Sitting of 22 February 1892

QUESTIONS.

  ILLEGAL BEAM TRAWLING OFF THE SCOTCH COAST.
  MR. DUFFI beg to ask the Lord Advocate if the attention of the Secretary for Scotland has been called to the Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland for last year, wherein repeated reference is made to the systematic evasion of the law by beam trawlers, and to the total inadequacy of the sea police at present employed to protect the waters closed against beam
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  trawling; and if it is the intention of the Government, in consequence of this official information, to station a Marine Police on the coast of Scotland sufficient to maintain law and order, at present subject to serious infringement by what the Report characterises as the illegal depredations of the trawlers?
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONhad notice of the following question:— To ask the Lord Advocate whether the Admiralty has yet consented to place the ships in Scottish waters necessary to secure the protected areas from illegal depredation by trawlers?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Sir C. J. PEARSON,I propose to include in my answer a reply to the question of the hon. Member for Leith Burghs. The Secretary for Scotland has had under his attention the Report of the Fishery Board, to which the hon. Member refers. Her Majesty's Government are well aware that the laws in relation to trawling are at present largely evaded. There are obvious difficulties in effectively patrolling 800 miles of seaboard, but the Admiralty have strengthened their force of gunboats off the Scotch coast and are making careful investigations as to the best means of dealing with this difficult question.
  MR. DUFFIn the number of vessels appointed for the purpose will there be any special protection for the Moray Firth?
  SIR C. J. PEARSONThat is a matter of detail with which I am not acquainted. I must ask for notice of the question.
  MR. H. T. ANSTRUTHERCan the right hon. Gentleman answer a question which was formerly put to the late Lord Advocate and upon which he said he would make inquiry, whether the average speed of the steam trawlers is higher than that of any of the vessels employed in the Marine Police Service? Can the right hon. Gentleman say if that is the case, as, according to my information, it is?
  SIR C. J. PEARSONI am sorry I am not able to give the hon. Member the information he desires at this moment, but I will make inquiry into the matter.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONDid I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Admiralty force had been strengthened, or that it was proposed to strengthen it?
  SIR C. J. PEARSONI believe it has already been strengthened.

  THE TITLE OF LORD MAYOR.
  MR. JOHNSTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government will recommend to Her Majesty to confer on the Chief Magistrate of the City of Belfast the style and title of Lord Mayor, now that Dundee, recently granted a City Charter, and with a population considerably less, has just had its Chief Magistrate raised to the position of Lord Provost? I may be allowed to add that, in asking this question, I have not the slightest feeling of jealousy towards Dundee, and in no way object to the title of Lord Provost.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will say, when answering the question of the hon. Member for South Belfast (suggesting that the style and title of Lord Mayor should be conferred on the Chief Magistrate of the City of Belfast), whether he will favourably entertain a similar application on behalf of the ancient Cities of Cork, Limerick, and Waterford?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,I will answer both questions at the same time. The Government will be prepared to consider the question of advising Her Majesty to confer the title of Lord Mayor upon the Chief Magistrate of the City of Belfast, having due regard to what has been done in other parts of the United Kingdom. With regard to Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, those cities do not present the conditions of population and growing industrial importance which would entitle them to be placed on the same level as Belfast.
  MR. SEXTONCan the right hon. Gentleman say how many Scotch cities have Lord Provosts?
  MR. JOHNSTONFive.
  MR. MATTHEWSYes; I think five.

  THE GLIN BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  MR. ABRAHAMI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that when the Glin Board of Guardians was dissolved last year three divisions of that Union were transferred, without subdivision, to Listowel Union, and the services of the dispensary doctors retained by sealed order of the Local Government Board; can he state why the services of the rate collector for these divisions was not also retained, in accordance with, the precedent followed in the case of Gortin Union when it was united with that of Omagh and Strabane; has the Local Government Board sanctioned the appointment of Mr. Mulvihill as rate collector, although his time is occupied as rent warner and land bailiff in the employment of an ex officio member of the Listowel Board, and does this sanction involve the payment of a pension of £10 a year to the late collector, though he is fitted in every way to discharge the duty; and will he institute inquiry into this matter?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JACKSON,On the dissolution of Glin Union seven electoral divisions were transferred to Listowel Union. The cases of the medical officer and the poor rate collector were dealt with differently by reason of the fact that the transferred divisions formed a complete dispensary district, but did not form a complete poor rate collector's district. The formation of the new district or districts for collection purposes was, therefore, left for the consideration of the Guardians. In the case of the Gortin Union, the electoral divisions transferred formed complete collectors' districts. The new rate collector was elected by the Listowel Guardians by a considerable majority, and the reply to the inquiries made by the Local Government Board being satisfactory, the appointment was sanctioned. It was the case that the Guardians of the Glin (dissolved) Union granted their collector a pension of £10 0s. 5d.

  RETURN OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.
  MR. JOHN ELLISI beg to ask the President

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  of the Board of Trade when the Returns of Accidents and Casualties on Railways under "The Regulation of Railways Act, 1889," for the six months ending 31st December, 1891, will be presented and distributed?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,There are no such Returns referred to in the Act of 1889. The hon. Member probably refers to the "Regulation of Railways Act, 1871." The Returns of Accidents and Casualties furnished under that Act will, I hope, be presented early next week, and distributed as soon afterwards as the revision of proofs can be completed.

  THE NORTHERN TERRITORY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
  MR. WATTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received the Report of Mr. Parkes with reference to the resources of the Northern Territory of South Australia; and, if so, whether he has any objection to lay the same upon the Table?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,The Report in question has not yet been received.

  GLASGOW POSTAL DISTRICTS.
  MR. WATTI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has yet been able to investigate and arrive at, a decision as to the anomalous position of Parkhead owing to the existing postal area in the east end of Glasgow; whether he is aware that Springfield Road is one-half in the Glasgow area and one-half in the Parkhead district, and that letters are frequently thus delayed as long as a day through business premises being a few feet on one or other side of the postal boundary; and whether, seeing Parkhead is one of the oldest and most populous districts of Glasgow, there is any objection to extend to it the same privileges as have been granted to Calton, Anderson, Bridgeton, and other similarly situated districts?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON,Inquiry has already been made in connection with a written application received from the hon. Member some time ago on the subject of Parkhead,
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  and a revision of the postal arrangements there and in the other suburban districts of Glasgow is now under consideration, under which the morning delivery and other services at Parkhead will be placed as nearly as circumstances will allow on the same footing as in other parts of the city. It is hoped, also, that it will be found practicable to include the whole of Springfield Road in the Glasgow Town District. But as the revision is a large one, some further time may necessarily be occupied before it can be carried out.

  THE ORDNANCE SURVEY.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHI beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the grievances of those employed in the Ordnance Survey, which concluded its examination in July, 1891, has made a Report; whether he will lay a Copy upon the Table; and whether the grievances complained of are to be remedied, and when?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,It is not correct that the Departmental Committee which was appointed to inquire into the questions of the pay and general position of the Civil servants employed on the Ordnance Survey concluded their examination on 21st July, 1891. The examination was not concluded until 26th October last. The Report of the Committee has not yet been made, and I understand that its preparation has been delayed by reason of the serious illness of the Chairman, Colonel Leach. I will endeavour to accelerate the production of the Report; and as soon as it is presented I will at once consider what action, if any, is to be taken thereon; and I am aware of no reason why the Report should not be laid upon the Table.

  SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN THE HIGH-LANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHI beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that many heads of families in the Highlands and Islands are obliged to leave their homes for the Lowlands in pursuit of work, remaining absent for months at a time; whether School Boards have hitherto, and with

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  beneficial results, prosecuted, when necessary, the mother, or the temporary head of the household, for default in sending children to school; whether he is aware that it has lately been decided in the Supreme Courts of Scotland that the father, wherever he may be resident, is alone responsible for such default; and whether he will give legislative effect to the representations of various school boards who desire ready recourse for defaults in school attendance?
  SIR C. J. PEARSONThe answer to the two first paragraphs of the question is in the affirmative. I have not had an opportunity of seeing the decision referred to, but I understand the Court held that, on the facts before them, the father had the actual custody of his children, and I am not aware that the decision went further. I have no reason to believe that a desire for a change in the law is widely felt; and it appears inexpedient to extend the definition of "parent" merely because the Court has held in a particular case that the responsibility rested with the father.

  TREASON FELONY CONVICTS.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons have been convicted of treason felony in Great Britain during the past 10 years; and of those so convicted, how many have been released, how many have died in prison, and how many of those released have died or become insane?
  MR. MATTHEWSThe number of persons convicted of treason felony in Great Britain during the past 10 years and received into English convict prisons under sentence of penal servitude is 23. Of this number four have been released; two have died in prison. I have no information as to the subsequent history of those who have been released from prison.

  THE GREEN STREET COURT HOUSE, DUBLIN.
  MR. M. J. KENNYI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on what basis the respective contributions of the Treasury, the Corporation of Dublin, and the Grand Jury of County Dublin towards the reconstruction of Green
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  Street Court House are calculated; how long the present Court House has been in existence; and if his attention has been directed to the reports in the newspapers of a recent important criminal trial, in the progress of which the leading counsel for the accused had twice to leave the Court owing to the bad smells proceeding from the drains underneath the Court House; and to a further incident reported as follows:—
  "When the jury was sworn one of the jurors complained of a great draught in the jury box.
  "The Lord Chief Justice said the special jurors of Dublin should not be allowed to get the influenza, and ordered that the windows should be closed.
  "One of the jurors tried to close the window near the jury box, but was unable to do so.
  "The Lord Chief Justice: This is scandalous. This state of things is an outrage upon civilisation."
  If, considering that the most important business discharged at Green Street is the hearing of criminal causes, the Government will consider whether they cannot defray the whole cost of rebuilding what is practically a Government property; and if steps will be taken at once in that direction?
  MR. JACKSONThe total cost for building a new Court House in substitution for the existing one at Green Street, Dublin, was estimated at £40,500. The Treasury, in 1883, agreed to contribute £13,500—i.e., one-third—the remainder to be borne in the proportions of one-third by the county and two-thirds by the city. In arriving at the conclusion that those were the most equitable proportions, the Lord Lieutenant and the Treasury had before them returns obtained from the Clerks of the Peace and of the Crown of cases entered for hearing at Green Street in the preceding five years. The Grand Jury on behalf of the County, and the Corporation on behalf of the City, accepted these proportions. I have no information enabling me to say how long the present Court House has been in existence. The Irish Government have observed the reports in the Press of the remarks of the learned Judge in regard to the discreditable condition of the present building. The hon. Member is under a misapprehension in describing this Court House as practically Government property. It is used as the Quarter Session Court House for the City of

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  Dublin, at which the Recorder sits for the hearing of a multitudinous class of cases, and it is also used for the sittings of the Commission of Oyer and Terminer for both the City and the County of Dublin—Commissions which are held frequently, and correspond to the Circuits of Assize in ordinary counties. I cannot hold out any hope of better terms being offered.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLHas the right hon. Gentleman any objection to consider, so far as Crown business is concerned, which necessitates the attendance of jurors, whether the Government could not arrange that this should be transacted at the Four Courts, leaving the civil business to be done at Green Street?
  MR. JACKSONI have no objection to consider the suggestion. I will communicate with Dublin, and ascertain if there is any possibility of this being done.
  MR. SEXTONWill the right hon. Gentleman also consider whether it would not be likely to facilitate matters to withdraw the insult offered to the City of Dublin by restoring the name of the Lord Mayor to the Commission?
  MR. JACKSONI am not aware that there is any insult in the matter.
  MR. MAC NEILLWill the right hon. Gentleman undertake that the name of the Lord Mayor of Dublin shall be restored to the Commission? For centuries the Chief Magistrate of Dublin had been included in the Commission of Oyer and Terminer, and withdrawing the name was an insult to the Corporation.
  MR. JACKSONI am not aware of it, and I am not prepared to accept the construction put upon it by the hon. Member.

  THE POST OFFICE AND RAILWAY COMPANIES.
  MR. JOHN ELLISI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether his attention has been drawn to the remark in the Report of the Select Committee on Revenue Estimates of 11th July, 1888, as to the loss to the State from "the enormous increase of services gratuitously performed for the Railway Companies" by messages so sent under a contract made in 1870, and also
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  to the reference made to this matter by the late Postmaster General in Committee of Supply, on 23rd July, 1890; and whether he can now say how the matter stands as between the State and the Railway Companies?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThis matter has for a long time received the anxious consideration of the Post Office, and we have been during the last few months in communication, by meetings and correspondence, with the representatives of the Railway Companies. No arrangement has yet been arrived at, and the last communication was from the Post Office. In the meantime I am glad to say that the growth of the loss in question appears to have ceased.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICES.
  CAPTAIN M'CALMONTI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, although the delays in the mail service to Ireland by Stranraer and Larne have been very frequent since the institution of the accelerated service on 1st September last, it is the case that only on four occasions has the delay occurring between Stranraer and Belfast exceeded 15 minutes to the end of January last?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONNo, Sir; I am informed that, reckoning from the time of the complete transfer of the mails to the packet at Stranraer, upwards of 15 minutes have been lost before the arrival at Belfast on 30 occasions between the 1st September and the 31st January. On 25 of those occasions time was lost by not starting after the mails were on board.

  POSTAL SERVICE IN MACROOM DISTRICT, CO. CORK.
  DR. TANNERI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether a memorial has been received from the inhabitants of Ashgrove and the district situated between Macroom and Kilnamartyra, County Cork, through the Cork postmaster, asking for the establishment of a sub-post in the district; and whether, having regard to the extent of the district and the convenience of the inhabitants, their request will be granted?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONA memorial has been received asking for the establishment of a post office at Ashgrove or Raleigh, in the neighbourhood men-

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  tioned in the hon. Member's question; but as the service is already carried on in that district at an outlay considerably in excess of the revenue, no further expenditure can be incurred. About 12 letters a day only would benefit by the proposal.
  DR. TANNERIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that his late lamented predecessor, Mr. Raikes, promised last year to see into the complaints made by the inhabitants of the Macroom district with a view to having their grievances redressed?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONYes, Sir, inquiries were made with the result have ave stated.
  DR. TANNERI shall refer to the subject in discussion on the Estimates.

  SALARIES OF IRISH SUB-POSTMASTERS.
  MR. TUITEI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is prepared to take into consideration the case of the Irish sub-Postmasters with a view of increasing their salaries; and whether the person who fills the position is obliged to provide an office, stationery, twine, wax, &c., for which no compensation is given, while the salary in many cases is as low as £4 per annum, and the hours of duty 13 to 19 per day?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThe salaries of sub-Postmasters in Ireland are regulated by the same scale as those of sub-Postmasters in the rest of the United Kingdom, and as the payments made under this scale are found to be sufficient in England and Scotland, it is not considered necessary to increase them in Ireland.

  FOG ACCIDENTS IN HER MAJESTY'S DOCKYARDS.
  MR. NORRISI beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if in Her Majesty's Dockyards he proposes the construction of stanchions and chains, or any other arrangement, along the quays, to safeguard life from accidents in the event of fogs, as recommended by the President of the Board of Trade to the Joint Committee of the London and St. Katharine, the East and West India, the Victoria and Albert, and the Tilbury Docks?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,All the Admiralty docks
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  and quays are as a rule protected by stanchions and chains; but, as it is possible that in a few cases there may be some omission, I have called for a Report from the different naval yards.

  REUTER'S PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
  MR. LENGI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in addition to the contract for the reporting of the Parliamentary Debates by Reuter's Telegram Company, Limited, he will, without giving the names of other tenderers, supply a concise statement, for the information of the House, of the terms offered by them, so that they may be compared with those of the accepted offer?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir JOHN GORST,As I stated last week in answer to a question, it is unusual to publish the names of the unsuccessful tenderers, but I may state generally that the 15 unsuccessful tenders varied from £245 to £650 per volume.
  MR. LENGI beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the publication of advertisements along with Reuter's Parliamentary Debates, in addition to their publication in the Board of Trade Journal, has created great dissatisfaction among newspaper and other publishers in London, on the ground that it constitutes Government competition with private business, and whether the Treasury will withhold their assent from similar arrangements for inserting advertisements in Parliamentary publications until those affected have an opportunity of stating their objections to the system?
  SIR J. GORSTNo, Sir; no complaint of the kind has ever reached me. The Parliamentary Debates are not a Parliamentary but a private publication, and there can, therefore, be no competition of Government with private business. I am not prepared to give such an undertaking as the hon. Member desires.
  MR. LENGWill the right hon. Gentleman further say, Was it one of the stipulations of the contract that the contractor should have power to insert advertisements?
  SIR J. GORSTThe contract has been laid on the Table. I cannot answer from recollection what are the stipulations, but I do not think that was one of the stipulations.

  QUEEN'S PLATES IN IRELAND.
  MR. O'KEEFFEI beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if, in the interest of promoting better breeding of horses amongst the farmers in Ireland, he will recommend a further distribution of the Queen's Plates for winners of races in that country; and whether, in view of the fact that such plates are now practically confined to entries at the Curragh Race Meetings, he will, on every requirement being satisfied, restore to the Limerick Race Stewards the Queen's Plate formerly for many years at their disposal?
  MR. JACKSONI am not aware of any intention to ask Parliament to provide an increased amount for Queen's Plates in Ireland. But I would remind the hon. Member that the present Government have, under the Probate Duties Act of 1888, provided a sum of £5,000 annually, payable to the Royal Dublin Society, for the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle in Ireland; and the Congested Districts Board are also taking important steps in that direction. As regards the particular case of Limerick, the races there had one of the Queen's Plates apparently for but a very short period. It was withdrawn some 22 years ago in consequence of the course there not being suitable, and given to Cork. I am not aware of any generally expressed desire to remove this plate from Cork.

  THE CONVICT JOSEPH MULLETT.
  MR. M'CARTANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware of the low state of health of Joseph Mullett, now confined in Maryborough Gaol; whether his attention has been called to the report in the National Press of 17th November, 1891, of the proceedings at the inquest on the remains of P. W. Nally (Mullett's former fellow prisoner, who died in Mountjoy Prison), wherein the following statement appears as having been written by Nally from Downpatrick Gaol:—
  "Poor Joe Mullett is very delicate. Every morning we expect to hear of his being found dead. It is not the doctor's fault. He has made several reports concerning him, yet the Board take no notice of them";
  and whether, under the circumstances, and in view of the long term of im-
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  prisonment which Mullett has already suffered, he will consider the desirability of releasing him?
  MR. JACKSONThe General Prisons Board report that there is no ground for the suggestion contained in this question as to the alleged serious state of the health of the convict Joseph Mullett; but that, on the contrary, his general health has advanced, and he has within the past year increased a stone in weight.

  NEWCASTLE HARBOUR, COUNTY DOWN.
  MR. M'CARTANI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to a report in the Irish, News of the 17th instant, in which it is stated that five fishermen of Newcastle, County Down, were drowned on Monday last; whether he is aware that, owing to the insufficiency and danger of the Newcastle harbour, the fishermen are obliged to expose their lives in small boats unsuited for deep-sea fishing; and whether, considering the repeated warnings given to the Government as to the danger caused to the lives of the fishermen at Newcastle, owing to the present state of the harbour, steps will now be taken to provide safe and sufficient harbour accommodation there?
  COLONEL WARINGIn relation to this subject, I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that the charge for the harbour was forced upon the Grand Jury of County Down in spite of their protest and their representations that it was unsuitably placed, that it was faulty in construction, and that its maintenance was quite beyond the means of the local rates?
  SIR J. GORSTI am afraid it is not possible for me to be aware of these details upon Irish questions. In reply to the question on the Paper, I can only refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my predecessor in Office on 7th March, 1890, and by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland on 30th April, 1891, to which, I am sorry to say, I can add nothing.
  DR. TANNERBut has the right hon. Gentleman had his attention drawn to the fact that these men lost their lives through the non-completion of Government work, a non-completion to which

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  for many years, attention has been drawn by questions in this House? Is he prepared to sanction a state of things which tends to destroy life?
  SIR J. GORSTNo, Sir; I am not aware of anything of the kind.
  COLONEL WARINGI will put down my question for a future day.

  CLERKS IN THE CENTRAL TELEGRAPH OFFICE.
  MR. M'CARTANI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that certain clerks of the Central Telegraph Office receive £116 a year in the first class after a service of ten and a half years, and other clerks with services of ten years and five months and ten years and four months only receive £86 a year in the second class; whether the difference of salaries arise solely from the classification system; and whether, considering the grave discontent which this inequality is causing in the Service, he will inquire into the matter in order to have it remedied?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThe statement made in the first paragraph is literally correct. In 1890, in connection with the general revision of the indoor establishment of sorting clerks and telegraphists, a large addition was made to the first class of telegraphists at the Central Telegraph Office in order to provide for duties proper to that class, and the new appointments thus created were filled by promotion from the class below. The promoted officers were fortunate in obtaining such a material increase of pay, but of course this good fortune involved no hardship upon their colleagues who are left on the second class, and who, when their turn comes for promotion, will enjoy a similar advantage. Those in receipt of salaries of £86 a year are by no means at a standstill, as they rise by increments of £6 a year to the maximum of the class, £110 a year. Seeming inequalities such as Mr. M'Cartan indicates must generally follow the re-organisation of an establishment, and there is nothing exceptional in the case of the Central Telegraph Office which calls for a resettlement of the costly revision granted after full and careful consideration little more than a year ago.

  LEVEL CROSSINGS ON THE LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.
  MR. CHANNINGI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that at an inquest held on Thursday 4th February, at Portsmouth, near Todmorden, on James Hamworth, who was killed on 2nd February at Portsmouth level crossing, the jury requested the Coroner to make representations to the Directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company as to the dangerous arrangements at Portsmouth Station; also that at an inquest held in 1891 on a little girl named Sarah Dawson, who was killed at Walsden level crossing on the same branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, the jury gave their opinion
  "that the company are practically responsible for this death, which would have been avoided had they constructed the bridge according to the plans deposited with the Todmorden Local Board two years ago, and that they are deserving of the severest censure for their negligence in this matter";
  whether he has observed that it appears from the evidence that about 30 children have to pass this crossing three times a day to attend school; whether he is aware that on the same branch line there are seven other dangerous level crossings, some of which are daily used by several hundreds of persons; and whether, having regard to the repeated accidents at these crossings, he will direct an inquiry to be held by an Inspector of the Board of Trade into the circumstances of the fatal accidents at Walsden and Portsmouth level crossings, and make urgent representations to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company that they should promptly provide bridges or subways where necessary?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACHThe facts are as stated in the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question. As regards the accident to James Ham-worth, the Board of Trade have been in communication with the company, who have stated that their engineer had, prior to the accident in question, been instructed to prepare plans for providing additional accommodation. I think it right, however, to state that the unfortunate man who was killed refused to follow the warnings of the company's servants. As regards the accident to Sarah Dawson at the Walden level

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  crossing, I have also been in communication with the company, who have undertaken, pending the erection of a bridge, that a man shall be stationed at the level crossing to superintend the gates. I am informed by the company that the delay in erecting a bridge has been caused by difficulties in obtaining the necessary land. The Board of Trade had no information of the deposit of plans for the construction of a bridge with the Todmorden Local Board, but the necessity for the erection of a bridge will be further pressed on the company. There appear to be only three other crossings on the Todmorden and Burnley branch which cross public roads. I am informed that the traffic is not large on these roads; the crossings have been duly authorised by Parliament, and I have no power to order the erection of bridges.

  ABSENCE OF A DISTRICT REGISTRY IN BELFAST.
  MR. SEXTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the great inconvenience caused to the merchants of Belfast in not having a local registry for the issue of writs of summons; and whether he will consider the desirability of establishing a district registry there?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,Perhaps I may be allowed to answer this question. The matter referred to by the hon. Member is not under the control of the Executive Government. Under the provisions of the Irish Judicature Act, 1877, all matters connected with the issue of writs are regulated by rules of Court to be made by the Lord Lieutenant, with the concurrence of a majority of the Judges, including the Lord Chancellor; and provision for the issue of writs has been made by the 5th Consolidated Order recently made by them.
  MR. SEXTONWhat I would like to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman is, whether there are 83 places in England and Wales where these writs may be issued, but only one in Ireland; and whether he or the Chief Secretary will move the Lord Lieutenant to a conference with the Judges, so as to ascertain whether new Courts may be established?
  MR. MADDENI presume the
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  question was considered by the Judges when they framed the Consolidated Rules within the last few months. I have explained that the matter cannot be dealt with by the Executive Government. However, I shall bring the matter under the notice of the Lord Chancellor.
  MR. SEXTONI shall take the earliest opportunity of moving that the City of Belfast should no longer labour under so absurd a difficulty.
  MR. T. M. HEALYI would ask whether, in addition to the rules of Court, an amendment to the law does not require certain Treasury arrangements for providing the necessary staff?
  MR. MADDENThe matter cannot be dealt with at all except by a majority of the Judges; but, of course, if a majority of the Judges came to the conclusion that there should be a local issue of writs in Belfast, it would, no doubt, be necessary to make provisions to utilise existing offices, or to make other arrangements. The matter, in the first instance, is one for the decision of a majority of the Judges.

  LABOURERS' COTTAGES IN ATHLONE.
  MR. DONAL SULLIVANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction prevails amongst the labourers of the Athlone Union at the delay in the erection of labourers' cottages in that union; whether any representation on the matter has been made to the Irish Local Government Board; and if he can state how many cottages have been erected by the Poor Law Guardians in Athlone Union since the passing of the Labourers' Act?
  MR. JACKSONThe Local Government Board are not aware of any general dissatisfaction in regard to this matter. No cottages have yet been erected under the Labourers' Act, but a final order was issued on the 23rd of December last providing for the erection in the union of 15 cottages, and the Local Government Board now have under consideration an additional scheme for further cottages.

  IMPERIAL TOBACCO CORPORATION OF PERSIA.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAMI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to protect the interests of Major Talbot and other British subjects, shareholders in the Imperial Tobacco Corporation of Persia, and of the employés of that Corporation, who are injured by the refusal of the Persian people to permit of its establishment in Persia, although a considerable sum of money had been paid for the concession given by His Majesty the Shah?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the Chairman of the Company on the one hand, and with the Persian Government on the other, with a view to proper compensation being given to the Corporation for the abolition of the concession.
  MR. C. GRAHAMMay I ask the hon. Gentleman whether Her Majesty's Government propose to force this compensation from the people of Persia after they have refused to allow the monopoly?
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERI have informed. the hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the Persian Government with a view to arriving at a satisfactory solution.
  MR. C. GRAHAMWhat I want to ask the hon. Gentleman is, who is to pay this compensation after the people have refused to establish the monopoly?
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERThat I conceive will be a matter for the Persian Government to settle with the Persian people.
  MR. C. GRAHAMWhilst recognising that this is a matter for the Persian Government to settle with the Persian people, I hope that our Government will not commit the infamy of forcing this compensation upon the Persian people. That is what I wish to arrive at.

  SMALL ARMS FACTORIES.
  MR. C. GRAHAMI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether a "Maxim Lock," which is supplied by contractors to Government at £20, is made at Enfield for about £1; whether a five-barrel Nordenfelt gun, for which con-
  892
  tractors charge £338 8s., can be made at Enfield for £120; whether recently about 20 operatives have been dismissed from Enfield; and whether contracts have been given to Sheffield firms at greatly higher rates than cost price at Enfield; and, if so, will he explain why this course has been adopted?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,The Enfield price for the Maxim lock cannot be definitely stated, as the manufacture is not yet complete; but it will probably be about £6. The contract price was £20. A five-barrel Nordenfelt gun could be made at Enfield, with appliances complete, for £135. The contract price was as stated in the question; but it is a pattern of which no purchases are now made. More than 20 men have been dismissed from Enfield. The only contract put out at Sheffield was for sword-bayonets in 1889, to a firm who were encouraged to take up the trade to avoid our having to resort to Germany. The price was about 8 per cent. above the then cost of production in the Ordnance factories. May I say generally that all these questions point to the satisfactory conclusion that articles are produced more cheaply in the Ordnance factories. Of course, this is so under their present management, but it does not affect the principle which I have often laid down, and which this House has accepted, that, instead of extending Government factories, it is much wiser, in the interests of the country, to encourage private firms to assist in producing the necessary warlike material.
  CAPTAIN BOWLESI wish to ask whether it is not the fact that the establishment at Enfield has been reduced rather than extended?
  MR. E. STANHOPEIt has been reduced, but only by a very small number.
  MR. HOWARDI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements have been recently made to turn out 500 rifles per week at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Sparkbrook, instead of 400, as formerly, whilst the number turned out at the Enfield Small Arms Factory has been reduced from 1,200 to 500 per week; and whether any men have been discharged from the Small Arms Factory,

  893
  Sparkbrook, during the last two or three weeks, other than fitters, though the numbers at Enfield have been largely reduced?
  MR. E. STANHOPENo alteration whatever has been made in the output at Sparkbrook, which has always been a small one. On the other hand, the output at Enfield has been very large; and, looking to the reduced orders to be expected next year, some reduction is necessary there, though not to the extent anticipated by my hon. Friend.

  BRITISH COLONIES AND THE M'KINLEY TARIFF.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, under the Reciprocity Section of the United States M'Kinley Tariff Act, the Government of President Harrison has constrained Her Majesty's Government to grant admission, without Customs Duties or any other national, colonial, or municipal charge, to 58 classes of American goods, manufactured and otherwise, and a reduction in other classes of 50 per cent. and 25 per cent. on the duty designated in the respective Colonial tariffs, into the British Colonies of British Guiana, Trinidad, Tobago, Barbadoes, Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher, Nevis, Dominica, St. Vincent, and their dependencies; if such remission of duties in the Crown Colonies applies equally to the staple manufacturers of Sheffield and other parts of the British Empire, hitherto taxed from 7 to 10 per cent., and to the natural products of Canada, Newfoundland, and Australasia; if the United States will reciprocally give a free market or more favourable terms to similar articles, the production of such British Colonies, than to goods the production of the United Kingdom or other parts of the British Empire; if this fiscal change has met with the approval of the unofficial Members of the Legislative Councils of the several Colonies concerned; if the inhabitants thereof have been or will be consulted as to the levy of the Colonial revenues by direct instead of indirect taxation as heretofore; and if all Papers on the subject will be laid upon the Table?
  BARON H. DE WORMSThe Colonies named in the first paragraph of the question have decided to lower or abolish their import duties upon certain articles of food and other goods entering largely into popular consumption. Such remission of duties applies to those articles whatever the country of their origin. There is no question of differential duties in the matter, nor was there any constraint upon Her Majesty's Government, who readily assented to a step in the direction of a policy of reduction of duties upon articles of food, which has been pressed upon the Colonies by successive Secretaries of State, and which had the approval of the unofficial Members of the Legislative Councils of the Colonies concerned. Any taxation required to make good the loss of revenue caused by the remissions to which I have referred has been the subject of Debate in the Legislatures of the Colonies concerned. Papers on the subject have been laid on the Table.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTI wish to ask whether the American Government have not obtained a remission of the duties on manufactured articles in the West India Islands named?
  BARON H. DE WORMSI can add nothing to the answer I have given.

  IRISH MAILS.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, in view of the fact that the Great Southern Railway of Ireland and the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland have refused to carry Her Majesty's mails over their lines from Newcomen Bridge Junction on the Dublin Junction Railway, on the ground that the junction is unsafe, he will inquire into the nature of the alleged danger?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThe Post Office has not had occasion to make any proposal to the two companies mentioned, but we are expecting to receive from the Loop Line Company a time-table for the through conveyance of the mails. We have heard that the chairmen of the companies named have expressed themselves unfavourably to the use of the line, but as it has only just been passed by the Board of Trade perhaps these objections may be got over. At all events, the Post Office

  895
  could not intervene in questions of railway engineering and management.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLIs it not a fact that owing to the condition of the line the mails are carried from one point to another?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONYes that is so, and we shall be exceedingly glad to avail ourselves of the loop line, so that there may be no break of bulk of the mails between Queenstown and Kingstown.

  SCOTCH PRISONS.
  MR. CALDWELLI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Committee of inquiry on Scotch Prisons has reported; and, if so, whether he will lay the Report upon the Table of the House?
  SIR JOHN GORSTI am informed that the Committee have not yet presented their Report to the Secretary for Scotland.
  MR. CALDWELLCan the right hon. Gentleman say when it will be presented?
  SIR JOHN GORSTNo; I think the question must be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate.

  THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD.
  MR. CONWAYI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a Sub-Committee has been formed in the Glenanif Electoral Division, scheduled in the Manorhamilton Union, to assist in the working of the Congested Districts Act by the Congested Districts Board; and whether the Congested Districts Board would have any objection to consulting that Committee regarding the steps it proposes taking in that division?
  MR. JACKSONThe Congested Districts Board will give careful consideration to representations or suggestions made by any person connected with the electoral division mentioned, or with any other electoral division in a congested districts county.

  THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE.
  MR. MAC NEILLI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether, notwithstanding the fact that the Despatch of Lord Cross of the 12th September,
  896
  recommends certain offices in the Uncovenanted Civil Service of India to be filled exclusively by Indians, an executive order can at any time authorise the introduction of Europeans to any extent to these offices?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY or STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. CURZON,I must refer the hon. Member to the Despatch itself, which is contained in the Blue Book of 1890. The precise nature and number of the applications which will be thrown open to natives of India in the reorganization of the Services is still under consideration, and any unofficial statement that has hitherto appeared upon the subject is premature.
  MR. MAC NEILLIs the hon. Gentleman aware that in the despatch to which he refers me my question was fully borne out? I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, how many Europeans (including Eurasians), and how many Indians in both the Covenanted and Uncovenanted Civil Services of India were, on the 31st March, 1886, drawing annual salaries of Rs. 5,000, and upwards, and what was the proportion at that date of Europeans (including Eurasians) to Indians?
  MR. CURZONThe figures asked for were all given in my answer to a similar question of the hon. Member on Friday, and I can only refer him to that answer.
  MR. MAC NEILLI think the hon. Gentleman is under a mistake. The figures were given collectively, and not individually. I must repeat my question to-morrow.

  THE ALLOTMENTS ACT, 1887.
  MR. COBBI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has, or can procure, the necessary information to enable him to state how many Rural Sanitary Authorities in England and Wales have acquired, by voluntary arrangement under the powers given to them by "The Allotments Act, 1887," any land by purchase or on lease or any other tenancy, and how many acres have been so acquired by each Authority, and how many allotment tenants hold such land as tenants of each Authority?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,I am unable to give the information asked for without obtaining Returns from various Local Sanitary Authorities. The hon. Gentleman, no doubt, desires to obtain information as to the total number of allotments provided since the passing of the Act of 1887; but the Return so desired would not give the information sought for, as by far the larger number of allotments have been provided by voluntary agreement between owners of land and the labourers. My right hon. Friend the President of the Agricultural Department is considering the desirability of obtaining a Return which will include the information desired by the hon. Gentleman, as well as the particulars of the total number of allotments, and that, I think, will meet the wishes of the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. COBBMay I ask the Minister of Agriculture when he thinks that Return will be ready?
  MR. CHAPLINI am afraid not for three or four months.
  MR. CHANNINGArising out of the question of the Member for the Rugby Division, I would ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can see his way to accepting the Motion I have put on the Paper for a Return including the Urban Authorities, which I have accidentally omitted?
  MR. RITCHIEI thought in all probability that what it was desired to do was to obtain information as to the total number of allotments which are in the occupation of labourers, and the Return which my right hon. Friend is considering will, I believe, be more acceptable to the hon. Gentleman than the extremely partial Return for which he has moved.
  MR. CHANNINGI would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is not as anxious as we are to obtain information as to the acquisition of land under this specific Act passed for that purpose by the House of Commons?
  MR. RITCHIEI attach no importance whatever as to whether or not the allotments were provided by the operation of the Sanitary Authority; but what we do attach importance to is that the allotments should be obtained, and I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that the object of the Allotments Act
  898
  was to provide machinery for obtaining them, if owners of land could not themselves enter into voluntary arrangement with the labourers who desired to have them.
  MR. CHANNINGDo I understand that the form of Return I have moved for is definitely refused by Her Majesty's Government?
  MR. RITCHIEI shall be very glad to have some conversation with the hon. Gentleman on the subject; but considering that that would be a very partial Return, I am pointing out that it would by no means show the operation of the, Act of 1887.
  MR. COBBLet me quite understand. Will the right hon. Gentleman, before the Return of the Minister of Agriculture, which will take three or four months, is produced, give us a smaller Return of the number of allotments acquired under the Act, not compulsorily, but voluntarily since 1887?
  MR. RITCHIEThe answer to the question of the hon. Gentleman is covered by my reply to the hon. Member for Northamptonshire.

  THE DEATH OF JAMES CHOULES.
  MR. MUNDELLAI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now able to lay upon the Table the Report of Major Marindin, and the Correspondence with the Midland and South Western Railway Company, relating to the death of James Choules, who was killed on the 16th of October last?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHI am still in communication with the Company, whom I have asked for certain Returns which I think will insure a proper understanding of the matter, and I hope no great delay will take place in laying the Report and Correspondence on the Table.
  MR. CHANNINGMay I ask whether it is proposed to lay the Papers before the Select Committee on Railway Hours?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHCertainly: they will be laid on the Table, and the Committee will have them.

  OVERCROWDING ON RAILWAYS.
  MR. J. WILSONI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what power, if any, the Board of

  899
  Trade possesses to restrain Railway Companies from overcrowding their first and second class carriages with passengers who pay only third class fare?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHThe only statutory provision which, as far as I am aware, deals with the matter referred to by the hon. Member is contained in a byelaw applicable to all Railway Companies which enacts that—
  "Any passenger persisting in entering a carriage or compartment of a carriage containing the full number of persons which it is constructed to convey, when any such person objects to his so entering the carriage or compartment, is hereby subjected to a penalty not exceeding 40s."
  It would not, however, be the duty of the Board of Trade to prosecute in such a case.

  THE TUBERCULOSIS COMMISSION.
  MR. PARKER SMITHI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can say when the Commission appointed to inquire into the question of tuberculosis will be prepared to report?
  MR. RITCHIEI have not yet received the information for which I have asked on this subject. As soon as I receive it I shall be happy to reply to the Question.

  CASE OF CRUELTY AT HELSTON.
  MR. NORRISI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been directed to a case of cruelty at Helston, in Cornwall, where, as reported, a Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe was charged and found guilty of very gross ill-treatment to her step-daughter, consisting of strapping her to a beam, beating her with a whip, and other cruelties, and for which the only penalty inflicted by the local Magistrate was a fine of £10; and if he will state whether any further proceedings can be taken in the matter?
  MR. MATTHEWSYes, Sir; I have received a Report from the Magistrate's clerk referring to this case. It appears that the defendant was convicted of beating her step-daughter, and that, inasmuch as she elected to be dealt with summarily, the Magistrate fined her £10 and costs, or in default two months' imprisonment with hard labour, and he ordered the custody of the girl to be given to her uncle. I am informed that
  900
  the Court would have inflicted a severer punishment had they been satisfied that the other acts of cruelty which were alleged had, in fact, been practised upon the girl. The law does not admit of any further proceedings being taken in the matter.

  THE WASHINGTON MARITIME CONFERENCE.
  MR. GOURLEYI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any and what progress has been made with regard to the recommendations of the Washington International Maritime Conference?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHMany of the recommendations of the Washington Maritime Conference are already provided for by British Law or Regulation, and with regard to others, such as the Rule of the Road at Sea, the International Code of Signals, and the Load Line, I am still in communication with Foreign Governments. The subject of a uniform classification of lights is under the consideration of the General Lighthouse Authorities, and I have already presented to Parliament the Report of the Committee I appointed to advise upon the efficient bulkheading of ships, and this Report is now being acted on by the Board of Trade. With regard to the recommendations of the Conference on the subject of a "uniform system of Buoys and Beacons" a Conference has recently been held, at my suggestion, at the Trinity House, under the Presidency of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, to deliberate upon the proposals made at Washington, and to advise the Board of Trade what steps Great Britain should take in regard thereto. That Conference has made its Report, which I propose to lay on the Table at an early date. The recommendations contained in it have been communicated to the Foreign Governments represented at Washington.

  HAULBOWLINE DOCK.
  DR. TANNERI beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if the channel excavated between the floating dock at Haulbowline and the deep water river channel is now patent; and, if so, what is the greatest depth there obtainable at ordinary high tides for permitting the passage of ships;

  901
  whether it is now possible to dock any first-class armoured vessel; if it is true that leakage still occurs into the dry dock in Haulbowline Dockyard; what has been the total amount of money spent upon the construction and the equipment of this dockyard; and what is the character of the dockyard work for which this yard has been built?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONThe channel between the dock at Haulbowline and the deep water river channel is clear, and the depth obtainable at ordinary high water spring tides is not less than 26 feet 9 inches. This will allow all but the heaviest ironclads to be docked. At high water neap (or low) tides the depth of water would be 2 feet 6 inches less, or 24 feet 3 inches. The dolphins now being erected at the entrance of the channel will be completed by 31st March, and additional dredging will then be carried out. Water still leaks into the dry dock, but there is nothing unusual in this, as leakage occurs in every dock of the same kind, The total expenditure upon works in this dockyard up to the present time has been about £611,900, including £8,900 for machinery. The character of the work for which the dockyard has been established is primarily the repair of Her Majesty's ships in an emergency.
  DR. TANNERMay I ask the noble Lord whether it is not the fact that, having in view the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1875, that Haulbowline Dock was to be used for the construction of ships, the present Government are going back upon the undertaking given by a late Conservative Administration, and that this yard is to be used, according to the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, merely for the repair of gunboats?
  LORD G. HAMILTONNo; I never understood that a pledge was given to make this a building yard, and it certainly has not been so constructed.
  DR. TANNERI would call the at tention of the noble Lord to a statement made by the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1875, in reply to a question addressed to him from these Benches.

  STATE PENSIONS.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if, having regard to the statements laid
  902
  before the country of the extent of old age pauperism among the industrial classes, and to the circumstance that the Committee on National Provident Insurance, presided over by the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigtownshire, was "practically narrowed into an examination of one particular scheme, that formulated by Canon Blackley," the Government will assent to the early appointment of a Royal Commission or Select Committee to ascertain the facts, and the best means of remedying the evil, and enabling the thrifty to secure State guaranteed pensions in old age upon easy terms, through friendly societies or otherwise?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,In answer to my hon. Friend, I have to say that although it is true that Canon Blackley's scheme of national insurance was the only one examined very minutely by the Committee named in the question, because it appeared to be the only one worked out in sufficient detail to make the examination necessary, the Committee collected a vast amount of information that would have to be taken into account in the consideration of any scheme that might be presented to the public. I do not think it will be expedient to appoint a Select Committee, which would have to traverse the ground already traversed by the Committee which sat two years ago.

  THE SAVINGS BANK ACT, 1891.
  MR. JOHN ELLISI beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will lay upon the Table for distribution the scheme of appointment of an Inspection Committee under "The Savings Banks Act, 1891," and append thereto the names of the members appointed?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,I shall be very glad to comply with the hon. Member's suggestion.

  IRREGULARITIES IN THE POST OFFICE.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATONI beg to ask the Postmaster General can he state the number of postal officials dismissed for irregularities last year; the number sent for trial and

  903
  convicted; what guarantee for honesty is exacted from postal officials in this country; and whether he has copies of the guarantees demanded from postal employés against dishonesty by Indian and Australian Governments?
  SIR J. FERGUSSONThe number of postal officials dismissed for irregularities last year was 227. The offences included drunkenness, insubordination, and persistent neglect of duty, as well as acts of fraud. The number sent for trial and convicted was 60. These numbers, out of a total employed of 117,989, amount to about 1 in 520. The guarantees for honesty enacted from Post Office servants are bonds of an approved guarantee society or of private sureties. The Post Office is not in possession of the guarantees used by Indian and Australian Governments. I should like to add that while the proportion of dishonest persons in the service of the Post Office is shown to be very small, I have seen with concern the number of cases which have occurred, and I have taken some steps, and I have others in contemplation, whereby the opportunities and temptations to dishonesty may be diminished.

  INSUFFICIENTLY STAMPED LETTERS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATONI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether his attention has been called to the high charge or fine, often amounting to double the deficiency, imposed on the recipients of letters insufficiently stamped; and whether he has made any recommendation to the Treasury on the subject?
  SIR J. FERGUSSONLetters unpaid or insufficiently prepaid are, not in this country alone, but throughout the Postal Union, subject to a charge upon delivery equal to double the deficiency. It is not quite accurate to call the whole of this charge a "fine," as one-half of it represents postage which the sender has omitted to pay. There has been no recommendation to the Treasury on the subject.

  HAROLD'S CROSS POST OFFICE.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEI beg to ask the Postmaster General if he is aware that the recent closing of the Harold's Cross Post Office has resulted in great inconvenience to the neighbourhood, and how soon the office is likely to be re-opened?
  SIR J. FERGUSSONThe sub postmaster of Harold's Cross (Dublin) resigned on the 15th ultimo, and the necessary steps for the revision of the salary were at once taken, as well as for finding a suitable successor. The office will be re-opened as soon as the new appointment has been made, but I cannot say how soon that will be.

  IRISH RECEIVERSHIPS.
  MR. BLANEI beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that Captain O'Conor, of the Palace, Elphin, and now a director of the Freeman's Journal, limited, is described as a receiver under the Land Judges in a book compiled and edited by Mr. Madden, Q.C., and another member of the Irish Bar; whether Captain O'Conor has been appointed to this office; and whether the practice in such matters is for the person desiring to be appointed to send in a notification of his willingness to act?
  MR. MADDENI am informed that the gentleman mentioned in the question was entered on the Judges' list in 1889 as suitable for the appointment of Receiver, but has not been appointed up to this date. I am also informed that it is not necessary for a gentleman whose name is on the list to send in an application.
  MR. BLANEDid this gentleman apply for the situation himself?
  MR. MADDENIt is inaccurately discribed as a "situation." The Judge places on the list certain gentlemen whom he considers suitable to act. It is not necessary that any application should be sent in by the gentlemen so placed, and the gentleman whose name is mentioned in the question, as a matter of fact, has not been put in charge of any particular office.

  FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
  MR. DARLINGMay I be permitted to draw the attention of the President of the Board of Agriculture to a question of which I have given notice with reference to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, inquiring whether he has seen the resolution of the Bucks Chamber of Agriculture, recommending that cattle should only be allowed to be landed in this country at the foreign

  905
  animals wharf for immediate slaughter; and if, in view of the serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which has already taken place, he is prepared to act upon that suggestion?
  COLONEL DAWNAYI beg to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether it is true that the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was brought into this country in a cargo of raw hides landed at Harwich from a German port and whether steps are being taken to prevent the importation of raw hides from infected countries?
  MR. CHAPLINIn reply to the last question of my hon. and gallant Friend, I can only say that so far as I know there is not the slightest foundation for the rumour to which he has alluded. I have not therefore taken any steps at present to prohibit the importation of raw hides, and, so far as I can learn, they are imported under conditions that almost preclude the risk of infection. But the question is now under my consideration, and if I am satisfied that there is any danger whatever to be apprehended from the importation of raw hides their importation will be prohibited immediately. The question of my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Darling) divides itself into two parts. In a notice which I have just received from him he asks me if it is true that the Board of Agriculture has agreed to allow cattle within the Metropolitan area to be removed from licensed premises to be slaughtered within two days. Well, Sir, no order that I am aware of to that effect has been issued by the Board. I have had to consider a great number of orders within the last few days, but I am unable to charge my memory with any such order. But I have been informed within the last few minutes, since I came into the House, that the London County Council have passed an order empowering their veterinary inspectors to grant licences for the removal of fat cows from cowsheds, from which their removal would be otherwise prohibited, to be slaughtered within two days. If I may be allowed to do so, I should like to take this opportunity of offering one word of caution against some statements which have appeared in the Press on this subject. I noticed yesterday an article in a Sunday paper calculated to excite grave alarm in the minds of the agricultural community, the greater part
  906
  of which, so far as I know, was entirely without foundation.
  MR. DARLINGThe right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question I asked. It was, whether he had seen the recommendation of the Bucks Chamber of Agriculture, that cattle should not be allowed to be landed at all in this country except at the foreign animals wharf for immediate slaughter, and whether he is prepared to act on that recommendation?
  MR. CHAPLINI beg the pardon of my hon. Friend, but I had forgotten that part of his question. I have not received any official intimation of that resolution, but I have seen it, and what I have to say at present upon the question of imposing any further restrictions upon the extremely limited number of animals still allowed to be imported from the Continent of Europe is, that it is a proceeding which ought not to be taken except upon serious consideration, and I do not think it is a question which I ought to be asked to decide at a moment's notice.

  THE DEATH OF MARY HELEN MONTAGU.
  MR. P. O'BRIENI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to an inquest, held on the 15th inst., touching the death of Mary Helen Montagu, aged three years, daughter of Robert Acheson Cromie Montagu, J.P., Portstewart, Coleraine, Ireland, in which the Coroner's jury returned the following verdict:—
  That the deceased, Mary Helen Montagu, died from asphyxia. We further say that Annie Margaret Montagu did feloniously kill and slay the said Mary Helen Montagu by binding her body with a stocking, and fastening her when thus tied by a cord to a ring in a dark room at Cronmore House, townland of Ballylease, and parish of Agherton, on the 13th day of February, 1892;"
  whether he is aware that Mrs. Montagu acknowledged on oath before the Coroner that she bound the arms and limbs of her child, and caused its death by hanging, as set out in the verdict; that Mrs. Montagu was returned for trial to the Assizes, and bail accepted for her appearance; and that she has since left the country to evade trial; what were the reasons why the police did not arrest Mrs. Montagu, and proceed by deposi-

  907
  tions before a Magistrate; and whether he proposes to take any, and what, action to investigate the conduct of the police authorities in the matter?
  MR. JACKSONThe woman was arrested by the police, and dealt with by the Magistrates in Petty Sessions, and committed for trial.
  MR. P. O'BRIENThat is no answer to my question. Why did the police not arrest her till a week after the offence, and, also, does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take any notice of the conduct of the police?
  MR. JACKSONThere is no necessity for such action. No irregularity has taken place.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR GEORGE O. TREVELYANI should like to ask the First Lord of the Treasury after what hour he will not take the Bill for the application and distribution of the grant to Scotland, and also whether he has noticed that the Scotch Bill has been moved from the first place on the Paper, and there are now two other Bills in front of it, and if he will take into consideration the convenience of Scotch Members in the matter?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,I thought the Scotch Members would have preferred discussing the Bill when they have it in their hands. This is a matter on which there has been much discussion among Members in all parts of the House, and the proposals which my right hon. and learned Friend will lay before the House are of great interest; and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not resist the Bill being read a first time to-night, as the sooner it is read a first time the sooner it will be printed and in the hands of Members.
SIR GEORGE TREVELYANCan the right hon. Gentleman give me an hour after which the Bill will not be taken?
MR. A. J. BALFOURIt will not be taken after half-past 11 o'clock. If it be taken by that time, it will give ample time for my right hon. Friend to explain the Bill to the House.
MR. J. DILLONMay I ask when the First Lord of the Treasury will make a general statement as to the business during the next few days; and
908
when the Irish Estimates will be taken, as this would be for the convenience of Irish Members?
MR. A. J. BALFOURI hope that on Thursday next if we are able, and I trust we shall be, to introduce the important Bill which is put down on the Paper to-night, we shall take the Supplementary Estimates; and if they are got through, as I think they might be, in the course of the evening on Monday next, I should take the Indian Councils Bill which has come down from the Lords to-night, which is very urgently required, and which will no doubt require some discussion. As the hon. Member knows, there will be a good deal of Supply to get through at this time of the year, and the Bill, other than the Indian Council, which I desire to press forward, is the Bill which will be introduced first to-night by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture.
MR. DILLONMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will, on Thursday or Monday, make a more general statement as to the course of business, especially in regard to the Irish Estimates? It would be a great convenience to Irish Members.
MR. A. J. BALFOUROn Thursday.

THE COUNT OUT.
DR. CAMERONI beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in regard to the count out on Friday, whether the first Order after Supply was the introduction of the Education and Local Taxation Relief (Scotland) Bill? What I wish to ask is whether he is not aware that the principle laid down by successive Leaders of the House—Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone, and the late Mr. Smith—was that it was the duty of the Government to keep a House on Friday night, and I will ask why the Government allowed the House to be counted out at a quarter before 8 when they had enough of their supporters to make a House, and when their own business, of such importance to Scotland and Ireland, as the Private Bill Procedure Bill stood next on the Paper, with a chance of getting them on at an early hour in the evening?
MR. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. Gentleman has put to me a particular question and a general question. The particular one is, why on last Friday

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night we allowed the count out as there was Government Business of importance on the Paper. I think the hon. Gentleman will recollect that on Friday night, even if 40 Members had been constantly present, there was very little probability of any Government Business being reached. With regard to the general question, I confess I am not prepared to lay it down as being the absolute duty of the Government to keep a House on Friday night for the discussion of private Members' Notices of Motion, or Amendments on the Motion that you do leave the Chair. The gentlemen who sit on this Bench are a very hard-worked set of persons, and I do not know why I should throw on them the additional work of keeping a House for private Members who cannot keep up enough interest for their own business. If there is any prospect of Government Business being taken, we should, in our own interests, endeavour to keep a House.
SIR W. V. HARCOURTI am bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman has laid down a new rule which is absolutely contrary to the language of his predecessors. Ever since the change was made, in the time of Lord Palmerston, to put down Supply on Friday evening, it was laid down by Lord Palmerston at that time that it was, and would be, the business of the Government to keep a House on Friday night, and that not only for Government Business, but for the business of private Members on the Paper. That has been repeated by every Leader of the House, and it will be in the recollection of many Members that a conversation took place on this very subject last Session between the late Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian; and the late Leader of the House accepted in the most frank and entire spirit the duty that fell upon the Government to keep a House on Friday night. It is a totally new departure on the part of the Government in the repudiation of the duty to keep a House. If that course is persisted in, I hope we shall hear nothing about obstruction or delay of Public Business. Here was an opportunity when Government Business might have come on; it is always possible, under these circumstances, that Government Business might come on. From my recollection and experience, I say that the right hon. Gentleman has
910
for the first time thrown overboard a rule with reference to the business of this House, which has been constantly accepted. I am afraid, Sir, this doctrine which the right hon. Gentleman has now laid down will not tend to facilitate Public Business.
MR. A. J. BALFOUROf course, I entirely accept the responsibility of the Government to keep a House if there is any chance of Government Business coming on, and, therefore, the remark with regard to obstruction of business hardly comes in. I also recognise the duty of the Government to make a House on Friday night when we take a Morning Sitting; then I agree that it is the duty of the Government to make a House for the private Members who have given up part of their time for Government Business.
DR. CAMERONI beg to give notice that when it is intended to set up Supply, after these counts out, I shall certainly oppose the Motion, and that will afford an opportunity which I have not had to-day to show that there was ample opportunity for Scotch business to be taken and disposed of on Friday night.
MR. BRYCEIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Supplementary Estimates are not printed; and will he also say whether, in case it should appear that there is any item likely to cause much discussion, he will not insist on keeping it on the Paper?
MR. A. J. BALFOURI understand they will be distributed to-morrow, which will give ample time for hon. Members to make themselves acquainted with the items proposed to be taken. I should doubt if there is any item likely to give rise to controversy, except the Vote for the East African Railway.

THE IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.
MR. JOHN MORLEYMay I ask when we are to expect the Irish Local Government Bill to be printed and circulated? The right hon. Gentleman, I understood, fixed Thursday week for the Second Reading.
MR. A. J. BALFOURI am anxious to get the Bill into the hands of Members; and in reply to a previous question

911
I said that I hoped to have it printed in the first half of this week, by Thursday at latest, and I trust before.

NEW WRITS ISSUED.
Derbyshire, Southern Division, v. Henry Wardle, esq., deceased; Surrey, Chertsey Division, v. F. A. Hankey, esq., deceased.
INDIAN COUNCILS ACT (1861) AMENDMENT BILL. [LORDS.]
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 182.]
MOTIONS.
  SMALL AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.

    LEAVE. FIRST READING.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,Mr. Speaker, it now becomes my duty to submit to the House the proposals of the Government for giving effect to the paragraph in the Gracious Speech from the Throne which referred to the question of small holdings of land in the agricultural districts of the country, and I commence by saying this at once, that the proposals I am about to make being, as I believe they are, entirely novel to our legislation, must be necessarily of a somewhat tentative character, and the Bill I shall lay on the Table, if the House approve is more or less of the nature of an experiment, which the Government have decided, after full consideration, that it is right and expedient to make. One of the chief objects which we have in view is a wider distribution of the land among the people of this country; to bring back upon the soil, if it be possible by legislation—I had almost said to re-create, if I may use the term—a class of the community which has been gradually dwindling for many years, and which is now rapidly becoming extinct, but which, at the same time, we must remember, existed, and not only existed, but flourished, in former days in far greater numbers than is the case at present, and which I am persuaded that
    912
    all sections of the House would desire, if possible, to see maintained. I am speaking now, Sir, of the class which used to be described as yeomen, or, in other words, the owners of small properties in land. That is an object which must thoroughly commend itself not only to gentlemen sitting on this side, but also to gentlemen sitting on that side of the House, and which is most thoroughly in accord with all the traditions of the Party to which they belong. Indeed, I think, Sir, I have only to mention the name of Mr. Bright, whose views on this subject were so well and so widely known, and which he has so often defended with his unrivalled eloquence in this House, to carry the unanimous assent of hon. Gentlemen opposite in the assertion I make. Sir, I cannot doubt that, whatever may be thought of the means which I shall propose to-night in order to give effect to our views, all Parties in the House will agree that the object is one which is deserving of support, and that the experiment which we propose is one which it is desirable to make. Among other reasons which have guided us in our decision, I will begin by mentioning to the House one in particular. No one who is well acquainted with the agricultural districts of the country can fail to be aware of the constant migration of the rural population from the country to the towns, which has been so prominent and so unwelcome a feature of the rural situation during the last few years, and which I am afraid is still progressing, and perhaps at an ever-accelerated pace, to-day. There are various reasons which may possibly account for it. For instance, there is the great increase of education, which of late years has taken place in the country districts as well as in the towns, and which many people think has given rise to a growing distaste for actual labour on the soil, especially when that labour is employed under conditions which, in the opinion of the workers themselves, gives no sufficient opening for the improvement of their lot and their position in the future, especially when old age begins to advance upon them. Again, Sir, there are the higher wages which can be so easily obtained for labour in the towns, and the generally greater attractions which are offered to the life of the labouring man who dwells in the city as compared with the life of the man who lives upon

    913
    the land. And, thirdly, there is the great and constantly increasing demand for active and intelligent labour in numerous walks of life, such as on railways, in the Police Force of the country, and various other works, which will readily occur to hon. Members, which are all eagerly sought for by the youngest and smartest members of the rural population, and which, not unnaturally, I am bound to say, I think they infinitely prefer to the comparative dulness and drudgery of the labours in which they are engaged in the country. These are all causes which it seems to me, at all events, may partly account for the tendency which, in my humble judgment, is nothing but an evil to all parties whom it concerns. It is bad for the labourers themselves, because they constantly take their labour to markets which they find already conjested, and where they can only obtain work by reducing the wages of their fellow-workmen, or, as only too commonly happens, they fail to find employment at all. It is bad for the owners and occupiers of land, and for the land itself, which constantly suffers from the want of sufficient labour being employed on it: and it is bad for the community at large, because of the lesser amount of produce which the land yields. And that, Sir, being so, the question naturally arises whether there is nothing which can be done, whether there is not something that we can do by legislation to aid in arresting a process which is so injurious to all? Well, Sir, the Government think that there is, and that one of the measures which is likely to have some effect, and probably considerable effect, in this direction, is to afford to the rural population, whose labour at the present time, apart from their wages, is spent on the land directly in the interests and for the profit of others, some greater facilities than they enjoy at present for sometimes working on the land in their own interest, and for the profit of themselves. We believe that in doing this we shall be taking a step which is not only in the interests of the labourers, but greatly also in the interests of the farmers as well, and I say so for this reason. The greatest danger I see ahead for the farmers of this country, and the agricultural interest generally, at the present moment, is not so much the increase of foreign competition, of
    914
    which I think myself—although I speak on this subject in most guarded accents—we may, perhaps, have seen the worst, not so much in a future fall in the prices of agricultural produce, but in the great and growing difficulty of finding sufficient labour for the effective cultivation of the land; and in anything we can do in this respect to lessen and remove that difficulty and so retain the labour on the land, I believe we shall be conferring on the farmers of this country one of the greatest benefits in our power. For, in the first place, what I wish to point out is this—in the case of men who occupy small holdings, who may be the future occupants of small holdings—it does not necessarily follow that the whole of their time will be engaged; on the contrary, I believe there will always be times and seasons when part of their labour will be available for service on the larger farms in the vicinity. And, in the second place the mere possibility of being able to obtain for himself, by his own industry and thrift in the future, a small holding for his own purposes will, I believe, be no small inducement to the younger labourers to remain in the country in far greater numbers than they do at present. Well, Sir, there is another reason which has always had considerable weight with me. So far as I can observe, there is a widespread and general desire that at least the experiment should be tried. I am sure it is the case—and I am speaking from my own personal knowledge—among the labourers themselves, although I believe it to be of comparatively recent growth. It is very natural and very easily explained, and I attribute it to two causes: In the first place, the lower wages which in the past few years they have been in the habit of receiving since the agricultural depression has weighed so heavily on the farmers, and there is also the almost constant want of employment to which they have always been subject in recent years, especially in the winter months, the very time when good and regular employment is of more importance to them than at any other; and, secondly, Mr. Speaker, I attribute it to the great increase in the number of allotments which has followed the passing of the Acts which became law a year or two ago. I know perfectly well that it is a regular Party shibboleth on that side of the House,

    915
    that the Allotments Acts passed by the present Government have been shams and failures, and especially on country platforms. A right hon. Gentleman on that Bench made that statement not many nights ago, not on a country platform, but on a platform in one of the City constituencies. What I have to say on that point is that these gentlemen know as well as I know—and if they do not know they ought to—that they are absolutely contradicted by the facts. Those Acts have had precisely the effect that I always hoped and expected they would have. They have been the means, either directly or indirectly, of providing allotments for thousands and thousands of labouring men throughout all parts of England who never knew what it was to have the enjoyment of allotments before; and what is more, in the great majority of cases, they have attained it by what I have always maintained, and always shall maintain, to be the easiest and the most convenient mode, namely, by friendly and voluntary arrangements with the owners of the land. I know scores of instances which have come under my notice during the present year where men with a single acre for an allotment, or sometimes with even less, have been able to make a profit out of the land for themselves of sums which ranged, as I am told on very good authority, from £5 to £8, and where in one case, I am informed, of as much as £10 in the year; and having been so extremely successful with their small allotments, and having had this experience of the profits which they can make from little plots of land, they are naturally anxious to see what they can do with more. How far they are right in the desire to exchange a small plot for a holding of a larger and different description remains to be proved. I never had a doubt upon the question of allotments. I knew, I was always certain, that it could only be an unmixed good for the rural population; but no one can speak with equal certainty upon the question of small holdings. There is a wide and a clear distinction between them. Neither capital nor buildings are required in the case of allotments, except in the case of the pig-sty, which generally goes with the cottage; but it is these very questions of capital and buildings which constitute our chief difficulty in dealing satisfac-
    916
    torily with the question of small holdings. As to the cultivation of these holdings—I judge from what I have seen of their allotments—I have not the slightest misgiving whatever; and in dairy countries, with which I am bound to say I am not altogether so acquainted as I am with other agricultural parts of the country—there, I understand, from all the information which reaches me, that the system of small holdings has already been established and proved to be a success. Sir, it is a very common thing, in districts where there are numerous allotments, to give prizes for the allotments which are cultivated the best—and it is usual from among the large farmers in the neighbourhood that the Judges are selected—and many a large farmer, some of whom I know well, have told me that they have been perfectly astonished to see the admirable manner in which the land was cultivated. Well, I venture to think that is very encouraging to us who are seeking to bring about an extension of this operation upon a wider and a broader scale; and I think the House will agree with me in this, that it is clearly true that if a man has been eminently successful in the cultivation of one acre of land, it is a fair and reasonable presumption that he is likely to be successful in the cultivation of more. I frankly own that I arrive at this opinion in the light of new experience; that I was formerly opposed to the attempt to establish by law a system of small holdings; and further, that I had no belief at all in the probable success of any such system; and I am bound to say that the opportunities which I have had in former years of seeing the results of that system in counties where it is already established were more than ample warrant, and more than ample justification for that opinion. I remember visiting a district in the north east part of the county which I represent, and that not many years ago—a district which is cultivated entirely under such a system. I do not remember exactly, but I think it must have been some 10 or 15 years ago; at all events, it was at a time when agricultural depression, was at its very highest—some three or four years after it had commenced—and I am bound to say this, that a more lamentable, a more deplorable spectacle of agricultural ruin and disaster it never was my misfortune

    917
    to witness. It made a deep impression upon me at the time, and that impression was confirmed by the evidence which was received by the Richmond Commission. But I am inclined to believe—indeed, I am confident from inquiries which I subsequently made, and from inquiries which I have more recently thought it my duty to make—that in one respect, at all events, we were at that time very insufficiently informed. We did not realise at all—it was not put before us; I do not know if even the information was attainable, because upon that point the people were most reticent themselves—we did not realise at all the extravagant prices which had been given for the land. The holdings of which I am speaking were acquired at a time when the prices of agricultural produce were probably at their highest; when the condition of agriculture in consequence was one of great prosperity; when the tendency of land was to continually increase in value, and when it was sought for, and eagerly bought by the population of those districts at prices which, in relation to its present value, would be twice and sometimes three times as much as it was worth. Consequently, when the bad times came—commencing as they did with a succession of two or three of the worst seasons in the memory of man, and followed by a sudden and almost unparalleled fall in the price of agricultural produce—these poor people, over whose farms I walked myself, and whose condition I had every opportunity of seeing, were ruined, one after another, in hundreds of cases. I am informed, however, that a large amount of the land in those districts since those days has changed hands again, and of course at a greatly reduced price; and where that has been the case, where that has been done, there I understand the cultivation of these holdings has been carried on, and is being carried on to-day, with very different results. That being so, and in view of the greatly altered circumstances of the times, of the greatly reduced price at which land can be obtained at present; and lastly, but not least, in view of the admirable cultivation of numbers of allotments by the labouring population in the counties, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that there is no reason whatever at the present time why, even upon economic grounds, the experiment may not
    918
    be tried with a fair and reasonable prospect of success; and as to its advantages upon social grounds, I hardly think there will be any difference of opinion. Now, Sir, having stated the general views of the Government upon this question, I think the House will probably be anxious to know something as to the means by which we propose to carry them into effect; and I will endeavour, as briefly and as clearly as I can, to explain to the House the provisions of the Bill which I propose to lay upon the Table of the House to-night. The scheme of the Bill, generally speaking, is as follows:—The Public Works Loan Commissioners, that is to say, the State, are empowered to lend at a rate of interest that is not to exceed 3⅛ per cent., and the Local Authority are empowered, either from them or elsewhere, if they prefer it, to borrow money in order to acquire land for the purpose of providing small holdings for persons who are resident in the county in which the land is acquired, and who will themselves cultivate the holdings. But, in view of the fact that this is avowedly an experiment, we have thought it right to proceed with due caution in the first instance; and following the recommendation of the Select Committee on Small Holdings upon this point, we limit the borrowing powers of the Local Authority as follows:—The amount to be borrowed is not to exceed a sum which would involve a charge upon the rates, exceeding for any one year one penny in the pound. It will naturally be asked, what is a small holding? And a small holding as defined in the Bill means this: it means land which is suitable for agriculture, and exceeds an acre, and either does not exceed 50 acres or is of an annual value not exceeding £50. The Local Authority being the instrument for giving effect to our scheme, we have had to consider upon what area it will be that the charge upon the rates should be levied. The House is aware there is more than one Local Authority in existence at present. But although we hope, and we confidently expect while we remain a Government, to carry proposals in the future, for the provisions both of District Councils and also of Parochial Reform, yet, unfortunately, it is the case, that we have only one popularly elected body at present, and that is the County Council.

    919
    Now, the House is aware that as regards allotments there is precedent for the acquisition of land by the Guardians, and for the management of the land by Parish Authorities. But although I have adopted, as the House will see directly, some of the provisions which are afforded by this precedent, I have not adopted them entirely, and I have abstained from doing so for this reason—I have made some calculations as to what the borrowing powers at the rate of 1d. in the £1 will impose, and this investigation has made it quite clear that in the case of parishes it would absolutely be beyond their power, and even in the case of Unions I doubt if their resources would be anything like adequate for the purpose. In view, therefore, of these considerations, and also of the fact that the County Council is the only elected body at the present time, we have come to the conclusion that the County Council is the proper and fitting authority for the purpose of acquiring land to be devoted to small holdings. And I may mention that the amount which the rate of 1d. in the £1 would produce in England and Scotland on the County Rate, exclusive of London and of the county boroughs, would in round numbers, roughly speaking, amount to something like £10,000,000. The County Council having been invested with these powers, the next thing to consider was the means of putting them in motion, and accordingly it is provided in the Bill that every County Council, not being a Council of a borough, who may do so if they please, shall appoint a committee for the purpose of putting the Act into operation; and, secondly, upon a petition being presented by one or more county electors, upon reasonable and bonâ fide grounds the committee shall cause inquiry to be made, who shall report the result of their inquiry to the Council. Assuming that the report of the committee is in favour of the petition, the next stage in the process is the acquisition of the land. How is it to be acquired? Is it to be by purchase? Is it to be by hire? Or is it to be by both? I grant that this is a question which is deserving of very careful consideration; and I own I was much taken at first sight by a proposal made during the Recess by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian—namely, that the Local Authorities, in addition to powers
    920
    to buy the land, should have power to take it upon hire as well. But on looking more carefully into this proposal I found that there were numerous objections, which prevented my adopting it in the Bill. In the first place, the House will see at once that if the land was only hired by the County Council it could not be sold, and that would have been contrary to all the evidence and to all the recommendations of the Select Committee on Small Holdings, all of which went to show that ownership was preferable to tenancy. In the second place, you would at once convert the Local Authority into a middleman, an institution which has always been regarded as exceedingly objectionable, and which I think there is no reason whatever to revive. In the third place, if you make the Local Authority into a landlord the risk would be far greater to the ratepayers, and the Local Authorities must take all the chances and all the vicissitudes of the position of a landlord. For instance, in bad times, the first thing that would happen would be this, that the Local Authority would be subjected to great pressure to reduce the rents. But this could only be done at the cost of the ratepayers. On the other hand, if the reduction were refused they would at once become the most unpopular landlords in the world. Fourthly, it would add very much to the difficulty of providing buildings, a difficulty, in my opinion, which is quite sufficient already. And, lastly, it would defeat what I have already described to the House as one of the main objects of the Bill, which is to add to the number of owners of land. We had, therefore, no hesitation in deciding that the land should be acquired by purchase by the Local Authority, and we also attach this condition to the purchase, namely, that the price to be given is not to exceed what they would reasonably expect to receive for it themselves, including expenses when the land is again disposed of for small holdings. We have also considered whether the land should be acquired by agreement only, or by compulsory provisions being included in the Bill. Now, I am aware that there are ample precedents in our legislation already for the acquisition of land by compulsion for public purposes; but then I am distinctly of opinion that compulsion ought not to be resorted to unless it is clearly shown that

    921
    it is necessary, and that the object cannot be obtained without it. But there is no such proof in this case; on the contrary, all the evidence that we have before us points in exactly the opposite direction. There never was a time when there was so much land in the market as there is at present. There are thousands of acres in every direction of the country which owners are only too anxious to get rid of, and only too anxious and willing to sell if they can only find purchasers for the land, and certainly the enormous increase which we have witnessed during the last few years in the number of allotments, most of them acquired by voluntary means, shows that there is no unwillingness on the part of the owners to find the land necessary for these purposes. Moreover, this question was carefully examined by the Select Committee on Small Holdings, and, with the permission of the House, as I know that in some quarters this is regarded as an important point, I will read the following passage from their Report:—
    "Your Committee having given full consideration to the arguments upon both sides, have resolved not to recommend compulsory power. They feel that any scheme adopted now must necessarily be tentative, and they are convinced that enough land will be attainable by voluntary agreement to ensure a fair trial for this experiment. They do not think it desirable to alarm landowners by a provision which is unnecessary, and which is not likely at any time to be largely availed of."
    I am quite aware that that recommendation of the Committee was not arrived at by a unanimous vote. I find, on referring to the proceedings, that it was arrived at by a majority of 7 to 4; that, later on, they repeated it, and we have no hesitation whatever in adopting, upon this point, the recommendation of that Committee. The House will perceive that we have reached the stage when the Local Authority has become the owner of land, and the next provision is this, that, having bought it, they may then adapt it, by fencing, or whatever means may be most convenient, for the purpose of small holdings—they are then to offer it for sale under the rules laid down in the Bill. If a sale be effected the purchase is to be completed in the course of a month from the time of sale, and upon the completion of the purchase one-fourth of the purchase money is to be paid
    922
    down at once. That I regard as a very important provision. In the first place, it gives security at once to the Local Authorities; in the second place, it insures that the man who is able to pay down one-fourth of the purchase money is, in all probability, a man who has been careful, who has been saving, who has been thrifty, and who, therefore, deserves to be encouraged, and who is likely to do well; and, in the next place, it excludes the idle and the worthless who, probably, without this provision, would be the first to make an experiment under the Act. In regard to the remainder of the purchase money; another fourth may be secured by a perpetual rent-charge redeemable at will; and the remaining half is to be paid by instalments, or by terminable annuities, within 50 years, the purchaser being at liberty to pay off the whole of the debt at any time he wishes to do so. So far, although we have been able to make provision for the man who has been able to put by some savings of his own, little has been done for the labourer who is not in that fortunate position, and who is wholly unable to find the means of purchasing a small holding at all. And it is provided that where this is the case, the Local Authority may let small holdings in quantities which are not to exceed 10 acres of land. It is hoped that by this means a ladder may be provided to enable a man, by the exercise of his own industry, in the future to look forward to a time when he may be able to purchase a small holding. I must also point out that in the case of all these holdings—whether they are to be let, or whether they are to be sold—for 10 years in any case, and after 10 years until such time as the whole of the purchase money has been discharged, are to be held under certain conditions, the chief of which are as follows:—In the first place, they must be cultivated by the owner; in the second place, they must not be sub-let, or sub-divided, without the consent of the County Council; thirdly, it is provided that any dwelling-house erected on the holding must comply with the conditions, the sanitary conditions, which are required by the County Council; and then there is a fourth condition which is one of considerable importance, and to which I desire to direct the attention of the House. This provision stipulates that not more than one dwelling-house shall be erected on a holding, and

    923
    that no dwelling-house shall be erected at all where the holding is of an annual value not extending £25, unless it sufficient in the opinion of the Council to enable the occupier to maintain in comfort his family and himself by the cultivation of the holding. Now, I think the reasons for this condition will be obvious to the House at once. We are anxious to avoid doing anything in this Bill by which we may be instrumental in creating anything in the nature of congested districts in this country. But the House will see that that provision has also this effect: it divides small holdings into two parts. And with regard to the smaller class of holdings, which are conceived to meet what, in the nature of the case, must be purely local needs and local requirements, we make provision by which the County Council will be enabled to delegate the entire management of the smaller class of holdings to a Committee, which is to be composed partly of County Councillors and partly of allotments managers in the parish in which the land is situated; and if there should be no allotments manager, then to a person, who should be elected as if he were an allotments manager, expressly for the purpose. I am afraid I have wearied the House, but I shall not trouble it very much longer. Now, I come to the most difficult of the questions which we have had to meet in a measure dealing with this subject, and that is the provision of the necessary buildings. In some cases, of course, there would be buildings which are already in existence, which are either suitable or easily capable of being adapted to the purpose; in others, there will be none. Where that is the case, how are they to be provided? By the Local Authority? by the purchaser from his own resources? or by the purchaser with the aid of the Local Authority? It has sometimes been suggested that the Local Authority should advance to the purchaser money for this purpose. With regard to the last of these suggestions, I have been altogether unable to entertain it; and for this reason, that I have found no security whatever that appears to me to be adequate for the purpose. And with regard to the other two alternatives, we are clearly of opinion that the buildings, if possible, ought to be erected by the purchaser. We think they would be
    924
    built, under these circumstances, with far more economy, and they would also provide an additional guarantee for the security of the ratepayers in the event, under any circumstances, of the purchaser not being forthcoming with his annual instalments. But, on the other hand, of course, there may be cases where the provision of buildings in addition to the payment of the purchase-money would so seriously encroach on the capital of the purchaser as to seriously cripple him in the cultivation of his holding. Where that is the case we thought it right to make a provision by which, under circumstances of that kind, the Local Authority may provide the buildings themselves as part of the agreement, either for the sale or the letting of the holding; and I am bound to say myself that, in cases where the land is let, I do not see how the Local Authority can escape from the burden of providing the necessary buildings themselves. I now hope I am coming very near the end of what I am afraid has been a very long story. There is one more provision in the Bill which I must submit to the attention of the House. There may be cases—and very possibly there will be cases—in which the occupying tenant of a small holding may be anxious to buy his occupation from his landlord, who may also be perfectly willing and perfectly ready to sell; where that is the case, and where the parties have already come to an agreement upon the subject, there the County Council is empowered to lend to the tenant three-fourths of the purchase-money on the security of the holding. If the holding is bought under these circumstances, it becomes at once subject to all the other conditions in respect of small holdings to which I have already referred. But no advance of this kind is to be made unless the County Council is satisfied that the price is reasonable, that the title is good, and that the purchase is made in good faith. And now I think the time has come when I should bring my observations to a close. I am exceedingly grateful to the House for the indulgence with which it has listened to them. I am perfectly well aware of the many imperfections which doubtless will be found in the Bill which I have desired to submit to the consideration of the House. Nor has it been either an easy or a simple matter to formulate proposals on the

    925
    subject of this Bill; on the contrary, the difficulties have been great, and they have been all the greater because they are inherent in the nature of the case. We have to deal with conditions, of course, in which it is difficult enough for those who cultivate the soil to hold their own even when the work is done under the most scientific, and under the most economic, conditions. How is it likely, then, to fare with those who enter on this task without the aid of these advantages? Are we justified in hoping and believing that the greater industry which I think we may anticipate, encouraged and inspired by the stimulus of ownership, will more than compensate for the want of these advantages? That is the problem which, in my opinion, only time can solve, and which experience alone will be able to decide. But there is much to encourage us in believing that it will, and this, at least, may, with confidence, be asserted, that there never was a time more favourable for making such an experiment than is the present. Land in the market is very plentiful, and land never was so cheap; and although it is true that at the present moment the prices of agricultural produce are low, yet I believe myself that the prices both of land and produce are more likely to rise in the future than they are to fall. If that be so, and if I am right in my anticipation upon this point, then the small holders in the future will enter on their new career with every hope and every prospect of success, and most sincerely do I hope it may be so. If by any means we can succeed in attaching more closely to the soil the men to whose exertions the wealth it produces is mainly owing, I am persuaded we shall achieve a work which will add not only to the happiness and welfare of the people, but will redound to the credit of the Parliament which will pass the measure into law.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to facilitate the acquisition of Small Agricultural Holdings.
    —(Mr. Chaplin.)"
    SIR W. VERNON HARCOURTI think the right hon. Gentleman will feel that by the cheers that followed the conclusion of his speech—and it is acknowledged on both sides of the House—he has
    926
    discharged an important task with great ability and clearness. I am very glad that in bringing forward his measure, at all events, the right hon. Gentleman did not think it necessary to disparage his own Bill, or assure us that it was one which was not likely to have important consequences. It is impossible, I think, to conceive any measure which is more important in its character, and which, if it succeed, as we all hope it may succeed, will be more beneficial in its effects on this country. Now, of course, what we desire, and what I think the Gentlemen opposite desire also, is that this Bill should be made a thoroughly genuine and workable Bill. I give the right hon. Gentleman, and the Government, full credit for having that intention, and I hope, in the few remarks that I shall have to make upon it, that they will not believe that I am suggesting that there is any other design on the part of the Government. Now, the right hon. Gentleman has said that this is a tentative Bill. Well, I will not quarrel with the adjective. There is no doubt that there are provisions in this Bill—and, in fact, the whole machinery of the measure is necessarily such—somewhat novel in character. There was only one part of the right hon. Gentleman's address which, I think, might have been shortened, and which, indeed, was hardly necessary, when he endeavoured to convince the House that it was a matter of great importance that facilities should be given to attach the labourer to the soil. I can assure him that if there is no difficulty on that side of the House, he will never have any difficulty on this side of the House in bringing us to that conclusion. Indeed, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying so, if he is converted on that subject, there will be no one left to be converted. That has always been the creed that we have held, and I am happy to know that he holds that creed in its orthodox form. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken so frankly of the change of opinion that has come over his own mind in this matter, that even if I had been so disposed to advert to former Debates, I should not think of doing so on the present occasion. It was quite worth while that the right hon. Gentleman should occupy the responsible position that he now holds if, by the further knowledge he has acquired, he should

    927
    have come to a different conclusion to that which he tells us he at one time entertained. Therefore I think he may take it for granted now, that everybody is agreed that there ought to be a measure for facilitating the creation of small holdings; that everybody is agreed that small holdings are a good thing if they can be acquired; and that, therefore, the objective view is one upon which there is a general concurrence of opinion. Now, of course, we come to the machinery that the right hon. Gentleman has proposed in his Bill, and there, of course, we must expect that there will be a considerable difference of opinion among those who have long had to consider this question. I think the right hon. Gentleman has altered his opinion as to the expediency of small holdings in themselves. He still seems not to have become an absolute convert to the blessed word "compulsion." Well now, Sir, I do not object to the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken upon that subject, though I differ from the conclusion at which he has arrived. I think all that violence of feeling which at one time raged against the very idea of employing compulsory powers seems to have disappeared. It is natural that it should have disappeared, for compulsion has been employed with great advantage, and, indeed, under an obvious necessity, in a great number of measures cognate to the one now before the House. The right hon. Gentleman admits that, and says:—
    "I admit that compulsion has been employed, and might be employed, but there is no necessity in this case."
    Now, I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman of what the course of legislation upon these agricultural subjects has been. He will remember, and the House will remember, the first Bill introduced by the Government of Mr. Disraeli—for compensation for tenants' improvements. At that time it was maintained that compulsion could not be employed, that it was a thing not to be heard of for a moment; and the consequence was that in that Bill a provision was introduced that every landlord, by giving notice, might contract himself out of the Bill. Well, what was the consequence? Why, that almost all the landlords—I might almost say
    928
    universally—contracted themselves out of the Bill; and the very same Government, if I remember right, were compelled to come down and strike that provision out of the Bill, and take away the power of voluntary contract in respect of that measure. That is an example of where you believed that you could do without compulsion, and found that you were mistaken in that belief. The next measure, with regard to which we were told that compulsion was unnecessary, was in the case of allotments. We were told, "Oh, voluntary power is quite sufficient, and compulsion is unnecessary." Did you find compulsion unnecessary? Why, after the first Allotments Bill, you were obliged to bring in a second Allotments Bill. And what was the ground alleged? Why, that compulsion was necessary. I think that is a fair account of what happened in the case of allotment; and, therefore, I cannot conceive why the right hon. Gentleman and the Government should have come to the conclusion that, having been obliged to resort to it, where compulsion had been dispensed with they can start this measure as an effective and working measure when they depart from that principle, which, in other cases, they have been obliged, after experience, to resort to. Now, there is one authority on this subject—and I assure you, Mr. Speaker and the Government, that I am not going to cite a quotation from Hansard for the purpose of making an attack on anybody, but I am using this as an argument. When the subject of compulsion was under discussion, the position of the right hon. Gentleman in the Debate of 1886 was that small holdings were necessarily, in themselves, evils. That was not the point upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer relied. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that—he used a very strong expression, to which I will not refer. But his objection was, "the substitution of the community for the individual in the creation of small holdings"—that was his line of argument. And he said, arguing that question, that even if that difficulty were removed in order to make the plan a workable plan—the plan recommended by the hon. Member for Ipswich and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham—

    929
    unless they were to have compulsion, that Bill would be no good at all. I am only using that as an argument against the views taken by the right hon. Gentleman on the subject of compulsion. This is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:—
    "If there is no compulsion, then the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham will share the fate of the Act of George III."
    That was an old Act, where the principle was not admitted, and under which, in point of fact, nothing has ever been done. And the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that if there were no compulsion, that then the measure proposed would share the fate of this obsolete, and, practically-speaking, abortive measure:—
    "With the experience of that Act before us, I ask, is it wise to embark afresh on this legislation?"
    Then, an hon. Member said, "make it compulsory," and the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:—
    "Yes, with compulsion you would do much."
    And then he proceeds to say:—
    "If compulsion is introduced, well and good; you may run great danger."
    That is to say, by adopting the principle of compulsion.
    "At the same time, you may give some effect to the proposal."
    I give that as an argument in favour of compulsion. It was very well put by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Though he disapproved of the provision being introduced into the measure at all, he pointed out that "without the compulsion the measure would be practically ineffective." I am not proposing to trouble the House at all upon the details as to the manner in which the money is to be advanced, or on what I may call the minor details of this Bill. That, I think, cannot with any great advantage be discussed until we have the Bill before us, and have fuller information on the subject; and I would not myself be a party to inviting the House to go into details of that character. But I touch upon this question of compulsion as a question of what I may call principle in this Bill. Well, there is one other matter which is even more important than the question of compulsion, and that is the body who are to give
    930
    effect to this Bill. Now, we have all known in former Bills that, in dealing with allotments, the body that had to put the Act into operation was unsatisfactory. It was unsatisfactory because it really had not the ability to deal with its provisions, and, therefore, to a great degree, the means of carrying it out. In the course of the Debate, when we get into Committee on this measure, we shall have the advantage of Gentlemen who are far better acquainted with the action of County Councils than I can pretend to be myself. But I must say, upon first sight, from what I can learn of the constitution and action of this body, I am by no means satisfied that they are the appropriate machinery for giving effect to such a Bill as this. I give the County Councils all credit for the admirable work that they have done, but they are a large body, who sit in a county town in the centre of the great counties, and they have no knowledge of the details of the localities, and they cannot possibly deal with this matter. Indeed, I could gather from the tone and expressions of the right hon. Gentleman he almost apologised for taking the County Councils, simply because he had got nothing else. The mainspring of this Bill will be the body that is to carry it into execution. I venture to express the opinion, and it is an opinion which I expressed often before, that if you are to do anything in this matter which depends absolutely and entirely upon the local knowledge of the persons interested—you may say, on the whole, people in every parish in the county—you must have your Local Authorities on small details, and unless you get a body of that kind there is no life in this Bill at all. Take the County of Devonshire. We have a body at Exeter trying to come to a determination on the question of the necessity and propriety of small holdings in some districts in that great county. Take the county in which I myself reside—a much smaller county; but I cannot conceive that a County Council sitting at Winchester could possibly enter into the considerations which are vital to the determination of these things. And when you come to consider what will be the character of the work which has to be done—whether Blackacre or White-acre is to be bought for this purpose: who is the man in a village who is a solvent man: who is an individual to be

    931
    trusted—these are matters which, it seems to me, from what I know of them, it is impossible that a body of the character of a County Council can determine. Before this Bill has the breath of life in it, I think you must have these Local Councils—whether you choose to call them District Councils or Parish Councils. You will then have a body consisting of persons who understand the very limited areas whose wants this Bill is intended to meet. These, it seems to me, are two very important points in this Bill which you will have, when we come to discuss this Bill in Committee, carefully to consider. Now, the right hon. Gentleman spoke upon another point, which I think is a very material one, and that is the hire of land. We fought that out on the Allotments Bill at very considerable length. The right hon. Gentleman seems to have come to a conclusion largely adverse to the principle of hiring land. I hope when that question comes to be argued at further length he will be prepared to modify his views; but I understand now that, as regards the labourers, he is disposed to consider the question, and, as I understand, there are some provisions in the Bill with reference to the hire of land upon a small scale. I therefore think we have made a considerable advance since the time of the Allotments Bill.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,There is no provision in the Allotments Bill for the compulsory acquisition of land; but there was for the voluntary acquisition.
    SIR W. HARCOURTI hope we shall learn in the course of the discussion what extent of hiring has been employed in the case of allotments. There is another provision which I confess I did not clearly understand, which was the limitation of the buildings for a dwelling-house. As I understand from the right hon. Gentleman no dwelling-house, except by special permission, is to be allowed upon any land under £25 a year.
    MR. CHAPLINUnder the value of £25, unless, in the opinion of the County Council, the cultivation of the holding would be sufficient to provide for the maintenance of the man and his family.
    SIR W. HARCOURTI think there are a great many holdings where the value would be under £25. There are numbers, not only under £25, but under £20 and £15, where men are living on their own resources, and I should be extremely sorry to see the right hon. Gentleman put any limitation upon these.
    MR. CHAPLINDo I understand that in the view of the right hon. Gentleman there should be no limitation?
    SIR W. HARCOURTCertainly not anything like to the extent of £25. That is very extreme. I think the right hon. Gentleman should take heart, and not be afraid of the creation of congested districts in the agricultural Provinces of England. The alarm on this subject is altogether unfounded, and may very well be dismissed. Now, Sir, I do not desire to delay the House in further discussing this matter. The right hon. Gentleman may be assured that on this side of the House the object he has at heart is one we will be ready to support, and we are quite prepared to go into the discussion of this Bill with a hearty desire to make it a living and a workable measure.
    MR. JEFFREYSI congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture on the introduction of this Bill, which I believe will be a benefit to the country residents in general, and will be the means of attracting a larger number of people to the land. The only objection to the Bill taken by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is that it does not contain the principle of compulsion. I am very glad, indeed, that that principle of compulsion does not come in at the present time, because, Sir, if the land can be got in a voluntary way there is no need whatever for compulsion. I believe the Bill will work well without compulsion. The County Council is the best authority for carrying out this Bill. In Hampshire there is already a Sub-Committee of the Council appointed to undertake the management of allotments, and I believe the work is done very well. As farming a good deal of land, I do not think that any man who takes a small holding can immediately make a fortune. There is a great difference between small holdings and allotments; allotments only occupy a man's labour, but directly you come to

    933
    small holdings—holdings of anything like 50 acres—the owner has to engage labour, which will run away with a great deal of his profits. Still I hope, Sir, that the experiment of small holdings may be tried, and I certainly hope it may be successful. There is one point upon which I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture, and that is a question with regard to the 1d. in the £1 of the county rate. I should like to know whether the whole of that money is to go annually in payment for the land? I imagine it cannot be by means of a sinking fund. There is another question, namely, that with regard to tenants purchasing their holding from the landowner. My right hon. Friend did not say what the size of those holdings was to be.
    MR. CHAPLINFrom 1 to 50 acres.
    MR. JEFFREYSI am glad to hear that; anything else would be impossible, and I hope that these small holdings, from 1 to 50 acres, may be bought and sold, subject, of course, to the approval of the Board of Agriculture. I wish to congratulate my right hon. Friend in having brought in this Bill, which I hope will be the means of doing something to improve agriculture.
    MR. HALDANEUpon one point, at all events, Sir, we on this side of the House are agreed. We feel ourselves under an obligation to the right hon. Gentleman for the extraordinary clearness with which he has explained the provisions of this extraordinarily complicated Bill. But the right hon. Gentleman began by saying that it was desirable—this he assumed as a sort of axiom—to establish a system of small proprietors in this country. No doubt that is true; but it is true only, subject to certain limitations. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman realized the feeling of repugnance which some of us have to the creation of any new system of land tenure that would not be subject to public control. To me, it seems that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman is defective in this respect. The right hon. Gentleman made one admission of great importance. He said the reason why this Bill had been introduced was not so much owing to the general depression in agriculture, but because of the difficulty of keeping
    934
    labour on the land—the difficulty of stimulating the labourer to remain on the land unless you gave him some advantage. That is a very substantial admission; it shows that the agricultural labourer is raising his standard of living, and it shows the effect upon him of the extension of the franchise in 1885. There was another most important admission made by the right hon. Gentleman. He told us that inquiry into the reason of the failure of the system of small proprietorships convinced him that it was due to this—that the labourer had been obliged to pay exorbitantly high prices for the land. We know that extraordinary high prices have been paid for what is sometimes called accommodation land—land near a village, or where there was likely to be a special want for cottages or small holdings. People who take advantage of their monopoly to exact large prices are not acting fairly, and, if so, that would seem to necessitate the introduction into a measure of this kind of compulsory powers. The first and most formidable criticism therefore upon this Bill is one which the admission of the right hon. Gentleman, in presenting his case, goes a long way to justify. But there is another point. Under the Allotments Act of 1887 there is at least a partially local machinery. There is nothing of the kind in this Bill. A Committee is to be appointed, not for a particular locality, but for the entire county, and the administration will be in the hands of this Committee, which has no local connection of any sort or kind. Upon the petition of any elector the Committee is to come into action, and the only approach to a local control is to be that of the managers, who have functions analogous to those under the Allotments Act of 1887, which functions would be very limited indeed. It seems to me it would have been better to take another course. We should not have been satisfied with the Board of Guardians—we should not have been satisfied with anything else than Parish Councils—but the right hon. Gentleman might have put some power of initiative into the hands of a known local body, as he did under the Act of 1887, instead of attempting—
    MR. CHAPLINThe hon. Member will perhaps allow me to explain. The object and intention of the Bill in this

    935
    respect is this—that the delegation of the smaller class of holdings should be committed to a Committee, which is to consist partly of members of the County Council, of whom the Member for the particular district shall be one, and partly of certain allotment managers selected from the parish in which the land is situated.
    MR. HALDANEI understand there is to be only one Committee for management. The General Committee is under no duty or obligation at all to the locality. There should be a duty on the part of the General Committee to act on the requisition of individuals in the locality, whereas the right hon. Gentleman has put every locality at the absolute mercy of the General Committee, with this exception, that the management of the allotment is put in the hands of the Local Committee, constituted as already explained. That seems to be a formidable point. There is another point. In the Bill which was promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bordesley there was a provision of very great public importance. As you were advancing public money for the benefit of a particular class, my hon. Friend in his scheme said that that was not justified unless you got out of the transactions some benefit for the public—let us say for the County Council. Therefore in his Bill my hon. Friend made provision that one quarter of the purchase money should be paid down, and that three-quarters should remain as a perpetual loan, on which 1 per cent. interest was to be paid beyond the rate at which the County Council could borrow from the Treasury. The result of that was a benefit of 1 per cent. to the county in which the land was situated. I think the right hon. Gentleman should have acted upon that principle, and given the county some benefit. As it is running some risk, and as the rates are to be pledged, it is only right and expedient that the county should get some benefit. The County Council would be all the more willing to put the Act in motion if something was to come from it to the county exchequer. There is a further point, Sir, on which I should like to make inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that the rent charges should in all cases be redeemable. I should like to ask why he did not propose a perpetual rent charge as a quid pro quo by way of compensation
    936
    to the county for borrowing this money? If he had taken that course he would have enlisted sympathy in the county. Again, in this Bill there is no power of re-purchase on the part of the County Council, which is to buy and to sell. It might happen that the land was in the neighbourhood of a village or town, and owing to the movement or growth of the population it might acquire greatly enhanced value. If the value of the land become such as was not contemplated at the time of the sale by the local authority to the small holder, surely it is only right that the local authority should have the power to re-purchase on just terms. That was a provision which was made in the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Bordesley, and which, I think, ought to have been in the Government Bill. As I said before, we do not desire to see any new system of land tenure that fails to afford adequate protection for the interests of the community. There is another point, my fifth and last. The right hon. Gentleman told us there was to be no power of sub-division or subletting. That is so far right; but he did not tell us he had put any restriction on the power of creating limited ownerships in the land dealt with; that there was to be any prohibition, any restriction of the power on the part of the owner of small estates to prevent him creating life estates by will or by deed. As I understand, it will be possible under this Bill for the owner of one of these small properties to create a series of limitations in tail male with remainders over; and I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that in a Bill of this kind there should be some provision restricting the power of settlement. I should also like to ask whether this Bill is to extend to Scotland and to Ireland? Scotland is interested in this question of small holdings, nearly, if not quite, as much as England.
    MR. CHAPLINI forgot to say that the Bill will extend to Scotland, but not to Ireland.
    MR. HALDANEI am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and I must say that we are very grateful to him for extending his consideration across the Border. We on this side shall look upon this Bill as, in its general outlines, good, in so far as it is the first proposal of any Government to create a system of small holdings in this country—good in

    937
    so far as it is worked out with great care and with great knowledge of the conditions of agriculture, and with a desire to produce a system of tenure most beneficial in the interests of the class for whom it is intended. But there are great gaps in it; there are the points, for example, which I have indicated; and I may say that we are unable to look upon the Bill as more than a first step in the right direction—a step which the right hon. Gentleman should take, and which we should not hinder him from taking, but which we should carefully consider if necessary in the light of further examination, with a view of making the scheme he has proposed more thorough, more far-reaching, and more in harmony with the advanced opinions of land law reformers which will obtain in the years that are to be.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSI am only speaking with simple sincerity when I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the Government for the promptness with which they have dealt with this question of small holdings. Even if it is only one good step in the right direction, Government are entitled, and I have no doubt they will get, support from all sides of this House in carrying forward their experiment. The right hon. Gentleman has explained in such eloquent terms the advantages of a peasant proprietary, that on that head there is nothing more to be said. The deficiency of labour, the emigration of labourers to towns, and all the social problems connected therewith, these questions the right hon. Gentleman handled so thoroughly, that no further argument is needed to show the necessity for the establishment of a peasant proprietary. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the displacement of labour from the land. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the labourers going from the land because of their distaste for the occupation. I venture to say there is no reason whatever why the labourers should leave the occupation to which they are accustomed, and which they love; and if the labourers leave the land it is because they are driven from it by the whip of poverty and discomfort. I thank the Government for this earnest of their intentions to deal with this matter, which they have, at any rate, put in a position that will compel future Governments to carry it further. It seems
    938
    to me that the Bill goes mainly on the recommendations of the Select Committee. It is in advance of those recommendations on two points. One is the application of the principle to sitting tenants, for which we are thankful to the Government, and the other relates to buildings which the Select Committee could not see their way to recommend. I should like to know if the right hon. Gentleman intends to confine the supply of small holdings by purchase and hire to those resident in the district, because, if I heard the right hon. Gentleman correctly, I gather that is what he intends? If that be so, I trust the right hon. Gentleman will take out that one provision, for the simple reason that if this is to be an instrument in bringing back people from the crowded towns to the land, which is one of the objects of the right hon. Gentleman, he cannot do that unless the Act be put in operation by a suitable Authority. Although I am an upholder of the Parish Council for certain work, it would, I think, be better if the County Council, in very small areas, were the only people they had to look to for putting the Act in operation. The larger and the wealthier area is the better. We have experienced enough of the action of the County Councils, with regard to allotments and other matters, to say that their members not only understand the question, but that they will be willing to carry it into effect. There has been a good deal said about the County Council allotments. The County Councils have shown themselves ready and willing to act in the cases brought before them. With reference to the absence of compulsion, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby gave a very curious reason why the Government should adopt the principle of compulsion. He said they found, after the passing of the Allotment Act of 1887, that compulsion was necessary, and hence the Act of 1890. The right hon. Gentleman himself knows that the Act of 1887 had compulsory powers, and the Act of 1890 had nothing to do with compulsory powers. It was simply an Appeals Bill. Therefore, there is no reason contained in that argument for compulsion. There is a great deal of force in the statement that there is plenty of land in the market. I have said, 20 years ago, that, although an advocate of compulsory powers in

    939
    Allotments and Small Holdings Bills, I hold that the compulsory powers once placed there will rarely be used. That is borne out by the working of the Allotments Act. Questions have been asked in the House as to the number of Local Authorities who have adopted the Act in a way which seemed to suggest that none have done so. I know between 100 and 200 who have put the Act in force, by hiring or buying land and letting it to the labourers who required it. I have the names of between 100 and 150 parishes where the Local Authorities have done that. That is sufficient to answer the statement that the Act is a dead letter, a delusion and a snare. Do not let it be supposed that we know nothing of these things here; and probably, now that this information has been given, the justice of making the statements elsewhere may be considered. The reason why I think compulsion is necessary is that it will get rid of a ground of agitation; for bear in mind that, although 100 Local Authorities have put the Act in force, compulsion has not been necessary in more than half-a-dozen cases, and of these half-dozen, only one has been opposed in Parliament. The difficulty in getting allotments is not so much due to the landlords as to the large farmers. One could not expect in these times a landlord to cut off a piece of a farm; but if he were compelled, the responsibility would be gone from him. It was the farmers who complained when land was wanted that the piece selected was the very best land on the farm. I want the right hon. Gentleman to be sure—for I am not lawyer enough to know—how will it be in the case of land in the hands of trustees? Have they the power voluntarily to sell if they wish? And, above all, how about land in the power of Corporations, such, for instance, as the college lands? I am in hopes that the right hon. Gentleman will make some modifications before we see the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said that one-fourth would have to be paid down. I think a sum which would ensure the bonâ fides of the purchaser would be sufficient. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners find 15 per cent. enough; Lord Wantage's Land Company take 10 or 20 per cent. Perhaps the figures of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would be a happy medium. There is one
    940
    very strong argument I wish to address on the lines of the hon. Member for Haddington (Mr. Haldane). The Bill adopts the perpetual rent system; but it gives power to redeem it. It need not be in the Bill at all if there is any power to redeem it. I want the right hon. Gentleman to consider when we are entering on a new system which has to be tried, and which he and others have said has failed so miserably on the Continent. It is quite true it has been a miserable failure in some parts of the Continent, but happily we know the exact causes of that. In adopting the plan for Great Britain, however, we are bound to take safeguards against every cause which has created failure abroad. These causes are the curse of the money-lender, sub-division, and sub-letting. These are the three evils in France. I am not urging a system which will commend itself on the platform where men will get something for nothing. I want a system that will thrive and blossom. It will take some time to create a village proprietary. But let the right hon. Gentleman amend those drawbacks which he knows have caused failure. I remember when the Education Bill of 1879 was passed. I said to an American "We are far behind you in education." "Yes," he said, "but there is this peculiar thing in England, they are a long time in adopting a reform. They are slow to move; but when once they do move, they do so on improved principles, and go ahead quickly." It is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman when he is about to try a new experiment—the greatness of which no words can overestimate—to avoid those evils, which are as plain as a pikestaff. As to the question of quit-rent, let it be two-fifths if you like, but keep it. If you allow it to be redeemed, or do not confine it to the cultivating class, these rent-charges will be bought up, and the land will be re-let at exorbitant rents. There is one case where there are 90 small holdings and 60 occupiers in a population of 300. That originally had a rent-charge of £9 10s. What do you find there? That those who had the rent-charge and stuck to it are doing well; but a number of the rent-charges have been bought by small shopkeepers, and there are cases where the £9 10s. rent-charge has become £17. The man who has bought the rent-charge is a small landlord, and he is charging 50

    941
    and 60 per cent., and in some cases double the price he paid. I would implore the right hon. Gentleman to guard against this. Everyone knows that the small impecunious landlord is the worst. The necessities of his position oblige him to get every farthing he can. Suppose, as I am sure will be the ease in some years, that some of these holdings will be in the market. If they are confined to cultivators and not allowed to be sub-let, the small capitalist, as soon as he knows this, would go out of the room and cease to be a bidder, leaving it to the cultivators. Call these holdings Chaplin holdings or anything you like, but confine them to the cultivators. I would also urge on the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of allowing the Local Authority to advance money for putting up buildings. A man can put up the buildings sometimes at half the price of the Local Authority. There were some cases of this kind in connection with Lord Wantage's scheme. If the right hon. Gentleman does not extend the power of advancing money to the holders he will not meet the requirements of the poorer class of cultivators. Of course, this will have to be done under proper safeguards, but the greatest of all the improvements in the Bill is to make the quit-rent of an unredeemable character, and that Local Authorities should be allowed to charge somewhat more for the loan than they pay to the Exchequer. This would bring all the inhabitants of a district in favour of the scheme, as they would come within the range of the benefit that such a scheme will confer. I believe this is only one portion of the work of the reform of rural life. If the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman will allow this small extra allowance I have referred to, the localities would have an income for sanitation and other things without doing anyone any harm.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERThere is a great deal in the friendly criticism of my hon Friend opposite with which I am disposed to agree. I need hardly say, however, that I have no sympathy whatever with the preference he expressed, and which was also expressed by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) in favour of the compulsory acquisition of land. That I look upon as a most perilous step, especially in connection with a measure which is of a
    942
    tentative character. What my hon. Friend said of the necessity of taking full cognisance of the causes which have led to the failure of the system of small holdings is, I think, a matter well deserving the attention of the House. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division referred to the failure in parts of the Continent. He should have carried his observations a step nearer home, and referred to the system of small holdings in England, and also urged the House to take cognisance of the causes of the failure in England. I think it is generally admitted that the system hitherto tried in England has been decidedly a failure. In the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland the system has been largely tried. The system was in the hands of those who were to the manner born—those who in most cases possessed ample capital, energy, and experience, which enabled them to give the system full and ample trial. The system, I much regret to say, has broken down in these cases. The main cause of failure was that the owners found they could invest their capital better in stock than in land. In parts of Lincolnshire, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, a very different state of affairs prevailed. The value of land for selling purposes rose very high. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Haldane) entirely misrepresented what fell from my right hon. Friend. I understood him to refer to the fact that the competition for freehold ownership had been so keen that many owners had purchased their land at fabulous prices. I did not understand him to say that the price charged to the hirer of land had been unduly raised. What are the causes which have told against small, as well as large, holders? The hon. Member referred to the curse of the moneylender. I hope my right hon. Friend will insert a provision that the consent of some competent authority shall be necessary before any charge can be imposed upon land. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the case of sub-letting. Against that, also, I hope ample precautions will be taken. He also referred
    to the question of sub-division. I trust my light hon. Friend will take effectual safeguards against that. But my hon. Friend omitted to notice the main cause of the failure in small as well as large holdings—namely, foreign competition;

    943
    and added to that is the ever-increasing burden of rates and taxes, which, combined with foreign competition, have contributed towards forcing the small holders to realise what remained of their property, and the practical extinction of what was undoubtedly most valuable, the institution of small holders of land in this country. I hope the House will bear these matters in mind, and there is another which I think ought to be urged very seriously. One of the main causes which has prevented land from passing from hand to hand in large, and especially in small, quantities, has been the excessive cost of transfer. The present Government introduced, a few Sessions ago, a measure dealing with the subject, but, for some inconceivable reason, they handicapped its most useful provisions, tending in that direction, by utterly uncalled for and most mischievous provisions, dealing with the wholly incongruous subject of primogeniture, and thereby brought about the rejection of the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite spoke of imposing the most extraordinary conditions for preventing the land acquired under this Bill from being made the subject of any kind of settlement. But what would he do where the owners of the land died? I suppose it would be subject to primogenìture of the most rigid form.
    MR. HALDANEThe land would be sold if the son could not carry it on.
    MR. LOWTHEROf course, if the hon. and learned Gentleman is going to sell it absolutely, that removes to some extent the difficulty with which he surrounded his argument. I hope my right hon. Friend will, in Committee, note the suggestions which have been made for preventing grave abuses that would otherwise arise under this scheme, and that we shall have a measure which will, at any rate, give a chance of this system being fairly tried. I would, however, warn the House against anticipating any large results from any measure of this kind. In my own opinion, nothing in the shape of legislative action will induce persons to embark in the speculation of the ownership and cultivation of land, unless the conditions under which agriculture is conducted are made such that a man of average capacity and reasonable industry can make a living out of it. So long as they are ground down by rates and overwhelmed by foreign competition, very
    944
    few practical men will be induced to embark in a business which has to be carried on under such hopeless conditions.
    MR. COBBI rise mainly for the purpose of putting a couple of questions to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture. I have always thought it unwise to enter into any lengthened criticism on the First Reading of a Bill, and although the right hon. Gentleman introduced this measure with very great clearness, when we have it printed, I have no doubt we shall find we have misunderstood it on some important points. He referred to the class of yeomen, and it seems to me that this is essentially a yeomen's Bill—a Bill to enable men in a comparatively good position in life to get land—and I do not believe it will be the least good to one in a thousand of the agricultural labourers. They do not want what, in this Bill, are called small holdings, at all; but what the bulk of the English labourers want is a thoroughly popular system of allotments in extension of the present system. It seems to me that there are two great blots in this Bill. The first is, that there is no compulsory power in it given to the Local Authority to purchase; and, what is still more important, that there is no compulsory power of leasing. The other blot is, that the authority which is to administer the Act, the County Council, represents too large an area. One of the main difficulties in administering the Allotments Act has arisen from the fact that the rural sanitary authority, the Board of Guardians, is composed of men coming from different parishes, so that it is impossible for them to know the circumstances of each parish. How much, then, will that difficulty be aggravated in the area of a whole county. We shall have an opportunity of discussing these matters at a later stage, and I will not go into them now, but will put these two questions to the right hon. Gentleman. Am I right in understanding that the restriction upon the building of a house upon a small holding applies, even if the tenant or owner is prepared to build that house at his own expense; and, secondly, I want to ask whether the 1d. in the £1, which will come out of the County Rate, will be borne by the whole county, or by the parish or parishes where small holdings are provided?
    MR. CHARLES W. GRAYI think the measure which the right hon. Gentleman has introduced has shown that, at. any rate, if we are approaching dissolution, we have got a kick or two left in us. The Bill is one which may reach a very long way indeed; but I should be the last to throw any obstruction in the way of a proposal of this sort. On the contrary, I rise to give it cordial support. It is sometimes said that the farmers do not want such a Bill, because it would set up a number of men to compete with them in their own industry; but I have never heard any objection coming from the farmers on that score, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman opposite, representing the great industries of the Midland and Northern Counties, will remember that fact. The hon. Member for Haddington (Mr. Haldane) criticised the Bill at considerable length; but his criticisms were very much those which a lawyer would probably pass upon any measure proposed from the other side of the House; and there was nothing in his remarks, or in any others we have heard, to show that there should be any hesitation in reading the Bill a first time, or that it should not have fair-play. I hope it will not only get fair-play, but that when it becomes an Act it will carry with it all the benefits which the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. J. Collings) thinks will follow legislation of this kind. With reference to the explanation so lucidly made by the Minister of Agriculture, I want him to give us an idea as to how selections would be made in those cases where there are more applicants than small holdings. If this selection is to be made in accordance with common sense, I should think that if there were an applicant from the town, and also one from the country, you had better select the man who knows something about farming. The objections of any considerable degree of weight raised by the other side have been limited to two—namely, that this Bill is not compulsory, and that the authority to deal with this matter is the County Council. I understood that authority was only proposed because there is at present no better authority to undertake the responsibility. But there is nothing to lead me to suppose that, if District Councils are set up, they may not have either the entire, or some proportion of
    946
    the authority on this subject. The present Government is more or less pledged to go on with the question of District Councils if they remain in power a sufficiently long time; and if the other side come in, of course we know, from the speeches delivered in the country, that in anticipation of Home Rule or any other question, one of the first measures it will bring forward will be one for establishing District Councils. The other point of criticism had reference to compulsion, but I think we should be very careful before making tentative measures of this sort compulsory. If it succeed, I suppose that later it would be quite in the power of our Party, or of the opposite Party if they should come into Office, to make the scheme compulsory. If we made it compulsory now, without more experience, we might do more harm than good, and cases might arise where small holdings were applied for, simply to prevent certain industries being set up in the locality. I hope those who wish the measure to be compulsory will have a little patience, and I hope it will be understood that the agriculturalists as a class have no objection at all to a measure of this sort being fairly tried.
    MR. T. E. ELLISI desire to add my congratulations to those which have already been offered to the right hon. Gentleman. I had the pleasure of sitting with him on a Committee which inquired into this question, and I am extremely glad that he has found so early an opportunity of bringing its decisions before the House. Personally, I think it is by far the most important measure introduced by the Government since the President of the Local Government Board brought forward the Local Government Bill for England and Wales. It gives real value to the establishment of County Councils; for the value of the Local Government Bill lay, not so much in its powers, as in its possibilities, and this Bill is far more valuable in its possibilities than in its powers; and it would be so, especially in two points which were omitted, but were embodied in the Bill of the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division. They were compulsory power to purchase, and the principle of the final municipal control of all land on which operations may be carried out under the Small Holdings Bill. The principle of com-

    947
    pulsory purchase may very well take care of itself in future Parliaments. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will accept an Amendment in favour of that most valuable principle of municipal control. I should like to call attention to one or two other omissions, which in some parts of the country will largely delay, if they do not frustrate, the operations of the Bill. I refer, first, to that large class of small holdings which exist in certain parts of the country, and notably in Wales and parts of Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, to which are attached large mountain pastures. No cause has tended so much to diminish the class of yeomen as the vast enclosure of commons which took place from the middle of the last century to within 20 years ago. It came out distinctly in the evidence before the Committee that in Wales the small farmers in the hilly and mountainous districts were able to live a comparatively thriving life because they had, attached to their holdings, common pasturage on the hill and mountain sides, the value of which I need not point out. If the right hon. Gentleman desire to enfranchise, so to speak, the present small holders in the hilly districts, and to create a larger number, he will have to look into the question of the regulation of these pasturages. In some cases smaller holdings had been consolidated, and the mountain pasturage belonging to each of the small holdings was also consolidated, so as to belong to the larger farm. Besides that, according to a witness before the Richmond Commission, the small farmers are only allowed to pasture two sheep to the acre of their holdings, while the larger farmers are able to pasture three. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, if he desire to increase the number of small holdings, will have to make some provision for the new division of these pasturages attaching to farms. The right hon. Gentleman did not conceal from the House the enormous risks which all concerned in these transactions will take on themselves. There is the comparative inexperience of those who will obtain the new holdings; the question of having instalments paid regularly to the Local Authority so that the repayments to the Loan Commissioners may be properly made; then the further question, that the small holder may not be able to put up buildings;
    948
    and the ever-existing fear of bad seasons, the cattle plague, and other evils affecting the farming community. Under these circumstances, it is of importance that we examine closely the amount of the purchase money which the County Council may pay for the land. The amount of the purchase money is the keystone of the Bill. Is the County Council to enter as an ordinary bidder into a public auction room to buy the land; for I know that in Wales certain forms and ingenious, dodges well-known to auctioneers produce brisk competition, so as to secure fancy prices for the land. Many persons buy land not because they want to cultivate it, but because they desire to have a county position or to be made County Magistrates. If the duty of bringing back the labourers on the land is to be thrown on the County Council, will the right hon. Gentleman give them a right of pre-emption to the land? Further, what are his real guarantees that only a fair and reasonable price will be given for the land? If such a guarantee be not given, it seems to me that the Bill will land not merely the County Council, but the Loan Commissioners, in considerable difficulty. I think this is the crucial point in the working of the Bill. Can he give us further light on the rules under which the land, having been bought by the County Council, is to be sold to the applicants? Is it to be by public auction? If the County Council is to buy by auction and then to sell to the applicants by auction, the cultivator will be sorely over-burdened, and the Bill will topple about the heads of those who will try to work it. I should further like to say that, although this Bill will in its present form do a great deal to recreate a class that is of the utmost value to the community, it is only the first step, and many more steps will have to be taken, and will be logically and inevitably taken, by future Parliaments. I think the principle of compulsory purchase will have to be applied. I know large districts in Wales where the tenants would give anything to purchase their holdings at a fair and reasonable price, but the landlords are unwilling to sell. It is futile for the right hon. Gentleman to say that there is plenty of land in the market. There may be in Essex and some other parts of England, but in

    949
    Wales there is little land in the market, and it is only very rarely that the present holders have any chance of getting it at a reasonable price. One of the first effects of the Bill will be, I believe, to raise a cry—on the whole, a reasonable one—that no private sale of land whatever shall take place without the sanction of a Public Authority. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not only take every step to pass the present Bill, but will accept occasional Amendments from this side, and more especially do I hope that he will give considerable attention to the clauses of the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Bordesley, with a view to giving County Councils and the Local Authorities a real and permanent hold on the land.
    MR. MARK J. STEWARTI am one of those who feel the importance of this Bill as much as any Member of the House, but I do not think it is going to do so much good to the agricultural labourers as the right hon. Gentleman and some of his friends think it will. The speech we have just listened to will no doubt receive the deep attention of the House when the details of the Bill come to be discussed, but I hope my right hon. Friend will give the possessors of land a chance to do what they like with their own, and to get a reasonable and fair price for it. I am convinced that in the great majority of cases landlords would be only too glad to get a fair remunerative price to sell part of their land. In Scotland there are large tracts of land which few agriculturists would care to have much to do with, and others which might be made more fertile if the state of the farming industry permitted any degree of certainty of payment. The opposition to this measure appears to me to rest mainly on the non-compulsory clauses. I hope and trust the right hon. Gentleman will stand firm on this point. There is no reason why a fair measure should not be submitted to the country without compulsion, and have a fair amount of success. If you adopt compulsion in the first instance, you alienate a large number of persons who are in favour of giving the labourers a larger right and interest in the land than they now possess. But the right hon. Gentleman must not run away with the idea that by increasing the number of small holdings he will confer a great benefit on
    950
    the whole community. While I hail with delight a larger number of small holdings, in the country, I have had considerable experience of the nature and duties of working them. On those estates in which it is my lot to take a very deep, interest it is not only the very small farmers that have at this time a great difficulty in meeting their rents, but the larger farmers, with the best machinery, driven by electricity, water, and steam, have difficulty in making both ends meet. Take away these advantages, and the small farmer is in many cases no better off in point of pecuniary emolument than the labourer. I have always taken the view that it is essential on the part of all large proprietors to have a certain number of stepping-stones into their larger farms, whereby the labourer may raise-himself by going from one to another, and so become in time a large tenant farmer. It is the absence of these small holdings which I so deeply deplore. There is no doubt, however, that recent legislation and practice in the farming world has tended to the taking up of these small holdings and making them into larger farms. The Bill will not meet with any opposition from the landlords, who are glad to get their rent, whether from a large or small holder. They are more sure of it from the small farmer who works hard with his owe hands, and has not to pay wages to any large extent. Fault has been found with the County Council, but where you have a body representing a large area you may depend that you will have greater fairness and impartiality than in the smaller Parish Councils, where there is always a certain amount of jealousy and rivalry which it is difficult to get rid of, but that is met by associating the representatives of a larger area in the County Council. It is said that the County Council is too large for dealing with such a question, but, of course, it would appoint Committees to deal with certain portions of the district, and the members of those Committees would not necessarily be connected with the district in which they had to deal. I would ask my right hon. Friend if there are to be two Bills on this question—one for England and one for Scotland? The interests of Scotland are likely to be somewhat lost sight of in considering the larger area of England. There is an apparent

    951
    disposition in the House to pass the Bill. Let us hope it will be a useful measure, and may assist the labourers and those of the agricultural community who are anxious to push on and rise; and with this view I shall have much pleasure in supporting the Bill, though I fear the House may possibly find its results are not quite so favourable as they seem disposed to think.
    MR. HENEAGEI must congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his speech and the practical discussion which has followed it. I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Thanet that the small holders of the Isle of Axholme were brought to grief by the price of corn. They bought their holdings at a high price, and borrowed three-fourths of the purchase money from the solicitors from whom they bought the lands, and when they could not pay the interest the solicitors foreclosed, and most of them got neither capital nor interest. With regard to the question of compulsion, I, for one, am very glad it has not been adopted, and I think all the argument of the right hon. Member for Derby is worthless,for he was entirely wrong when he alluded to the Allotments Acts. The first Bill had compulsion in it; the second was purely an Appeal Bill. So I do not think the right hon. Gentleman need pay much regard to the precedents before him. What I wish to press on my right hon. Friend is this: I think the remarks in regard to the financial clauses have been exceedingly just, and are, I think, well worthy of attention. I am strongly in favour of there being a quit-rent on the land, and that precautions should be taken to prevent the land being saddled with a mortgage in the same way as in the case of the Isle of Axholme. The clause at present stands that a fourth is to be paid at once, a fourth as rent-charge, and half is to be paid off by terminable annuities. I would suggest that the first fourth be paid at once, the second fourth by terminable annuities, and that the other half should remain as a quit-rent for ever. Nobody would ever be inclined to lend money on land so encumbered. I agree, also, that the ratepayers should have some benefit out of the transactions. There will be no difficulty in getting money at 2¾ per cent., and if the Local Authority charged 3½ or 3¾ per cent. it would leave a
    952
    margin for the benefit of the ratepayers. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he cannot consider with the Law Officers of the Crown some clause which would keep down conveyancing expenses. I regret that the Bill brought in by the present Government three years ago was not passed in its entirety; but as it was not, I think something should be put in the Bill to prevent the running up of law costs with regard to these small holdings. As to buildings, the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in not allowing the County Council to bear the cost, as you would have no security for them, and they will be put up by the tenant if he is the sort of man to have the holding. I believe the Bill will be a great benefit, and I cannot see why it should not be further improved in Committee if the right hon. Gentleman will only consider some of the suggestions that have been made.
    MR. W. C. QUILTERI cannot allow this Bill to pass without a few words from me, as I take so much interest in the subject. I want to express, very shortly, the objections I hold to some of the proposals of my right hon. Friend. I think he will find it necessary to introduce compulsory powers, for, without them in the background, he will not be able to make arrangements with the landowners. I heartily approve of the County Council as a body to whom these questions must be remitted. In my own county the most interesting question has been the housing of the working classes, and the difficulty we had to meet was the smallness of the area dealt with by the Board of Guardians. It is now found that the County Council is the only body able to deal with questions of this kind on a scale of sufficient magnitude. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether the limit of £25 may not be reduced. I believe that this Bill will be of considerable benefit to the labouring classes, although I cannot join with my hon. Friend the Member for Bordesley in the sanguine anticipations in which he indulged. I believe that until the Land Laws of this country are radically altered all legislation of this kind will, to a certain extent, be in vain, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will pay some heed to the remarks of my right hon. Friend

    953
    who has just spoken below me, as to the possibility of the law's delays and lawyers' charges being serious hindrances to the carrying out of the provisions of the Bill that is now being introduced.
    MR. JOSHUA ROWNTREEAs I understand, from the right hon. Gentleman's very clear and able statement, there is to be only one authority under this Bill, the authority of the County Council, and that the County Council will have absolute authority, so far as they think fit, over the whole county area, including, of course, county boroughs. But if that be correct, it means that the non-county boroughs of whatever size, whether Quarter Sessions boroughs or not, or having any general financial relation to the county or not, are really to be treated as non-existent. I may be quite mistaken in this matter, but supposing it is so, however much the boroughs may welcome this Bill on other grounds, I very much fear they would feel bound to protest against this part of it. It would be unjust that boroughs with heavy rates for special purposes of their own should be liable to rates from which, in the great majority of cases, they would derive no benefit. And, further, in many cases, as the right hon. Gentleman is no doubt fully aware, where boroughs include in their financial area a large amount of land, and are in some cases large landowners themselves—as in the case of the borough which I have the honour to represent, which owns 500 acres or more of its own—it then would be felt a considerable hardship that another authority should invade the area of the borough, with powers to rate the burgesses, to buy and sell land, to let land and build houses, and fix their own sanitary conditions, all within the area of that municipal borough. I hope that is not proposed by the Bill. If it is proposed I am sure it will be a very strong objection to that part of the Bill.
    MR. ROUNDThere are one or two boroughs in the county which I have the honour to represent, having a considerable acreage of land, and they, no doubt, as the hon. Member opposite has pointed out, will look with jealousy on the powers of other authorities to deal with that land. An hon. Gentleman opposite said a short time ago that he
    954
    wished the time would come when no private property in this country should be sold without the intervention or sanction of some public authority. I think that such a state of things would be very detrimental to private individuals and to the community generally. I rose to offer my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing in this measure to-night. I think the measure has fallen into good hands. He has always taken a great interest in all matters connected with the agricultural interest in this country, and was instrumental in bringing about the appointment of the Royal Commission for inquiring into the cause of the depression in Agriculture, many of whose recommendations, which I think were most useful, have been carried into effect. There is no one who is familiar with the history of our country districts in former times but must regret the disappearance of the small holders and old yeomen from the soil, who were a most industrious and useful class, and who have been squeezed out, as it were, by force of circumstances. I trust this effort of the right hon. Gentleman will meet with success. I look upon it as an experiment in the right direction, though I am afraid that if the price of wheat remain as it is now, or as it was last year, 30s. or 32s. a quarter—I am afraid there cannot be much profit made out of the land unless these prices alter. I agree with what an hon. Member said from these Benches a short time ago—that this Bill offers a stepping-stone to the labourers to rise and better themselves. In our wheat-growing districts I do not think the land can be better cultivated than it is now, when it is in the hands of large farmers who understand their business; but no opportunity then arises for labourers to better themselves, and I much prefer to see holdings of different sizes in our rural parishes. This is not the time to discuss the details of this Bill, but I trust the right hon. Gentleman will be able to pass it through this House this Session; and I shall conclude by asking him when the Bill will be printed and laid on the Table of the House?
    MR. ESSLEMONTI rise with considerable satisfaction to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and Her Majesty's Government for having, as we might say in Scotland, at the long length, recognised that there is

    955
    such a thing as a land question in Scotland. We who have of late been sitting in this House for three or four years, and hearing the allotments question discussed as applied to England, we did not observe, when we had a Local Government Bill for Scotland passed, a recognition of the fact that there was a land question in Scotland. Her Majesty's Government introduced certain clauses into that Bill, but told the Scottish Members that unless they accepted them en bloc, and as proposed by Her Majesty's Government, no time could be given for discussing the question. On several occasions I reminded the First Lord of the Treasury and the President of the Local Government Board of the promises that they made, that this question would be looked into and remedied at an early date by Her Majesty's Government. But it has been the privilege of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture for the first time to recognise Scotland in dealing with this question of the allotments and small holdings, and I can assure him that this recognition of Scotland, as comprehended in this Bill, will be looked upon with gratitude on the part of the agriculturists of Scotland. I had a matter suggested to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough in regard to the question of rating. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture may recollect that on the passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Bill the rating question was dealt with in a somewhat exceptional manner; the county rate being stereotyped upon the average of a certain number of years. That is to say, a certain number of years of the average rate was taken, and that became the stereotyped rate for the county assessment. Now, what I would wish the right hon. Gentleman to recognise is, that any rate but the stereotyped rate—it was arranged by a clause in the Bill—that any rate beyond the stereotyped rate in after years would be divided between the occupier and the proprietor. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the case of this penny, it will then be a penny on the occupiers and a penny on the proprietors; or whether it will be a penny divided according to the arrangement of that Bill, between occupiers and proprietors? I hope the right hon. Gentleman follows
    956
    my statement of the case, and that he will give his attention to the matter before the Bill is drafted. There are only two other points which I wish to bring under the right hon. Gentleman's attention. Speaking, as I have the honour to do, for one of the most agricultural counties in Scotland, I hope the right hon. Gentleman may excuse me in saying that in treating Scotland it must be with regard to Scottish rights and interests, and with considerations which differ in some respects from this Bill as applied to the English counties. There is one consideration I think I ought to press very strongly upon the Government, and that is, that so far as we in Scotland are concerned, we, I think, almost universally recognise that no Bill dealing with either allotments or small holdings will be of any great. consequence to Scotland, or will be cared for very much one way or the other in Scotland, unless it is followed up by compulsory powers. I quite recognise what the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division said—that if we had compulsory powers in the Bill the compulsory powers might be very seldom put into execution; but it was the compulsory powers that enabled occupiers and proprietors to come to terms themselves. Therefore, I would strongly impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that he should consider now what has been pointed out to him. And I submit to him that this Bill will be ineffectual unless it contain within its four corners a compulsory power which is to effect the purposes intended. The right hon.. Gentleman has said that no help or encouragement would be given to a man who built a house upon a holding which was of less value than £25.
    MR. CHAPLINThe provision in the Bill is that no dwelling-house is to be erected on a holding which is of less value than £25, unless the Local Authority have reason to think that the particular holding is sufficient to maintain the man and his family by the cultivation of the holding, and in that case he may be allowed to erect a dwelling-house.
    MR. ESSLEMONTI understand the principle, and it is because I understand it so well that I doubt the wisdom of the provision. The right hon. Gentleman says that that class of individuals he wants to maintain in the country—he

    957
    does not want so much that a man should be kept in the country who has as much land as he can cultivate and keep himself and his family as he does to keep in the country thousands of men who have not, and can never have, as much land; but who, on account of the circumstances of their position, have to make their living by working for others. If that individual, by his frugality and industry, got into the position that he could get into possession of five acres of land on which to make a permanent home for his wife and his children, and hiring out his labour to the neighbouring farmers, why should a disability be put upon this service man, that he should not be allowed to erect his little house upon these five acres of land? Why should I be told, because I am placed in circumstances in which I cannot stock or purchase 25 acres of land, that my wife and family are never to have a home? Why, these are the disadvantages that send the hire classes into the city. The right hon. Gentleman knows Scotland, and he cannot be ignorant of the fact that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction there, from the circumstances that, in order to get those homes, the people have to congregate in the villages in the country. What we want is to give a comprehensive scheme, to give the allotments and small holdings in the district where the labourer exists. The right hon. Gentleman says, "You shall not have a home there." He excludes the labourer under a value of £25. I hope, under these circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider this, because, if I understand these conditions, I may at all events press this point upon him, that no harm could result to anybody by the industrial labourer building his house on any number of acres, or even on half an acre, if he can do it. I hope before the Government comes to any settled conclusion on this subject they will give this matter some more consideration, and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is one of very great importance, and one of very great interest to the constituency which I have the honour to represent. Unlike the right hon. Member for the Bordesley Division, who says he wishes that the Bill may fructify and grow, I am a practical politician, and therefore I wish that something will accrue the very year after the Act of Parliament is passed. We have been waiting to see some
    958
    justice done to Ireland, and though very little has been done, something has been done with regard to the agricultural question. But nothing has been done for Scotland. We waited to see England get an Allotments Bill, and afterwards a compulsory Allotments Bill. If you want to preserve the unity of the Empire, and if you do not want to hasten Home Rule, I ask you to mete out equal justice to all parts of Her Majesty's Dominions.
    MR. BROOKFIELDI desire with very great sincerity to associate myself with the congratulations that have been bestowed upon the right hon. Gentleman for having formulated this very businesslike and comprehensive scheme. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of restoring the old yeoman to his place upon the soil. But the "old yeoman" is a thing of the past, and I much fear we shall never see him again. He disappeared chiefly through his improvidence. He was not at all a thrifty person, though his social habits did obtain for him a certain amount of popularity, but as this measure is to bring about a social rather than an economic change, I hope it will not restore that unthrifty personage. Although in regard to general agricultural sentiments I quite agree with the Minister for Agriculture, I entirely agree with the Member for the Bordesley Division that it will be a mistake, however desirable the sentiment may be, to place these small holders in the position of absolute freeholders, and so enable them, as in the case of the "old yeoman," to have recourse to the nearest solicitor to mortgage their land to him. With regard to what has fallen from my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcudbright, I think, Sir, notwithstanding the fact that farming on a large scale will not pay, that fruit culture and similar agricultural industries will, especially if the small holding is in any way near a large town. If there is no market near, you had better abandon the idea that Parliament can make farming of any sort pay. Great stress has been laid upon the word "compulsion," which is a favourite word with the friends of liberty in this House. They seem unable to understand how it can be possible to make anyone happy, except at the expense of somebody else. I hope,

    959
    however, that what has been said in the course of this Debate will strengthen the feeling of the House not to have compulsion if they can avoid it. There is one point which I did not catch in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. I understood him to say that the Local Authority might provide buildings for which the small holder is to pay—I hope on easy terms. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the Bill he has introduced, and I hope it will be pressed forward and become law without undue delay.
    MR. MUNRO FERGUSONIn the lucid speech of the right hon. Gentleman there was only one omission, and that was in relation to the question as to whether this measure is or is not to extend North of the Tweed. I learned afterwards it was to extend to Scotland, and there is a special point on which the extension should be supported. Scotland, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, is divided into two portions, which are cultivated on very different systems. The Northern part and the Western part are already under legislation different from that known in any other part of Great Britain, and some provisions have already been made with regard to the extension of holdings there which involve the application of a system of compulsory leasing. There are very stringent provisions in the Crofters' Act, and there is a considerable demand for an extension of holdings. If the right hon. Gentleman introduces too many limitations in his Bill its results will not be so large as are expected or required. In the Highland area the rent received from the soil is exceedingly small, and does not, in many cases, represent the outlay on the buildings and improvements. Proprietors can hardly undertake the creation of small holdings, the burden is so great. The only way it can be done is either through some national authority, or some local authority, such as that to which the right hon. Gentleman gives scope for work under his Bill. Until the local authority is allowed to embark on the creation of a peasant proprietary on a considerable scale, very little will be done to meet the land question, which has assumed great proportions in the Highlands. There is great difficulty in fixing the area to which agrarian legislation should
    960
    apply. I think the land question in the Highlands should be dealt with by the County Councils or local authorities, provided you make the powers of these local bodies sufficiently comprehensive. The hon. Member for Aberdeen mentioned a point as to the size of the holdings on which houses may be erected. The right hon. Gentleman knows that there are comparatively few holdings of £25 in the Highlands, and unless there is to be a prohibition of extending the Crofter areas, this £25 limit of annual value will have to be altered, for otherwise the Bill will be inoperative, in so far as the poorer parts of Scotland are concerned.
    COLONEL EDWIN HUGHESI desire to ask a question and to make a suggestion. First, I would ask why the Allotments Acts do not apply to London? There are a number of parishes on the edge of the County of London. There is Eltham with 3,000 acres, and Plumstead with 3,000 acres, only 500 acres of which are covered with buildings. In all these cases, those who want allotments can only get them at a very high price indeed. I do not see why the County of London should be excluded from the provisions of the Acts. There are many labouring men at Eltham and Plumstead who would be glad of the opportunity of getting allotments to occupy themselves with during their spare hours. Another anomaly is that by the Public Health Act of 1891 Woolwich was placed under the Public Health Act of 1875, and has now become an Urban Sanitary Authority. Consequently, Woolwich will be the only parish in the Metropolis under present circumstances for which it will be necessary to appoint a Committee to act under the Allotments Acts. If this condition of things remains unaltered, jealousy will be excited among the people on both sides of Woolwich, which will have special advantages that were surely not intended by the framers of the Allotments Acts. Taking London as a whole, I admit there is not much scope for agricultural farms or allotments, but so far as there is scope I do not see any reason why these people should not have the advantages of the Allotments Acts and of this Bill, seeing that they are responsible as taxpayers for the working of the scheme. I hope the

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    right hon. Gentleman will see that there is no ground for jealousy as between one Metropolitan parish and another, and that he will make all the Metropolitan areas alike.
    MR. F. S. STEVENSONAlthough the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill made an extremely lucid speech, there are one or two points that are still somewhat obscure. In the first place, as regards the financial aspect of the question, it is not evident from what source the money is to come which is to be used by the County Council for putting up buildings—whether it is to come out of the pockets of those who are set up as cultivators, or out of the money the Council will be able to borrow. The second point is whether the interest of 3⅛ per cent. to be paid by the County Council to the Government is not only to include the payment of interest, but is also to act as a sinking fund, and to include the gradual re-payment of the capital sum. These are two points I hope the right hon. Gentleman will make clear. It seems to me that the criticisms of this measure will crystallize round four principal points. The first point is the absence of the recognition of the principle of compulsion which might be brought to bear on those unwilling to sell their land. There are cases, especially in regard to settled estates, where the principle of compulsion will be absolutely essential to the successful working of this Act. The second point is that of the area. The County Council is too large for the purpose of settling the holdings under this Act, and if it is possible to secure a Local Committee of the County Council and the allotment managers under the Allotments Act, surely it might be possible to arrange for a Committee, consisting partly of members of the County Council and partly of representatives of the different parishes, who might take steps under this scheme for the management and for the provision of small holdings. The third point is the principle of compulsory leasing, which I do not think is open to the objections stated against it by the right hon. Gentleman. The principle is by no means novel. It was introduced in the Scotch Crofters' Act of 1886 by the Member for Bridgeton, it finds a place in the Irish Labourers' Act, and it is difficult to see why it should not have application to England, seeing
    962
    it would facilitate the action of the county in letting land to applicants. The fourth point is that of price. It is not clear whether there is in the Bill any provision that the land purchased by the County Council for the purpose of small holdings is to be purchased at a fair price. Not only is it desirable that there should be provision as to fair price, but it should be stated on what principle the words "fair price" were used—in short, what constituted a fair price. My hon. Friends the Members for Haddington and Bordesley have raised the question of the perpetual municipal control of these holdings. I have no essential objection to municipal control, nor do I object to the levying of a small quit rent in perpetuity as a sign and symbol of that control. At the same time, if any scheme of this kind is to succeed, it is most desirable that those who buy should have the best means of turning their capital, their energy, and their industry to the best possible account, and they will only be able to do that if they can do what they like with their own, and if they are not liable to arbitrary interference on the part of any body or individual. With this reservation, I agree with the observations of my hon. Friends the Members for Haddington and Bordesley with respect to this point.
    MR. CHAPLINI have to thank hon. Gentlemen for the manner in which they have received this Bill. I have no reason to be dissatisfied; on the contrary, I have every reason to be pleased with the mode in which it has been accepted, subject to certain reservations made by Members sitting on both sides. As regards the question of compulsion, I do not think I need say anything further, as hon. Gentlemen opposite will have opportunities of expressing their opinions at a later stage upon it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby took exception, as had likewise been done by other speakers, to the County Councils as not being the most appropriate body for carrying out the provisions of this Bill. If not the County Councils, I want to know what body is more appropriate? The right hon. Gentleman said that unless the Parish Authority was to have control there could not possibly be any life in it. There is one reason which I think is conclusive against the Parish Councils, and that is, that this borrowing power of the parish at the limit fixed would be abso-

    963
    lutely inadequate, and that it would not be possible for them to conduct operations of so large a magnitude as is contemplated by the Bill. Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to the question of land being hired as well as the power of purchase. He quoted the Allotments Act as an instance in favour of his argument. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot that in the case of allotments they are only let by the Local Authorities to the occupiers, and are not sold, whereas, in this Bill, one of the main objects we have in view is to sell them, and thus to create an addition to the number of owners of land. A great deal has been said with regard to the limitation which I pointed out was placed on the erection of dwelling-houses upon holdings which did not exceed the annual value of £ Well, Sir, I am not pledged to that, and I am quite ready to consider any reasonable suggestion on that point. But I would put this question across the Table. Is there to be no limit at all? Because that is the argument which I understand was used by some hon. Gentlemen opposite, notably, by the Member for Aberdeenshire, who asked why a man should not be allowed to build on an acre or half-an-acre of land. I am quite ready to consider the question of the alteration of the present limit, but I repeat that I am totally adverse to any proposal to allow people to erect buildings all over the country on half-acres of ground; and I cannot conceive how the House could agree to such a proposal. I pointed out at the time that as regards these smaller allotments they were designed to meet purely local requirements, and that being so, it is not unreasonable to presume that in a great number of cases the persons to whom they are let or sold will be in possession of houses in which they reside already. But both in regard to this class of holdings and others, hon. Members must also remember this: that in the course of years the instalments will be paid; and whenever the purchase money has been cleared off, they will be free to do with their holdings exactly as they please. The Member for Haddingtonshire referred to something I said in reference to the extravagant prices which had been given in former days for some of the small holdings in Lincolnshire, to which I had referred; and he seemed to find in this statement the argument that compulsion
    964
    was all the more necessary. But if I gathered anything from the argument of the hon. Member at all, it was this: that compulsion, according to him, was to be used, and used solely for this purpose—namely, that the land might be taken at a value which was considerably less than it was worth. That is an opinion in which I cannot for a moment coincide. Sir, it has also been urged by many hon. Members on that side of the House that some provision should be made in this Bill by which a certain amount of benefit, at all events, should be reserved to the Local Authorities, who, I understood them to desire, should for all time to come have some permanent interest in the property which they acquire. Well, I own that in preparing this Bill, the object I had in view has been rather to consider the benefit of the people who are to occupy these holdings instead of the benefit of the Local Authorities. Although I am quite willing to listen to anything that may be urged upon that point—and I think there are some matters connected with it of considerable importance—I must say that my views still incline chiefly in that direction. Then my hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division criticised, in a friendly spirit, the amount of the purchase money which the Bill requires to be paid down, and he hopes that I may consider the propriety of relaxing, to some extent, that provision. On that, again, I say that, although I think myself that that probably is the limit at which it could best, or most properly be placed, still that is not a matter of principle, and it is one on which I am open to argument. He also called attention to the great dangers, to the probable and future success of this system which might arise from the action of money-lenders, and from the evils of sub-division and sub-letting. But although I do not pledge myself to the provisions of the Bill, I am strongly under the impression that when he sees the measure, he will find that all these dangers are already guarded against. If they are not, I quite recognise the importance of the subjects to which he has called my attention, and I shall be quite ready to consider them. Then the hon. Member for Essex, sitting behind me, asked how the selection was to be made if there were to be an enormous demand for these holdings. Well, I am rather glad to find that he

    965
    takes so hopeful a view of the operation of the Bill, and I think it will be time to consider what arrangements are to be made for such contingencies when they arise; but, under the circumstances, it seems to me that it is a matter which may well be left to the discretion and the judgment of the County Council, which is composed of men of business perfectly competent to deal with all matters of that kind as they arise. The Member for Merionethshire called attention to the small holdings in Wales which are connected with large grazing areas and in mountain districts of the country; and he desired me specially to direct my attention to those points, which I shall be exceedingly glad to do. But the hon. Gentleman spoke also of the enormous risks to the Local Authorities which will be incurred under the provisions of this Bill. I cannot agree with him upon that point at all. I am not aware of the enormous risks which, under any circumstances, the Local Authority would be called upon to encounter; and indeed, if I were of that opinion, I should not have felt myself justified in proposing any measure which would possibly have that effect. Nor do I think that he has any reasonable ground for the supposition. I take Clause 11 of the Bill, and I find that that clause provides that the County Council shall not acquire land under this Act save at such price that, in the opinion of the Council, all expenses incurred by the Council in relation to land will be recouped out of the purchase money of the land sold by the Council, or, in the case of land let, out of the rent; and they shall fix the purchase money or the rent at such reasonable amount as will, in their opinion, guard them against loss. Well, I think that is a reasonable provision, and one which ought to have the effect which it is intended to have, of relieving the County Council of the enormous risk.
    MR. T. ELLISThey must accept the risk of the price.
    MR. CHAPLINOf course they must buy the land by agreement, and must take it at the market value. It will be open to them to buy as it will be for me to sell, and I hope that in some circumstances I myself will be able to sell some land for holdings at a price which will be mutually agreeable to the purchaser
    966
    and to myself. The Member for Kirkcudbright asked me if the Bill would apply to the two countries. Yes, Sir; the Bill applies to Scotland as well as to England; and I am glad to think that that proposal meets with the favour of the numerous Members representing Scotland who have taken part in the Debate to-night.
    MR. A. SUTHERLANDDoes it apply to Scotland without any exception whatever?
    MR. CHAPLINYes, without exception. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby spoke of a perpetual quit-rent. That is a subject which has received the support of many other Members; and he made proposals to me which would have the effect, to some extent at all all events, of varying the provisions under which, as at present in the Bill, the purchase money is to be paid. I own that, so far as I have been able to consider the matter up to the present, I prefer the provisions in the Bill to the provisions he has suggested. But I entirely agree with him as to the inexpediency of lending money to the purchaser for the purpose of making buildings. The hon. Member for Scarborough and the hon. Member for Greenwich referred to Councils of boroughs; and they expressed some apprehension that, in the first place, the Borough Council would be overridden by the County Council; and I think I understood the hon. Member to complain that the County of London was entirely excluded from the operation of the Bill. As far as I understand the measure myself, that is not the case. The 1st clause provides that " if the Council of any county are of opinion that there is a demand for small holdings," Sc., they may proceed to put the Bill in operation; and the definitions of the Bill provide this: that the expression "County Council" shall include the Council of a county borough; and therefore, I think these fears will be allayed. Now, Sir, I think I have dealt with most of the observations which have been made in the course of this Debate.
    MR. ESSLEMONTWhat about the question of the rate?
    MR. CHAPLINI am afraid I quite forget what the question was.
    MR. ESSLEMONTMy question was whether this Bill would stereotype the rate, according to the Scotch Local Government Bill, by dividing it between the occupier and the proprietor, or whether it would fall entirely on the proprietor.
    MR. CHAPLINI apprehend it will follow what is the custom in Scotland.
    SIR C. J. PEARSONYes.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURHear, hear!
    MR. CHAPLINThe point ought to have attracted my attention more closely perhaps, but I think it is exactly as my right hon. Friends have stated, that in Scotland it will be a divided rate, following the practice which is usual there. Well, Sir, in regard to any other questions which may have been raised in the course of this discussion, some of which it is quite possible I have omitted, I can only say that before we proceed to a further stage of this Bill, they shall receive, one and all, my careful consideration; and, to some extent I have no doubt, I may be able to meet the views of hon. Members.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSWhat about confining the buildings on the small holdings to people who actually live in the locality?
    MR. CHAPLINYes; that is so. The Bill provides at present that the small holdings are to be purchased by the County Council for the labouring population in the county, and for persons who are resident in the county, and who desire themselves to cultivate a holding. But that is a matter I will take into consideration, and upon which I should be sorry to commit myself at present.
    MR. F. S. STEVENSONWill the right hon. Gentleman say where the money to provide buildings is to come from?
    MR. CHAPLINI think I have explained the intentions of the Government with regard to buildings in the opening statement I made. The adaptation of the buildings in the Bill will be included as part of the purchase money.
    MR. ROWNTREEI am sorry that my question was not clear, but I asked whether the non-county boroughs were to
    968
    be virtually non-existent, and placed entirely under the County Councils.
    MR. CHAPLINYes, Sir.
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and Mr. Long.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 183.]

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND) BILL.

    MOTION FOR LEAVE.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JACKSON,Mr. Speaker, in asking leave to introduce the Bill for dealing with the question of education in Ireland, I may perhaps be allowed to refer very shortly to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and which cause us to have to, deal with this question of education. The House is aware that last year a grant of money was made, the result of which has been practically the freeing of education in England and Scotland. Following that grant there has been placed at the disposal of Ireland a sum which I may call, for the purpose of shortness, the equivalent grant for Ireland; and this, therefore, seems to me an opportunity for attempting to deal with a very important question, and putting, if possible, elementary education in Ireland on a broader and, I hope, a more efficient basis. Sir, the House is aware that the question of education in Ireland is one in which the Irish people take a very great and a very deep interest. For a long time, in fact, Ireland made more progress in its educational machinery, at one period of its history, than this country. Since 1831, when the National Education Commissioners were established, we have been indebted to the National Education Commissioners for very great and very valuable services; and I would desire to take this opportunity of expressing my sense of appreciation of the valuable work which has been done by that body, a body almost unique in Ireland as being a body which depends entirely for its reward upon its own conscientious conviction of duty discharged, a body which has won the respect of all those who have been brought into contact with

    969
    it, and which, in another degree, has set, I think, a great example, an example of great encouragement—I mean the fact that we have there a body, differing it may be in political principles, differing sharply—it is the fact—in their religious principles; and yet, so far as I know, there has never been any occasion on which difficulties have arisen either from politics or from religion in connection with that important administration. This, Sir, I think is a very encouraging feature, and one which redounds very much to the credit of the body of the Commissioners, whom we call the National Educational Commissioners of Ireland. They have carried on their duties under great difficulties sometimes. They have had great difficulties to contend with; or rather, perhaps, I might say, they have not had the great advantages which have been possessed by those who have had to discharge the duties connected with education either in this country or in Scotland. Since the year 1872 the average attendance in the national schools in Ireland has shown a steady and continuous increase. This may be due partly to the fact that at that time there was introduced a system which gave to the teachers some interest in the results of their work. Be that as it may, I want to press this point upon the attention of the House: that in 1872 practically the average attendance in Ireland, compared with the population of Ireland, ran neck and neck with the average attendance in England. Since that time, notwithstanding a diminishing population, the average attendance in the Irish national schools has shown a gradual and almost continuous increase. I may give the House just three or four figures which show the position. In 1872 the number of children in average attendance was 355,000, leaving out the odd figures; in 1876 it was 416,000; in 1880 it was 468,000; and in 1890 it was 489,000. Taken, as I say, in conjunction with the fact that during this period there has been a diminishing population, these results are not entirely unsatisfactory, especially when we bear in mind—and I ask leave to point this out to the House—that the conditions of the systems in Ireland and in England are not the same. There is a considerable difference in the systems. In England the unit
    970
    with which the English Educational Department has to deal is rather the Local Authority. Practically, the English Department deals only with the questions of inspection and of certificates. In Ireland the relations of the State to education are very different. The Education Commissioners in Ireland not only deal with the individual schools, but they regulate and fix the salaries of the various classes of teachers in these schools; and, therefore, they have a far larger responsibility as regards the question of education generally than has the Education Department in this country. I need not remind the House that, whilst speaking roundly, the State contributes in England and Scotland about two-fifths of the cost of education; the State contributes in Ireland about four-fifths of the cost of education. In Ireland the remuneration of the teachers is, as I have said, fixed by the Education Commissioners, and they are brought, therefore, more directly in contact with the individual teachers and the individual schools. There is, again, another point to which I must make reference in passing; and that is, that the question of religion in Ireland has a very considerable influence on the question of education. It is true that the system in Ireland was planned and intended to provide for and to promote what has been called "combined secular and separate religious instruction" But it is also true that by the continuous efforts, both of the Protestants and of the Roman Catholics, there has been the gradual growth of unmixed schools; and the result is that we have in Ireland what almost amounts practically to a system of denominational education.
    An hon. MEMBER: Hear, hear!
    MR. JACKSONI know my hon. Friend wishes—I will not say believes—that that was not the fact. But my hon. Friend knows that this tendency has been growing, and not from one side only but from both sides. There has been an increasing disposition, both on the part of the Roman Catholics and of the Protestants, to provide separate schools wherever they had a number of children sufficient to enable them to ask

    971
    for a separate school to be provided. Speaking personally, and expressing only my own individual opinion, I regret that such should be the fact. I believe that the mixed schools have been of great service. The example that I have just quoted—of the body of Educational Commissioners themselves—of the good service they have performed in Ireland, leads me to the conclusion, along with other circumstances which have come to my knowledge, that it would be to the advantage of Ireland, it would be to the advantage of both Parties and of both denominations, that they should be brought together in contact as much as possible, and, by experience, taught that they could live and work together, each of them rendering good service to the State. I come now to a point of still greater importance, and that is the question of attendance at the schools. I need not remind the House that in 1870, when the Education Act was passed for this country, there was instituted at that time a system of what was called compulsory attendance. For a period of time it was what I may call optional upon the Local Bodies to adopt it or not, and for a time there was no very general application of it. But in 1876, I think it was, an Act was passed which made the bye-laws compulsory; and I will give the House one or two figures which show the extraordinary strides which the average attendance at the schools in this country made from the particular date to which I have referred. It is true that Ireland was excluded, I would say, from the compulsory clauses—I had almost said from the benefits of the compulsory clauses—of that Act. In 1872, then, the number of children examined in England was 661,000, again leaving out the odd figures, which represented 2·86 of the population of the country. In 1876 that percentage rose from 2·86 to 4·69 of the population. In 1880 it rose to 7·44 of the population; in 1884 it rose to 8·63 of the population; in 1890 it rose to 8·83 of the population. Perhaps the results will impress themselves more upon the minds of hon. Members of this House if I give just these five
    972
    figures showing the average attendance at the schools in these periods. In 1872 the average attendance in the English schools was 1,314,000; in 1876 it was 1,984,000; in 1880 it had risen to 2,594,000; and in 1890 it had risen to 3,717,000. Sir, these are remarkable figures, and they show what an enormous stride was made in the average attendance in the schools of this country following upon the measure which was taken at that time. In 1890—and this is almost the last figure that I shall quote. But let me first say that, as I have already told the House, in 1872 the average attendance in England and Ireland respectively, compared with the population, was what I have called neck and neck. In 1890 the average attendance, as compared with the numbers on the register in England, equalled nearly 80 per cent.; whilst in Ireland the average attendance, in proportion to the number on the rolls of the whole of Ireland, was not quite 60 per cent.; and therefore the position is this: that whilst they were relatively equal in 1872, in 1890 they had fallen away in Ireland until they were 20 per cent. behindhand. I may put the figures in another way, which I think will bring them more clearly home to Members in this House. If you take the population of the respective countries, and test the average attendance compared with the population of the three countries, these are the facts. Taking the population of England at 29,000,000, we have an average attendance in the schools of 3,750,000, or 12·9 per cent. of the population. In Scotland, with a population of 4,000,000, an average attendance of 519,000 children, or 13 per cent. of the population. Bearing in mind that Scotland perhaps compares, in some respects, more nearly with Ireland than it does with England—for there are districts in Scotland remote and difficult of access, which possibly may have thrown the calculation a little on the other side—what are the facts in Ireland? With a population of 4,700,000, you have an average attendance of about 490,000, or about 10·4 per cent of the population.
    MR. KNOXIs the right hon. Gentleman speaking of the last Census?
    MR. JACKSONI take the estimate from the Census of 1891, which puts the

    973
    population of Ireland at 4,700,000, and I take the average attendance during the year 1890, giving a little turn to it because it has rather increased since.
    MR. J. O'KELLYWill the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is using the same Census for the three populations?
    MR. JACKSONYes, Sir; but now let me put the figures in another way. Supposing you apply to Ireland the figures which I have shown in England and Scotland, namely, 13 per cent. you get this result: that 13 per cent. of the 4,700,000 ought to give you an average attendance in your schools of 611,000; but you have about 490,000, and therefore the net result is that you have from 110,000 to 120,000 children in Ireland who ought to be in school, and who are not in school. Now, Sir, I think if any figures could convince the Members of this House that it is necessary to devise some means by which we can bring into the national schools in Ireland the children who ought to be there, the figures I have quoted are conclusive on that point.
    MR. M. J. KENNYWill the right hon. Gentleman give the number of pupils who present themselves annually for examination?
    MR. JACKSONWell, I believe it would in no sense alter the proportion I have given, and it certainly would not affect the percentage, however good. I take the hon. Member's point to be this. I can imagine his saying: Though the attendance may not be so good in Ireland, the quality of education is better, because we pass a large percentage in examinations. But my answer to him would be at once that if the material is so good, and if the teaching is so good, why should you not bring within the scope of it the whole of the children who are capable of being brought. I think these figures point to the fact that we must devise some means by which we can bring within the education facilities which are provided in Ireland this large body of children who, at present, suffer from the want of it, and this points clearly in the direction that one of the
    974
    measures to be taken is to provide in some form for applying to Ireland the principle of compulsory attendance. The idea of applying compulsory attendance to Ireland is not new to the House. In 1877, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, who was at that time a Member of the House, brought forward a Motion implying the principle of compulsory attendance in its application to Ireland. That Motion was—I will not say refused, but he was appealed to, as we are from time to time, to be satisfied with the discussion—and a very interesting discussion it was, as anyone will see who reads it now—and with having raised the important question, and he was satisfied with having done so. In 1883 he brought forward again a somewhat similar Motion, which affirmed the principle of compulsory attendance, coupled with a condition that possibly it might be necessary in some districts to modify it in its application to Ireland. That Motion was accepted unanimously by this House. In 1885 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs, who at that time filled the office of Chief Secretary, introduced to this House a Bill which not only embodied the principle of compulsory attendance, but also provided for several other matters connected with education in Ireland. The principle was not only recognised, but it was also applied; and I think I may say that in recent years we have witnessed in many quarters of great influence a great change in the direction of the acceptance of the principle of compulsion. I have seen lately a report of an interesting speech, made by the Bishop of Limerick, in which he accepts, as I take it, the principle of compulsion. It is true he points out that he thinks that in applying this principle to Ireland there should be careful consideration of the varying conditions of Ireland, and with that I have no reason to find fault. It is the duty of those who propose legislation of that kind to take into account the different conditions, and as far as possible to propose measures which are likely to create the least friction and be the most beneficial. If we could once get the principle of compulsory attendance tried in Ireland, I think no one would deny that the value of it must be very great. It is not only

    975
    that you get into your schools a larger number of children in average attendance, but from an educational point of view you have the still more important fact that you get more regular and continuous attendance in your schools, and that is a matter of very great importance. In the Bill I am asking to introduce we have endeavoured to provide, as far as we can, a system of compulsory attendance which, whilst we attempt to apply it to certain parts of Ireland without delay, shall, at the same time, possess a certain amount of elasticity, and of consideration for the various conditions of the population of Ireland. I see my hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) shakes his head, but I would appeal to him, if it is necessary to do so, to consider this: It is as clear as daylight that if you will once apply to any portion of Ireland the principle of compulsory attendance, and see its beneficial effects, there can be no doubt that the average attendance—the improved attendance—in those districts will be such that no other district in Ireland will long remain without the same advantages. Therefore, I attach more importance, it may be, to the introduction and acceptance of the principle than to its immediate application throughout the whole length and breadth of Ireland. But there is another reason which I shall allude to presently, which will explain to some extent why we propose to take the course we do. In this Bill—and it follows the system in England, and also, I may say, the lines of the Bill introduced by the right hon. Gentleman in 1885—we propose to make it the duty of the parent to send his child to school between the ages of 6 and 14. We propose to make it illegal to employ children at all under 11 years, and also to make it illegal to employ them between 11 and 14 years of age, unless they get a certificate of proficiency. I may say that this part of the Bill applies——
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLDoes it apply to the agricultural districts?
    MR. JACKSONThis part of the Bill, I was going to say, applies, and applies immediately, to towns under Corporations and towns under Town
    976
    Commissioners. I believe it may be stated, speaking broadly, that that represents only one-fourth of the population of Ireland. But one reason why we have adopted this plan is that the means for enforcing this compulsory attendance is to be provided by the School Attendance Committee appointed by the Local Authority. The Local Authority in the case of the Corporations of towns we have ready to our hands; and we provide in the Bill that all Local Authorities created in the future, whether County Councils or Baronial Councils, may apply this part of the Act to their districts. Therefore we are making, at present, arrangements for the towns, and we are making provision that as soon as the Local Government Bill is passed, the Local Authorities so set up shall have power to apply this part of the Act, and so cover all the districts in Ireland. But I have said that the School Attendance Committee is to be appointed by the Local Authority, and we have thought it desirable to provide some elasticity as regards the attendance to be given, in order to comply with the Act. We recognise that it may be necessary or desirable that we should not exact possibly the same number of attendances in the agricultural districts in Ireland that you exact in the town population; and, in order to give that elasticity, we propose to leave to the Education Commissioners the power to determine and regulate the number of attendances which it is necessary to make in each district within the area of each School Attendance Committee. That, I think, will give the elasticity which will meet the views of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. In the Bill of 1885 it was proposed that the number of attendances should be 150. Well, now, 150 may be a very good number or it may not for all parts of Ireland, but we leave it to the Education Commissioners. The tendency will be always to screw up the attendance to that which is found to be possible in the very best attended schools in Ireland Therefore, it will work automatically in the direction of screwing up the attendances from time to time.
    MR. J. MORLEYDo we understand that the application of compulsion is to be optional on the part of the County Council when it is created, but not optional on the Town Commissioners?
    MR. JACKSONAs the Bill is drawn it stands with the word "may." It is compulsory as regards towns under Town Councils and Town Commissioners, and it stands with the word "may" in the Bill in regard to its application to Local Authorities to be constituted hereafter. But I quite appreciate the point of the right hon. Gentleman, and if I can feel sure that I shall have his assistance in turning that word "may" into "shall," I shall be glad to avail myself of it. Now, Sir, I come to another part of the Bill which is, perhaps, after all, the part which will interest most Members of the House, and that is the financial part; and here, Sir, I must take the opportunity of reminding the House of the position in which we stand as regards Ireland in this matter. We have a sum of about £90,000 due to Ireland for the current financial year—that is to say, for the year ending on the 31st of next month. It is proposed, as hon. Members are aware, to dispose of that £90,000 by means of a Vote of this House in the form of a Supplementary Estimate, and it may be convenient—and probably hon. Members would prefer—that I should state now how it is proposed to deal with the £90,000. Sir, there have been indications that for some time past that Members of this House, the great body of school teachers in Ireland, and others, have been taking considerable interest in the question of teachers' pensions. The question put to me to-day was practically to ask whether, in accordance with the understanding when the Teachers' Pension Fund was established, there had been the usual periodic revision and actuarial calculation showing the present position of the fund. I am sure this House will feel that there would be, and naturally would be, great disappointment on the part of those teachers who have contributed towards that fund, and who are looking forward to the time when they may expect to derive the benefit and pension they have
    978
    earned from it, there would be, I say, great disappointment if it were felt that there was any doubt as to the permanence and solvency of the fund. Sir, it is my duty to say that the revision, which the accounts of the fund have recently undergone, has shown that the benefits which have been, or are being given, or the contributions being made, either the one is too great or the other is too small, and the consequence is that the fund shows a tendency towards getting into backwater; and under these circumstances I think there can be no doubt that the duty is imposed upon us, and I think it would be the view of the teachers themselves that this £90,000, which is neither more nor less than a windfall, should be utilised for the purpose of aiding the capital sum of the Teachers' Pension Fund, and it will be my duty to propose to the House that the sum for the current year shall be handed over to the fund for the purpose of improving its position. Now, Sir, we have, further, a sum in round figures for the ensuing year at our disposal of, say, £200,000. The House is aware that this is an equivalent grant to the grant given to England and Scotland, which in England and Scotland produced free schools for the population of those two countries, and I gather, so far as I am able to gather from the opinions of those who are justified in speaking with authority, there is a feeling in Ireland that whatever is done with this money one of our first objects should be, if we cannot free the whole of the schools in Ireland from school pence, we should free the largest portion of them with the money at our disposal. I think I shall be able to show that this proposal is a perfectly reasonable one, and meets with acceptance in the opinions of those to whose opinions great respect attaches. I believe it also meets with the acceptance of all the people of Ireland. I take it there can be no question about its being desirable to the teachers in Ireland, because they would benefit by it. There is no doubt that it is a very important question; and the Bill proposes that, under certain conditions, there shall be a considerable proportion of the schools in Ireland freed from school pence. There have been, I need hardly say, a great many suggestions made for dealing with the £200,000, which have reached me. I have had the

    979
    advantage of seeing the report of a great meeting held in Dublin, presided over by the Archbishop of that city, in which was evinced what I suppose is the opinion, mainly, of the Protestants of Ireland. At that meeting there was a very decided expression of opinion in favour of applying the money in the shape of additions to class salaries. I have had the advantage of seeing, following that, the opinions expressed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, in which he took a strong line in the extreme opposite direction, that the money should be granted in the form of capitation grants. I have had the advantage of hearing from a deputation of teachers, who waited upon me, their views as to the particular form they would desire, and so far as I am able to judge, although starting off with the view that it would be desirable to appropriate the money in class salaries, they have modified their views, and are now of opinion that it might be disposed of rightly and properly, partly in one way and partly in the other. They have expressed fears lest, if the whole be given in the form of capitation grant, they may be placed at the will of parents, and their remuneration depend too much on the school fees. Now, I do not think the result of fees on attendance in Ireland shows anything except that it has been beneficial both to the children and the teachers. I have had the advantage of seeing the view taken by the great Presbyterian Body, and also the view recently expressed at a meeting of Roman Catholic Bishops. I should like to mention at this point what appears to me to be rather an important fact, and one which, perhaps, gives us a certain amount of freedom of action, which otherwise we might have felt some difficulty about, and that is the effect in pounds, shillings, and pence of the application of the general methods of distribution of this money on the great divisions of the Roman Catholic and Protestant populations of Ireland. I have had certain calculations made; I have had the question tested in order to ascertain what would be the effect of applying the money wholly in class salaries, what would be the effect of applying the whole of the money in capitation grants, and what would be the effect of applying half in one way and
    980
    half in the other. I am told that these calculations show that there is practically no difference whatever in the aggregate amount of money which will go to Roman Catholics and Protestants respectively, whichever plan we may adopt. That is a very important matter, I think, because it leaves us, at all events, more freedom, without creating unnecessary friction, without doing injustice to either of these great denominations. It leaves us a little more freedom as regards the distribution.
    MR. O'KELLYIf the whole of the money were applied to the abolition of school fees what would be the effect? How far would it go?
    MR. JACKSONI do not quite appreciate the hon. Gentleman's question. I was pointing out—
    MR. O'KELLYI beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. What would be the effect on the school fees if the whole sum were applied to abolish the fees all over Ireland?
    MR. JACKSONI did not quite catch the question. I think I may answer it by this fact. He may take it that the whole school fees in Ireland are represented by about £104,000, and therefore to really abolish the whole of the fees would absorb about half the amount in our hands. Well, Sir, I have said that I have had a great many suggestions, but I have not felt it in my power to accept in their entirety any of the proposals that have been made. It has come to my knowledge, and I think it is in the knowledge of a great many of the Members of this House for Ireland, that there has been for some time past a feeling that teachers in Ireland are not very adequately or liberally paid. It has also been brought to my attention that the class of assistant teachers, failing to get beyond that position, may go on for a great number of years on a very small and, I must say, inadequate salary. There are, therefore, little grievances of that kind which, I think, it is desirable to take advantage of this opportunity to endeavour to remedy. We propose to

    981
    make an addition to the class salaries of teachers. We propose to make some improvement in the remuneration of assistant teachers who have seven years of service as assistant teachers. We propose to make a little provision in order to improve the position of the smallest schools in Ireland. The smallest schools in Ireland, I will remind the House, are not confined to one denomination; they belong to both denominations, and, therefore, it is not a question of religion. We propose to make a capitation grant practically of the balance. Stated roughly, the apportionment of the money will take the form of half in capitation grants and one-half in the other directions I have indicated. For these benefits which we propose to confer we propose to ask something in return; we propose to ask that all schools, the fees of which do not exceed 6s. per child per annum, shall in future be free from school fees. It may be asked why I have suggested 6s. I will tell the House. I recognise the principle that it is desirable not only to compensate the teacher for the abolition of school fees, but also to give him a little improvement in his position in addition. The total sum at our disposal practically represents 8s. per head on the average attendance. I should have been glad if it had been possible to obtain enough for the abolition up to the point of 8s., but, as hon. Members will see, if that were done the teachers in schools, the fees of which were 8s. per head per annum, would gain no benefit whatever under the Bill. Therefore I have, in order, if you like, to make a compromise—for it is a compromise—adopted 6s. as the limit, in order-to leave the teacher something in addition to the compensation that is given for the abolition of school fees. The effect of this distribution will be this—and I must not conceal it from the House—that it will give the greater benefit to the poor districts and the poor schools than to the larger and better schools. I do not know that that in itself is unjust or ought of necessity to be objected to. I have now practically given to the House all the information——
    COLONEL NOLANAnything for the Christian Brothers?
    JACKSONI do not know about the Christian Brothers. The Christian Brothers, if they come under
    982
    the Act, will benefit by it. I omitted to mention that where there are in Ireland schools paid by capitation grant and not by class salaries, it will, of course, be necessary to make an augmented capitation grant in order to compensate for the addition to the class salaries. I apologise for detaining the House at such length. The question is a most important one. There have been measures, no doubt, from time to time introduced into this House which seemed to be of greater importance, but I venture to think that if we can devise some means by which the benefits of education shall be extended to the whole of the children of Ireland of school age; if we can bring within its influence the whole of these children, we shall confer, not only upon the children of Ireland a great advantage, but we shall confer upon Ireland itself a great advantage, and I feel that I shall not appeal in vain to the Members of this House when I ask them to help. It may be that in some of its details the Bill may not meet with the unanimous approval of the House. I believe, however, that it is fairly constructed, that it is equitable in its distribution, and I think I may appeal with confidence to the Members of this House to endeavour to make it a success.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYI am sure we all heard with the deepest interest the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and I am equally sure we are all willing and resolved to give his measure, which he has so lucidly explained, the very fullest consideration. The right hon. Gentleman made a clear statement, but at the same time the Bill is a very complex measure, necessarily a very complex measure, dealing with a complicated question, and in a case like that the clearer the statement in which it is explained the more the difficulties and complications become apparent. Of course, we do not intend to offer any opposition at this stage of the measure, and I am bound to say we recognize very cordially some good things and some benefits in the measure as it has been sketched out by the right hon. Gentleman. At the same time I think there are many faults in it, into the

    983
    details of which I shall not go at the present moment. I think the right hon. Gentleman might have made some provision for recognising the great claims of the schools of the Christian Brothers. I did not understand from him that they are included in the benefits of this measure. I think that the standard of seven years for the assistant teachers is surely rather high. Then the right hon. Gentleman made a comparison between the progress of education in Ireland and in England, as shown by the attendance at schools. At one time, he said, they ran neck and neck, which is a very good and clear expression, but that, later on, one went forward—that while England had gone forward, Ireland had fallen back. But is it not a fact that things have taken place in Ireland which made popular education in Ireland at one time less palatable than it was before? Of course, I understand that the right hon. Gentleman compared the national schools of Ireland with the national schools of England. But then again you leave out of the calculation all the teaching under the Christian Brothers, and all the teaching in the many other such voluntary schools of the country; and I fancy if all were put together, the Irish people would be found not behind, not running neck and neck, but even in advance of the education of children in English schools. The right hon. Gentleman spoke at some length on the question of compulsion. I never understood that there was, in Ireland, any absolute objection to the principle of compulsion, provided there was a certain amount of care in the time, the development, and the application of it. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken as to the necessity of elasticity in the application of the principle. What we want to know is, whether the elasticity is to be elastic enough, and whether the elasticity always means that it will be elastic at the right time, and in the right places. Again, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to make his measure a little too much a companion to that valuable measure the Local Government Bill, which is about to be introduced for the extreme benefit of the people of Ireland. I think the right hon. Gentleman made a little too much a Calais-Douvres consortship of the two measures in the palliative
    984
    principle to be applied to Ireland. I should recommend the right hon. Gentleman to rest his measure on principles wholly independent of that other measure which it is barely possible may never be passed into law. On the whole, I have to say that we do certainly recognize some points of advantage in this measure. I admit cordially the sincerity of the right hon. Gentleman in his experiment to try and satisfy the wishes of all classes of the Irish people, and I can only say that we desire to give the measure full consideration. The matter is a complicated one, but I can assure the House that we are anxious to give the measure fair and full hearing.
    COLONEL WARINGI do not wish to intrude upon the time of the House at any length upon this question. I can only say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in recognising that this measure is well intended, and may result in great advantage to the people of Ireland. At the same time, I know how very different a measure may be when we see it in black and white, to what we think it is when laid before the House by a right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, and I shall therefore reserve any decided opinion until I shall see it presented to the House in the form of a Bill. One suggestion I earnestly agree with, and that is as to the use proposed to be made of the £90,000. I think that no reasonable person could object to it. As to what should be done about the other sum, I should like to see how the figures work out. At the same time, I think the Bill is one which, with some little alterations that will be made in Committee, may be rendered a fairly satisfactory measure to all parties in Ireland. I do not intend to delay the House with any further remarks.
    COLONEL NOLANI am sorry I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the £90,000. I think that is the weak point of the whole Bill. The Chief Secretary for Ireland called it a windfall, and it appears that when the Chief Secretary for Ireland gets a windfall he can do what he likes with it. That is his view. I do not think it at all. It is

    985
    Ireland's share of taxation on whisky and tobacco, and whisky is taxed in Ireland because it is one of our chief products.
    An hon. MEMBERScotch.
    COLONEL NOLANI do not thank any Government for the share of that sum. I think Ireland has got a little less than her share, and I think it was not quite reasonably calculated as to its being a windfall.
    MR. JACKSONI did not mean that it was so much a windfall to Ireland; what I meant was that it was more a windfall to the teachers.
    COLONEL NOLANMy point is this, that he has not improved the pensions, as I hope he will in the Bill. If he would raise the pensions, or make them commence at an earlier age, it would be an advantage to the teachers, but all he has done is to use this money, which is purely Irish money, to remedy the errors of his own calculations. It was not the Irish Members who settled the rate of pensions. They have made their calculations wrong, and they now propose to put the matter right by using this £90,000, without givng any additional benefit to the teachers. Nothing additional is to be done for the teachers; they are to get no higher rate of pension. It is not to date from an earlier time, as the Treasury made all these wrong calculations with our money.
    MR. GOSCHENIt is not the Treasury that made these calculations. The hon. Member will find he is in error, and that the Treasury was not responsible.
    MR. T. M. HEALYWho then?
    COLONEL NOLANAs the right hon. Gentleman never allowed an Irishman to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, we are, of course, in a certain amount of mist. But I need not go further. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer may toss over responsibility From one Department to another, but it seems to us in Ireland to be pretty much the same thing. I dare say he is playing on some official defence between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Educational Department in Ireland, who are responsible to the Treasury. Of course the Chancellor
    986
    of the Exchequer has a natural wish to disclaim, and for his own peace of mind I will grant the disclaimer; but the English Government is responsible, and the Irish Members have no responsibility, as they have had nothing to do with it. I must say that the Treasury has muddled away this money, and I repeat, either the pensions should be raised, or they should be made to date from an earlier age. On the whole, I think the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as to the £200,000 a year very judicious, and I think he has hit the medium pretty fairly between class and capitation. I am sorry that nothing has been done for the Christian Brothers, and am glad that the hon. Member for Londonderry has referred to that point. I would like to explain that the Christian Brothers are the link between primary and secondary education in Ireland, and they do not get a penny of public money except under the head of science and art. The reason why they do not get any money is because they insist upon having certain Christian emblems in their schools. They represent the voluntary principle in Ireland, and yet they are excluded from all benefit under the Bill. I think this argument was used by the Bishop of Limerick, as to how the system of the Chief Secretary is going to work: that the Christian Brothers are in towns and only in towns, and in a great many towns there are no other Catholic schools. So that in the very place where you are going to make education compulsory you will have chiefly the Christian Brothers' schools, and you are going to compel the children to attend those schools; the Christian Brothers are to receive no benefit. The Christian Brothers' schools in Ireland represent the voluntary principle in Ireland. The plate goes round in the chapels, and subscriptions are sent in. The Christian Brothers give their own time practically for nothing; but they are kept and supported by the voluntary principle in Ireland. If you drive all the children into these schools, we say, at any rate, give us something. These are the very people excluded from pensions and benefits under this Bill. As to the general question of compulsion, I think the Chief Secretary has been rather in a hurry to apply the principle, not only to

    987
    the towns, but to the country. I am speaking entirely for myself, though not wholly for myself, but as at present instructed by my constituency. It is possible my constituency might say that they wished to be compelled to send their children to school, but my impression is that they would object; but it is possible that they may change their minds on the subject. But I should say at present that the rural population do not want to be driven into the schools. The right hon. Gentleman should recollect that in Ireland the distances from the schools are long, and the climate generally wet. I would advise the right hon. Gentleman for the present not to apply the compulsory system in the rural districts, unless the rural population vote for it.
    MR. JACKSONThat is the proposal of the Bill.
    COLONEL NOLANI know that is the proposal of the Bill, but some hon. Gentlemen seem to be anxious to go further. What I say is, the Chief Secretary has been urged to go further than the Bill; I advise him not to go further than the Bill at present. There is another point in the way of statistics, which I hope the Chief Secretary will look into. He seems to think that the number of children of school-going age bears the same relation to the population in Ireland as they do in England and Scotland. There is a very great difference in Ireland.
    MR. JACKSONThat is so. As a matter of fact, the number of children is what is called within the total on the rolls, and, therefore, is within the number having made one attendance at the school.
    COLONEL NOLANI do not think the right hon. Gentleman has quite grasped my point. My point is this: I do not know that the number of children in relation to the population is the same in Ireland as in England and Scotland. With regard to the number in attendance, the whole population of England and Scotland is chiefly urban, and the whole population of Ireland is chiefly rural, so that I do not think it fair to compare the two. Of course, there are dis-
    988
    tricts in Scotland—for instance, the Highlands—where the difficulties as to distances and climate are as great as in Ireland. I think the right hon. Gentleman should correct his figures with reference chiefly to the rural population. However, on the whole, I really think the Bill might have been very much worse. It is a very good Bill, with the exception of the provision about the £90,000, which is simply being confiscated. I think this is a Bill which ought to be passed; and I should like to see it passed during the present Session. I hope the Government will give priority to this Education Bill over the Local Government Bill, because, whatever may be said in favour of the Local Government Bill, it does not bring us any money whatever.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNORI agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that the Bill before the House might easily be a worse one, but I am very far from saying that it could not have been better in some of its details. I am sure that when it arrives at the Committee stage we shall be able to make it more perfect than it is. I am glad to find that at last the poor teachers of Ireland and their claims are going to be recognised. With that part of the Bill I heartily agree; although I should be very sorry indeed if any surplus in the hands of the Government should he entirely devoted to the amelioration of the condition of the teachers, because the National School teachers of Ireland, for whom I have pleaded in this House for many years, are not above human nature, and very possibly they might desire more than we should be inclined to give them. For year after year I have endeavoured to press upon Government after Government, and particularly the Government now in Office, the grievances of that meritorious and well-deserving body, the National School teachers of Ireland. I was told by officials sitting upon that Bench from which this Bill has been fulminated to-night that they had no grievances whatever; that all their cases had been considered, and there was no want that was not supplied. Yet, now we have the Chief Secretary for Ireland standing up in his place and

    989
    proposing a Bill recognising the claims they at one time denied, and proposing to satisfy them by the application of £90,000. The only thing I have to say about that is this—"better late than never." I welcome the proposals; and, so far as I am concerned, that portion of the Bill, at least, shall receive no opposition whatever. With regard to the principle of compulsion, I have to say that I trust the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will stick to his principle of elasticity. In Ireland—and we know our people well—there is no necessity, or almost no necessity, for applying the principle of compulsion. The intention of an Irish parent is to educate his children better than he has been educated himself, and place them in a position higher than the position he has occupied in social or commercial life. That has been the main tendency of the Irish character, and where there has been any want of it, or where it could not be applied by the intention of the parent, it would be cruel to enforce it by any legislation. If the Irish parent has not been able to fulfil his desire with regard to the education of his children, it is because the means and other conditions were not favourable to such intentions; it is because the schools were too far away, or the children too badly clad; or because they had no boots to their feet, and perhaps sometimes no food to eat, that there was any halting in that respect. I therefore hope the right hon. Gentleman will stick to his elasticity with regard to the application of the principle of compulsory education. There is one disappointment that I feel with regard to this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman does not provide in the Bill in the slightest degree for any application of the funds towards technical education in these primary schools. The Irish people are absolutely devoid of technical education. Ireland suffers from the want of manufactures. Ireland is on the eve of the resuscitation of her manufactures; and there is no provision in that Bill for the purpose of applying any of the funds at the disposal of the Government in order to promote technical education in Ireland. It not only does not provide in the primary National Schools for the promotion of technical education, but it absolutely denies it to the only National Schools in Ireland that
    990
    provide the people with technical education. The only schools in Ireland where an Irish boy is taught to handle a tool, by which he may have to provide himself with a future, are the Christian Brothers' Schools of Ireland. In the Christian Brothers' Schools you have technical education, and not in your so-called National Schools, upon which you are going to expend £200,000—£90,000 in pensions. But perhaps the English Government do not wish the Irishman to go into the world fully equipped with technical knowledge? ("No!") It appears very like it. The hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. William Johnston) says "no." But I will put it on a lower ground. Why not give the Irishman a technical education for the sake of the development of the resources of his own country? I certainly should have thought that any Government who wished to come at the root of education in Ireland should establish through all the primary schools of Ireland—those that were established on the National School system and those that were not—technical schools to be subsidised by Imperial funds. There is a great want in Ireland in this respect. In this Bill there was a splendid opportunity for the Government to supply that want. There was machinery in existence which they might have used. The Christian Brothers alone form the true national schools in the towns of Ireland, and any system of State aid which does not take them into account, is halting, false, and will not go to the root of the evil you desire to deal with. I reserve further criticism of the Bill; there are some details I do not like, but the Bill is in many respects an excellent measure, though it is not perfect. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will receive with a generous mind the representations made on behalf of existing representative institutions in Ireland, and will endeavour to make the Bill perfect.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLThe right hon. Gentleman in opening his speech, said, that this subject has aroused very strong feelings in Ireland. It has aroused very strong feelings indeed, as more than one Government has learned to its cost. As regards the Bill, I am bound to say it

    991
    is rather better from my own point of view than I expected. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman paid a tribute to that much maligned body, the Commissioners of National Education, a body which during 60 years has carried on a great work and done it, with certain drawbacks, uncommonly well. There is one point—though I am not going to commit myself to anything in the Bill—which I should like to comment upon. The right hon. Gentleman drew attention to the fact that although this system of national education was a mixed system, yet by the consent alike of Protestant and of Catholic it was rapidly becoming denominational. I challenge the fact itself, and I challenge the description of the fact. There were 8,000 schools on the operation list in 1890, and close upon 4,000 of these were mixed schools where Protestants and Roman Catholics received the same secular education. When he says to the House of Commons that Protestants are becoming more and more denominational, I wish to point out that there are at least 500,000 Protestants in Ulster who will be surprised to hear this; because if there is one thing that the Presbyterians of Ulster have been strong upon, it is this system of mixed education, in which they are supported by the Methodists, the Unitarians, and three-fourths of the Protestant Episcopalians of Ulster. In the Episcopalian as well as in the Presbyterian Church there is a very strong feeling in favour of this system. At all events the system is not denominational, and in the second place the Protestants, as a whole, are not in favour of denominational education. o not wish to enter upon the question of compulsion; but I will say that the only objection I have to the Bill, is that it does not go far enough. I think the rural districts will have a right to complain, and that the rural districts in Ulster will complain, and the teachers all over Ireland will complain of this, because it will have an effect upon the capitation grant. As to the distribution of the —200,000 as between the capitation grant and the class salaries, I am agreeably surprised that the right hon. Gentleman appears to have taken a little bit of everybody's advice, and the only
    992
    persons left out in the cold are the Christian Brothers. The answer to that is, let them do as the monastery schools do, and the convents do; and they will come under the national grant at once, but so long as they insist upon a Catholic atmosphere in the schools, they cannot expect the rules of the National Board, upon which this system is founded, to be broken down to suit them. I complain that nothing has been done in respect of technical education; there can be no question that the system of education in Ireland can be improved. The books are old-world institutions, and the whole thing wants to be taken to pieces and re-modelled. No place is given to cookery and domestic economy, subjects which ought to be taught in the large towns especially. In Dublin, Limerick, and Cork the people are not fed, and they are not fed because their wives and daughters do not know anything of cooking. Reserving to myself the right to criticise the details at a later stage, I can only say that I am agreeably disappointed. This is a much better Bill than I expected, and it is a much worse Bill than was expected by gentlemen below the Gangway.
    MR. KNOXThe hon. Member who has just sat down. has, in somewhat dubious terms, blessed the Bill. In the first place, the hon. Member has taken the Chief Secretary to task for not making provision for technical education. Some improvement was made in technical education during the administration of the Chief Secretary's predecessor, especially in the matter of sewing, and I well remember that the only opposition to that came from the hon. Member for South Tyrone and his friends. We all know the difficulties of starting a system of technical education where you have a large number of rural schools. I quite agree that something should be done, but I confess I cannot see how anything can he done in connection with the Bill which is already overloaded. As regards compulsion, the right hon. Gentleman said that by the Act of 1876 it was made compulsory upon School Attendance Committees to make bye-laws in England; but in England

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    instead of rushing headlong into compulsory education the course followed was an extremely cautious and slow one. I am told that in many rural districts in England compulsion is nothing more than a name, and I cannot think the right hon. Gentleman is acting unwisely in confining his Bill to the urban districts. The right hon. Gentleman said he proposed to fix the age at from 6 to 14. I fancy that is rather a longer period than was the case in England originally, so the number of children left at school who are over 14 years of age is larger in Ireland than in England. One thing which should be greatly deprecated, and which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider and guard against, is that anything connected with the unpopularity attending the enforcement of other laws should attach to education. If these School Attendance Committees work through the ordinary engines of the law, if, for example, they use the police, it would be possible for them to cause, in many districts, a very general feeling against the attendance altogether amongst considerable classes of the population. Another point of difficulty, and I cannot mention it without the deepest shame, is that in the more Protestant parts of Ulster the Catholics have no representation on a Local Body. In Belfast there is a system of religious exclusion. I avoid the use of stronger words—such as has parallel in no other part of the United Kingdom. In the City of Belfast not one single elected Poor Law Guardian is a Catholic. There is not a single member of the Town Council who is a Catholic.
    MR. JOHNSTONRoman Catholics; do not call them Catholics.
    MR. KNOXI do not quarrel about words; I am stating facts. I say as a Protestant, as a professor, every 12th of July, of the principles of civil and religious liberty, the hon. Member for South Belfast has reason to be ashamed, as I am ashamed, of the conduct of his co-religionists.
    MR. JOHNSTONI am not.
    MR. KNOXI go on to state facts in spite of the hon. Member's interruption. Not one single elected member of the Board of Guardians in Belfast is a Catholic, not a single member of the
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    Town Council is a Catholic. There is just one member of the Water Commission who is a Catholic; there is not a single member of the Harbour Commission who is a Catholic. In a city containing 70,000 Catholics among its population, there is no representation of Catholics on the Local Governing Bodies. This is a scandal and shame to the City of Belfast, a shame to the Protestant religion, a condition of things I, in common with every right-thinking Protestant, deplore. Having this state of facts to deal with, I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he purposes to give to a body which has shown in the mode in which they are selected their exclusive, if not their intolerant, character, the right to govern in these matters, in the way they would, the non-Protestant—the Catholic—population of Belfast? Everybody except bigots knows that the law of compulsory attendance requires much more careful working than most laws. It is necessary to work it with considerable regard to particular cases, or else you may, in many cases, do a great wrong and make your system generally unpopular. Everybody who sees anything of the working of education laws knows that. You want a sympathetic authority to work it, and can you believe, in the face of these facts, that the Catholic minority would not feel themselves placed under a School Attendance Committee of the Town Council—placed in a position, to put it mildly, of the utmost difficulty? The hon. Member opposite may say, "They can only make the children go to school." But I do say this: that if attendance is forced, if the law is enforced, without regard to particular cases, without respect to Catholics, while allowing considerable latitude to Protestants, the effect will be disastrous, and there is very great fear that the law enforced in this form would have this effect. I understand the right hon. Gentleman by his Local Government Bill brings in the principle of cumulative voting in county districts in Ireland. It is a point I am not quite certain of, that in rural districts the cumulative vote is introduced, but there is to be no change in the system of voting in boroughs?
    MR. JACKSONassented.
    MR. KNOXWell, if there is a case where cumulative voting is required it is

    995
    in the City of Belfast, for it is the one place in Ireland where you have a considerable minority not represented at all on Public Bodies, and in the matter of education there is more to be said for cumulative voting than in any other respect. I do say here you must, if you are to have the law working fairly, give some representation by some means to the Roman Catholic minority on the School Attendance Committee of Belfast, a representation to which they are fairly entitled. The City of Belfast was divided into five wards at the time when it was much smaller than it is to-day. I do not think that hon. Members should be proud of that. There has been no re-adjustment of wards; the city still remains divided into five, and the reason why there has been no re-adjustment is that with such, the Catholics would gain representation. It is in order to prevent this representation that the wards have been left in their old and now inconvenient method of division. Therefore, looking at the facts, it is incumbent on the right hon. Gentleman, if he does not intend to inflict great hardship on a large body of the population, to make some further provision for increased elasticity in his scheme.
    MR. JACKSONIt is provided for.
    MR. KNOXI am glad to hear it is provided for, that some provision for religious liberty is made. I venture to hope, also, that the School Attendance Committee will be so constituted that it will not be required to give to any unpopular officials, but to an entirely new body, the carrying out of the law carefully. It may then do great good to Ireland; but if not applied with the utmost consideration for diverse interests, and, I may say, the touching feelings of various denominations, it will end in disaster. The right hon. Gentleman's successor in the post of Secretary to the Treasury has visited the schools of the Christian Brothers in Cork. Now, I want to make a fair offer to the Chief Secretary. Will he allow his right hon. Colleague the Secretary to the Treasury to decide whether or not the Christian Brothers' Schools are worthy of State aid? These schools are carried on under great difficulties, and
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    they will find their difficulties increased under this Bill. It is surely necessary in making provision for compulsory education to make provision for voluntary schools? There are voluntary schools of the Protestant persuasion in the North. None of my hon. Friends object to seeing these included in provisions made for the schools of the Christian Brothers. Your Bill will put a greater strain upon voluntary schools, and it is right that these schools shonld have some grant from Imperial resources. If they only receive support in the same way voluntary schools receive it in England we shall be content. I hope that these various points, which need careful consideration, have been met in a way that will make the Bill work for the advantage of education in Ireland.
    MR. M. HEALYI do not think the right hon. Gentleman has any reason to complain of the reception his Bill has met with from this quarter of the House. I do not now intervene for the purpose of offering any hostile criticism nor do I intend to enter upon any detailed examination of the proposals which have been explained to us; but I would like to verify some of the observations which have fallen from my hon. Friends on some of the points they have dealt with. Unquestionably, there will be great disappointment in Ireland that the right hon. Gentleman has not taken this opportunity of dealing with the question of the schools of the Christian Brothers. It may be said the Bill does not touch the question of denominational as distinct from undenominational teaching, but simply introduces the principle of compulsion, making certain financial arrangements; and, therefore, no occasion arises for the change indicated. Now, there are many parts of Ireland, and many small towns, where the principle of compulsion will come into operation, where the only schools available are these very schools of the Christian Brothers, but which will be exempt from all benefit under the Bill. Take Lismore, in Waterford, as an example. Some 20 years ago the National School there was abolished and a Christian Brothers' school introduced in its place, largely by the aid of the late Duke of Devonshire, who handed over the school building, which was his

    997
    property, to the community of the Christian Brothers, and contributed very handsomely to their establishment. Now, are you going to compel the inhabitants to send their children to this school, and compel the school managers to receive them, and, at the same time, exclude the school from all benefit under this scheme? The hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. W. Russell) says a Catholic atmosphere is not to be encouraged——
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLNot to be foisted into a National system of education.
    MR. M. HEALYThe hon. Gentleman objects to the State making any payment to any school with a Catholic atmosphere. But when you have schools attended by Catholic children, of Catholic parents, and with a Conscience Clause, why should you not have a Catholic atmosphere? If you have schools exclusively of Protestant children, and with the protection of a Conscience Clause, why should you not have a Protestant atmosphere? That is all we ask. The Bishops of Ireland have never asked that in schools attended by children of more than one religion—mixed schools—that this relaxation of the present system of the National Board should be introduced. All they ask is that purely Catholic schools or purely Protestant schools, if they have fulfilled the other conditions which are prescribed by the National Board, that these schools should not be excluded from pecuniary advantage. The hon. Member for South Tyrone has denied the tendency to make the national system more and more a denominational system, but I appeal to the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, Have not repeated declarations of authorities in the Protestant Episcopalian Church, over and over again, made on the subject, been in favour—by a large majority in favour—of denominational education? I am quite free to concede that among Presbyterians the same opinion is held. If that be so, if the state of thing is as I have stated, why should not the Government recognise the fact in Ireland, and put an end to this anomaly, by which the teaching which does the most for the education of the Irish children is wholly excluded from any State aid? If this
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    body, the Christian Brothers, were established and teaching in England, every school established would be drawing result fees. Wherever in England you have a Catholic community you have schools conducted on precisely the same principle as the schools of the Christian Brothers, and these schools are drawing result fees—are receiving State aid—and this the hon. Gentleman objects to have applied to Ireland. These schools are shut out from State aid so far as primary education is concerned; but under the Intermediate Education Act the schools of the Christian Brothers are most successful in passing their pupils through examinations and getting prizes and result fees. Now, if it is right that Government should promote the schools of the Christian Brothers and give them aid under the intermediate education system, what principle is involved in refusing similar assistance in regard to primary education? I do not intend to continue this subject; but I think the right hon. Gentleman will see that, so long as this state of things is persisted in, so long must the question of national education in Ireland remain unsettled. One other word I will add, to express a doubt as to whether the body to which is to be entrusted the carrying out of the principle of compulsion is the best for the purpose. I quite admit it is exceedingly difficult to set up in Ireland anything in the nature of School Boards, so that there is no great choice left; but I do think the right hon. Gentleman will find that Corporate Bodies elected to look after an entirely different class of matters—bodies having no dealings, generally speaking, with educational matters, having totally different functions to discharge, will be bodies which will not effectively discharge the duties the right hon. Gentleman intends to cast upon them by this Bill. However, that is a matter open to argument at a later stage, and, having regard to the hour, I will not discuss it now.
    MR. M. J. KENNYThis is a Bill which is of the utmost importance to Ireland, and it was a late hour when the right hon. Gentleman rose to introduce it, and not many Members have had the opportunity of making any observations upon it. Considering the importance of the subject, I

    999
    apprehend the right hon. Gentleman will not object to some further observations from Irish Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Derry (Mr. M'Carthy) spoke only for a few minutes, and the Bill was taken in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), who has devoted extraordinary attention to the subject with which the Bill deals, and who has been in communication during the past twelve months with the leaders of Catholic education in Ireland on these matters. My hon. Friend has not had an opportunity of speaking. It is a Bill of the widest importance; it proposes the application of a principle perfectly novel in Ireland, and hitherto never required, a principle to which some of us, to some extent, may be opposed. It is perfectly true that the Resolution adopted in 1883, and moved by the then Member for Limerick, pledged the House to support a system of compulsory education, but it was subject to certain modifications, and therefore the principle of absolute compulsion has never been accepted or enforced. The right hon. Gentleman himself, although he accepts in principle, goes through the form of introducing a system of elasticity——
    It being Midnight the Debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed on Thursday next.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  LOCAL COURTS OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND) BILL.—No. 165.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. M'Cartan.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN, Dublin University)In assenting, on the part of the Government, to the second reading now, it must be clearly understood that I reserve full right to put down Amendments at a later stage.
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

    MILITARY LANDS CONSOLIDATION BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. E. Stanhope, Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the acquisition of Land for Military Purposes, ordered to be brought in by Mr. E. Stanhope and Mr. Brodrick.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 184.]

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend 'The Indian Councils Act, 1861.'" [Indian Councils Act (1861) Amendment Bill [Lords].
  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1892–3.
  Copy presented,—of Army Estimates of Effective and Non-Effective Services for 1892–3, with Statement showing the variations of the numbers of Her Majesty's British Forces, the amounts included for the Colonies and Egypt, and the sums provided for each Arm of the Service, and for various miscellaneous establishments [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 76.]

  RESIDENT MAGISTRATES (IRELAND).
  Return ordered—
  Of the Resident Magistrates of Ireland, showing their names, ages when appointed, former vocation, districts where they now exercise jurisdiction, salaries on appointment and at present, and the tenure on which they hold office; also distinguishing those—

  (1.) Of the sufficiency of whose legal knowledge the Lord Lieutenant has expressed himself satisfied, within the meaning of section 11 of 'The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887;'

  (2.) Of the sufficiency of whose legal knowledge the Lord Lieutenant has expressed himself satisfied, within the meaning of section 22 of 'The Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act, 1882;'

  (3.) Of the sufficiency of whose legal knowledge and legal experience the Lord Chancellor has expressed himself satisfied, within the meaning of section 1 of 'The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887' (in the same form as Parliamentary Paper, No. 83, of Session 1889)."—(Mr. John Ellis.)

  RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
  Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Railway Servants (Hours of Labour), in Session 1891, be referred to the Select Committee on Railway Servants (Hours of Labour).—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)
  House adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

CATTLE DISEASE,

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  EARL DE LA WARRMy Lords, I wish, after private notice to my noble Friend, to ask Her Majesty's Government whether any steps have been taken with reference to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle in this country; and also whether there is reason to suppose that it may have been brought into this country by imported cattle, or whether, as it has been reported; the poison was introduced into this country by raw hides which came from Germany, and have been landed at Harwich? My Lords, I wish merely to put this question to Her Majesty's Government, believing, as I do, that the facts to which I have referred are known to many of your Lordships, and I have no doubt my statement might be corroborated?
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYMy Lords, before the noble Earl replies to my noble Friend's question, I may say that I had already given him private notice of a similar question; but I should like also to ask him further, if he will allow me, whether he can corroborate or not the information as to the importation of this disease through Danish cattle, and whether that opinion, which was expressed by the Board of Agriculture, is not now confirmed? My noble Friend alluded to the Report, which created great sensation in London on Saturday last, that it had been ascertained, through the action of the American Consul, that the disease had been imported by raw hides from a German port landed at Harwich. I should like to know whether that is correct or not; and also to know whether any further outbreaks have been notified this morning of this disease in this country; and what steps the Board of Agriculture have taken to cope with the disease?
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Earl CADOGAN)My Lords, perhaps both my noble Friends will allow me to answer their questions together. With regard to the question of my noble Friend
  870
  behind me, I beg to remind him that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture on two occasions in the House of Commons—on the 11th inst., I think, and as late as on the 18th—replied to questions at very great length, stating, step by step, what proceedings had been taken by the Board of Agriculture in view of the undoubted outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease; and I think that the House would hardly wish me to read at great length the replies of my right hon. Friend—they were published in all the newspapers; but, if my noble Friend behind me would wish to have them printed, I could, no doubt, give them to him. With regard to the further question of the noble Marquess, no further facts have been elicited by the Department as to the origin of this disease; and with reference to the report which has obtained currency during the last day or two (which I think had its origin in one of the newspapers on Sunday), namely, that it had been found that the origin of the outbreak was the importation of some infected raw hides into this country, the Board of Agriculture have, through their officers, and with the assistance of the Custom House officials, made the very strictest inquiry into that report, and have no reason whatever to believe that there is any truth or foundation in it. I believe I have answered the questions of both my noble Friends.

TARIFF AGREEMENTS.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYMy Lords, I wish to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Colonies a question of which I have given him private notice. It has been stated in the newspapers that an agreement has been come to between the West Indian Colonies and the United States as to certain articles of tariff, which will allow sugar, I believe, to be imported into the United States on more favourable terms, in return for a certain concession in the tariff for the West Indian Islands. I should be glad to know from the noble Lord whether that statement is true; whether the changes in the tariffs in the West Indian Islands involves any differential duties against this country, or merely alters the duties so as to lower them for all

  871
  importers; and, lastly, whether Papers will be laid on the Table in a short time?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Lord KNUTSFORD)My Lords, in reply to the last part of the noble Earl's question, I would say that the Papers will be laid on the Table at the earliest possible opportunity. In the meantime I had better answer the other question of the noble Earl at a little more length, as the subject is one of very great importance. About the close of last year the Colonies were unofficially and informally notified that, unless they were prepared to make reductions of their duties, it would be necessary for the President of the United States, under Article 3 of the McKinley Tariff Act, to re-impose duties on sugar shipped from the Colonies into the United States. This was a question of vital importance to the West Indian Colonies, and they urgently pressed Her Majesty's Government to negotiate with the United States on their behalf. I need hardly say that Her Majesty's Government were very ready and, willing to do so. The result of the negotiations has been that the different Colonies (Grenada only excepted, because, I think, she does not import sugar into the United States) have agreed in some cases to abolish altogether, and in other cases to reduce, their import duties upon certain articles; and I may mention that those articles are, in the main, articles of food, or articles of general popular consumption in the islands. I will just mention some of them, because I know the noble Earl takes an interest in this question—bacon, bread, lard, corn-meal, flour, petroleum, &c. The reduction applies to all these articles whatever is the country of their origin, and therefore there is no question at all of differential duties in the matter. Her Majesty's Government have very readily assented to the reduction of these import duties upon articles of food and articles of general consumption, because it is a step in the direction of a policy which has been pressed upon these Colonies by successive Secretaries of State, certainly by the noble Earl himself in 1881 and 1882, and, I think, probably by the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) also, due regard of course being had to securing that there shall be no great loss of revenue. I will only add
  872
  that the question of how to make good the loss of revenue, which will be caused by these reductions, is now receiving the consideration of all the Colonial Legislatures.

MEDINA TUNNEL BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  VISCOUNT BARRINGTONMy Lords, I beg to hand in to your Lordships a letter which I received on Saturday morning (handing in the same). I know no more about the Bill than is contained in that letter, namely, that the County Council do not approve of it except under certain circumstances.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)The County Council must make their recommendations at the proper time.
  Bill read 2a.

EAST INDIA OFFICERS BILL [H.L.] (No. 10.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Viscount CROSS)My Lords, I stated, when I had the honour of asking your Lordships' leave to introduce this Bill, that I thought the drafting of it might be very much simplified, ànd that I had only presented it in its present form because it was the form in which it passed the Standing Committee of your Lordships' House last year. I now propose, with your Lordships' permission, to go through the Committee stage pro formâ, and after the Report has been received to introduce the Amendments and put down the Committee for Thursday.
  House in Committee (according to Order).
  Bill reported without Amendment: Amendments made; Bill re-committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next; and to be printed as amended. (No. 18.)

EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 4.)
House in Committee (according to Order).
Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

ARCHDEACONRY OF CORNWALL BILL—(No. 5.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD STEWARD (the Earl of MOUNT-EDGCUMBE)My Lords, your Lordships have already passed this Bill in several successive Sessions, and I do not propose to take up your time by giving explanations which have been given before.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2.a" (The Lord Steward.)
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

INDIAN COUNCILS ACT (1861) AMEND-BILL [H.L.]—(No. 3.)

  THIRD READING.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading, read.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Five o'clock.