Sitting of 3 February 1891

UNOPPOSED MOTIONS.

  CARGOES ON SUNDAYS IN FOREIGN PORTS.
  Address for—
  "Return of the Regulations in force as to the working of Cargoes on Sundays in the principal Foreign Ports and Harbours of Europe and America."—(Admiral Field.)

  ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.
  Return ordered—
  "Of Copies of Correspondence which has passed between the Royal National Lifeboat institution, the Trinity House, and the Board of Trade, respecting the suggested removal of wrecks off Palling and other places in that vicinity on the coast of Norfolk, under the provisions of 'The Removal of Wrecks Act, 1877, Amendment Act, 1889.'"—(Sir Edward Birkbeck.)

  EAST INDIA (FACTORIES).
  Address for—
  "Copy of Report of the recent Commission on Indian Factories."—(Sir William Houldsworth.)

  CORN AVERAGES.
  Copy ordered—
  "Of Statistical Tables of Corn Prices for the year 1890, with Comparative Tables for previous years, and Memorandum."—(Sir M. Hicks Beach.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 71.]

  COLONISATION.
  Ordered—
  "That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committees on Colonisation in Sessions 1889 and 1890, the Report on the Condition of the Highlands in 1851, the Report of the Select Committee on Game Laws in Session 1873, the Report of the Royal Commission on Crofters and Cottars in 1883, the Report on the Cottars in the Lews in 1888, and the Report of the Western Highlands and Islands Commission in 1890, be referred to the Select Committee on Colonisation."—(Sir James Fergusson.)

QUESTIONS.

  COLONEL'S ALLOWANCES IN INDIA.
  MR. KING: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the continued loss which is being inflicted on Colonels in receipt of Colonel's allowances who have elected to reside in India, by paying them their allowances on retirement, of £1,124 5s. per annum, in rupees at a rate of 2s. ½d. per rupee, whereas the current rate of exchange has for some years ranged below 2s., and lately below 1s. 6d., while, at the same time, all Colonels similarly situated who reside in any other parts of the world are permitted to draw the full amount of £1,124 5s. in England in sterling, the Secretary of State will re-consider previous rulings on the subject, and take steps to remedy the grievance; and whether the loss now amounts practically to a fine of about 5,000 rupees per annum on a retired officer for electing to reside in India?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir J. GORST,: The Secretary of State in Council has recently decided that an officer, entitled to draw "Colonel's allowances" together with English pay, may, wherever he resides, draw the amount of £660 12s. 5d. together with his English pay from the Home Treasury in London, either personally or by agent.

  INDIAN COUNCILS (No. 2) BILL.
  MR. WALTER M'LAREN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will undertake that the Indian Councils (No. 2) Bill shall be taken as a first Order of the Day, after due notice, when it is discussed; and if he can state when it will come on?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will see that I am not in a position at present to possess the information which would enable me to answer the question.
  MR. BRYCE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will undertake to bring it on as the first Order, and that he will give some substantial notice as to when it may be expected to come on?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I can only say that in the conduct of Public Business it is very difficult to say when any particular measure may be expected to be brought on.

  MIDDLESEX MAGISTRATES.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with regard to the fact that the privileges of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, prior to the enactment of "The Local Government Act, 1888," were specially reserved by that statute, whether any disability to act attends them if their residence "ceases to be within the present county area of Middlesex, but continues in that of the new County of London?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,: The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. As to the second, Justices of Middlesex who reside in the County of London will have in Middlesex jurisdiction to act in all cases in which the Summary Jurisdiction Acts enable a gentleman who is a Justice for two adjoining counties to act in one, although he resides in the other.

  REFORMATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the

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  Home Department if he proposes to re-introduce and press forward the Bills dealing with reformatory and industrial schools, in accordance with the wishes of the great majority of Managing Authorities; and, in the contrary case, if, having regard to the considerable proportion of the inmates of such institutions whose parents have forfeited all moral right to further control over them, and least of all to profit by their education and maintenance from public funds, he will re-introduce in a short Bill the clauses empowering the managers to provide for well-conducted boys, with their consent, as if they were their parents?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The Managing Authorities were the most energetic opponents of the Bills dealing with the reformatory and industrial schools, and the chief cause of their withdrawal. I think it is doubtful whether time can be found for discussing them this year. If they are introduced they will contain provisions for the ultimate disposal of children, and for retaining control over them after their discharge. But I would remind my hon. Friend that the existing practice of the Home Office, founded upon Section 28 of the Act of 1866, goes nearly as far in the direction of clothing managers with parental functions as Parliament is likely to allow, and it would not be worth while to introduce a Bill dealing with this specific subject apart from the other provisions of the Bills.

  INHABITED HOUSE DUTY.
  MR. MONTAGU: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the decision in the case of Weguellin v. Wayall, 14 Queen's Bench Division, 838, restricting the exemption of business premises from Inhabited House Duty to cases where only one caretaker is kept, irrespective of the size of the premises, and that this decision prevents bankers and others who have a watchman from employing a caretaker unless they pay the duty on the entire premises, thus injuriously affecting porters and messengers who, but for this restriction, would be employed also as caretakers in large buildings in the City of London; and whether the Government will take steps to
  1618
  remedy this grievance, either by exempting business premises entirely, or by making the duty payable only on the value of such part of the premises as may be occupied by the caretakers?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,: In the case referred to, the Court decided that business premises in charge of a caretaker who has dwelling with her a son—in independent employment—a daughter, and a servant were not within the exemption in favour of such premises dwelt in by a caretaker of the nature of a menial servant. But in practice no objection is raised by the Board of Inland Revenue in cases where the Local Commissioners give relief where two caretakers are employed, provided they are both menial servants, nor in cases where the caretaker has residing with him members of his family who are dependent on him for protection and support. No legislation is necessary on the subject.

  THE TOWER OF LONDON WHARF.
  MR. MONTAGU: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he would state the number of barges moored at the Tower of London Wharf during 1890, and the number of barges so moored on the Saturdays of that year; and if he will state the result of the inquiries he promised to make, with the view of admitting the public to the riverside promenade on Saturdays and Sundays?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BRODRICK,: There were 42 barges moored at the Tower Wharf during 1890, and of these a barge was moored alongside on three separate Saturdays. As regards the second question, perhaps the hon. Member will kindly repeat it in two or three weeks time.

  GOLD COINAGE BILL.
  MR. MONTAGU: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends to introduce the Gold Coinage Bill?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I will answer the question of the hon. Member in about a week's time.

  THE ROUND TOWER OF ABERNETHY.
  SIR JOHN KINLOCH: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he can give the House any information as to whether the historic Round Tower of Abernethy is one of the monuments which have come under the control of the Commissioners of Works under "The Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1882," and in whom the estate in the same is vested; and who has the right of access to, and control of, the same, whether the heritors, the parish minister, or other individual?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B.ROBERTSON): The Tower of Abernethy is not one of the monuments coming under the provisions of the Act referred to. I am informed that it belongs to the Earl of Home, and kept in preservation by him, and the privileges of access to the Town Council or parish officer which now exist are granted by him.

  PENSIONS—MR. THOMAS CADMAN.
  MR. J. W. SIDEBOTHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he has yet obtained an opinion from the Law Officers of the Crown as to the legality of the pension award which has been made in the case of Mr. Thomas Cadman, late Her Majesty's Inspector of Mines for the South Western District; and, if so, what that opinion is?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,: Yes, Sir, as I promised my hon. Friend, I obtained the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown as to the legality of the award; and their opinion, dated September 9, was to the effect that the decision of the Treasury is within their legal powers, and cannot be questioned by the Courts of Law.

  QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY.
  MR. SEALE HAYNE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, in reference to the last account of the Governors of Queen Acne's Bounty presented to Parliament, what is the nature of the ground rents on which capital sum of £285,916 5s. 6d. has been invested; whether they are terminable improved ground rents, or ground rents including the reversions, and where these properties are situated;
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  and whether, in future annual accounts to be presented to Parliament, the same detailed information as to the nature and situation of these properties will be given by the Governors as is given in respect of their other Stocks, funds, securities and railway investments?
  MR. JACKSON: I am able, by the courtesy of the Secretary of Queen Anne's Bounty, to give the information. The ground rents referred to are freehold ground rents, including the reversion. They are chiefly in London; others are being purchased. If the hon. Member will write as to any improvement that he thinks can be effected in the annual Return, the suggestion will receive careful consideration.

  NAVAL ARMAMENTS VOTE.
  MR. DUFF: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to paragraph 16 of the Fourth Report of the Committee on Public Accounts, recording their opinion
  "That the present mode of administering the Naval Armaments Vote is not consistent with the provisions of the Exchequer and Audit Act;"
  to the further fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an assurance to the said Committee (paragraph 14) that the irregularity complained of would be dealt with by an Inter-Departmental Committee, presided over by the Secretary to the Admiralty; and whether the Committee referred to have issued their Report; and, if so, whether there is any objection to lay the whole Report, or at any rate that portion of it dealing with the subject referred to, upon the Table of the House?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,: The Committee have reported, and the War Office and Admiralty have taken such joint action as will enable the Admiralty to take charge, on April 1 of this year, of all Naval Ordnance Votes. The Committee's Report deals with both the quantity as well as the character of the stores to be transferred, and it would not be advisable to make it public.

  WALL MARSH, SHEERNESS.
  MR. HERBERT KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I beg

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  to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can explain why, on the 28th day of January last, the public were excluded, by order of the War Department authorities at Sheerness, from a football match played in Wall Marsh, Sheerness, although the said marsh has been open to the public for many years?
  MR. BRODRICK: I must ask my hon. Friend kindly to postpone the question for a day or two, as we have not yet received the information that will enable us to answer it.

  THE SAVINGS BANK DEPARTMENT.
  MR. JAMES ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he received a Petition from the male sorters of the Savings Bank Department in November, 1889; whether his attention was again drawn to the Petition when he received a deputation from the London sorting force in June, 1890, and that he then promised to make inquiries and to give his decision with regard to the Petition; and whether he has had such inquiry made, and can give the sorters his decision upon their Petition.
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,: The reply to the hon. Member's questions is in the affirmative. My decision was communicated to the sorters in the Savings Bank on the 2nd of August last.

  BRITISH TRADE IN THE PACIFIC.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Government will consider favourably the Resolution adopted at the recent meeting of the Australasian Federal Council, praying that the restrictions on British trade with the Natives of the islands of the Pacific might be made to apply alike to all Nationalities?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,: It will be desirable to receive the text of the Resolution before attempting to judge what can be done in the matter.

  LATE SITTINGS AT ASSIZES.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether
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  he has remitted the remainder of the sentence of five years' penal servitude, passed on a woman who was convicted at the last Chester Assizes, before a Court which had been sitting for over 14 hours; whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that similarly protracted sittings frequently occur in Crown Courts at Assizes; and whether he will take such steps as will render unnecessary the continuance of this practice?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Sir; I advised the remission of this sentence, not on the ground that there had been a long sitting of the Court, but on a careful review of all the facts of the case, and with the concurrence of the learned Judge. The attention of the Home Office has not been called to any frequent occurrence of protracted sittings at Assizes. They are sometimes rendered necessary, in order to dispose of the Crown cases before the Judge of Assize is obliged to proceed to another town; and I doubt whether it would be possible to make any arrangement which would prevent this necessity occasionally arising, unless the time allotted to each assize town were much prolonged, with the consequence that judicial time would be frequently wasted.

  FISCAL ARRANGEMENTS WITH THE COLONIES.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the strong expressions of opinion which have recently emanated from high authorities in various portions of our Colonial Empire, in favour of the establishment of preferential fiscal arrangements between the Mother Country and the Colonies; and whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared to afford an opportunity for these urgent questions being considered without delay at a Conference with the representatives of the self-governing Colonies?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: The question is under the careful consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and I am unable at present to give any more definite reply.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the extreme urgency of the question?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: Yes, I am aware of it, and for that reason I have stated that the question is being carefully considered.

  THE BEHRING SEA FISHERIES.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any further information as to the telegraphic report that the Supreme Court of the United States has given its decision that it has direct control over the Courts of the territory of Alaska, and that it will entertain a motion for a Writ of Prohibition in the casa of the British schooner W. S. Sayward arrested by the Alaska Courts for alleged illegal sealing in Bearing Sea?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,: The following telegram has been received this morning from Her Majesty's Minister at Washington:—
  Sayward case. The Supreme Court to-day granted leave to file petition and suggestion for Writ of Prohibition, and directed issue of rule to show cause, returnable second Monday in April. The Chief Justice, in announcing this decision, said that opportunity had been afforded United States to oppose the motion for leave to file the application, and the argument had taken much wider range than was justified, but the Court was satisfied of its jurisdiction to issue the writ applied for. The Solicitor General stated that the United States desired matter promptly disposed of."

  THE PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND)BILL.
  MR. KEAY: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to insert in the Purchase of Land and Congested Districts (Ireland) Bill any provisions fixing a maximum beyond which land stock cannot be issued, as was done in the Ashbourne Acts; whether, as the Bill now stands, the maximum amount to be issued could be doubled by doubling the annual Imperial contributions and grants to Ireland; and whether there is any precedent for providing by Act of Parliament for the issue of Stock to an amount unnamed?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Of course, the hon. Member is aware that there is a maximum in one sense in the Bill, namely,
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  the maximum of 25 times of the Guarantee Fund; but there is no other maximum. I am not aware that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary proposes to introduce one. As the Bill stands, no doubt the maximum amount may be increased as the Imperial contributions increase; but I do not think that the suggestion that the Government should double the annual Imperial contributions and grants to Ireland is within the range of practical politics. Of course, it will be open to any future Parliament to limit a sum if the contributions are increased. I have not had time to examine the third point raised by the hon. Member.

  THE NEW MAGAZINE RIFLE.
  MR. DAVID THOMAS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Mark III. of the new magazine rifle is now in process of manufacture at Enfield, or is contemplated; who are the persons responsible for the selection of ·303 as the calibre of the new rifle, in the face of the opinions of practical experts to the contrary; whether the same has been condemned by Government experts as too small for accurate shooting, owing to liability to accumulate fouling, and other defects; whether any increase in size of the calibre has been decided upon, or is contemplated; whether Marks I. and II. can be converted to Mark III. or not; and whether any, and, if any, how many, workmen have been recently discharged from the Enfield Factory; and, if so, can he explain for what reason?
  MR. BRODRICK: Mark III. of the new rifle is not in contemplation. Every nation in Europe has adopted a smaller bore rifle; and Government experts in this country have not condemned it. During the four weeks ending on the 31st of January 90 men were discharged from the Enfield factory, a decreased output being required from Enfield now that trade firms are commencing supplies of the magazine arm.

  LABOURERS' ALLOTMENTS.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the statement that in a communication from the Commissioners of Woods and Forests the people of

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  Billing borough were informed that Sir Nigel Kingscote as—
  "At present advised would not be disposed to grant to labourers allotments which, either in themselves or with other allotments now held by them, would exceed half an acre,"
  whilst, under the Allotments Acts of 1882 and 1887, Charity Trustees and Sanitary Authorities may be called upon to provide allotments of an acre; and whether it is in the power of any Department to evade the intention of the law by declaring that where the land in a particular district is under the control of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests the labourers shall have only half an acre each instead of the acre they might have demanded had the ownership been invested in Charity Trustees or private individuals?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: In answer to the hon. Member, I have to say that there appears to be some misunderstanding as to the action taken by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The quotation made is not quite complete, and, as a matter of fact, the land which has been appropriated for allotments by the Commissioners of Woods has not been limited to plots of half an acre; on the contrary, where applicants could show that they could satisfactorily deal with the larger quantity, plots of one acre have been allowed. The Commissioners of Woods have never shown any desire or intention to evade the law; in fact, I believe the management of the property in charge of the Commissioners of Woods will compare favourably for liberality with any other estates.

  REPORT OF THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF POLICE OF THE METROPOLIS.
  MR. JAMES ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, 1889, was not circulated to the Members of the House until the 31st January, 1891; and whether he can promise that in future the Report shall be issued as soon as possible after the close of the year?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART WORTLEY,: I have been asked by my right hon. Friend to reply to this question. I
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  regret that there has been delay in this case. The Report was received by the Secretary of State on the 28th August, which was not much later than the usual time, but which was after Parliament had risen. The opportunity for presentation in the Autumn Session was unfortunately overlooked until December 8th, on which day presentation was effected. The distribution to Members rests with the authorities of the House; and the Secretary of State has no knowledge of the causes which led to the delay between presentation and distribution. I cannot undertake that the Report shall be received in the Home Office much earlier; but will endeavour to secure in future cases its distribution to Members of Parliament and the public within a short time of its being received by the Secretary of State.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Is it not possible to produce and circulate this Report in time to enable Members to have it in their hands when the Police Estimates are discussed?
  MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid that the Report never had been out soon enough to be available for discussion in Debate on the Police Vote.

  THE METROPOLITAN WATER SUPPLY.
  MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, with regard to his promise to offer facilities for referring to either a Select or Hybrid Committee the various Bills now before Parliament relating to the acquisition by some Public Body of the Water Companies of the Metropolis, whether he will give facilities for the passing of the Metropolitan Water Companies' Charges Bill, which contains provisions to prevent the companies from raising their rates through the quinquennial re-valuation of property, in prospect of the early purchase by the public?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: It will be impossible for the Government to give facilities for such a Bill, as our responsibilities must be limited to finding time for Government measures. I will1 not enter into any argument as to the matters which are naturally suggested by the question of the hon. Member; but I may say that, if the various Water Bills were referred to a committee, the Committee

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  would have full powers to consider the terms and conditions on which the undertakings of the companies were to be acquired.

  CIVIL SERVICE CLERKS.
  MR. JOHN KELLY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the exceptional promotions of specially meritorious clerks of the Second Division of the Civil Service to the higher grade of that Division, made under Clause 6, paragraph 2, of the Treasury Minute of 21st March, 1890, depend in any way upon or involve any change of organisation, but simply require the recommendation of the heads of Departments and the sanction of the Treasury; whether he can state how many Second Division clerks have been recommended by the heads of their various Departments for such exceptional promotion, and the dates of such recommendations; and whether any decision has been arrived at by the Treasury in these cases?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: A few applications have been received for an examination of Class I. of the Civil Service, and this is not wonderful, since the Government have not permitted an examination for Class I. to be held for more than four years, insisting that vacancies in that class should be filled by such measures as the transfer of redundant officers. I do not admit that the hon. Member cites the Report of the Commission correctly; but, however that may be, we shall, in deciding upon these applications, bear the recommendations of the Commission in mind, carefully considering the necessities of the case, and satisfying ourselves whether redundant officers, qualified by age and acquirements for transfer to other offices, are available.
  MR. JOHN KELLY: I beg to ask the First Lord, of the Treasury whether certain Departments of State are at the present time urging that an examination for clerkships (Class I.) in the Civil Service should be held in order to fill up vacancies in the First Division; and, if so, whether it is intended to hold such examination in spite of the fact that in the Report of the Civil Establishments it is repeatedly pointed out that the higher branches of the Civil Service are over-manned, and that there are at
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  present plenty of redundant clerks to fill any existing vacancies?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I observe that this question is almost identical in terms with a question put by the hon. Member to me on the 27th ult., and I cannot add anything to the answer I then made.

  LAND PURCHASE IN IRELAND.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that, on 23rd November, 1888, Lord Waterford issued a writ in ejectment forth of the Queen's Bench Division (O. No. 109) against Michael Keily, of Tramore, for two and a half years' rent of a statutory tenancy at £5 10s. a year; that the tenant thereupon, to avoid eviction, agreed to buy the holding under the Ashbourne Act; what is the amount of the instalment Mr. Keily agreed to pay the Government annually, what is the date of the agreement, and the amount of the purchase money; in how many cases has Lord Waterford bought back from the Purchase Commissioners holdings sold by him to tenants, and since evicted by them; will the Government provide that holdings so repurchased by landlords shall not be assigned, redeemed, or resold by the owner under the Purchase Acts during the 49 years; and in how many cases, if any, have the Purchase Commissioners been obliged to proceed, specifying whether by eviction or otherwise, owing to non-payment of instalments, and the names of the landlord who sold in such cases?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,: The Land Commissioners report that on December 1, 1888, Michael Keily signed and verified an agreement for the purchase of his holding in the townland of Carrigarantry South, containing 16 acres 3 roods 7 poles, held at a judicial rent of £5 10s., the tenement valuation being £7. The price agreed upon was £150, the annuity thereon £6. The Commissioners caused the holding to be inspected in June, 1889, and, being satisfied as to the security, they provisionally sanctioned the advance applied for, and the case was closed in December, 1889. The Marquess of Waterford purchased four holdings which were put up for sale for default in payment of the instalments,

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  there being no competition at these sales. As stated in the Annual Report of the Commissioners (page 10), "These holdings were sold subject to the future payment of the annuity." The holdings are therefore subject to all the conditions laid down in Section 30 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881. The Commissioners cannot make a Return of the cases in which, during a period of more than five years, they may have instituted proceedings for the recovery of unpaid instalments. A Return, however, has recently been laid upon the Table of the holdings in which final proceedings were necessary by putting up for sale the holdings in which the instalments were in default. I am informed no pressure whatever was used to induce the tenant to buy; that he was never asked to do so; and that it was at his own desire, put forward by him on the ground that he was the only remaining tenant on the townland who had not purchased, that he was permitted to do so.
  In reply to a further question by Mr. T. M. HEALY,
  MR. MADDEN said: Whether the Government regards this state of things as satisfactory or not, the tenant appears to have regarded it as eminently satisfactory, seeing that the sale was effected at his urgent request.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Of course, it was at his urgent request in order to preserve the holding. Am I to understand that no duress was put upon the man?
  MR. MADDEN: Certainly not. The holding was examined by the Land Commissioners, who considered the security sufficient.
  MR. T. M. HEALY:I beg to give notice that when the Land Purchase Bill is before the House I will move an Amendment to provide that the annual instalments paid under the Act shall not exceed the annual rent now paid.
  MR. FLYNN: What security have the Government got?
  MR. MADDEN: The 16 acres, the tenement valuation of which is £7 a year.

  THE DONEGAL MILITIA.
  Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State
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  for War if it is his intention encamp the 5th Inniskilling Fusiliers (Donegal Militia) during their period of training, instead of billeting them as heretofore; and, if so, where; and whether he will, before directing any change, consult with the Chief Secretary as to the probable financial effect upon the poorer householders of Lifford of any sudden alteration of system?
  MR. BRODRICK: The Donegal Militia will be trained at Lifford, as heretofore; but since, for military considerations, billeting is avoided whenever possible, and the objections to it are so well known, it has been decided that this year the men shall be encamped.

  CORK BANKRUPTCY COURT.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether the attention of the Lord Chancellor has been called to the recent Report of the Cork Chamber of Shipping and Commerce with reference to the Local Court of Bankruptcy, and the importance and desirability of extending its jurisdiction to the Counties of Kerry and Waterford; whether this could be done with the existing local staff, and without involving any additional expense; whether the Court is at present worked at a loss to the Treasury but would pay its way if the two additional counties were added; and whether, in view of the close commercial relations which exist between the Counties of Kerry and Waterford and the City of Cork, the Lord Chancellor will now, by Order in Council, bring the counties mentioned within the jurisdiction of the Court?
  MR. MADDEN: As I stated in reply to a similar question put by the hon. Member on the 11th of July last, the subject of the development of the, local jurisdiction conferred by the Act of 1888 on this Court is engaging the careful consideration of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He is, however, of opinion that it would not be wise to take the step suggested in the question until we have had further experience of the working of the Courts constituted by that act.

  THE CRIMES ACT.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland if he can explain upon what charge, and

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  upon whose authority, 11 women have been arrested in connection with an inquiry held at Castlerea under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act?
  MR. MADDEN: I have called for Reports to enable me to answer the question.

MOTIONS.

  TRADING REGISTRATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Arthur O'Connor, Bill for the more effectual prevention of fraudulent Trading, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Arthur O'Connor, Mr. Addison, and Sir Albert Rollit.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 183.]

  MAGAZINE RIFLE.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS*(4.10.)MR. MARJORIBANKS (Berwickshire) rose to call attention to the new Magazine Rifle; and to move—
  "For the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into its merits and all the circumstances attending its adoption."
  The right hon. Gentleman said: I am afraid I shall be obliged to make a large demand on the patience and indulgence of the House in bringing this subject forward. I am bound to confess that the nearer I approach the task I have undertaken the more difficult, it appears to me, because, while I cannot pretend to be an expert in mechanics and ballistics, I have undertaken to explain to the House the details of a most complicated and ingenious machine, in whose very complexity and intricacy some of its chief defects are to be found. I am still further placed in a difficulty, because Mr. Speaker has informed me that I should not be in order in bringing a rifle into the House, by means of which I might have given an object lesson to the House in regard to the many points of the rifle. Neither have I the power to exhibit drawings to House. This is not the only difficulty of the position, because I find that the House is absolutely wanting in any official knowledge of this weapon. The Report of the Small Arms Committee, who chose the weapon, has been refused to us. There is no Report whatever with regard to the 15,000 rifles which, we are told, were placed in the bands of the troops during 1890. I am informed that something like 50
  1632
  per cent. of these rifles have been returned to the armoury for repair, and I hear on the best authority that in the case of one single regiment 280 bolt-heads failed, and 400 mainsprings broke down in the weapons served out. The only Report before the House is the Report of a trial made of 350 rifles which were issued to various regiments and ships' companies in the year 1888. With regard to my own attitude, I wish to say that I am not the mouthpiece of any inventor. I come to the subject with an entirely open mind. My desire is, as I believe it is the desire of the Secretary for War and every official, that the country shall have the best possible weapon at the smallest possible cost. It has been said it is unfortunate that I, as a Party Whip, should have been called to bring forward this Motion, but I can assure the House that I have left the question of Party altogether out of sight. I have taken no advantage of my official position, and I think hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will admit that I am hardly likely, from my position, and the Party to which I belong, to be the mouthpiece of the Times in the matter. The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) opposes my request for an inquiry on the ground that it would weaken the responsibility of the officials of the War Office. Although the hon. Member appears to agree with me [Mr. HANBURY assented] in the view I take of this weapon, and with regard to the way in which it has been introduced, the hon. Member appears to think that the proper course would have been to ask for a vote of censure on the War Office; but that vote of censure is contained in the Report of the Commission presided over by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington). It seems to me that the best course the House can take is to order a review of the circumstances attending the adoption of this weapon. I shall have to go briefly into the details of the weapon, taking the barrel and ammunition, the body, the bolt, and magazine in order. The calibre of the barrel is ·303. The rifling is seven groove, with the twist to the left on a modified Metford system. There is one turn for every ten inches, or three turns in all. The ammunition provided consists of a

  1633
  solid drawn brass cartridge, with a compressed pellet of black powder of 71½ grains, and a composite bullet weighing 215 grains. I admit one great advantage has been gained, namely, a weapon in which there is practically no recoil. The recoil in this weapon is only 7 lb., while in the Martini-Henry it is 45 lb. Further, a comparatively flat or low trajectory is obtained; but these advantages might have been attained without any change whatever in the breech mechanism. A mere change in the barrel of the Martini-Henry would have given them. A very small bore has been adopted; what are its disadvantages? In the first place, it necessitates a composite bullet. A lead bullet cannot be used. The composite bullet is exceedingly expensive to make, and the cost of ammunition will be greatly increased. I believe that the smallest bore in which it is possible to use a simple lead bullet is ·320, but I should not advise even so small a bore as this, believing ·360 or ·380 to be an amply sufficient reduction in bore for all military purposes. Secondly, there is a considerable loss of accuracy, the small, long, light bullet of the Lee-Enfield is very susceptible to loteral deviation from the influence of wind. I should like to know what any distinguished small-bore shot, were it Sir Henry Halford himself, would say if he were asked to use a ·303 in the competition for the Elcho Shield. And, thirdly, there is a great diminution of striking power. Allusion to this will be repeatedly found in the Report of the trial of rifles in 1888. I do not believe there is an owner of a deer forest in Scotland who would allow a friend to go out to shoot deer with a rifle of this exceedingly small bore. The greatest amount of striking power is obtained in the Express rifle, in which is used a lead bullet with, a hole in the top—a device, of course, impossible to adopt for a military arm—which expands in the animal struck, and prevents the bullet from passing through. The body of the rifle is an exceedingly delicate piece of mechanism, which, weighing in its rough forged state no less than 51b., is reduced after 192 processes to 1¼lb. Owing to the position of the magazine it is necessary to have a hole 3½ inches long through the middle of the rifle.
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  This most expensive portion of the rifle is a mere framework of unhardened iron, only ·10 inches on the under side and that cut away very much for the cutoff. Next, I come to a still more important portion—the bolt of the rifle itself, which I hold in my hand. It has the appearance of being an exceedingly solid and strong piece of mechanism, but I can assure the House it is nothing of the kind; it is a fraud, a snare, and a delusion. This delusion is assisted by the bolt-cover, which I now remove. See the small diameter of the bolt, which is moreover in two parts—the bolt-head and bolt proper, the latter bored out through all its length to contain main-spring and striker. The bolt-head is attached to the bolt by means of the small bolt-head screw, which only projects one-tenth of an inch into a slot cut in the neck of the bolt-head. The wear and tear of the swivelling round of the two parts of the bolt in opening and shutting the breech, and the whole strain of extracting, must be borne by this small surface of the bolt-head screw. From a Return issued this morning, however, it appears that the bolt-head screw has been abolished altogether. This is a very sudden change to have taken place. So late as December last an exhibition took place in the House of an improved pattern of the rifle known as Mark II., and assurances were given that the bolt-head screw was adequate, that all that it required was to be a little better tempered in order to make it perfectly satisfactory. Yet within six weeks the bolt-head screw is abolished altogether. This is not very re-assuring. It leads to the impression that if those who are responsible for this rifle can change their mind so quickly, there may be other flaws of which they may hereafter be convinced. With regard to this bolt-head itself, it appeared to be weak and unsuited to support the great strain which would be thrown on it. This, indeed, was shown from the result of trials that had already been made. A Report has been given us with regard to the trial of 350 rifles. It is contained in a Blue Book, of which a single copy is in the Library, although it has not been presented to the House itself.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,: I told the right hon. Gentle-

  1635
  man that if any Member will move for the Return it will be laid on the Table at once.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: In the Reports I find that out of 350 brand new rifles no fewer than 12 had their bolt-head fractured, and in 8 the bolt-head cover was fractured. Thus, in 20 cases out of 350, or more than 5 per cent., either the bolt-head or the bolt-head cover was fractured. These figures show that there is great weakness in this portion of the bolt. Attached to the bolt-head is the extractor. It is not a direct extractor, like the Martini-Henry and all our quick-firing guns have, but is a spring snap extractor; it does not precede the cartridge into the chamber, but is pushed past and over the rim of the cartridge, where it is already seated in the chamber. This is a system acknowledged to be wrong in principle. The spring is small and weak, cannot be easily cleaned, will become rusty and corroded by the gases of explosion and be certain to give way. With regard to the striker and mainspring, they ought to be so adjusted as to be easily accessible from the base of the bolt, and not require a special tool to remove them in case of accident. When the bolt is drawn back a very slight touch will screw round the end of the striker and cause the jamming of the gun itself. This defect has been strongly commented on by the Inspector of Musketry at Aldershot, who reports that of the 40 rifles tried nearly all of them were injured at the shoulder from this cause and adds "this should be rendered impossible." When the rifle is at full cock the cocking piece projects 1⅜ inches behind the bolt; a comparatively slight blow would bend the striker and throw the rifle out of gear. The arrangements for safety are most unsatisfactory. It is exceedingly difficult to place the rifle at half-cock, and when it stands at half-cock it is impossible to open it. Even in nimble and agile fingers it will be found difficult to let down the cocking piece to half-cock without its slipping from the hold. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War was good enough to lend me a rifle, which I tried and returned to him. Afterwards I wished to get one for myself and I managed to find one for sale in London.
  1636
  I went to the shop and was about to take it up, when the head man said, "Don't touch that rifle, Sir; it's very greasy. I will show it you." Having wiped it, he proceeded to seize the bolt to work it, but could not open it. He said, "I don't know what's the matter with it." I said, "Why, you have it at half-cock." Now, if an expert like this man, in the quiet of a London shop, finds a difficulty in working the rifle, would not a soldier in the excitement of action, or on a dark night, experience much greater difficulty? One more word with regard to half-cock. If the bolt, instead of being shut home, is only half closed, the soldier may think he has closed it, and he pulls at the trigger. The rifle does not go off, but falls very nearly to half-cock. He sees the bolt standing nearly straight and gives it a knock to knock it down. It does then fall to half-cock, and the rifle refuses to open. Well, these are little things that are very likely to happen on active service, and they are things which a soldier ought not to be subject to. Then I find very great fault indeed with the fact that there is not a proper safety bolt on the rifle. There ought to be a bolt which would fasten at any time, and which, when closed, would still permit the rifle to be opened or shut. To say that the half-cock is any safety at all is simply ridiculous. On the contrary, the present arrangement would, in action, be a source of great danger to the front rank man. Unless it is altered, I, myself, would certainly far sooner be in the rear than in the front rank. Let me now allude to the magazine. A great deal has been sacrificed to this magazine, and yet it is one of the most flimsy things a man ever held in his hand. It consists of a flimsy platform, a weak and flimsy spring and a flimsy case. The magazine is to be attached to the rifle, and is supposed to form a reserve of safety in moments of extreme danger. It is supposed never to be called into play unless what is called, in technical phrase, "the supreme moment" has arrived, but who is to decide as to the occurrence of the "supreme moment?" The soldier, I rather fancy, will think that moment has arrived whenever he is too lazy to put his hand into his pouch. The soldier, it is understood, is to be taught never to use the magazine except under special

  1637
  orders. He is always to be taught to use the method of single-loading. Suppose the "supreme moment" has arrived, and the soldier has received the order and is firing away excitedly, he will most assuredly be likely to fall into the routine of his ordinary drill, and load as a single loader, with his magazine cut-off open. The result with, this rifle will be that the cartridges will jam. I will give the House some official opinions on this magazine. From the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards we have this view—
  "The magazine spring often gets out of order, and cartridges jam, both in filling and loading from magazine."
  The Report from Her Majesty's ship Excellent says, with reference to the defects in the magazine—
  "Springs become weak after much work. Base of a cartridge liable to get under spring cover and cause delay in loading. Jams caused by two cartridges trying to get in chamber together, due to defect of spring cover."
  The Committee at Meerut says—
  "Magazine flimsy, and could be easily knocked out of shape."
  The Official Inspectors of Musketry at Hythe declares that the
  "Magazine was easily dented or otherwise injured. Difficult to clean if rusty or dirty inside—liable to be lost.
  With special reference to the said magazine they say—
  "No advantage can be discovered, and there are certainly many objections. Rapidity not greater than with single loader, when six or more cartridges have to be fired as well as magazine. When magazine fire is interrupted—that is, used in combination with loading from pouch—the rate of firing is very slow."
  They add—
  "We earnestly hope that even now the principle of detachable magazines may be reconsidered. We understand that the sole object in the introduction of a magazine rifle is to have for a certainty, on some critical moment in a battle, a supply of cartridges which can be fired with great rapidity. So important is this apparently considered, that rapidity in single loading is to some extent sacrificed for it. We are convinced that the machinery on which this effect, the ration d' être of a magazine arm, depends, should be a fixed integral part of the rifle, guarded jealously from injury or loss in its place, and effective at the required moment."
  Now, Sir, though I do not pretend to have exhausted the list of defects to be found in this weapon, I will not go more into the details of the rifle, but I would wish for one moment to refer to these Reports to the conditions under
  1638
  which they were made. 350 magazine rifles were sent out in the autumn of 1888, and 50 carbines, to be tried by various bodies of men. They were all at that time brand new. They were manufactured for the express purpose of being thus handed out for trial. We never have contended that this Committee, and the War Office, and the Enfield authorities were such utterly incapable people that they would turn out a rifle which would break down at the first touch. It would have been a thing beyond conception if these trial rifles had utterly broken down under such circumstances. I must complain of the way in which this Report has been, I might almost say, manipulated. Twenty-two questions were put to the various bodies to whom the rifles were issued. What is called a Summary of these Reports is given in page 144. In that Summary they do not deal with question by question, and give a Summary of the answers favourable or unfavourable to each. The 22 questions are compressed into 14. To show the method of compression, let me give an instance. The second question is as to the liability of clothing or equipment to be damaged by the rifle, and the third as to the liability of the arm, or any portion of it, to be damaged by the rough usage of the service. These are compressed into: "Is the rifle liable to become damaged or to injure the uniform or equipment?" I do think we had a right to expect that in the Summary of the Reports we should have been given a statement of the actual injuries suffered by the rifles, as reported by the various bodies to whom they were submitted. We have no such data. We are told the Reports were altogether practically satisfactory, and all mention of hostile criticism, except with regard to the ejector springs, is suppressed. It is curious to notice the different tone of the Reports received from the Army and from the Navy. There are two rather remarkable Reports from naval authorities with reference to the rifle. The officer commanding Her Majesty's ship Cambridge says he
  "Considers it a matter for the gravest consideration whether the naval rifle should be of so small a bore as ·303 in. He is of opinion the ·402 in. bore would be most suitable for naval service. He prefers 'block action' to the 'bolt.' He does not consider a magazine

  1639
  necessary for the Navy, it being unsuitable for ship work, and it would encourage waste of ammunition. Anew weapon not so much required as a superior training to develop to the utmost the powers of the one we possess."
  The Board of Officers of the Royal Marine Artillery who considered the matter, report—
  "The present system of magazine not sufficiently advantageous to counterbalance disadvantages of rifle. Board are of opinion that a combination of the magazine rifle barrel and the Martini-Henry block system would constitute a better rifle."
  Besides this, we have the Report from the officers and sergeant instructors at Hythe, and it does seem to me that if any body of men are worth listening to on such a matter it is they. I do not want to weary the House by reading their Report; I will merely read a Memorandum on that Report by General Sir Redvers Buller, which sums it up in a single sentence. He says—
  "There is not much in this, except a general condemnation of the rifle which has just been approved."
  I must say it seems to me very strong action to have lightly set aside so decided a Report from such a quarter. With regard to the Committee which was primarily responsible for the magazine rifle, no one Government can be held accountable for it. It was appointed as far back as April, 1883, and continued at work until 1888; and it consisted of three soldiers, General Philip Smith, Colonel Slade, and Colonel Tongue, one naval officer, Captain Jackson, Sir Henry Halford, a distinguished smallbore shot, and a late much lamented Member of the House of Commons, Mr. Guy Dawnay, a dear friend of my own and many other hon. Members. I do not want to criticise the individual members of the Committee. I do not think it was as good a Committee as might have been got together; but, admitting that the Committee was a satisfactory one for the purpose of deciding between the merits of different guns submitted for approval, I say it was a Committee utterly unfit to invent a gun on its own account; and that was what it turned its attention to. Between 1883 and 1885, though no public advertisement was given asking for rifles to be submitted, and no public trials instituted, no fewer than 31 different kinds of rifles were submitted, and by November, 1885, it was found
  1640
  that only two rifles had survived the trials. These were the Lee rifle and the Owen-Jones rifle. Between November, 1885, and September, 1886, the Committee appear to have held no meetings—a fact which is not easily explicable—but in September, 1886, the Lee rifle was finally adopted. The breech mechanism of the present rifle, however, has been evolved since the date of the adoption of the Lee rifle; and, indeed, little of the Lee principle is now left beside the fact that there is a detachable magazine placed in front of the trigger-guard, necessitating the use of a bolt system of breech action. Between September, 1886, and the period of the issue of 350 rifles for report, the Committee was at work building up a rifle. The members of the Committee were not mechanics, but they had the run of the Enfield yards, and the assistance of the Assistant-Superintendent, Mr. Speed. Mr. Speed took out various patents connected with the processes of manufacture of various parts of the rifle. I asked for a Return as to the amount of royalty paid in respect of these patents. I was told that no royalty had yet been paid, and that no decision had yet been come to as to what reward should be given. This may be the case with regard to the Government factory, but it is difficult to understand how the various private factories engaged in the production of the rifle can have avoided paying something for the patents. The House has a right to know what has been the cost of the experiments, and how much money the Small Arms Committee has expended in arriving at those particular points on which Mr. Speed has taken out patents. The result is, at any rate, that an exceedingly expensive rifle is being manufactured. The War Office put the cost of the weapon during the past year at £5 5s. a rifle, and the Financial Secretary told us the other day that the estimate taken out for next year was £4: a rifle, congratulating the House on the cheapness of the weapon. But the estimate for next year is a very different thing from the cost which may be actually incurred for these rifles. The French Lebel rifle costs 40f.; the Mauser rifle is now offered for sale for 80f.; the Mannlicher rifle is sold for 75f.; while for the British magazine rifle I have myself paid eight guineas in the open

  1641
  market. The Return just given to the House shows the necessity of the great cost of this rifle. The old Martini-Henry cost about two guineas, and had 61 component parts, as against 98 in the magazine rifle. In the manufacture of the Martini-Henry rifle there were 991 processes; in that of the magazine rifle there are 1,611. The number of workmen required to produce 1,000 rifles in 54 hours is for the Martini-Henry 751, and for the magazine rifle 1,310; therefore, the number of hours worked in the production of 1,000 Martini-Henry rifles is 40,554, and of 1,000 magazine rifles 70,740. I quite agree with the Secretary for War that it is quite impossible for the House to properly discuss the details of the new rifle; but when it is found that the rifle has been passed by a Committee who themselves invented it, when it is found that the cost of that weapon is double that of the old English one, and greatly exceeds that of all those recently adopted by foreign countries, and when it is found there is a vast body of military, naval, and non-professional opinion hostile to, or severely critical of, the mechanical principles on which it depends, surely it is time for the House to insist that a body of expert mechanics should examine it, to see whether it is constructed on sound mechanical principles. All I ask the House to do is to take proper precautions with regard to this rifle. After the Report of the Commission presided over by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale, it is impossible for the House to accept with blind confidence everything that is done by the War Office. Any right hon. Gentleman who possesses racehorses knows that a horse may be exceedingly good looking and exceedingly fast, and yet have some weak point. Such a horse may pass through all its preparations and trials satisfactorily, and yet break down when the supreme moment comes, owing, to a great extent, to the very trials which it has previously undergone. If the Secretary for War were buying a horse, he would not take the views of the breeder and the owner of the horse as final. He would probably call in an expert to find whether the horse was really sound. On the same principle, I now ask the House of
  1642
  Commons to refer the new rifle to a small body of mechanical experts outside the influence of the War Office, so as to enable the House to form an accurate judgment on this very difficult matter. I beg to move the Resolution standing in my name.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the merits of the magazine rifle, and all the circumstances attending its adoption."—(Mr. Marjoribanks.)
  MR. HANBURY: Whatever opinion we may have as to the reference suggested by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I think we must all congratulate him on the utter absence of all Party spirit from the tone of his speech. Surely, if there is one subject more than another on which upon both sides of the House there ought to be no Party animus, nor any charge of Party disloyalty, it is one like this, which is purely a matter of administration connected with the defence of the country. I do not pretend to follow the right hon. Gentleman into all the details, technical and mechanical, into which he has gone in regard to the new magazine rifle. On them I am not capable of forming an opinion, and I do not suppose there are many of us here who are capable of forming an opinion; but at the same time there are facts in connection with the introduction of this new rifle on which we are capable of forming an opinion. It is admitted that the Committee of experts—some persons say experts, and some say amateurs—but at any rate the Committee who had the selection of the new rifle, instead of being the judges of a number of rifles submitted to them, and having the opportunity of picking out the best and most effective weapon, constituted themselves rifle inventors, and became interested in pushing this particular rifle from first to last. At any rate, it is beyond doubt that at the Enfield Factory itself there were official patentees of this rifle, and when I state that one of the factory officials, Mr. Speed, out of 13 patents connected with this rifle, holds no less than 10 in his own name, I think the House will agree with me in saying that once for all we ought to put an end to this system of official patentees, because it is utterly unfair to the inventors who come before

  1643
  the heads of the Government establishments, where they get their brains picked by the officials, and have their ideas appropriated. Whether they get royalties I do not know, but I think that is a point on which we ought to have a distinct statement from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War. I will go one step further, and say that if there is one body in England which ought to be able to express an expert and qualified opinion on the new rifle it is those who are at the head of the School of Musketry at Hythe. Well, what happened? The School of Musketry at Hythe passed a severe condemnation on this rifle. Colonel Tongue, who was the head of the School at Hythe, was one of those who were put upon the Committee of Choice, and a more inappropriate man you could not possibly have had on such a Committee; because, as the head of the School of Musketry, he was one of those to whom appeal would be made as to the merits of the rifle in the last resort, and therefore he ought to have had no direct interest in pushing forward that particular weapon. The heads of the School at Hythe ought to be a body capable of giving a free and unbiassed opinion on such a subject. But what has been the case? Colonel Slade, who was one of the most energetic members of the Committee, is now the head of the School of Musketry at Hythe. That, I think, is not the way in which the Government ought to have proceeded. So far, I am in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman opposite; but when he comes to the remedy, I am obliged to differ from him. What I say is this,—either the War Office is right at the present moment or it is not. If it be right, the proposed remedy of the right hon. Gentleman would prove dilatory and mischievous, and would postpone the introduction of the new rifle for a considerable time, and we have already been nearly ten years considering what new rifle we should have. Moreover, if the War Office is right, the less we interfere with the Government establishments the better, and therefore the Royal Commission which is proposed would be an unnecessary evil. But, on the other hand, if the War Office is wrong, then I say the remedy would prove wholly inadequate. If, with all its money, all the talent it has at its command, and all the time it
  1644
  has at its' disposal—it being now nearly eight years since the Committee began to sit on this subject—if, under these circumstances, the War Office cannot perform one of its most ordinary duties in regard to the supply of arms for the service of the country, I think we shall require something of a much more stringent and drastic character than a mere inquiry into the way in which it has dealt with the introduction of this particular arm. If it be the case that the War Office has been so thoroughly inefficient, as has been pointed out, then I say it wants overhauling from top to bottom, and not a mere inquiry such as is now suggested. The right hon. Gentleman says that this is exactly what Lord Hartington's Commission recommended; but are we right in trusting to Royal Commissions? We have already had so many of them sitting at the War Office that the War Office ought to be at the present moment one of the most perfect bodies under Heaven. On the question of the introduction of new arms and new materials of war into the Service, you had only two or three years ago a Royal Commission, which was presided over by Mr. Justice Stephen, and on which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Horsham Division of Sussex (Sir W. Barttelot) sat. That Committee went fully into the question as to how the War Office should undertake the supply of arms to the Service; and what was the result? The way in which this Committee of experts, or amateurs, has recommended this rifle has been at the bottom of the whole mischief, and what has been done in regard to it has been done in the face of the recommendations contained in the Report of the Committee over which Mr. Justice Stephen presided. What did Mr. Justice Stephen say on the subject? He said—
  "These Committees have no continuity; they involve no official responsibility; they are often unfitted to the work; they sit only when it suits their convenience; they are liable to be dissolved at any moment, or to be re-constituted or superseded at a moment's notice; and their proceedings are often dilatory, confused, and unsatisfactory to the last degree."
  And this is the very Committee on the recommendation of which we have been asked to adopt this new rifle. It is quite clear that Royal Commissions will not do the work for us, because the War

  1645
  Office does not carry out their recommendations. What we want is something more potent—something that will speak with a stronger voice than a Royal Commission. The only body that can speak with that strong and potent voice is the public; and, although the War Office does not mind these Reports of Committees and Commissions, it may be influenced by the voice of public opinion. No doubt the Government does not object to the appointment of a Commission to deal with matters of this kind, because they know that when the people see that a Royal Commission has been appointed they say, "Ah, now it will be all right. A Royal Commission has been appointed, and it will inquire into the whole facts, and take care of our interests." In this way public opinion is deadened, the subject is dropped, and nothing more is heard of the matter, at any rate, unless some catastrophe or accident should happen, or some great mischief result. When this is the case the War Office is then able to turn round upon its Royal Commission, and say—"That Commission was appointed to take all the responsibility off our hands, and therefore you must not blame us in the matter." That, Sir, is one reason why I do not want a Royal Commission. What I say is, that the proper thing for us to do is to lay the full burden of responsibility on the War Office, to see that that Department does its work, and to punish those who do not perform their duties in a proper manner. But it is said if you have a Royal Commission you will get a great deal of information out of it. I think there is already a great deal of information on this subject, even down to the most minute technical details. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War has been in receipt of the most valuable Reports, and he has also before him the extremely valuable letters which have appeared in the Times—letters which, I believe, will be found to be of considerable service. [Mr. E. STANHOPE shook his head.] Well, we shall see how that is by-and-by. At any rate, we can, after all, ensure the whole of the information we require without any Royal Commission at all, and it ought to be laid before this House as soon as possible. It lies with the War Office to furnish the information. Let us also see what has been done in regard to
  1646
  this matter elsewhere. We should like to know what the Indian Government has to say on the question of this rifle. We ought to have the opinion of that Government as an independent authority, because I think it would be a valuable thing for us to know what it has to say on the subject. I find that the Victorian Government, as is stated in the Melbourne Argus, gave an order for 5,000 of these rifles, and that all of a sudden that order was countermanded. We should like to see the correspondence between the War Office and these two Governments on this subject. But if we are in want of information, surely we can get it by word of mouth from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State in this House quite as well as by means of a Royal Commission. If the information is to be got in an official way we shall not get it any the better from a Royal Commission than from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War. I know that it is frequently said, on behalf of the Government, that papers which are asked for are confidential. But we want to get hold of the papers in this case, and to know what the Colonial Authorities and the Indian Government have to say in regard to these things. We shall, however, never get full information on these subjects until the House and the country are treated with a little less reserve on the part of the Government Authorities. These are matters on which the public has the right to full information, and we have pretty good evidence, as given before Mr. Justice Stephen's Commission, that the public does not get full information. The late Adjutant General Lord Wolseley stated that
  "One of the most serious complaints that can be brought against the system of the administration of the Army, and the system of Government as it bears on the Army, is that we do not tell the truth to the English people."
  If we could only get more explicit answers to some of the questions that are put in this House, the country would be better informed as to how the service is to be supplied with proper and efficient arms. It is the system of secrecy that is adopted in regard to these matters which is doing the Government more harm than almost anything else; it is from this that its difficulties mainly arise. If the War Office would only

  1647
  take the country into its confidence, we should hear a good deal more about this rifle than we know at present; and, for my part, I think that after all a good deal may be said on the side of the new weapon. We have not heard what are the tests that have been applied to it by the Colonial and the Indian Governments, nor have we been informed as to what they have to say on the subject. I do, however, happen to know that this rifle was submitted to a very severe test by the Roumanian Government, who had it tried in competition with a certain number of other rifles of a similar character, and that the result was that the magazine rifle, which, has been adopted by Her Majesty's Government, came out first. That being so, it is, as far as it goes, a justification for the selection of this rifle; and, at the same time, it is obvious that rival inventors would be only too keen in endeavouring to get the Government to put aside the rifle they have adopted in favour of their own particular weapons. There can be little doubt that a good deal of the opposition to the new rifle does come from these rival inventors. As a matter of fact, much the same opposition was raised against the Martini-Henry rifle, and it was fully two years or more after the first issue of that rifle that it was perfected. If the Government would only take the public into its confidence, it may be that there is much to be said for this rifle. I think it is the duty of the Government to do so. It is important, in the interests of the nation, that the soldier should not get into his head that he is armed with an inefficient weapon. Once get that into his head, and he will never like his weapon. This is what strikes me: either the War Office in this case is the most reckless and headstrong Department that ever existed, or it has got thorough confidence in its rifle, because it is going on with the manufacture of it, as the right hon. Gentleman said, "With a rapidity unexampled in the history of this country." In the face of Hythe, of the FitzJames Stephen Commission, and of the Indian and Colonial evidence, they are proceeding with the manufacture of this rifle at a rate unexampled in the history of this country. It is perfectly incredible that the War Office, if it has any suspicion of its own rifle,
  1648
  should go on with its manufacture at the pace it does. For these reasons I object to the Royal Commission suggested by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. We must have one of two things: If the War Office refuses inquiry into this rifle, and takes the entire responsibility on its own shoulders, then we ought to know exactly who it is we are trusting. What is the real and main object of my Amendment? If we are not going to have an inquiry by an outside body, then we must press home the responsibility of the War Office to the utmost extent.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Hear, hear!
  MR. HANBURY: My right hon. Friend says "Hear, hear!" to that. My right hon. Friend objects to anonymous criticism of this War Office rifle. I, on my part, object to the anonymous responsibility for this rifle. It is not the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible. That would be wanting in reason. It is utterly impossible that responsibility of this sort should be thrown purely on the Secretary of State for War. We all know what would happen. If the worst come to the worst, we should have a five-line Whip sent out on Government authority, and his sole responsibility would vanish. It is impossible that any one man, civilian or military, can be responsible for all the details of the War Office. And the right hon. Gentleman has very wisely and betimes guarded himself against any possibility of being made responsible for this rifle. I saw the other day what I thought was a very sensible letter on the subject, in which the writer says that whether the rifle is or is not a suitable weapon for the British Army, it is not a matter upon which any weight would, or ought to, attach to the Secretary of State's opinion. If that is the case, then we cannot hold him responsible. Again, Mr. Justice Stephen's opinion is worth nothing, and he was the head of the Commission which considered the subject; nor is the Small Arms Committee responsible. The extract from the Report says—"We cannot be held responsible in any sense." Then I want to know who is responsible? The right hon. Gentleman referred us to Sir Redvers Buller, but that officer says—"I know nothing about rifles; I do not profess to be any authority."

  1649
  That would appear to suggest that you cannot hold him responsible. Going a step further, the right hon. Gentleman referred us to the large body—he does not tell us who they were—which passed judgment upon this rifle. He says that the reports of the trials being satisfactory a meeting was held at which were present the Duke of Cambridge, Mr. Stanhope, General Wolseley, Sir Redvers Buller, Major General Alderson, Sir Frederick Abel, Mr. Anderson, Mr. J. Rigby, and others. Well, that is a very lax responsibility—"and others." I want to know every one who was there. Sir Redvers Buller has generally disclaimed responsibility.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BRODRICK,: He is incorrectly reported. The only statement made is that contained in an anonymous letter in the Times this morning.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg pardon; I read the speech of Sir Redvers Buller, I think both in the Times and in the Broad Arrow. I have seen no contradiction of it. I understand he is to be held responsible. Then is everybody in this large body to be held responsible? That is really the gist of the whole question. I should say that the man who is to be held responsible is the Director of Artillery—General Alderson. He is an expert, at the head of this particular Department. My sole object in introducing the Amendment is to get a statement from the Secretary of State as to who, if anything goes wrong, is going to be dismissed from his position, who deprived of his pension, who punished for providing the British Army with a thoroughly bad weapon. We cannot have responsibility of a general character put upon the War Office; there have been too many breaks-down in that Department lately. The country has a right to demand from the right hon. Gentleman information as to who is responsible. If, as I firmly believe, to a certain extent this rifle is a good one, we want to know who will have the credit of it; and if it is a bad one, then who is the man who should be punished for handing a bad weapon to the British troops? I have introduced my Amendment with the object of ascertaining exactly where the responsibility lies. I beg to move
  1650
  the Amendment of which I have given notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "It is undesirable, by the appointment of a Royal Commission inquiring into a detail of military administration, to weaken the full responsibility of the officials, specially charged with that duty, for the recommendation and adoption of the new magazine rifle,"—(Mr. Hanbury,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MAJOR RASCH: I beg to second the Amendment.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Sir, when the hon. Member for Preston speaks on military administration I very often support his views, and I agree with much, not all, that he has said on this occasion. This question is a very peculiar one, and it is one, beside the importance of which the question of responsibility of particular officers or bodies sinks into insignificance. The national existence depends upon whether the rifle with which our troops are armed is good or bad. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick has enlightened the House by a most interesting speech, and he has given us most valuable information. On this question the right hon. Gentleman is a specialist. His performances with the rifle rival Locksley's, in Ivanhoe with the long bow. I myself have seen the right hon. Gentleman make 19 bull's-eyes out of 20. [Cheers.] The House has a right to cheer, for the occasion to which I refer was when the right hon. Gentleman was the champion of this House against the Representatives of another place. The right hon. Gentleman pulled various pieces of the rifle out of different pockets in the course of his instructive and interesting observations; and at one time I thought he had put on a poacher's coat, and that he was going to pull out the stock and barrel, which he could well have done, as the magazine rifle has a divided stock. The right hon. Gentleman divided his subject into four heads, and I will deal with them, though not from the mechanical point of view. I have gone through a special course at Enfield

  1651
  with respect to the rifle, so that I know something of the subject. I think the right hon. Gentleman made a mistake in going into too many details. But he has raised an important question, namely, the reduction of the bore. In Europe, up to five or six years ago, every country except, perhaps, Switzerland had a bore of 44 hundredths. That was the average over Europe. Some five years ago the French made a regular revolution in small arms by reducing the bore from 44 hundredths to 30 hundredths. They have the whole honour and glory of that movement, though the Swiss had shown the way to a certain extent. The reduction from 44 hundredths to 30 hundredths appears at first sight considerable. But that is quite insignificant. You must go by the cube of this ratio of 3 to 2, and I say that the change if measured by the cube increases the effectiveness of the rifle enormously. The reduction of the bore to which the right hon. Gentleman objects has enabled the authorities to reap tremendous advantages. In the first place, the trajectory is flattened. If a bullet from a Martini just grazed the head of a man at 1,000 yards' range it would fall 28 yards beyond him, while a bullet from the new rifle would fall 52 yards beyond him. When you come to using the rifle in action it may be taken that the difference in the execution done by the two rifles will be in proportion to those figures, or about five to three. Then the recoil is reduced. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire is an accomplished marksman and does not shirk the kick, but the ordinary soldier looks upon the Martini very much as he looks on a kicking horse—he is afraid of it, and under such circumstances you cannot expect him to aim correctly. But the right hon. Gentleman has said that the kick of the new rifle compared with the Martini is as 7 to 45, which means that the kick of the new rifle will have practically no effect on the shoulder. That will make it possible to train a soldier much more quickly, besides enabling him to fire a great number of rounds without the bruising of the shoulder which results from firing 45 to 50 rounds with the Martini. The right hon. Gentleman said the bore should not be reduced beyond the point at which a leaden bullet could be used. That view was discussed in
  1652
  the Times this morning, but the writers did not condescend to give figures. The right hon. Gentleman gives ·320 as a bore which would stand a leaden bullet. That is very little larger than the present bore, which is ·303, and I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman can prove that his figure is correct. I know that experiments have been made at Enfield, from which it would appear that ·400 is the smallest bore suited to a leaden bullet. I do not believe any force armed with ·450 bore rifles could stand against troops armed with rifles of ·303 bore, the advantages of which are so enormous. They would be out-shot at the long ranges, and also would not be able to carry so many cartridges. Every one wanted to reduce the bore. It was known that if that were done there must be a longer bullet, and, to prevent it turning, greater speed would have to be-imparted to it, and then there was the danger that the rifle would get foul through powder lodging in the grooves. Therefore, it was decided to have a nickel or copper or iron and zinc covering instead of a pure leaden bullet. It was objected to by some military men that such a bullet would stick in the rifle, but there is really no practical difficulty with the bullet sheath, which only sticks when the rifle-barrel is perfectly clean. If an oiled rag is passed down the barrel, or if the soldier breathes down it, the sheath will not stick, even on the first shot afterwards the sheath never sticks. There need be no difficulty except that arising from utter and supreme carelessness. I do not think the "striking power" is of much consequence. That argument was used against the Minié rifle, as compared with the Brown Bess. I think men of ordinary courage will be stopped by one of the small bullets, but if not, then the magazine will enable the soldier to put in two or three bullets. Even if the small bullet will not stop a horse, as a general rule the rider will stop it if there is a shower of bullets. The second great difference between the old rifle and the new is the change from the falling block to the bolt system of breech action. The bolt system is, I think, much the simpler. There is nothing rash in that change, for the bolt action has been, thoroughly tried all over Europe

  1653
  for 25 years. I believe the United States are the only people who follow us, and they have, I believe, not a falling but a rising block breech action. A falling block is probably incompatible with a magazine, for if the falling block is used the cartridges must be pushed in with the finger, while the bolt action pushes them in itself in the act of closing the breech. I repeat that in making this change we have done nothing rash; indeed we have taken a wise and prudent step, as the bolt system has been tried in any number of campaigns with every success. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has done the Government justice in not giving them credit for this change. As to the details of the breech action, I think them of secondary importance. I generally find when anything goes wrong with the breech mechanism of a fowling-piece that it is because the gunmaker has been trying to sail round somebody's patent. That can hardly be the case here, for the Government have annexed everybody's patents. The points of detail with which the right hon. Gentleman has found fault are chiefly questions of manufacture. The extractor is a well-known one, and there has only been one doubtful case of failure. At Woolwich only one bolt-head has been injured in the rifles used for proving ammunition, and that is a very small proportion after 20,000 rounds from that particular rifle. The right hon. Gentleman said that the extractor is weak, and that it is short; but in such mechanism the shorter a thing is the better, because it is less likely to bend, and this extractor always goes on pulling out the cartridges. The right hon. Gentleman also objected to the strikers and to the main spring. As a matter of fact, Hythe lately tried 100 new main springs; only one broke, and the rifle fired well with the broken one; but I think that we may now rely on the main springs, which are similar to those which have been tried on the Continent in great wars, while that in the new rifle has less pressure on it than was the case in the Continental rifles. I do not see how the extractor spring can break. Several have been tried during the last few weeks. Out of five in the hands of troops one broke; but, on the other hand, out of five which snapped 2,000
  1654
  rounds none broke, and similar success attended five which snapped 40,000 rounds. With regard to sand, the rifle has been, tried in Egypt, and after being buried 24 hours in the sand all has gone well. I therefore think that it may be assumed that the rifle will stand sand. I believe that now soldiers are in favour of the rifle. Of course, there have been some small faults, such, for instance, as in the screw which has joined the bolt head to the bolt, but there is no fault now in that respect. We cannot expect to change from a large to a small bore and from a falling block system to a bolt system without some mistakes being made, especially when the rifle is being manufactured at a great rate. I will now pass from the details of the bolt to what has been called an essential feature of the rifle, namely, the magazine. The right hon. Gentleman did not object to a magazine very much, I suppose, because he considers that a magazine is, on the whole, a useful addition to a rifle. Nearly every country has a magazine rifle except Russia, which has a rifle which takes six or seven cartridges on the top of the barrel in a quick loader. But the right hon. Gentleman objects to this magazine on the ground that it ought to be fixed, and he also finds fault with the magazine spring. I am informed on the best authority that out of 100 which have been in daily use by soldiers for six weeks not one has failed or showed any sign of rust. I think that is a very fair test. Again, these magazines are not of very great importance; they can be rapidly changed. In the United States Navy they keep us in countenance in this matter, for they use a detachable magazine on the Lee system. It is easier to take out the magazine and put in another than to fill a fixed magazine with cartridges, and the magazine now in use cannot really drop out. In action fresh magazines can be brought up and supplied to the troops, and therefore I consider that a detachable magazine is a very valuable feature, and far surpasses any fixed one. I do not think that there is any fear of the cartridges not coming out of the magazine separately; of course, if a man tries to put a cartridge into the barrel without cutting off the magazine there will be two cartridges at once, but even then nothing will

  1655
  happen to put the rifle out of order. Of course, a great deal must necessarily be speculation. Hon. Members would like to know how these weapons would answer in warfare, but we cannot get up a first-class war in order to try a rifle. I believe that in 1885, in the war between the French and the Chinese, the Lee rifle proved an excellent weapon. Some 36,000 of these weapons were sent out, together with 36,000,000 rounds of cartridges, to the Chinese, and the defeat of the French at Loo Shoon is generally attributed to the Lee rifle, although the French had the Kroapetsky fixed magazine rifle. We only differ from all the other nations with regard to the magazine rifle in one important point, and that is in reference to the detachable magazine. On every other broad point we agree with every other country in the world. As to the smaller points referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, I have no doubt they may be very usefully considered, and I think the Secretary for War ought to have them carefully inquired into. But they are only points of detail, and I believe that up to the present the rifle has been very successful.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I shall have to ask for the indulgence of the House for the large number of details which it will be necessary for me to refer to in the course of my remarks, but I ask for it upon no other grounds. I have been attacked outside the House very bitterly; but, for my part, I should be very sorry to answer my critics in the same spirit in which they have attacked me. The object of every one in the House is, I am quite sure, to arrive at the truth, and, therefore, I appeal with the utmost confidence to this much fairer tribunal to deal with the matter in a spirit of absolute fairness. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) has asked us to show less reserve. I am not conscious myself of having shown any reserve. All the Reports which have been asked for have been laid on the Table of the House, and they could have been printed if it had been desired. Certainly, so far as I am concerned, I have no desire to keep back anything. I desire in every respect to take the House into our confidence, because I believe that the more we take the House into our confidence the more
  1656
  certainly shall we be supported in the steps we have taken. I think the House will be of opinion that, while I must go into many details, without unnecessarily wearying it with them, it is my duty, first of all, to dwell upon some points of principle that have been raised. The tight hon. Gentleman opposite, about the tone or substance of whose speech I make no complaint at all, has asked for an inquiry by a Royal Commission. Well, I confess I should be exceedingly glad to take it upon myself to give an inquiry, if I saw my way to do so, that would relieve the War Office of some responsibility. We have got, we believe, a good rifle, and in our opinion the more inquiry we have the better that rifle will come out. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston has moved an Amendment to the effect that the House ought not to take away any of the responsibility from the War Office, which has chosen and issued the new rifle, by the appointment of any Commission of Inquiry or by any outside inquiry at all. I entirely agree with the proposition of my hon. Friend. The position is this—we have chosen and issued a new rifle. We fully accept the responsibility for what we have done, and I think it would be very unwise, and hardly in accordance with the practice of the House of Commons, were they to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to take away responsibility from those to whom it rightly belongs, and confer it upon some body constituted we do not know how. Therefore, if we come to a Division—and I hope we may not be required to do so—I shall certainly be prepared to vote for the Amendment of my hon. Friend. Now, Sir, let me ask this question: What is the nature of the responsibility for this rifle? Who, in short, is to choose a new rifle which is to be put into the hands of the troops? On this question I believe I shall receive the universal assent of the House to the proposition I lay down. In the first place, it is not the Secretary of State upon whom devolves primarily the responsibility for the choice of a new rifle. A good deal has been argued out of doors on this question. But if I had overridden the opinion of all the authorities, and had given the troops on my own responsibility a rifle of my own choosing, I should like to know what would not have been said, and justly said, against

  1657
  me. The House will remember perfectly well, how Sir FitzJames Stephen's Commission censured the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh for doing what he says, and I believe rightly says, he did not do—namely, for making some alteration in the detail of a rifle in contradiction to the view of the Military Authorities. We all remember perfectly well that a few years ago one of the greatest complaints made by soldiers at that time was that they had too little control over the weapons put into the hands of the Army. I certainly thought a good deal of that complaint was well founded. Now no such complaint can be made. Now the primary responsibility for the weapons of the Army rests with the Army. Then my hon. Friend very naturally says that he wants responsibility a little more particularised than that. Well, Sir, the primary responsibility for recommending a new weapon rests with the Director of Artillery. He is the man who has to recommend the new weapon to his official chief. That weapon having been proposed, it comes naturally after a time before the Secretary of State for approval. If he approves that rifle and issues it to the Army, he must then assume responsibility to the House of Commons for the weapon and for its manufacture. I accept that responsibility. I do not shrink from it in the least degree. That responsibility properly rests on me, and I hops the House of Commons will not deprive me of that responsibility, because I am confident—at any rate, so far as I am concerned, I have undertaken it in a serious spirit—that I have done my utmost to acquaint myself with every detail connected with this rifle, and I am prepared, not only in consequence of recommendations made to me by my military advisers, but also in consequence of the very careful examination I have given to the subject, entirely to endorse their opinion, and to accept that responsibility.
  MR. HANBURY: Leaving the Director of Artillery responsible to the Secretary of State?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Certainly. Now, Sir, let me state first of all the argument I propose to address to the House. I hope to be able to argue that this rifle has been chosen with the greatest care,
  1658
  and after full deliberation, that it is undoubtedly the best rifle that could have been chosen at the time it was chosen, and that at the present time it is a thoroughly good rifle for its purpose, if not absolutely the best rifle that could at this moment be chosen. How was this rifle chosen? A Committee was appointed in 1883. That Committee sat during two or three years, and was re-appointed, with one or two changes, in 1886, and examined every rifle that was submitted to them by any inventor who was willing to produce a rifle and submit it to the Committee. I do not think there was any rifle mentioned up to the last year or two that was not fully considered by the Committee, and on which they did not express a complete and absolute opinion. I was not the Secretary of State who appointed that Committee, even in its original or in its later form. What I did was this: I found the Committee ready constituted, and I thought it possible they might require the assistance of a manufacturer of rifles—an expert in that sense, who would advise them on questions of detail; and, therefore, about a year before this particular rifle was adopted for use in the Service, I appointed Mr. Rigby, a Dublin gunmaker and a man of great experience—the best man upon whom I could lay my hand— to assist the Committee in their choice of a rifle. As I am not responsible for that Committee, I think the House will allow me to say what I think about it. I believe, Sir, there could not have been, on the whole, a better Committee chosen. The points which had to come under the survey of the Committee were various, and, in my opinion, it would have been impossible to constitute a Committee for that purpose that would have satisfied everybody. There were upon this Committee three distinguished officers who had given special attention to this subject—General Philip Smith, Colonel Slade, now the head of the Musketry School at Hythe, and Colonel Tongue, at that time the head of the School at Hythe—and my dear and lamented friend Guy Dawnay, who thoroughly understood what was required in a sporting rifle, and had given great attention to military rifles. He gave up all his time and some of his holidays for the work that was being carried on by the

  1659
  Committee. Then there was Captain Meryon of the Royal Navy, who brought before the Committee the requirements of that branch of the Service, and whose valuable services every member of the Committee would, I am sure, readily acknowledge. That being so, the Committee, having examined every rifle that came before it, presented its Report in 1888. The result of that Report was that 350 rifles were manufactured and issued for trial in various directions. Some were sent to India, some to Egypt, some to Canada. Extensive trials were made, and it was some time before the Reports came in. I should like the House to consider what our position then was. We were being pressed on every hand. Everyone will remember what took place at that time, and how we were being pressed on all hands. Pressure was put on me in the House of Commons, and I was asked to explain why the War Office were not ready to produce a magazine rifle. The Press were unanimous in saying that if foreign countries had a magazine rifle, they wanted to know why we should not have one, too. Among these journals was one to which I should like to refer specially, as it has taken a very prominent part recently on this subject—I mean the Times newspaper. Everyone will remember the character of the criticism which the Times has lately been passing on what we have done. They have said that the rifle has been hastily chosen, that no magazine rifle is needed at all, that the rifle chosen is a bad rifle, and they also say, without any disguise, that they desire to advocate another rifle designed by Major Godsal. Let me quote a passage from an article in the Times, of September 4th, 1888, the whole of which is well worth reading—
  "How necessary it is that no undue or avoidable delay should occur in the issue of repeating rifles to the British Army is proved by the almost universal adoption by Continental Powers of such a weapon."
  And then, after referring to the difficulty about ammunition, it goes on—
  "In other respects the Committee have reason to congratulate themselves and the Army, for they have devised a weapon which, take it all round, is probably superior to any other rifle yet adopted. … It may be hoped that the authorities will lay to heart the following sentence from Colonel Slade's Report:—'Perfection and finality are unattainable in military weapons, and, as the question has been so
  1660
  thoroughly threshed out and considered from every point of view, any further delay in issuing the new arm is very much to be deprecated."
  With that extract I leave the criticism of the Times. I come back to the position of the Small Arms Committee. Can it be said by anyone that the trials of the new rifle were inadequate? The trials were carried out in every climate and under every contingency, as the following statement fully showed:—
  "The trials were of the most exhaustive nature, both by the Committee and by the troops. Thousands of rounds were fired rapidly to test the action and the barrel, until in some cases the sights ware melted off. The rifles were left loaded on the grass in the winter for 14 days and nights and then fired successfully; they were dropped heavily scores of times on the stones, dropped from a height, sunk in the water, exposed to a sandblast, and passed successfully through the severe test of firing cartridges purposely made defective—a test which proved fatal to nearly every rifle that was submitted for trial to the Committee; in fact, the Committee utterly failed in their efforts to break down the rifle."
  The Reports received of the trials in various parts of the world were so favourable as regards the suitability of the new arm as a military weapon that all doubts, if any existed, were removed. Accordingly, the famous meeting of November 1, 1888, was held in my room at the War Office. We had before us all the Reports upon this rifle, and every member of the Committee and every person concerned unanimously expressed the opinion that the manufacture of the new rifle may be safely proceeded with. And the manufacture has accordingly been proceeded with. Various changes were no doubt made—changes which increased the strength, the stability, and the simplicity of the new rifle—and it was issued last year for trial by the Army at large. Exception is taken to my having placed this rifle, which is a more complicated weapon than the Martini-Henry, in the hands of recruits. But I did so purposely, because to do so would, I thought, afford the best test— because if it passed such a test it would be all the more satisfactory, and because in the hands of recruits faults might perhaps be discovered which, when so discovered, might be remedied. The weapon was tried by an enormous number of persons in all parts of the country, especially at Aldershot, and the result of all the Reports has been that not one of my advisers has been shaken in his

  1661
  opinion of this weapon. No doubt the trials showed certain defects on some particular points which could be remedied, but they confirmed the opinion that the weapon was a good one, which could be made thoroughly satisfactory. I received only this morning a letter from a gentleman whose name I cannot give, as I have not had time to communicate with him and obtain his permission, but who, I may say, is one of the best shots in England connected with the Volunteer Service. He puts the case very well. He says—
  "The difficulty of the position is this—that neither ordinary M.P.'s, nor newspaper writers, nor the public can be in any sense judges. The questions are of two kinds—mechanical and military. There are few men in the country who combine knowledge of these two sides of the subject sufficiently to be fair critics. The ammunition troubles have been unfortunate. When they are solved I have every confidence that we shall possess a rifle second to none in the world as a military arm."
  I may also refer to the opinion of the Director General of Ordnance Factories, who is not himself interested in this rifle, it having been approved by his predecessor. Mr. Anderson tells us he is satisfied it is "a thoroughly good arm, and one that will give complete satisfaction to the Army." Then we are told it must be a very bad rifle because we have introduced what is called "Mark II;" that is to say, because we think that there are sufficient good improvements suggested to justify us in issuing a new mark rifle. I think we should be foolish if we did not avail ourselves of experience gained in many parts of the world-foolish if we did not take advantage of most valuable suggestions in respect to the magazine rifle. This is the reason why we are trying "Mark II." It holds more cartridges, and is more easily loaded. On the whole, we think that when we have thoroughly tested it this will be the best rifle we can supply to our troops. But we have not therefore withdrawn our confidence from "Mark I." That will be used during the coming year, and I have the strongest belief that the trials of "Mark I" will command the confidence of the country. It is said the rifle is a complicated one, but so are all magazine rifles. The German rifle, to which some reference has been made, is much more complicated than any single shooter, and
  1662
  so is the French rifle, but if you eliminate the parts connected with the magazine from the other parts, you will find then that the rifle has very little more complication than the Martini-Henry even at the present time. Let me come to some of the objections urged to this rifle. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Marjoribanks) has urged certain objections in detail, which I am sure the House has heard with great respect. He has had the advantage of using the rifle we were perfectly ready to lend him for personal experiment, but we asked him to communicate to us the results of the trials he made. Unfortunately he did not make his Report until after the criticisms in the Times appeared, but there are passages in his Report which I should like to read to the House. The right hon. Gentleman says—
  "I have tried the rifle, and made good practice on both occasions. I was especially struck with the even results obtained as to elevation, which was well maintained, even when the rifle was hot and dirty. My experience of 110 rounds is there was no stripping of bullets, and no single wild shot, while the mechanism worked well."
  Therefore, so far as that Report is concerned, we have no reason to be dissatisfied. Now, I come to some of the objections in detail. Objection has been taken with regard to the small bore, and in regard to the bolt, and on that subject I have not a single word to add to the admirable remarks of the hon. Gentleman who spoke last. He spoke with an authority on the subject to which I cannot pretend; but I should like to add that if it be said by the right hon. Gentleman on the one side that the small bore is objectionable, and that the bolt system is not so good as the drop-block system, then, on the other side, we have uniform European experience and the universal adoption of small bore and of the bolt action. We arrived at the same conclusion afterwards, but we arrived at it by independent experiments and experience, and I do not think we can be very far wrong when we arrive at the same conclusion as European authorities, but by independent experiments. There is one point upon which, as the hon. Member has fairly stated, we differ from European nations, and that is in the mode of using the magazine rifle, and I do not think this point is too technical for me to attempt to explain. In the case of

  1663
  foreign nations the magazine is always in use,—that is to say, the soldier is always firing from the magazine, and when he has to re-load he has to put in a clip containing five cartridges, and cannot use his rifle as a single shooter. Now, in the action of our magazine rifles, the weapon is, until the supreme moment, used as a single shooter, and would be so used on ordinary occasions, but the moment the officers commanding may decide the time has come to bring the magazine into action, then the soldier will know that he has in his rifle 11 cartridges ready for use. With the foreign magazine rifle the soldier will not be certain when the crisis arises how many cartridges he may have in his magazine, and if they suddenly come to an end he must re-load his magazine. With our rifle a soldier knows he has 11 shots to account for the enemy, and we believe, if, as undoubtedly is the case, the morale of the soldier is largely affected by the weapon he uses, we think we have taken the best means of giving the soldier confidence in his rifle. I now touch on some of the minor defects. I may say that, undoubtedly, a good many of the mainsprings have failed. That is a defect of manufacture, and arises from the difficulty of making a large number of springs of exactly the same quality as the one turned out for pattern. The hon. Member for Galway has already pointed out that the tests applied show that more recent mainsprings are thoroughly satisfactory. It is believed we have got over the difficulty, and when anybody says that the rifles would have been put out of action by the failure of the mainsprings, I should like to say the failures were only discovered by the minute examination to which we subjected the rifles. The rifles issued last year were not left unexamined in the hands of the troops, in order that if no defects were discovered they might be considered serviceable; they were carefully examined by the inspection department, in order that the minutest defect might be discovered. Although a considerable number of the mainsprings broke at one end or the other, as a matter of fact very few of the rifles would have been put out of action. In any case, the substitution of one spring for another is an easy matter, and I am quite sure
  1664
  the matter does not operate to the disadvantage of the rifle as a useful weapon. Then there is the sight for the rifle, and this presented the greatest difference of opinion. The Committee were not all desirous of having the "Lewes" sight, but it was thought by some to be an improvement. Opinion has been divided; but, on the whole, the opinion of practical men is against the Lewes, and we accept that decision, and we shall issue the new rifle with the old form of sight. As to the bolts, some screws had undoubtedly given way under the severe trials to which they had been subjected, but I need not detain the House longer than to say we believe we have completely overcome that difficulty by substituting in the rifle of new manufacture a perfectly simple substitute for the screw where this gave way, and if "Mark II." is manufactured on a large scale, the screw will be done away with. Then, as to the magazine spring giving way on some occasions, that is a still smaller matter, easy to be remedied, and we are remedying it now. There is the extractor spring, and all I can say is our experience does not agree with what the right hon. Gentleman says. The Reports from the Army are entirely in the opposite direction—that the extractor spring does its work perfectly well. The more we try this, the more we find that the extractor does its work well, and hardly ever needs repair. Then there is an objection I will allude to, though we have not heard it urged to-day. It is said the rifle is not easy to clean or repair. But that is not our experience. When I was at Aldershot I asked one of the armourer sergeants a question on this point, he having thousands of rifles passing through his hands. He reported that the rifle is no more difficult to clean or keep in repair than any other rifle which he had in his hands. He says—
  "There is no more difficulty in cleaning this rifle than in cleaning any other rifle I have ever had."
  Now, Sir, I come to larger questions. Our difficulty with regard to these rifles has been the same as the difficulty experienced in foreign countries. First of all there is the jealousy of rival inventors; and, secondly, the defects in the ammunition. I do not hesitate to say that if our ammunition at first had been

  1665
  as good as it ought to have been, we should not have had three-fourths of the complaints that we have heard. I fully admit that the ammunition originally issued was not as good as it should have been. But I am also fairly entitled to remind the House that we have always told the House with the utmost frankness that we were not satisfied with the ammunition in its present form. There is no doubt that in our case, as in the case of foreign countries, the experimental stage as regards powder the bullets is not over altogether. But I am glad to tell the House that, so far as the compressed black powder is concerned, the ammunition we are now manufacturing is giving highly satisfactory results. We have heard of the "stripping" of bullets, but as we supply the new ammunition we do not hear this complaint repeated. We find the ammunition giving thoroughly uniform results, and are therefore under no apprehension as to the ammunition we are now able to manufacture for the rifle. But our task is not done until we are able to give ammunition charged not with compressed black powder, but also with the new smokeless powder. I am glad also to say that our experience, so far, with the new smokeless powder, which we call "cordite," has been satisfactory. Until we have received additional Reports from foreign climates, such as India and Canada and other places, we shall not be able to speak with absolute positiveness as to the keeping qualities of the powder, but it is exempt from, some of the causes of deterioration which undoubtedly exist in the case of most foreign smokeless powders. Our powder, which we shall be able to produce on a large scale in April, has given special satisfaction in the new 12-pounder gun, and in weapons of a larger calibre. Its application to the rifle has been throughout much more difficult, but for the opposite reason to that generally alleged, because the new smokeless powder gives less, instead of greater, pressure than the black powder. But we are satisfied with the experiments, and have every reason to believe that before long ammunition charged with the new smokeless powder will be issued to the troops for trial. Now I come to the question of the cost of the rifle. Of course, all magazine
  1666
  rifles must be more costly than single shooting rifles, especially in the first stage of their manufacture. Our method of calculating the cost of rifles is, that we include a sum sufficient to pay off within a small number of years the whole of the expense of the machinery we have set up for producing the rifles. This is not usually the case abroad, nor was it when the Martini-Henry was produced. The Martini-Henry was first produced on a large scale for £3 18s. 4d. In 1888–89 it cost £2 2s. 10d. The magazine rifle when first produced on a large scale at Enfield cost £5 5s.; during the current year ending on March 31st I believe the cost will turn out to be about £4.
  MR. HANBURY: Does it include any royalty?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I will come to that point presently. The trade price for the rifle has been no doubt heavy, but it must be remembered that we include in our calculation the whole of the cost of the machinery laid down for the purpose of manufacturing the rifle, and in order to provide for that cost, and for a reasonable margin of profit to the trade, we allow about 15 per cent. in addition to the cost of the rifle at Enfield. But this is only to be allowed in case of the first 100,000 rifles, afterwards the matter is to be the subject of consideration. I have seen it stated by Sir Charles Dilke that the cost of the French Lebel rifle was only 20f., and the right hon. Gentleman to-night has told us that the cost is 40f. Neither of these statements, however, approximate to facts. I happened to-day to be able to get information from a source which I know to be reliable, that for the French rifles produced on a much larger scale than we are manufacturing, the average manufacturing price of 3,000,000 rifles is 52f., but in this estimate no account is taken of the cost of laying down machinery. If you take that into consideration you must add 13f. to the cost of the weapon. On the other hand, the price does include the cost of the bayonet, which is 8f. or 9f. If you deduct that, you arrive at a cost for the rifle of about 57f. But it is always difficult to make a fair comparison between the cost of a rifle in this country and the cost of a rifle abroad. The main cost of a rifle is due to the labour expended upon it, and everybody

  1667
  knows that labour in France and Germany is very much cheaper than it is here. Therefore, you will see that a magazine rifle can be made abroad at a smaller cost than in this country. Rifles similar to some of our sporting guns are sold at Liége at half the price charged for those guns in this country. Whether they are as good and reliable I will leave sportsmen to say. I have been asked about the cost of ammunition, and the right hon. Member opposite said that the cost of the ammunition for the magazine rifle will be double the cost of the ammunition for the Martini-Henry. As a matter of fact, the price per 1,000, in the case of the magazine rifles to be manufactured in the coming year, will be £6 5s., while the contract price of the Martini-Henry ammunition has been £5 15s. The comparison must be made with the solid drawn case for the Martini-Henry, not with the rolled case, which is only used for practice, not for service, and which once fired cannot be loaded a second time. For the past two years the contractor's price for the Martini-Henry ammunition has been £5 15s., so that the cost for the new ammunition is far from being double. Undoubtedly the new ammunition is a little more expensive, but I am confident that when it comes to be produced on a large scale, and we have had a little more experience, the price will be found to be but little greater, if it is not actually less, than the cost of the Martini-Henry ammunition. The right hon. Gentleman has also called attention to the fact that patents have been taken out by Mr. Speed, who is in Government employment, in respect to the inventions made by him in connection with the magazine rifle. It may therefore be well if I explain shortly to the House the law with regard to this matter, and the position of men employed in the Government service. The matter was fully considered by the House in 1883, and at that time, although the War Office urged strong objections to that course, it was decided that patents should have effect against the Crown, and a provision to that effect was inserted in the Patents Act for 1883, with the addition that the Government might use any invention on terms to be fixed by the Treasury. In the same year a series of conferences began between the Admiralty, the War Office,
  1668
  the Board of Trade, and the General Post Office, to consider the effect of this Act upon the Government service, and it was decided to allow Crown servants to patent because, in consequence of the Act of 1883, they would have a very strong inducement to patent, and, if not allowed, would patent indirectly, or would leave the service, and also because it was desirable to encourage inventions, but not by promotion in the service. Regulations were accordingly settled by the Law Officers of the day and made public. Under these regulations Mr. Speed and others have been allowed to take out several patents connected with the magazine rifle. Mr. Speed has not received from the Government any remuneration or royalty in respect of his inventions, some of which have no doubt been adopted, though all may not be the subject of valid patents. Any remuneration which may be paid to Mr. Speed will be assessed in accordance with the regulations, which lay down that regard is to be had
  "To any facilities in working out and perfecting the inventions or improvements which the inventor may have enjoyed by reason of his official position."
  Certainly, so far as I can judge, and without admitting the validity of any patent, more than one of his inventions is of great value to the public service, and it is impossible to say that any mischief has resulted from the encouragement which has been given to him and to others to suggest improvements. But I will frankly admit to the House that my experience generally in this matter leads me to doubt whether the deliberate policy of 1883 was a wise one. There are, of course, special difficulties attending the opposite course; and, upon the whole, I incline to the opinion that the best system would be to allow the patent to be taken out, but to require it to be assigned to the Government. This was the plan adopted in the case of the new smokeless powder, when Sir F. Abel and Professor Dewar patented their invention, and immediately assigned the patent to me. I have accordingly asked the other Departments of State interested in this matter to agree to a renewal of the Conferences of 1883, with the view of considering whether any alterations should be made in the regulations in the interest of the Public Service.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: How about the royalties?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Mr. Speed gets no royalties from the Government, either at Enfield or at Birmingham. If hon. Members wish to ask further questions I shall be glad, with the permission of the House, to answer them; but I believe that I have now dealt, so far as can be in this House, with all the points that have been raised. Two of the previous speakers have referred in strong terms to what they call the system of Army administration, and they have urged that certain changes are requisite which were recommended by the Commission presided over by Lord Hartington. I have nothing to add to what I said to the House on that subject beyond this—that anyone who reads the Report of Lord Hartington's Commission will see that, whereas now the responsibility for choosing new weapons for the Army rests primarily with the Director of Artillery, so with the system recommended by Lord Hartington's Commission, the primary responsibility rests precisely in the same quarter. I think I have touched on the question of responsibility in a manner that can leave no doubt in the minds of hon. Members. We have not the least hope of satisfying rival inventors. We expected a good deal of outside criticism. If anyone will take the trouble to read the volume of Hansard which records the Debate on the Martini-Henry rifle, he will find that every single objection which is made against this weapon was made against the Martini-Henry. We were told that the Snider was the best weapon in the world, and that there was no confidence to be placed in the Committee that tested the Martini-Henry. We were told also that every portion of the rifle was patched up and made to look its best, whereas it was very bad. We were told that it was going to be an excessively costly weapon; but we have lived through those fearful predictions, and I believe that we shall live through the fearful predictions that are now made about this weapon. I have never pretended that this rifle is a perfect weapon. No magazine rifle in existence is a perfect weapon, and I do not think that any rifle is a perfect weapon. All that we can do is to make the improvements in it that experience suggests, in spite of the unfair conclusions
  1670
  which are being drawn every day from the fact of altering even the smallest detail of the rifle originally proposed; and we are confident, even as it is, that we are putting into the hands of the troops a weapon which has been most carefully selected, which has been most exhaustively tried, and which time will prove to be thoroughly suited to all the wants and requirements of the service.
  MAJOR RASCH: I will not detain the House for more than a moment or two, but I should like to say why I seconded the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Hanbury). The right hon. Gentleman opposite seems to be of opinion that to the Secretary of State for War responsibility in the matter of the momentous changes which have been made should be brought home, and if not to him to somebody else. The right hon. Gentleman did not seem to think so no the 15th November, when he wrote to the Times, stating that no weight could be attached to the opinions of the Secretary of State, and even now I fail to understand whether the responsibility is to rest on the shoulders of General Alderson or on those of the Secretary for War. If the strictures of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire are correct, it is in his judgment necessary that the responsibility should be brought home to some one, because the public will ask that the blame shall be laid at somebody's door for the rifle which has been brought out. It is very difficult for me to attempt to criticise the extremely technical though interesting speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan). The hon. and gallant Member is well known and respected in the Army as the inventor of the range finder, but as the Financial Secretary to the War Office, in an answer to a question of mine the other day, stated that 2,000 magazine rifles will be issued weekly, I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman will give the House a little more information on one or two rather important points. It is stated, and I believe correctly, that owing to the weakness in the breech-block there is a certain tendency to jam. We had enough of that sort of thing in the Soudan in connection with the machine guns. Then the extractor is said by those who have had experience

  1671
  of the new arm at Aldershot to be weak and inefficient, and in order to bring it into play it is necessary to use force. I admit that the reduction in the bore and in the weight of the bullet is in favour of the new rifle. The Secretary for War states—and, of course, I am compelled to accept his statement—that the reduction in the bore does not increase the tendency to strip. I am told that it does do so, and that it makes the bullet leave the muzzle of the rifle a shapeless mass, so that it is impossible to have good shooting. As to the sight, I am told that no allowance has been made for windage, and this in a rifle sighted for 3,000 yards. I should like to know whether it is the fact that the Government of Victoria have, after inspecting the rifle, refused it, and that the Government of India have also refused it; and whether Papers will be laid on the Table having reference to an order by the Indian Government for 70,000 of these rifles. The Secretary for War alluded to the Report of September 5, and to the inability of the Committee to break down the rifle after repeated trials, but if the right hon. Gentleman will go down to Aldershot he will find that Tommy Atkins has broken it down very completely with his unaided ingenuity, and that something like 40 per cent. of the weapons in the hands of the troops have been sent back to the Sparkbrook factory, at Birmingham, for repairs. Yet the Report stated that the rifle was practically perfect. Sir Redvers Buller also said in November last year that the rifle was a good one, and on that statement the Secretary for War said that practically it was the best of rifles. In December Sir Redvers Buller admitted that, after all, he did not know much about it, so that I think the Committee have, to some extent, stultified themselves. What is wanted for rough work in the field is simplicity, strength, and cheapness; and I do not think that this new rifle combines those qualities. The shooting with it has been unsatisfactory, and the mechanism has been perpetually breaking down. I do not wish to trouble the House any further, and I should not have ventured to make these observations had I not noticed in the Times of this morning a statement to the effect that military Members always address the House on such subjects as
  1672
  increase of pay, but that when anything comes to the front concerning the efficiency of the Army they usually hold their tongues.
  MR. SETON KARR: As the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War has invited questions, I should like to know, in the first place, how many shots he has had fired out of one rifle? I put the question, because the method of manufacturing the bullet adopted in connection with this rifle is an entirely new one, a distinct innovation on all previous methods. The bullet consists of a metal cover, encasing a leaden core. I should like to know the result on the rifling of shooting 2,000 or 3,000 rounds out of this magazine rifle, because I believe that the shield covering the bullet is liable to be stripped off—as a result, the bullet leaving the muzzle of the gun in a shapeless mass. But there is another danger. Supposing the shield should stop in the rifle, I believe that an inevitable result would be that the rifle would burst. If the rifling is not hard enough to pare off the shield of the bullet it will get worn out in something like 1,000 rounds. These considerations make me most anxious to know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had a sufficient test made of the rifle. To my mind, the only good test would be to have some of the rifles fired 5,000 or 6,000 times. We cannot place too much importance upon this point. Then, as to the trajectory, I think the hon. Member for Galway has attached too much importance to the new rifle in this respect, and I venture to doubt the accuracy of the hon. Member's figures, having taken some interest in this matter for 18 years, and being somewhat conversant with the trajectory of firearms, especially of sporting rifles. Although the question is of more importance in modern rifles as compared with the obsolete weapon of many years ago, at any rate it is not of such importance as the hon. and gallant Member would have the House believe. It seems to me of great importance if the flatness of the trajectory is to do away with the elevated sight. In the case of the Army rifle, we cannot do away with the elevated sight, although we can in the case of sporting rifles, which are only intended to carry 200 yards. In the case of the

  1673
  sporting rifle, the trajectory is very flat, consequently the elevated sight is not required, the trajectory dropping in the case of the "Express" rifle from 10 to 12 inches. However, I do not attach so much importance to this as to the stripping of the bullet and the wearing out of the rifle. But there is one other question to which I wish to ask the attention of the Secretary for War. I desire to know what arrangements are being made for giving a variety in the length of the stock of the new rifle. We have heard a great deal about the necessity of Tommy Atkins having confidence in the weapon which is placed in his hands, and I should like to point out that nothing more disturbs the confidence of the soldier than the kicking of his rifle. It disturbs his shooting, and makes young troops almost afraid to shoot. It seems to me that one of the best ways to get over the difficulty will be, to get rid of the present improper fitting of the stock. It does not matter how short, or how tall, how thin, or how stout the soldier is, all have served out to them the same rifle; at any rate, so far as I have been able to learn there are only two sizes, and we should have at least three sizes. Soldiers are simply useless if they do not have a good rifle. I came into the House to-day with the intention of supporting the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire, but, after having listened to the speech of the Secretary for War, I do not intend to do that. I do trust, however, that the Secretary for War will reply to these and other questions put to him, and will take care to have every test applied to this rifle that any human being can suggest.
  SIR W. BARTTELOT: I desire to say a few words on this which seems to me one of the most important questions which can be brought before the House. I may say I am very glad the Motion has been brought forward in so moderate a manner as to show that the question is not in any sense one of Party. What we all desire, and the point to which we should all direct our attention, is to secure that the rifle used by our troops shall be the best that can possibly be procured. My right hon. Friend, in his most able and exhaustive statement, has shown us that the various parts of this rifle are of
  1674
  the best quality that can be obtained, and that the appliances are the most useful that can be given to the soldier. I would ask him, if this magazine rifle is so excellent in every way as he states, why not put it to a practical test? In the spring of the present year an expedition of 7,000 or 8,000 men will be marching in India, and part of this force might be armed with the new rifle, so that it can be seen how it answers in the field. It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, that there were many complaints when the Martini-Henry rifle was adopted, but the result was that there were no fewer than six classes of the rifle issued, and not one of them, except the first, was at all like the original pattern. When things of this kind occur we are driven to the conclusion that there must be some mistake in the way rifles are chosen a pattern sealed, and which pattern has to be repeatedly improved at very great cost. Looking at the fact that you now have the same sort of Committee that you had when the Martini-Henry was adopted—I am not saying or going to say one word against any member of that Committee, only against the system on which that Committee works, the Committee not being a Judicial Committee, as I think it should be, but a Constructive Committee as well—I would ask why, when the Committee had chosen the Lee rifle, the Secretary of State did not insist that any alterations which were necessary should be made by the inventor himself? Absolute power is given to the Committee, and they, with Enfield at their backs, spend as much as they please in experiments, and the country has to pay for all their failures. I have always thought that the sooner Enfield is abolished the better will it be for the taxpayers. It is too close to London. There is as good a factory as can be desired in Birmingham, where coal and iron can be obtained much cheaper than at Enfield, and where, when it is necessary to discharge men, they can at once find employment. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Director General of Artillery is solely responsible for the rifle. What, then, of the Committee who manipulates the rifle? Are they re-

  1675
  sponsible, or are they not? If they are not, they should not have charge of the experiments. I should like to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say on this point, as I think it is a very serious one. I do not disguise my opinion on the matter—I never have done so. It is in the Report of the Commission, of which Sir James FitzJames Stephen was Chairman, that we ought to have an Ordnance Department; and I hold that until we have such a Department we shall never feel secure that we have the best arm in the world. Take care that you do not have amongst your warlike stores arms of different patterns for the Army and the Navy, so that when an emergency arises you do not find yourselves in a dangerous position. It is all-important, as to this arm, that we should have one authority dealing with it, and that an authority responsible to the House. To turn to another point, we have at last copied the bolt-action from foreign nations. English gunmakers are the best in the world; and surely the right hon. Gentleman will not say that if the Government had applied to them for the invention of a block action to suit the magazine rifle instead of a bolt action the required action could not have been obtained. We have also, in my humble judgment, reduced too far the rim of the bore. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway says that the bullets will not strip if a piece of dirty oiled rag is drawn down the barrel of the rifle after the first shot. But how can the soldier go through this process in face of the enemy?
  COLONEL NOLAN: I said a piece of dirty rag might be used, or the soldier might produce the same effect by breathing down the barrel.
  SIR W. BARTTELOT: The first thing the soldier thinks of is the enemy. He concentrates his attention upon the enemy, and has no time to think of a piece of dirty rag. When an examination of the rifle was accorded the other day, I saw the process of cleaning with the apparatus carried in the stock of the weapon. Though this apparatus was easily taken out, I was assured by the officer in charge that a considerable time was required for restoring it; and I am certain that under these conditions nine soldiers out of ten would lose the cleaning apparatus.
  1676
  We want the most simple rifle that can be found for the class of soldiers we have at the present day. Look at the men of the Reserve and the recruits, and just see the condition they are in with regard to rifle instruction, and especially with regard to this new magazine rifle. Look at the regiments at home, even those in the First Army Corps, and see how you have to send out your best men when they are wanted for service in India or in the Colonies. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War says it is the best rifle that can be produced. I hope it may be so, but when I looked at the rifle for the first time I thought it one of the most complicated machines I had ever seen. I found that it contained no less than 24 screws, and that in all those screws the threads were different, so that if the-rifle wanted to be repaired abroad it would be almost impossible to do it, inasmuch as the screws are not interchangeable. There is another point on which I wish to say a word: I have spoken of the breach action of this-weapon. I do not like that action; I believe it to be constructed on a mistaken principle because of its want of strength. But all this has been so clearly shown by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that I will not go further into it. But in regard to the ammunition we are not at all certain about it. It is cased either in nickel, iron, or steel, and the twist in the barrel is increased to give the elongated bullet the necessary impetus. The result is that the bullet is stripped, and damage is likely to arise to the rifling of the barrel. These are serious difficulties with a new rifle. I should have thought you would have taken care not only to have perfect ammunition, but also perfect powder; but I am told that, notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and of course I accept his word, the black powder used is not all that can be desired. It may be good enough at home, but we may have to use the rifle in all parts of the world, and we ought to have no doubt about the quality of the powder to be employed. With regard to the question of responsibility, we ought certainly to know absolutely on whom the responsibility rests. The hon. Member for Preston has talked of wanting to hang somebody for the mistakes that are

  1677
  made. My right hon. Friend the Secretary for War has told us that when he orders the issue of the rifles he will be responsible to this House. No doubt that is so, but you cannot make him responsible for the rifle itself. The Director General of Artillery is said to be the man who is absolutely responsible; but I ask the House, could we do anything with that officer supposing this rifle were to fail? I am sorry my right hon. Friend opposite has asked for a Royal Commission, because I do not think a Royal Commission the right thing. I should have preferred a Committee of this House, not to take away responsibility from the Secretary for War, but to examine thoroughly into the whole question, and report as soon as possible in order to allay the feeling existing in the country upon this matter. That feeling, as my hon. Friend knows, does exist, and may be communicated to our soldiers themselves. A more disastrous thing than that could hardly be imagined. I hope my right hon. Friend will intimate his intention to propose such a Committee, so that it may report upon this rifle, and say whether we have the best rifle or not. If it is not, we should stop its manufacture; but if it is the best, its issue could be continued, and we should feel that we had done our best to allay the feeling which exists outside this House.
  CAPTAIN BOWLES: I merely wish to say a very few words in answer to the remarks of the last speaker in regard to the Enfield Factory. The matter is one on which we ought to consider proofs rather than individual opinions. We know that rifles have been manufactured at Enfield, the cost and workmanship of which compare favourably with those manufactured at Birmingham; and with regard to the setting up of manufactories at Birmingham and other large towns, I think we ought to rejoice at seeing the Government factory set up at a place like Enfield, where the artizans can enjoy healthy exercise and country air. I think that the question as to whether this rifle is a good one, or the best that can be made, is one that ought to be left to military experts. I think the case is one in which individual opinions are of very little importance, because we do
  1678
  not know the circumstances under which they were arrived at. These individuals may have tried the rifle, but we do not know the particular tests applied, and, for my part, I would rather have the opinion of a Committee properly appointed—such as a War Office Committee—to decide which is the best weapon, than the opinion of any person either at Aldershot or elsewhere who may not have had proper opportunity of putting the rifle to the test. As regards the trials which are made at Enfield, I believe there is no neighbourhood better suited for this purpose. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to uphold the verdict of the Small Arms Committee.
  MR. E. LEES: I think the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War has successfully proved every part of the case he undertook to prove. He has shown that the Department took every possible care to ascertain which was the best rifle, that the whole subject was thoroughly considered and examined, that the Times newspaper has been most inconsistent in the way in which it has attacked him, and that in the rifle which is now served out the Army has got, at any rate, a very serviceable weapon. But he did not undertake to prove, nor did he prove, that the rifle under discussion was the best rifle of its kind now in existence, which, after all, is the point on which both the public and the Army will feel most interested, although it has been proved that it was the best in existence at the time, the Committee sat to decide as to what rifle should be adopted. Since that time, not withstanding that the right hon. Gentleman has sneered at rival inventions, the rifle produced by Major Godsal has been found to be superior to the rifle now being issued by the Government. I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether we have gone too far with the present rifle to permit of the issue of a superior weapon, if it can be shown that there is such a weapon available, as a substitute. I do not wish to insinuate that the right hon. Gentleman has not fully proved that the Committee took every possible care to see that the rifle they recommended was the best then put before them; but if it be the fact that the Godsal rifle is the

  1679
  better weapon, I should be glad if he will tell us whether it is now too late to prevent the further issue of the new rifle.
  COLONEL BLUNDELL: I think it is clear that, whether we have now the best rifle or not, its manufacture should be proceeded with as rapidly as possible, because it is absolutely necessary that the country should be armed with magazine rifles. What we want from the Secretary for War is an assurance that if hereafter it is found that this new rifle is not a satisfactory arm he shall not allow the prejudices of any officers to prevent our Forces from obtaining a better rifle, no matter what amount of sacrifice the renewal of machinery for that purpose would entail. I desire to add one word as to the bayonet. The bayonet attached to the new rifle is a very short one, making the rifle and bayonet 10 inches or a foot shorter than the German and French weapons. In single combat this shortness is said not to be a disadvantage, but were two ranks of men opposed I think it would be a great disadvantage.
  CAPTAIN BETHELL: I should like to say a few words on the question of responsibility. The hon. Member for Preston referred pointedly to the responsibility of some person outside this House. I do not think he is either right or just in making this suggestion, because no one can have responsibility but the Secretary for War; it is he who has to approve the weapon which is issued; and whatever either the hon. Member for Preston or others may say, you may depend upon it that the House of Commons would not stop a man's pension for any mistake that may have been made in recommending a particular rifle. In point of fact, there can be no outside responsibility beyond that of the Secretary for War. I think the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in contending that the primary responsibility rests with General Alderson or with anybody else outside this House. The ultimate responsibility rests, as I have said, with the Secretary for War, and it cannot be taken away from him except by Statute. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway has spoken of two important points—first, the diminution of the bore, which means accuracy of fire; and, secondly, the question of the magazine. For my part, I am extremely
  1680
  grateful to the hon. Member for Preston for the clear manner in which he has put his case before the House, and I think that, after his speech and that of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, the House will feel better satisfied with the new weapon than before this discussion commenced.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Sir, I can only say a few words, by permission of the House, in reply to the questions that have been pointedly addressed to me, and which I will endeavour to answer as briefly as possible. I have been asked how many shots have been fired out of a single rifle at the trial of the weapon. On this point I am able to reply that at one trial 16,000 shots were fired out of one rifle, and it was thought that was a sufficient test of the weapon, and that it was not necessary to test its endurance any further. My attention has also been called to the length of the stock. That undoubtedly is a point of great importance, and I should not like to express any opinion with regard to it without consulting my advisers. I have been asked whether any orders for the magazine rifle have been given by the Indian Government. I am glad to say that orders have been received from that Government for magazine rifles for the purpose of arming our troops in that country. A certain number have been supplied to the Indian Government, and next year there will be a very large further supply of the weapons sent over. As far as I know, the tests of the rifle that have been conducted in India have been uniformly successful, and the Government have accordingly continued to manufacture the new weapon. I fully admit that there have been difficulties with regard to the supply of ammunition for the new weapon in India, because, if we are going to use smokeless powder, it is important to know whether such powder is suitable for India; but Her Majesty's Government do know that they can provide ammunition that is perfectly suitable for that country, and until the adoption of smokeless powder is definitely decided upon, black powder ammunition will be issued for use in India. With regard to the stripping of bullets, the Department believe that they have entirely overcome that difficulty, although in the ammunition that was first issued the powder

  1681
  was not suitable for the bullet. I am glad to say that, as far as I know, in the new ammunition the difficulty has been overcome, and in the new ammunition no stripping of the bullet need be feared with the black powder and the improved bullet that are now used. I have been asked to give the House an assurance that we have now got the best rifle. Of course, a time must come, in making experiments with these weapons, when something like finality must be admitted, and we must accept the best rifle that can be produced at some period or another and proceed with the manufacture of it. I believe that we have got the best rifle that can be made now; but it is quite possible that three, or four, or five years hence some improvement may be devised which will leave this rifle behind in the race. I am, at all events, sure that we have the best rifle that exists for the time being. Of course, if at any future time great improvements are made in rifles, and their power is so enormously increased that it becomes necessary to introduce a new one with which to arm our Army, the whole subject will have to be gone into again. As to the bayonet, I believe that the new one is a suitable and a most satisfactory one, the Reports from the different districts being generally in favour of it. It is true that it is shorter than the old one, but every country that has adopted the magazine rifle is using a shorter bayonet. I hope that the new bayonet which has been adopted will prove a very handy weapon, and that it will not be found at all too short. The hon. and gallant Member for Sussex has made the only really hostile speech in the course of the Debate with regard to the new rifle; but I must remind the House that the hon. and gallant Gentleman made a similar speech with regard to the Martini-Henry rifle, and I think that his present speech with regard to the new rifle will be attended with similar results to those he then experienced. The hon. and gallant Member asked me whether the expedition that is about to take place in India will not afford a good opportunity of testing the magazine rifle; but the fact is, that there is no ·303 ammunition in India at the present moment. Some rifles have been issued for use in that country. Moreover, as our troops in
  1682
  India have not yet been trained and instructed in the use of the new weapon, it is quite impossible that the rifle could be issued for the purpose of an expedition that is to start next month. The hon. and gallant Gentleman made the extraordinary suggestion that the best mode of trying whether or not the rifle is a good one is to appoint a Committee of this House to examine and to decide upon it. I do not know whether hon. Members are inclined to accept such a responsibility; but even if they are so inclined, I very much doubt whether the country would consider that a Committee of this House is a proper body to decide such a question. Very few men in this House are competent to pronounce an opinion as to whether this rifle is suitable or not for the Army, although, doubtless, the hon. and gallant Member himself is one of the few who are. But, however that may be, I do not think that the decision of a Committee of this House on the question would be likely to increase the confidence of the Army or of the country in the fitness of the weapon, but, on the contrary, would be likely to decrease that confidence.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: I mean, Sir, to say a very few words in reply to one or two points raised by various speakers. The hon. Member for Preston made rather a point of the fact that this rifle has been found very successful in certain tests in Roumania, and he also inferred that the rifle had been adopted by the Roumanian Government. I have here a letter from the wife of a Minister of War in Roumania, who writes and says that her husband assures her that magazine rifle ·303 will not be adopted, and I believe has not been adopted as a matter of fact. Switzerland, too, has certainly put the magazine rifle aside, and the weapon was shown to a distinguished Russian War Office official, who instantly opened the breech, twisted aside the cocking piece, and said, "We know all about that; you do not suppose we are going to adopt such a weapon as that?" My hon. Friend the Member for Galway took some exception to the remarks I made with regard to the bore of the rifle, and he expressed doubt as to using a lead bullet in a bore so small as ·320 in. I said that ·320 in. was the smallest bore in

  1683
  which you could use a lead bullet but I did not recommend it. My own idea is that it would be much better to have a bore of ·360 in. or ·380 in. With regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, I think it was coloured by official optimism. The right hon. Gentleman was obliged to assume the responsibility of the rifle, and naturally held it was the best possible arm. I am not surprised that he should have adopted that line of argument. I do not believe that that is the case, and that opinion I think is shared by many people outside the walls of this House. The right hon. Gentleman, in quoting the letter of a distinguished rifle shot, said the rifle was very good, if only the right ammunition was obtained; but, Sir, that is a very big "if." Having adopted this very small bore, it is exceedingly difficult to get good ammunition. You have an expensive composite bullet admittedly imperfect, and far from having got smokeless powder, you have been compelled to fall back on a compressed pellet of black powder, which is smoky, dirty, and foul. I think it was hardly fair on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to insinuate that the letter which I wrote to the Financial Secretary on the rifle lent me by the War Office was founded on what appeared in the Times. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that my criticisms, such as they were, proceeded from my own, perhaps not too fertile, brain. He did me the honour to quote a single sentence of that letter, which suited his own purpose, but gave an utterly false idea of its general tenor. I endeavoured to say all the good I could of the rifle; I did not wish at all to take a partial or distorted view. I found that it shot very well, only that I thought the bullet was much affected by the wind. I believe that has been the experience of every one who has fired the rifle. My criticisms on its mechanism were similar to those I have now made in the House. It is perfectly true that the Martini-Henry was years ago objected to in this House on grounds in many respects like those brought forward about the new rifle to-night; especially was that the case with regard to the extractor, which was shown to work on wrong mechanical principles,
  1684
  depending on the short arm of the lever instead of the long one. The scientists on that occasion were sneered at, but in a short time they had their revenge, and full effect was given to their views by a reconstruction of the extractor. I must put the House to the trouble of a Division, because I wish to put on record that some, at any rate, do not agree that this rifle is the best possible of all rifles. I wish to put on record a protest against the decision of the Government in not allowing inquiry as to whether its breech action and various parts are founded on sound mechanical principles.
  (8.0.) The House divided:—Ayes 74; Noes 108.—(Div. List, No. 33.)
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, "That it is undesirable, by the appointment of a Royal Commission inquiring into a detail of military administration, to weaken the full responsibility of the officials, specially charged with that duty, for the recommendaian d adoption of the new magazine rifle."

  HIGHER EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  MR. C. S. PARKER: The subject to which I invite the attention of the House is the effect of Government Grants on higher education in Scotland. I think that English Members who follow subjects of the kind may take an interest in it, for this reason——
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  MR. C. S. PARKER: It is the good fortune of Scotland to possess a national system of education, which, as compared with that in England, comes down from an earlier date—if not from the time of John Knox, but, at all events, in statutory form, from William III. The system is also more comprehensive than in England. It has been the pride of Scotland that the humblest of her population have had the means at home of preparing, in the first place, for the Universities, and afterwards for the learned professions. I do not suppose there is in the world a country which has a larger proportion in the learned professions of those who received their first training at a humble parish school. I ask, then, that the question may be

  1685
  treated from a Scottish point of view. I do not propose that the House should necessarily accept the views of the Scotch Members, because in all educational questions there are principles involved which need mature consideration in consequence of their bearing upon England and Ireland. But I hope those who are going to vote on this question will endeavour to plant themselves in Scotland as regards the facts. I must say that on looking over the annual Reports of the Scotch Education Department I have sometimes wished they gave in a more prominent form the facts relating to higher education. Yet, even as it is, English Members may be surprised to find that, whereas in the English Reports you read of almost nothing but elementary education, in the Scotch Report of last year there are examination papers in high mathematics, Latin, Greek, and modern languages, including Italian and even Anglo-Saxon. But for most of the facts I must ask leave to refer to a Report made two years ago by a Committee, of which I had the honour to be a member, and to express my regret that I have not the support this evening of any of my colleagues. One of them, Mr. Cochran-Patrick, then an earnest advocate of education on the Conservative Benches, is now permanent Secretary of the Scotch Department; another, the hon. and learned Member for the Inverness Burghs (Mr. Finlay), is unfortunately called elsewhere by a political engagement; and a third, Dr. Craik, as Secretary for Education in Scotland, cannot take part in our Debates, and could not sign the recommendations. But for the facts set forth in the Report Dr. Craik as well as the other Members is responsible, and the Resolution I have to propose is taken almost verbatim from recommendations of this Committee, appointed by the Government to advise them on the question of higher education. It may be asked what I include in higher education. I am prepared to give a very broad and simple definition. I do not care whether it be classical, or mathematical, or scientific, technical or practical. I call higher education all that goes beyond the usual standard. I would even measure it by age, and say that by higher education I mean education continued beyond the usual age.
  1686
  The question which is pressing for solution in England arises also in Scotland. It was preached with persistent iteration by the most distinguished man who ever served as an Inspector in the English Education Department, the late Mr. Matthew Arnold. "Organise," said he, "your secondary education." The chief attempt to do so in England is based on the Report of the Schools Inquiry Committee, who, on a survey of England and Wales, came to the conclusion that the safest way to discriminate between the different kinds of education was by the ages at which children would leave school. Elementary education they took as ending at 12, and the third, second, and first grades of secondary education as ending at 14, 16, and 18 years. In Scotland the case is different. The Scotch rarely keep their boys at school beyond the age of 17. Some go to the University before 17, but generally speaking at that age the University training begins. The higher education conducted in the Universities is subsidised by the State to the amount of £42,000 a year, and powers have been given to a University Commission, who, I trust, will take care that the Universities shall not encroach on school life, but shall give up the practice, fast dying out, of taking almost children and teaching them the elements of knowledge. Then, on the other hand, education in the ordinary Scotch schools cannot be regarded as ending at the age of 12. The recognised school age in Scotland is 14, and some stay at school until 15, which leaves only two or three years for secondary education elsewhere than in the ordinary schools. In short, higher education in Scotland is of two kinds. One kind, from the age say of 12 or 13 to 14 or 15, is found in the ordinary schools some of which have higher departments. But those who are to remain till 17 should be sent from the first to the secondary schools proper. In speaking of the education given between 13 and 15, I should like to remind the House that whatever we choose to call legally the school age in Scotland, as a matter of fact, statistics show that there is a falling off of 24 per cent. in the attendance from 12, to 13, and of more than 50 per cent. from 13 to 14. So that practically

  1687
  12, or perhaps nearly 13, is the age at which, the ordinary education terminates. But provision should be made for the few who remain longer. And first, I desire to say a word upon the country schools, in regard to which opinion in Scotland is very unanimous. As a member of the Committee to which I have referred, I had occasion to examine a good many teachers from the country and, school Inspectors. We found these teachers and Inspectors unanimously of opinion that the country schools should, if possible, have sufficient teaching power to prepare any boys in the neighbourhood who may be thought fit for entrance to the Universities. At present, however, the present staffs of these schools are insufficient for such purpose. In a large number of schools in Scotland—about 1,000—there is only one certificated teacher who is assisted usually by a pupil teacher. We suggested the addition of an assistant teacher, in which case one or other could take charge of the boys in the higher subjects. All the children would be better taught, and the pupil teacher would be relieved of a great deal of pressure. I think pupil teachers are, as a general rule, called upon to do more school work than is good for them. If there were a staff of two competent masters they could relieve the pupil teacher of some school work, and would be better able to carry on his education on the evening. And this is of importance, because from the pupil teachers are drawn most of the future teachers. Again, in the country, as well as in the towns, it is very desirable there should be something in the nature of continuation schools, but it is hopeless to ask a single-handed teacher to do much evening work. It is estimated that each of these 1,000 schools could be provided with an additional master for £60 a year. One-half of that amount might be obtained from local resources, so that a grant of £30,000 a year would provide the schools in the rural parishes of Scotland with an adequate teaching staff. Passing now to towns, the question becomes more complicated. There are private schools in the towns—there is the Edinburgh Academy, for instance—which simply ask to be let alone, and that their competitors shall not be too heavily endowed. The Glasgow Academy
  1688
  and the Kelvinside Academy find themselves hard pressed by the competition of the State-subsidised schools, and it has been suggested that they would be only too happy if the School Board of the city could see their way to take over the whole establishment, employing, of course, as many of the present masters as possible. Next, there are endowed schools. I remember—it is now getting to be an old story—when the endowments for education in Scotland were running in some considerable degree to waste, and one of my earliest speeches in this House was in support of the then Lord Advocate (Lord Moncreiff), to enable a reorganisation of the endowments to be brought about. These are now admirable schools, only too powerful for their rivals in educational labour. This may be said of Gordon's College, in Aberdeen, of which I can speak with some personal knowledge. Gordon's College is an endowed school, with as admirable a plant for science teaching and applied mechanics as any school in the Kingdom. All I would remark in regard to these schools is—it is my opinion, but I am not sure whether I carry my colleagues on the Committee with me—that it is perfectly right to do as the Commissioners did in these endowed schools, to admit others than those who are the objects of the Charity to profit by the excellent education given. But I am inclined to agree with an increasing number of hon. Members who hold that it is hardly fair that parents in general who are well off should obtain for their children such education as they do at some of these endowed schools at the fees they pay. I think the resources of the school would go further, and it would be fair, if you required from well-to-do parents some substantial contribution to the funds of the school, as is the practice in the great English public schools. That would tend to diminish what I admit to be an evil, the rather formidable competition of these endowed schools with private enterprise. I now wish to draw attention to two remaining types of schools, rather sharply contrasted financially, but in all other respects tending to resemble each other. There are, on the one hand, a growing number of schools which conform to all the conditions of the Code, which keep within the conditions of the Code and

  1689
  are able to earn large Government grants, and at the same time have the one object and ambition to develop themselves as secondary schools. I really think it would be rather a revelation to the House if I were to read a prospectus of one of these schools, the Garnet Hill School at Glasgow. This is a grant-aided school. The building is designed as a secondary school, in accordance with modern views and requirements; it has chemical and other laboratories, a lecture room, a large hall to be furnished for art and science classes. English literature, modern languages, classics, mathematics, science, drawing, political economy, logic, and other higher subjects are taught. The full course occupies four years, and qualifies for the Universities or the higher grades of the Civil Service, as well as fulfilling the requirements of the Science and Art Departments; and girls are prepared for the junior and senior University examination. It must be admitted this is a somewhat ambitious institution; but at the same time I am not prepared to say a word against it. When I find such excellent work being done, I do not like to encourage hasty interference. I will just mention one other school of the type, at which recently I was present to give away the prizes. I mean the Harris Academy at Dundee. There I was invited to the class-rooms, not, as is sometimes the case, to ask questions and take a class one's self, which is a favourite resource of those who do not care to teach before the public, but to hear the classes taught, and I thought the method and manner of teaching excellent, comparing well with English public schools. I was shown the music room, where some 200 boys and girls were present, and I was asked which chorus from the "Messiah" I would like to have sung; they were prepared to take any chorus from the "Messiah." And I am told the singing there is better than in any other school in the Kingdom, and perhaps than any school in Europe. There were cookery classes also, where cookery of the national order was taught. I found a "haggis" in preparation, which was, of course, quite proper to be taught in a Scotch school, though it is a dish unknown to most Englishmen, and by them unappreciated. Now, what are the funds of the
  1690
  Harris Academy? Roughly speaking, half the cost of the building came from the endowment of Mr. Harris, but the school draws a considerable sum by Government grants. The sum drawn in a year by this single school is £1,354 direct from the Government, and a larger sum in fees from parents. It is rather remarkable that we should have gone so far in subsidising schools which carry education so high, and it is done, I fear, on a principle that is not very satisfactory; for whereas the real object of the schools is higher education, they earn grants by conforming to every rule laid down by the Department with a view to elementary education. Under considerable difficulties they produce admirable results, but these would be better still if the schools were recognised as secondary schools, and were not under the necessity of keeping up the appearance of primary schools. Then there only remains one other kind of schools, and on behalf of these schools I ask the House to take a favourable view of my Resolution, what are technically called in the Scotch Education Act "higher class schools." That is rather unfortunate nomenclature. The other schools of which I have spoken are called "higher grade schools," but these under the Act are called "higher class schools." They teach very nearly the same subjects, classics, higher mathematics, &c. Yet, though the teaching is nearly the same, they are totally differently treated in matters of finance. At first the higher class schools got nothing in the way of help from the public except what already belonged to them, some share in the funds which handed down by tradition for education, became a legal claim upon Town Councils. The Education Act of 1872 gave them nothing beyond. They did not come upon the School Fund until some years later. Power was then given to the School Boards to spend on these high schools more freely, and in Edinburgh and Glasgow at least £400 a year is paid to the high schools; besides which there is a liberal expenditure in both cities in the way of keeping up buildings. But although this in Glasgow has worked admirably, and in Edinburgh fairly well under the School Board, and although it works after a sort in such a

  1691
  city as Aberdeen, if you look at the Grammar Schools there, it is in a position that compares very unfavourably with their rival Gordon's College. The question is whether it is fair to bring these schools under School Boards and under the supervision of State Inspectors, and at the same time to let them draw no funds whatever from a central source. What is the nature of the Resolution with which I propose to conclude? We ask the Education Department to consider the desirability of extending grants to these secondary schools, believing that the effect would be greatly to popularise them. Of course, good teaching cannot be had without payment of good stipends to masters, and these schools find themselves in a position where their only resource is to charge high fees, and so become less popular. They have no alternative but to impose high fees; and this, of course, they find it difficult to do where they have admirable endowed schools competing against them at very low fees. To the credit of their teachers, they mostly prefer, instead of falling into the position of higher class schools, to place themselves in a position to attract a large number of pupils by low fees. I couple the recommendation of grants in their favour with another recommendation, namely, that a certain number of free places should be thrown open for competition among children of grant-aided primary schools. In some foreign countries there are 10 per cent. of free places in such schools, and this greatly stimulates industry in other schools, bringing out the pick of the boys for higher education, and it would be a great benefit also to the high schools. They are poorly endowed, they are under public management, and they get very little from the rates. One reason is because the area of the rate is narrower than the area from which the children come, and I hope under County Government we shall have that reformed. Then they get nothing from the Government, and that is what I wish to remedy by this Resolution. I had a hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have been present this evening, and possibly he may be here before the discussion closes. He is a member of the Committee of the Council for Education for Scotland, and I should have been glad of the opportunity of
  1692
  appealing to him personally on the financial question. What I would say to him, and what I now say to the Lord Advocate, is this: In my humble opinion, money bestowed in this way would be an excellent investment. I am prepared to maintain that money thus paid for higher education would not only benefit those who attend the schools, but the standard would be raised throughout the country. There is more to be said for such investment than for money devoted to perpetually building new ironclads, or even to the magazine rifle. The second thing I wanted to represent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this: There is, we hope, going to be a great opportunity this Session. I am one of those who always wish well to the progress of business, and I wish especially that the Government may succeed in carrying a measure for free or assisted education in England. If they obtain assisted education in England on anything like the same scale as was given to Scotland, I suppose it is well understood they cannot take the funds from the rates, or money on its way to the rates, but will have to go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for it. Well, then, I think Scotch Members will have something to say. We are very willing that the money should come from the Exchequer; but if England is going to take the cost from that source, then Scotland may fairly claim a further sum, perhaps as large as that which she has already obtained. I do not take it for granted that it is all to be spent in education. I should like to see it so expended, but it is to the credit of the ratepayers that they forewent their claims to relief in favour of education; and they may now put those claims forward. But besides £30,000 wanted, as I have shown, to strengthen the staff of county schools, at least a similar sum might be wisely spent in aid to secondary schools. The reason why there are no more of them is because the State is so much more ready to subsidise what are called the higher grade schools. School Boards say, although these are not what we want, let us have the schools that draw the Government grant rather than those that do not. The distinction is one that, I say, should not be maintained. I

  1693
  should be ruled out of order if I moved a direct money Resolution, but all we wish to do is to place on record what we believe to be the desire of Scotland in this direction. When money becomes available—and there is every prospect of it becoming available—I ask the Government to take a friendly view of the Resolution I now move.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, for the better organisation in Scotland of Higher Education, it is desirable that there should be Grants in aid of it, not only as at present, to the Universities and to Primary Schools, but also (as recommended by a Departmental Committee in 1888) to the Public Secondary Schools, on condition of their general efficiency, and of free places being reserved in them for competition among children from the grant-aided Primary Schools."—(Mr. C. S. Parker.)
  MR. J. PARKER SMITH: I wish the Chancellor of the Exchequer were here, not that I feel that the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General for Scotland do not fully represent the Government, but I hope we may find that in urging our views upon them, we are pressing upon an open door; and I know the difficulty is one with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned, and I believe if he were here he would find the same view expressed by Members from Scotland of all shades of opinion, that if money is forthcoming for Scotland, a fair slice of it should be devoted towards developing secondary education. The interest in this matter is general in Scotland, it is not confined to the few. I do not know that I can put the case clearer than by quoting the words used by Mr. Forster, when opening a higher grade school at Govan:—
  "No class pays in taxes and rates so large a proportion out of income as the lower section of the middle class, and the higher section of the artisan class. They pay rates for the education of their fellow citizens, and they say we have a right to get a return for our rates by at least some amount of benefit in the education of our children, and they have such a right most undoubtedly."
  After the speech of my hon. Friend I need not go into the question at large, and I will only take one part of it. There is at present a very considerable amount of the secondary education which exists in Scotland, taught in the higher grades of the grant earning schools, schools open to everyone; and in these a
  1694
  vast deal of work in higher education is now, and always has been done. It is an old Scotch tradition; and a combination of elementary and higher education has always existed, and the only serious fault found with the Education Act of 1872, is that it tended to discourage a large amount of higher education that could be got from the grant-earning schools. That is an old Scotch principle, and it seems to me that it is a principle we ought not to desire to dispute, our aim should not be to get rid of it. If you had a clear field for educationists, you might wish to make secondary education independent from the beginning, but that you have not got. You have got the schools as they exist doing good work, and to destroy them to gratify any theoretical educational principles would, it seems to me, lead to very great mischief. My hon. Friend has quoted the prospectus of the Garnet Hill school, but he did not quote the judgment of the Committee on this school, which was very favourable indeed as to teaching, and the progress of the boys in the school. In the opinion of the Committee, the attainments of the pupils were not quite up to those of the academies and high schools, but they came very near indeed. It is said the clever boys ought to be taken away from the grant-earning schools, and sent to the secondary schools, but that is not a policy you can fit in with the existing system pursued by schoolmasters in Scotland. To take these boys away would discourage the masters from carrying their teaching beyond the standards. They would not have the same keenness in their desire to help on boys who wish to go outside the standard. The secondary schools are very much handicapped by these higher grade grant-earning schools as they are called. It is not fair that a cheaper education should be given in these schools to those children whose parents are well able to pay a fair price for the better class of education they wish their children to have. If you are prepared to devote something to the further development of secondary education, the policy should be to give grants in aid to schools where secondary education comes in by some method that will not limit you to particular schools, but will enable good teaching to be acknowledged, and

  1695
  to receive grants wherever you may find it. It is a very unsatisfactory state of things in these higher grade schools that they are driven to resort, I might almost say, to subterfuges to bring themselves under the terms of the Code with power to earn grants, while at the same time they have a very strong and most laudable ambition to compete in their teaching with secondary schools. The present system severely handicaps the schools that are not grant-earning, and rivalry is difficult; but if you can extend the terms of the grant beyond its present limitation, then you will find the higher grade schools quite prepared to meet you. It is, no doubt, true that it would be more satisfactory for them not to have to be striving to have to keep themselves under the terms of the Code. But you would have them coming outside and proclaiming themselves as what they are—secondary schools. You might have either the higher departments of the school declaring themselves secondary schools, while the lower departments remained under the Code as at present, or you might have the whole school developing into a secondary school. That would be a matter of convenience depending, probably, upon the terms in which you give your grant to the school. At any rate, you would have the schools boldly declaring what they are, and not calling themselves less—not professing to be elementary, while they really give a considerable amount of secondary education. Let there be a grant in aid to schools that give secondary education. Let that grant depend upon the general efficiency of the schools, and also on local contributions from whatever source they may come. It seems to me that you ought not by any Government grant to put a school at all in the position of being independent of local contributions, but that you ought to recognise all local contributions equally, whether those contributions come from endowments, rates, or fees. I think also that in secondary schools, assisted by the Treasury, you should secure that which has been the charter of Scotland in this matter, namely, that the poorest and the wealthy alike shall obtain a fair share of education. In these schools you ought to have some system, either by bursaries or free places in schools, by which you will enable the son of a poor
  1696
  man, without putting himself on a false footing, to get the same education as the son of his more wealthy neighbour. You have that system in many of the public schools—at Winchester and Eton—where a boy on the foundation, does not feel himself in a worse position than the son of the man who pays four or five times as much for the education. That system should be adopted in Scotland, and the Government should make it a condition in spending the money of the nation on secondary schools. In this way, I submit, you would be extending and developing the policy of education laid down in the Preamble of the Act of 1872, which says that it is desirable to amend and extend the provisions of the law of Scotland on the subject of education, so as to make efficient education available to the whole people of Scotland. It is not only to those who desire elementary education that the system of national education has always been extended. It is for the whole people of Scotland—to give to every clever boy, whoever may be his father, the opportunity of obtaining at the least expense the best education that Scotland can give.
  MR. DONALD CRAWFORD: I think we are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth for bringing this matter before the House. I have no doubt that; among the various, legislative problems of interest with reference to Scotland which await the consideration of Parliament, there is none more important than that of secondary education. I am sure the Government will be fortunate—whether the present Government or its successor—to whose lot it falls to take this matter in hand and carry it through on right and successful lines. I may perhaps be allowed to advert for a moment to the way in which the subject presents itself to the University Commission of which I am a member. I say, and I do not think I should be disavowed by any of my Colleagues, that it is not possible to place University education itself on a right footing unless secondary education is properly organised as a part of the general system. Coming to the Motion before the House, I should be content with the affirmation of the principle that the organisation of secondary education.

  1697
  ought to be the concern of the State. In saying that I think I go a little short of the terms of the Motion. My hon. Friend has adverted very skilfully to some of the practical difficulties and problems which meet the Legislature in working this matter out. He has pointed out how the higher graded schools in a particular part of Scotland, which form a subject of burning controversy there, while they are doing excellent work, find themselves somewhat in a false position. If the scheme he proposes were carried out they would be apparently relieved from that position, and would be placed definitely and frankly in the position of secondary schools. Again, the higher class schools, which are specially noticed by the Education Act of 1872, are in a somewhat difficult and starved situation at present. This also, he argues, would be remedied, if we adopted the principle of subsidising secondary schools. But though he has thus given reasons of no little weight for adopting that course, I should be content with something short of it—with the affirmation of the principle that secondary education was to be a part of the national system. I would work that out a little further in this way. I think that one of the most important remarks that my hon. Friend made was that the area of rating for the support of secondary schools is at present insufficient. You have got no authority in Scotland at present to manage the higher schools any more than the lower schools, except the School Board, and the area of the jurisdiction of the School Board is too limited for the support of the higher class schools; and, accordingly, what I would ask the Government to keep in view is the idea that the county is the proper area of rating, and that the County Council is the body to which the administration of the secondary schools should be entrusted. The education would not always be the same. In the industrial districts of a county no doubt great weight would be given to technical education. In other parts of the same county agricultural education—which I suppose also comes under the head of technical—would receive great attention, and it seems to me that you would not easily find a better body for the administration
  1698
  of these schools than the County Councils. As to the best way of dealing with any aid from public funds, it seems to me that the best course to adopt might be not to make it a grant payable under the control of the Education Department, as in the case of elementary schools, but to deal with it in the same way as was done in the case of the Spirit Duties. The Spirit Tax was given to the Local Authorities, with power to apply it to technical education if they thought proper. That is one way that might be tried—I do not say it would be the best way—to give the money to the counties and let them apply it for secondary education in whatever way they may think wise. But my only object in rising was to join my hon. Friend in urging on the Government the extreme importance of this question of the organisation of secondary education in Scotland, and the desirability of giving it equal prominence and equal recognition with elementary and University education.
  MR.J. A. CAMPBELL: I agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken, that the House is under an obligation to the hon. Member for Perth for introducing this matter. There is no doubt the subject of secondary education is one that attracts much attention in Scotland, and with regard to which the intervention of the Government is very desirable. University education has been dealt with, and primary education also; we are still without anything like a proper treatment of the equally important subject of secondary education. The higher grade schools established at present under the Education Act are doing useful work in this department of education, but they place those higher class schools which do not receive State aid in a very unfortunate position, inasmuch as these are left without the assistance which their rivals enjoy. It is extremely desirable that something should be done to remove this inequality, and at the same time to improve the general organisation of higher education. I would point out that the improvement of secondary education has already been taken in hand by the Government, although it has not been thoroughly dealt with. In the Report of the Scottish

  1699
  Education Department there is a chapter dealing with secondary education. The Department has organised a system of inspecting and examining secondary schools, not only those under the Department officially, because under the management of School Boards, but other secondary schools also, which are willing to place themselves under the Department for the purpose of being inspected. That of itself is a considerable step in the way of dealing with secondary education—and a very useful work it is that the Department does. In addition, the Government has of late years introduced a system of leaving certificates, which has reference to the study of the higher subjects. In this way the Department is already committed to having some care of secondary education. What I believe the hon. Member for Perth desires is that the work should be more completely carried out, and that some positive encouragement be given to it by assistance from Imperial funds. How this assistance should be given and applied is a detail on which I would not venture to speak. I think we may hope that there will be money available for a purpose of this kind. In the meantime, I think it is enough for us to express an earnest trust that the Government will take this subject into consideration, and propose something effectual for the improvement of secondary education in Scotland. I hope, however, that this will be done in such a way as not to interfere with the responsibilities of parents who are able and willing to pay for the education of their children; that it will not be a wasteful system of giving cheap education to those who are quite willing and able to pay higher fees; and that the grant shall not be given so as to stand in the way of private benefactions. I believe some assistance in the way of a money grant to secondary education may be given in such a way as to encourage, and not to supersede, private benefactions. We may have further private endowments, and I believe these would be encouraged rather than hindered by some tangible expression of the interest the Government takes in this department of education. I thank the hon. Gentleman opposite for introducing
  1700
  the subject, and I trust we shall have such a reply from the Lord Advocate as will satisfy us that we have the sympathy of the Education Department and the Government in the object we have in view.
  MR. ESSLEMONT: I join with those who have gone before me in expressing our indebtedness to the hon. Member for Perth for bringing this subject under the consideration of the House. No one who has given the most superficial attention to education in Scotland can be unobservant of the present difficulties between primary and University education. Speaking on behalf of a county, I may say that the difficulties which exist there far exceed those in Scottish cities with respect to secondary education. In the cities there are the old high schools, participating more or less in the corporate endowments instituted generations ago. They have also very large private benefactions for higher grade education. I would take the liberty also of thanking the Member for the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, as one of the Endowed Schools Commissioners, for the great assistance Scotland has received from them in the diverting the money of those endowments, which have heretofore been too contracted in their administration, to the general purposes of higher grade education within the reach of the poor. But I must join issue with the hon. Member for the Universities, and with some of those who have already spoken, as to the desideratum that they are continually harping upon with regard to getting those who are in better circumstances to pay for their education. We have a national system of education or we have not. If we have a national system upon a fair basis, then, I maintain, it is our own fault if we do not make the wealthier classes pay their fair share by regulating the incidence of taxation. But the difficulty, in my opinion, can be much better met—by taking such sum of money as we have in endowments and otherwise, and giving them to competition, in such a way that the scholars attending the poorer schools may gain their education on their merits. I was rather surprised that the hon. Member for Perth did not devote a little more attention to the present machinery which we have

  1701
  for higher grade education. I do hope that the counties and the cities, which are counties in themselves, will so apply the £40,000 which they at present have within their reach, as to show that Scotland is all alive to the interests of higher grade education. I should deplore it exceedingly were our counties not to take up this subject, and so apply the money as to demonstrate to the House that we are anxious and ready for a much larger amount of attention to be bestowed on higher grade schools. But let me put before the Lord Advocate one difficulty which exists in the system as outlined in the Motion before the House. A difficulty is felt in Scotland among poor parents in maintaining their children, anxious for higher education, away from home; and I therefore advocate the establishment in the counties of Scotland of a more comprehensive system than the present School Board. There are some School Boards in the counties where there is only one school. However excellent that school may be there will not be many poor parents who will be able to take advantage of it. We should, therefore, have these higher grade schools in at least five mile areas. I agree most heartily with the hon. Member for Lanark in saying that an affirmation of the principle in this House is all that we desire at present. I have no doubt if the principle is affirmed the people of Scotland will find a means of working it out, and let me press on the Lord Advocate this further consideration. We are paying now a large sum for elementary education, and the children are leaving school at an early age, in consequence of the excellence of the education they are receiving. It is no uncommon thing for boys and girls of 11 and 12 to pass the compulsory standards, and to go into service. From 12 to 20 these children are absolutely without education, and the result is that the elementary education they have acquired is absolutely lost. It should not be forgotten that we do not hesitate to vote large sums for the Scotch Universities in aid of the education the sons of noblemen and other persons of means, and this being so, why should we allow the higher grade schools to remain unsupported by grants from the
  1702
  State? I hope we are approaching a period when the present distinctions as the standards will be done away with, and there will be no difference in regard to the grants made, as between the 5th and 6th or any other standards, so that every child may be enabled to receive such an education as will enable it to compete with those who are, both on the Continent and elsewhere, favoured by the strong efforts now being made in aid of technical and higher education.
  MR. M. STEWART: The question before the House is one in which I have taken the greatest interest for the last 20 years. Living in a somewhat remote part of the country, I find that the greatest difficulty exists on the part of the farmers and other comparatively well to do people in regard to sending their children to better schools, than the ordinary parochial schools. After these children have finished their education up to the 6th Standard, they require something higher to fit them for going out into the world, and the consequence is that many of them leave their homes at an early age, and have to be boarded out in some neighbouring town for the purpose of attending better schools, at the cost of a good deal of expense and self-denial to their parents. It occurs to me that the proper thing to do would be in every large parish to have at least one school set apart for the purposes of secondary education in that particular district. I cannot but think that it would be a very desirable thing if the Department could see its way to giving a Parliamentary grant to schools of that kind, if they are found to fulfil all the requirements of good secondary schools. I can hardly agree, however, with the last speaker, as to the necessity of doing away with all class distinctions, because in the existing state of things they cannot be avoided. There may be something very grand, and very Scotch, and very patriotic in the idea that the sons of the poor man and the nobleman should be educated together; but we know that that is not what actually goes on in the different communities with which we are acquainted, and I think we must be content to take the 19th century as it is, and endeavour to develop our views of education in

  1703
  accordance with existing circumstances. At the same time, it seems to me that in regard to certain points we are practically unanimous, although I fear that in asking the House to sanction this Resolution we are practically putting the cart before the horse. We must catch our hare before we cook it, and at present we have no money to do what is proposed. If we had the means, then no doubt it would be right and fitting that such a Resolution as this should be brought forward. If there were a sufficient amount of money at their disposal, I am quite sure that no Government would be inclined to resist such a proposal, no matter from which side of the House it came. As it is, I should hope that my hon. Friends opposite will be satisfied with the discussion they have elicited; there is practically no opposition to the principle of the Motion, inasmuch as we are all of us anxious to benefit our country in every possible way, especially in regard to the secondary education given in our schools. It has been suggested that certain grants from the Excise, which are given to the County Councils, should be utilised for the purposes of education, but it is also felt that the ratepayers are quite as deserving of consideration as the educationalists. No doubt when Government are in a position to make the grants required for the purposes of this Motion, they will be desirous of meeting my hon. Friends opposite, if not in the exact manner they desire, at any rate in a way that will greatly assist the object they have so much in view.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I do not think any apology is needed for my interposition in this discussion, because these educational questions discussed by Scotch Members are of great interest to the English Members as well as to the English taxpayers. What Scotland does today in the education question England will do, not perhaps to-morrow, but at any rate the day after to-morrow. We hope that in these discussions we shall learn a good deal from the results of Scotch experience, and thus be enabled to improve our education in England. I am sorry that the Vice President of the
  1704
  Council only looked in for a few minutes and then went away, because I think it would have been a liberal education to the right hon. Gentleman had he stayed to hear the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Perth (Mr. C. Parker) and the Debate which has followed. In Scotland there have been very large advances in the matter of higher education, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mr. Crawford) that if Her Majesty's Government are prepared to accept the principle of this Motion and ready to give a grant in favour of secondary education when they are enabled to do so, that will satisfy the reasonable views of the House. I fail to see how any Member of the Government or of the House can refuse to accept the principle that the time has arrived when State aid ought to be given to our secondary and higher schools. We have State aid for the elementary schools and State aid for our Universities, and why the intermediate stage of national education should be altogether neglected, I am totally unable to conceive, especially when we consider the very growing demand that exists throughout the Kingdom for improvment in our national education. We have of late years done much to place elementary education on a sounder and better basis, and we have a strong demand, not only for an increase in the age at which the children now leave school, but also for raising the standard of examination, for the abolition of the school fees, for the improvement of the examinations in the schools, and the enlargement of the general curriculum. It has been well said that we ought to have a ladder rising from the gutter to the Universities, and we have such a ladder planted at the present moment, but some of the rungs are unfortunately either missing or in an unsound condition. It is that part of the ladder which we ought to strengthen, because we are desirous of establishing a national system of education in order to enable the rising citizens of this country to compete with their foreign rivals. Anyone who has at all studied the competition which is taking place between ourselves and the great nations of France and Germany, will have perceived that while we have been neglecting the

  1705
  secondary system of education, those two commercial rivals have been doing more and more year by year to strengthen and increase that part of their national educational system. What we want is to give an opportunity to the children of the working classes, I will not say to work their way up in the social scale, but to acquire such an education that they will be the better able to compete with the keen rivalry which, is going on abroad. My hon. Friend has taken objection to the proposal that some of the places in these secondary schools should be free in the grant, and has maintained that there ought to be no distinctions as between class and class. Although I agree with him on this point, I think that, at the same time, we must be content to move step by step; and we can hardly at the present moment expect the Government to accept all at once a system of free secondary education in addition to a free system of elementary education. What we should insist on as a principle is, that in regard to these secondary schools to be assisted by Government grants, the fees ought to be uniform, and that there should be no distinctions of class and class. But there might also be local contributions from which a certain number of free places might be obtained, together with a number of scholarships for the children of the elementary schools. The present system is full of anomalies, and has the effect of discouraging the system of secondary schools. It encourages, in fact, a sort of hybrid schools to compete with the real secondary schools. I agree with the hon. Member who has said that if you have a system of secondary schools with Government assistance, they ought not to be semi-elementary and semi-secondary, but a system wholly secondary kept in touch by means of free places with the elementary schools. I trust that the Government will accept the principle of State aid to secondary schools, so that before many years are over we may have a complete national system of education, reaching from our elementary schools to our Universities.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,: Sir, the hon. Member has certainly adopted a
  1706
  reasonable and considerate time in bringing the subject forward. It is fortunate that there is no conflict of opinions upon it among any of the sections of the House. Indeed, in all quarters there has been a very full and direct recognition of the importance of secondary education, and of the need of the State adopting some practical means of advancing its interests. The Debate has also revealed one common ground, and that is that it is impossible to separate secondary education from its near relation to the general system of national education. It forms in itself a most attractive subject of disquisition and discussion, but it can only adequately and satisfactorily be treated when it is regarded as correlated with primary education on the one hand, and to a certain extent with the universities on the other. Viewed in that light it is not unimportant to observe how much may be and has been done in the furtherance of secondary education by the improvement of primary education. Undoubtedly useful secondary education can only be realised if you have a sound system of primary education, and I do not think there can be two opinions as to the efficacy and the earnestness of the means that have been adopted to improve the primary education of Scotland. Parliament has shown its anxiety on the subject by legislation in the past two years. In the technique of education also there have been changes, which have met with universal acceptance, and which have rendered more elastic the training schools, and afforded an encouragement and stimulant to the energies of teachers which formerly were entirely wanting. The latest development in reference to that part of the subject is to be found in the change, recently suggested, in the certificates given to pupils in primary schools. I have no doubt that will have the effect of rendering more solid and satisfactory the connection which ought to exist between the primary and secondary schools. My point is, that we must, in the first place, ensure solid primary education as conducting to secondary education; and we must also ensure a due relation between the primary and secondary schools. I am very far from

  1707
  saying that these indirect methods of advancing secondary education are all that are available at present. On the contrary we have, at all events, two methods of encouraging secondary teaching, which are appropriated by two different sets of societies in Scotland. The House will remember that there have been special grants to schools which, owing to their isolated geographical position, stand in disadvantageous circumstances. A grant has been given, in order to add to the staff of the schools in remote districts where they were unable to give higher education without disparagement to the primary work. I think something has been already done in the way of improving the organization of the existing secondary schools, following the lines which the hon. Member for Perth approves. There is a system of State inspection, and it is satisfactory to know that that has not been imposed on reluctant schools; on the contrary, it has been welcomed by those who desire the attestations and the imprimatur which inspection gives. There is also a certificate which performs an exceedingly useful and somewhat novel function in education. These are steps in the direction of the improvements which the hon. Member suggests. On the question of State aid, it is fortunately unnecessary that I should exercise more than the due amount of reserve. I confess I have little to add to what my predecessors have said on the subject. It is at all events a matter, I will not say certain, but, at all events, in immediate prospect, that further money may be available for education in Scotland. The event is not distant in which more means may be at the disposal of the Government and Parliament to enter upon a well considered measure of secondary education; and I am not transcending the language of this Bench during the last Session of Parliament when I make this statement. It may be satisfactory to hon. Members that I should repeat and emphasise the statements made by those who have preceded me here. The House, however, must consider that prospect with that due amount of caution and reserve which must be shown by those who do not know at present the exact amount of money. It is on
  1708
  grounds of that kind that I think the hon. Member for Perth, as a man of good sense, will see that it is impossible for the Government to accept his Motion. I am certain that the House will accept the declaration, which I have less made than repeated as representing the Government, and that it will not be at all appropriate to press a Motion of this kind to a Division. The subject is one upon which there is general agreement—that is to say, that public money may well be spent upon secondary education, and some effective means may be adopted for carrying out that general desire. On the other hand, the best mode of applying the money must be determined with reference to the amount available; and it is also a subject on which the most mature consideration is not thrown away. I want to add another word, which I hope will be accepted with the frankness with which it is spoken. We have not abstained from coming to close quarters with this question. We have had the subject under direct and anxious consideration; and plans are under the consideration of the Government, from which in due time we shall be able to make a selection. We have been anxious to utilise the time available between the earlier period when this money came to be a matter of prospect and the time when we would have to deal effectively and decisively with the question. The Government has invited and received suggestions, and I am not rash in saying that when the proper time comes we shall be able to bring forward plans which, at all events, are definite and intelligible. I hope the Government will accept the view which I have stated; it is one which is not characterised by inertness or indecision. The problem is one which requires to be looked at from several points of view. How are we going to do it, and upon what principle? We have three classes of schools teaching secondary education in Scotland. We have public schools, endowed schools, and voluntary schools, each of which require separate consideration and treatment, and in each case there is an equity which must be carefully attended to. There is another main objection which the House would desire to have carefully in view. It is most desirable that we should not

  1709
  make the giving of public money the means of losing instead of conserving other resources which are at present applied to secondary education. Probably, unless the matter is very carefully attended to, and with a nice appreciation of the risks to be run, the grant of public money to secondary schools might tend to the subtraction from the aggregate resources of schools, taken as a whole, by dissipating contributions which at present are willingly rendered, and which might less readily come in if the grants were to be indiscriminate. That is a subject which will require very full development. I am suggesting rather than stating the difficulties, and I do this for the purpose of assuring the House that the subject is under the anxious consideration of the Government, in order that they may make no loss to the cause we all have at heart—that is to add to, instead of diminish or impair, the resources of secondary education throughout the country. I do not doubt, when the time comes, Parliament will be able to accomplish the objects we have in view. There are, as I take it, two main objects which have to be attended to in regard to these secondary schools. One is to increase the general efficiency of secondary education throughout the country. The contribution of the State ought to be so given as to raise the standard and increase the efficiency of the teaching given to all pupils who attend school. Then there is another object which is dear to the hearts of those interested in the subject, and that is that children, whose parents are not in a position to send them to the secondary schools, but who have the qualities and inclination which would enable them to profit by that education, should have the opportunity of going there. Those are two subjects which, when considered closely, are entirely separate in this sense, that we may attain the one and not the other, and the great thing is to accomplish both. The hon. Member for North-East Lanarkshire, in his very valuable contribution to the Debate, has referred to the area and management of those schools. That is one of the particulars of the scheme which requires attention. I do not need to remind the hon. Member of the exceeding difficulty of introducing the kind
  1710
  of management he suggests, inasmuch as it will to a certain extent involve a dislocation of the present administration of public money and local administration. I do not pronounce at all emphatically upon the part of the Government upon that subject. That is a subject upon which it is necessary to exercise an amount of reserve. I hope I have made it manifest if I say, as I now do, that the Government cannot accept the Resolution, that I do so in no spirit of antagonism to the general object the hon. Member has in view, or to the general principles which have found acceptance among hon. Members.
  MR. W. A. HUNTER: I am certain the statement made will be received by Scottish Members with the greatest satisfaction, because the main interest attaching to the Motion was connected with the grant which we hope will come to Scotland shortly. I believe the almost universal feeling in Scotland is that any money we may get for educational purposes shall be first applied in aid of secondary education. I think the hon. Member may rest satisfied with the position in which the question has been left by the right hon. Gentleman. In dealing with this question of intermediate or secondary education, I hope the Government will do so in a bold, thorough and liberal spirit. The bolder and more ambitious the scheme, the more satisfaction it will give in Scotland. I may also remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the funds of the Universities of Scotland are far short of what is required for the development of modern science. I hope that this requirement will be kept in mind, and that the Government will not hesitate to move a very considerable increase in the grant to the Scotch Universities.
  MR. BRYCE: I do not think that Members in any part of the House who are interested in this question will find anything to complain of in the tone or terms used by the Lord Advocate. He has shown he is aware of the great interest Scottish Members take in this question, and has assured us that the Government are desirous of meeting our views. He sees no difficulty in accepting the proposition that secondary

  1711
  education is a proper matter for Government aid; the only question is whether the hon. Member for Perth, to whom we are much indebted for having brought on this opportune and valuable Debate, shall rest satisfied with what has been said, or whether he desires to have put upon the Journals of the House the assertion that this is a proper matter for Government aid. I hope, when the fund becomes available, secondary education will be one of the first objects which will attract the Government's attention. I do not suppose the Government would object to the Motion if it were modified so as to convey very little more than the Lord Advocate himself has said. The right hon. Gentleman has said that this is a matter not free from difficulty. While sympathising with the Motion, I find difficulty in adopting its details. It is not the case that all over Scotland secondary education is defective. It is not so in large towns like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen. In the larger cities there are some very efficient elementary schools; but it is in the smaller burghs where it is defective, the Grammar Schools in some of them being in a very unsatisfactory condition. In the rural districts, also, the new education system has changed and lowered the character of the parish schools. The superior element has been withdrawn from them, and therefore we have not only to revivify and improve secondary education in the smaller towns, but, in the rural districts, to bring back the parish schools to the position which they held 50 years ago, and, in many of them, to introduce what may be called a secondary department. We want in Scotland that the rural schools shall be able in the future, as in the past, to send pupils direct to the Universities. When I was a student at Glasgow University there were in the classes many young men who worked at their trades during the long Summer vacation, and were yet among the leading students. They had had no education but that of the parish school. As to the propositions of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth, I must say they seem to me to go a little beyond the evidence which he has adduced on behalf of them. I understand my hon. Friend to mean by a Government grant a grant awarded in
  1712
  something like the same way in which Government grants are awarded now to elementary schools, except that he desires it to be on the principle of general efficiency, and not of payment by results. I understand that he does not propose there shall be anything like payment by results in the case of individual scholars. I am not sure we are prepared at once, on the first blush of the matter, to go quite so far in putting our secondary education under the control of the Government. I quite admit that the system of leaving certificates, which the Scottish Education Department introduced, has so far worked very well, and that the secondary schoolmasters themselves seem to be prepared to admit somewhat more interference on the part of the State Authority, provided it is accompanied by a grant. We know, however, that State interference has a habit of growing, and there are examples in other countries in which the principle of State interference has been carried so far that it has tended to produce rather dreary monotony and uniformity. I think we ought to pause before entering on the course which my hon. Friend seems to recommend. It is quite true we cannot expect the State to give money except upon the condition of having some guarantee that efficiency is maintained; but I hope that when consideration is given to the matter, the Government, while recognising the right to be satisfied that the schools maintain their proper standard, will contrive to associate some independent element with them, and will not put them under Government control, in the same sense in which the elementary school now is. I hope also the Government will bear in mind, in considering this question, that it is not simply a question of extending education or of cheapening it. It is more a question of improving the quality of education. On the whole, we have in Scotland now an adequate provision of school accommodation, and if we have not an adequate staff it is, after all, not so much in the matter of numbers as in the high qualities of education that improvement is needed. Under the present system there has, perhaps, been some decline in the quality of the school teachers, and I believe that now there is not so large a pro-

  1713
  portion of teachers in elementary schools who have been through a University course. I hope, therefore, that in the plans which the Government are framing, a very important part will be allotted to improving the position and education of the schoolmaster—to seeing that not only his special training, but his general education will be well cared for and secured. As to the question of free places, I should be a little unwilling to assent to the proposition that free places must necessarily be given by competition. I believe that the result of experiments, particularly in London, as regards the carrying out of the instruction of the better boys in secondary schools, has not so far borne quite as good fruit as we expected from them. I do not do more, however, than throw out such a question for the consideration of the Government. At present, in our elementary schools, even in London, where teachers are perhaps above the average, the system is somewhat mechanical. Looking at the fact as it stands now, it is rash to conclude that the best way in which we can provide a ladder from the poorer to the higher class of education is by the application of the competitive system. I think we shall all feel that this Debate has had a valuable result in the way of preparing us for the scheme which is to be put forward at a later period. I hope the Government will bear in mind there is an absolute consensus of opinion among Scottish Members as to the need of applying money to the aid of secondary education, and there is also an equally general desire that this shall be done in a broad and liberal spirit, and that we should feel that the old connection between the elementary schools and the University, which has been the honour of Scotland, now requires nothing more than the fuller and better development of secondary schools to make it complete, and in order to give to Scottish education that one touch of perfectness which is all that is required.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I wish to express my satisfaction that the Member for Perth has brought this subject before the House. I think Scotland, as compared with other countries, is deficient in the matter of secondary education. We have good
  1714
  primary education, and we believe we have a good University education. In some of the larger towns we have efficient secondary schools; but it is undoubtedly the fact that throughout Scotland there are few of the secondary schools on what may be termed a satisfactory foundation. In the burgh which I represent there is, according to the limited means at its disposal, a tolerably efficient Grammar School, but it is not such a school as such an important place ought to have. I think it is an entirely reasonable demand that some assistance should be given by the Government, and I am very glad to hear we have a reasonable hope of soon obtaining it. I confess I was a little disappointed with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, as to a certain extent he threw a little cold water on some of the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth. In my opinion, it is rather dangerous to put too much secondary education into the primary schools. It is apt to take away the energy of the teachers from the proper function of teaching primary education. I am inclined to think that good secondary education is so little developed among the ordinary schoolmasters, that if we give secondary education in the primary schools we shall be apt to get old-fashioned dominie education instead of the more modern education which is required for the industrial and commercial interests of the country. No doubt it is the case that in special places in the Highlands it is desirable to select centres where schools shall give secondary education; but I am inclined to think that instead of two grades of education we should have three, and should confine our primary schools to a thorough and good primary education, and have a system of secondary schools at considerable centres. The Member for Aberdeen is jealous of too much interference which might follow Government grants. I confess there might be too much of that interference; but, on the other hand, we may have too little of it, especially with the condition of things existing in this country. There is nobody so Conservative as are schoolmasters, and at the great public schools in this country there is a great deal too much in their hands, and the schools are managed too much for their benefit. Now, desiring to improve

  1715
  the character of secondary education as we do, I am not at all jealous of a good deal of Government interference in the Department referred to. I am entirely of the view of the hon. Member for Perth, that it is desirable we should have Government assistance, and that that Government assistance should be accompanied by inspection and direction, so that we may reform and improve the character of our secondary education.
  MR. C. S. PARKER: I only wish to say with regard to the Lord Advocate's speech that I fully admit its satisfactory tone. I can congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the almost revolutionary change which was made in the Code last year. I admit that the system of inspection which has been organised for higher schools is welcome to those who have it, and envied by those who have it not. As regards prospects of further progress, I think this Debate has been valuable. I agree with the remarks made from two sources, that it might be well to distribute grants through County Authorities instead of directly from the State. I should be willing to revise the terms of the Motion, but perhaps the better course would be to ask leave to withdraw it, and leave the matter in the hands of the Department. My hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy has referred to the unsatisfactory state of secondary schools in some of the smaller burghs. I trust the Government will turn their attention to such schools, and that they will also give consideration to the very important question of the establishment of continuation schools both in town and country.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
  (11.1.) The following Notice stood in the name of Sir M. Hicks Beach:—
  "That, having regard to the fact that the employment of Railway Servants for excessive hours is a source of danger both to the men themselves and to the travelling public, a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether, and, if so, in what way, the hours worked by Railway Servants should be restricted by legislation."
  MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the
  1716
  Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee is preceded by a preface which is in the nature of a separate Resolution, and does not come within the order of Reference. The more proper and ordinary course would be for him to move that a Select Committee be appointed. What the terms of Reference should be it will be for the House to judge.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,: I beg to move the Motion in that form.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether, and, if so, in what way, the hours worked by Railway Servants should be restricted by legislation."—(Sir M. Hicks Beach.)
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: It appears to me that the Amendment of which I have given notice falls to the ground, in consequence of the alteration in the form of the notice of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. SPEAKER: I understand the hon. Gentleman intended that the words he has placed on the Paper should come after the first word "hours." There is no reason why they should not come after the second "hours."
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I have to thank you, Sir, for that suggestion. Perhaps I may be permitted to explain why I desired to move my Amendment. I regret that the preparatory part of the right hon. Gentleman's notice has disappeared, because that preparatory part contains the word "excessive," which really is the whole point of the Resolution. I think we must read the appointment of this Committee in the light of the discussion which took place on the 23rd of January. On that day the feeling on both sides of the House was such that a very unusual step was taken by the Government. The President of the Board of Trade suggested that the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Channing) should withdraw his Resolution, and that he (Sir M. Hicks Beach) should substitute for it a very strong declaration on the part of the Government, and propose a Select Committee. I will not dwell upon the policy of appointing a Select Committee, further than to say that

  1717
  I by no means see its necessity. The Board of Trade, in my opinion, are in possession of ample information in the shape of Returns from the companies and Reports from their own Inspectors; and I cannot understand why they do not at once proceed to take action. However, the President of the Board of Trade proposes a Select Committee, and I am not here to oppose its appointment, but I submit that the Committee ought to be founded upon, and guided by, the very strong declarations which fell from the right hon. Gentleman in his speech on the 23rd of January. Let me recall some of the right hon. Gentleman's statements, because they are extremely important, falling as they do from the Member of the Government who represents the relations of the State to the railways. The right hon. Gentleman said—
  "I am bound to admit that in my opinion the Reports of the Inspectors of the Board of Trade show that the safety of the officials and of the travelling public is affected by excessive overtime worked. In the years 1889 and 1890 there were 122 inquiries into railway accidents by Inspectors of the Board of Trade. In 14 of these cases the accident was found to have been more or less due to excessive hours of work on the part of railway servants, principally of drivers and firemen, and 24 separate instances of overtime were given in these cases."
  And then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
  "But the question is whether these Returns do or do not prove excessive overtime, extending far beyond any necessity of this kind, and I am bound to say that in my judgment they do; and more, that they show that there is more overtime on some lines than can be required by any difference between the circumstances of their traffic and the circumstances of other lines with less overtime."
  The right hon. Gentleman, from his gestures and voice, still stands to his declarations, and, therefore, we have it that, in moving for this Committee, he believes that a case has been made out of excessive overtime. My object in proposing this Amendment is to prevent what sometimes happens on Select Committees, namely, that when a Committee sits upstairs those interested who do not take the view that a case has been made out at once proceed to call evidence at more or less wearisome length, and claim that the case has still to be proved.
  1718
  The other night the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works came down to the House with a pile of papers, and argued that there was no excessive overtime. That kind of thing should not be permitted on this Committee; but the Committee should act on the assumption that excessive overtime has been proved, and proceed at once to apply a remedy. I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
  Amendment proposed, after the word "hours," to insert the words—
  "As disclosed in the Returns from the Railway Companies, and the Reports from Inspectors of the Board of Trade."—(Mr. John Ellis.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I think hon. Members will admit that in this matter I have been fair and straight-forward, and have endeavoured to carry out to the letter the promise I made to the House. You, Sir, have ruled that the first sentence in my Resolution is out of order. Of course, I do not for a moment question your ruling. I adhere absolutely to the words which the hon. Member has quoted from my speech on the Resolution of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire, and I can assure the House that I will be no party, if it should be my lot, as I suppose it will, to serve on this Committee, to an attempt to delay the proceedings by an inquiry into matters which I consider to have been proved. I hope that with that statement the hon. Member will be content, because I would point out to him that owing to the alteration of the Resolution the insertion of the words he has moved would rather weaken the powers of the Committee than otherwise. It would not at all carry out what he intended when he gave his notice. I entirely abide by the words I used the other evening, as to the excessive hours worked by railway servants.
  MR. CHANNING: As the Motion out of which the proposition for the appointment of a Select Committee springs was in my name, I may be permitted to make one or two remarks upon the present position of the question. I cordially accept what the right hon. Gentleman has just said as to the

  1719
  manner in which, he approaches this Committee, but I must say I think we require a little more. I believe that those interested in this question will only be satisfied if they hear from the right hon. Gentleman a distinct indication that if the Committee reports, as I hope it may do, and without any undue delay, in favour of some legislation in the matter, the right hon. Gentleman will take the necessary steps to carry such legislation in the course of the present Session. I do not know whether we are to understand the President of the Board of Trade as assenting to that proposition; but if there is no assurance we shall continue, in spite of the goodwill expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, to regard the appointment of a Select Committee at all with a certain amount of suspicion. I must say I regret there has been any necessity in the view of Her Majesty's Government for the appointment of a Select Committee. I should very much prefer to see legislation entered upon at once. We have it acknowledged in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, we see the evidence in the Returns placed before the House, that these men have been grossly overworked; we have this further acknowledged in the repeated representations and recommendations of Board of Trade officials, who have urged the desirability of a reduction of the hours of duty for railway servants. I really think that, just as two years ago the continual accidents showed the necessity for the adoption of a certain brake on railways, so the Scotch strike might have brought the Board of Trade to its senses and have shown the necessity of action in regard to hours of service. I hope inquiry will be confined to really practical evidence bearing on the method of carrying out the positive pledge that something shall be done to meet these excessive hours of work and to put an end to them. There should be no undue delay in the proceedings of the Committee. Further, I must press most strongly upon the right hon. Gentleman the absolute duty which lies upon him, in case the Committee report in favour of doing something to end this state of things, which according to the Returns has continued for six years past, that he will
  1720
  take such steps as are possible for legislation this Session.
  MR. SALT: I hope the inquiry will, at any rate, be a thorough one. I do not see any reason why it need be an inquiry of any great length; a week or two, I might say, would be sufficient time to put before the Committee the necessary and particular facts of the case. There is one point which I think has not been quite grasped. It is not the interest or desire of any well-managed Railway Company that there should be any overtime when it can be avoided. Overtime arises very much from the necessities and peculiarities of certain kinds of traffic, and that is one question which might be fairly considered by the Committee. Another remarkable part of the question is that in the great majority of cases overtime is by no means disagreeable to the men themselves. I have many friends among the men working on railways, and I know that some of them have complained that they have not been allowed to work overtime. That is a point upon which the Committee may make careful inquiry, and if in the result it is shown that the companies should be restrained from employing overtime work under some sort of penalty, it will also be necessary to establish some sort of penalty to prevent the men from engaging in overwork. I am very anxious the Committee should enter on its investigation, not on behalf of the Railway Companies, but in order that the wishes and wants of the men may be ascertained; that what is fair to the men should be ensured by legislation, and that any fear of danger to the public from lengthened hours of railway service should be removed. All that is necessary is a fair and impartial inquiry into matters extremely difficult, and in regard to circumstances having many peculiarities and varieties.
  MR. BROADHURST: If my hon. Friend (Mr. J. Ellis) had decided to proceed with his Amendment I should have suggested the addition of the words "and from other sources," and I think the President of the Board of Trade will admit there are other sources, in addition to the Inspectors' Department and the official Returns, from which the Committee

  1721
  might derive valuable imformation and assistance. But my hon. Friend does not intend to move his Amendment. I understand he rests satisfied with the very emphatic assurance given him by the right hon. Gentleman that he intends this to be a thorough and exhaustive inquiry, and that no time shall be lost before the Committee enters upon its proceedings. It think it will be generally regretted in the House that there is no Representative of railway workmen in the House who could take his place on the Committee, where his knowledge would be of the greatest assistance; such a man as Mr. Tait or Mr. Harford, for instance. Mr. Tait is a distinguished law-abiding citizen, and, had he a place here among us, would be an ornament to the House of Commons, and would greatly assist our deliberations. This I say without fear of contradiction. Under the circumstances, we may trust the assurances of the President of the Board of Trade, and I hope he will do his utmost to secure that the railway servants will have early and ample opportunity of representing their views to the Committee.
  MR. M'LAREN: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the terms of Reference would allow the Committee to consider other, and what I may call indirect, ways of checking overtime, as well as the direct way of legislation, or passing an Act to prevent it. I know a great many railway servants strongly hold, as I incline to do myself, that the best method of checking overtime is to make each day stand by itself as a matter of work and payment, not computing each week as 60 or 72 hours' work, and reckoning the overplus as overtime. Let each day stand by itself, and the time over 10 or 12 hours be paid for as overtime at the rate, say, of time and a half, not setting the hours, long or short, against each other over the week. I am not going to argue the question whether this is the best way of treating overtime, but I should like to know whether it will be possible to deal with a suggestion of that kind?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Certainly.
  MR. M'LAREN: That satisfies me entirely. I thought it would be so, but was not clear on the point. I am extremely glad the Committee is to be appointed, and was quite prepared to adopt the proposal when it was made during the Debate the other night. As the right hon. Gentleman has not made, up his mind as to the best form of legislation on the subject, it is desirable we should have a Committee to take evidence from railway servants and experts, and I believe the inquiry will result in valuable recommendations. I think it is reasonable to ask that there should be legislation this Session on the lines of the Report of the Committee; for if the Committee should disagree, or should the Government disregard the findings of the Committee, I fear we shall be little better off, for we have no chance of dealing with the subject this year without the assistance of the Government. However, I cordially welcome the prospect of an inquiry.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: I cannot join altogether in the satisfaction expressed at the proposal to appoint a Committee, but I rather join in the protest against the appointment of a Committee at all. The case for some restriction of the excessive hours of overtime was clearly made out in the Debate last week; it was supported by evidence in the hands of the Board of Trade, and I cannot see what useful purpose a Committee is to serve. The result, judging from some of the speeches we have heard from the other side of the House, will be that the Committee will present a divided Report. Some hon. Members who spoke during the Debate certainly gave no indication of supporting a proposal under which there would be Government intervention in the question of railway hours of labour, while other hon. Gentlemen on this side are pledged in favour of interference, so the result may be expected of a divided Report, and that may be regarded as a means of shelving the question. The experience we have had in Scotland lately shows that whatever may be the experience of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Salt) in regard to the sentiments

  1723
  of railway men as to overtime, those views are not shared by the railway men in Scotland. A case is clearly made out for Government intervention, and the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks Beach) has expressed himself in favour of such intervention. In his speech at Kilmarnock he warned the Railway Associations that the number of railway accidents due to overwork might necessitate the framing of regulations by the Board of Trade to ensure the safety of the travelling public. I protest against referring this subject to a Committee—a proceeding which will probably end in shelving the question for another Session.
  SIR CHARLES DALRYMPLE: It is unfortunate that hon. Members should attempt to disparage the work of the Committee before that Committee is appointed. All along, with few exceptions, an endeavour has been made on the other side of the House to throw doubt on our sincerity on this side in this matter, and to make out that they alone have the interests of the men at heart. In truth, the charge of insincerity has no foundation whatever, and if anything were wanted to show how baseless is the suggestion, it would be the line adopted by the President of the Board of Trade himself in Scotland last autumn, and long before the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton was heard of, when the right hon. Gentleman, in the most impressive and solemn manner, warned Railway Companies of the responsibility they were incurring in this matter, and that if steps were not taken to remedy the evils it might be necessary to proceed to legislation. That ought to be a sufficient answer to the suggestions of insincerity. I quite understand the position of the hon. Member (Mr. Channing), who brought forward his Motion on January 23, and it is quite natural he should wish to press his efforts to a conclusion; but it is unfortunate that since January 23 he should have written to Scotland pointing out the value of his suggestion as compared with the very small value of the Government proposition. It is very well for the hon. Member for Leith to
  1724
  say that the Board of Trade is fully possessed of knowledge on these matters, but that is a matter for the Board itself to decide. Surely the Department ought itself to be allowed to judge whether or not it has sufficient information, and whether or not the appointment of a Committee is the best means of acquiring further knowledge on the subject. The President of the Board of Trade certainly cannot be charged with indifference in this matter. I believe not only that good will come of the proposed inquiry, but that it is quite possible the result will be legislation during the present Session.
  MR. MORTON: Probably we on this side of the House are more interested in the masses of the people than hon. Gentlemen opposite, and therefore more anxious to see this matter settled. But I make no charges of indifference or insincerity, and least of all do I make such a charge against the President of the Board of Trade. I quite agree that it would be better for Parliament to proceed at once to find a remedy, especially as the right hon. Gentleman admits there is a grievance; but the inquiry is for the purpose of finding out the remedy, not for deciding if there is a grievance, and I accept the proposal for a Committee as the best thing we can get, and probably it will result in something being done another year. I have a proposal in the nature of a Motion, which I presume will not he affected by the appointment of a Committee, but I am satisfied that we could, if the Government chose, at once proceed to consider what by legislation ought to be done to settle these disputes before they come to strikes and damage to the interests of the entire community. As I am a Representative of a constituency in which there are a large number of railway men, I may express a hope that the men will have the fullest opportunity of being heard before the Committee. If the grievance of the men is not fully presented, it will be impossible to find a remedy that will satisfy them, and I particularly urge this point.
  MR.J. ROWLANDS: I do not think that in a discussion of the terms of Reference for this Committee, charges of insincerity should be exchanged. It is our duty to define as clearly as we can the position the Committee is to take up. But I particularly wish to refer to a point alluded to by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt). He said he found a great number of men were in favour of overtime, and that may well be. But the reason is, that the ordinary wages are so low that men find it necessary to work long hours to augment their ordinary remuneration. I am confident that if the Committee does not inquire specially into this question of overtime, its labours will be worthless so far as railway men are concerned. Before all things, when we come to the question of hours of labour, the question of overtime must be considered, and unless some strong impediment is put in the way of overtime you will not reduce the hours of labour, and the Committee will not attain the object for which it is appointed. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not rely on any other methods of checking overtime, but will take into consideration the best means of suppressing it. We have had an illustration as to what can be done by the result achieved on a railway line south of the Thames. At a meeting of the shareholders last week the Chairman showed how the Directors had voluntarily, in the interest of their men, brought about the result we desire to attain by this Committee. If other Directors would act in the same spirit there would be no need for a Committee, but this instance demonstrates the possibility of doing that we desire to see carried out.
  MR. BRUNNER: In my view the scope of the Reference is too limited, and it seems to me we might have made this an opportunity for obtaining information as to the relations between employers and employed in all cases where the two interests work together for the
  1726
  public in a direct fashion. We have had in times gone by troubles between employers and employed in the matter of gas supply, and we may look forward to possible troubles in relation to Electric Light Companies; we have also had disputes between Tramway Companies and their servants. Disputes in these various departments of labour concern the whole community, and the real justification for this Committee is the public safety, and it might well be that in the mind of Parliament the public convenience is an equally good justification. Therefore, I regret that this opportunity should be lost for obtaining a sound and well-considered opinion from the House on this matter, and I trust that before long the wisdom of Parliament may be turned in this direction.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: Having regard to the satisfactory assurances given by the right hon. Gentleman, I do not propose to trouble the House with a Division.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I did not take any part in the discussion on January 23, but I take this opportunity of pointing out what appears to me to be the essence of the objection taken on this side of the House to the terms of the Motion. It appears to me the Motion is a little illogical, because it commences with reciting the fact that the employment of railway servants for excessive hours is a source of danger both to the men themselves and to the travelling public, and that, indeed, has been established by the Returns presented to the House, and, therefore, it may be taken as indubitable that such excessive hours are a source of danger; but then the Motion goes on to propose that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether the hours should be restricted by legislation.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the Preface to the Motion has been struck out.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I apologise for my error, Sir. I was not present during

  1727
  the earlier part of the discussion. Another point I wish to mention has reference to what has been urged by my hon. Friend—that a proper amount of evidence shall be taken from the men themselves. I make no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will ensure that this is done, but may I ask, in addition, that he will guarantee that the men who give evidence, possibly against their own Directors, shall be protected from the consequences of their action? It is exceedingly difficult to get men whose livelihood depends] on the will of their employers to give evidence that may tell against the action of their employers, without being satisfied that they will not suffer in consequence. We know the insidious methods sometimes used by employers to get rid of men who have had the boldness to stand up for their rights, and I hope this matter will not be overlooked. In my opinion, a strong case has been made out for immediate action, and it is a pity that time should be wasted on an inquiry by Committee, and I hope that legislative action on the Report of the Committee may not be thrown over for another year.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether, and, if so, in what way, the hours worked by Railway Servants should be restricted by legislation."

  RELIEF OF DISTRESS (IRELAND)ACT ADMINISTRATION.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I desire to call attention—and I will do so very briefly at this hour—to the inadequate manner in which the Relief of Distress Act is administered. The Government have undertaken a great responsibility by this Act, and very properly they have undertaken it; but they are now acting in a manner—hanging up the Act and not working it—that will really intensify the distress
  1728
  very much, and put the people in a worse position than they would be in if the Act had not been passed at all, and that for many reasons. The people now will be relying on the operation of the Act, and but for the Act there might be more assistance from private sources and from America. It is true that in isolated instances, and chiefly on the sea coast, the Act has been put into operation, and I do not say that the Government have not used it in the most distressed districts. But the House will be aware, from an answer given by the Chief Secretary, that in the greater part of Galway and Mayo the potato crop has failed to the extent of a half or two-thirds, but no relief works have been started in these districts. What I know to be true of Galway and Mayo I believe is also true of Donegal, Kerry, Clare, and other counties. All I ask the Government to do is to immediately put the Act in force to a moderate extent, which they can do at a trifling expense. They have already fixed the rate of wages, and the rate is so low that only dire necessity will induce anybody to apply for the work. Consider what it means, that in August the people had only half or a third of the expected yield of potatoes. By this time, in most instances, the stock must be exhausted, and the consequence is that upon the Chief Secretary's own showing the people are without food, and such, I believe, is really the state of the case. It may be said the people should come under the Poor Law. But they are a class of people whom it is very difficult to relieve by the ordinary Poor Law administration. The Poor Law Guardians will relieve the old and destitute; but the people who are suffering now are just above that class. In many instances they have a pig, a calf, a few sheep perhaps, or a horse and cart, and eke out a livelihood by cartage, and the Guardians cannot relieve them unless, first, the people have parted with their property. What the people want is a small amount of work to relieve them at once, and I would urge the Government at once to start relief works on a moderate scale.

  1729
  In the West of Ireland, not only on the sea coast, but elsewhere, and more especially in Galway and Mayo, a few weeks' work until seed time would do an immense amount of good. The Government have the power; they have assumed great responsibility, and I hope they will take into consideration the extreme necessity, and put the Act into immediate operation.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Relief of Distress Act should at once be put in operation over a larger area."—(Colonel Nolan.)
  MR. KNOX: I will only detain the House for a moment or two in seconding the Motion. There is a certain amount of unfairness in the distribution of relief, and among my own constituents there is a strong feeling that because they did not make a poor mouth about it soon enough they are entirely neglected. It is true Inspectors were sent to different parts of Ireland, and an Inspector was sent to Cavan. He put up at an hotel and enjoyed himself; he drove over the country with one of the Relieving Officers; but he did not consult a single Guardian of the Poor, ex officio or elected. I was present at a full meeting of Guardians called to consider the subject, and each one of them complained that he had not been consulted by the Inspector. These Inspectors come down and spend a few days in a place; they do not consult the clergy, or those who know the condition of the people; they do not consult the Guardians, and then, I suppose, they go back to Dublin Castle and report that there is no distress in the district. That is the sort of exclusive information in the possession of the Chief Secretary. The people of the district, who alone have knowledge as to whether there is distress or not, are not consulted. Guardians have since made representations stating that they can point out many families in great want, and that they are ready to point out these families, and prove the existence of distress to the satisfaction of the Inspector if the Inspector will come down again; but though a month has elapsed no Inspector has been sent down,
  1730
  and nothing whatever has been done to inquire into the existence of the distress, or means taken to relieve it. I do not want to embarrass the Government, whose task in this matter is difficult; but I do think it is their duty to do what they can to find out how much distress exists in other places besides the immediate neighbourhood of the Western seaboard.
  SIR J. COLOMB: Speaking from personal knowledge of certain portions of Ireland, I disagree absolutely and entirely from what has fallen from the previous speakers. It would be disastrous, in my opinion, were the Government to put this Relief Act into operation over a larger area than that which the Official Inspector has determined is the proper area wherein relief should be applied. Speaking of a remote part of the West of Ireland with which I am acquainted, I am thankful that such measures have been taken as the Government have adopted not with the advice of those gentlemen always ready to err on the side of too much liberality, but by measures adapted to the justice and necessities of the case.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,: The time at my disposal is very limited; but even had I much more I do not think the House would expect or desire that I should now enter into any detailed statement upon the important subject which has been brought before the House in a moderate and temperate manner by the hon. and gallant Member. I will, shortly, remind him of the position of affairs. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary obtained some time ago a Vote for a nominal sum in respect of the works undertaken by the Government in Ireland for the relief of exceptional distress in certain districts. On that occasion my right hon. Friend stated the general character of the works to be undertaken by the Government, and his statement met with the approval of both sides of the House. It will be necessary, however, before the conclusion of the present financial year, to have that question again brought

  1731
  before the House for the purpose of taking a Vote for a substantial sum; and it is the intention of the Chief Secretary to state on that occasion in detail the measures which are undertaken for the relief of distress in Ireland. Therefore, if I had more time than the Rules allow, I ought not now to anticipate any statement that will have to be made. I assure the House that all possible means are being adopted by my right hon. Friend to ascertain the precise necessity of the different districts in Ireland to which reference has been made. The hon. Member for Cavan has referred to the information before the Chief Secretary as exclusive, but I can assure him it is nothing of the kind. Every means has been taken to procure the best information through the medium of disinterested persons in a position to know the exact state of the facts.
  It being midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

  MOTION.

    TOWNS IMPROVEMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Knox, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Improvement of Towns in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Knox, Sir Thomas Esmonde, and Mr. Webb.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 185.]

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.
    TITHE RENT-CHARGE RECOVERY BILL.—(No. 110.)

      COMMITTEE.
      Order for Committee read.
      MR. CONYBEARE: I object.
      THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,: I hope the hon. Gentle man will withdraw his objection. I am under an engagement if the Bill passes through all its stages this week that I will give Monday next for the discussion of the Vote of Censure of which the right hon. Member for Newcastle has given notice. Otherwise that cannot be done.
      MR. H. H. FOWLER: I hope the hon. Member will not press the objection. It was arranged that the Bill should pass through Committee on Monday, and so far as the Opposition is concerned that arrangement would have been carried out. It is necessary to get the Bill through Committee to-night in order that we may have the Report on Thursday.
      MR. SPEAKER: If there is anything further to be said it must be said with the Chairman of Committees in the Chair.
      Bill considered in Committee.
      (In the Committee.)
      MR. CONYBEARE: I do not wish to defer the Committee stage. I only objected because, on principle, I object to any Government business being taken after 12 o'clock. If hon. Members around me, who are more interested in the measure than I am, are not disposed to object to the course proposed by the Government, I will not stand in the way of the general feeling of the House.
      THE CHAIRMAN: The Manuscript Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Carnarvon cannot be moved, as a provision similar in principle has already been dealt with.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I will move it on Report.
      Bill reported.
      SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I should like to state that we propose to take the Report stage on Thursday. I understand that the reprinted Bill will be ready for distribution to-morrow. I will place on the Paper to-night the Amendments I propose to move on Report.
      Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 184.]
      House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
The Lord Fitzhardinge—Took the Oath.

STANDING ORDERS RELATING TO STANDING COMMITTEES.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Earl CADOGAN): My Lords, the Committee which the House appointed a few days ago to examine into the Standing Orders of the House which relate to Standing Committees, have considered the subject, and have embodied their conclusions in a Report which I now have the honour to lay upon the Table. That Report will be circulated, and in it will be found the full text of the new Standing Orders, which the Committee recommend should be adopted by your Lordships. I think it will be for the convenience of the House that a week should be given in order to consider these proposals, and I therefore beg to give notice that this day week I shall move the adoption of the new Standing Orders in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee.
Report from the Select Committee (with the proceedings of the Committee and appendix) made, and to be printed; and to be taken into consideration on Tuesday next. (No. 26.)

FACTORY AND WORKSHOPS BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the law relating to factories and workshops—Was presented by the Lord Kenry (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl); read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 27.)
PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 5.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD: I beg to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill. It passed through your Lordships' House last year, and is now presented precisely in the form in which it then obtained your approval. I therefore think it quite un-
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  necessary to make any observations about the intent or purposes of the Bill.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday next.

  LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL BILL [H.L.]—(No. 6.)
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read, and discharged; and Bill referred to the Examiners.

  TRAMWAYS ORDER IN COUNCIL (IRELAND) (ATHENRY AND TUAM RAILWAY)BILL.—(No. 19.)
  Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.