumulated as provided by this Act."
    Now, it is a very grave question whether those words do constitute such a specific appropriation as the Budget Act directs. I certainly am not aware, in the comparatively short time that I have had to examine into the matter, of any instance of a tax being raised and the proceeds appropriated to no particular authority and to no specific object as is now the ease since the three clauses have been withdrawn from this Bill. It I would be, I think, for the House to consider, as a matter of policy and interpretation, whether these words of the right hon. Gentleman, moved as an Amendment, do constitute a sufficient appropriation of the sum raised and granted by the Budget Act so as to come within what is undoubtedly the general principle underlying our whole law, namely the appropriation our money to a specific use within the then existing Session of Parliament, either partly or wholly—I say partly because, of course, there are permanent

    1803
    appropriations of sums extending over more than one year; but even in that case a certain sum is specifically appropriated to be expended within that year. It appears to me, on taking an impartial view—I need not say as impartial a view as I can—on the subject, that if no Act was passed within this Session appropriating the sums allotted under the Budget Act, it would be a very grave question whether the Treasury would not incur grave responsibility and grave liabilities in issuing any money or in issuing it to any body of persons as Local Authorities. There would be, as I understand, no particular direction to the Treasury from this House to issue money, nor to issue it to any particular body of persons, inasmuch as the County Authorities will not have the money allotted to them. But it will be said the money will be accumulated I confess, looking at the matter from a Constitutional point of view, I know of no precedent for such an accumulation, and though it may be quite true that the fact of no precedent existing does not prove that the proceeding would be un Constitutional, I think it is eminently a matter for the House to decide whether it is ultra vires or not, and whether such a course would be in harmony with Constitutional practice. It is a matter which I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will be justified in raising as a question of policy, or even of principle, both in Committee and, if need be, also on the THIRD READING of the Bill. I have endeavoured to explain my views to the House as well as I have been able.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: On the point of order, may I ask whether your observations do not equally apply to the Irish part of the Bill, which has not been altered as the English and Scotch portions of the Bill are proposed to be altered by the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board?
    MR. T. M. HEALY: May I submit that the Irish Secretary is in error, because there is an Amendment down in the name of the President of the Local Government Board also altering the Irish section and providing that this money is to lie up in Ireland until such time as some new Licensing Act is is passed?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There may be some Amendment to the Irish part of the Bill, but substantially I submit the Irish part of the Bill does provide that the money should accumulate until some future stage—until this or another Parliament should deal with the question of Local Government in Ireland. What I desire to ask your ruling upon, Sir, is whether there is any difference, in constitutional principle, between that part of the Bill as originally framed and those parts of the Bill affecting England and Scotland as modified by the proposed Amendment?
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Before that point is raised, I would submit that if the objection equally applies to the Irish part of the Bill, we have not yet come to it. We have not discussed that section; the House has not approved it. Your ruling, Sir, as I understand, will apply to the whole Bill and not merely to the Amendment proposed by the President of the Local Government Board.
    MR. GOSCHEN: It would not, Sir, be dignified for me to enter into any argument at a moment like this with regard to any of those most important words which have fallen from your lips. At the proper time, after the hon. Member for Longford has taken the course which is suggested to him, it will be my duty to submit reasons why I am prepared to defend constitutionally, and as a matter of expediency, for the proposals of the Government. I rise simply to point out to you for your consideration whether the clauses which remain in the Bill directing to whom this money should be paid do not constitute a distinct application of the money which would relieve us from the difficulty you have suggested, namely, that there would be no means of getting the money out of the Treasury. Of course, it is part of the plan that clauses should be kept in the Bill distinctly directing the mode of investment, the mode of account, and the manner in which the funds—ear-marked as it is called—should be used. There would be perfect machinery in the Bill for the accumulation and accounting for the money for a specific purpose. I think the particular difficulties, if I may say so with all submission, with regard to the manner in which the money would be dealt with, would possibly not arise

    1805
    when we come to the clauses which direct the investment of the funds.
    MR. SPEAKER: It appears to me that the money would be equally locked up, no matter in whose hands it might lie. Some observations have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman as to my ruling. I hope I may respectfully say to the House that my ruling on this subject is only a matter of opinion on a grave question of constitutional law. It is not intended in any way to bind any portion of the House, but, as I was asked my opinion, I did not think it would be respectful to the House not to give it.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I do not intend, as at present advised, to do more than what I conceive to be the duty of a Member of the House who is specially seised of knowledge on this matter—to appeal to the Chair, as I understand that, upon financial questions especially, the Chair is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the House.
    SIR G. CAMPBELL: It would be a great convenience to Scotch Members and the House generally if the First Lord of the Treasury would make up his mind to tell us now whether we are to fight right through again the licensing part of the Bill, or whether the Government will make up their minds to swallow the remaining bit of the leek and withdraw the Bill.
    [No answer was given.]

    MR. W. H. SMITH AND THE DEPUTATION OF LICENSED VICTUALLERS.
    MR. T. PRY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is correctly reported in this day's issue of the Times to have said to a deputation of licensed victuallers—
    "That he gave them the strongest assurance that no part of the Local Taxation Bill was to he considered as abandoned, and that they might absolutely rely upon it that the money to be accumulated should never be devoted to any other purpose than the extinction of licences;"
    and, if so, how far that statement agrees with the announcement he made in the House the same evening that the money would be at the future disposal of Parliament?
    MR. D.CRAWFORD: I have given the First Lord of the Trea-
    1806
    sury notice of a question on the same subject. The hon. Member for Darlington has read only a part of the reply given to the deputation by the right hon. Gentleman, but I think other parts of it should be read. The right hon. Gentleman is reported to have said also—
    "That the Government had been driven by the opposition of their Liberal Unionist allies to the conclusion that they could not successfully resist the 10 years' limit Amendment, and that they had, therefore, decided to postpone certain clauses of the measure."
    Then he went on to say that—
    "On the other hand, he gave the deputation the strongest assurance that no part of the Bill was to be considered as abandoned, and that they might rely upon it that the money to be accumulated should never be devoted to any other purpose than the extinction of licences:
    and this announcement, it was stated, was "received with applause."
    MR. W. H. SMITH: In answer to the questions of the hon. Members, I have to say there is one portion of this report which is accurate, and that is that the proceedings were private. I can only say that the report is more or less inaccurate. I stated to the deputation all that I had said in the House a few minutes before, neither more nor less; and as every Gentleman in the House is in possession of that statement, I have given all the information I can.
    MR. STOREY: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury what were the precedents he referred to yesterday with regard to the leaving over of money for future use instead of its being appropriated in the Session?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not aware that I did refer to precedents, but I venture to say that the only answer that can be given on such a point must be given in Debate.

    PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
    Thirteenth Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
    NEW WRIT.
    For Borough of Barrow in Furness v. William Sproston Caine, esquire, Manor of Northstead.
  MOTION.
    PROHIBITION OF PUBLIC MEETING (NORTHAMPTON).

      MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.
      MR. LABOUCHERE,Member for the Borough of Northampton, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, a Proclamation of the Magistrates of Northampton prohibiting a public meeting intended to be held in the market place of that town last Sunday evening, and warning all persons holding or taking part in the same that they would be liable to imprisonment for so doing; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, MR. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen:—
      MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg, then, to move the Adjournment of the House, and I assure the House that I do so in no spirit of hostility to the Government. I submitted a question to the Home Secretary on the subject, and be admitted that there were important points of law involved in the matter which could not be answered in reply to a question. When the House has heard the facts, it will be seen that the case is a fair and legitimate one on which to ask for an expression of opinion from the House and the legal advisers of Her Majesty's Government, because it touches the whole question of public meetings, and, if it were allowed to pass by, the Magistrates of any town would be able to prohibit any meeting they chose. The facts are very simple. Last week it was decided by the friends of temperance at Northampton to hold a public meeting on Sunday in the market-place. The meeting was not called in any special way by the Liberals there, but the principal persons present connected with it were Nonconformist ministers of the town. There were to be two platforms in the market-place, which is one of the largest in the country. At 1 o'clock the chair was to be taken by Mr. Campion, who is the editor of a newspaper there; and at the other Mr. Manfield, a large
      1808
      manufacturer, an Alderman, and a Magistrate, was to preside. On Saturday the Magistrates met and asked the conveners of the meeting to hold it on the racecourse. As a matter of fact, meetings are habitually held in the marketplace in Northampton; and in this case the managers of this temperance meeting had communicated with the brewery interest, and arranged that there should be a public discussion in the marketplace, and it had been agreed that both parties would do their best to maintain order. Very possibly there may have been affidavits laid before the Magistrates to the effect that the meeting might lead to a breach of the peace, but I apprehend that that did not warrant the Magistrates prohibiting the meeting or saying that to take part in it would render those who did so liable to imprisonment. The Queen's Bench Division, in the case of "Beatty v. Gillbank," decided that the Magistrates had no right to prohibit a meeting. The question there was whether a meeting of the Salvation Army could be prohibited because some other army threatened to interfere with the proceedings. The decision was that the Magistrates had no right to prohibit a meeting. They may warn persons against attending a meeting and may tell them they must take the consequences. If they fear that individuals are going to disturb the peace, they may call on them to find securities not to disturb the peace, and may put them in gaol if they refuse to find sureties. If that be the present state of the law, I say that the Magistrates had no sort of right to prohibit this meeting and to frighten people who wer8 going to it by telling them they would be liable to imprisonment if they attended. If this were to be permitted all meetings would be rendered practically impossible, since they could be stopped by the action of disorderly persons, who said that they were going to interfere with them. It is most desirable, in view of the fact that the Lord Chancellor is responsible for these Magistrates, who are an unelected body of men, that the Attorney General and the Home Secretary should distinctly declare to the Magistrates of Northampton, and through them to the Magistrates all over the country, that they have no right to interfere with this fair and

      1809
      proper action on the part of the electors of an English town. I beg to move the adjournment of the House.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
      MR. BRADLAUGH: I rise for the purpose of seconding the Motion moved by my hon. Colleague. I would take the liberty of suggesting that it is something new in parliamentary practice that, when a great question like that of public meeting is to be discussed, the bulk of the Ministry should at once leave the House. I make no complaint that the bulk of the Conservative Party should have done the same, because T have been in the habit of attacking them on the same ground, that they disregard the liberties of the people, and I am rather glad that my attacks have been justified by what has happened. We are apparently forgetting in England that regard for public right for which England used to be specially famed. The law is clearly and briefly stated in a little manual called Stone's Justices' Manual, and I will take the liberty of reading a very words from that book to the House. I find it stated that—
      "A lawful assembly is not rendered unlawful by the knowledge of the persons taking part in it that opposition will be raised to it."
      If it were otherwise, any lawful meeting might be rendered unlawful by any half-dozen blackguards declaring that they would interfere with it. The position of the Magistrates is clear. I am indebted to the Solicitor General's (Sir E. Clarke) arguments in a case I shall refer to, for part of the legal arguments I shall submit to the House. I say for part of them, because it was my duty, some 28 years ago, in the Court of Common Pleas, to argue this point. The Solicitor General held that Magistrates had no authority to prohibit a meeting that seems likely to endanger the public peace. In the case of "Beatty v. Gill-bank," the Skeleton Army having declared they intended to break the peace as against the Salvation Army, the Magistrates took upon themselves to require several members of the Salvation Army to give security to keep the peace, and the Court held that the Magistrates had no right to require such securities.
      1810
      Not only is the law clear that the persons convening a lawful assembly cannot be prohibited by the Magistrates from holding it; but it is also clear that if some other persons threatened to break the peace the Magistrates have no right to call upon the persons engaged in promoting the lawful meeting to give surety to the police, which shall prevent them holding the meeting. In the case of "Beatty v. Gillbank," which is reported in the IX Queen's Bench Division, page 308, the order for the sureties was quashed by the Court, in a Judgment delivered by MR. Justice Field, who said—
      "It is quite clear that there is no sort of ground or authority for any action by the Magistrates in interfering with the meeting."
      Now, what do these Magistrates do? They are as impudent as if they were Resident Magistrates in Ireland. They are as ignorant of the law as some of the Law advisers of the Government appear to be on the subject of Irish meetings. They claim the right to prohibit the holding of a meeting, and they announce that if the people go to it after the prohibition it will be an unlawful assembly. I regret that I have to condemn the legal gentleman who advised the Magistrates in relation to this proclamation. I regret it because, though I do not suppose he voted for me, it is my duty to defend the whole of my constituents as far as I can. I regret that in Northampton, where we have had some experience of the assertion of the right of meeting, there should be found any lawyer ignorant enough to advise the Magistrates they might issue this absurd proclamation. Magistrates cannot; a Government cannot; nothing but Parliament can make an assembly unlawful, if it be lawful otherwise. Parliament can do anything; it can take a man's rights, and it has taken a great many away in Ireland, but, at any rate, I hope the House will not permit the Magistrates to take away, without the authority of Parliament, what few rights we have got left. I can understand that the learned Attorney General may feel bound to defend these Magistrates, because I believe they are nearly all Conservative Magistrates. Unfortunately, we have had a great many deaths amongst the Liberal and Radical Magistrates in Northampton during the last

      1811
      few years. I am sure the Lord Chancellor only exercises his discretion for the purpose of promoting the due administration of the law, but it is unfortunate that he has found his discretion lie in the direction of gentlemen of his own political views and of worse lawyers than himself. Whatever one would say of the Lord Chancellor's views in other respects, no one would venture to cast any doubt on his views as a lawyer. I ask the Government, once for all, to say to the people who look to them for teaching "The Magistrates have no right to do an illegal thing." If the Government will not protect our rights we must protect them ourselves. I have never hesitated to do it in times gone by, and I will never in the future when the occasion arises, hesitate to do it. It is the duty of the Government not only to give no encouragement to, but to discourage any infringement at all upon the rights of the citizens, whether they agree to the Government in politics or not. But this stopping of the meeting did not save the three wretched clauses giving the publicans compensation; they had to go. I can conceive that those Magistrates who have been recently appointed wished to show their gratitude by doing the best they could to help the Government in their sore dilemma; but they will not do it effectively by prohibiting discussion. I trust that, little as the Leader of the House seems to care for the assertion of public liberty, some of the old traditions of his Party will be respected, and that, without reference to the question whether this is a Motion for adjournment or not, there will be some consideration for the rights and the liberty of the people which is involved in the Motion. If it had not been that the Home Secretary hesitated yesterday and mocked to-day I should not be speaking now. I said he mocked to-day, for he declared he knew nothing of the law of the land in relation to a most important matter affecting his Department. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I do not know what that shake means, but I do know that in answer to my Colleague yesterday he declared that this was an intricate matter of law, when there is no intricacy at all about it. He cannot have referred to the records of the Home Office or he would have found the Paper
      1812
      upon the Basingstoke disturbances, which was laid on the Table in 1882 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. He would have known then that there was some misapprehension, a misapprehension sanctioned by the Law Advisers of the Crown, as to what the rights of meeting were. That might have been a justification for the right hon. Gentleman's ignorance up to the 12th of June, 1882, but on the 13th of June, when the decision in the case of "Beatty v. Gillbank" was delivered in the Queen's Bench Division, that ignorance ought to have been swept away. I ask the House not to regard this as a Party question. It is our question to-day; it may be yours to-morrow; and the difficulty is that if the prohibition of discussion rests with the majority of the Justices in one place to-day it will rest with the majority of the Justices in another place by-and-by. The great thing which has kept this country in advance of every other country in Europe, and which has kept it more peaceful, has been the safety valve of public meeting, where opinions might be expressed. I can understand the Government feeling touchy about their Bill just now. A characteristic of a weak Government is that it gets annoyed with things that a strong Government passes by. I appeal to the House to join in saying to the Conservative Magistrates of Northampton, "Your have no right to gag your opponents, since free speech has been the deliverance of the land."
      MR. C. R. SPENCER: I am not in the habit of intruding myself on the attention of the House, and, therefore, I hope I. may be allowed to make a few remarks. I have known Northampton well for many years, and I do not think that, in all that time, it can be proved that Northampton is in the habit of indulging in riots. It was, therefore, with considerable surprise that I saw in the newspapers yesterday morning that the borough Magistrates had prohibited this meeting, especially when I know that the two gentlemen who were to take the chair at the meeting were two of the most law-abiding members of a law-abiding constituency. I venture to think that this was an extremely dangerous thing for the borough Magistrates to have done. I do

      1813
      not care what are the politics of the Magistrates, but it is a dangerous innovation in the practice of this country for the Magistrates to lay down the law like this. On Sundays we are accustomed to hold meetings of different kinds in Northampton, and it is nothing new for large crowds to assemble in the market-place, and, therefore, it is an absurd aggravation of the trouble for the Magistrates to have suggested to the people that they should go to the racecourse. I do not see why they should not have met as usual in the market-place, and I regret that some ill-advised persons should have considered themselves obliged to persuade the borough Magistrates that this temperance meeting should be prohibited. If my hon. Friend goes to a Division, I shall have the greatest pleasure in supporting him, as a protest against what I must call an infringement of the liberty of the subject.
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): The politics of the Northampton Magistrates have been referred to. For my own part, I have not the slightest idea what their political colour is. With regard to my answer on the question of the meeting, I stated that the Magistrates could not by such proclamation make a meeting illegal, and that the proclamation was only a warning to those about to take part in the meeting that, in the judgment of the Magistrates, it would be an unlawful assembly, and that such warning did not carry with it any penalty. I believe the three statements are perfectly correct. The only difficulty I have in speaking on the subject arises from my imperfect information of the facts. I have no information beyond the telegram I will read to the House.
      An hon. MEMBER: Why not? There has been plenty of time to get it; only two and a half hours' journey.
      MR. MATTHEWS: The telegram is in an answer to inquiries which I made as soon as the hon. Member's question appeared upon the Paper. Does the hon. Member suggest I ought to have sent down a special messenger to the Magistrates? [Cries of "Why not?") The telegram which I received this afternoon runs—
      "Chief Constable received information of organised opposition to meeting. Three bands
      1814
      to parade the town. Magistrates met three o'clock. Made suggestion to promoters that meeting should be held on race course, where it would be possible to check disorder and prevent damage to property. Impossible to do so in Market Square. Promoters declined suggestion, Second meeting of Magistrates at eight o'clock Meeting at Market Square prohibited. Magistrates again offered race course. Great excitement in town. Breaches of peace generally regarded as certain. Magistrates only anxious to keep peace in town."
      That telegram is from the deputy Mayor. I am reluctant to express any condemnation of men whose only desire was to maintain order in Northampton; but I must say that the prohibited meeting appears to me to have been called for a perfectly lawful purpose. Criticism of a Government Bill is, of course, perfectly lawful. One hon. Member has spoken as if the acts of these Magistrates had been the act of the Government. I must point out to the hon. Member that the Government have no control whatever over these borough Magistrates, who have acted with good intentions, no doubt, but on a mistaken view of their powers. If the facts, as narrated by the hon. Member for Northampton, are correct, I think there can be no doubt that the Magistrates were wrong in issuing this proclamation. At the same time, I do not think that the case deserves the very strong and emphatic language of the junior Member for Northampton, for it does not appear to me that the Magistrates had any dark design against the liberty of the subject, or liberty of free speech.
      MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the right hon. Gentleman excuse me? Will he be good enough to express an opinion upon the proclamation? What I want to know is, whether that was legal?
      MR. MATTHEWS: I have said it hardly becomes me to say more than that I do not think the proclamation was justifiable or warranted in the circumstances. The Magistrates appear to me to have acted from a desire to keep good order, but they went the wrong way to work, as far as I can judge. The main outlines of the law relating to meetings are well settled, but there is considerable difficulty in the application of the law. It is the duty not only of Magistrates, but of every subject of the Queen, to prevent an unlawful assembly from taking place, if he can; but it is not always very easy to determine at what

      1815
      point an assembly previously lawful becomes an unlawful assembly. There are moments of excitement which, in some circumstances, may be overlooked, but the border line of danger to the peace is not always easy to discover, even by a calm and impartial onlooker. In matters of this sort there is always some difficulty as to the application of the law, and, for myself, I should always hesitate to attach blame to Magistrates whose intention was good and whose purpose was only to preserve the peace, and who were really persuaded that the peace was likely to be broken; and in this case it appears to me that the Magistrates did not wish to do more than to preserve the peace. So far as I can express an opinion on the facts, it appears to me, however, that they exceeded their powers, and were wrong in the course which they took. Having said so much, I hope the hon. Member for Northampton will agree that there is no great constitutional principle imperilled by the events that occurred at Northampton. Certainly there is none that will be imperilled by any action or word of mine. I hope I have expressed with sufficient fulness my view of the law of public meeting, and I do not think I am called upon to express any further opinion upon the action of the Magistrates. I trust the hon. Member for Northampton will be satisfied.
      SIR W. HARCOURT: I am very glad the Home Secretary has expressed, and I am sure he has with snfficient clearness, his view in reference to this transaction. He has said the proclamation was not justified by law. I cannot agree with him, however, in the belief that there isno great constitutional question raised by this Debate. I think there is. I have no desire to impute any evil motives, or other than good motives, to the Magistrates in this matter, but they have gravely misapprehended the law, there is no doubt. Up to 1882 a different impression prevailed as to the administration of the law by Magistrates acting on the advice of the Home Office, and perhaps, as the matter came under my personal administration, I may refer to this, though, as I have not had the opportunity to refresh my recollection, the House will accept my apology if I am not absolutely
      1816
      accurate in all particulars. In former times it was a moot point whether a meeting primâ facie and ab initio lawful could not subsequently be rendered unlawful through the action of people who proposed to disturb it. The point, however, has been set at rest for ever by the decision in the Basingstoke case. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Home Office has no control over the Magistrates in boroughs or counties. This must be understood, for it is the essence of our government that the Executive does not control the Magistrates, and the great complaint of the administration in Ireland is that they do. The independence of the Magistrates of the Secretary of State is to be borne in mind. Though the Magisterial Authorities are not bound to accept the declaration of the Home Office, they are very much disposed to follow the advice which the Home Secretary is in a position to give. Very often, in former times, Magistrates, finding themselves in a difficulty, used to consult the Home Office, and the Home Office consulted the Law officers. For a good many years before I had to do with these matters, Law officers had expressed the opinion that if a breach of the peace was threatened by a counter meeting, then the Magistrates could prevent both meetings. This opinion was acted upon in many instances, for instance, in Liverpool, when there were Orange processions and counter Catholic processions organised, also in Glasgow and elsewhere. Successive Home Secretaries had advised Magistrates so to act. I was consulted by the Basingstoke Magistrates. At Basingstoke, it will be remembered, the Salvationists used to hold meetings every Sunday, and they were attacked by the Skeleton Army, who were practically publicans. The Magistrates of Basingstoke, who had an insufficient number of police at their disposal, consulted the Home Office. This is my recollection of what took place years ago, but the House must take it cum grano salis. I gave the advice formerly given to Liverpool, Glasgow, and other places. In these circumstances, the question arose whether the meetings of the Salvationists were lawful; and in June, 1882, in the case of "Beatty v. Gillbank," the Court held that the course taken in prohibiting the Salvationists' meetings was not justified by

      1817
      law, and that an assembly lawful in itself did not become unlawful because it was likely to be attacked and interfered with. Since that decision, there has been no further doubt as to the law. I remember at that time I thought it was rather inconvenient, as these difficulties were likely to arise in many places, and, if I recollect right, we sent down a force to protect the original meeting against attack. The law, however, was settled beyond doubt, and I hope, after this Debate, the point will not have to be raised again. I attribute nothing to the Magistrates, except a want of clear understanding of the law so laid down. I do not understand, what was the ground of the Magistrates' alarm at Northampton. I am reminded of the story of the man on board ship, who, when a breeze sprang up, asked the captain if there was any fear, and received the reply, "Yes, a great deal of fear, but no danger." If the Publican Party and the Temperance Party agreed among themselves to discuss this matter there was no reason in that why the Magistrates should have apprehended a breach of the peace. There seems to have been an unfounded fear on the part of the Magistrates. This need not be discussed as a Party question; but I hope the discussion will make it clear to Magistrates that if a body of people call a lawful meeting it does not become unlawful because some other body choose to threaten to disturb it.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): It is scarcely necessary for me to intervene at any length, because I am pleased to find myself for once in entire agreement with the right hon. Member for Derby, Before reminding the House that there was no need to make this a Party question the hon. Member for Northampton might have waited until there was some indication of an attempt to make it a Party question; and the only way in which it could be made such would be by suggesting that Her Majesty's Government, or the Home Secretary, were in some way responsible for this act of the local Magistrates. There is, however, no ground for the suggestion that, either directly or indirectly, the Home Secretary or anyone representing the Government had anything to do with the meeting, or in any way endorsed what has
      1818
      been done. The interruptions of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. E. Ellis) seemed to indicate an idea that the Home Secretary was at fault because, on the spur of the moment, he was not prepared with more precise information, but this implies a control of the Home Office which does not exist. As to the state of the law, I understand, as I have formerly stated in the House, that for 40 years the law has been that a meeting called for an illegal purpose, or attempting or threatening to do illegal acts, or causing terror among, or giving reasonable grounds of terror to, persons in the neighbourhood, is an illegal meeting. The passage from the judgment of Mr. Justice Field is practically to the same effect. According to Hawkins's Pleas of the Crown, any meeting whatever of a great number of people, attended with such circumstances of terror as may endanger the public peace, or raise fears among the King's subjects, may truly be called an unlawful assembly. I do not know what may have led to the advice given at the time the right hon. Member for Derby was Home Secretary, but I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman's exposition of the law, that a lawful meeting does not become unlawful because certain persons express an intention of interfering with it. No ground such as that would make a meet-unlawful; and it is a mistake to be under any such apprehension. Nor does a meeting become unlawful because a Secretary of State, or a Magistrate, or a Public Authority thinks fit to call it so. It depends upon the character of the meeting; it depends upon the real facts of the case, and not upon the opinion of any one individual. In my opinion, taking the facts as stated by the senior Member for Northampton, the proclamation issued was an unlawful proclamation. There were no circumstances to justify the Magistrates in issuing such a proclamation. Whatever might have been their own view of the law, there were clearly no circumstances to justify the issuing of the proclamation.
      MR. LABOUCHERE: I did state, quoting from a newspaper, that the Magistrates did have certain evidence submitted to them on affidavit or otherwise.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: I have no imformation on that. But on the state-

      1819
      ment of the hon. Member for Northampton there was no justification for the issue of the proclamation. Somewhat unnecesarily the junior Member for Northampton introduced the question of there being some distinction in this matter between the law of England and that of Ireland. I know of no such distinction in the law [An hon. MEMBER: Or the practice]—nor in the practice. The law was correctly laid down by my right hon. Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, on the 9th of June in the present year, when he stated that hon. Members who thought otherwise must have in their minds the Crimes Act of 1882, and not the existing state of the law, and that under the present system of coercion, as it is styled, in Ireland the law of public meeting is absolutely identical with the law of public meeting in England. I wish simply to enter my protest against the argument used, which does not bear upon the action of the Northampton Magistrates.
      MR. DILLON: From an Irish point of view it is not to be regretted that this incident has arisen. I have no doubt the Northampton Magistrates in this instance have been led to adopt the course they have taken, and which is now condemned on both sides of the House, simply by studying the answers given in this House by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and by noticing the fact that, across the water in Ireland, where so many things are so much better done than in this country, the law is held to be by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Executive that it is absolutely within the discretion of Magistrates to proclaim a meeting or not. The Northampton Magistrates naturally thought they were justified in prohibiting this meeting, and possibly expected the same degree of support from the Home Secretary as the Magistrates of Ireland receive from the Chief Secretary. Therefore, I think it is not at all a bad incident, both from the fact that it has given the people of this country a slight touch of what goes on in Ireland, and because it brings into high relief the contrast between the way in which Irish Members are met when they make complaint of arbitrary acts of this kind, and the tone and temper with which similar complaints are met when they are raised in respect to Magistrates in
      1820
      England, who are independent of the Executive, by an English Member. I have no doubt, and never had a doubt, notwithstanding the sneer of the Attorney General that the law in Ireland is exactly the same as the law in England, with regard to this matter. I have no intention of transgressing the Rules of Order by referring to the state of things in Ireland, but as the Attorney General introduced the question I may be allowed to say that what we complain of is not the law but the administration of the law. What we complain of is that we do not get the benefit of the law in Ireland, whereas in this country, from the tone of the Home Secretary and the Attorney General, it is extremely likely that English people will not again very soon be treated in this manner. At the same time, in referring to what has occurred at Northampton, I feel bound to say that I do not take the same roseate view of the situation as right hon. Gentlemen opposite. They gladly welcomed the appeal of the hon. Member for Northampton not to treat this as a Party question, but, although I have not been in Northampton recently, and am not acquainted with local details, I cannot think there is a total want of connection between the fact that the borough Magistrates are supporters of the Government and the fact that the meeting was to be held in opposition to Government policy, and upon what is an extremely sore point to the Government. I must say I think the hon. Member for Northampton has done good public service in bringing this matter under the notice of the House when we consider that it may not be an isolated act, but part of a policy; for did we not see in this Metropolis determined efforts made to break up the procession, and put obstacles in the way of the meeting held in Hyde Park about a fortnight ago, and the same thing, as I am informed, has been done on other occasions. I consider it as part of a policy, an attempt, at a very great distance, and in a feeble way, to imitate the policy of the Irish Executive, by using the power of the Executive in favour of one Party, and in trying to prevent a public expression of opinion against the Government policy, and I think right hon. Gentlemen will find that by the attempt to introduce the methods of Ire-

      1821
      land into this country they will not assist their Party and smooth the passage of their Bill in this House. It seems to me a strong and instructive illustration of the truth of the old adage, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." It will be found impossible to carry on a system of persistent repression of public meeting in Ireland and persistent suppression of the right of free speech there without affording people in authority in this country the temptation to meet popular excitement here in times of political crisis by a similar evil action.
      MR. LABOUCHERE: As my object in moving the Motion has been entirely fulfilled, I now ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
      Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.
    LOCAL TAXATION (CUSTOMS AND EXCISE) DUTIES BILL.—(No. 244.)

      COMMITTEE.
      Order for Committee road.
      THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): Mr. Speaker, before we proceed to enter upon the Orders of the Day I think it only right to refer briefly to the very grave and important observations which fell from you a few minutes ago in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy). Sir, we cannot be indifferent to any expression of opinion which falls from the Chair on matters of constitutional importance, especially when such opinion is expressed for the guidance and information of the House. It will be the duty of the Government most carefully to consider the observations which fell from you, Sir, in answer to the questions addressed to you; and, in order that we may have time to do so, we do not propose to proceed with the consideration of this Bill this evening. On Thursday I propose to state to the House the course which the Government will take with regard to those provisions of the Bill to which your attention was drawn this evening.
      Committee deferred till Thursday.

    HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 284.)

      SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,),rising amid cheers, said: I hope I may interpret that cheer as indicative of a general acceptance of the measure of which I am about to move the Second Reading. I do not think that any lengthy recommendation will be necessary of a Bill dealing with the amendment of the law relating to the housing of the working classes. There is a general concensus of opinion that the amendment and consolidation of the law with reference to the housing of the working classes is required, and there is no doubt that a considerable complication of the law on this important subject exists. Even if the law itself were in a satisfactory condition, the fact that the law can only be discovered after a careful study of many Statutes would be a sufficient justification for the Government to undertake the consolidation of the law. The next Bill on the Paper is the Housing of the Working Classes Acts Consolidation Bill, and the Government might have contented themselves with the consolidation of the law, leaving its amendment to be dealt with afterwards. There is much to be said from that point of view; but, on the other hand, most hon. Members will admit that it is much more satisfactory for the Government to present an Amendment Bill at the same time as a Consolidation Bill. If the House gives its assent to the Second Reading of the two Bills, then the most convenient mode of dealing with the question would be to refer both Bills to a Grand Committee, with the instruction that they should be consolidated at once. Looking to the fact that the law is complicated, and to the technical nature of the discussion which will be raised, the machinery of a Grand Committee would be much better adapted to deal with the Bills than a Committee of the whole House. A number of hon. Members specially interested in the matter will be placed on the Committee. I think there is a general concurrence of opinion that the existing law is most difficult, complicated,

      1823
      and obscure, and, if for no other purpose, it is urgently required that the procedure under the Acts now in force should be greatly simplified. To show this I will indicate the mode of procedure under Torrens's Acts from 1868 to 1885, and the procedure proposed by the Bill before the House. Under the former Acts the Medical Officer of Health reported to the Local Authorities if he considered any premises dangerous to health and unfit for human habitation. This Report was referred to the surveyor or engineer, who, in his turn, reported as to the cause of the evil and the remedy for it, and as to whether or not it was possible to put the premises into a fit condition for human habitation. Copies of both Reports had to be laid before the owner of the premises, who might object before the Local Authorities. Supposing the objections were overruled, there was an appeal from the Local Authority to Quarter Sessions, and if the decision there were in accordance with the decision of the Local Authorities, plans and specifications of all the work suggested by the Medical Officer and the surveyor or engineer had to be prepared; and then, again, the owner was allowed to raise objections before the Local Authorities and Quarter Sessions. It is evident that all this machinery has the effect of enormously delaying any action with regard to unhealthy dwellings, and provides a loophole through which many owners of insanitary dwellings escape. It cannot, therefore, be wondered at that the Acts existing are, to a large extent, inoperative. The Bill proposes a much simpler method of procedure. It is made an absolute duty of the Medical Officer of Health to report to the Local Authorities any premises injurious to health and unfit for human habitation; and it is also made the absolute duty of the Local Authorities to order proper periodical surveys to be made of their district, with the view of seeing that the Medical Officer of Health fulfils his duty. In explicit terms the Bill imposes upon the Local Authorities the duty of seeing that there are no unhealthy dwellings in their localities. When it is ascertained that there are dwellings unfit for human habitation, there will arise under the Bill no question of the interference of surveyors, or of the provision by the Local Authorities
      1824
      of plans and specifications of what is wanted to put the premises into repair. The Bill assumes that the owner is wholly responsible, and if the house is declared to be injurious to health and not properly habitable, the owner is bound to find out himself what is to be done, and to do it within a limited time. If the repairs are not undertaken within this limited time, the house may be demolished. Another question dealt with by the Bill is that of obstructive buildings. Some doubt has arisen as to the meaning of the words "obstructive building" in the Artisans' Dwellings Act of 1882. The Bill before the House considerably extends the meaning of the words, and further, gives powers for the forming of schemes which will be intermediate between the larger schemes of the Cross Acts and the smaller schemes of the Torrens Acts. Many areas are not large enough to be dealt with by the Cross Acts, and are too large to be dealt with under Torrens's Acts. The Bill proposes that a Local Authority, when buildings have been declared unfit for human habitation or obstructive, may proceed to take measures, not only for dealing with the obstructive buildings, but to make a scheme taking in some of the surrounding dwellings with the view of the clearing away of courts and alleys, and bringing light and air into the localities so as to make them more fit for human habitation than would be otherwise possible. There is a point in the Bill which I think will render it peculiarly acceptable to hon. Gentleman who represent London constituencies. Great complaints have been made of the unwillingness of Vestries and District Boards of Works to put in force the law with regard to dwellings of this character. I do not think it necessary either to condemn or defend the action of such bodies, but in a town like London every district is interested in the good health of every other district, and the Central Authority ought to have the power to act if they are satisfied that the Local Authorities are neglecting their duty. Therefore, where it is shown to the London County Council that Local Authorities are neglecting to deal with unhealthy areas within their localities, the County Council will have power to take over the duties of the Local Authority. This power has been

      1825
      asked for by the London County Council for good and sufficient reason, as I think, and we are glad to take advantage of the existence of a body representing the whole of the inhabitants of London and to charge them with this particular duty in connection with the various areas which constitute the Metropolis. The Government have also endeavoured to deal with the question of compensation in the Bill. A good many efforts have been made to reduce the amount payable to owners of property which is to be removed because of its unhealthy condition, and I venture to think there is not a Member in the House who will not welcome any fair and reasonable scheme which will cut down to a minimum the money payable to owners of property who grossly neglect their duty in regard to their property. Of course, I draw a wide distinction between this kind of property and houses taken, not because they are in an unsanitary condition, but because they are required in order to make other parts of the district inhabitable. I will, of course, give every reasonable consideration to the case of owners whose property may be required for the improvment of a locality, but I will have no mercy on those owners who allow their property to get into such a condition as to be a danger to the health of a locality. By Clause 15 it is provided with regard to compensation that the arbitrator is to take evidence on three points, first, as to whether the rental of the premises has been enhanced by reason of their being so overcrowded as to be dangerous or injurious to the health of the inmates; secondly, as to whether the promises are in a state of defective sanitation or are not in reasonably good repair; and, thirdly, whether the premises are unfit and not reasonably capable of being made fit for human habitation. I think it will be found that the Government have gone as far as they possibly can in drawing a line in regard to the question of compensation, but I may add that if hon. Members can suggest additional words which will better carry out this object we shall be prepared to accept them. We have also made some provision with the view of reducing the cost of arbitration, and we further provide for the payment to tenants of a reasonable sum, with a view of enabling them the better to obey the order to
      1826
      remove from the condemned and unsanitary premises. We have also thought it right to impose penalties on owners who take part in deliberations with regard to premises in which they are interested. It is, undoubtedly, a great scandal that men should be allowed to decide questions of the kind in such circumstances. I think I have said enough to show that the Government have approached this subject with a view to simplifying and insuring the operation of the law, and I hope the House will reasonably consider the proposal to refer the Bill to a Grand Committee. In this way we hope to make the law more operative, and to take precaution that, as far as London, at any rate, is concerned, the Local Authorities shall be made to do their duty by empowering the higher authority to step in where the Local Authority is in fault. I beg, Sir, to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
      SIR WALTER POSTER: I have to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the introduction of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has said that the law is difficult, complicated, and obscure, but, what is worse than all, the law is practically inoperative. The evil which arises from the defects in the law affects not only great communities like London, but also rural districts. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to amend the law as well as to consolidate it. But I think it is to be regretted that this Government, who have been wasting the time of the House in the consideration of the question of the endowment of public houses, should not have earlier brought before the House a Bill which is likely to be of so much more advantage to the community at large. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman to refer the Bill to a Grand Committee appears to be the quickest way of getting the Bill forward at this period of the Session. I do not think the Bill ought to stop at the demolition of unhealthy houses. There ought to be some provision in the Bill to force the owners to put up other houses, as I think people ought not to be driven from the districts in which

      1827
      they live. This is especially necessary in rural districts, because it is most undesirable that people should be driven from rural districts into the already over crowded towns. We want to keep them in the country. There ought to be some power compelling the owner where insanitary houses are demolished, to put up other houses in their place, in order to keep the people in the same locality; and I am sorry to see that the clause for the demolition of insanitary houses is not accompanied by some such provision. In some cases the owners of these bad houses prefer to see them demolished, because they say it will not pay them to repair. If cottages are reported to be unfit for human habitation, it should be the duty of the Local Authority to order the building of proper dwellings, either at the public cost or at the expense of the owner. The sum of £350,000 has been mentioned very often of late in this House, and there seems to be considerable difficulty in disposing of it. I would suggest to the Government that they could hardly do a more popular thing than to make it the nucleus of a fund for the better housing of the poorer people in the rural districts as well as in the towns. With regard to obstructive buildings, I think the Government are taking a wise and beneficial course in asking for power to remove obstructions; in most cases, the obstructions are not to be got rid of by little peddling and tinkering arrangements such as have had to be resorted to in the past. The proposal of the Government will be very valuable in decreasing the mortality of the districts in which it is applied. It will enable the authorities to deal with blocks of insanitary dwellings—rookeries as they are called, and which are the centres from which disease spreads. In the crowded parts of the Metropolis, and of other large towns, the mortality is considerably greater than in the parts of towns where there are more open spaces. What we want for the benefit of the younger growing population are open spaces. We want playgrounds for the children nearer the blocks of buildings in which they dwell. Under such a scheme as sketched out in a few words by the right hon. Gentleman a great and salutary reform might be effected in this direction. I hope in the
      1828
      discussion of this Bill in Grand Committee other points may be incorporated which will make this a great measure for the well-being and sanitary improvement of the condition of the people.
      SIR W. HARCOURT: I wish to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the serener atmosphere in which we find ourselves on this Bill. We are really like storm-tossed wayfarers, struggling through clouds and darkness, and thunder and lightning, and, at last mounting the hill, finding ourselves under the blue sky. Of course, we shall do what we can to assist the right hon. Gentleman to carry this Bill, and, if it needs improvement, to improve it. This and similar measures are useful Bills to occupy the attention of the House of Commons and of the country, and I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should give the preference in what remains of the Session to measures of this character rather than to those of a more controversial nature. I have no objection to controversy myself; I rather like it. But there are times for all things, and the month of July being a hot month is not suited to controversy. When you want to have highly controversial measures it is more convenient to take them in the early part of the Session. Therefore, I hope the Government, in the re-consideration of their position, will remember that besides this there are other measures which are not of a controversial character, but largely beneficial to the country, to which they might devote their energies. That is a course I have long advised. There seems a favourable opportunity of taking that course, and I hope it will be pursued. I have nothing to say upon this Bill except to give my assent to the proposal it makes. I do not imagine that it raises any great conflict of opinion. It is a subject upon which many Gentlemen on both sides of the House have had large experience, having taken great interest in it for many years. They may be able to offer the Government assistance and suggestions of various kinds, and which I have no doubt will be gladly accepted. In that manner I hope a most useful measure will be passed that will be of benefit to all classes of the community.
      SIR R. LETHBRIDGE: Sir, I desire to join the two right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have just addressed the House, in congratulating the Government and my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board in particular, on the Bill which he has introduced with so much ability and clearness. Though the Bill interests all classes of the community, it is especially interesting to Metropolitan Members. There is no part of the country, I suppose, which will derive greater benefit from this measure than will London, where there are "rookeries," the unsanitary condition of which is such that the people living in them have no fair chance of thriving. I join with the hon. Member opposite in especially calling the attention of the Government to the importance of providing under this Bill for 4he establishment of open spaces or playgrounds for the children of the poor in the more crowded parts of the Metropolis. That is a question which has long attracted the attention of all who live in the Metropolis and who care for the well-being of the people in it. I would venture to suggest to my right hon. Friend that it would be well, for the purpose of elaborating the provisions of the Bill in this and any other particular, if he would consent, whenever this Bill comes to be referred to the Standing Committee on Law, to add to the Committee some of those Metropolitan Members who are especially interested in this question.
      EARL COMPTON: I should like to say, on behalf of the London County Council, of the Housing of the Poor Committee of which I am Chairman, that we welcome the action of Her Majesty's Government with regard to this question. I daresay the House is not aware that the County Council, after due deliberation, approached Her Majesty's Government, and placed before the Home Secretary their views with regard to Torrens' Act. They were received, and their arguments were listened to, and, so far as I can judge, the suggestions then made have been adopted and put into the Bill. Therefore, I wish to express thanks, on behalf of the County Council, for the action taken by Her Majesty's Government. It must be evident to
      1830
      those who have studied the question of dwellings for the poorer classes in London and throughout the country that there exists a kind of chaos in the law which cannot be described. I am well aware that it is usual to complain that the Vestries and Local Authorities have neglected their duty, and that that is the reason why this question has become a burning one. Although I have taken some part in the abuse of certain Vestries and Local Authorities, I have never held them up to public censure, for I cannot blame them for not understanding the very complex law on the subject. I am extremely glad that this Bill is going to be submitted to the Standing Committee on Law. It is much the best plan the Government can pursue, and both the Amendment Bill and the Consolidation Bill should be before that Committee. It would be extremely difficult for the Committee to incorporate the Amendment Bill into the Consolidation Bill until the Amendment Bill has been passed by the House.
      MR. RITCHIE: I have prepared the Consolidation Bill, which will be submitted to the Committee with the Amendments in the Amendment Bill included. The Grand Committee will first have the Amendment Bill, and then it will have the Consolidation Bill.
      EARL COMPTON: I think that will be an excellent plan; but I would point out that until the Amendment Bill is passed, I do not see any particular necessity for passing the Consolidation Bill even this Session. Until we are quite satisfied as to the Amendment Bill, I do not think it would be practicable to pass the Consolidation Bill. The effect of the Amendment Bill is practically to amend Torrens' Act. It does not touch Cross's Act at all. Torrens' Act has been left rather on one side for a long time. The reason of that was that the Local Authorities in trying to enfore it found difficulties. Appeals were carried against them, and nothing was done, and the Act has been more or less a dead letter. I am personally of opinion, having looked into this question, that if we can get this Amendment Bill slightly altered, we shall be able to deal with every small unsanitary area throughout the whole of London within a short space of time. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the subject of appeal to

      1831
      Quarter Sessions, and that was one of the subjects brought before the Home Secretary, and it will have to be decided in Grand Committee. In my opinion, the appeal should be to the County Councils, and not to Quarter Sessions, and when the County Council is the Local Authority under the Act, that appeal should be to the Local Government Board. But the important part of this Bill is Clause 2, as to buildings unfit for human habitation. One of the most difficult questions medical officers have to deal with is the definition of the phrase "unfit for human habitation." They have, first of all, to obtain proof that there had been fever or death before they can condemn a building. What I would suggest as a more convenient definition is "unhealthy dwelling." I noticed that that phrase was used by the right hon. Gentleman throughout his speech.
      MR. RITCHIE: That will appear in the Sanitary Law Amendment Bill. The Consolidation Bill and the Amendment Bill will also have some similar definition.
      EARL COMPTON: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will bring forward the Sanitary Law Amendment Bill as soon as possible, and that he will pass it this Session. I am sure the House will be glad to have it so; but Amendments will be required in this Act under discussion, in order to include dwellings which are, or are liable to be, injurious to health. I see, with regard to the Medical Officer of Health, the words allude to the Medical Officer of Health of the district. I think it would be advisable, for London, that "Medical Officer" should mean either the Medical Officer of the County Councilor of the district. I wish to point out that this will not be a final solution of the housing of the poorer classes of the Metropolis. I agree that the Bill is a step, and a valuable step, forward, and that it will do an enormous amount of good that has been sought for years past. I am glad to hear the decided views of the right hon. Gentlemen with regard to offenders, not only those who have made a profit out of the poorer classes of property, but the landlords. There are landlords who look well after their tenants in villages, but who neglect their property in London and the large towns. I should be glad if we could bring home
      1832

      to these landlords the enormity of their sin and the evil which they have inflicted upon the poorer classes. I do not wish such offenders to be merely fined. I should like to see one of them imprisoned for three or four weeks, for one of the greatest sins a responsible man can be guilty of. I again thank the right hon. Gentleman for having brought in this Bill.
      MR. BARTLEY: Sir, I noted that the noble Lord said he wished to lock up the unfortunate landlord.
      EARL COMPTON: Not unfortunate.
      MR. BARTLEY: Fortunate, then; though they would not be very fortunate if they were locked up. No doubt some of these men are trading on the misery of the people—are crowding them into unhealthy dwellings and are making large profits. But those who have studied the habits of many of the poorer classes must know that a large amount of the unsanitary condition of the houses they occupy is due to a want of education and knowledge amongst the people themselves. What I am afraid of is that if it goes forth to the world that the responsibility will rest solely with the landlord, you will really, to a certain extent, undermine the interest and personal action of the tenant in respect of maintaining healthy conditions of living. It is difficult to induce these persons to make use of sanitary appliances in the best possible manner. I remember going over a block of property and finding that not only had the sanitary appliances not been made use of, but had been disarranged and put out of order. What I am afraid of is that if you make the penalty on the landlord too severe you destroy the active interest of the tenants in their surroundings. I believe in many parts of London the present state of affairs is most unsatisfactory, notwithstanding the enormous strides of the past few years. But what I wish to point out is that, after all, the sanitary condition of the people depends not entirely on the action of the landlords, nor of persons who are described as house farmers, but also upon the better education of the people, and upon their improved ideas. I should be extremely sorry if any legislation sought to impose the sole responsibility upon the landlord. We should do our utmost to

      1833
      induce the people themselves to improve their sanitary condition, and so elevate their mode of living.
      MR. LAWSON: Sir, the London Liberal Members, of whom I am one, will not pass this Bill altogether without Amendment, though we think it is more than might have been expected from the right hon. Gentleman, who used to think that everything turned upon vices in administration. We think the Bill will be a useful step in social reform. We hope that it will be amended after discussion in Committee. I suppose arrangements will be made whereby in Committee Metropolitan Members will have an opportunity of making suggestions. On that understanding we are thoroughly in favour of the Second Reading of the Bill. We hope in Committee we shall have the attendance of a certain number of lawyers on both sides of the House, because I do think a great improvement could be effected by a simplification of the procedure under the different Acts for the housing of the working classes. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries, has made a suggestion which would be valuable if incorporated in the Bill. It is notorious that bye-laws have not been framed under the Sanitary Act of 1866 in many parishes and divisions of the Metropolis. I do not think in this Bill there is any provision as to that point. I do not think the County Council obtains, under Clause 6, powers to make the Local Authority draw up bye-laws under the Sanitary Act. That would naturally come into the Sanitary Law Amendment Bill, and, therefore, it is most important that the Committee should have all these Bills before them at the same time. Nobody recognises more than we do the immense importance of uniformity of administration and unity of control in London. That is what we are wanting. The County Council has hardly been able to do anything for want of power; they have no power to give their Medical Officer of Health, one of the ablest throughout the length and breadth of the land, the supervision over Local Authorities which he demands. I believe a good deal could be done in this Bill to reduce the cost of action. Something would be accomplished if this clause passed into law, to which the
      1834
      right hon. Gentleman alluded and which, would prevent some scandals in the administration of the Artisans' Dwellings Act. Still, that would not be sufficient. I can conceive other cases than those enumerated in the clause. I will point out one—it does not contemplate the increased profit to be made by using a house for immoral purposes. There are a great many cases in London which do not fall under the present law, and in which, when the property owner is bought out, he puts in his, pocket money which does not properly, belong to him. I hope we shall have no repetition of cases like that of the black spot in Whitechapel, where it was, impossible to buy out the owners in consequence of the enormous sums they, were able to make because they were putting illicit gains into their pockets. I admit it would be difficult to insert words that would exactly meet these cases; but I think that, with the assistance of the legal ability that will probably be represented on the Committee; we ought to be able to reduce the costs, which is really the great point at issue. The Local Authority will not move as long as they find that 50 per cent. of their, expenditure is thrown away, or, worse, goes into the pockets of the owners of unsanitary or evil property of some kind, or other. I quite sympathise with some of the District Boards in London, in their unwillingness to do so, though I admit they have shown lamentable apathy in some cases. I believe the Mansion House Council will be prepared, to submit to any Committee a good many valuable suggestions, and I have no doubt, considering the valuable work done in the Metropolis, such suggestions will receive due attention. I do not fancy any provision of the Bill will do more good than that which prevents, members of Local Boards voting on those bodies when their interests are at stake. I think it may be difficult to carry it out; but it is conceived in the right spirit, and will, I hope, prevent some of those disgraceful scenes which have taken place both in the Metropolis and in the country. I would suggest that all the Bills should be submitted to the Grand Committee, and that, at the same time, there should be a fair representation of the London Members on the Committee. I would

      1835
      particularly urge that my noble Friend (Earl Compton), who can represent the London County Council in this matter as no other man can, inasmuch as he is the Chairman of the Housing of the Working Classes Committee and should have a place on the Committee. I join in the congratulation which has been offered to the Government, and I do hope that, when these Bills come back to us from the Committee, we shall have some opportunity of carrying them through their final stages.
      MR. J. ROWLANDS: I am delighted these Bills have been introduced, and I am glad to fall in with the arrangement that they should be referred to a Grand Committee. The Consolidation Bill must necessarily be of great utility to all those who have studied this question. Those who are interested in the subject have hitherto had to ramble over a series of Statutes, extending back for 40 years, and many of them overlapping one another, so that it has been very difficult to ascertain what the law on the question really is. Consolidation, however, is not all that is required, and we are pleased to receive the Amendment Bill. I agree with a great deal that is to be found in this Bill, and especially in the part which deals with those persons who have allowed their property to get into an unsanitary condition. For my part, I do not want to subject to penalties landlords who have attempted to do justice to their tenants and whose tenants have neglected the sanitary condition of their houses. The men we want to get at are those who obtain large portions of property in the Metropolis, and simply neglect to do any repairs whatever, having only one object in view, namely, to extract the highest rent they can out of the unfortunate individuals who are compelled to inhabit the houses because they happen to be near their places of employment. These Bills do not do all that is required, and, whilst we accept them as a very good instalment of what is required, we must guard ourselves against any supposition that they do all we think necessary to meet the difficulties of the question of the better housing of the people in the Metropolis. If you want to grapple with the question in a broad and
      1836
      general manner, you must find some means of getting the necessary finance to carry out the improvements, and I do not think it can be done by throwing any more burdens on the unfortunate ratepayers. You must find other sources of revenue. No measure can comprehensively meet the requirements of the case that does not tap sources of revenue that are untapped at the present time—I mean, of course, by dividing rates between owner and occupier and making the owner pay some of the rates for this particular purpose. The hon. Member for North Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge) made a suggestion as to the provision of playgrounds for new buildings. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) whether something cannot be done in the case of huge blocks of dwellings for providing playgrounds, other than the concrete playground that is generally just a mere forecourt. I have gone over many of these dwellings on a hot summer evening, and have been able to see the unfortunate position, in which the people are placed. There is nothing but bricks, and mortar, and concrete, without a bit of green to relieve the eye except such as may have been provided by the people themselves in the shape of window gardening. I think that, wherever these barracks are erected, the companies who erect them ought to be called on to provide something in the way of playgrounds. A man when he comes home has no where outside his house where he can sit in the hot weather, and he is, therefore, driven elsewhere to seek rest and comfort. There is a great moral feature in this question; and I would submit to the right hon. Gentleman that he should make provision for dealing with it on the Grand Committee. But, under any circumstances, I think we should all desire to make the measure as perfect as possible.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: This is about the most satisfactory Bill that the Government have introduced this Session, it is gratifying that Members on all sides are able cordially to support it. We, on this side, are especially able to do so, as the Bill embodies many points that we have consistently urged. It will affect London infinitely more than any other part of the United Kingdom,

      1837
      and therefore I strongly support the suggestion that London Members on both sides should be fully represented on the Grand Committee. The hon. Member for the Ilkeston Division (Sir W. Foster) regarded the measure from a country point of view, and expressed a fear that by bringing about the demolition of working men's cottages in our villages a large part of our rural population would be driven into the towns. There are, however, provisions in the Bill, as I understand it, which enable the Local Authorities to exercise their discretion in the matter of erecting new working men's dwellings when unsanitary ones are demolished. Therefore, from a London point of view, we not only cordially support this Bill as improving the dwellings of the working classes in London itself, but we also cordially endorse it because we believe it will tend to keep the agricultural population in the country districts instead of driving them into the towns, where their presence has a tendency to bring about overcrowding and a reduction of wages. The principle of the Bill is to give greater power to representative County Councils, as well as to throw greater obligations on them—and I may say it was gratifying to hear the words of cordial appreciation in which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the work the London County Council has already done in this matter of housing. He can rely upon it that when the opportunity arises, they will do a great deal more in the same direction. We hear a great deal said in disparagement of the London County Council, and constant protests raised against adding to its duties, so that we were glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's expressions of approval, and his declaration that larger powers should be conferred upon them in the future. One of the chief advantages of this Bill is that it will do a great deal to improve the dwellings of the working classes and to get rid of unsanitary dwellings. It will also impose a penalty on Vestrymen who vote in respect of those questions in which they have a personal or pecuniary interest. I think it is high time that such men should be entirely prohibited from taking any part in the discussion and settlement of these questions. In addition to those points, there
      1838
      is the great and vital question of compensation—a question of "compensation" on which the Opposition can, at least on this occasion, agree with the right hon. Gentleman. This Bill goes farther on this point than any other measure has ever gone. In future, where compensation has to be paid, it will only be assessed and paid on what ought to be the normal rent of the dwelling, and not on the excessive rent obtained through overcrowding. But I agree with my noble Friend (Lord Compton) that this Bill cannot be in any way regarded as a final settlement of the question, because, in addition to compensation, there arises the important question who is to pay when compensation is given. The Bill, indeed, raises, without attempting to settle, the question of the incidence of taxation in reference to the ground landlords and others interested in property in London. So far as the Bill goes, we thank the President of the Local Government Board for it, and we consider that we shall be in a better position to urge our views on the subject of the incidence of taxation, now that these minor questions will have been cleared out of the way.
      CAPTAIN VERNEY: I have very great fear, lest this Bill, which is evidently intended to be productive of great good, should in the rural districts be fruitless. I am sure, if that proves to be the case, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board will regret it as much as we shall. There is no authority in those districts behind the Sanitary Authority—no power to compel the Sanitary Authority to put their powers into execution. In the case of the Allotments Bill power was given to the Sanitary Authority, who did not put it into operation, and the right hon. Gentleman was obliged to bring in an amending Bill to give an appeal to the County Councils. Well, I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to insert in this Bill a power to enable the County Councils to put pressure on the Local Sanitary Authority if it neglects its work. In our rural districts this is a great question. In Buckinghamshire, for instance, I know of a case where a man and wife and their five children are living in a two-roomed cottage, and the reply made to every attempt to remove them, both by the Local Authority and

      1839
      the Magistrates is, they have nowhere else to go to. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of such cases as those to give the County Councils power to require the Local Authority to take action. Then it sometimes happens that the members of the Sanitary Authority are the owners of houses in a disgraceful condition, and, of course, in such a case the Local Authority does not wish to put its powers into force. I know of a case of this kind—I think in Winslow—where the owner of houses which have been reported on again and again is the Chairman of the Sanitary Authority, and under one pretext or another the matter has always been allowed to slide. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, to see that someone who is interested in the condition of the labouring classes in our rural districts is put on the Committee to whom this Bill is to be referred.
      MR. PICKERSGILL: I certainly sympathise with the wish expressed by the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down, that the country districts should be adequately represented on the Committee to whom the Bill is referred. I, of course, am a Metropolitan Member, aid regard the matter from a Metropolitan point of view. Without dwelling on the circumstances under which a Bill detested by the working classes has given place to this measure, which will so considerably advance their interests, I will deal with the plan of the Government itself. I consider that enormous advantage will result from the consolidation of these Acts, and as to the amending portion of the proposal, though I regard it with some satisfaction, my satisfaction is dashed by the fact that the Bill does not contain all it should. The Bill contains some excellent proposals—some being identical with the proposals contained in the Bill produced by the Liberal Members for London. I am glad that the Bill contains proposals dealing with the important point of compensation, because, after all, the question or finance is the key of the position. The main difficulty which has been felt in carrying out the Artisans' Dwellings Act has been the cost incurred, and in the community being required to pay a most exorbitant price for the property necessary to be acquired. I remember
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      that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham a few years ago made investigations into a large number of clearances in various towns, involving an aggregate expenditure of between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman found that, with regard to the cost of the property so acquired, the community had paid no less than 17s. per square yard, whereas it was calculated that the real commercial value of the property was only 10s. per square yard. But cases have occurred in the Metropolis in which large and exorbitant prices had been paid for property which had substantially become public nuisances. In one case, that of the Bell Lane area in Whitechapel, the Committee of the County Council recently reported as established to their satisfaction, beyond a doubt, that some owners had deliberately allowed their property to go to rack and ruin in the hope that it would be purchased by the community under these Acts. I rejoice, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman has recognised these evils, and has endeavoured to remedy them. But he has not gone far enough. There is an important omission in the Bill—the failure to alter the incidence of the cost. Parliament has gone as far as it reasonably can in piling up rates on the occupier, and the right hon. Gentleman ought to have taken steps, where large blocks are concerned, to see that the burden is shared by the owner. While joining in the chorus of congratulation which has been offered to the right hon. Gentleman, I hope that the Grand Committee to which the Bill is to be referred will carry the reforms much further than is proposed in the Bill.
      MR. HOWELL: I must express my gratification at the introduction of this Consolidation Bill. One of the reasons why the Acts have not been put in operation in various parts of the country is the inability of the Local Authorities to construe them. The simplification of the law is in itself a great mending of the law, and there I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we on this side of the House will do all we can to secure the passing of this Bill. There is one clause of the Bill to which attention has not yet been called; it is a clause of the very first importance, namely, Clause 18. I imagine there is

      1841
      a mis-print in the description of the clause. The marginal title is "Compensation to weekly tenants for expenses of removal." I am very happy to say there is not the same restriction in the clause itself, for the clause provides that if the house, or part of the house, of a tenant whose contract of tenancy is for less than a year is required by the Local Authority a reasonable allowance on account of the expenses of removing may be made to the tenant. I think many persons will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Government for bringing in a clause to prevent injury being done to persons who are forcibly as it were removed from their tenancies. Some hon. Members have referred to the difficulties of clearing the rookeries of London and other great towns. The difficulties in regard to such clearances have been very small indeed. Numerous areas have been cleared in London and in other towns within recent years. The difficulty has never been to clear the areas, but to provide other dwellings for the people. That is just the very point on which the right hon. Gentleman has done something and will do something to remedy the evils complained of. All the clauses are steps in the right direction. Some of my hon. Friends have referred to the fact that these proposals are only steps. I am not altogether dissatisfied with them as steps. So much will have to be done presently with regard to this question that it would be a false step on the part of the Government to attempt too much at the present time. Considering the size and population, we need some special arrangement with regard to the housing of the poor in London. One of the reasons why the Acts have not been carried out in the past is the condition of the leasehold system. The right hon. Gentleman could not deal with the leasehold system in this Bill with any chance of carrying his proposal this Session, and, therefore, I am content to see the leasehold question left over until a future Session, or possibly until a future Parliament. But, after all, I hope this Bill will be amended in some directions by the Committee to which it will be referred. I presume it will be perfectly competent for the Committee to extend the scope of the Bill, although I hope the Committee will not do any
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      thing to prevent the possibility of the Bill becoming law. I welcome this as a step in the right direction, and will give the Bill every assistance, even though the passing of the Bill may give some kudos to Her Majesty's Government. (8.10.)
      MR. WADDYrose—
      Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
      MR. WADDY: I desire, in the first instance, to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon having to pilot a Bill as to which he will not meet with that opposition or obstruction of which we have heard so many lamentations during the Session. I congratulate him upon a piece of useful legislation, which will commend itself to the House. The Bill has a very good and great object, and appears to be extremely well drawn; but I cannot help thinking there is one want in it, namely, a want of sufficient provision for the origination of complaints. In large towns, whenever there is a state of things that calls for remedy there is pretty sure to be a complaint, public comment, and application of remedy; but it frequently happens in the country that those who ought to be the first men to start an inquiry under the Acts are the very persons who are largely interested in the maintenance of the status in quo. Now, I venture to suggest that the arrangements which are made here, though desirable, so far as they go, are hot quite sufficient. I am not going into anything of the nature of a clause criticism, but it will be observed that under the Bill, before the Local Authority can act, an official representation has to be made to them by their officer—a man who probably owes his position, in the way of personal and private practice, to the very people it would be his duty to attack. The Medical Officer of Health, who has to make an official representation as to the insanitary condition of any property, will probably have his most lucrative private practice among the people who may be the owners of the property over which he ought to exercise supervision, and which he might be called upon to condemn. There ought to be some provision for putting the law into operation

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      whether the Medical Officer of Health does his duty or not.
      MR. RITCHIE: The hon. and learned Member will observe that under Clause 10 it is specially provided that the Report of the Medical Officer of Health for any county is to have the same effect in any district as the Report of the Medical Office af Health for that district.
      MR. WADDY: I am fully aware of that, and, moreover, there is a subsequent provision with regard to anybody sending a Petition or representation, but I am very doubtful whether that will meet the case. I am not speaking in any spirit of antagonism to the provision, for I am extremely anxious that the Bill should go through and receive such improvements as may be desirable in Committee. I would point out that both the Medical Officer of the county and of the district, who may in many instances be the same person, are not quite sufficient. I am doubtful whether the Medical Officer of either district or county, singly or jointly, would be able to take the necessary action in some cases, and I would therefore suggest that there should be power to obtain a report from an independent person appointed by the Local Government Board to investigate all complaints and put the Act in motion. How far in the long run this may be found necessary I am not prepared to say, but it seems to me there is some little want in the Bill here with all its varied excellencies to ensure that where mischief exists it shall not escape notice and remedy. I wish the right hon. Gentleman good speed with his work, which, I am sure, will do a great deal more good sanitarily and morally than the extinguishing of a great number of licences.
      MR. CHANNING: There are a few questions I desire to ask, but first I wish to express my satisfaction, as a county Member, with the 13th clause, which, I understand, largely extends the powers of Rural Sanitary Authorities, and gets rid of two or three stages of procedure, and I wish to express still more strongly the satisfaction that all Members with only the most superficial acquaintance with the subject must feel at the compensation provisions in Clause 15. In relation to this clause I wish to ask a question. Its object is to prevent owners of un-
      1844
      healthy premises to make a profit out of allowing houses to fall into decay and become unfit for human habitation. I take that to be the pith of the clause. I notice that by the 32nd line of the 3rd schedule that the 4th section of the Act of 1885 is struck out, and the question I wish to ask is this. The 4th section of the Act of 1885 is the section which says that the owners of any premises who are required by the Local Authority under the Act of 1868 to execute any works or to demolish any premises shall cease to have the power to require the Local Authority to purchase such premises. I admit I have but a brief acquaintance with the Bill, but I should like to have an explanation whether the 15th clause does really cover all the cases as to which this 4th section of the Act of 1885 was directed, whether it absolutely bars owners from the power of forcing Local Authorities, to purchase their premises. With regard to this Bill and also the Consolidation Bill, to which I understand the opening remarks of the right hon. Gentleman also had reference, I much regret that the Government have not seen their way to have a more complete clearing of the decks and more thorough-going legislation. The Rural Sanitary Authorities rule, disinclined to exercise the limited powers conferred upon them, and the complexity of the two Bills will furnish them with an excuse for inaction. The 7th section of the Act of 1885 declared the duty of Local Authorities to enforce all sanitary laws and put them in force as occasion arose, to secure the proper sanitary condition of premises within the area of their jurisdiction. But that Act became a dead letter in country districts from the fact that there was no proper power to compel Local Rural Sanitary Authorities, the Boards of Guardians, to carry out the sanitary powers they have. That is the cardinal defect of the whole of this class of legislation. The President of the Local Government Board may take credit for passing the Local Government Act of 1888, and I really think this question ought not to have been touched without bringing it within the sphere of the legislation of 1888, without investing County Councils with those sanitary powers with which it was sought to invest them under the original

      1845
      proposals of 1888. The right hon. Gentleman may remember that some of us made earnest protests against the withdrawal of the schedule, and offered to sit any length of time for the purpose of investing County Councils with control over unsanitary dwellings and unhealthy areas in the counties. I wish to insist as a County Member on the fundamental defect of this legislation, that we have these County Councils, the obvious authority standing over the Rural Sanitary Authorities, who might put the whole machinery in motion for making villages healthy and carrying out sanitary improvements, and yet these County Councils are excluded from taking action. There is one comment I would make both upon this Bill and the other Bill, which is not technically before the House. The first and second parts of the Consolidation Bill are of very great value; but it seems to me—I do not know how far it can be carried out—but it seems to me a great pity that the rural districts are excluded from those parts dealing with unhealthy areas and unhealthy premises. One further question I should like to ask. The Bill fixes the interest on loans at 4 per cent.; and I should like to know whether that conflicts with the power given under the Act of 1885 to the Public Loan Commissioners to lend money at £3 2s. 6d. per cent. No Bill of this kind can be satisfactory which does not supply, especially for rural districts, a better financial basis for carrying out a thorough programme of sanitation. It would be well if a substantial source of revenue could be set apart for this purpose. I should suggest that part of the Probate Duty or part of the Inhabited House Duty might well be applied to these purposes. While offering these criticisms, I express my thanks to the Government for what is done by Clauses 13 and 15 of the Bill.
      MR. JAMES STUART: There is no desire in this part of the House among any of my Friends to continue discussion beyond the present point. I am very glad to see that, amid the clash of opposing interests and conflict of Party opinion, this House is able to deal with the conditions of life of the most miserable—the poorest—of our
      1846
      people. No doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, this measure affects London in particular, and to an extent incomparably greater than the rest of the country. It affects the poorest of the people of London, and it deeply affects the social condition of England, and more particularly of the Metropolis. Everyone who knows anything of the conditions of the housing of the great masses of the population, and of the miserable and un-Christianlike condition of the masses of the population, must be impressed by the necessity that some action should betaken as soon as possible by this House to deal with the evil. I congratulate the President of the Local Government Board on the introduction of the Bill. But why does not the right hon. Gentleman go to the root of the matter, and give a right of action by the tenant against the landlord or owner of unsanitary property? Metropolitan Members on this side of the House have no desire to overload the Bill with Amendments. While we feel that it falls short of the necessities of the case, we believe that, as far as it goes, it may be made a useful measure. It will be our endeavour to assist the Government as far as we can in making it a useful and workable measure. There are two points, however, which, though they have been previously referred to, I wish to impress on the right hon. Gentleman. The first is that of re-erection, the provision of accommodation for those people who are turned out of unsanitary houses. One of the greatest difficulties in dealing with the question of unsanitary dwellings has arisen through the failure to provide this accommodation adequately; in fact, it has contributed to overcrowding in many parts of the Metropolis. I would strongly recommend the right hon. Gentleman to accept, in Committee, at any rate, the principle of the 1st section of the 8th clause of the Housing of the Working Classes (Metropolis) Bill, introduced by myself and others, and which provides that no houses shall be pulled down except on the score of safety unless provision shall first have been made by the County Council, to the satisfaction of the Local Government Board, for housing decently all the occupants. We desire that re-erection shall go on pari passu with pull-

      1847
      ing down. The other point of importance I wish to refer to is that of legal examinations. That question has been dealt with in a Bill introduced by myself and my colleagues, and also in a measure introduced by the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. R. T. Reid). In the 7th section of the Housing of the Working Classes (Metropolis) Bill there are provisions whereby the cost of acquiring unsanitary property may be very considerably reduced. There is no doubt that the series of arbitrations which have to be gone through under the existing law is a very great cause of the cost of acquiring such premises. The 16th clause of the Bill meets the question to some extent, but not sufficiently; and I hope the Government will be prepared in Committee to accept some modification of the clause, with a view to make it of a more operative character. Attention has been frequently drawn to the importance of making others than the ordinary ratepayers bear a share of the legal expenses, and I am sorry the point has not been considered by the right hon. Gentleman. I am aware of the difficulty of the problem, but I am certain that the housing of the poor of the Metropolis will never be adequately dealt with until the question of who is to pay the cost is also considered—until property which now escapes is made to contribute towards the local rates. I state this as the mature opinion of those who act with me on this side of the House, and, while welcoming this Bill, I say it will not be a solution of the question, because it does not deal also with the question of local rates. With these remarks, and having warned the Government that this question is not settled by this Bill, I give my hearty support to the measure; and I am sure my colleagues of the Metropolis will join me in doing all that is possible in facilitating its adoption.
      MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I think the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has reason to be satisfied with the tone in which the Bill has been received, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have assistance from both sides of the House in endeavouring to make it a useful and an efficient measure within the limits laid down by the right hon. Gentleman him-
      1848
      self. I think he may rest satisfied that if the Bill goes to a Grand Committee upstairs it will be received in the spirit in which it ought to be received, and that we may hope to make it a good and effective measure. As to the first part of the Bill amending the Torrens' Acts, I have always been of opinion that from those Acts there is more to be hoped for than from Lord Cross's Act. I have always thought that if the provisions of the Torrens' Acts were efficiently worked, they could be made effective without great cost to the Local Authorities. Hitherto the obstacle to the working of those Acts and Lord Cross's Act has been the fear entertained by the Local Authorities of the expenses involved, and I am glad, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman has done something in this Bill to grapple with this difficulty. I had at first some doubt as to whether it was wise to give so great an appeal to the London County Council; but after this discussion, I am obliged to admit that I think the course proposed is a wise one. I am not sure that it will not render some of the Local Authorities unwilling to exercise these duties, and make them inclined to leave to the London County Council the whole of the work; but, on the other hand, there are patent and strong arguments in favour of giving an appeal to the London County Council, and I think we should risk the danger I refer to. With regard to the other part of the Bill, that which deals with the Artisans' Dwellings Act, although the Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman are in the right direction, I do not believe that they will give full effect to those Acts. The real difficulty in working them is the enormous expense of compensation, due in part to the legal costs, and in part to the large compensation which the arbitrators are in the habit of giving, and also the large compensation to which persons are entitled under the law as it now stands. I am bound to say the Amendments do not go far enough as to materially reducing the cost, and I am afraid we must look forward to very little work being done in the future as in the past. My own impression is that the matter must be dealt with in the future in some larger and bolder spirit. We must regard these clearances of unsanitary areas more in

      1849
      the nature of town improvement schemes: than clearances for the purpose of forming sanitary areas. We must take example by Birmingham and other large towns, and re-consider very carefully the whole question of compensation with respect to improvements of this kind. I must refer to the familiar subject of the Betterment Clauses. It will be necessary to incorporate, in schemes of this nature, the principle of betterment, under which a property will be made to contribute in proportion to the increased value attaching to them from improvements. However, I do not think it would be wise to raise this question in connection with this Bill. It will have to be left to be dealt with hereafter in a broader and wider scheme when the House will have more time at its disposal. It would, perhaps, be a mistake to encumber the present discussion by raising the point. The main improvement which will be effected will be under the first portion of the Bill. I am satisfied that it will be possible to effect considerable improvement, and quietly and without much expense to promote a more efficient action of the Local Authorities in more closely applying the law as it now stands and will be amended by the Bill. I agree with the last speaker that we shall have to consider the whole question of the incidence of taxation, and I hope that that subject will not be lost sight of by the right hon. Gentleman, whom, meanwhile, I beg to thank for introducing this Bill.
      MR. F. S. POWELL: I desire to join in thanking my right hon. friend for the Bill, which will bring the law into a more intelligible state. At present it is almost impossible to obtain a clear grasp of the whole subject. On one occasion I myself endeavoured to master the Statutes bearing on this matter, and I found that it was necessary to obtain a knowledge of 30 Statutes dealing with the question, and that even then I should not have exhausted the list of Acts which would have to be consulted. It must be clear to everyone that a law which is contained in 30 or 35 Acts must be practically inoperative. From my experience of different towns, I believe the problem in the largertowns—putting London aside for the moment—is by no means insoluble. I believe
      1850
      that the unsanitary areas are by no means large, and that at no great cost these areas can be brought into a sounder and more sanitary state. One danger I fear—the trusting too much to rates, and thus driving away private enterprise. We know that in the matter of education the application of the rates in some instances has driven away voluntary effort, and I trust we shall not expect too much assistance from the rates in the matter of workman's dwellings; for if we do we shall drive away private capital, and not have that increase of improved houses for the poor which everyone desires to see. This question is by no means simple. It has many sides, and we should not rely on the public purse alone. We shall act wisely, I believe, if we look to private enterprise to do for dwellings for working people that which in other branches of the business of the country is done far more efficiently by that means than by recourse to the public funds. I rejoice that there is nothing said about the incidence of taxation, for that is a most complicated question, the interests involved being so many and diverse. My object in rising was to thank the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board for what he has done and to assure him that his efforts will be welcomed by all who have at heart the interests of the working classes.
      MR. CHANCE: I congratulate the Government on having departed in this Bill from the evil practice of omitting all reference to Ireland in beneficial Acts of Parliament. The Bill will be a most valuable improvement in the law relating to this subject, and will probably prove more or less effective in sucuring the objects for which it is brought in. The Bill, however, proposes to repeal the 4th section of the Act of 1885, and I think a very strong case will have to be made out before we repeal that section. I take some objection to the Bill, because it patches up and amends an expensive and troublesome system. If it were practicable to introduce it, I should very much prefer some Bill which would once for all abolish the existing system, and provide something more simple and rapid, and less expensive. I admit that

      1851
      when you come to deal with the question of property and the transfer of land, that object is very difficult to obtain, but, neveltheless, I think that something should be done towards this object. May I make a suggestion on that point to the right hon. Gentleman? We have in Dublin more than one company for the improvement and provision of artisans' dwellings. These companies are ordinary limited liability companies; but by their Memoranda of Association the members agree to take no greater dividend than 5 per cent., and I think it would be well to give to such companies a certain locus standi to take on themselves compulsory power to acquire insanitary dwellings, and deal with the sites on commercial principles. These companies have reserve funds, and would, no doubt, be more than willing to apply those funds to the purchase of unsanitary sites in the way I mention. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board whether he could not devise a system, under which, with certain safeguards, these companies could be allowed a locus standi. The Bill throws on Local Authorities the duties connected with the acquisition of land, and I do not see why that duty should be thrown upon them, if you can, by means of a Bill of this kind, get those who would be willing to undertake the duty. The second point I desire to mention is the difficulty of making any system, of this sort self-working. In the districts where improvement is most wanted you will find the owners of the unsanitary property get themselves elected to the Local Board, where they can bring such influence to bear as to impede the working of these improvement schemes. I know instances where they have combined to prevent anything being done. I submit that the solution of this question is very easy. I deny altogether that a man has a right to make a profit out of what is a danger to the public. I deny that he has a right to crowd human beings in the most unsanitary and frightful dens, and risk the spread of infection for the benefit of his own pocket. I recollectin one district in Dublin, happily acquired by the Corporation, where out of three houses there was an average of 20 cases of typhus fever every year. I submit that the solution of the difficulty is to deprive the
      1852
      owner of the power of making profit out of such a condition of things by inserting a clause which will make it a good defence on the part of the tenant to a demand for rent that the house is not fit for habitation. You in that way deprive the landlord of his profit. You compel him for the sake of his own pocket to repair the premises. All you want is not any arbitrary or harsh method, but the interposition of the Courts of Law—I mean the County Courts and the Justices Courts. I do not make that suggestion as an alternative to the Bill; I do not believe it would be a proper alternative. But I think you will find that, under the Bill, the question of expense will always be before the authorities, and that will prevent them 99 times out of 100 taking action; but if the rent is not paid because of the unsanitary condition of the property, then it immediately becomes the interest of the owner to put it into a proper state of repair.
      MR. RITCHIE: I hope the House, with whose indulgence I speak, will permit me to express my gratitude to hon. Members in all parts of it for the extremely kind and cordial reception they have given the proposals of this Bill. It is not the least satisfactory point of the case that the hon. Member for South Kilkenny has, with regard to the provisions dealing with Ireland, also expressed himself on the whole in favour of the proposals of the Government, believing they will be productive of considerable good to Ireland. There are hon. Members who very much desire that the Bill should go further, and I greatly appreciate the attitude which they have taken up with regard to this Bill. I know there are a great many hon. Members who desire that other questions of great interest affecting the dwellings of the working classes should be dealt with, but they have recognised, and no one more fully than the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, that it would be undesirable to complicate this simple question with many difficult problems. For instance, the question of the division of rates between the owner and the occupier, the question of betterment, and many points of that description, are extremely interesting and most important. Hon. Members recognise that an attempt to

      1853
      have dealt with questions of that kind would only have resulted in our being-unable to deal with this part of the subject. It has been recognised, and with great force, that whatever is to be done for the better housing of the working classes should be done quickly, rather than that we should wait for some great general reform in connection with the rates and with the incidence of taxation, which remain to be dealt with, and perhaps in the remote future. Now I will proceed to deal with some of the questions put to me. The hon. Member for North St. Pancras was rather anxious that the Committee should have before them the Bill dealing with sanitary reform in the Metropolis. The reform and consolidation of the public health and sanitary laws in the Metropolis formed part of our programme at the commencement of the Session. And one of the first duties which I set myself in the beginning of the present year was to draw up a Consolidation Bill. But I thought it advisable that we should have the advice of the various Local Authorities in the Metropolis, as well as of the London County Council, and I, therefore, sent round to the whole of the Local Authorities throughout London our proposed Consolidation Bill for the Metropolis. Unfortunately, the replies were a very long time in being returned. There were matters requiring very much consideration, and I do not mean to complain; but it is not long since we received the last of the representations made by the Local Authorities, and we have hardly had time to draw up and amend our Bill in sufficient time to put it before the Grand Committee. I think it would be unfortunate if there were to be any delay in dealing with the Consolidation Bill and the Bill for the amendment of the Sanitary Laws of the Metropolis. I have not entirely lost hope that I shall be able to deal with the question this Session, and I hope the House will not consider that we are in any way departing from our engagements because of the delay caused by the Local Authorities taking a long time to send in their replies. It was suggested by the noble Earl (Earl Compton) that we should not press the Consolidation Bill this year; but I should be greatly disappointed if this Bill did not come oat from the Grand Committee
      1854
      both amended and consolidated; and whatever may be the composition of the Committee to which these Bills are referred, I can assure the House no effort will be wanting on the side of the Department to put the Bill in such a position as will enable both branches of the subject to be dealt with, so as to present to the House for their consideration the entire Bill amended and consolidated. It has been urged upon me that the Metropolitan Members should be fairly represented upon the Grand Committee to which these Bills are to be referred. I myself, as a Metropolitan Member, am most anxious that this should be so, because the measures will affect the London more than the country districts. I must, however, point out that the nomination of the members of Grand Committees does not rest with the Government, but with the Committee of Selection of this House, who, I have no doubt, will make a fair selection of members to serve upon it. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Captain Verney) has reminded me that this is a question which is not solely applicable to the Metropolis and other towns, but the hon. and gallant Member knows that we are taking steps in this Bill with a view of doing what we can for the rural districts. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that the House took the course it adopted with regard to the Allotments Bill, whereby it almost deprived the Government of any power to set up the County Council as the authority over the smaller towns and the rural districts. We were strongly urged on that Bill not to make the County Council a Court of Appeal from the Local Authorities in those districts in regard to allotments, and it is, therefore, upon this House that the responsibility devolves. Of course, it will be a matter for the Committee to consider whether some modification may not be made in this principle as affecting the rural districts. There are some minor points that have been referred to in regard to matters of detail which I will not now deal with, because I consider they will be much more effectively discussed in Committee. In conclusion, I have only once more to express my cordial thanks to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the kind and cordial reception they have given to this measure, and to express a hope that with

      1855
      their assistance it may, with such Amendments as the House may determine, be speedily passed into law.
      MR. STANSFELD: I think the House will be satisfied with the introduction of these measures, and with the spirit in which they have been brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman. We have heard from him that he has experienced great difficulty in regard to the question of giving an appeal from the Local Authorities to the County Councils. I wish to say in regard to that question that I have always been in favour of an appeal to a higher authority where an appeal is necessary, because I hold that that is a material part of the Local Government structure, but I do not place too much reliance on appeals. I am disposed to place far greater reliance on the efficient performance of their duties by the Local Sanitary Authorities in dealing with these matters. We are, I think, agreed that the existing Sanitary Authority is not an entirely satisfactory Authority. The right hon. Gentleman knows the reason why. The reason is that its sanitary functions are subordinated to the execution of its Poor Law functions, so that the sanitary functions occupy the second instead of the first place. What is wanted is that there should be areas constituted under Local Government Authorities, whose first duty would be to attend to the sanitary conditions of their districts. For this purpose we must have District Councils, and on this subject we on this side of the House, and I hope also those on the other side of the House, are exceedingly anxious for the introduction of a measure to complete the Local Government Act of 1888. I trust and desire that before long we may proceed with a measure constituting these District Councils, and I venture to say that no measure would be more favourably received on this side of the House. With regard to the Consolidation Bill, two opinions have been expressed on this side of the House. For myself, I agree with the opinion that the Consolidation Bill ought to be regarded as of the first importance, and I do not see in the tone and temper of the House any reason to apprehend difficulty in the incorporation of both Bills—the Consolidation and the Amendment Bill—in one measure. Undoubtedly consolidation is practical amendment, because the law
      1856
      has become so difficult to understand, administer, and apply that consolidation has become a matter of absolute necessity. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the introduction of these measures, which I have no doubt will be to some extent improved by being submitted to a Grand Committee.
      MR. KNOX: There are one or two matters to which, without detaining the House at any length, I desire to call attention. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has said that dealing with this subject in a necessarily incomplete way, it is not desirable to enter upon the discussion of principles which many Members on this side of the House would gladly see introduced. There is, however, one point within the limits so laid down to which I should like to call attention. In Clause 8 of the Amendment Bill a provision is introduced for the simplification of the mode of levying expenses incurred under these Bills. Hitherto such expenses might be levied by various rates. Henceforth they can only be levied by one rate. The clause aims at an evident improvement, but in its present form, perhaps, tends rather to jeopardise a valuable provision of the later Acts, which I think might, with advantage, have been applied to all the sets of provisions for the bettering of the housing of the working classes. It is well-known to the House that the principle of betterment has already been applied in one part of the legislation on the subject of the housing of the working classes—I mean that part which deals with obstructive buildings. Under Section 48 of the Consolidation Bill, if the demolition of an obstructive building adds to the value of the neighbouring buildings, part of the expense may be
      cast by the arbitrator on the owners of those buildings. That is an application of the principle of betterment which I think simpler and better than that contained in the clause dealing with betterment in the London Bill recently discussed in this House. Having taken some pains to gather the effect of American legislation on the subject, I may say I think the mode in which the betterment principle is applied in the section I refer to is more in accordance with American precedents than was the rather curious proposal of the London

      1857
      County Council. I cannot, however, in the least, see why this provision should be applied only to obstructive buildings. By the Amending Bill the Government proposes to apply the rating provisions hitherto applicable only to certain classes of improvements under the Artizans Dwellings Acts to all improvements under the Acts now to be consolidated. Might not the principle of betterment in the same way be applied generally by the very simple means of making the provision in Section 48 of the Consolidating Bill applicable, not only to obstructive buildings, but also to unhealthy areas, and all other nuisances removed under these Bills? In many cases the deterioration in the value of surrounding property, caused by the existence of unsanitary houses, is extremely large; and surely in such instances it would be well that some part of the expense of removing those houses should be put on the owners of the surrounding property. I understand, from the Memorandum attached to the Consolidating Bill, that it is not anticipated that it will be necessary to insert in the Amendment Bill any provision dealing with the question of registration of charges under the Land Charges Registration Act, 1888. I venture to express the opinion that the same reasons which weighed with the Court in determining that charges under Section 150 of the Public Health Act could not be registered under that Act will apply in the case of charges under the Bills we are now discussing. In each case the charges are not the result of agreement, but are imposed by authority. It seems to me, therefore, to be desirable that some provision for the registration of these charges should be inserted in this Bill.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Bill read a second time, and committed to the Standing Committee on Law, &c.

    HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. (No. 285.)

      SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
      MR. CHANNING: I cannot agree with some of the remarks that fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) as to the way in which the principle of consolidation is carried out in this Bill. I think it would have been far better if we had had a great many of the old Acts put into the waste-paper basket, and have had them replaced by a much simpler measure. The first part of this Bill deals with unhealthy areas, and the second part with unhealthy dwellings. These two parts contain a great deal of useful machinery, which would enable much good to be done in rural as well as in Urban Sanitary districts, and I must protest against the exclusion of the rural districts from participation in the benefits of many of these provisions. I allude especially to the provisions in regard to the question of compensation where land is taken compulsorily. In Urban Districts land can be bought without any extra value being added in respect of compulsory purchase, and that should be extended to-Rural Districts also. I think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) is losing a great opportunity in not extending those provisions to the Rural Sanitary districts. Part of the Act of 1885 is very rightly introduced into the third part of the Bill; and in the 56th section we find that the expression "cottage" may include a garden of not more than half an acre, providing that the estimated annual value does not exceed £3. It really is monstrous to say that we have not unhealthy homes and areas in the villages of England. Anyone acquainted with the condition of many villages in the Midlands must know that in that part of England—and I believe the same may be said of Dorset and Wiltshire—there are some very unhealthy areas to which the first and second parts of this Bill might very well be applied. The question is, why Rural Sanitary Authorities should not have the same advantages as Urban Sanitary Authorities in regard to the compulsory purchase of land for clearing away unhealthy buildings. I really think this is a blot in the Bill, and that the right hon. Gentleman has lost a valuable opportunity of providing facilities for the removal of the rookeries which are to be found in a great many of our villages.
      MR. RITCHIE: The hon. Gentleman will observe that the Bill is purely a Consolidation Bill, and not an Amendment Bill at all. It merely puts intoone Bill the variousenactments which now deal with the subject. The matters to which he has referred may be very fairly considered in connection with the Amendment Bill, but are hardly relevant to the present measure.
      MR. JAMES ELLIS: I should like to emphasise what my hon. Friend has said. It is undoubtedly the case that in many places in the provinces there are blocks of houses which ought to be swept away. They are chiefly the productions of speculative builders.
      SIR WALTER FOSTER: There is no power vested in Rural Sanitary Authorities to obtain land compulsorily for the purposes referred to, and I would put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether it would not be possible to consider the matter, with a view of removing this grievance in the other Bill? It is equally important in rural as in urban districts that we should obtain the best sanitary areas for the people; and I trust that the flaw having been pointed out, the Government will give us a promise to deal with the matter at some future stage of the Bill.
      MR. RITCHIE: If the hon. Member will read Clause 13 of the Amendment Bill he will find that the proposals in the Bill are, to some extent, applied to rural districts. There is no reason why the provisions applying to Urban Sanitary districts should not be applied to rural districts, and the matter will, no doubt, be considered by the Select Committee.
      MR. M. J. KENNY: Might I ask whether the Standing Committee on Law, to which this Bill is to be referred, will undergo some alteration with a view to the consideration of this Bill? There will, probably, be upon that Committee an excess of Members who were principally concerned in the Light Railways Bill of last Session. On this occasion I trust there will be upon it a considerable number of Irish Members representing Irish urban districts, seeing that this Bill will affect the cities and large towns of Ireland—where it is to be hoped it will have considerable effect. I hope that in con-
      1860
      sidering the question of the constitution of the Committee the claims of the Irish Members to adequate representation will be considered.
      MR. RITCHIE: This is a matter for the Committee of Selection and not for me; but, no doubt, due consideration will be given to all the interests concerned.
      MR. M. J. KENNY: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the claims of Scotland will also have to be considered, as the Bill will affect many districts in Scotland, rural as well as urban.
      Bill read a second time, and committed to the Committee on Housing of the Working Classes Acts Amendment Bill.
      Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee, that they have power to consolidate the two Bills into one Bill.

    ALDERSHOT ROADS BILL.—(No. 298.)

      SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BEODBICK,): The object of this Bill—which is one of very small scope—is to give power to divert certain roads and tracks which have become dangerous from their proximity to rifle ranges at which it has become necessary to stop shooting until the diversion can be effected. I have been in communication with several Members respecting the provisions of the Bill; and the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) has requested that a plan showing exactly what is proposed to be done shall be exhibited in the Library of the House. This request will be complied with. The Bill does not deal with a very extended area of land; but it is necessary that rifle practice should continue over the area affected, and that the public should be protected from the long range firing. It is impossible in a Bill of this scope to explain the exact changes which are proposed. They will form matter for consideration in Committee. I propose to move that the Bill be referred to a Hybrid Committee, so that if any individual thinks he is aggrieved he may have the opportunity of being heard by counsel or otherwise. I will not detain the Committee further, but will simply

      1861
      move that the Bill be read a second time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed. "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Brodrick.)
      MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: This Bill is of a very exceptional character, because it proposes to stop up roads and footpaths over many thousand acres of land. I do not say at present whether this is right or wrong, but certainly it ought not to be done without great consideration in the interests of the public; it is sought to be effected without that public investigation in the locality which would be deemed necessary in other cases. For the present, however, I shall be satisfied if the changes are shown in the plan to be exhibited in the Library, and if the Bill is referred to a Hybrid Committee, before whom individuals interested can be heard without the necessity of appearing by counsel.
      MR. JEFFREYS: It seems to me that the stopping of these footpaths must obviously be to the interest of the public, seeing that they are not safe to people traversing them by reason of the rifle shooting. But I should like to know who is to keep up the new roads and footpaths when they are established. If they are to be used exclusively by the military, I think they ought to be kept up at the expense of the War Office. If, however, they are going to be thrown upon the Local Authorities, care ought to be taken that they are properly made up before they are accepted.
      MR. CONYBEARE: I was glad to hear the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, because they entirely justify the action I have thought it my duty to take, on several occasions, in refusing to allow the Bill to be taken after midnight. I have taken that course more than once, holding that the Government should not expect to be allowed to take important business after midnight when they have taken all the time of private Members before midnight. I am not going to oppose the passage of the measure, because I think it will probably be in the interest of the public. I cannot, however, accept the proposition laid down by the
      1862
      hon. Member for Basingstoke, who says it is in the interest of the public to stop the footpaths for the reason that if they used them they might get shot. It seems to me a most extraordinary doctrine that we should stop up footpaths because certain gentlemen, military or otherwise, want to shoot at long ranges. But I presume these alterations have in view the arrangements of the Rifle Association as well as those of the regular Military Authorities. It is impossible to criticise the proposals of the Government until we have the plan before us, and I am glad the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has promised to place a map in the Library. I think, however, that attention ought to be called to the exceptional power that is taken in the Bill to suspend occasionally existing rights of way. That seems to me a very novel proceeding which the Committee ought to carefully examine into. Then there is the clause which deals with compensation for the stopping up or the diversion of rights of way. The Board of Agriculture is to hold an inquiry and award such compensation as it may think just out of money to be provided by Parliament. I should have thought the President of the Board of Agriculture had his hands full already; but whether that is so or not, I object to the proposal to do away with the open inquiry in the locality which usually takes place when there is any question of the stopping up of public rights of way, and to place the matter in the hands of officials in any one of the Departments of the State. Where rights of way are in question, the Local Authorities, such as the County Councils, ought to be represented, and have their say. However, these matters may very properly be left to the examination and consideration of the Select Committee. I hope the hon. Member in charge of the Bill will see that the Committee is so comprised that it will give a fair hearing to all parties interested.
      MR. CHANCE: I feel obliged to make a few comments on this piece-meal legislation. There are ranges in other places besides Aldershot. I think it would be far more businesslike for the Government to bring in a Bill giving the Crown power to take land, and to pay for it in the ordinary way. I utterly fail to see why persons whose

      1863
      rights are taken away by the Crown or the Government should be sent to a State Board, while persons whose land is taken by a Railway Company can have recourse to the law. Why has the machinery of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act been thrown overboard, and this perfectly new and undefined machinery adopted?
      MR. BRODEICK: The hon. Member has, I think, overstated the change proposed to be made. The Board of Agriculture merely replaces the old Land Commission, and takes over the duties of that Board. In reply to my hon. Friend (Mr. Jeffreys), the roads proposed to be made are award roads of 1826, and the Highway Boards are quite ready to take them over.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee of seven Members:—Four to be nominated by the House, and three by the Committee of Selection.

    ELECTORAL DISABILITIES (NAVAL, MILITARY, AND POLICE) BILL.

      (No. 146.) COMMITTEE.
      Order for Committee read.
      MR. WHITMORE: I beg to move the Instruction which stands in my name. The Bill seeks to remove disabilities in the case of certain classes only. My Instruction would extend the principle of the Bill to its logical conclusion, and if it is adopted, the Committee will be enabled to afford relief in the case of railway servants, merchant sailors, artisans, and others, who are at the present time in many cases disqualified.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert clauses in the Bill to remove the disabilities attaching to voters who have been absent from their qualifying premises under any contract of service or in the execution of a public duty.—(Mr. Whit-more.)
      MR. CHANCE: I should have thought that on a Bill of this importance the right hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the measure would have vouchsafed some explanation. Personally, I do not think the Instruction goes far enough or meets the whole difficulty. I object to the entire framing of the Bill The difficulty which exists
      1864
      under the present franchise is that any householder must, to qualify himself for a vote, be in occupation of the premises for the whole of the qualifying period. While voluntary absence for six, seven, or eight months does not disqualify a man, absence on duty—the absence of a policeman or a sailor who has signed articles, even for one day—disqualifies a man for a whole year. The simplest way of dealing with the question would have been to make it an amendment of the general law, and get rid of this absurd doctrine that compulsory absence for 24 hours is a bar to the franchise. A great many people are subjected to disability, and I fail to see why only some men should be singled out for exceptional favour. Some explanation is necessary before the House can wisely permit the Second Reading to be taken.
      MR. SPEAKER: This is not the Second Reading. The question is, whether this Instruction should be given to the Committee.
      MR. CHANCE: I desire to know why the Irish Police, for instance, should receive this favourable treatment, while other persons with far greater interest in the locality should be omitted from consideration. The Irish policeman is liable to be shifted from one end of the country to the other, and under this Bill it would be possible for one to qualify in a county where the election was pretty close—one of the divisions of Tyrone, for example. All that is necessary is that he should be there on the 20th of July, 1890, and the 20th of July, 1891. Why are seamen omitted from consideration by the Bill? Everyone knows that seamen are compelled to sign articles in the Merchant Service, and that they commit an offence if they absent themselves from service. It is held, however, that absence for a single week in a coasting steamer would be a disqualification. It seems to me absurd to bring in a Bill dealing with policemen and military, and to leave out of consideration seamen who are absent under articles.
      MR. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to speak to the Instruction before the House.
      MR. CHANCE: May I point out that I am showing that certain classes of men have been omitted from consideration?
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): I accept the Instruction.
      MR. CHANCE: Yes; but you will allow discussion. There is another question which I do not think the Instruction raises, and that is the question of the right of a voter to vote at a polling booth which is not in his own polling district. That right is reasonably given by the Bill to two classes of people, and I suggest to the Mover of the Instruction that his Instruction ought to be widened so as to give the right to other classes of persons, such as engine drivers and railway servants, who may find it difficult to be in their own polling district on the polling day. There is a third class of persons whom the Instruction ought to include, and they are the persons who have renewed——
      MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must point out to him that the Instruction only refers to persons who are absent under any contract of service or in the execution of their duty.
      MR. CHANCE: I am arguing that the Instruction ought to be widened. I think the Instruction ought not only to remove the bar to the right to vote, but should give facilities to vote, such as the Bill affords to two classes of individuals. Other persons ought to be afforded quite as great facilities for voting as policemen and soldiers. I submit that, under the Instruction, it would not be open for the Committee to make that alteration, and I hope the hon. Member (Mr. Whit-more) will re-consider his Instruction or will at least inform the House he is not adverse to an Amendment of the Instruction which would make the matter clearer and enable persons to get not only one advantage, but all the advantages which the Bill proposes to give.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: If the hon. Member for Kilkenny had been present at the Debate on the Second Reading he would know that this Bill has been introduced at the request of the Revising Barristers in various parts of the country, who think it very hard that persons away on duty for four months should lose their vote. On the Second Reading the hon. Member for Chelsea suggested that the Bill should be extended to all contracts of service, and, on
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      behalf of the Government, acquiescence with that view was given. Amendments have been put upon the Paper to carry out that intention. If seamen come within the words I have put down, namely, "in the performance of any duty of his office, employment, or service," they will be included in the Bill. It has been suggested that railway servants ought to have some special privileges. So far as railway servants have to be absent from their homes for the qualifying period, they will be included in the Bill. Then it is suggested that, in addition, there should be facilities for these men to vote at places other than their own polling districts. I have made some inquiry, and I have found there is no practical grievance. It is not desirable to extend the power of voting at other polling places more than is absolutely necessary, and I am informed that railway men will, as a rule, be able to vote some time between the hours of 8 and 8.
      MR. T. H. BOLTON: The hon. and learned Gentleman says there is no practical grievance as regards railway men. He is mistaken. Numbers of railway servants are unable to vote in consequence of being sent away before the day of election, and being unable to return to their homes until after the day of polling. I see great practical difficulty in dealing with the matter: but it ought to be possible: and might, if we could provide that all elections should take place on the same day. In that case there would be no difficulty in enabling railway servants to poll in constituencies in which they happened to be at the time of the election; their ballot papers being transmitted to their own constituencies.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: I consider the Bill is a very useful one, and therefore it is one to which I should not like to see any strenuous opposition made. As far as it goes, it accomplishes a very desirable object, but, at the same time, it is necessary to point out that the measure would never have been necessary but for the decision of the Queen's Bench in England in the case of "King against Mitchell." That decision as regards soldiers and sailors was distinctly dissented from in Ireland by the Irish Court of Appeal; but, in order to promote uniformity in the franchise in the three

      1867
      countries, the Irish Court were with great reluctance bound to follow the English case. The result has been a state of things in Ireland which even the Instruction of the hon. Member for Chelsea does not meet. In a recent case in Ireland, as regards sailors, there was the most unnatural construction of the law that perhaps any Court ever gave. The Irish Judges have declared that if a sailor takes passage on the night mail from. Belfast to Barrow-in-Furness, or from one little coasting station in Ireland to another little coasting station in Scotland or England, under articles by which he can be compelled to go on board under the Merchant Shipping Act, he is disqualified.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: That is dealt with in the Bill.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: Yes, under the Bill he may be absent for not more than four months from his home.
      SIR. R. WEBSTER: The four months applies to all persons. It is not thought right to give a greater extension to one class of men than to another.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: A pure fallacy. If a man lets his house furnished during the summer, and occupies it during the rest of the year it is considered a very hard thing that he should lose the franchise. That man, however, puts another family into his house. The sailor, on the other hand, continues to pay his rates and taxes, and his wife and children remain in possession of the premises. The two cases are wholly different, and I suggest that the four months' analogy which has been imported into the law, is an entirely false one. Why should the man who returns home with in the four months retain the franchise, whilst the man who is absent for five or six months loses it? The real test ought to be constructive occupation of the premises. If a man, through his wife and family, remain in occupation of the house, he ought not to lose his vote. This is a seafaring nation. The English people owe their greatness and potentiality to their seafaring-character. I hope the Government will recognise that four months is a pernicious limit and will re-consider their decision. I welcome the change in this Bill, although I believe that from a Party point of view it may injure us in Derry, whore the Militiamen, who are mostly Nationalists, are generally shipped to
      1868
      some place in the South of England when the day of election comes. Let us try to come to an agreement on the Bill by providing that where a man remains in constructive occupation of his premises, and is, as Gilbert would say, "a pure and blameless ratepayer," he shall not lose his vote by reason of absence from homo. I therefore propose to add to the words of the hon. Member for Chelsea—
      "Or in other cases where the voter, notwithstanding his personal absence, has been in constructive occupation of the qualifying premises."
      You have not in England that keen watch kept upon the register—that attack upon it which obtains in Ulster. In Derry and Belfast you may find men watching the Police Courts with the sole object of discovering those persons who, being charged with drunkenness, are imprisoned because they cannot pay the fine. One consequence attaching to this imprisonment is the loss of the franchise. It may be that the House may take up a hoity-toity, virtuous attitude, as the House sometimes does, and say there should be no sympathy with drunkards; but it should be observed this depriving a man of the franchise is not because he happened to be drunk, but because he has not 5s. to pay the fine and prevent imprisonment. The rich drunkard goes about his business, and enjoys his franchise; but the poor man must go to prison until his friends raise the money to pay his fine, and for this he loses his electoral right. This is one of the cases the Bill does not cover. If we are going to deprive a man of the franchise for little lapses of this kind, that is reducing the franchise to an absurdity. It is an odious state of things, and not to be tolerated. In England the view of the Revising Barristers is to extend the franchise so far as possible within the law; but in Ireland the case is wholly different, and the object of the Revising-Barrister is to cut the throat of the franchise. The Revising Barristers in Ireland are nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, and of the 20 appointed last October 18 were Tories. These men make a shambles of their Judgment Seat; you can see them with the chopping block at hand looking out for the head of every Nationalist in Ulster. You may tell from the name of a man

      1869
      whether he is a Nationalist. The O'Mahoneys, the Murphys, the Donovans, and such like, you may rely are Nationalists. But when you light upon a man with the name of Blenkinsop or something of that kind in the North of Ireland, then you may safely put him down as a Tory. Any man with knowledge of the country knows the polities of a man as he comes up in these narrow divisions, and the partisan action of these Revising Barristers has become a scandal in Ireland. The Amendment I propose is to add at the end of the Instruction—
      "Or in other cases where a voter, not with standing his personal absence, has been in constructive occupation of the qualifying premises."
      MR. SPEAKER: I do not think that would be in order. The Bill is to exempt from disqualification to be on the register those persons of three classes who are disqualified by reason of absence, namely, the Military, Naval, and Police Forces, acting under authority, and to provide that absence under such circumstances should not be a disqualification. The Instruction now proposes to extend this to other persons who might be acting under contract of service; but I do not think it would be in order to attach to that provisions as to occupation, the lodgers' franchise registration, or other matters connected with the franchise, but apart from the purpose of the Bill.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: It is perfectly true, Sir, that the Bill deals only with the Naval, Military, and Police Forces; but the Amendment which the Government have accepted proposes to remove the disability also in the case of those absent from the qualifying premises under any contract of service; and my suggestion is that the disqualification should be removed where persons have been absent generally, provided they have had a constructive occupancy through their wives and families.
      MR. SPEAKER: I apprehend from that no Instruction would be required. I think that an Amendment providing that a contract of service—compulsory service, compelling absence from qualifying premises should not be held to disqualify—would come within the scope of the Bill, and if within the scope of the Bill, would be in order.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: Of course, Sir, if you rule that I should be in order in moving my Amendment in Committee, that will quite satisfy me.
      MR. COURTMEY: I do not understand from your views, Sir, that this Amendment would be in order, but, that on the contrary, it would be altogether outside the scope of the Bill, and so could not be taken into consideration in Committee, In respect to the Amendment, I submit as a point of order that it is really a new Instruction, and not an addition to the Motion we have now before us, and so, in any case, notice of it should appear on the Paper.
      MR. STANSFELD: On the question of order, Sir, I presume we are entitled to alter the title of the Bill and its contents?
      SIR R. WEBSTER: May I point out that the Bill does not in any way affect or alter the law as to the qualifying occupation, but simply proposes that where there is a qualifying occupation absence under a contract of service shall not disqualify.
      MR. CAUSTON: May I ask whether commercial travellers and coachmen would come under the exemption from disqualification?
      SIR R WEBSTER: Yes, if under a contract of service.
      MR. SPEAKUR: That is the whole point, absence from qualifying premises under contract of service.
      MR. WADDY: The Government have agreed to accept the Instruction by which the scope of the Bill will be largely extended beyond the original intention, and I wish to extend it so as to meet such cases as that of railway servants in the locomotive service. Those men—and the number is large—leave home on long railway journeys before the poll opens and return after the poll has closed. I would ask the Attorney General if he can see his way to introducing in the Bill a provision to meet such cases as these, where, by the requirements of their occupation, men are prevented from the exercise of the franchise because they cannot attend the poll. Then there is another class on whose behalf I make an appeal, Nonconformist ministers. They are under contracts of service of a very important character, which practically disqualify them from the exercise of the franchise.

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      I speak more particularly of the Wesleyan Body, though my remarks may apply to other Nonconformist ministers. The rule in the Wesleyan Church is that the minister shall stay three years in the district to which he is appointed, and then he is transferred, perhaps, to the other end of the Kingdom. Those changes of residence disqualify, and I would ask is it not possible to arrive at some arrangement by which these men, who may be counted by the thousand—men of education such as it is desirable to have on the register—may exercise the franchise under their terms of service?
      MR. STOREY: There is another class of men for whom I desire to say a word. The Bill provides that a policeman absent on duty may record his vote in a booth other than the one to which, as an ordinary voter, he should go. Now, in boroughs such as Sunderland, there may be 60 or 70 polling booths, and as many Returning Officers and clerks. These officials, as a matter of fact, have no means of voting, because they cannot leave the booth where they are employed. Unless the Mayor is in sympathy with a Returning Officer, and appoints him to a booth where he can register his vote, these electors are deprived of the opportunity of exercising the franchise at all, unless, indeed, by a hurried drive in a cab, they can contrive to do this.
      MR. TOMLINSON: I rise to order, Sir. The Bill, I submit, does not affect the right to vote, but the right to be on the register.
      MR. SPEAKER: The point is that members of the Naval, Military, and Police Service are not to be disqualified by reason of enforced absence under contract of service, and the argument is that other classes absent under authority should not be precluded from voting, and the question is whether some means may be devised enabling such persons to vote.
      MR. STOREY: I am obliged to you, Sir, for making my meaning clear to the hon. Member. By way of bringing the matter to an issue, I propose to add, when the present Amendment is disposed of, the words—
      "Or are unable to vote at their polling place, owing to the execution of a public duty."
      MR. SPEAKER: The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Longford is not in order; docs the hon. Member move now?
      Mr. STOREYassented.
      Amendment proposed, to add to the proposed Instruction, the words—
      "Or are unable to vote at their polling places, owing to the execution of a public duty in connection with the election."
      SIR. R WEBSTER: I think if the hon. Member had had an opportunity of looking over the Bill, he would have seen that, without the necessity of any Instruction, he could move his Amendment to Clause 3. The Instruction has reference to Clause 2, and this clause provides that the Revising Barrister shall not strike off the register soldiers and sailors who happen to be absent on the Public Service, and the Instruction is to extend that provision to other kinds of Service referred to in the Debate on the Second Reading. What the hon. Member for Sunderland desires is that there should be means to enable persons other than constables, who may be absent on the polling day, to record their votes in other than their own district. I believe that this would be in order on Clause 3, but, in any case, it is clear that it does not apply to this Instruction, which has reference to removing disqualifications to being on the register, not to prevention from voting.
      MR. STOREY: That is just what I cannot understand. [Cries of "Spoken."] I ask permission of the House to point out that this is a Bill to remove the disabilities of persons in the Naval, Military and Police Forces, and this is dealt with in Clause 2.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: As to the register.
      MR. STOREY: But suppose they are registered, how does Clause 3 deal with any other persons than those dealt with in Clause 2?
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir E. CLARKE,): It is another subject.
      MR. STOREY: Do I understand that, notwithstanding that Clause 2 deals with naval, military and police duties, it is the opinion of the Attorney General, which I hope may be fortified by the ruling of the Chair, that I shall be enabled to move, on Clause 3, that the ability to vote in other booths than their own shall also be allowed to civil persons or

      1873
      others than those in the Naval, Military and Police Services persons engaged in the conduct of elections?
      SIR R. WEBSTER: It is not for me to express an opinion, but I should have thought, subject to the ruling of the Chair, that it would be open to the hon. Member when we are dealing with Clause 3 to put down such an Amendment. At any rate, it has nothing to do with the present Instruction.
      MR. STOREY: On a point of order, Sir, I would ask whether I should be in order, on Clause 3, in moving the Amendment I have put into your hands?
      MR. SPEAKER: The former part of the Bill deals with qualification for the register. Clause 3 will confer the ability to vote to men so qualified under the Bill if, in the execution of duty, they are in other polling places than their own. Under the circumstances, I think it might be competent for the hon. Member to raise the point on Clause 3.
      MR. COURTNEY: With great respect, I submit it is a point upon which I do not find myself able to agree with the Attorney General.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: I daresay I am wrong; I only stated my own opinion.
      MR. COURTNEY: Clause 3 enables a constable who is sent on duty to a particular booth to vote at that booth, although it is not his polling place; but he does so being sent by superior authority he cannot resist, and he is unable to record his vote except under the permission this Bill gives him. Returning Officers and clerks voluntarily accept their duties; they are not under a, contract of service which requires them to undertake particular duties. Clause 2 effects the removal of the disability which rests upon a man through absence from qualifying premises through duties under his contract of service, and ensures his being placed upon the register. Clause 3 deals with the special position of constables who, when on duty, are permitted to vote at the nearest polling place. Without enlightenment I do not now possess, I do not see how the Amendment connects itself with this clause, or how in Committee it could be extended in this way. An Instruction would be necessary
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      to effect this, and it should be a new Instruction, not an Amendment to the present one. It is new matter entirely, to be dealt with at the proper time and after notice.
      MR. SPEAKER: Then arises this difficulty: There will be no opportunity of putting down notice of an Instruction. The other Instructions are out of order; the hon. Member cannot move an Instruction now without notice, and the present Instruction being disposed of, I leave the Chair, and the hon. Member will be shut out from his opportunity of moving.
      MR. WINTERBOTHAM: To give an opportunity for clearing up the matter, I beg to move the adjournment of the Debate. We have, as Liberals, no objection to this increase of voting power to soldiers, seamen, and police, but we insist that whatever increased ability you give to these classes shall be extended to all, and with this I understand the Attorney General agrees, from the words of an Amendment he has given notice of to Clause 2, for he proposes to introduce the words "performance of any duty of his office or employment," striking out words which restrict and limit. That, no doubt, enlarges the scope of the Bill in the direction we desire on this side. The other Instructions are out of order, but it is important that uncertainties should be cleared up, so that when we get into Committee we shall meet with no difficulty in moving Amendments that shall give to all other persons equal facilities to those that are to be extended to soldiers, seamen, and police, or others under "contract of service." There is no mention of "contract of service" in the Amendment of the Attorney General to Clause 2; he says, "performance of any duty of his office or employment." If these words are embodied in the Bill it is only reasonable that facilities for ability to record the vote should be as much included as facilities to get on the Register. Our contention is that Wesleyan ministers, commercial travellers, railway guards, engineers, and others should have equal facilities for voting with the Army, Navy, and Police.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Winterbotham.)
      MR. CAUSTON: I second het Motion of my hon. Friend. I do it because I think this is a tinkering bit of piecemeal legislation, and I hold that the Government ought to have a further opportunity of considering this Bill. I can quite understand its being brought in by a private Member for private purposes; but I cannot understand the Government introducing this incomplete Bill, after the speech of the Solicitor General at Westminster a short time since, when he said—
      "He hoped it might be in the power of the present Government to deal with the subject of registration. He had always said in the House of Commons and on the platform that when Parliament had made up its mind as to the particular class of persons who should enjoy the franchise, it was their duty to see that it was rendered as easy as possible for every individual belonging to that class to obtain and keep the privileges."
      I well know that on the question of registration the Government are divided. The Solicitor General speaks one way at Westminster, and almost at the same time, at Hull, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is saying that a Registration Bill "would mean a new distribution of political power once more tinkering with the Constitution," and "attempting once more to pick our Constitution to pieces." I repeat that this Bill is only tinkering with the subject, and I hope we shall be supported in the Motion for adjournment.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: I hope my hon. Friend will not persist in that Motion. The hon. Member who has just spoken has not heard this Debate——
      MR. CAUSTON: I have heard every word.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: There have been from all sides of the House speeches in support of this Bill. I brought it in at the request of Revising Barristers from many parts of the country.
      MR. STOREY: Not from the North.
      SIR R. WEBSTER: I expressed my willingness to accept this Instruction, in consequence of a pledge given during the Debate on the Second Reading, and I hoped that it would meet the wishes of hon. Members.
      MR. J. ROWLANDS: I support the Motion for adjournment. I differ from the statement of the Attorney General, that the Government are fulfilling the promise made on the Second Reading Debate.
      1876
      If my memory serves me aright, during that Debate the Government promised to allow the Bill to be so extended as to meet the case of all classes of society, and not merely those originally mentioned in it. Now, we are in somewhat of a difficulty. The Chairman of Committees has frankly told us that he should, in Committee, consider himself bound to the original clauses, and that he would not be able to admit the Amendments we desire to have accepted. If the Government agree to the adjournment they will be able to bring up an Instruction of their own, which will apply to persons who are at present debarred from voting by their calling on the day of polling, and who are in identically the same position as the soldier, the sailor, and the policeman.
      MR. CONYBEARE: I am in favour of the Bill and of the Instruction, on the broad principle that I am in favour of universal suffrage. If it be extended to women, I shall be the better pleased. There seems, however, to be a considerable amount of doubt as to where we now stand in respect of this particular Instruction; and I think that, under the circumstances, the Attorney General can hardly resist the Motion for Adjournment. There is a great question as to how far we are committed, and as to whether it will be possible in Committee to introduce Amendments for the purpose of carrying into effect an Instruction which the Government have declared themselves to be in favour of accepting. If the Government accept the Motion for Adjournment, they will have time to consider the very reasonable protest which has been made on this side of the House. Of course, we know that the Tories would be the last Party in the world to do injustice to any class of people, and, therefore, I am not without hope that the Attorney General will accept this Motion. I am rather fogged about this business. I have listened attentively to what has gone on, especially with reference to one class of persons, I mean the Wesleyan ministers.
      MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The question before the House is the Motion for Adjournment.
      MR. CONYBEARE: I did not intend to travel beyond the limits of that Motion. I can only say that if the

      1877
      Government accept this Motion for Adjournment, they will be able to give consideration to the case of the special hardship on Wesleyan ministers. Wesleyans form a not inconsiderable portion of my constituents, and I do, in their interests, urge the Attorney General to accept this Motion. I should like the Attorney General to tell us frankly upon what reasonable ground this Resolution for Adjournment can possibly be resisted. Can the Solicitor General, with all his deepness, get up and pose as an arbitrator between the Chairman of Committees and yourself, Sir?
      MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is travelling beyond the scope of the Debate. The Question is that the Debate be now adjourned.
      MR. WADDY: We are distinctly told—and we have to thank the Chairman of Committees for this information—that the particular class of persons whom we are desirous of bringing under the operation of this clause cannot be so dealt with by means of this Instruction, and that it will be necessary to alter the Instruction I, therefore, submit that it is desirable that the Debate should be adjourned. I have no desire to obstruct this Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members opposite cry, "Oh, oh!" Possibly they know a good deal more of my mind than I do myself, and certainly if one may judge from their votes they know more of it than they do of their own mind. We are anxious to accept this Bill, but we want to extend its scope, and that cannot be done unless this Motion for adjournment is agreed to. Its acceptance would enable the Government to formulate such an Instruction as would ensure to all classes the right which we wish them to have. I earnestly hope that my hon. Friend will press his Motion, if necessary, to a Division; and if the Government refuse to agree to it I warn them that it will make the subsequent progress of the Bill a great deal more difficult.
      SIR E. CLARKE: It has been asked why the Government object to this Motion for an adjournment. It is because the Government are anxious that a practical step should be taken in the direction of pressing forward a Bill, with regard to which both sides of the
      1878
      House are united. No one can object to the Instruction which is now under discussion, and which has been brought in in consonance with the promises made during the Second Reading of the Debate.
      MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I cannot altogether agree with what has fallen from, the hon. and learned Gentleman as to what occurred in the course of the Debate on the Motion for the Second Reading of this Bill. I do not remember that any desire was then expressed that the widening of the scope of this Bill should be confined to any particular class, as is done in this Instruction, which undoubtedly confines its operation to persons in particular circumstances, and persons who are absent from home under orders from other people.
      SIR E. CLARKE: Those are the only people who under the law can be disqualified.
      MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That is a satisfactory definition if, as I understand the hon. and learned Member, no one is deprived of the opportunity of having his name placed on the Register in consequence of absence from home except those who are under orders from other people. Then I think we shall be satisfied, and if that is the legal decision no more is to be said on the matter. I am anxious that this matter should be clearly defined, and that all the persons whose cases have been referred to by my hon. Friend should be covered in this Instruction.
      MR. T. H. BOLTON: I think an adjournment would afford the Government an opportunity of considering whether the scope of Clause 3 could not be enlarged, so as to give facilities to other classes of persons to vote. If the Government will bring in a clause of enlarged scope I am sure that it will receive full support from this side of the House. I appeal to the Government to give us this opportunity of enlarging the operation of the Bill. I am as anxious as anyone that the Bill should pass.
      MR. STOREY: The Solicitor General seems to think that this Bill is supported by Members in all parts of the House. I can tell him frankly that, for my part, I do not agree with the Bill,

      1879
      at all. To use a northern vernacular, I think it is a silly little Bill.
      MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is not the Question before the House.
      MR. STOREY: I beg your pardon, Sir. I did not understand——
      MR. SPEAKER: The Debate has been considerably strained. The Question really before the House is the Motion for adjournment.
      MR. STOREY: Very well, Sir; I will address myself to that. We ask for an adjournment because Clause 3 does not enable us to secure for others than soldiers, sailors, and policemen these voting facilities. The Chairman of Committees insinuated, in a delicate manner, that if in Committee we propose this Amendment he would have to rule it out of order. That leads me to say we are placed between the devil and the deep sea. I do not use the word offensively. Of course, we may get rid of the former individual, but we cannot get rid of the deep sea, and I submit that this adjournment is necessary to enable us to get the Instruction amended. I do not stand so much upon the casa of Dissenting ministers, nor do I rest my argument upon the case of the railway guards. I ask the Attorney General whether, under his Instruction, a policeman at the door of the polling booth will be able——
      MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I have already told the hon. Gentleman that he is not in order. The Question before the House is the adjournment of the Debate.
      MR. STOREY: I will not trouble the House further. I do not think it would be possible to amend the Instruction at this minute, and, therefore, I support the Motion for the Adjournment, so that the Government may itself draw up an amended Instruction which will cover the case of soldiers, sailors, and policemen, as well as the other classes to whom reference has been made.
      DR. TANNER: I hope it will not be necessary to force this to a Division. Seeing that it is now just upon 12 o'clock, I think the Government might agree to this Motion.
      MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is only one minute to 12, and as the Debate must stand adjourned at midnight, I think possibly it will be agreed on all
      1880
      sides that there is no necessity to divide upon this Question.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Debate adjourned till Thursday.

      BARRACKS [CONSOLIDATED FUND.]
      Resolution [20th June] reported.
      "That it is expedient to authorise the charge on, and issue out of, the Consolidated Fund of any deficiency which there may be in the moneys provided by Parliament for the payment of the principal and interest of any sums borrowed by the Treasury, under the provisions of any Act of the present Session for building and enlarging barracks and camps in the United Kingdom and in certain Colonies."
      Resolution read a second time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
      It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
      Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

    NEW LICENCES (IRELAND) BILL.

      (No. 249.) COMMITTEE.
      Order for Committee read.
      MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask whether the Government have decided on any action in relation to the Motion I made last night? I should like to know how soon they hope to put down Amendments to my Bill? I would suggest that it is only reasonable that we should know as early as possible what their Amendments are to be.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I may inform the hon. Member that if he will put down his Bill for Monday the Government will be prepared with their Amendments.
      Committee deferred till Wednesday 2nd July.

      STRIKES BILL.—(No. 174.)
      Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
      Bill withdrawn.

    OFFICE UNDER THE CROWN (VACATION OF SEATS) BILL.—(No. 136.)
    Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.
    House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.

BERKELEY PEERAGE.
Petition of Randal Mowbray Thomas (claiming to be) eighth Earl of Berkeley and Viscount Dursley, both in the Peerage of England, to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to be graciously pleased to give directions that a writ may be issued to summon the Petitioner to the present Parliament by the title of the Earl of Berkeley, together with Her Majesty's reference thereof to this House, and the Report of the Attorney General thereon thereunto annexed; Presented (by command), read, and referred to the Committee for Privileges to consider and report.
CHILDREN'S LIFE INSURANCE BILL. (No. 97.)
The evidence taken before the Select Committee from time to time to be printed for the use of the Members of this House; but no copies thereof to be delivered, except to Members of the Committee and to such other persons as the Committee shall think fit, until further order. (No. 142.)
CUSTODY OF CHILDREN BILL.—(No. 98.)
  PROTECTION OF CHILDREN BILL. (No 68.)
  Special Report from the Standing Committee for General Bills, That they had considered the Custody of the Children Bill [H.L.] and had ordered it to be reported, with Amendments; and that the Committee recommend that the Protection of Children Bill [H.L.] be not further proceeded with.
CUSTODY OF CHILDREN BILL. (No. 98.)
Reported from the Standing Committee for General Bills, with Amendments: The Report thereof received: Bill re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House; and to be printed as amended. (No. 143.)
PROTECTION OF CHILDREN BILL. (No. 68.)
Bill (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
TRUSTEES APPOINTMENT BILL. (No. 84.)
  FOREIGN JURISDICTION (CONSOLIDATION) BILL.—(No. 109.)
  Reported from the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c, with Amendments: The Report thereof received; and Bills re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.
  WORKING CLASSES DWELLINGS BILL. (No. 107.)
  Reported from the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c, without Amendment; and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
  FACTORS (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL. (No. 108.)
  Reported from the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c, without Amendment; and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.
  COURT OF CHANCERY OF LANCASTER BILL.—(No. 93.)
  Reported from the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c, with Amendments: The Report thereof received: Bill re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House; and to be printed as amended. (No. 144.)
DEEDS OF ARRANGEMENT BILL. (No. 106.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD MACNAGHTEN: My Lords, I have to ask you to allow this Bill, which has passed the House of Commons, to be read a second time. The object of the Bill is to amend the Deeds of Arrangement Act, 1887, so far as regards its application to Ireland. That Act applies to both England and Ireland, and provides for the registration of all Deeds of Arrangement between a debtor and his creditors in the Bills of Sale Office, and also in the Bankruptcy Court having jurisdiction. At the time when the Act was passed there were no local Courts of Bankruptcy in Ireland. That defect was remedied by an Act passed

  1735
  in 1888, which established local Courts in Cork and Belfast, and made provision for establishing local Bankruptcy Districts, as occasion might require. The object of this Bill is to provide, in the first place, for the local registration of Deeds of Arrangement in Ireland, and, in the second place, it provides for the registration of proposals of arrangement between a debtor and his creditors under the Irish Bankruptcy Act, 1857. That, my Lords, is the whole scope of the Bill. It involves no controversial matter; it has, I think, the support of all the Members from Ireland, whatever their political opinions may be; and it has, I believe, the good will of the Government. I move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 122.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. It is purely to amend the Scottish part of the Schedule in the Act of 1882. That Schedule provides for certain conditions and circumstances in which various of the Local Bodies in Scotland shall, for the purpose of the Electric Lighting Act, be the Local Authorities named in the Act. Doubts have arisen as to the proper meaning of the Scottish part of the Schedule, and in certain burghs in Scotland it is not certain whether the Police Commissioners, the County Council, or the Gas Commissioners are, in the eye of the law, the Local Authority for the purpose of Electric Lighting. In the course of the past winter several of them have applied to the Board of Trade, to know in which of those capacities they are the Local Authority within the meaning of the Act. The Board of Trade have been advised by the Law Officers of the Crown for Scotland that there are doubts and ambiguities in the Schedule as it stands, and the sole purpose of this Bill is to remove those doubts. A considerable amount of correspondence has taken place between the Department and the various Local
  1736
  Authorities concerned, as to the proper course to pursue and the way in which this should be done. I am now able to say that, with one exception, that of the Town Council of Glasgow, the Bill which I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to, is an agreed Bill, and I believe no conflict will arise with regard to it. Under those circumstances., unless it is desired to ask any questions about it, I will abstain from taking up any more of your Lordships' time, and I will now move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Bill read 2a (according to order).
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, under the circumstances, and as time is very valuable—it is almost a question of days whether three important towns in Scotland will be able to have their Electric Lighting Provisional Order, passed during the present Session of Parliament—I would ask your Lordships to facilitate the passage of this Bill through the House, by allowing it to be taken in Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT.
  EARL SPENCER,in rising to call attention to the decision of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, on a case submitted by the Somersetshire County Council, in relation to the respective powers of the County Council and the Standing Joint Committee, as to the management, control, maintenance, and erection of buildings connected with Assize, Sessions, and Justices' Courts, police stations, &c, and to ask whether Her Majesty's Government intend to introduce any Bill to amend the Local Government Act in respect to Standing Joint Committees, said: My Lords, I have put down on the Notice Paper a question which is of considerable interest to the various County Councils in the country. By the Act of 1888, Clause 29, power was given, when any difference of opinion arises between a County Council and the Standing Joint Committee, for a case to be stated to the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, in order to obtain the opinion of the Court, on the subject in dispute.

  1737
  In consequence of this, the County Council of Somerset, having a dispute as to their jurisdiction with the Standing Joint Committee, referred the case to the High Court, and the High Court gave an important judgment on the subject. It refers to the management and control of county buildings, and the question was whether the actual control rested with the Standing Joint Committee, or whether the County Council had jurisdiction over those buildings. In the Report of that case the head note is as follows: —
  "A difference of opinion having arisen between the Somerset County Council and the Standing Joint Committee as to the maintaining and repairing buildings for Assizes and Sessions purposes: Held, that though the property is vested in the County Council, the Joint Committee have complete control over, and can direct the expenditure of funds which it is the duty of the County Council to find the means of supplying. Held, further, that both bodies can issue regulations for managing the buildings so long as these do not conflict."
  Now, my Lords, that is a very important decision, and a great many of the County Councils in England have read it with considerable surprise. They were quite aware there was some ambiguity in the wording of the Act, and I think I may say here that there is considerable ambiguity as to other clauses of the Act; at the same time, they did not expect that such complete control was to be handed over to the Standing- Joint Committee. The result of it is that in most counties hardly any buildings at all, except the bridges, remain under the control of the County Council. It may happen that the County Council have to erect a Council-room. If the Council-room is to provide accommodation for the Justices or the Judges, then the County Council no longer have control over the Council-room, and the Standing Joint Committee have, by this decision, the complete ordering of the room, without consulting the County Council at all. All police stations, all Magistrates' rooms, and any room which may be used by the Magistrates or the police, are handed over bodily to the Standing Joint Committee, and the County Council are obliged to pay whatever sum the Standing Joint Committee may order. That is very clear from this decision, and Mr. Justice Cave distinctly says: "The only thing which the County Council have got to do is to pay the Bill." My Lords, I think that is a
  1738
  very serious matter, and it is one on which a very strong feeling exists throughout the country. There is, moreover, one extra important matter in the judgment which, I think, needs elucidation, and which, I think, if not dealt with by Her Majesty's Government, may really create a very serious difficulty indeed. It is with regard to the last part of the inquiry, namely—
  "To which body is transferred the power of making Standing Orders and making regulations as to the general management and control of the said buildings or any of them."
  Now, with regard to that, Mr. Justice Mathew, who was one of the Judges of the High Court who gave the opinion in this case, says this—
  "Power appears to be conferred on both parties, and they may conflict with each other."
  That is a very serious matter. I think a very serious conflict of opinion might arise between the Joint Committee and the County Council in a matter of this sort, and it is very poor consolation to read the end of the learned Judge's Judgment, where he says—
  "If a question should arise as to which order should be obeyed, the Courts, I trust, when that question arises, will have no difficulty in saying what the proper decision ought to be."
  That, I repeat, is a very poor consolation to those who are administering affairs in the County Councils. Thus, there may be distinct orders given, one set of orders being given by the County Council, and another set of orders given by the Standing Joint Committee; and I think it is very important that the Government should state whether they intend to deal with that matter, and should give their opinion, if possible, on the whole question. I am not quite clear whether, under Section 29, there is an appeal. The words of the section are very doubtful, but I think, from an answer that has been given by the President of the Local Government Board in another place, he seemed to imply that an appeal in another important case, the Warminster case, might go forward. If there had been an appeal pending in this Somerset case, of course I should not have troubled your Lordships with it, but as a considerable time has elapsed and no appeal has yet been brought, I think I am entitled to brine this important matter forward, and

  1739
  ask the opinion of the Government upon it. My Lords, I cannot help saying a word or two upon the general question of Standing Joint Committees, because this has opened the question, and it is one in which, sooner or later, some change must take place. When the Bill of 1888 was passed there was very considerable objection, not only on the side of the House to which I belong but on the other side too, to the establishment of a dual authority in the new County Administration. It was said that there was no reason whatever why, if a Municipal Council, it through their Watch Committee, could manage the police of their boroughs, the new County Councils, either by themselves or through a Committee, should not manage the police of the county, and, with regard to that matter, a strong feeling was expressed. I venture to say that, though happily in the case of my own county no conflict has arisen between the Standing Joint Committee and the County Council, for nothing could have been more conciliatory than the attitude of both the County Council and the Standing Joint Committee, still there have been very serious administrative difficulties to be dealt with, and we have seen how easily very serious difficulties might arise. Take the question of finance. I believe I am not overstating the case when I say that in most counties the Standing Joint Committee have the control of one-third, or more than one-third, of the whole expenditure of the county. The whole of that third of the expenditure is taken out of the control of those who are elected by the ratepayers whose representatives have nothing to do but to carry out the orders of the Standing Joint Committee. Then with regard to the police. The police in most counties, it certainly has been so in mine, have been employed in a great variety of duties. Happily, there has been very little crime, and they can very easily carry out many administrative Acts which, without their assistance and Services, it would have been very difficult for the county to have carried out. Take, for instance, the Weights and Measures Act, a measure which I am sorry to say is going to throw perfectly needlessly an enormous expense upon various counties. That Act has, in most counties, been admirably administered through the
  1740
  police. Now, the Act which has been brought in makes it impossible, in a great many places, and certainly in my county, for the police to continue administering that Act. At the same time, we have in various places police stations and other facilities connected with the police service, and the County Council, in administering the Weights and Measures Act must have constant recourse to police stations, and in some respects to the police. If the Joint Committee, who have the control of police stations, are in opposition and in conflict on many subjects, as they might well be with the County Council, we, who represent the ratepayers of the county, would be put to an enormously increased expenditure, and there would be constant friction and difficulty in administering this part of the Act. Take another very important matter—we had a Debate on the subject, your Lordships will remember, a short time ago—that is the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act. That Act could not be worked, I venture to say, except at enormous expense, without having recourse to the police. Happily, we have come to terms with our Standing Joint Committee; but if the Standing Joint Committee resisted and refused to give the assistance of the police for the purpose of carrying out this Act, we should have disease among animals spread broadcast all over the country. Those, my Lords, are two instances where I think the dual authority works exceedingly ill. Then I will give another instance. Take the appointment of officers. There is no more important officer than the Clerk to the Council. The gentleman who is Clerk to the Council has generally been Clerk of the Peace. As your Lordships know, Lord Lieutenants of counties formerly had the appointment of Clerks of the Peace. When this new Act came into force those appointments, which have been taken from the Lord Lieutenants, were given to the Standing Joint Committee. Mark what the result of that is. The Standing Joint Committee, half of whom might have been perfectly ignorant of any of this new work connected with the County Council, have the appointment of the most important officer of the Council. The Council have no voice in the matter whatever. That seems to me to be a very gross

  1741
  scandal, and it might lead to very great difficulty indeed. Then take the question of clerks. The County Council have a great deal more work than Quarter Sessions, and in many cases they have had to increase their staff, but they cannot appoint their clerk if that clerk had had anything to do, say, in collecting fees for the Magistrates; according to the interpretation given to the Act that matter would have to go to the Standing Joint Committee. My Lords, I have given those instances to show how difficult the working of this dual system is, and how important it is that some change should take place with regard to it. Now, I understand that in some counties great difficulties have arisen—in Leicestershire a very serious conflict of opinion has arisen between the County Council and the Standing Joint Committee in regard to a police rate. I am informed that a good many County Councils in England have petitioned for the abolition of Standing Joint Committees. There is one county which has done a very remarkable thing, that is the county of Gloucester. In the opinion of the majority of the County Council of Gloucester the Standing Joint Committee seems to be so much more important than the Council itself that they have established a Standing Joint Committee twice the size of the County Council. I will explain to your Lordships how this is: they have appointed the whole Council to be the representatives of the Council on the Standing Joint Committee, and the Magistrates have to double that number. So that you have this extraordinary anomaly, that you have a Standing Joint Committee twice the size of the Council, and you would have, therefore, to build a room not for the Council but for the Standing Joint Committee. My Lords, I do not know why the wise people of Gloucester did this; but it shows what importance they attach to the Standing Joint Committee, and I confess it rather points to some absurdity existing in this arrangement. I have thought it right to allude to one or two of these points because they are points of great interest in the country, and as this decision in the Somersetshire ease brings up the whole matter it may be desirable, if the Government are going to deal with it, that they should deal with other points as well as this point with regard to the
  1742
  buildings. It is for that reason that I have troubled the House with these few observations, and I now ask the question of which I have given notice.
  LORD BASING: My Lords, before my noble Friend replies to the inquiry which has been made of him I should like to say one or two words, because my experience differs somewhat from that of the noble Lord who has brought forward this question. I am far from disputing the justice of the criticisms he has made upon the various anomalous provisions which pervade the Local Government Act in respect of the Standing Joint Committees. We all know that they were introduced into the Bill of 1888 as a sort of compromise, and like many compromises it has entailed many clumsy, awkward, and inconsistent provisions. But I confess, although I greatly deprecate the pushing home of the decision of the Judges in the Somersetshire case, I think County Councils in many quarters have been over frightened by the apparent completeness and fulness of that decision. At all events, in the County Council over which I have tire honour to preside, it has made little, if any, differance in the mode of conducting business as regards buildings, repairs, and the maintenance of works. As regards my own County Council in Hampshire, they certainly consider that as they find the money and find the officers, it is only under their own Committees' care that important public works could be managed, and, therefore, they do not hold that the County Surveyor is at the beck and call of the Standing Joint Committee, nor do they consider that the Standing Joint Committee is competent to put their hands into the till of the County Council. They, therefore, conduct all the business with regard to the police buildings and Courts of Justice; they entrust the Committees who have to do the work with power to do it, but with instructions that they are to observe the requirements of the Standing Joint Committee. In that way the matter has worked very well, and, though difficulties have been raised from time to time, we have found that, with forbearance and good temper, anything like a conflict has been avoided hitherto, and so I think it will be hereafter. Nevertheless, the provisions to

  1743
  which the noble Earl has alluded may, at any time, provoke hostility and cause dissension where none now exist. It should always be borne in mind that one moiety of the Standing Joint Committee are themselves elected members of the County Council, and their places may be filled by other persons if they fail to represent the interest of the ratepayers in any way. I should be glad if the Government could see their way towards proposing some change. At the same time, if they were to open this question of the Local Government Act of 1888, with the view of making all the alterations which the little experience we have now had during two years has shown to be necessary, I am afraid they could hardly stop at the Standing Joint Committee, but that they would find far more than that enactment requires elucidation if not amendment and change.
  EARL COWPER: My Lords, as the whole subject of County Councils and Standing Joint Committees has been raised by the noble Earl who asked this question, I may be allowed, perhaps, as a Chairman of a County Council, to say that, though in the first instance I was certainly inclined to think it would have been better to have had the Police Committee appointed by the County Council, like all other Committees, and that it would be quite safe to entrust the management of the police to the representatives of the ratepayers, yet I do hope we shall not have any alteration made now, for I think that just as we have begun to get into the performance of our work, and just as every Committee has begun to understand its business, and to know what it has to do, there ought to be some very clear, very decided, and very great proof of positive inconvenience existing, before we begin tinkering once more with this measure, after so short an interval since it was passed. I think, in calling out for change, we should be rather like the gentleman in a famous sporting novel, who was always beginning to alter his stirrups just as the hounds began to run. I can safely say that in my county there has been no friction whatever. The first thing that happened was that a great number of members appointed upon the Standing Joint Committee by the Magistrates were members of the County Council, while, on the other hand, a great many of those
  1744
  appointed by the County Council were Magistrates, so that many members of the Standing Joint Committee scarcely know whether they were put upon it by one body or the other. I confess I think the instances given by my noble Friend where difficulty might arise were certainly not numerous, and are such as, if you look into them, either do not exist, or could not easily be avoided. For instance, with regard to the appointment of the Clerk of the Peace, would it be fair that the Magistrates, who necessarily trust very much to the Clerk of the Peace, should have no voice in the matter? I think they should have as much to do with the appointment of the Clerk of the Peace as the other body. The appointment must either be a joint one or there must be two offices, which would probably entail a waste of money. Then, as regards the Weights and Measures Act. I certainly should be prepared, if it were necessary, to contend that it would be better not to leave the carrying out of that Act in the hands of the police. I may say that we have discussed the matter completely and fully, and we have ended by deciding that the police should have nothing whatever to do with the matter beyond seeing that in this as in all other matters the law is carried out. My Lords, I only rose to say that I hope we shall not have any tinkering with this County Council Act, at any rate at present, until we have seen a little better how it works, and, at the same time, may have been able to see whether other alterations might not be advantageously made.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBY: My Lords, I should like, in a few words, to support what my noble Friend opposite has said, having had some experience in County Council work as Chairman. In my own Council, I may say, we have had no difficulty whatever in working this measure. We laid down, and very rightly, I think, that the members of the County Council should be all non-Magistrates. That was a happy arrangement, but the effect of it was this: that half of the Standing Joint Committee was composed of Magistrates, and the Magistrates themselves elected several members who were on the County Council. As a matter of fact, the County Council has a very considerable majority

  1745
  on the Standing Joint Committee. But no practical difficulty has arisen hitherto, though the County Council did petition to have a change, but only half the County Council was present, and the resolution was carried only by a small majority. I think it would be very unwise to make a change at the present time, without further experience. All the arguments we have heard this evening in favour of a change are just the arguments we heard at the time of the passing of the Bill, and I would add, for myself, the opinion that at present it is not advisable to change the present system. I think in an important matter of this kind we should get all the experience we can before making alterations. Every year we are picking up more experience, and I think it would be very unwise to again unsettle this matter without more practical knowledge of how it works.
  LORD MONK BRETTON: My Lords, as Chairman of another County Council, I should like to say a few words. I differ from the two noble Lords who have just spoken. I should be very glad to hear the Government declare that they thought the Standing Joint Committees could be dispensed with, and that they were prepared to bring in a Bill to abolish them. I say that without the least personal feeling against the Standing Joint Committees, because, in the case of the County Council to which I had the honour to be elected, we have worked most harmoniously with the Standing Joint Committee, and there has been a fixed determination on both sides to avoid any possible collision or friction. But I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the existence of a third statutory body, alongside of the Quarter Sessions and County Council, is surplusage, and tends to render the transaction of business cumbersome. Assuming that the Standing Joint Committees are to be continued until we have further experience of the working of the Local? Government Act for some time longer, and for certain purposes, I still hope that the powers given in regard to county buildings, which is the immediate question raised by Lord Spencer, will not be withdrawn from the County Councils; and I use the word "withdrawn" expressly because it was generally supposed that the Local Government Act
  1746
  intended to make the County Councils really the possessors of the county buildings. It was generally believed that the Act had done so, but then came the decision in the Somersetshire case, and the decision in the Somersetshire case has left the County Council with a dry legal estate. I admit that the Act is not very clear, and the position is rather an embarrassing one. The prevailing opinion, however, was that the County Councils were, to all intents and purposes, the owners of the buildings, subject to the obligation to provide the necessary accommodation for the Justices, to allow the proper use of them for the Justices and for the police; and that the Joint Committee was a sort of tutelary Divinity, to intervene if that obligation was not fulfilled. Now, the effect of the Somersetshire decision is that the Joint Committee are the absolute masters, and that they have power to erect, repair decorate what they please, and as they please, and then, as my noble Friend said, send the bill to the County Council, who have nothing to do but to pay it. Well, that, I think, is a very anomalous and a very unsatisfactory condition of things, and the decision puts the County Council in a very false position. My noble Friend Lord Basing pointed out that the Joint Committee was a body on which the County Council was represented in equal numbers with the Quarter Sessions. That is perfectly true; but there is this peculiarity in the case, that this Joint Committee, on which the two bodies are represented equally, is the master of the one and is not the master of the other. No doubt there are a good many ambiguities and anomalies in the Act, which further experience will show require correction. I am content to wait for those; but as regards this particular point, it appears to me that a short Bill might very well be brought in to prevent the real intention of the Act from being defeated, as it were, by an accident; and that that might be done without waiting for other Amendments or alterations of the Act. As I said at first, I hope that before a very long time the Joint Committees will be dispensed with altogether, but as regards this question of public buildings it does seem to me to be so inconvenient a state of things which we are placed in by this Somersetshire decision, that I trust the

  1747
  Government will say they are prepared to bring in a short Bill which will restore the position which the Local Government Act intended.
  LORD WENLOCK: My Lords, if yon are not wearied with the remarks of the various Chairmen of County Councils who have addressed your Lordships, I should like to say a few words with regard to the question which has been asked by my noble Friend Lord Spencer. One point which has not been brought out, I think, is as regards the financial question. As Chairman of the Finance Committee of my own Council, I found there was some danger of their losing the grant made he Government, and that the Finance Committee would find itself mulcted, without any fault at all of its own, to the extent of one-half of the loans of the county. That is an important point, and is a matter to he guarded against. Section 80 of the Local Government Act gives the control to the Finance Committee in all financial matters, but now that control seems to be taken out of its hands. Therefore, I think, in this respect there is a source of great danger to the ratepayers, unless Government finds some satisfactory means of placing the matter on a more satisfactory footing. In my own experience there has been some slight friction, as regards buildings, between the County Council and the Standing Joint Committee. It was only the other day that I received, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, a Report calling my attention to the fact that my own action upon the Standing Joint Committee was unsatisfactory. The matter in question was one in which the Standing Joint Committee recommended that a large sum should be expended on county buildings; and, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, I thought the expenditure ought to be carefully watched. The Council were very much with me in the matter, and against the Standing Joint Committee; and if it had not been for this decision in the Somersetshire case, I believe they would have taken the matter up to the High Court. I hope, after the remarks which have been made by the noble Lords, who have spoken from experience of the working of the Act in their own Councils, Government may see their way to put this question on a more satisfactory footing,
  1748
  because we have now had experience of the difficulty in working which may arise and which may become more serious in future.
  THE EARL OF JERSEY: My Lords, it is evident this is a question which excites considerable interest among County Councillors; and I think it is very fortunate that we should have had the varied opinions and experience of so many Chairmen of County Councils The question of the noble Lord may be divided under two heads, one dealing with the Somersetshire case, and the other dealing with the wider question of Standing Joint Committees. I need not. I think, follow the noble Lord right through what he stated with regard to the Somersetshire case, because the decision was a very simple one, handing over to the Standing Joint Committee the control of all the buildings which have to do with the administration of justice or with the police. By that decision the County Councils are declared not to' have the right of exercising the powers which they originally thought they had^ but it may be that that interpretation of the law by the High Court of Justice; has reference to what the intention of Parliament may have been when the-Act was passed. But I must point out that it does not rest with a Department of the Government to interfere at all with the law. They must accept it as it is laid down by the Courts of Justice. Still I may state that the Government are quite alive to the importance of this point, and that, whenever a Bill is brought in to deal with Amendments generally, which may be found desirable; of the Local Government Act, it will not be left out of consideration. Now, as to the wider point, as to the existence or non-existence of the Standing Joint Committees, I must observe that this system was adopted by Parliament, after careful consideration and discussion, as the best means of meeting what was an acknowledged difficulty. The Joint Standing Committee is, as has been pointed out, composed not of aliens, but half of the County Council and half of Magistrates, and though it is perfectly true there may be opportunities for friction to arise, yet I think the experience of most Chairmen of County Councils is—it certainly is my own—that those opportunities have not been taken, because there has been a

  1749
  very strong desire on the part of members of County Councils generally to facilitate the working of the Local Government Act, and there has also been shown that strong common-sense which I hope will always be a characteristic of the English people when they are entrusted with the carrying out of any important work. But, my Lords, it does not rest with me to enter into a long defence of the Standing Joint Committees. As has been pointed out, the Bill has only been passed within the last two years, and certainly the experience of the Department so far has been that it has worked well. In the circumstances, I am sure the noble Earl will not be surprised when I tell him that it is not the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill upon the subject. I do not know really that I can say more than that.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, I cannot say that I have derived any great comfort from the speech of my noble Friend, who has just sat down, on behalf of the Government. He has been good enough to tell us that the particular question arising out of the decision in the Somersetshire case will be, at some period or other, which is, I am afraid, likely to be somewhat distant, considered by Her Majesty's Government. Therefore, I do not think we can rest with much hope upon the remarks which have been made upon that point. But really, my Lords, the point is a very important one; and I cannot help believing that it was not the intention, either of Her Majesty's Government, or of Parliament, in passing the Bill of 1888, to place the control of a great portion of the county buildings completely in the hands of the Standing Joint Committee, and to take it altogether away from the County Council itself, putting aside lunatic asylums, which, I admit, are buildings of great importance, by far the larger portion of the county buildings are, by this decision, completely taken out of the control of the County Council and handed over to the control of the Standing Joint Committee. That was not at all the view, as the noble Earl has stated, which was taken by the County Councils when they first entered upon their duties. With regard to the County Council of which I have the honour to be the Chairman, we always supposed, and I had the best reason for
  1750
  believing that we were right in that opinion, because I took some pains to inform myself upon the matter, that though the County Council was bound to supply the buildings required by the Standing Joint Committee for the purposes of police and the administration of justice, it rested with the Council to determine how those buildings were to be erected, to go to contract for their erection, and to control the whole matter. Now, this decision tells us that the County Council has nothing to do with the matter at all, except to vote the money required, and to leave the Standing Joint Committee to go to contract, to direct the surveyor, and to have the whole business carried out altogether under their orders. My Lords, I venture to say that if the Hampshire County Council is acting as the noble Lord, Lord Basing has described, I am afraid they are acting in contravention of the decision in the Somersetshire case, because they are doing exactly what we did before the decision in the Somersetshire case, and what we have been recommended by our legal advisers to abandon. Now, my Lords, if the Government did not intend, and I do not really think they did, that this should be the case, and if it was not the intention of Parliament either, surely there is ground for introducing a short measure to put the matter right, because, although serious difficulties have not yet arisen, serious difficulties may arise at any moment. In the case of my County Council we had actually gone to contract for certain buildings under our original interpretation of the law; the Somersetshire case was decided, in the meantime, before they were erected, and we had to give up the whole matter and refer it to the Standing Joint Committee, for them to deal with as they pleased, and make the contract afresh if they thought fit. Now, I do think a very strong case, at all events, has been made out for restoring the system to that which, I believe, was originally intended, by both Government and Parliament Then, with respect to the general question, I should like to say a few words, and they shall be but few. I do not know whether noble Lords have altogether realised what seems to me to be the fact, that this body, the Standing Joint Committee, is a body altogether

  1751
  without precedent in this country. It is a body which has now the power of decision in reference to one-third, or more than one-third, of the whole county expenditure. In the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire, with which I am connected, the sum with which the Standing Joint Committee has to deal is upwards of £100,000 a year. It has the power to make requisitions upon the County Councils to levy whatever rate they please for providing that sum, and the Council is bound to obey those requisitions without contest or inquiry. Now, my Lords, let me ask you to consider what this body is. This foody—I take the case with which I am best acquainted, that of the West Riding, which, I may say, presents the matter under a very favourable aspect, because it is comparatively a numerous body—is a body consisting of 38 members, 19 of whom are elected by the County Council and 19 appointed by the Justices, and they have the entire disposal of over £100,000 a year of the ratepayers' money, and absolutely without any appeal whatever! The old Police Committee had to report to Quarter Sessions, and there was, therefore, a power of revising their proceedings in Quarter Sessions. I admit it was very rarely done, but nevertheless the whole body of Justices could revise their proceedings in Quarter Sessions. There is no such power in regard to this body. They decide the matter for themselves; they make the requisitions, and the County Council can be "mandamussed," I am told, if they do not obey. I venture to say, that for a body of that kind so composed, having absolute power without any appeal against their proceedings or any control by anybody, to have power to spend such a sum as I have mentioned, is altogether without precedent in this country, and it is certainly contrary to what I have always understood the President of the Local Government Board to have declared to be the fundamental principle of the Act of 1888, namely, that the representatives of the ratepayers were to have the control over the county expenditure. But, as I have said, the result is that the control of one-third of that expenditure is taken out of the hands of the County Council by this decision, absolutely and entirely. Now, my Lords, with respect
  1752
  to one other matter I wish only to say a few words—that is, the question of the appointment of the Clerk of the Peace. If there is any officer who ought to be appointed by the County Council I think it is their own clerk, the head of their office. The person who is to manage, under them, all their business, and who has to take their orders, ought to be a person in whom the majority of that Council have absolute confidence. But even such an officer as their clerk is not to be appointed by the County Council, but is to be appointed by the Standing Joint Committee. It is perfectly possible, indeed it is very likely, that the Standing Joint Committee, with the best intentions, would appoint a person who would not be acceptable to the majority of the County Council, and I say that the Clerk of the Council is a person who ought to be altogether acceptable to the majority of those he is intended to serve. I think it was my noble Relative behind me who spoke, I thought, as if he supposed the Clerk of the Peace was appointed by the Justices of the Peace. Of course, if my noble Friend did so, it was a slip, because he is as well aware as I am——
  EARL COWPER: If the noble Marquess will pardon me, what I said was that I thought it was fair they should have a voice in the appointment of their own clerk, and that I knew it had been done previously by the Lord Lieutenants.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: But they had nothing to do with the appointment of the Clerk of the Peace in old days; he was appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. If it is thought that because the Clerk of the Peace has certain duties to perform connected with Quarter Sessions therefore he ought to be appointed either by the Justices or by the Lord Lieutenants, you had better separate the two offices than perpetrate such an anomaly as to take the appointment of their own clerk out of the hands of the County Council. That, my Lords, seems to be an illustration of the extreme anomaly of investing the Standing Joint Committees with these controlling powers. My noble Friend the Earl of Harrow by has said that he hopes no hasty change will be made in regard to this matter; but he was obliged to admit that his County Council, however he might explain it, had themselves passed a

  1753
  resolution in favour of a change. My County Council have passed a resolution, not quite, but almost, unanimous, in favour of a change, and one member of that Council, who is well known to some of your Lordships, (Mr. Dent), in that discussion said that whereas he had himself suggested this Joint Committee in Quarter Sessions, when they were considering the Bill, he was now convinced that it was an inconvenient arrangement, and that the powers of control ought to be left with the County Council. My Lords, it has been often said, in the course of this discussion, that no irritation has yet arisen. I am happy to say that I can bear the same testimony in regard to the West Riding; but that being the case, so far, this is exactly the time when the matter can be discussed without raising all the difficulties which would attend bringing up disputed questions between County Councils and these Standing Joint Committees. The question seems to me, I confess, to be a question of principle. The establishment of these bodies is anomalous, and altogether, as I think, inconsistent with the principles upon which the Local Government Act was founded; and I do hope, in spite of the natural caution with which my noble Friend, representing the Government, has spoken, that Her Majesty's Government will, in the course of the Recess, consider the whole question.

CONTROL OF RIVERS AND WATER COURSES.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD BELPER,in rising to call attention to the necessity of giving to Local Authorities some control over rivers and watercourses within their districts for the purpose of prevention of floods, and to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider the desirability of conferring on County Councils defined and strictly limited powers for this purpose, said: My Lords, the question I have put down upon the Notice Paper is one not only of some interest to County Councils, but also to your Lordships and the public, and especially those who live in counties which are subject periodically to inundations from the rivers in their districts. I am very conscious of this evil, as I myself live in the neighbourhood of two rivers. At the
  1754
  outset, I should like to say that I am thoroughly aware of the extreme difficulties which surround this question on account of the very large number of interests which have to be considered, interests which, owing to the various minor Acts of Parliament which deal with the question, have had their powers extended or curtailed by those particular Acts of Parliament in different districts. Therefore in any suggestions I am going to make, I hope I shall make none that are unreasonable, or that will in any way interfere with those interests, or which could reasonably be taken exception to by those ratepayers who are not themselves sufferers. The question of the conservation of rivers is one which has attracted a large share of the attention of Parliament, both here and also in the other House. In 1887, a Committee of your Lordships' House took a large amount of evidence from skilled witnesses, and from persons who were conversant with the various local circumstances, and there were, I believe, at least two Bills introduced into your Lordships' House, dealing with the matter. In successive Sessions the question was discussed, both in the House of Commons and in this House, and, although no legislation actually took place, I think one of the Bills, at any rate, that of the noble Lord Earl Spencer, passed through this House. Since that time the question, as far as legislation is concerned, has been allowed to slumber; but I think that the interest in it has not abated is clear from the fact that almost immediately on the formation of direct Councils of the rate papers, this was one of the first questions taken up in the counties which are subject to floods. The county of Huntingdon was the first to move in the matter. There they passed a resolution in favour of some powers being given to them. The neighbouring county of Cambridge also, I believe, took up the question, and the County Council of Nottinghamshire, of which I am Chairman, has passed a resolution very much in the terms of the notice which I have placed on the Paper of your Lordships' House. Therefore, I think, I may be allowed to assume that there is an evil existing which has to be dealt with, and which has been recognised by both Local Authorities and by Parliament. If you look at the evidence brought before

  1755
  the Committee to which I have referred, it is abundantly clear that there has been a large amount of damage done by flood to agricultural land, and also that those poor people who live in villages and small towns subject to floods, suffered a large amount of loss, discomfort, and even of sickness from that cause. I should like to say at once that I do not wish to suggest any legislation on the lines of the Bills which have been previously brought into your Lordships' House. I do not wish, in the slightest degree, to criticise those measures, but I venture to think that public opinion has somewhat modified on this question during the last 10 years. Your Lordships will remember that those Bills gave an enabling power for the purpose of setting up authorities in different localities, under which Boards might be formed which would have very large powers of dealing with the surplus flood water in their neighbourhood; and the principal contest and opposition upon those Bills arose, I think, on what are called the rating clauses. There was a very strong feeling among those who do not suffer from floods themselves that they should not be rated, in any degree at all, in order to relieve the lands of those who were less fortunately situated. I must say that I think this feeling with respect to rates has increased, because, generally speaking, the rents of agricultural land in the neighbourhood of rivers have decreased during the last few years, and there is certainly a strong feeling that we ought not to pass any legislation which would be liable to increase the rates on lands which are now heavily rated. But the point which I wish 'specially to present to your Lordships is that, whatever may be your opinion with regard to such measures, there are certain obligations which are imposed by law both on private individuals and on those who have rights over rivers, which ought in the first instance to be enforced. Clearly, if you look at the circumstances, which must be known to many of your Lordships, there are many of those obligations under which conservators of rivers, millowners, and others, have been placed, which are never carried out at all. It is perfectly true if a private individual chooses to prosecute, if damage results from care-
  1756
  lessness, he may do so; but there is an indisposition to prosecute. What is everybody's business is nobody's business, and private individuals do not like to place themselves in the position of public prosecutors. The consequence is that no action is taken, because there is no body or power which has any control over rivers for this purpose, and there is really no power whatever of enforcing the law, if it exists. Now, I do not wish to trouble your Lordships at greater length than necessary, but I think I ought to call your attention to certain instances of the sort which arise where those obligations are not carried out. I will mention the cases which have come within my own knowledge, and I have also found that all those cases are absolutely confirmed by the evidence of the various witnesses called before the Committee in 1877, who, I may say, were resident in all parts of the country. First, let me take the case of flood-gates and weirs. It is an extremely common incident of rivers, where rights have been given either for the purpose of navigation or to millers, that weirs have been erected and floodgates with them. An elementary duty of those who have had such powers given them over rivers is to keep those floodgates properly open, not only while flood-water is actually coming down, but for a sufficient time to enable the water to get off before the flood has taken place. That is a duty which may be recognised, but it is certainly not carried out; and the witnesses before that Committee spoke to the importance of having some special authority, which shall take care that those flood-gates on rivers shall be kept open for a particular time, which may be necessary to allow the water to come down. Then with regard to weirs. It is, of course, the duty of the Navigation Authorities or owners to keep their weirs free from weeds and rubbish; but there is an even more important point to which I wish to call your Lordships' attention, and that is, that in many cases, to my own knowledge, and it is, no doubt, also within the knowledge of many of your Lordships, weirs have, during some years past, been erected perfectly legally, and under pretence perhaps of repairing them have been raised it may be several inches, which has had the effect of raising the water above the

  1757
  original height. In regard to this matter I should like to mention this one point: in the evidence given before that Committee the present Speaker of the House of Commons gave some most valuable testimony with regard to floods in the rivers in his neighbourhood, and he mentioned a case which actually occurred within his own knowledge. A millowner finding he did not get quite as much water as he wished for his mill, actually built a wall right across the river! And though the height of the wall was afterwards modified, as the Navigation Authority had to go to Parliament for the purpose of its being abolished, yet it seems almost inconceivable that anybody having a mill upon a river could build a wall right across the stream without any interferance whatever from anybody in the neighbourhood. My Lords, it is something like a scandal that there should be no Public Authority of any kind which should possess a power of interference with anybody who may choose to act in that way on a river, under circumstances such as I have mentioned. Then there is the question with regard to beds of rivers. Undoubtedly floods are often caused by the beds of rivers becoming silted up from not being kept properly clear. Many of the witnesses before the Committee spoke to the fact that though that duty is imposed upon companies which have navigation rights, they are never carried out, because there is nobody to mtertere for the purpose of enforcing that obligation. I believe that any County Council, acting through their surveyor, and with a Committee properly formed to look after such matters, would be able to do a great deal in the way of keeping beds of rivers free from silt and rubbish coming down. Then there is the question of bridges. As your Lordships are aware, when new bridges are now built County Councils have power over them in certain ways. If it is a bridge on a main road, the County Councils have themselves power, or if it is a bridge to which they have to contribute in any way, to see that the arches of the bridge are wide enough to permit the flood-waters to come down through them; but in respect of any ordinary bridge the County Council would have no power whatever, and many bridges have been built which would seriously
  1758
  interfere with the flow of flood-water, and, therefore, cause floods in the neighbourhood. I might mention one case within my own knowledge of a bridge over the River Trent, at Nottingham. That was a very old bridge, with a considerable number of arches. The surveyor for the borough of Nottingham gave evidence that, when the old bridge was done away with, and a new bridge was placed in the same position, it actually lowered the height of the water 18 inches. Your Lordships will, therefore, understand the importance of seeing to that matter, and the necessity of taking care that the waterway is kept open in rivers and streams. I will only mention one more case, that is with regard to new schemes under private Acts of Parliament which may be got by Local Authorities, such as the Corporations of large towns. I myself know a case in point, and many other cases were mentioned before the Committee where Acts were got for the alleviation of floods by Corporations; greatly for their own benefit, undoubtedly, but the inevitable result is that, unless there is some authority which can watch them and see what they are doing, the flood waters are sent down much more quickly on the lands below them, and, though the town may benefit, the county may suffer. If the County Councils had some power with regard to rivers, of course they could see that any scheme that was carried out in their neighbourhood would not interfere with the streams or water over which they have jurisdiction. Now, my Lords, I have mentioned a few cases, and I believe many more might be mentioned where, if some authority of this sort could be given, it might be valuable. It may be said that the rules and regulations under which rivers are governed vary so much that powers to interfere may not exist. Even in these cases, however, I think the County Councils might do a great deal by arrangement and by conciliation, and by inducing agreement among the different authorities along the banks of the rivers. I would call your Lordships' attention to this point, that it is not to the interest of anybody on a river, either Navigation Companies or mill-owners, that floods should be allowed to occur. By a little activity and timely attention those floods could be dimi-

  1759
  nished, and, therefore, I believe, all the authorities would feel themselves interested in acting with the County Councils for the purpose of seeing that the necessary precautions were carried out. There is only one other point with which I will trouble your Lordships, and that is, if you agree that some sort of power ought to be given to a Local Authority, whether that powerought not to be entrusted to the County Councils. The County Councils now represent all classes. They do not merely represent the landowners, but ratepayers of all classes equally with the landowners. They have acting under them a qualified surveyor, who is generally an engineer also, who is perfectly competent to deal with such matters. Such suggestions as might be made could be carried out really without any great expense on the I part of the County Councils; and if the question of expense arose, it is clear that a body directly representing the ratepayers would not incur expense unless they thought it for the benefit not only of the people living on the banks of the river, but of the county generally. I should like here to point out that you have already conferred on County Councils powers very similar to those which I am mentioning with regard to the prevention of floods in reference to fisheries, and in regard to the pollution of rivers. The powers which I ask for them with respect to floods are almost precisely identical with those which they now have for preventing the pollution of streams. The power of prosecuting and of combining with other bodies should be given as far as might be necessary for the purpose of carrying out these matters. I am well aware that the powers given in regard to the pollution of rivers are not very extensive, and perhaps for that reason, if adequate, they are more likely to be successful. I would venture to make the same remark in reference to floods, that if the powers given were too extensive, they would be more likely to lead to friction than powers less extended. They would obtain the support of manufacturing people better than more extended powers. I have only now to thank your Lordships for the very kind attention which you have given to my remarks on what I am afraid I must call, in one sense, a very dry subject. I have put no
  1760
  Motion on the Paper, and I only ask the Government for their favourable consideration of the matter. I am well aware that there may be many of your Lordships who might think that more extended powers would be desirable; but I will only say that I do hope the Government will seize the opportunity of the County Councils being now established for taking the first step in the matter, even though it may be a very small one, that is of grappling with an evil which is universally acknowledged in this House and throughout the country, and which has been too long standing in the way for settlement by Parliament.
  THE EARL OF JERSEY: My Lords, I think the House will quite agree that the subject which the noble Lord has brought forward is one of great importance in many counties. Personally, I may say that I was one of those who wore anxious that some Bill of the character to which he has alluded should be pissed some years ago; but, as he is aware, great difficulty was experienced in passing the Fisheries Protection Pill, partly, if not mainly, on account of the incidence of rating. The noble Lord has asked whether the County Councils would not be the proper authorities to carry out any future measure in regard to the prevention of floods, and certainly I am pleased to be able to say that, so far, the Department which I represent entirely agrees with him. But I must point out that at the present time there are no general powers belonging to existing Local Authorities; and therefore, before any such measure as that to which he alludes could pass, not merely an extension of powers, but really a new Bill would be required. I think we have heard to-night quite sufficient to show that any Bill dealing with County Councils, however small in its inception it might be, would have a tendency to greatly increase in size. Bills in passing rapidly through Parliament have a tendency that way. What I have to say, in answer to the noble Lord, is that the points to which he has alluded will be carefully and fully considered by Her Majesty's Government when any measure dealing with the extended powers of Corporations is brought in.

ZANZIBAR.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My noble Friend Lord Rosebery has given notice of a question which he desired to ask the noble Marquess, but he is unable to be present, having duties elsewhere. He has, therefore, requested me to ask the noble Marquess opposite the question on the Paper. Perhaps I may make one remark in order to explain it. It relates to a passage in the noble Marquess's Despatch 10 days ago concerning the recent arrangements in East Africa. The noble Marquess there says that—
  "England will further assume, with the consent of the Sultan of Zanzibar (which has been given), the exclusive protectorate over the Sultanate, including the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba."
  The question which my noble Friend Lord Rosebery desired me to ask is this:—1. The exact meaning of the expression "the Sultanate of Zanzibar" in Lord Salisbury's Despatch of 14th June, 1890; 2. If maps will be furnished to the House showing the exact limits of the various territorial proposals involved in the new Convention. As your Lordships are aware, the Sultan of Zanzibar exercises authority over parts of the coast as well as over Zanzibar and Pemba; and, therefore, for the purpose of rightly understanding the arrangement which has been come to, it is desirable to know exactly what is meant by, according to the noble Marquess' Despatch, "the Sultanate of Zanzibar," over which the protectorate is to extend. The maps referred to in the second question would, no doubt, show precisely the boundaries of the territory in reference to the protectorate.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): I imagine that the word "Sultanate" has the same relation to Sultan as Monarchy has to Monarch, or Empire to Emperor. The protectorate over the Sultanate of Zanzibar means, I imagine, the protectorate over the territory which is under the government of the Sultan, or under his suzerainty. If the noble Earl asks mo to give him an enumeration of those territories, of course I shall meet with greater difficulty, because there is a certain amount of controversy
  1762
  attaching to some portions of them; but, generally speaking, they consist of Zanzibar, the islands with which that is-connected, and a considerable portion of the coast. With regard to the second question, as to maps, I inquired to-day, and I was told that the maps have already been sent down to the House of Lords this morning. If that has not been done I will take care that they are sent down without any delay.
  House adjourned at five minutes before Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.