Sitting of 24 March 1892

RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
Special Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and an Appendix relating thereto, brought up, and read;
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 125.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION WATER BILL (by Order.)
  SIR E. LECHMERE: I beg to move the Instruction of which I have given Notice. I appear on behalf of the inhabitants of Tenbury, a small town on the River Teme, entirely dependent on agricultural industry, and whose interests are affected by the scheme of the Birmingham Corporation. The inhabitants have not the slightest idea of opposing the proposal of the Birmingham Corporation, and desire to act in a conciliatory spirit towards that Corporation. But, in a matter so closely affecting the well-being of their town, they feel they may justly ask Parliament to give them this protection. In the Bill there are provisions for an overflow conduit in Radnorshire and another at Burrington, for the purpose of relieving extra pressure. Now, it has been stated by the Town Clerk of Birmingham, to whom the people of Tenbury have addressed themselves, that the overflow at Burrington will not increase the volume of water at Tenbury; but it should be borne in mind that the overflow will probably occur during flood time, and situated as Tenbury is between two rivers, and on low ground, the people of Tenbury have grave cause for apprehension, seeing how seriously the town has suffered from floods. In 1886 they suffered very severely. At the bridge which unites the counties of Worcester and Shropshire the water rose five or six feet, and reached to five or six
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  inches over the tops of the pews in the parish church. The force of the current was so strong that occupiers opened the doors and lower windows of the houses to prevent the whole fabrics being washed away by the flood. The damage on that occasion was about £15,000. With the recollection of such disasters the inhabitants of Tenbury are naturally anxious that nothing shall be done which may still further increase their danger; and so, I trust there will be no opposition to this Instruction being sent to the Committee to whom this Bill is to be referred. It is a concession such as has been granted to small towns on similar occasions. The people of Tenbury are anxious that the matter shall have due consideration from the Committee.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is referred that provisions be inserted in such Bill for protecting the town of Tenbury and its neighbourhood from the effect by way of flood, of the overflows into the River Teme from the proposed waterworks at Burrington, near Ludlow, or for providing ample compensation for the damage caused by such overflow."—(Sir Edmund Lechmere.)
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I desire, on behalf of the Corporation of Birmingham, to recognise the temperate way in which the hon. Baronet has introduced this Motion, and the conciliatory spirit which, as he says, animates the authorities and people of Tenbury. At the same time I am a little suprised that the Instruction has been moved at all. I should have thought—and I confess I did think—that an Instruction such as this of a mandatory character to a Hybrid Committee was out of Order. But if it is not out of Order it is quite unnecessary. The fears of the inhabitants of Tenbury are entirely chimerical and imaginary, according to the information furnished to me. The overflow of which the hon. Member speaks is a provision devised to provide against the possibility of an accident to any of the pipes that will convey the water to Birmingham. It will not be used in the ordinary time of flood, but will only be called into operation in case one of the pipes conveying the water were to burst. Even

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  if that accident were to take place at the time of high flood in the neighbourhood of Tenbury, then, under no conceivable circumstances, not even if the whole of the five pipes were to burst simultaneously, would the water in the river be raised by a height of more than an inch or an inch and a half. From its low situation the town of Tenbury is subject to floods; and when the hon. Member mentions that in an exceptional disaster of this kind the water is increased by a depth of five or six feet, then even the addition of an inch and a half is not such a great danger that it is necessary in this way to provide against it. I say this much in order that it may carry some assurance to the minds of the people of Tenbury, who seem to have got it into their heads that really there would be some increase of danger. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with the assurance, and will withdraw the Instruction. My objection is that the Motion is an attempt by the House of Commons to do that which a Committee has been appointed to do. To decide such questions evidence must be called. We cannot take merely the statement of the inhabitants, nor can I ask the House to accept my ex parte statement—such statements before acceptance must have confirmatory evidence. The House of Commons has taken the precaution to send this Bill to a Hybrid Committee, and therefore every interest will be fully considered. The people of Tenbury can put their fears before the Committee, and the Committee will have the evidence the Corporation can put forward, and surely it is ridiculous for the House to appoint a Committee, and then to proceed to do the work of that Committee. Surely it is absurd for the House, before the inquiry has commenced, to burden the Committee with a number of mandatory instructions? If this were a matter which the Committee without an Instruction would be unable to consider, it would be a different thing, but the inhabitants can present their case and evidence and the Committee will determine. There is no need of the Instruction, and to pass it would be to prejudice the inquiry, to determine the decision of the Committee before hearing the evidence. That
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  would be quite contrary to precedent, and it is, I think, quite unnecessary.
  MR. RANKIN: The right hon. Gentleman recognises that it is out of no opposition to the Bill my hon. Friend has made his Motion. The inhabitants are bound to take such precautions as they can against the dangers to which this thriving town is subjected. But, no doubt, after hearing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend will think well to withdraw his Motion, especially as I learn, which I was not aware of earlier, that a Petition can be now entered by the Worcester County Council giving the Council a locus standi before the Committee. I have a large number of constituents interested in the welfare of Tenbury, and I must say I think my hon. Friend has done no more than his duty in calling attention to this matter. After the statement we have had I think my hon. Friend would be justified in withdrawing his Motion.
  MR. GODSON: Speaking on behalf of my native place, I earnestly trust that this scheme may be carried to successful completion. I may remark, however, that the right hon. Gentleman has somewhat underestimated our difficulties when he says an inch and-a-half of water added to flood height is no great matter. I have seen the floods going down the main street of the town, where for two nights and a day the water was 5 ft. deep, and I am bound to say that an inch or two more would not have been a matter of indifference. An inch or two more would have brought down some of the best-built buildings in the town, while it has been computed that a burst pipe at Burrington Lock would cause an addition of one foot to the flood water. At Dorrington Rock, a short distance above the town and below Burrington Lock, the valley is about one field broad, and we have the greatest difficulty in dealing with these floods two or three times a year. The inhabitants of Tenbury, owing to the agricultural depression, are not in a position to present and support a Petition against a wealthy Corporation; but I hope the great City

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  of Birmingham will be magnanimous and recognise the claims of the inhabitants of Tenbury.
  MR. MORE: I trust that the interests of the town of Tenbury and of the district may be represented before the Committee without that heavy expenditure the hon. Member seems to fear, and that the promoters of the Bill will recognise that the claims of Tenbury are in no way inimical to the proposals of the Corporation.
  SIR E. LECHMERE: After the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), and feeling that the interests of the inhabitants of Tenbury may be left in this matter to be looked after by the County Council of Worcester, I beg to withdraw my Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  BELFAST CORPORATION (LUNATIC ASYLUMS, &C.) BILL.
  Ordered, That Sir Edward Harland, Mr. Knox, Mr. T. W. Russell, and Mr. Sexton be Members of the Select Committee on Belfast Corporation (Lunatic Asylums, &c.) Bill, with three Members to be added by the Committee of Selection.—(Mr. Akers-Douglas.)
  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION WATER BILL.
  Ordered, That Mr. Causton, Mr. Sydney Gedge, Sir William Houldsworth, Mr. Philip Stanhope, and Mr. Powell-Williams be Members of the Select Committee on Birmingham Corporation Water Bill, with four Members to be added to the Committee of Selection.—(Mr. Akers-Douglas.)
QUESTIONS.

  BATH FORUM SCHOOL.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the accounts of the Bath Forum School, Bath, for the school year ending February, 1891, in which a balance of £217 5s. 9d. appears as transferred from the school income to a building account; whether, having regard to Article 90 of the Code, such an application of the accumulated surplus of school income is legal; and whether, seeing that a
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  similar question was incidentally brought under the notice of the Committee on Public Accounts in 1887, and that the Report of the Committee contains no finding on the matter, he will take the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown as to the propriety of such expenditure under the Code?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,): The transaction to which the right hon. Gentleman refers appears from the accounts and correspondence with the managers not to have been merely a transfer of part of the income on the current account to a separate building account, but an application of a balance in hand to expenditure actually incurred in connection with the alteration of the buildings; and I think he will see that in the result of the investigation of the similar question by the Committee of Public Accounts in 1887 a concurrence of opinion between the Department, the auditors, and the Committee was reached that such an application of a balance was not improper. At any rate, the Committee carefully abstained from reporting against it, and in the absence of any opinion on their part hostile to the position I do not think it necessary to invoke the assistance of the Law Officers, of the Crown.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Am I to understand that the Committee having expressed no opinion, that the Department have no opinion on the general question? Does this not conflict with the article in the Code?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: The evidence given for the Department by Mr. Cumin before the Public Accounts Committee shows how the matter stands. Mr. Cumin says (Question 808)—
  "When you first get money, of course it is to be used for the maintenance; but supposing that it becomes a balance, then it is excluded from the income for the year, and it is excluded from the money that you can reckon for the grant. It becomes in fact a capital sum which is under a trust, and the trust is, that it is to be used for purposes of the school, and we say that when it becomes a balance, and when it is excluded from purposes of the grant, then it is properly used for the purpose of building a school, or for the enlarging of a school, or for any other school purposes."

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  (Q. 813.) Auditor General answers—
  "He concurs with the understanding that the balance is not to be considered as part of the income."
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: The balance is not considered part of the income of the school for next year so as to enable the 17s. 6d. limit to be exceeded?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: That is the understanding with the Auditor General.

  EARLY CLOSING IN THE HARROW ROAD.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been directed to the sentences passed by Sir Peter Edlin, at the Clerkenwell Sessions, on Saturday, 10th January, on three men, Lillington, Nicoll, and Brooks, for the offence of distributing bills outside the shop of a tradesman, named Haill, in the Harrow Road, calling upon the public not to deal with him because he refused to close at 5 o'clock on Thursday, as the rest of the shopkeepers did; if he is aware that Chief Justice Jeune decided in the High Court of Chancery, on Wednesday, 7th October, that the issue of a similar bill, and the distribution of it, was perfectly legitimate, and not an offence againt Common Law; if he is aware that the fines inflicted, the defendants being imprisoned until paid, were liquidated by public subscription; and, if, taking into consideration the difference in judicial opinion, he can see his way to inquire into the application of the Law of Conspiracy in this and similar cases?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): The prisoners mentioned in the first paragraph of the question were convicted at Clerkenwell Sessions, not for the offence of distributing bills, but for unlawful assembly, obstructing the highway, and watching and besetting contrary to the Statute, and were fined in respect of the third offence. There was no count for conspiracy. I gather from a newspaper report that Mr. Justice Jeune did not decide that the issue of a bill, advocating the boycotting of a certain tradesman, and its
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  distribution were perfectly legitimate and not an offence against the Common Law; but that the learned Judge refused an application for an injunction to restrain the issue and distribution of the bill because no cause of action had been made out. He reserved, however, the question of costs, pointing out that the whole matter would be more fully discussed at a later stage. I have no information as to the third paragraph of the question. The cases would have no bearing on the Law of Conspiracy.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: How may one arrive, on a question like this, at a conclusion as to what is an unlawful assembly?
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: Does this not illustrate the doctrine of conspiracy that two or three men may not do collectively what may be done by one?
  MR. MATTHEWS: If hon. Members seek further information on the facts of the case I must ask them to give notice of their questions.

  FEUARS AND THE PROPERTY TAX.
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the fact that, while feuars in Scotland are held to be entitled to deduct property tax on the annual feu duty in making payment to superiors, they are not allowed to deduct property tax in paying periodical duplicands or compositions in lieu of casualties; if he is aware that these periodical compositions in certain parts of Scotland amount to over 10 per cent. of the entire annual feu duties; and if he will state whether property tax is levied upon them; and, if so, why it is not collected in the ordinary way?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): I will answer the hon. Member's question, but I must ask him not to cross-examine me upon the terms of my answer. Feuars are not entitled to retain tax from payments of periodical duplicands or compositions in lieu of casualties of superiority, because such are not "annual payments," and are in their nature capital payments. The superiors as the receivers of such

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  casualties or periodical payments are charged with Income Tax thereon in conformity with the provisions of Section 60 of the Income Tax Act, 1842.
  DR. CAMERON: I will take occasion to call attention to this subject in the Budget discussions.

  ROYAL NAVAL VOLUNTEERS.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the allowances made to Royal Naval Volunteer Corps already exceed the £1,000 proposed; and, if so, whether the Admiralty will deal liberally in the matter of any further claims not yet considered?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): No allowances have yet been granted to any corps of the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, as the Committee have as yet only considered the claims of three out of the twelve corps, which require to be visited. As soon as the final Report of the Committee is received the Amiralty will be in a position to consider the compensation to be granted, which I have already stated will be done in a spirit of liberality.

  PROCURATORS FISCAL.
  MR. D. CRAWFORD: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he has received a copy of a synopsis of information regarding the duties and remunerations of Procurators Fiscal in Scotland recently prepared by the County Councils of Forfar and Dumfries; whether it is correct, as therein stated, that there are many Acts of Parliament of which contraventions are prosecuted in the Sheriff Court in a considerable number of counties at the cost of Her Majesty's Exchequer, and in the Sheriff or Justice of the Peace Courts in as many other counties at the cost of county funds; whether any regulation defining the statutory offences that may be prosecuted at the cost of Exchequer and local funds respectively exists; and, if not, whether he will, by means of an instruction to Procurators Fiscal, or otherwise, take steps for so defining these offences; and whether he will lay a copy of any existing regulation, or of any regulation he may make, upon the Table of this House?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Sir C. J. PEARSON,): I have received a copy of the information referred to by the hon. Member, and I have no reason to doubt it may be taken as substantially correct. There is no existing regulation in regard to these prosecutions, but the subject is now receiving my consideration with the view of establishing a more uniform practice if that be possible. When I have disposed of the matter I shall be glad to inform the hon. Member of the result, but I cannot undertake that any regulation will be laid on the Table of the House.

  SUPERVISION OF COAL MINES.
  MR. D. CRAWFORD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has further considered the complaints brought before him last Session from the mining district round Airdrie, alleging that the provisions of Section 21 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, which requires that daily personal supervision shall be exercised either by the manager or by an under manager nominated in writing by the owner or agent of the mine, are in many cases habitually neglected; whether he has completed his investigation into these complaints; and what conclusion he has come to as to the further steps which it may be desirable to take?
  MR. MATTHEWS: In accordance with my undertaking to the hon. Gentleman last year, I went carefully into the requirements of Section 21 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, with reference to the collieries in the mining districts in question. In the result I instructed the Inspector to inform the proprietors that, in the absence of daily personal supervision by the manager, there must be a certificated under manager at each pit, and that it was essential that the requirements of the Statute as to daily personal supervision should be strictly observed.

  CORONERS' JURIES—VERDICTS OF WILFUL MURDER.
  MR. COBB: I beg to ask the Secretary for State for the Home Department whether he can state for the years 1889 to 1891 inclusive the respective numbers in England

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  and Wales of the verdicts of wilful murder found by Coronors' juries, the persons committed for trial, those condemned to death, those executed, and the sentences of death commuted?
  MR. MATTHEWS: In 1889 there were 167 verdicts of wilful murder found by Coroners' juries; 71 persons were committed for trial, 20 were condemned to death, 11 were executed, and in nine cases sentence of death was commuted. In 1890 there were 159 verdicts of wilful murder found by Coroners' juries, 86 persons were committed for trial, 24 were condemned to death, 15 were executed, and the sentence of death was commuted in nine cases. The Returns for the year 1891 are not yet complete.

  CLARE ISLAND PROSECUTIONS.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland whether it has been brought to his notice that the people of Clare Island were not represented by a solicitor at all on the occasion of the adjournment of the case against them, being too poor to fee one; that the proceedings against the islanders were adjourned over five Court days, embracing a period of several months; that on the 7th December only one Magistrate attended, who fixed the hearing for the 16th, when the islanders were ready with a solicitor to defend the charge, but no Magistrate attending, were obliged to forfeit their fee of ten guineas to their solicitor; that fresh summonses were issued for the 4th January, but had to be again adjourned owing to an epidemic of scarlet fever among the islanders; that one of these summonses was served upon a young man upon his death-bed, two days before his death; and that when the case finally came on for hearing the defendants were undefended, and were obliged to walk 13 miles in the snow to Westport in a destitute condition; who is responsible for the non-attendance of the Magistrates on the 16th December; and whether compensation will be made to the islanders for the loss of their solicitor's fee and other expenses on that occasion in consequence of the default of the Crown officials?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JACKSON,): I am informed that for 7th December only seven persons were summoned, the remaining persons against whom summonses were issued having evaded service. The charges against the seven persons could not be gone into that day, as one of the Resident Magistrates had been called away to attend the Sligo Winter Assizes. The seven cases were accordingly adjourned to 16th December, and at the same time the summonses against those who had evaded service were renewed for that date; but as it was subsequently found that the latter—i.e., the large majority of the cases—could not be entered upon that day as not being one fixed for the ordinary holding of Petty Sessions, though adjourned cases could be then heard, it was found necessary to defer the hearing of the cases to the 4th January. On that date the cases were, on the application of the solicitor for the defence, further adjourned to 8th February, on the ground stated in the question. No man appears to have been served with a summons upon his death bed. The Magistrates duly attended upon the 8th February, but the defendants did not appear. It being found that their absence was due to a storm, the Magistrates adjourned their cases to the 7th March, and finally disposed of them oh the 8th March at Westport, in the circumstances explained in reply to a previous question. They were in no sense destitute. I am not aware of the grounds on which the defendants were not represented on that occasion by a solicitor; but it is manifest they suffered in no way by the absence of one, as the Magistrates felt themselves able to deal leniently, and merely bound the defendants over to keep the peace, and in some instances dismissing the cases. The defendants, so far from considering themselves harshly treated, expressed their gratitude to the Court for the leniency shown to them. There is nothing in the case to suggest the adoption of the course proposed in the last paragraph.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the first part of my question. He stated to the House that the adjournment to Westport for the 7th March took place on

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  the application of the solicitor for the defendants, and for their convenience. May we not now take it for granted that the information on which the right hon. Gentleman made that statement was misleading? Has the right hon. Gentleman any reason to believe that the information upon other points is more reliable? I would ask the right hon. Gentleman at the same time, is it not an undoubted fact that this trumpery charge was kept hanging over the heads of these poor islanders for a period of more than three months, though they were always ready to meet the charge; that they were dragged from home to Court, that twice owing to default on the part of officials the cases could not be heard, and finally they were dragged to Westport on a wanton and useless journey? I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not the fact that this harsh, this cruel adjournment from Lewisbing to Westport was simply because the Magistrates feared the scarlet fever epidemic?
  MR. JACKSON: It is quite impossible for me to answer a series of questions like this across the Table. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information given to me. I have gone carefully through the report of the Magistrate who was present. I do not think the adjournment to Westport was a cruel or harsh proceeding.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: Does the right hon. Gentleman still maintain that it was at the application of the solicitor for the defendants that the adjournment to Westport took place?
  MR. JACKSON: I am not aware that I said that it was on the application of the solicitor to the defendants that the cases were adjourned to Westport. I stated, and I state again, that the Adjournment to 8th February was on the application of the solicitor to the defendants.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: The right hon. Gentleman has not said who is responsible for the non-attendance of the Magistrate. I shall have to refer to the subject again.

  CULROSS SCHOOL BOARD.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (, &c.): I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether it is the case that the Scotch Education Department authorised the opening by the School Board of Culross of a school at Oakley, without imposing any special conditions; whether the School Board was subsequently required to confine the teaching in that school to the second standard; whether this is consistent with the 36th section of the Education Act of 1872; and whether the Department will re-pay to the School Board the expense incurred in advertising for teachers, and paying the current salary of a teacher who was engaged under the original sanction of the Department, but could not be employed owing to the Department's change of mind?
  SIR C. J. PEARSON: The Scotch Education Department authorised the opening by the School Board of Culross of a school at Oakley on the condition that it was to be temporary, and that a satisfactory permanent scheme should be submitted before the close of the term of office of the School Board. Owing to the representations of the Carnoch School Board that the opening of this school, which is situated in their district, was assented to by them only on the understanding that it would be confined to children who had not passed the second standard, the Department has suggested that this restriction should be observed. I am not aware that this is inconsistent with the 36th section of the Education Act of 1872; but the Department's duty under the 30th section of that Act, and under the Code, is quite clear—namely, not to recognise for annual grants a school which is to provide for children for whose accommodation other and suitable provision is already made. The Department does not recognise any claim such as is put forward in the last paragraph of the question, nor are there any funds available for such a purpose; but they hope that nothing will prevent a fair compromise being arrived at.

  LAND COMMISSION, MILFORD, DONEGAL.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why it is that cases listed at Ramelton, in County Donegal, five years ago, have not yet been heard by the Sub-Commissioners; and when the Sub-Commissioners will sit to dispose of the existing arrear in that district?
  MR. JACKSON: The Land Commissioners report that there are only 14 cases in the Union of Milford, County Donegal, which have already been listed for hearing at Ramelton, and which are still undisposed of. These cases were twice listed for hearing in the year 1890, but were adjourned by the Sub-Commission Court principally on the application of all parties concerned, and for non-compliance with orders of the Court. A sitting of a Sub-Commission for the Union has been arranged. It will probably be held during the month of June next. The list for hearing will include all outstanding cases lodged up to the end of the year 1891.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: But there are cases standing untouched for the years 1887–88 and 1889, and I have the list of only one solicitor.
  MR. JACKSON: The information I have is that all the remaining cases are set down for hearing.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: But how is it they have been standing for four or five years?
  MR. JACKSON: I have informed the hon. Member there are only 14 cases in the Union of Milford, and these were twice listed in 1890, but adjourned on application of all parties concerned, or for non-compliance with the orders of the Court.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to make further inquiry. Here I have a list of 19 cases for one solicitor in Ramelton alone.
  MR. JACKSON: If the hon. Member will give me the list I will cause inquiry to be made.

  TREATMENT OF PRISONERS IN STAFFORD GAOL.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Governor of Stafford Prison is acting within his right in refusing permission to attend Divine Service within the prison to the alleged Anarchists now awaiting trial under his charge; whether it is customary in Her Majesty's prisons to keep in solitary confinement accused persons under remand or awaiting trial, with only half-an-hour's exercise per day allowed, and that not every day; whether the authorities of Stafford Prison are within their right in so keeping the alleged Anarchists; whether accused persons under remand or awaiting trial have a right to receive letters, subject to such letters being first read over by the prison authorities; and by what right the Governor of Stafford Gaol has kept such letters back from the alleged Anarchists, thereby seriously hampering their defence?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Governor of Stafford Gaol that the prisoners do not attend chapel because they stated that they did not care to go to Divine Service, and were of no religion, and because they ridiculed the service. Like all other prisoners, those awaiting trial are kept in separate cells, except when medical reasons forbid it. Prisoners awaiting trial have 40 minutes' exercise each day when the weather is fine. These prisoners are treated in conformity with the Prisons Act of 1865 and the rules made thereunder. No letters referring to their defence have been kept back from these prisoners. Two letters containing improper matter were kept back by the Governor in the exercise of that discretion with which he is intrusted by the Regulations in the Schedule to the Act of 1865.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, as these men do not wish to attend Divine Service, and considering that such attendance is in many cases looked upon as merely a chance of getting out of the cell, they will be allowed in lieu of attending chapel to take exercise?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The Statute does not provide an alternative to attending Divine Service.

  THE CREW OF THE SS. "GODOLPHIN."
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the treatment by the British Consul at New York of George Tinmouth, second engineer, August Walter, second mate, George Temple, Henrick Miller, Henry Bain, and Alfred Anderson of the ss. Godolphin, 96,653, of London; if he is aware that these men joined the Godolphin at South Shields on 9th January, 1891, their agreement being for twelve months, to terminate in the United Kingdom, and that on 12th January, 1892, the time of their agreement having expired in New York, the captain endeavoured to discharge them in New York without paying them compensation for the voyage home, and that on application by these men to the British Consul he said he would "wash his hands" of them, because they refused to take their money up to the time the ship arrived in New York; if his attention has been directed to a letter which appeared in the International Seamen's Gazette of last week from the British Consul at New York denying the statement of the men; and if anything can be done to recoup the men for the expense that they are put to in suing the owners of the ss. Godolphin for the balance of the wages, they not having arrived in the United Kingdom until 6th February?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): I have been in communication with the Consul General at New York with regard to the case of the Godolphin, but I have not seen the letter in the International Seamen's Gazette to which the hon. Member refers. I understand that the master of the steamer did object to pay wages beyond the date of the discharge at New York, but as the agreement provided for discharge at a port in the United Kingdom, the Consul General decided that the men were entitled to additional wages for the probable time it would take them to reach home, and he reports distinctly that they were paid accordingly, but he does not state
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  up to what date. If the seamen take proceedings to recover any amount to which they are advised they are still entitled, the question of their costs will no doubt be considered by the Court, but the Board of Trade have no power to recoup them the expenses they are put to in suing.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I have read the agreement, and I wish to ask whether, if the agreement expressly said that the men should be paid in the United Kingdom, the Consul was right in forcing them to accept payment in New York?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The agreement provided for a discharge in a port of the United Kingdom. The Consul decided there must be additional payment for the probable time occupied in reaching that port.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a copy of the wages accounts, and that that does not confirm the statement of the Consul that the men have been paid?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I have no reason to doubt the statement of the Consul.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I do not question the veracity of the Consul, but if the wages accounts do not show the payment, does not that indicate that the Consul was misinformed?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I do not know that it does.

  THE STEAMER "LISCARD."
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the captain of the ss. Liscard, at Buenos Ayres, on 4th January, 1892, passed 30 cwt. of potatoes and other ship's stores, as cheese, ham, &c., over the side to another steamer, thereby depriving the crew of stores put on board for their use; that, during the homeward voyage, the crew were placed on an allowance of four potatoes per week per man; if he will inquire into the allegation of some of the crew as to the alleged behaviour of the chief mate; if he will inquire as to whether it is the case that the Liscard carried no weights for weighing the food to the crew; whether he will inquire into the whole

  1657
  circumstances connected with the summons taken out against the captain, mate, and boatswain, on their arrival at home; and whether he will inquire into the allegation that the chief engineer was instructed by the Board of Trade to remain in London pending an inquiry into the facts, and that, after his declaration had been made, it was officially intimated to him that the case had been abandoned, no cause being alleged for the same?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: All the matters referred to in the question of the hon. Member with regard to the Liscard were brought to my notice by the Sailors' and Firemen's Union, and an investigation was ordered before the London Local Marine Board into the charges of misconduct against the master and mate. It was abandoned for want of sufficient evidence to substantiate the charges. It is not customary to inform witnesses of the reason for abandoning investigations, but the Sailors' and Firemen's Union were duly informed. I have been unable at present to obtain information about the weights, but further inquiries will be made on this point. I do not propose to make any further inquiry on the other points, as seamen have their remedy at law for assault and reduced allowance of provisions.

  MULLINGAR ASYLUM ADVERTISEMENTS.
  MR. D. SULLIVAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, at a meeting of the Mullingar Asylum Board, held on the 10th instant, the Governors gave the contract for publishing the advertisements of the asylum to the Westmeath Guardian at 3d. per line, although the proprietor of a newspaper with a very much larger circulation in the County Westmeath tendered to insert the advertisements for 1½d. per line; and whether the ratepayers of the county have any redress in this matter?
  MR. JACKSON: I am informed that the Governors of the Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum accepted the tender for advertisements of the newspaper mentioned as being the oldest established paper published in the
  1658
  neighbourhood. They rejected the tender of the other newspaper referred to, as it is not published in the County Westmeath, and has only recently been circulated in the district. The Governors appear to have acted in their discretion, as, under the terms of their advertisement inviting tenders, they were not bound to accept the lowest or any tender.

  THE QUEENSTOWN AFFRAY.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it has come to the knowledge of the police that during the recent affrays between bailiffs and alleged poachers at Queenstown and other places on the Lee, the shots alleged to have been fired in the air by the bailiffs were so directed that the bullets struck certain houses in the immediate neighbourhood of Glenbrook, and that some of those bullets are now in the possession of persons who narrowly escaped being struck by them; and whether he will cause any further inquiry into the matter?
  MR. JACKSON: The Constabulary Authorities report that two bullets, believed to have been fired on the occasion in question, were found to have struck houses. The water bailiffs had already reported that they had fired in the air, and in self-defence, to frighten their assailants who had thrown stones at them. Steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence of this state of things.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION COMMISSIONERS, AND THE DECREASE IN SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the propriety of recommending the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland to review the cases of schools where it is shown that, owing to the epidemic of influenza, the severity of the late season, decrease of population or poverty, an average of 70 scholars is not obtainable (but where, nevertheless, the services of an assistant teacher is required), and with a view to render in such cases an average attendance of 50, sufficient to warrant the payment

  1659
  of an assistant teacher pending the settlement of a compulsory scheme to education?
  MR. JACKSON: As I stated in reply to the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) on 26th February, the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland invariably allow, in all cases in which the school attendance is reduced, owing to severe weather, prevalence of epidemic, or other exceptional cause, a reasonable time for the re-establishment of the normal average before proceeding to cancel the grant for an assistant.

  THE DISCOVERY OF DYNAMITE AT LIMERICK JUNCTION.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can say how the guard of the Cork mail train became aware that the parcel recently found by him in a carriage at Limerick Junction contained dynamite; is it usual for railway servants to examine the contents of lost luggage; and, if not, what special circumstances led to the examination in this case; whether the arrest of Mr. Halligan without a warrant was according to the usual practice of the Royal Irish Constabulary; and was the arrest legal?
  MR. JACKSON: I have no official information on the subject of the first two paragraphs. The arrest was made without a warrant under the ordinary procedure in cases of emergency. The answer to the last paragraph is in the affirmative.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile this mode of procedure with that adopted some time since, when a man charged with manslaughter was not arrested for some days pending the issue of a warrant?
  MR. JACKSON: I do not see any connection with the question on the Paper, which I have answered according to the information I have received.

  SOLDIERS BEFORE CIVIL COURTS.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to the report in the Irish Daily Independent, of the 19th instant, of the trial and
  1660
  conviction of four soldiers, belonging to the Munster Fusiliers, on a charge of assaulting and wounding, with their belts, several persons in College Green, Dublin; whether he is aware that, although the proper Military Officer was informed by the police of the arrests, charge, place, and time of trial, no officer attended to give evidence as to character as required by the magistrate; and whether it is usual for officers to attend Civil Courts under such circumstances; and, if so, why was a different course taken in this case?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): This case was one in which the Civil power dealt in the ordinary way with a charge of assault against a soldier. The offence was committed on the night following St. Patrick's Day. It is usual for an officer to attend when a soldier is charged before a Civil Court, and this course would have been followed in this case, but the notice sent to the Commanding Officer did not reach him in time.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: May I ask, is it the fact that the Commanding Officer, having attended a banquet at Dublin Castle on St. Patrick's Day, was not in a condition for duty on the following morning?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  DESTRUCTION OF NETS ON THE NORTH SEA FISHING GROUNDS.
  SIR E. BIRKBECK: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the destruction of nets belonging to the Lowestoft fishing vessel Afghan on the night of the 13th instant by an Ostend trawler, entailing a loss of £40 to the owner besides the loss of the night's fishing; and whether he will give orders that the cruisers on fishery protection duty be instructed to keep more on the fishing grounds for the future, and where depredations are likely to take place?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: A Report was recently made to a cruiser on the fisheries that a Lowestoft fishing vessel, L.T. 110, had had her nets run into and cut by an Ostend trawler, whose name was not known. Two cruisers were on the fishing grounds at the

  1661
  time, and a constant and vigilant watch is kept; but with every precaution it is not possible to prevent an occasional act of depredation over such a large area as the North Sea. The Occurrence in question I understand took place a long distance from the shore.

  PAUPER IMMIGRANTS AND THE WIDNES CHEMICAL WORKERS.
  MR. EDWARDS-MOSS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to an application which has recently been made to the Prescot Board of Guardians by the chemical workers of Widnes, who have been thrown out of work and become dependent on the workhouse, owing to the employment in their place of foreign paupers at their works; whether he is aware that these pauper immigrants are Poles, 80 per cent. of whom arrive in this country quite destitute, and who, by working for starvation wages, are displacing the natural working population of the locality; and whether, in view of the fact that much distress is caused thereby, and an additional burden is being placed upon the rates of the district, the Government will consider the recommendations of the Select Committee on Emigration and Immigration of 1889, especially the last clause of their Report, and take some steps to put a stop to the immigration of foreign paupers into this country?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): I have been in communication with the clerk to the Guardians of the Prescot Union on the subject of the statements in the question. I learn that distress has existed among chemical workers at Widnes, but this is apparently due to the closing of a number of alkali works in the district. With respect to the immigration and employment of Poles, I am informed that the statement that these immigrants arrive in this country in a state of destitution is misleading. Generally speaking, they appear to be strong able-bodied men who are readily given employment at the works by reason of their fitness and willingness to perform
  1662
  the work allotted to them. The number of Poles employed in the various chemical works, it is stated, does not exceed 50, the majority of whom have been in this country for a number of years. Not one of the men who were relieved by the Guardians with a labour test could, when inquiry was made of them during the present week, say positively that his place had been taken by a foreigner. As regards the allegation as to starvation wages, on inquiry at one of the largest chemical works at Widnes, it was stated that the wages paid to the Poles were exactly the same as those paid to other workmen employed in the same manner, and that of the eleven Poles employed at the works, ten were receiving wages at the rate of 4s. per day, and one at the rate of 4s. 3d. It is further stated that not a single Pole is in receipt of relief from the Union, and so far as the experience of the Guardians and their officers goes, this class seldom or never apply for Poor Law relief. It does not appear to me that there is any sufficient reason at present for the adoption of such a course as is suggested in the last paragraph of the hon. Member's question.

  THE BELTURBET APPEAL CASE.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why the appeal re fair rent in the case of James Crangle, of Belturbet, County Cavan, which has been pending for two years, has not yet been disposed of, although the Commissioners have recently sat at Belturbet?
  MR. JACKSON: The Irish Land Commissioners report that there is no "appeal" outstanding on the books of the County of Cavan in which a tenant of the name mentioned is concerned; but that fair rent applications have been received from a tenant of that name. These cases appear on a list which is being prepared for the district of Belturbet.

  LOUGH ERNE DRAINAGE SCHEME.
  Mr. KNOXhaving placed on the paper a Question, to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the cause of the delay in presenting the Report of the Board of Works in Ireland relating

  1663
  to the Lough Erne Drainage Scheme; and, whether, considering the great importance of the question to the people of the district, he will take steps to hasten the presentation of the Report?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. GORST,), said the Report was delivered some days ago.
  MR. KNOX: The question appears by mistake.

  THE INDIAN BUDGET.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the Legislative Council of the Viceroy will be able to discuss the Indian Budget of this year, or whether it will be precluded from doing so because no new legislation is proposed; and, how often since 1861 has discussion on the Budget taken place in the Council, and how often has it been prevented from taking place owing to the restrictions in the Indian Councils Act?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. CURZON,): No new legislation is proposed in this year's Budget, which therefore cannot under the provisions of the India Councils Act of 1861 be discussed in the Legislative Council. During the 30 years of the existence of the Council, as at present constituted, the Budget has been discussed in 16 years, and has not been discussed in 14.

  LION TAMING EXHIBITIONS.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, with regard to the recent tragedy which ended fatally at Hadnesford, he will take steps to prevent in the future exhibitions of a like nature, more particularly with regard to so-called lion tamers entering cages containing wild and dangerous animals?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have no power by law to interfere with wild beast shows or dangerous exhibitions.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, owing to the very great dissatisfaction that prevails respecting exhibitions of this kind, he will not
  1664
  advise the Government to take proper steps to alter the law.
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am not aware of any steps, proper or improper, the Government could take that would not be attended with difficulty.

  THE LIMERICK POSTMASTERSHIP VACANCY.
  MR. O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the postmastership of Limerick is vacant; and, if so, whether the claims of the postmasters of Ireland to promotion will be considered in making the appointment, there being so many postmasterships at present vacant in England and Scotland?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): It has just become officially vacant, and will be so announced immediately. Most certainly the claims of all Irish postmasters who apply for it will be considered entirely on the ground of their seniority and merit, with a primâ facie wish to prefer an Irishman for an Irish appointment.

  SCALES OF PAY IN THE POST OFFICE.
  MR. O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the date of the Treasury Minute authorising the "scale" by which head postmasters' salaries are calculated; whether postmen, telegraphists, and clerks have recently had their "scales" of pay considerably improved, but that no alteration has been made in the mode of payment to postmasters; whether postmasters are the only class in the Post Office whose salaries and prospects depend upon circumstances over which they have no control—namely, the rise or decay of the towns they live in; and whether this state of things will be changed; if so, can he state how soon?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: With the permission of the House I will answer this question. There is no Treasury Minute upon the subject. Postmasters are not paid upon a rising scale of salary, but according to the duties they perform. Their salaries are re-adjusted when necessary in accordance with the growth of business at their respective

  1665
  offices, and the consequent increase of their work and their staff; but it is not the practice to make a reduction of salary in cases in which the business, and therefore the work, has actually diminished. They are advanced to better posts according to their seniority and merit; and vacancies are notified in a weekly circular, so that those who desire to apply for them may do so, and their respective claims are carefully considered. I see no reason to alter this practice.

  THE HAULBOWLINE DOCKS.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Government would be willing to lease to a private firm of shipbuilders the unused docks and other premises at Haulbowline, Cork?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The expenditure which has been incurred in building and constructing the docks at Haulbowline was sanctioned on grounds of public policy, and it cannot now be diverted towards securing or promoting profits of private enterprise.

  THE QUEEN'S CADETS AND THE INDIAN STAFF CORPS.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether it is the intention to alter the rule that all Queen's Cadets and honorary Queen's Cadets have the first choice of joining the Indian Staff Corps before the next examination; and whether he can state why this advantage is given to Queen's Cadets and honorary Queen's Cadets?
  MR. CURZON: There is no intention to alter the Rule. But I would point out that the advantage, though given to all Queen's Cadets, is not given to all honorary Queen's Cadets, but only to the five appointed by the Secretary of State in Council, who are sons of Indian officers. The advantage is given to these cadets in consideration of their fathers' services to the State.

  THE ANGLO-JEBUS TREATY.
  MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay
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  upon the Table a copy of the Treaty which is alleged to have been made between this country and the Jebus on 21st January of the present year; and whether he will inform the House what were the circumstances under which this Treaty was made?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,): The Treaty referred to will be found among the Papers, which, as I have already stated, will be laid before the House in due course. The circumstances leading up to the Treaty could not be conveniently stated within the limits of an answer, but the hon. Member will find full information in the Papers when published.
  MR. SUMMERS: Can you say when the Papers will be pubished.
  BARON H. DE WORMS: As soon as possible.

  CONVICTS AND THE FORFEITURE OF CIVIL RIGHTS.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a statement written by Mr. Thomas A. MacAwly, and published in the Western People newspaper of the 12th instant, in which he states that he and four other prisoners confined in Mountjoy Prison at the time of Mr. P. W. Nally's death in the same prison, asked to be examined before the Coroner's jury, and were refused by the Governor on the ground that being convicts they had forfeited (de puire) all civil rights; whether this action of the Mountjoy Prison authorities in this matter was authorised by the Prisons Board; and, will he afford any, and what, facilities for obtaining through other than official channels the evidence which those prisoners still confined in Mountjoy Prison were willing to give relating to the cause of Mr. Nally's death, before the Irish Prisons Estimates are taken in this House?
  MR. JACKSON: I have seen the extract from the statement referred to which the hon. Member has sent me, and I am having inquiry on its general subject made. With regard to the particular point mentioned in the question, the General Prisons Board report that it is not the case that the Governor

  1667
  refused to allow the convicts to be examined on the ground alleged. They were, on the contrary, informed that if the Coroner required their evidence they would be called. This was strictly in accordance with the course always followed in prisons.

  THE CREED OF PAUPER CHILDREN.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in cases of disputed settlement where a child is removed from one union to another, it is in accordance with existing regulations that the transfer should take place without the Guardians of the latter union being informed of the religion of the child; and, if so, whether he will cause such amendment of the Rules and Orders as shall secure that the religion of every child removed is notified to the receiving union?
  MR. RITCHIE: When a child is removed to its place of settlement the proceedings are under Statute and not under any Rules or Orders of the Local Government Board. The duty of the master of the workhouse or school as regards the entry in the Creed Register of the religious creed of a child is imposed by the 31 & 32 Vic, Cap. 122, Sec. 17. Under that enactment it is his duty to enter in the Register as the religious creed of the child the creed of the father or mother, according to the circumstances, so far as it is known to him or can be ascertained by reasonable inquiry. If, therefore, in the case of a child removed from one union to another the master of the workhouse is unable to obtain the necessary information as to the creed which should be entered in the Register without inquiry from the union from which the child has been received, I consider that it would be his duty to make such inquiry. If the hon. Member is aware of any case where he thinks that proper inquiry has not been made in this matter, I will give the case my attention on being informed of the facts.

  THE "91" ARMY SADDLES.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether all the saddles of the pattern "91" passed into the Service last
  1668
  year have been condemned; and, if so, can he state why they have been condemned; who is responsible for the pattern, and who for passing the saddles into the Service; and upon whom will the loss fall?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: There is no saddle in the Service known as the "91" pattern. The latest is the "90" pattern. No saddles passed last year into the Service have been condemned.

  THE DONEGAL CONSTABULARY "FREE QUOTA" AND "EXTRA."
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has yet ascertained the facts as to the constabulary of Donegal "free quota" and "extra;" and whether he will direct the discontinuance of the claim for "extra" men to the extent to which the "free quota" is short?
  MR. JACKSON: As questions have recently been asked by hon. Members as to the allocation of the Royal Irish Constabulary apparently arising out of Parliamentary Paper No. 33 of this Session, it may be convenient if I make a statement on the general procedure. The free quota for all Ireland consists of 10,006 men. It is re-distributed every three years under the Act passed in 1885. The procedure is, first, to divide the number between the aggregate of counties and of towns having separate police establishments, according to population. The total so ascertained as available for counties is first apportioned to individual counties according to population, and a like apportionment is made according to area. The mean of these results produces the ordinary free quota assignable to a county. The apportionment among towns is in the ratio of population, subject to variation as local circumstances, such as being a seaport, may require. An extra force is assigned to counties on the requisition of the Magistrates or by proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant. The free quota and the extra force combined are called the augmented force. Where vacancies in this augmented force exist they are apportioned between the free quota and the extra force in the manner indicated in the 14th section of 29 & 30 Vict.

  1669
  c. 103, which is represented by the following sum in proportion—namely, as the total establishment (:) average extra force (::) total vacancies in total establishment (:) vacancies in extra force. The vacancies so found to apply to the extra force are deducted before any charge is made to the county. With regard to the particular case of the County Donegal, its free quota consists of 300 men and its extra force of 20, to which number it has been reduced since 31st March, 1891, when the extra force stood at 30. It is not practicable to reduce the charge for the extra force by the number by which the free quota of a county is short. The recurring waste must be provided for by keeping recruits in training at the depôt, and it is evident that to keep the free quota of a county always at its full strength would necessitate an increase in the total 10,006 men to the extent of the number of recruits to be kept in training at the depôt, for which there would be no statutable authority.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: How many are there now in Donegal, and how many are at the depôt in respect of Donegal?
  MR. JACKSON: There the difficulty arises, because I would point out to the hon. Member that the allocation of a free quota to a county is not really the allocation of so many men. It would be more correctly stated as so many parts of the whole force. Although 300 men are nominally assigned to the County of Donegal?—
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: By Statute?
  MR. JACKSON: No, not by Statute. There is a fresh disposition and distribution every three years.
  MR. HAYDEN: Is the extra force included in the 10,006 men?
  MR. JACKSON: No.

  THE PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) ACT, 1891.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury under what provision of "The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891," the Treasury have made Rule 17 (1) of the Treasury Rules under the Act; whether he is aware that the effect of that Rule is to order the payment to the vendors of land of sums to
  1670
  which they would not have been entitled either under the Act of 1891 or under the previous Land Purchase Acts; and whether, inasmuch as there is no practicable way of testing in a Court of Law whether this Rule is ultra vires, he will consider the advisability of altering the Rule?
  SIR J. GORST: The Rule is made under Section 27 of the Land Act, 1891, for the purpose of carrying into effect the adjustments prescribed by Section 6 (4) and Section 15 (10). It has not the effect stated in the second paragraph, and the Lords of the Treasury see no reason for altering the Rule.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many of the fair rent appeals lodged on or before 1st June, 1891, and remaining undisposed of on the passing of "The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891," have since been disposed of, and how many remain to be disposed of?
  MR. JACKSON: Will the hon. Gentleman postpone his question?

  THE DISCOVERY OF CHURCH PLATE AT DOLGELLY.
  MR. KENYON (, &c.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what has happened to the pieces of church plate which were discovered two years ago near Dolgelly; whether the Trustees of the British Museum have expressed their willingness to take charge of them; and why their offer has not been accepted?
  SIR J. GORST: The Solicitor to the Treasury has never been able to ascertain the whereabouts of the articles in question, which appear to have been now spirited away, if not stolen. In the circumstances, the Treasury is not prepared to incur any expense in proving the Crown's title.
  MR. KENYON: Who was responsible for seeing that they were not spirited away?
  SIR J. GORST: If the hon. Member would like to see the correspondence I shall be happy to show it to him.

  ROYAL ENGINEERS AND THE ORDNANCE SURVEY.
  MR. F. H. EVANS: I beg to ask the President of the Board

  1671
  of Agriculture whether the officers, non-commissioned officers, and sappers of the Royal Engineers, employed on the Ordnance Survey, received in addition to their military pay their survey working pay during their attendance at drill and field operations on Southampton Common last season; and, if so, whether the same privilege will be afforded to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Volunteer Corps employed on the Ordnance Survey attending camps under the mobilisation scheme?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,): The officers, non-commissioned officers, and sappers of the Royal Engineers received, in addition to their military pay, their survey working pay during their attendance at drill and at the short practical course of engineering which was carried out on Southampton Common last season, in conformity with the requirements of the War Office. I am very glad to know that some of the civil assistants employed on the survey enrol themselves as Volunteers, but the ordinary conditions of Volunteer service must apply in such cases, and I am afraid that the men cannot be allowed pay in respect of their attendance at camps under the mobilisation scheme.

  CHATHAM PRISON OFFICIALS AND THE EASTER REVIEW.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the warders and other officers of the Chatham Prison have been called upon to move with their families and furniture into what are termed the old quarters, and that officers of Volunteers are to be quartered with the families of the said warders and officers during the Easter Review; whether some arrangement can be made to obviate this inconvenience; and whether, in view of the fact that the warders and officers of the prison, who are shortly to be removed to other establishments, have in some cases a considerable excess of furniture over one ton weight, such excess will be moved at the public expense, instead of limiting the "free" weight to one ton?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The Easter Review Volunteers will occupy certain vacant quarters in Chatham Prison, but they will not be quartered on the families of prison officials. The last part of the question should be addressed to the Home Department.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the Home Secretary answer the latter part of the question?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have not seen the question until this moment, and am not in a position to give the hon. Member an answer.

  SCALE OF CHARGES FOR TELEGRAMS.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will explain on what grounds a number of four figures, whether as portion of an address or otherwise, counts, and is charged for, as one word in a telegram, whereas an address given as 1A is charged for as two words; and whether he will consider the possibility of assimilating the charges in such cases?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The combination of a figure and a letter involves additional signalling and consequent cost. Formerly, every figure was charged for as a word, but along with the introduction of the sixpenny-rate five figures were allowed to be telegraphed at the charge for one word.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: As so many anomalies have been swept away, will the right hon. Gentleman not let this one follow?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: There must be some limit to the reductions, so as to keep the charge for telegraphing within the limits of the cost. I have made inquiries, and I find that the introduction of a figure requires that a certain signal shall be made before and after the figure, which requires to be charged for.

  HORSE ARTILLERY AND HEAVY GUNS.
  GENERAL FRASER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, in view of the Report of Sir Evelyn Wood on the Cavalry Manœuvres in 1890 that

  1673
  "He concurs with the opinion expressed by nearly all Artillery Officers that the Horse Artillery 12-pounder gun is too heavy and too long, striking on banks when crossing ditches,"
  and in view of the Reports on the Cavalry Manœuvres in India and at Home in 1891, made by the Inspectors General of Cavalry in India and in the United Kingdom to the same effect, the latter stating that "it was painful to see the fine teams struggling to drag them along," whether he will be so good as to say if he proposes to substitute guns more suitable for the service of Horse Artillery?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: A light 12-pounder breech-loading gun for Horse Artillery accompanying Cavalry has been designed and is about to be tried.

  THE SHAMROCK IN THE ARMY.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the name and grade of the officer who it has been alleged ordered Private Thomas O'Grady to remove a shamrock from his cap on St. Patrick's Day, and whether this officer has been since reprimanded; and whether he is aware that it has frequently been customary for officers of high rank to wear large bunches of shamrock in their uniform on certain occasions, especially in trooping the colours on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin?
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that on the 17th instant an officer of the 2nd Welsh Regiment sentenced Private Thomas O'Grady to 48 hours' punishment for refusing to take a shamrock from his undress cap when ordered to do so, although O'Grady was not on duty at the time; and can he state under what regulation this officer acted?
  MR. CONDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that an officer of the 2nd Welsh Regiment, stationed at Aldershot, sentenced Private Thomas O'Grady to 48 hours' punishment for refusing to remove a shamrock from his cap, O'Grady not being on regimental or any other military duty at the time; and whe-
  1674
  ther this conduct of the officer was authorised by any of the Queen's Regulations?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: In reply to the various questions on this subject, I do not think I can do better than read to the House the Report furnished by the officer commanding the battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in which Private O'Grady is serving—
  "From the Officer Commanding 2nd Welsh Regiment to the Brigade Major, 2nd Brigade. Aldershot, 21st March, 1892. 10.15 p.m. Sir,—With reference to your Minute of this date, on Minute of Adjutant General, Aldershot, forwarding a copy of a telegram from Adjutant General, Horse Guards, calling for a Report on the subject of the accompanying paragraph extracted from the Daily News of Saturday last, I have the honour to report as follows:—On the morning of the 17th instant, a musketry fatigue party (markers) of 36 non-commissioned officers and men, of which number 2,980 Private Thomas Grady formed one, paraded at 6.55 on the barrack square, under Captain Tindal, for the purpose of proceeding to the Rifle Range at Ash. Captain Tindal states that while inspecting his party he observed a man with a bunch of green stuck in his glengarry cap, and not being aware that it was St. Patrick's Day, and that it was shamrock, gave an order to the senior non-commissioned officer to direct Private Grady to remove it. On being ordered to do so, Private Grady replied in a most insubordinate manner, "I won't do it," and on a second order from another non-commissioned officer in rear, again replied, "I won't do it." Captain Tindal thereupon ordered him to be made a prisoner for refusing to comply with the order. On being brought before me on this charge, I awarded him 48 hours' imprisonment, his lieutenant explaining to him that the punishment was not on account of wearing shamrock, but on account of his insubordinate refusal to comply with the order given. I attach a copy of Private Grady's Defaulter Sheet. I regret that I was out of barracks at the time your Minute arrived, and the Second in Command was not sufficiently acquainted with the details of the case to report fully upon it.—I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant (Signed) Barnet N. Anley, Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding 2nd Battalion Welsh Regiment."
  I think the House will agree that the punishment of this soldier was amply justified under the circumstances. I may add, in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for North Galway, that officers of high rank may, on certain occasions, have worn shamrock on their uniforms, but His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief is not cognisant of the fact.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman how

  1675
  many men belonging to this regiment are Irishmen, and whether the right hon. Gentleman proposes to recruit this regiment in Ireland?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I cannot say, but it is a Welsh regiment.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: It consists mostly of Irishmen.
  MR. SEXTON: Are we to understand, apart from this particular case, that Irish soldiers are to be at liberty in the future to wear shamrock?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: A soldier may wear whatever badge he chooses when off duty.
  COLONEL NOLAN: But may he wear the shamrock when on duty?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Consider how ridiculous it would be if soldiers of every nationality in the British Army chose to wear separate emblems.
  MR. SEXTON: Are not Irish soldiers in Welsh regiments compelled to wear the leek on St. David's Day?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: They may wear any badge that is sanctioned by the Orders.
  MR. CONDON: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, considering the peculiar circumstances of the case in reference to Private O'Grady, that his punishment will not stand in the way of his future promotion.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I can give no assurance on that point. O'Grady was sent to prison for gross disobedience to orders.
  MR. P. OBRIEN: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will communicate with the School Board regarding the wearing of the shamrock, and prohibit school children from doing so.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that at the morning parade on St. Patrick's Day a number of the men of the Carlow Militia who were the shamrock in their caps were ordered by the sergeant major to "throw away those tufts of grass," and that several who replaced the shamrocks in their tunics were ordered to the guard room; and will he state by what authority the sergeant major acted in this way?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The officer commanding the troops at Carlow reports that on St. Patrick's Day he ordered some men who appeared on parade with shamrock in their caps to remove it while on parade. The only men ordered to the guard room that day were three, two for being drunk on parade, and one for being drunk in the town.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is any truth in the statement that the sergeant major ordered these men to "throw away these tufts of grass?"
  MR. E. STANHOPE: There is nothing of that kind in the report I have received.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there is any Army Regulation against the wearing of the shamrock; and, if not, whether he will bring in a Bill to make the wearing of the shamrock illegal in the Army?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am afraid I cannot say anything on that subject.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: Does the Regulation against the wearing of the shamrock apply to the emblems of other nationalities, such as the rose and the thistle?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The Regulation against the wearing of the shamrock applies to everything of that kind.

  GOLD MINING ROYALTIES.
  MR. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the peculiar circumstances under which the Acts 1 Will. and Mary, c. 30, s. 1, and 5 Will. and Mary, c. 6, were passed, in the years 1688 and 1693, respectively, and the causes that led to the legislation embodied in those Acts and their amending Acts, he will consider the propriety of suspending the proceedings for the recovery of costs, in the case of the "Attorney General v. Morgan," until after the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties and Way-leaves have presented their final Report?
  MR. BYRON REED: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that 60 men have been discharged from the Morgan Gold Mine lately, in cones-

  1677
  quence of the Directors of the Company being unable to treat the low grade ores of that mine at a profit; and whether in view of the fact that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has given notice that he will to-day bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to the management of the Woods and Forests and Land Revenues of the Crown, he will postpone the sale of the property of the honourable Member for Merthyr until the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties have reported and he has decided what course should be adopted to finally settle such questions in the future?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I desire to make it clear to the House that there are two entirely distinct questions involved. One is the question of the amount of royalties to be charged on Gold Mines in Wales and the system under which they are charged; the other, the question of the payment of the costs given against Mr. Pritchard Morgan in the litigation between him and the Crown—litigation directed not against a particular system of royalties, but against the claim of the Crown to any property whatever in the output of gold. With regard to the first of these two questions, the hon. Member for East Bradford asks me a question of fact about the Morgan Mine. I have no information as to the number of men who have been discharged from the Morgan Mine, nor whether they have been discharged in consequence of the company being unable to treat the low grade ores of that mine at a profit. But I am informed that the ores which have been recently worked there are of a low grade, so low that if the sliding scale which has been offered had been accepted, the royalty charged would only have been 1–100th of the product. The questioners on this subject have ignored the fact that this very low royalty has been offered. However, if it is contended that the scale offered still impedes the working of the mines, I am anxious to find a modus vivendi between the Woods and Forests Department and the Mining Companies till the Royal Commission has reported, and I think I see my way to such a method. The royalties recovered are of small amount, and I trust that an arrangement can be
  1678
  made with regard to them. But what I am on no account prepared to do is to accept the principle of profit-sharing till I learn the views of the Royal Commission on this system. But this question of the amount of royalties to be charged and the system under which they are charged has absolutely no connection with the legal proceedings in which costs were given against the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil; and the Report of the Royal Commission, whatever it may be, cannot affect the question at issue in that case, in which the title of the public to any share in the output of gold was attacked. In the conclusion of his judgment, Mr. Justice North, after referring to the extremely liberal terms (as he considered) offered by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests for Mr. Pritchard Morgan to accept, continued as follows:—
  "This he has deliberately refused to do (that is to accept these terms), and has claimed and still claims the entire produce. In other words, the whole contest has arisen from the persistent endeavour of the defendant to prevent the application of part of the Public Revenue of the country to its legitimate purposes, and to divert it into the pockets of himself and his fellow-shareholders, and he says it is against public policy that this attempt should be resisted. The Attorney General has in this action been wholly right from the beginning, and would be entitled now, if he desired it, to an injunction as asked against the defendant. He has not thought it worth while to do so, as the defendant has, since the action was commenced, sold the Gwynfynydd Mine to a company, who have received a Crown licence to work, and are duly paying the royalty thereunder; but the defendant has persevered in his unfounded assertion of right, and has required that the action should be brought to trial in order to decide who should pay the costs of it; and, as I hold that he has been wrong throughout, I must adjudge that he do pay the plaintiff's costs of the action. It was said that the Crown ought not to have costs against the subject, but I do not see why not, nor why the Revenues of the country should bear the expense of the successful resistance to an attempt by the defendant to misappropriate them."
  Against this decision the hon. Member appealed unsuccessfully, and Lord Justice Lindley said in his judgment—
  "I regard this case as one in which the owner of a gold mine is seeking to strain the Act for the purpose of depriving the Crown of its well-known rights."
  In the face of such judgments as these I do not feel that it would be right for

  1679
  the Government to withdraw their claim for costs, which would be tantamount to handing the hon. Member a cheque out of the Public Purse for a debt incurred in a suit so characterised by two Courts. But I observe that hon. Members do not ask me to forego the claim, but to postpone it. The hon. Member has himself repeatedly stated his wish for an execution, and has also repeatedly said that he made no appeal for the remission of costs. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil courts the martyrdom of an execution in his house; but I sympathise with hon. Members who desire to postpone his enjoyment of this coveted distinction. I should be willing to postpone the sale of the hon. Member's goods—announced for Saturday—if it were possible, not till the Report of the Royal Commission is published—for that Report cannot affect the case—but for such a reasonable time as may enable the friends of the hon. Member to consider whether different counsels may not prevail. But I am advised that if the Crown were to withdraw the writ now it would forfeit its claim to the costs altogether, and that the sale cannot be put off without the concurrence of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. If he would agree that if the Crown withdraws now it might enter again later on under the same writ, I am advised that the only risk incurred would be that of the goods being disposed of in the meantime—a consideration which I am prepared to leave out of account in the case of the hon. Member. But the matter is urgent. If any friend of the hon. Member who desires the postponement will communicate at once with my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury with such assurances from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil as are indispensable, I shall be most glad to instruct the Woods and Forests to postpone the sale.
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the judgment of Mr. Justice North. I would ask him if he has seen these observations:—"If the Crown has a a legal right and claim, I must give effect to it whatever the results are. Any remedy for the grievance alleged
  1680
  to arise wheresoever must be sought elsewhere."
  MR. GOSCHEN: Certainly. The words which the hon. Gentleman quotes show that Mr. Justice North considered the action ought not to have been brought, and that it was an action which he was obliged to condemn in strong language.
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: I would also ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has read the judgment of Mr. Justice Fry?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I have seen the judgments of both learned Judges.
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is a fact that the law is in this condition. It is not known in any part of the world that gold is obtained unless associated with tin and other metals, and I want to know if, as the law stands in this country, a stone containing part of tin and part of gold belongs to both metals?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is now arguing the whole question.
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether an application was made to the Woods and Forests Office by a person other than the freeholder for licence to work for gold on the Dolmelynllyn Estate, near Dolgelly, Merionethshire; whether a communication was made to the owner by the Woods and Forests Office, asking whether he, the freeholder, would accept a licence to work for gold; and, if not, that a licence would be granted to the applicants; whether, after certain correspondence, the owner of such land having declined to accept a licence upon the usual conditions of working, a licence was granted to him in which such working conditions were omitted, the result being that the lands of the Dolmelynllyn Estate, and the gold, the property of the Crown, are locked up for a period of 30 years, at a nominal fixed royalty to the Crown of £1 per annum only; and whether similar licences have been, or are likely to be, granted to other landowners in Wales or in Ireland?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Application was made by a person, other than the freeholder, for a licence to work for gold on portion of the Dolmelynllyn Estate, near Dolgelly, and the freeholder, who had previously been in communication with the Office of Woods on the subject of a lease, was thereupon written to, and he ultimately took a lease of the mines Royal within his ancient freehold, and the owner's urgent request that he should not be compelled to work for gold in it was acceded to. If he did work this mine he would work it on the ordinary scale of royalties. In this case the greater part of the land was in the nature of residential property. Similar leases or licences have been granted to some other landowners.

  ITALIAN CUSTOMS AND PARCELS POST.
  MR. COX: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that the Italian Customs Authorities charge duty on articles sent through the parcels post, addressed to passengers on board English Royal Mail ships calling at Naples and Brindisi, but who do not land at these ports; and whether he will make representations to the Italian Government on the subject.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Attention has not been specially called to the practice above referred to, but it is in the natural course of things that the Italian Custom Authorities should charge duty onsarticles sent by parcel post addressed to passengers on board English ships calling at Italian ports. Whether the persons to whom such parcels are addressed land or not is beside the question. Their intention could not always be known. Probably such parcels are called for at the post office, and brought on board by a ship's officer or the local agent of the Steamship Company. A dutiable parcel arriving in this country addressed to a passenger on board a ship calling at an English port would be treated in a similar way.
  MR. COX: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman in reference to the Postal Union, as they open parcels having the stamp, whether they also open letters?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: They open parcels and make them pay duty according to the rate of the Customs.
  MR. COX: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman this further question, as this is a matter seriously affecting large numbers of officers on board ships trading in the Mediterranean and Adriatic whether he will make further inquiry. It is a standing grievance with them, and I want to know whether these articles will be liable to duty at the Italian ports if they are sent to Port Said?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Before entering into particulars like that I should require to separate that question from the other, and must ask for notice.
  MR. COX: If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me I will place the information at my disposal in his hands.

  BORROWING POWERS OF COUNTY COUNCILS.
  MR. HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if the maximum amount which a County Council can borrow, under Clause 11 (2) of the Small Agricultural Holdings Bill, depends on the amount of the existing charges on the county rate; and, if so, whether he will, before the Committee stage of the Bill, lay upon the Table of the House a statement showing the maximum amount of loan capital which might be raised at the present time by the Council of each county in Great Britain under the provisions of the Bill, assuming such capital was borrowed for 50 years at 3⅛ per cent.; and if he will state the maximum amount which might be raised for every £1,000 of rateable value in the case of a county free from other debts?
  MR. CHAPLIN: It is not intended that the maximum amount which a County Council is to be allowed to borrow for the purposes of the Small Agricultural Holdings Bill should depend on the amount of the existing charges on the county rate. The limit is to be a penny rate in the pound, irrespective of any existing liabilities, and the clause can be easily amended to make this clear, if it is not so, by transposing the words "for the purposes of

  1683
  this Act." The maximum amount which may be raised for every £1,000 of rateable value is £104 14s. 2d., assuming that the term for which the loan is raised is 50 years at 3⅛ per cent.

  THE POOR LAW.
  MR. HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board how soon the figures of the population, in 1891, of each Poor Law parish in England and Wales are likely to be presented to Parliament by the Census Department.
  MR. RITCHIE: I have made inquiry of the Registrar General, and I learn from him that he hopes that the volume containing the particulars as to the census which are referred to in the question will be published in the early part of next year.

  ENFIELD SMALL ARMS FACTORY.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what moneys were expended on the erection of new buildings at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, during the years 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, and 1891?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The money spent on the Small Arms Factory was:—In 1886–87, £25,711; in 1887–88, £15,308; in 1888–89, £4,017; in 1889–90, £1,689; in 1890–91, £1,655; in 1891–92 to 31st December, £1,300.
  MR. WOODALL: Do those figures include the machinery alterations.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am afraid I cannot answer that question.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if the discharges of workmen cannot be carried out in the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, without discharging men with six, seven and eight years' service?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: As far as possible reductions in the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, are made from those men who have the shortest term of continuous service; but some consideration must necessarily be also given to the quality of a man's service.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an
  1684
  undertaking that no more men will be discharged until the House of Commons has considered the matter?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: No, Sir; I cannot hand over to the House of Commons the control of the War Office.
  CAPTAIN BOWLES: I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether men who have served seven years will have any provision made for them under the Superannuation Act?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Nothing can deprive them of the rights they have under that Act.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what was the number of the men employed in the machine gun department of the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, during the years 1888 and 1889; and what is the number of men employed in the same department at the present time?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The highest number of men employed in the machine gun department in the year 1888–89 was 120, in 1889–90 139, in 1890–91 95, in 1891–92 102, and the actual number now employed is 102.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that the extra employment will be given in the machine gun department, or in what department is it to be given?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I hope and believe I shall be able to give some extra work in the machine gun department, but I have certainly not been encouraged by the way I have been pressed on the subject in the House.

  CLARE ISLAND.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that evictions are about to be carried out upon Clare Island among the people lately prosecuted under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, and who were last year preserved from starvation by public relief; and, if so, whether the forces of the Crown will be employed in carrying out those evictions?
  MR. JACKSON: The authorities are not aware of any evictions being about to be carried out on Clare Island, with the exception of one case, as to which the Sheriff has applied for police protection. The man referred to was not employed on relief works last year, nor was he one of those recently prosecuted.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether seizures are pending, because reliable information has reached me on that point.
  MR. JACKSON: No, Sir, I have no information on that point.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: I beg to give notice that on some future occasion I will press the matter on the attention of the House.

  ARMY CHAPLAINS.
  SIR J. KENNAWAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State of War whether the Rev. R. F. M'Leod has, in consequence of having inadvertently written a letter to the Broad Arrow reflecting on the Chaplain General's treatment of old Army chaplains, been forced to resign his commission, and forfeit the privileges of eleven years' service; whether the Governor of Malta, in forwarding his resignation, strongly recommended that it should not be accepted, on the grounds of Mr. M'Leod's zeal and efficiency in the discharge of his duties; whether Mr. M'Leod has been refused an appeal for a Court Martial or Court of Inquiry to investigate his statement and offence; whether he is entitled to this as a matter of right; and, whether, under the circumstances, if not reinstated, a pension will be granted to Mr. M'Leod for his past services?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The Rev. Mr. M'Leod, Army chaplain, published a letter to the prejudice of discipline, making charges which he signally failed to substantiate. He was called upon to resign his commission; and in view of the offence committed, I cannot allow the withdrawal of his resignation. Having resigned, Mr. M'Leod is not entitled to a Court Martial, and his service is too short to entitle him to retired pay.

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVERETT.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury in what item of what Vote in the Civil Service Estimates is provision made, or to be made, for compensation to Lieutenant Colonel Everett, Consul in Armenia, in lieu of the wounds pension awarded to him irregularly by the War Office?
  SIR J. GORST: It is proposed to present an additional Estimate for a lump sum to be accounted for under Sub-head M of the Vote for Diplomatic and Consular Services.

  TELEGRAPH OFFICE AT FERRYBANK.
  MR. J. E. REDMOND: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has received several petitions from the inhabitants of Ferrybank praying for the establishment of a telegraph office; and whether, considering the large population of the district and the distance from the nearest telegraph office in Waterford, he will comply with the prayer of the petitioners?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Such an application was made in 1885; but the circumstances did not then justify a compliance with the request. A petition on the same subject was received on 18th January last, and as the reports show that the circumstances now justify it, I shall have pleasure in establishing a telegraph office at Ferrybank.

  CENTRAL TELEGRAPH OFFICE.
  MR. DALZIEL (, &c.): I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he can inform the House how many senior telegraphists, first class and second class, at the Central Telegraph Office were absent on sick leave during the twelve months ending 31st October, 1891, distinguishing in each class the number absent one day only, the number absent two days but not more than six days, and the number absent seven days or more?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I could not to-day give such detailed information as the hon. Member sets out; but if he will be kind enough to repeat his question to-morrow I will endeavour to give him the information he desires.

  THE CITY "DESTRUCTOR."
  MR. MORTON: On behalf of my hon. Friend Mr. Pickersgill (Bethnal Green, S.W.) I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that it is the intention of the Strand District Board of Works to erect a "destructor" on the Surrey side of the river near Waterloo Bridge, in close proximity to that known as the "City destructor," of the nuisance arising from which frequent complaints have been made; and whether he will take any steps to prevent this further dissemination of "sickly smelling steam and smoke"?
  MR. RITCHIE: The Local Government Board have no information as to the intention of the Strand District Board of Works to erect a "destructor" on the Surrey side of the river near Waterloo Bridge. The matter is not one in which the Board have any jurisdiction. I may, at the same time, remind the hon. Member that a clause was introduced in the Public Health (London) Act of last Session, to provide a remedy in cases where premises are used by a Sanitary Authority for the treatment or disposal of house refuse in such a way as to be a nuisance, or dangerous, or injurious to health. In any such case, proceedings for insuring the abatement of the nuisance may be instituted by the County Council or any Sanitary Authority or person affected.

  THE CHIEF CONSTABLE OF IPSWICH.
  An HON. MEMBER: On behalf of Mr. Forrest Fulton (West Ham, N.) I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the recent action of the Chief Constable of the borough of Ipswich in giving notice to Messrs. Bridges and Sons, auctioneers in the sale of certain public house property situate in Tacket Street, Ipswich, known as "the Grapes," that the renewal of the licence for the said property would in due course be objected to, and requesting them to read his letter at the auction before inviting biddings; if he is aware that the Chief Constable also intimated to the auctioneers that, should they refuse to read his letter, he would cause a question to be asked in
  1688
  the auction room in order to direct attention to it; and, if the Chief Constable, in so interfering in the matter, was acting within the scope of his legitimate authority?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Chief Constable that the facts are as stated in the first paragraph of the question. The Chief Constable also informs me that prior to the auction a conversation took place between himself and the solicitors and auctioneers as to a question being asked in the auction room relative to the letter he had written, but that he did not attend the sale, nor did any one on his behalf interfere in the matter, the solicitors and auctioneers being left free to act according to their own judgment with respect to the letter. I am further informed by the Chief Constable that the last tenant of the house had become bankrupt, that the house had been closed for many months prior to the auction, and that, as there was a strong feeling that the number of licensed houses in the quarter of the town where this house was situated was in excess of the requirements of the inhabitants, the licensing Justices were anxious that any purchaser of the house should have fair notice that the licence would be objected to. Under these circumstances I see no reason for questioning the action of the Chief Constable.

  ARMY RESERVE MEN AND THE POST OFFICE.
  MR. H. S. CROSS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the appointment of Army Reserve Men to positions in the Post Office Service will prevent or delay the promotion of telegraph messengers and others who entered the service of the Post Office before the date of the Order for the employment of Reserve men; and whether special provision will be made against injury to their prospects of promotion?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The appointment of Army Reserve men to the Post Office Service will not prevent or delay the promotion of telegraph messengers or others who entered the Service of the Post Office before the date of the Order for the employment of Reserve

  1689
  men, and who were led in any way to expect promotion. The instructions issued on the subject make sufficient provision against injury to their prospects.

  THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY.
  MR. H. S. CROSS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government, before authorising increases of tariff on the part of the Royal Niger Company, Chartered and Limited, have communicated with merchants or Chambers of Commerce interested in the trade of the district; and, if not, by what means has it been ascertained that these increases ought to be approved?
  THE UNDER SECRETAEY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,): The only increase of tariff authorised has been an increase in the duty on palm oil from one penny to twopence per old wine gallon. By the Charter, the company is entitled to levy revenue solely for the purpose of defraying the expenses of Government, including the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the performance of Treaty obligations. The tariff is, therefore, regulated according to administrative expenditure. In 1890 it was ascertained, by an exhaustive local investigation, conducted by a Special Commissioner, that the expenditure was in excess of the revenue. The accounts will be again examined during the current year.

  PETROLEUM IN BULK IN THE SUEZ CANAL.
  CAPTAIN GRICE - HUTCHINSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any correspondence has taken place with any person or persons relating to the passage of petroleum in bulk ships through the Suez Canal; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table of the House?
  MR. J. W. LOWTHER: Correspondence has taken place with various Shipping Associations, Chambers of Commerce, and others, and it seems hardly necessary to re-publish a correspondence, parts of which have from time to time appeared in the Press, and all of which has already been
  1690
  brought to the notice of the parties interested, and the subject of which has been published in the Board of Trade Journal of February.

  THE CAVAN MILITIA.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Cavan Militia are for this year to be trained elsewhere than in Cavan; whether he is aware of the strong feeling in the county and among the men against any such course; and whether he will re-consider any decision which may have been arrived at?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: This battalion has not trained away from its headquarters since 1884, and, for military reasons, it is essential that this year it should be associated with other troops at Antrim.

  ARMY AND NAVY EXPENDITURE.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, before his Budget Statement, a Return similar to that of last year, showing the estimated expenditure for the year 1892–3 on the Army and Navy, and the provision made for it; also a Return similar to No. 412 of last year, showing the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure for the year 1891–2, and the provision made for it?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Both Returns would anticipate in an unusual manner the Financial Statement of the year. There, is, I think, no precedent for stating how the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to provide for the expenditure of the coming year, nor for giving the amount of the expenditure of the expiring year before the Budget; but both Returns shall be prepared and ready for issue simultaneously, if possible, with my statement.

  THE EXPENSES OF PRIVATE BILLS.
  MR. J. C. BOLTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state the sum of the expenses incurred in promoting and opposing Private Bills relating to Ireland and Scotland in each year from the year 1883 to 1885, both inclusive, stating separately the

  1691
  items which would be affected by the transfer of the Committee stage of such Bills to a tribunal sitting in the localities, as proposed in the measure he is now asking leave to introduce?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think that, roughly speaking, the only items of expense which will not be affected by the transfer of the Committee stage of Scotch and Irish Bills to a tribunal in the localities, as proposed now before the House, will be the fees payable to the House, and the fees payable in compliance with the Standing Orders.

  THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Government intend to move the appointment of the Committee to inquire into the present system of reporting the Debates of the House?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No pledge, I think, was given on behalf of the Government that they would appoint a Committee to inquire into this matter; but I admit that such information as has reached me on the subject leads me to believe that considerable dissatisfaction exists in the House with the way in which the Debates are reported. It is, perhaps, rather premature to have an inquiry into a system which has been in operation such a very short time; but if it should be the general wish of the House to have such an inquiry after Easter, I shall be very glad to appoint a Committee then.
  MR. DALZIEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say in which way he wishes to obtain the general opinion of the House?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (, &c.): If I have rightly heard the right hon. Gentleman, I understand him to say there was no pledge given on the subject.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I thought that was so.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there was no understanding on this subject. I think there was a distinct understanding that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the existing contract, and any change that may be necessary.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, my memory may have failed me on that point; but, at all events, I entirely agree with the spirit of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, and I am perfectly ready to appoint a Committee immediately after Easter.
  MR. DALZIEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the desirability of appointing a Committee in time to permit of their Report being presented during the existence of the present Parliament?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes.
  MR. J. MACLEAN (Cldham): Will it not do to refer this matter to the Standing Committee on the publication of Parliamentary Papers, and add a few Members to it for the purpose of this special inquiry?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is not usual to add to a Committee of this kind on Parliamentary Papers; but I will consider my hon. Friend's suggestion, and if that is found to be the most convenient course it will be adopted.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Will it be necessary to have a Committee of the House of Lords as well?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the House of Lords has its own Committee; but I will consider the matter.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when it is proposed to go into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I can hardly answer Question 71 without making a speech. By arrangements admitted by all parts of the House, it is understood that we finish the Second Reading of the Small Holdings Bill to-night. To-morrow, at the Morning Sitting, I propose to take and finish the First Reading of the Private Bill Procedure Bill, and then to take Supply as the second Order, as far as is practicable. On Monday I shall hope to take the Second Reading of the India Councils Bill and the Clergy Discipline Bill. I cannot at present commit myself to say in what order I shall put them down; but I shall be prepared to answer that question to-morrow. On Tuesday morning I propose to take the Civil

  1693
  Service Estimates, and there can then be the discussion on the Motion that you, Sir, do now leave the Chair. It has been usual, I think, to take this on Monday or Thursday; but I think this course will be convenient to everybody concerned, and if it were found impossible—as I hope it will not be—to get the Speaker out of the Chair on Tuesday afternoon, we could finish the discussion on Friday next week. The House will see that I am limited by the Resolution of the House to take only Financial Business on Tuesday. On Thursday I shall propose to take the Second Reading of the Scotch Equivalent Grant Bill. On Monday week I shall ask the House to enable me to make such arrangements as will secure the finishing of the Committee on the Small Holdings Bill before Easter, and I think there should be no difficulty in that, and in taking the Second Reading of the Irish Education Bill, which is in charge of my right hon. Friend behind me.
  MR. SEXTON: On what day after Monday week?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will give notice of a day, as it partly depends on the length of time taken in Committee on the Small Holdings Bill.

  DISASTER AT FORT JOHNSTON.
  MR. MCDONALD CAMERON (, &c.): I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a question of which I have given him private notice, with regard to a paragraph which has been going the round of the papers in the last day or two. A Reuter's telegram, dated Mozambique, 12th March, says—
  "Another disaster has taken place at Fort Johnston in which Mr. King and Dr. Watson were wounded. Two Sikhs and two Zanzibaris were killed and six wounded. A number of Angonis were killed and wounded. The natives captured the seven-pounder gun belonging to the expedition."
  I believe, Sir, the Under Secretary answered a similar question a few evenings ago, and therefore I do not require a reply to the question generally. The point I want answered is with regard to Mr. King and Dr. Watson. Will the hon. Gentleman be able to give the House some information which will allay anxiety as to these two gentlemen regarding their condition?
  1694
  They are reported to be wounded; is the report true; and, if so, what is the present condition of the wounded?
  MR. J. W. LOWTHER: I only received notice from the hon. Member on entering the House, and therefore I am afraid I cannot reply very fully to the question he has put to me. I have no reason to deny the accuracy of the telegram which the hon. Member has read; but, at the same time, as I think I informed the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan) last week, such telegrams as we have received from Mr. Johnston do not confirm the telegram which the hon. Member has read. The last telegram we received from him seemed to speak rather of his friendly attitude towards the Chiefs, and did not mention that disaster at all. If the hon. Member wishes for more definite information, perhaps he will put a question on the Paper.

  RESTRICTIONS ON THE REMOVAL OF SHEEP IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture a question of which I have given him private notice. Whether his attention has been drawn to the difficulty experienced, under the restrictive Orders affecting certain counties in Scotland, in removing sheep that have been wintered away back to their own ground; and whether, as the matter at this time of the year does not admit of delay, he can state if it is intended to issue any General Order on the subject; and, if so, whether such Order can be made public before the end of the present week?
  MR. CHAPLIN: My attention has been called to the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member, and I am quite aware that the difficulties in question are becoming urgent. Accordingly an Order is in course of preparation, and is being pressed on as speedily as possible, which I hope will be effective in meeting both these and other difficulties which have arisen in consequence of the restrictions which I have found it necessary to impose. I hope to be able to issue it in the course of next week; but, in the meantime, if there should be cases of urgent necessity

  1695
  they can be met by licence of the Board of Agriculture upon application being made to me.

  THE DERRY CATTLE TRADE.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Local Authority in Derry has for years past rigidly maintained a cordon (which includes part of the county of Donegal) for the protection of the cattle trade of the Port of Derry; that for the past ten years this district has enjoyed entire immunity from foot-and-mouth disease; that the cattle trade of the County of Donegal almost entirely consists in the export of store cattle; and that the recent action of the Board of Agriculture and of the Scotch Local Authorities in prohibiting the removal inland of store cattle landed in Greenock and Glasgow from Ireland has almost entirely stopped the export cattle trade of Donegal; and whether he will consider if the district included in the Derry cordon might be declared a district free from disease, and the cattle landed from Derry at Glasgow or Greenock be permitted to be railed inland on complying with the necessary regulations to prevent infection on the journey?
  MR. CHAPLIN: I am aware of the precautions which were taken by the Local Authority of Derry; but I felt it necessary to prohibit the removal inland of animals landed in Greenock and Glasgow, not because I have any reason to believe that foot-and-mouth disease exists in Derry, or, indeed, in any part of Ireland, but because a serious outbreak has occurred in Glasgow, and if movement inland from Glasgow and that neighbourhood had been allowed the risk of spreading the disease would, of course, have been extremely great. I am perfectly alive, however, to the importance of the Irish export cattle trade both to Ireland and to Scotland also; and I hope very shortly, and in the absence of any further outbreak at Glasgow, to be able to make arrangements for permitting the cattle which are landed at Greenock and Glasgow to proceed to their destination inland under certain restrictions.

  THE CASE OF MR. JAMES MAHONEY.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Home Secretary whether it is the fact that on Saturday last James Mahoney was charged before Sir Peter Edlin, at the Newington Sessions, with intimidation in connection with the bookbinders' strike; whether the jury disagreed and were discharged after being in the box for four hours; did Sir Peter Edlin say he was willing to accept bail for Mahoney; is it the fact that as Mahoney's sureties were absent (through the disagreement of the jury not having been anticipated) the prisoner was remanded to Holloway Gaol; did Mr. W. M. Thompson apply on Monday to Sir Peter Edlin at Clerkenwell to allow the bail to be justified there; and did Sir Peter refuse to discuss the matter, and was a similar application made later in the day by Mr. Bond; and is it the fact that on this occasion Sir Peter Edlin walked out of the Court while the applicant was speaking; is it the fact that on Wednesday the sureties applied personally to Sir Peter, who then again postponed the matter, and that Mahoney is still in gaol; is not such detention, in face of the fact that bail is forthcoming, and was as a fact accepted in the first instance by the Judge, a gross violation of the Common Law and of Magna Charta, and will he use his influence to procure that the man shall be at once released?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by Sir Peter Edlin that the jury disagreed and were discharged after three hours in Mahoney's case. Sir Peter Edlin offered to admit the defendant to bail, but no bail was forthcoming on that day, and the defendant was sent to Holloway. On Monday Mr. Thompson made application to have bail allowed. Sir Peter Edlin was engaged in trying another case and declined to interrupt it in order to hear him then. Mr. Thompson did not apply again, and Sir Peter Edlin knew nothing of any application by Mr. Bond. On Tuesday Sir Peter Edlin informed a person, who said he was one of the bail, that notice should be given to the prosecutor and the Clerk of the Peace at Newington. He has always been willing to admit Mahoney to bail if the proper steps

  1697
  were taken according to the Statutes which regulate the subject.

  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Thomas Joseph Healy, esquire, for Wexford County (North Wexford Division).
  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act for amending the Royal Bank of Scotland Officers Widows Fund Acts, 1870 and 1878." [Royal Bank of Scotland Officers Widows Fund Bill [Lords.]
MOTION.

  CROWN LANDS BILL.
  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir JOHN GORST,): In answer to the invitation of the hon. and learned Member for South Glamorgan (Mr. A. J. Williams), asking me in introducing this Bill to state its contents, perhaps it may be sufficient for the hon. Member at present if I tell him what is not in the Bill. It has nothing whatever to do with the burning question of gold mining in Wales. It is a Bill simply founded on the Report of 1890, when a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the administration of the Department of Woods and Forests and Land Revenues of the Crown, and on the Report of that Committee the Bill is based. There is nothing whatever in the Bill which in any way affects the powers or functions of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in regard to gold mining. I ask leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to the management of the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to the management of the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown."—(Sir J. Gorst.)
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: I hear from the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill does not deal with this question, which is of such importance to Wales, and may be of importance to Ireland and Scotland,
  1698
  and possibly to England. I beg to tell the right hon. Gentleman this—that so long as the Department of Woods and Forests has not legislative powers that Department will be in very great difficulty in dealing with this matter. It has reached a peculiar phase, which I endeavoured to show in the question I addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the present moment the Crown is legally entitled to these precious metals, and what they are doing is, practically, to make the landowners—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is not the subject of the Bill as I understand.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Gorst and Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 237.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SMALL AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.—(No. 183.)
  SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [21st March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  MR. CHANNING: The President of the Board of Agriculture and Her Majesty's Ministers may congratulate themselves that we have not fallen into the natural temptation of raking up old scores and winning an easy rhetorical victory over the inconsistency of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am strengthened in that wish by the fact that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill showed an almost entire conversion to the views held on this side, and contained a note of sympathy, almost of enthusiasm, for the policy of re-creating the life of rural England. I wish to confine myself strictly and severely to practical suggestions on this one of the most important proposals that have come

  1699
  before the House. We complain that the Bill is not up to sample; it is not so good as the admirable and sympathetic speech of the right hon. Gentleman. It appears to have some of the features we have recognised in other measures of late years, and seems, on the very face of it, the offspring of that unholy union between the renegade Radicalism of Birmingham and the New Toryism which looks to the votes of the agriculturists in the country districts much more than to the principles and precepts of the Old Toryism of the past. Like other offspring of this unblessed union, this proposal is stamped with sterility. I recently moved for a Return of the proceedings under the Allotments Act, and the amount of land acquired under it, and hon. Members on both sides know that that Return will show incontestibly its absolute failure as a piece of machinery for bringing land within the reach of the agricultural labourer. The two main reasons of that failure are that though compulsion was in the Bill it was so fettered and kept in the background that it had no useful and practical effect. In the passing of the Act the Radicalism of Birmingham stultified some of its early principles by not giving us effective support in carrying the principle of compulsion. As there is no compulsion at all in the present Bill, there is great danger of its being more ineffective and useless than the Allotments Act. If compulsion was necessary in dealing with small plots of land it is ten times more necessary where you are dealing with larger areas. The right hon. Gentleman said he would not introduce compulsion into the Bill because it might frighten the landlords, but in the Allotments Act the justification urged for compulsion was that it would be, as it were, a rod, rarely used, but kept in the background, to compel the landlords to re-consider their position with regard to allotments, and to do justice to the people. My view is that land has been brought within reach of the people in allotments mainly because they have votes, and also because landlords have land on their hands which they desire to put to practical use. This Bill professes to
  1700
  be a great experiment—and as an experiment, within certain limits, I heartily welcome it—and upon it I wish to make useful suggestions, and not merely destructive criticisms. In such an experiment as this it is the first duty of a practical Minister to provide the raw material on which the experiment is to be tried. I have no desire to start revolutionary theories with respect to land, but the Act which dealt with the enclosure of commons in 1876 gave a precedent by providing that a certain proportion should be retained for allotments and recreation grounds. Why has not the Government introduced some such provision in this Bill for dealing with the Crown lands, the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster, and glebe lands? There we have great national resources, and it is the duty of the Minister, in such an experiment as this, to create channels through which the land can be brought within reach of the people. I do not see why the Bill should not ear-mark these lands for the purpose of small holdings, with, of course, equitable consideration for the rights of the existing tenants, and of the interests of the nation and the Crown in the lands. I do not see why such a plan should not be adopted in some modified or more limited form. Take the facts in the recent Glebe Lands Return, which are of a most startling nature. Mr. Arthur Arnold, in his evidence before the Small Holdings Committee, drew attention to the position of these lands near to the villages and their consequent usefulness and suitability for the purpose of small holdings. The Return shows that out of 206 cases glebes, which are practically national land—for if it is a National Church the land is national land—have been diverted from the uses to which they ought to be devoted, and in 95 cases out of the 206 the purchasers were the owners of land immediately adjoining the glebe, and the powerful man, who had been adding field to field and house to house, was enabled to swallow up these glebe lands, which might have been given to the labourer and small holder. Of the whole number of purchasers registered only two—a cottager and a waggoner—appear to belong to the artizan or

  1701
  labouring classes. There were sold 1,587 acres for over £90,000, and in five cases out of six the glebes were bought by a single purchaser. That shows that this national store of land is being handed over in the interest of the Church and the landowning classes owing to the imperfect machinery of the Act, and is not used as it might have been for carrying out a great experiment like this. I have had some experience of the administration of the Duchy lands, and the spirit in which they are administered is simply deplorable. The Duchy practically refuses to consider the question of allotments unless the proposed tenants are already living on part of the Duchy land, although they might be living in the adjoining town. That shows how far we are from a just administration of these great national resources from the view of a supply of land for the use of the people. The hon. Member for Stamford (Mr. Cust) repeated a suggestion, made recently by Lord Thring, that in the case of the Succession Duty and the redemption of the Land Tax, payment should be taken in kind, and that the Government should encourage the handing over of land to the Local Authorities in order to carry out the policy of small holdings. But there is another point to which I must refer. I would recall the attention of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), who was Chairman of the Small Holdings Committee, to the deplorable, and almost sinister, action of that Committee in regard to the question of settlement. Everybody knows that the best land will not be available for small holdings until the system of settlement is broken up, and you enable the life owner to deal with the land. It was proposed in that Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston that the Committee should make a statement to the effect that the abolition of the Law of Settlement was the very corner-stone of the question of bringing land within the reach of the people, and recommend the abolition of that law as the first essential to carrying out this policy. What was the result? The two Members for Birmingham by their own efforts defeated the proposal that the Law of Settlement should be amended
  1702
  in the manner suggested by my hon. Friend. Now I contend that, as no steps have been taken to make available these great resources, or to open channels to bring land more freely into the market, it is for that very reason the duty of Her Majesty's Ministers to introduce the principle of compulsion. How is land to be got? There are, of course, landlords who have provided small holdings, but we also know that has been where large farms held by farmers who have become bankrupt have come into the landlord's hands. I know of one generous and wise landlord who has found himself with 1,000 acres on his hands, and has promoted small holdings from philanthropy as well as self-interest. But the landlords are not willing to sell the land for the purpose for which we require it. The position we are in is that under this Bill there is no absolute power to obtain land, and the only land in the market would be little fagged-out estates, neglected and mismanaged, fragments of land sold off bigger estates, the owners of which are practically bankrupt, inaccessible farms out of the way of the markets, or heavy clay land. In some cases this land, as the right hon. Gentleman said, may be obtained at comparatively low prices, but what would be the position of a County Council which attempted to buy under these terms? The result of this Bill is to create an artificial market for land otherwise unsaleable, and at the value placed upon it by the owners. You will find that the County Councils will buy the land at considerably over its agricultural value, and those who take the land will have to pay a price which has been estimated in one quarter at no less than 50 or 60 per cent. above the rent which a man would pay for similar land as a hiring tenant. That is not a sensible and practical proposal, and we shall not get at the land unless in this Bill we have the principle of compulsion, and have it applied so that we can get land at its fair price. Now with respect to the local administrative machinery. I have pointed out that the land which the County Councils would acquire would be small farms or small estates of, say, 300 acres at the outside. This

  1703
  land would be situated in one part of the county, and the whole of the experiment would be carried on for the exclusive benefit of the inhabitants of that particular parish or group of parishes. But the county rate runs over the whole county, and the result would be discontent and friction in those parts of the county which were not benefited by the experiment. In this respect the Bill requires to be remodelled with a view of rendering it more equitable to the ratepayers, and more workable in itself. I think the Allotments Act has much better machinery in this respect, and it would be well if the principle of the 9th clause, which delegates power from the County Council to local managers in the case of land let in small amounts of one to ten acres, were extended. There should be some local machinery to see that the right land is acquired and that the right men get it, and until you get something in the form of Parish Councils—which we on this side of the House have found are very popular in the country—you will get no nearer a solution of the question. The hon. Member for Stamford (Mr. Cust) referred the other day to the question of registration of title, and I think it is essential that there should be introduced into this Bill something of the same kind of principle that we found in the Irish Land Purchase Act for the registry of title. I would also call attention to a valuable suggestion made by Lord Thring that the rural post offices should be used to develop this policy of small holdings. I think it would be most useful for maps and all information to be kept at all the rural post offices, and printed forms for inquiry on application, so that the agricultural labourer without trouble may have all the facts he requires placed at his disposal. I think this Bill, though it is in a very imperfect form, may be made useful to the country. If you will adopt local machinery of the kind I have suggested, put in the corner stone of compulsion, and also of fair prices, if you have Local Bodies who can initiate schemes for the County Councils to consider, and if you introduce the principle of compulsory leasing and re-letting of land, I venture
  1704
  to think that the Bill will be of immense benefit. I have made a rough calculation of what may be done under the provisions of this Bill. If the County Councils are empowered to spend £10,000,000 as a maximum sum, and they acquire land at the rate of £50 an acre—a very high price, but I mean that to include every expense—it will provide something like 200,000 acres of land. That would provide about 20 or 30 acres for every rural parish in England, and if we introduced the principle of the compulsory hiring of land you would find that the sum available would provide a much larger area. The small holders would be much more ready to rent than they will now be to buy, and the plots of land would be scattered instead of being gathered in one large and inconvenient plot. As a director of the Small Farms and Labourers Land Company presided over by Lord Wantage, I have paid close attention to this matter, and the experiments which we have made may not be uninteresting to the House. We have acquired about 750 acres of land, and the population working on that land and drawing its livelihood from the land has multiplied four times. The holders have been able to provide their own buildings, and to provide them in a very satisfactory way. One tenant bought 17 acres of arable land and two acres of pasture land at comparatively low price. This man has built a house with two bed rooms, two sitting rooms a kitchen and an outside dairy for £85; he built a cowshed, a barn and other appurtenances for £22, and fenced his land for £5. This shows what it is possible for people to do when they are in a position to do the work for themselves. When he bought the plot he paid £73 down and is now paying instalments of £17 10s. a year, and he and others on the estates have been very successful. There have been few or no evictions, and few tenants have left. We find that there has been a very large demand for plots of this land, as tenancies, and few of the tenants were willing to buy in spite of the fact that they could get the land at comparatively low prices. In this way the land is naturally distributing itself into

  1705
  plots of two, three and four acres, and at the top of the list you find small farms of 19, 25, and 30 acres. In this view I may say that I look upon the 2nd sub-section of the 9th clause which enables the County Council when the tenants are not in a position to buy the land to let the land in lots of from one to ten acres as a practical proposal, and whatever happens to the Bill I hope the Government will stick to that proposal and make it work. If the right hon. Gentleman is willing to reconstruct this Bill so as to have something like Parish Councils, if the principle of compulsion is introduced even in some qualified form to enable County Councils to buy desirable plots in desirable places rather than the larger estates which are now in the market, and if compulsory leasing is introduced, it seems to me that by this Bill you will achieve a practical result. But there is one clause of this Bill which is as unwise as, I think, the section to which I previously referred is wise. Section 10 has the very ambitious intention of introducing the Ashbourne Act into England, and I do not think any clause proposing such an enormous change, but without the slightest machinery for carrying it out, has ever been proposed in this House. This Bill may be worked into shape on the lines that I have suggested. What we really want is a big Allotments Bill to enable agricultural labourers to get possession of a plot of land, and go on from acre to acre until they have got 15 or 20 acres. We wish to give the small tenants an opportunity of rising higher and higher, and we rejoice over the conversion of the Government to the principle of giving facilities for access to the land. But while I am disposed to give every credit to the Government I must say that the political aspect of this Bill is a little too transparent. In its present form it will do nothing but advance the prices of very nearly worthless estates, and it is obviously intended to obtain the votes of the agricultural labourers of this country. But I believe the labourers will not give their adherence to the Conservative Party in consequence of this bribe any more than they did in consequence of previous bribes. They
  1706
  know perfectly well that the Liberal Party is pledged not to do these things with one hand tied behind our backs, but to take our coats off and produce a measure which will give the people an opportunity of acquiring the land, and also give them a proper local authority to deal with it. The electorate of this country is prepared to return a Liberal majority, because they know that the Party will be pledged to deal with this question quite as much as with Home Rule. But Home Rule or no Home Rule, the men who send us to the House of Commons intend to see that the next Parliament shall not be dissolved until this question is dealt with. We shall not consent to any curtailing of the life of a new Parliament until this great question has been carried through. But while I have somewhat sharply criticised this Bill, I recognise it as an effort, within very narrow limits, to recognise a principle to which I give my heartiest support, a principle which will work for the benefit of the agricultural community.
  MR. F. SMITH: I rise with great diffidence to address the House on a subject of such great importance as that we are now discussing, and I trust I may be allowed to ask the House to extend to me that indulgence which is always given to those in my position. I can quite understand that the evil with which this Bill is intended to deal is felt more keenly in the agricultural districts than in the towns. But my excuse for rising is that I consider this Bill to be of very great importance also to the interests of the great towns of this country. I cannot profess that the constituency which I represent is to any great degree concerned in this Bill, but if the progress of the evil which this Bill seeks to correct still goes on, I think we shall find that the congestion of the labour market will year by year press inward from the outskirts of our great towns. This Bill endeavours to provide a remedy for that, but we were told during the progress of this Debate that this was not the right time for such a Bill to be introduced, as Parliament is moribund. We heard that objection not very long ago, but I

  1707
  contend, Mr. Speaker, that it is the duty of every Legislative Assembly to initiate new legislative proposals up to the hour of its death. I can understand that there is a certain amount of disappointment on the other side of the House—and this was clearly evinced in the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr. Channing)—that this Bill was introduced not by a Radical but by a Unionist Government. But I ask what would hon. Members on that side of the House have said if the Government had passed over the promises they had made? I think we should have heard something about broken promises and unredeemed pledges. Although there have been and may be differences of opinion as to this Bill, I think it will be admitted that it is one which generally deals with the difficulties at which it is aimed. What are the causes of the success of small holdings in France? No doubt it is partly due to the influences of climate and the description of the soil, or the lie of the land. The soil in France is in many places suited for the cultivation of grapes, fruit, and vegetables, which pay well for the labour bestowed upon them. Why should the result of small holdings in England not follow to some extent the experience of those in France? One of the great causes of the division of the land amongst the people in France is that the transfer and registration of land is easy. In England land has become concentrated, and in this I agree with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. Many capitalists have bought up small holdings, not only because times have been bad, but because capitalists can afford to pay for the investigation of titles. They can also afford to spend more on the soil, and they can wait longer for a return. I should like to see the system of voluntary registration extended so that the investigation of titles would not press too heavily upon small holders. I would not make it compulsory, but I believe the system would tend towards the success of the measure. We have heard a good deal about the sacred word "compulsion." I think nearly every Member who got up on the other
  1708
  side of the House was in favour of compulsion. But I have only heard one Member mention a case where he thought such compulsion would be absolutely needed. It has been said landlords will not sell, and that if they do sell, the prices they ask will be prohibitory without compulsion. I have not heard any arguments which lead me to that conclusion. I believe it would be most dangerous to introduce the system of compulsion. It would breed ill-feeling between County Councils and landlords. It might, in some cases, undoubtedly depreciate the value of land if County Councils could insist upon taking the best field out of an estate. Above all, I believe it would breed a feeling of insecurity which could not be good for any property or for any interest. Without compulsion I am sure we shall find plenty of land in the market, and that landlords will negotiate fairly. They would see that they could only get a fair price, as the County Councils would be condemned by the ratepayers if they gave a landlord more than a fair price. I believe landlords would rejoice at the creation of small holdings, as by such a system agriculture would be greatly improved and the position of the landlord would become much more favourable. It has been said the County Council is not the proper authority to put the Act in motion. There is no other authority except the Sanitary Authorities, and I suppose hon. Gentlemen opposite would not be anxious to see the Act carried out by them. I do not think the County Council area is too large a one, as the necessities of the case are met by the character of the Committee proposed to be created, on which both the locality and the county would be fully represented. Suppose there were Parish Councils and the power was given to them, in many cases the parish would be too small an area for raising sufficient rating. In that case the parish would have to get money out of the county rate, and some one would have to be appointed from the County Council or the Parish Council to see that the rate was properly expended, so that you would really arrive at the same result. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division was anxious that the Government should be persuaded to

  1709
  put into their measure a clause which would enable County Councils to lease land, especially outside big towns. That might be a most successful proposal. Land outside big towns is very often specially valuable for the production of vegetables, flowers and other commodities used in almost every house in big towns. No doubt this might entail a little more risk, but as the County Councils have such large powers they may be entrusted to carry this out. I wish to thank the House for the patient way they have listened to what I had to say. I have ventured to put some observations before them, but I cannot hope for the immediate creation of small holdings. They will come very likely in the next generation. Want of capital will be a great difficulty in the way. Poor men cannot expect to do much good unless they can expend £8 an acre. I hope these small holdings may be a stepping-stone to a larger-class of holdings. I hope this measure will encourage and bring out the thrift which I am afraid, as a nation, we are rather wanting in, and I trust that it will re-create that class of yeomen who in years gone by have been the backbone and strength of the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian has told us that small holdings would be a powerful instrument in the re-generation of the country districts. I believe it will preserve and increase the greatness of this country, and I feel sure that in years to come, when hon. Members will have had an opportunity of seeing the successful working of this Bill, they will look back with thankfulness and pride to the day when they assisted in passing it into law.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: No one could be more certain than the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down of a favourable reception, because he is the bearer of a name which at once commends him to universal respect and sympathy. I am very glad that being the bearer of that name he has now given us reason to suppose by his own qualities also he will merit the confidence and approval of the House. For my own part, I do not intend to enter at large into the arguments upon those portions of the
  1710
  present Bill which form the subject-matter of the principal part of the speeches delivered on this side of the House. What I do wish in the first place to impress upon the House is that we have before us a very great work, and, at the same time, a work in which we cannot expect to make very rapid progress. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in that part of his speech wherein he signified that in his opinion a long time would elapse before we could reach such a point as to be able to consider the condition of the country upon the whole, in regard to this matter, as thoroughly satisfactory. If that be so, if the work is great and the progress likely to be slow, undoubtedly, in my view, it is most desirable that we should not allow the opportunity now before us to pass without giving every extension in our power to the plan which has come under the consideration of the House. I am far from objecting to the conduct of Her Majesty's Government in the introduction of this Bill. I do not think that there is anything in the position of this Parliament short of its being its remaining term, which ought to have prevented them submitting their views to the House. I greatly rejoice to think that this Bill is an honest effort in the right direction. Having said that, I am bound to say that I think it is far within, far short of, that which the necessity of the case demands. No one, I think, can contemplate the position of this country with regard to the relations between the cultivators of the soil and the soil itself without considerable pain. And when it is said that compulsion cannot be necessary to introduce into a Bill of this kind, I am sorry to say that the slowness of the progress we have thus far made, when there has been nothing to prevent the full operation of voluntary contract in regard to small holdings, impresses me with a different feeling and with the sense of a strong necessity. The contrast between the face of this country and the face of other countries is painful in this respect. We have a popular Government; we have enfranchised the rural labourers; the rural labourer is attached to the soil; but, Sir, he ought to be much more at-

  1711
  tached to the soil than he is, and he would be much more attached to the soil were it not that his relation to it is in so vast a majority of instances only that which is constituted by hired labour on that soil. We ought to make great efforts, Sir, in this direction. We have come generally, or very generally, to the conclusion that there is something painful in the condition of the rural labourer in this great respect, that it is hard even for the industrious and sober man, under ordinary conditions, to secure a provision for his own old age. Very large propositions, involving, some of them, very novel and very wide principles, have been submitted to the public, for the purpose of securing such a provision by means independent of the labourer himself. Sir, I am not going to criticise these proposals, and I am only referring to them as signs that there is much to be done—that their condition is far from satisfactory; and it is eminently, as I think, our duty to develop in the first instance, every means that we may possibly devise whereby, if possible, the labourer may be able to make this provision for himself, or to approximate towards making such provision far more efficaciously and much more closely than he can now do. Well Sir, we ought, I think, to enlarge this plan as far as possible; I do not mean by excessive demands upon the time of the House, or the patience of the Government. I do not wish to interpose any obstacle in the way of passing this Bill, even if we should fail to introduce the Amendments which we desire; but I think it is our duty to state these Amendments clearly and plainly, because I think it is the fixed belief of those who sit on this side of the House that without such Amendments, the plan, however well intended, must fall very far short of giving effect to the benevolent intentions of its authors. I agree then with my hon. Friends who have spoken in this Debate, that it is necessary to introduce the principle of compulsion into this Bill. I think that, without the principle of compulsion, we are in a considerable danger as to the standard of fair price; while it is plain on the other hand, that compulsion will expose the landlord to no danger of having to receive a price unfairly low,
  1712
  inasmuch as the settlement of that price must be referred to an independent tribunal, where compulsion is brought into action, and the disposition of such a tribunal will always be, where there is a doubt, to give that doubt rather in favour of the person whose land is to be taken. Sir, there is another consideration of great importance which appears to me to show the necessity of compulsion—and that is, the situation of the land. It is of vital consequence when the holdings are small; it is of vital consequence to those who are to possess them, or to work them, that they should be in immediate contiguity to their own residences. I say where the holdings are small, and I mean by those words, where the holdings are very small; and I do not indeed, know why it is required in the Bill that the transactions of the County Councils must exceed one acre of land. That is a detail; but I doubt very much whether that provision, as it stands, is altogether a wise one, for it is my belief that the great majority of your transactions under this Bill will be transactions in very small holdings, and with regard to these very small holdings you deprive them of half their value if you do not place them in immediate contiguity to the dwellings. And there it is, Sir, that I confess I think it may be and must be requisite to introduce into the case, after all we have seen, the action of positive and coercive authority in order to secure this great advantage for those who are to be holders or owners of the land under a Bill like this. Well, then, I cannot doubt that we must have a smaller area of action. Take a county like Yorkshire: the County Council has to ascertain that there is a sufficient demand for small holdings to justify their putting the Act into operation. But, Sir, in a county like Yorkshire, and not only in a county like Yorkshire, but in a multitude of counties, and probably in almost every county, this demand will be at first but partial. It will be limited to certain districts of the county. How is the County Council to judge whether it is required, whether there is a demand of this kind over the whole of the county? Nay, I

  1713
  do not believe in every case that the County Council will be the best judge of the question whether in a particular small district such a demand exists or not. In a small district it may escape the notice of the County Council that such a demand exists. Small areas, therefore, I am persuaded, will be necessary. And then I am met with the objection that some parishes would be too small. I admit that you must constitute a unit of a reasonable amount, but there is ample room between the scope of a county and the limited area of some of the small parishes of this country to find ground for a reasonable conclusion. But there is also, Sir, this consideration which leads me to believe that we must have a smaller area. Supposing we take the case of an ordinary county with a partial and local demand, a demand which we hope will spread afterwards and become universal, but with respect to which we can have no means of realising anything like universality at present—supposing it should happen that the County Council find in a limited portion of a county that there is a real and active demand, while the rest of the county is not yet awakened to the necessity of arrangements such as these—if that is the case, and if the county rate is to be made liable for purchases made in a particular and limited portion of the county, a very great jealousy will exist in the remote parts of the county at the burdening of the entire rate on behalf of persons and on behalf of districts with which they have no sense of real neighbourhood. That jealousy, acting on the County Council, may prove to be a most formidable obstacle in the way of the operation of this Bill. Sir, it is so much an article of faith, it is so established a conviction on this side of the House, that we must not only have small areas, but smaller administrative bodies, that I need not dwell on that subject. It has been, I think, fully explained, and I am persuaded that smaller areas must be established—aye, very small bodies—bodies which I would describe as Parochial Councils, subject only to the admission I have made that a minimum area of a reasonable extent must be established, although that area may include several parishes.
  1714
  I believe that, subject to that limitation only, the establishment of Parochial Councils, thoroughly and exclusively acquainted with the needs of the neighbourhood, and the condition of the people, is essential to a good plan of small holdings such as this Bill contemplates. Then, Sir, it is said, and I think there is great force in the remark, that such bodies would not be competent to deal with the finance of the measure. I agree with that proposition. It is rather for the transaction of the material business in the limited district that I think they are well adapted. With respect to finance then, while a plan of this kind would have the advantage of laying the responsibility upon the rates only in those neighbourhoods where the people could appreciate the necessity for the transaction; on the other hand I quite agree that they would not be, except under the control of the County Council, they could hardly be bodies capable of dealing conclusively with those important financial questions. Well, Sir, I have mentioned those three points, of compulsion, of reduced areas, and of subordinate councils or parish councils, subject only to the consideration as I have said, of an area not unreasonably small. But that which weighs most upon my mind is a matter that has not been noticed uniformly by speakers even on this side of the House, but I was very glad to observe that it did find a place in the intelligent consideration that has been given to the subject by the hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr. Smith). I mean the question of leasing—the question of tenancy taken in the large sense, as contrasted with the question of purchase. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture, will, I am sure, forgive me, if I say that I attach but very small weight to the provision which he introduces upon this subject, not because it is limited to the extent of ten acres or to the value of £10, but because it is evident from the terms in which that provision is couched that it is only a subsidiary and temporary plan. It is only to provide for what I think will be the rare case where a County Council is convinced upon a consideration, not of the circumstances of the country, but of the particular and individual case, that a man is not yet

  1715
  in a condition to buy, but shortly will be: there and there only will he be at liberty to lease. Now, Sir, against that merely intermediate form of the use of the power of letting, I wish to set up a very much larger proposal and larger view of the enormous advantages which I think attach to that method of procedure. I want to know why the County Council should not be able to hold land upon feu from the landowner? It appears that there is considerable danger and difficulty in requiring the County Council to purchase, and then empowering them to let, because, if that is the case, the county rate will be obliged to become the purchaser of the fee-simple of the land. I am not aware of any reason why you should not authorise the County Council, whether you introduce compulsion or not, to take land upon feu, of course upon fair terms, from the owner who holds it. It would be no injustice to him, because he would receive full consideration in the form of an annual payment. It is no diminution of his security. His security would still be upon the rates. I cannot conceive that from either of these points of view the plan could be open to objection. I do not mean to say it would be an exclusive plan, but I wish to put it broadly in that way. I look not merely to the transaction between the County Council and the cultivator who is to obtain land under it, but I look to the position of the County Council itself, and then I observe that you have very great and, indeed, vast advantages, because you avoid altogether burdening the rates with the capital value of the land. I see a very limited application of this principle in a later clause of the Bill. I can conceive that it might be right to guard against possible deterioration in the value of the land at a future period by reserving some margin which should be made the subject of payment in full; but I give no opinion upon that subject, well convinced as I am that the operation of this Bill in 99 cases out of 100 and the operation of any good plan framed on this basis must be not to diminish, but to enormously increase the value of the land, which will be subjected to more thorough cultivation,
  1716
  and have more capital laid out upon it. Then, when the County Council has feued the land, I should leave to it a very large discretion in this matter. Let them proceed, aided by the Parish Council—let them exercise, to a great extent, their own judgment as to the kind of tenure under which the land is to be held. If there is an abundant supply of purchasers, by all means let them purchase. I think there can be no objection to these purchases. The financial part of the scheme, strictly so-called, as the right hon. Gentleman has framed it, seems to me to be soundly and considerately framed. I look upon it as by no means an impossible result that, from the want of purchasers, you will have the good intentions and the useful provisions of this Bill reduced to sterility. Be that as it may—and that may be too dark a view—I do not want to press it; besides those who are capable of purchase, there will be a great number of persons who may be not capable of purchasing, and yet competent to manage, and this will be a much larger class. Why would it be a larger class? Because, in proportion as the quantity of capital required is smaller, the class able to produce it is larger. It must never be forgotten that in this country, with the high value of land, if the small cultivator has saved a few pounds or a few score of pounds, and we ask him to invest that money in land by the mode of absolute purchase, we are asking him to invest four-fifths of his capital at 3 per cent. and only one-fifth of it would be left for the purpose of securing a trading profit. That is an immense difficulty in the way of purchase. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in regretting the gradual disappearance of yeomen from this country; but when you consider those rigid, silent, but, in the long run, unerring laws of political economy which operate upon the minds and govern the conduct of men, what is the case of the yeoman whose land and farm stock together are worth £5,000? It is this: his land is giving him 3 per cent. on £4,000, and only £1,000 is giving him a trade profit. Is it unnatural that that yeoman should compare his own position with that of a man who applies for a farm carrying

  1717
  £5,000 in his hand, and putting into it the whole of that amount to stock it, the landlord supplying the other four-fifths at 3 per cent., with perfect content to himself. That is a consideration which I believe cannot be disputed, and constitutes a motive of enormous force. I am not arguing against purchase. Avail yourselves of purchase to the fullest degree that you can bring it into action. I quite admit that the property of the soil may, so far as social and moral purposes are concerned, attain more fully than any other means the moral and social ends that we have in view. But I do not wish to limit the benefit to be conferred within the narrow bounds which I believe purchase will offer. I believe it is in our power to go greatly beyond them, and it is for that purpose the hon. Member who has just sat down and the hon. Member for Bordesley expressed a desire that the Government may be disposed—and I am persuaded they will find very little difficulty in so doing—to extend the provisions and the basis of this Bill for the purpose of letting in a principle of tenure other than that of purchase. It is an advantage, if we can, to avoid invoking the aid of the State. I do not think that the State is in any danger, and I do not think there is any great objection to it; but, at the same time, it is well to avoid it where we can. I think, too, as regards the rates, it would be an immense advantage to avoid burdening the rates with the large amount of the capital sum. It would simplify the whole of the transactions, although the County Council would, in the last resort, be the financial authority. They would have little to deal with in the main, except annual receipts and annual outgoings. I have in vain laboured to discover any point on which this process would be disadvantageous to the landlord. The main point is that the question of tenure must not be limited to transactions between the County Council, the Local Authority, and the cultivator. The cultivator derives the greatest advantage of all, for he becomes a trader, and a trader only, in that sense in which agriculture, and even small agriculture, is a trade; and I cannot help expressing the immense satisfac-
  1718
  tion with which I see signs in every portion of the country that the public mind is continually opening more and more to the great advantages that may be gained by small agriculture. It is in regard to the small agriculture of France, and not in regard to its large agriculture, that this country can so ill bear comparison; and I believe I state a truth, on the best and highest authorities, when I say that the growth of agricultural values in France, between the period immediately following the great war and the present time, has been far more rapid than during the same period in England. Now, if that is so, it is not owing to the great farms. The large farms in Normandy and other parts of France are very like those in this country. I have no reason to suppose that they are superior to the large farms in England, and, indeed, some considerations may lead one to believe that they may be inferior. It is the small holdings in France that have brought the agricultural wealth of that country to a point so marvellously and almost incredibly large. I have not made these remarks in a hostile spirit. I fully believe that we have a common object in view. I want, as far as possible, to get upon a common ground, and if we do so I am convinced we may do enormous good; but if it be premature to expect that we are all prepared to assume one and the same position, I am sure you will admit, as candid and impartial men, that it is our duty to state fairly, freely, and strongly, those points by which we think the largest and safest extension may be given to a plan of this kind, with a view to the removal of what is at present something like a national discredit, and to a very large increase in the prosperity of the country and the stability of British trade.
  THE FIEST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am quite sure that those who have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman will feel that he has not appealed to them in vain to recognise that he has not approached this question in any hostile spirit, and that he has no desire to raise unnecessary controversy upon the Second Reading of this

  1719
  Bill. It will be my business to traverse some of the contentions he has put before the House; but, before doing so, let me express my hearty agreement with the proposition with which he began—that we have listened with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to the speech which was delivered by my hon. Friend the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. W. F. D. Smith). I think this is the first time the hon. Member has taken part in our Debates, and I hope it will not be the last by very many. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down based his desire for some great alteration in our present system of land tenure, not merely upon the ground that the condition of the agricultural labourer leaves much to be desired, but upon the ground that his condition and the condition of agriculture in England are so far behind that which prevails on the Continent that it ought to be a matter of shame to us.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: No, no! I alluded to small agriculture.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to refer to agriculture at large. Small agriculture hardly gives us the basis for comparison. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to complain of the fact, not merely that the agricultural labourers condition was one which might be improved, but that it compared most unfavourably with the condition of the small holder and agricultural labourer abroad. This is a subject to which at one time I gave a considerable amount of study, and I must express my total dissent from the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived. I agree with him that the condition of the agricultural labourer requires much attention, but I do not agree with him that the system which prevails abroad has produced a condition of things, with regard to those engaged in the cultivation of the soil, which is superior in any great degree to that which prevails in England. I exclude, of course, the vine-growing districts in France, as the conditions are very different. But if we deal with agriculture proper it will be found that in Belgium and France the
  1720
  system of small holdings exist by the side of large holdings, and the small holder is not better but is often much worse off than the holder of the large farm. The interests of the agricultural population in Belgium and in France, and, I may add, all over the Continent, are preserved by protective laws, based and maintained for the sole purpose of improving their condition. No such protective laws exist in this country, and I do not suppose it is contemplated by any hon. Member that they should be passed, though I must say that if a very large number of holders are created by this or any other measure you will have protection. Even in Belgium and France, where this system has been applied to the greatest extent, I do not believe, broadly speaking, that the agricultural population is better off than our agricultural population. If you go to Germany, Roumania, or Russia, I believe there is no comparison whatever between the conditions of small holders and that of our agricultural labourers. Therefore, do not let us go into this Bill with any false idea that by the mere substitution of small holdings for big holdings you are going to substitute an agricultural paradise for the opposite of an agricultural paradise. What I believe you will do will be to greatly raise the tone of rural life in England, to give an opportunity to those who have some money to raise themselves in the social scale, and give an opportunity, which unfortunately does not now exist, for men to become small holders to the enormous social, political, and economic advantage of the country at large. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that the condition of the labourer—because he is a hired labourer—is one of great hardship, and he appears to assume that the great number of holdings created under this Bill would be an acre, over an acre, and he desires to see them a little under an acre; but the man who has now an acre, five acres, or ten acres must supplement his agricultural work by hired labour of some kind. He must be dependent in some way on the employment given him by others; and if that is an objection, and I do not think it is, it is not an objection which you will get

  1721
  over. Now, the question has been asked, "Why did you fix the limit of an acre?" We fix it because under the acre it is dealt with in the existing Allotment Acts, and we take up the limit where those Acts leave it, and deal with holdings between an acre and 50 acres. The next point I would deal with is that with reference to compulsion. The right hon. Gentleman has stated perfectly truly that if there were a fair system of compulsion adopted the landlord would not suffer pecuniarily because by hypothesis he would obtain a fair price for the land he would sell. I think that in this debate there has been too great a disposition to consider that the only question is that between the owner of the land and the small holder we all desire to create. We must not forget the position of the farmer. It is the farmer who will suffer more than anybody else if compulsion is ill-applied, or recklessly applied. I think that in the interest not only of the landlord, but of the tenant farmer, it is only fair to make a full trial of the provisions of this Bill, and see if we cannot acquire, as I believe we can, all the land we require without exercising compulsory powers at all. Then the right hon. Gentleman expressed, and not for the first time, his own preference for a system of Parish Councils in regard to the administrative area. He desires that the area of administration should be something like that of a parish. I presume, therefore, that the rate which is to be proposed is the parochial rate.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I did not say that.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has not made up his mind on the subject.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I did not say the parish was to decide as to the allotments. I stated that all the financial arrangements must be under the control, in my opinion, of the County Council. As to the rate, whether it should or should not be parochial, I gave no distinct opinion, because there are such things as intermediate arrangements already in operation in this country—which are neither parochial rates on the one side, nor county rates on the other. There are
  1722
  cases of grants in aid, which can be much better dealt with by local discretion.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I feel some difficulty in arguing with the right hon. Gentleman against the scheme whose outline is of so shadowy a description. I do not, of course, in the least wish to press the right hon. Gentleman unduly on the point. But when his scheme comes to be embodied, as I suppose it will be in an Amendment to the Bill, he will find considerable difficulty in regard to the rating area or the administrative area. If the rating area is small, his scheme will not work. If the rating area is large, he can hardly leave the administration to an area smaller than that which has to bear the cost of working. Now, I pass to the next and last point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, and that is as to the kind of tenure he desires to see established under the Act. Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman, as those who heard his speech are aware, though he would prefer to see freehold established, nevertheless contemplates that the Act, if it is to be operative at all, must include in its scope very full provisions for leaseholders. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that that part of the Act is likely to be far more beneficial than the freehold portions. I confess I see very great difficulty in the view the right hon. Gentleman has put before us. In the first place, it is our desire and our ambition to do something by this Bill towards re-creating that system of small yeoman owners that once flourished, and that, we hope, will again flourish in this country. That is our main object; and if we allow our funds to be diverted to another object—namely, to the creating of a large number of small tenants—we evidently waste our forces upon that which we do not think is of the highest value. That is my first objection. Now, Sir, what is the particular form of tenancy that the right hon. Gentleman proposes? So far as I understand, he wishes to establish what in Scotland are called feus. Feus, I may tell the English Members of the House, are fixed rents which run for ever. I do not exactly call them head-rents, because these necessarily

  1723
  bear a very small relation to the value of the improved land on which head-rents are paid. The feu is a rent that runs for ever, and the recipient of which has no power to resume possession of the land. Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman contemplates that by a system of compulsion the landowners of this country shall be obliged to let their land on feu to the County Council. That would be a very great hardship. Compulsion, I understand, to compel a man to part with his property at a fair price is a proceeding with which we are all familiar, and which is undoubtedly justifiable if a great public necessity can be demonstrated. None of us have a word to say against that form of compulsion. But to compel a man to let his land seems to me an entirely new operation, never sanctioned, so far as I know, by this House, and in itself obviously unjust. At the present time, if an owner desires to sell he can obtain a fair price for his land in the open market. He has the power of obtaining a capital sum. That power you deprive him of if you compel him to let the land. He becomes possessed of a sort of head-rent for ever, probably adequately secured by the rates of the county, but you prevent him for all time from selling the plot of land which you feu, and you deprive him of the power of selling his land for a capital sum equivalent to the value.
  DR. CLARK: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether feus are not sold in Scotland now?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It may be possible for the landlords under certain circumstances to sell; but I think to compel a landlord to accept that kind of security, which may or may not be saleable at some future time in exchange for land which is always saleable for a capital sum, would be a great hardship. However, I pass from the effect on the landlord of this proposition to its effect on the County Council. Here, again, I must traverse the contention of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think the finances of the County Council would be greatly relieved if, instead of paying down a capital sum, you enabled them to pay a feu rent for ever. I think that operation would be
  1724
  more burdensome and more expensive. The County Council would borrow the money from the Public Works Loan Commissioners at 3⅛ per cent., which would be a charge upon their funds for ever. If you compel them to feu they would probably require to pay more than that sum. They would be compelled to borrow in a dear, as against a cheap, market, and they would be compelled to pay to the landlord 3⅓ per cent. for ever instead of 3⅛ to the Public Works Loan Commissioners. I cannot conceive that any County Council could think that was a good financial arrangement. It is not so good as that which we propose in this Bill. So far, therefore, as the landlords are concerned, and so far as the County Councils are concerned, the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman is not one that we can accept. Now, Sir, I turn from the landlords and the County Council to the tenants to be created under and to the general objects of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman desires to see not an increase of freeholders so much as an increase of small tenants. There is nothing that I know of in the existing land system of England which makes it difficult to create small tenants, and you gain nothing that I can see by substituting the County Council for the ordinary landlord. On the contrary; it appears to me that if you are to have small tenants as against small freeholders, you had much better leave them to the landlords they would have by the natural operation of economic laws than make them subject to representative bodies which must act by hard and fast rules. Representative bodies are trustees for the ratepayers, and they cannot make those elastic arrangements with their tenants that every landlord in England, so far as I know, is ready to make with his tenants. They cannot make allowances for bad times, nor give these small concessions which do so much to ease the difficulties which the tenant may have from time to time to encounter. Therefore, these tenants of the County Council will hold their land under much less convenient terms than if they were tenants under an ordinary landlord. The proposition of the right hon. Gentleman is neither the proposition of the hon. Member for the Strand

  1725
  nor that of the hon. Member for Bordesley. My hon. Friend behind me suggested that in the neighbourhood of large towns where lands might increase in value you might substitute temporary tenancy for freehold, so that the community should obtain the benefit of any increase. I do not say whether that is a good or a bad suggestion, though I admit much may be said in its favour. The hon. Member for Bordesley suggests that the community should have a perpetual interest in each holding, though small in comparison with the value of the holding. That also is a proposition for which much may be said. But the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman opposite differs from both. His proposal is not confined to cases in the neighbourhood of large towns, or to instances in which quit-rents bear a small proportion to the value of the land. The right hon. Gentleman desires that the County Council should let the land at a rack rent to these small holders. That is a proposal which I hope the House will never entertain. It would throw a burden on the County Councils—a burden which they are incapable of bearing—and would subject the small holders to difficulties under which they could not possibly pursue their industry. Now, Sir, I think I have noticed the main points of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and I will leave my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, when he comes to survey at a later period the whole course of a very interesting discussion, to deal with any other points that may arise. I will only say, in conclusion, that while I entertain the liveliest hope and expectation that this Bill will do much to raise the condition of the agricultural population of this island. I do not rest my hopes upon the grounds stated in a part of his speech by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Nor can I bring myself to believe that whatever good effects it will have it will have the effect of raising the standard of agriculture in this country. Agriculture in this country has not been raised by the small owners, and it is still from the large owners that the future development of agriculture must be expected. But there is no conceivable reason drawn
  1726
  from the nature of things, or from experience of what is going on in foreign countries, why there should not be a mixed system of small and large owners—a system which, I believe, would be by far the best for the country, by far the best for the agricultural population, and best of all for the large owners themselves.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I should wish, Sir, to say one word by way of personal explanation on a particular point. My statement was this: that I would give to the local financial authorities power of taking land upon tenures inferior to the fee as well as upon the fee. I would carry that even to the extent of enabling them to take land on feu. I did not intend to exclude them from taking it upon lease.
  MR. LOGAN: This Bill has for its avowed object, by providing small holdings for the labouring population, the prevention of the depopulation of our villages; therefore, I cordially welcome it with all its faults and shortcomings. I welcome it, coming from such a quarter, as an evidence that the Party so ably represented in this House by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture are coming to realise the fact that it would be unwise to longer maintain their monopoly of the soil of Great Britain, or to ignore the principle that the first charge upon any land must be the maintenance of the human beings reared and cradled upon its bosom. Some hon. Members on this side of the House who represent agricultural constituencies may be pardoned any distrust they may have of the object of the Bill when they remember the utterance of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, on small holdings, at Exeter. Some of us have there an excuse for fearing that the aim of the Government is not so much to assist the agricultural labourer as to strengthen one political Party. But if I thought the measure was calculated to improve the condition of the agricultural labourer I would not stop to consider motives. The agricultural labourer is to be congratulated, however, on the recognition now accorded to his deplorable condition by the public generally, but more especially

  1727
  by those who a few years ago thought him unfit to exercise the franchise. In considering the principle of a Bill of this character it is desirable we should take into account the ills from which the agricultural labourer is suffering, the cause of those ills, and the probability of the Bill effecting a cure, or, at least, affording some relief. The agricultural labourer is suffering from want of occupation at a remunerative wage, and the immediate cause of that is the inability of the farmer to pay a fair wage under present rents of agricultural land. I think hon. Members on the other side of this House will scarcely dispute the first of those two propositions after the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture on introducing the Bill, and I feel morally certain that the right hon. Gentleman will sooner or later tell us that he is convinced of the truth of the second proposition. I shall be told in this House, as I am often told out of doors, that the wages of agricultural labourers are higher than they were a few years ago. That is true; and it is equally true that rents are somewhat lower, and there, I think, we have cause and effect illustrated. But the question that we have to consider, in viewing the condition of the agricultural labourer, is not whether his wage is higher now than at some former period, but whether it is now high enough to enable an intelligent, steady, and industrious able-bodied man to maintain himself and family in decency and comfort, and to make some little provision for old age. That such is not the case at present must be known by everyone acquainted with rural life. In our villages we find men who, after working honestly and well for 50 or 60 years, and who during that time have done their utmost to save, are compelled to husband out life's tape by a pauper's pittance. In the Division I have the honour to represent the number of such cases is very great. If the House will bear with me I should like to mention one by way of illustration. Samuel Atkins, of Great Easton, was 75 last November. This man began work at the age of 7 and ceased at 72, having been in the employ of one farmer for 30 years.
  1728
  When he attained to man's estate he earned 7s. per week, then 10s., next 11s., and at last 12s., but never got higher than that. He is described to me as having always been a steady, industrious, careful man, who worked honestly and well for 65 years without a chance to save a penny; now he is rewarded by the parish with 2s. 6d. per week and a loaf, is called a pauper, and is, in consequence, deprived of some of the rights of citizenship. Out of his 2s. 6d. per week he pays 1s. for rent and 9d. for coal, leaving him 9d. and a loaf for a week's subsistence. Hon. Members may wonder how the old man manages to exist, and I will, Sir, with your permission, use his own words—
  "When I get the loaf home I cut it into seven pieces, so that I may not eat too much on any one day."
  That is the reward of 65 years of incessant toil. Can the House be surprised that with such an object-lesson before them every young man of that countryside with a spark of manhood in him decides to try his fortune elsewhere? Hence the exodus from our villages, and the necessity of considering how to prevent it. That is the problem we have to face, and however unpalatable the process may be, the reality will have to be laid bare. It is no use to blink the fact that the man who puts his strength into the cultivation of the soil is justly entitled to a fairer share of the produce of his labour, and will have it or go elsewhere. I am afraid that the heart of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill will not warm towards me when I say that a reduction of 5s. per acre on the 32 million cultivated acres of the United Kingdom would enable farmers to give 4s. per week additional wage to every agricultural labourer in the country. This Bill is ostensibly introduced for the purpose of obviating the depopulation of our rural villages, consequent upon the state of things to which I have referred. But is there the remotest probability of its having that effect? I think not, True, the Bill may set up a few men in business as small holders, but they will not be agricultural labourers, nor will it touch the great mass of the labourers. They cannot

  1729
  save a quarter of the purchase-money of a small holding—men whose only outlook is "a blessed prospect to slave while there is strength, in age the workhouse, a parish shell at last, and the little bell tolled hastily for a pauper funeral." But without compulsory power of purchase the Bill will be a dead letter. We are told that there is plenty of land for sale in the country. That may be; but it is in estates or whole farms, and no Local Authority will have the means of purchasing an estate or even a single farm for the benefit of one village without crippling its resources as to the remainder of the county. The Local Authority will have to deal with small quantities of land in many localities, and landowners will not sell such parcels of land except at exorbitant prices. Indeed, some of them seem to regard Public Bodies as fair game. We have recently had some experience in Leicestershire. The Corporation of Leicester needed some land belonging to an owner who has a seat in another place. He demanded £250 per acre for agricultural land and £5,000 for personal inconvenience. Fortunately, the Corporation had compulsory powers, and the noble Lord got a little less than half what he asked. But under the Bill the Local Authority must have paid him £250 per acre, which would have entailed a rent of £8 per acre, without allowing anything for law and official expenses or for "personal inconvenience." But even with compulsory powers, the impoverished agricultural labourer is not to be converted straight away into a thrifty small holder. Ownership of a small holding is the top rung of the labourer's ladder, and to keep his head when he gets to the top he must have ascended step by step. An allotment close to his cottage at a fair rent, with fixity of tenure, compensation for improvements, and a greater latitude as to extent, under the control of a popularly elected Parish Council, constitutes the first round of the labourer's social ladder. As he ascends, he will be learning the art of small culture. But more than that; when he finds himself provided with wheat and potatoes, ranged in sacks around his dwelling, enough to make it certain that, come what may, his
  1730
  family will not starve in the winter—when he realizes that, he will become less and less the miserable dependent and more and more a man prepared to give a fair day's toil for a fair day's pay. With fairer wage will come the ability to save. Then those having an aptitude for farming will most probably invest their savings in small holdings, and so establish upon safe economic lines a race of small holders, who may or may not realise the anticipations of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. I do not care what effect small holdings will have upon the political opinions of the people so long as they are prosperous. In conclusion, I would say that landowners need not fear the making of this measure too liberal or wide in its scope. They had better do with a good grace what will be demanded later, and delay will only increase the amount of what the right Hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham used to call "ransom." I heartily thank the House for having listened to me. If I have spoken warmly it is because I feel deeply the sufferings of those amongst whom I live and who sent me here, and because I think that the country has not yet realised how necessary to its welfare is the preservation and contentment of our peasantry. When it does that, I venture to say the measure now before the House will be swept away as obsolete, and the regard for landowners' privileges will have become less tender. I feel that this Bill will not give the agricultural labourer much benefit; but I also recognise that it will not do him any harm, and I shall, therefore, vote for the Second Reading.
  MR. LLEWELLYN: I think the discussion of this Bill has chiefly turned upon three points; and, although those points have been touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian and others, I will venture to put before the House a few more considerations which I think bear upon them. The first thing that was said in objection to this Bill was that the administrative authority was too large—that instead of being the County Council it ought to be the Parish Council. I by no means object to the

  1731
  formation of Parish Councils in certain places where sufficient work can be found for them, and where there is sufficient administrative power in the parish. But I would ask the House to consider a practical objection to this proposal in the case of an ordinary-sized parish. If the Parish Authority were made the authority to deal with this Bill, the outcome would be inoperative, and very much for the reasons spoken of by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian and the Leader of the House. The area would be too small for the purpose of raising sufficient money to guarantee the payment of the interest. That would of itself be a reason why the authority in London, the Public Works Loan Commissioners, would hesitate to advance any considerable sum of money upon such security. Another reason is this. In a great number of parishes you would have such petty jealousies and such differences amongst the inhabitants, that the work would not be seriously taken in hand at all. To purchase 50 acres of land at £50 an acre would alone require a sum of £2,500, and that would be a very large sum for a small parish to engage in raising. Then you would have the Parish Authority, probably comprising most of the leading small tradesmen in the parish, probably the butcher, the baker, the tailor, and the bootmaker, and, in sea-coast places, some of the fishermen. And the person who would apply to the Local Authority for a small holding might be the village publican. Now, that Parish Council would meet, and they would have to decide whether they should borrow this money or not, and, one by one, they would come to the conclusion that it would be an exceptionally nice thing for the publican if they did what he wanted, but that they could not quite see why they should be charged in order to give the publican this great advantage, when they themselves would also like to be set up in business. And I believe for that reason they would, almost unanimously, postpone it to such a day that probably the application would not come to life again, and possibly years would pass by, and the probability of giving a holding to the man would cease. Another thing touched upon by the right hon. Gen-
  1732
  tleman the Member for Midlothian was, how you can, with any reason at all, go to the landlord and ask him to remove a tenant from his tenancy of, perhaps, the best piece of ground on the estate, to make place for another? You would be asking the landlord to turn out A to benefit B, and at the same time charging B for the advantage to be conferred on A. A great deal has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford about the iniquity of a landlord owning a whole parish, because, probably, if he was appealed to, he might not willingly give up his best field. I see no great crime in a man holding land if he has come by it honestly, either by purchase or succession. I, for my own part, see no difference between the man who owns property in the shape of a small parish and the man who owns a street in London or half-a-dozen shops. The cases are precisely the same. What would be the probable reply of this man to an application to turn out, say, his best tenant for the benefit of someone else who wanted the shop to set himself up in business? If you wish, therefore, to make this Bill practically inoperative you will hand it over to Parish Councils. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian spoke of an intermediate authority. I know of no intermediate authority unless it is the Sanitary Authority. One word on the subject of compulsory purchase. We have had some slight experience in some parts of the country of the difficulties of carrying out compulsory purchase under the Allotments Act. And I myself have had experience of it too, and know the force of those difficulties. I do not hesitate to say if you adopt that course you will at once have greater difficulties to face than you have now. Compulsion means delay, delay means expense, and expense means additional rent. In this Bill the whole cost of delay, of valuation, and so forth must ultimately fall upon the man who rents this land, or who becomes the possessor of it in some other way. Those who have gone through an experience such as I and others have in reference to compulsory purchase will remember what these expenses are likely to be

  1733
  and what the procedure is. In the first place, there are notices to be served by the Clerk of the Council, who will charge extra fees, as that may not be part of his statutory work. Those notices will be served upon another authority, who have also a clerk and who may engage a solicitor. Then there are advertisements, the fees of clerks, the payment of solicitors, valuers, and arbitrators, the cost of conveyance, and possibly the cost of opinions of counsel upon various legal points. All these things will add considerably to the cost of the transaction, and they will add in a way that would not occur if the purchase were made by friendly agreement. A great deal of land could be bought by friendly agreement between the landlord and the Local Authority that will, if you put compulsory powers into this machinery, become doubly costly, and the public will have to bear the cost. Every tenant going into a small holding has to pay certain expenses to the outgoing tenant, such as for ploughing, seeds in the ground, manures, and so forth. It is not quite clear to me whether this will be a charge which the tenant or the County Council will have to pay. At any rate it ought not to be overlooked. You may have to deal with trustees or with a rich landlord, who can and will afford to fight you to the last, and your expenses will be astonishing. Then may come a time when the parish will find itself in great difficulty, because it will have great expenses to pay. In the case of the County Council being the Local Authority the expense will be spread over the county, and they will be able to bear that expense better; but in the case of the parish it will be an overwhelming expense for ever. I would point out one alternative to the House. The County Council will have to rely upon local information with regard to the suitability and value of ground. My idea is that these proposed purchases might be inquired into by Inspectors under the Local Government Board in much the same way as when money is applied for by a Local Authority for sanitary and other improvement works. I am of the same opinion as has already been expressed—that is, that these expenses and the risk of losing
  1734
  this money ought not to come out of any local taxation. This is money which is advanced for the benefit of the community at large, and ought to come directly from the Imperial Exchequer, and local taxation should not be made answerable for any risk. There is one more point, whether it is advisable to allow small holders to become actual possessors of the land on the payment of some small nominal rent. There is a great deal to be said on both sides of that question. I am inclined to think it would be well if we can manage that the holding shall be transferred to the proposed tenant at a very small nominal rent. There is plenty of land in the open market for the man with money in his pocket to purchase. Why should the Local Authority go to the risk of purchasing for these men, who a short time afterwards would have the power of paying off the money, and so becoming possessors? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian condemns what I consider one of the most valuable clauses of the Act, and that is the power given to a man who is a tenant at present to become an owner. It enables the Local Authority to advance the money which the tenant himself does not possess, in order that he may become the actual owner. That is a case, I think, in which this Act will do an immense amount of good, and I say it is desirable we should encourage this class of tenants beyond everything. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture, on whom do the expenses fall under this Section—Section 10? I should like to be assured that the expenses would not fall upon the country, but that the tenant would be called upon to pay them himself. Another point is with regard to valuation from time to time. We know that as a rule these men farm well, and to the best advantage, and amongst them will be found some of the best of farmers. But, at the same time, we may have cases in which a man has made a mistake, or has had bad luck. In that case the Local Authority ought to be made aware of it, and I would suggest that a periodical valuation should be made of these farms by the County Council in order that they may get rid of the

  1735
  tenant if necessary, or before absolute damage is done to the holding. In addition to that, there should be some provision whereby the Local Authority would have power to enter upon land in case harm is being done to the neighbours by bad or dirty farming. In conclusion, I would simply say one word from the point of view of the public who are not directly benefited by this Act. We must be just before we are generous, particularly when we are dealing with other people's property. Many of those who are called upon to pay the possible expenses under this Bill are men not in the same position as the small holder himself. Those men, perhaps less well off, have to pay poor rates, and it is out of the poor rates that this money will have to come. Those cottagers do not receive the full benefit of the poor rate in the same way as their richer neighbours do. They do not use the roads, and in a variety of other ways, whilst they are called upon to pay the same poor rates, do not derive the same benefit from those rates as their richer neighbours, Therefore, on behalf of those men who will have to find the money, I hope that no unnecessary risk will accrue to the ratepayers if this Bill passes. We must remember that we are passing this measure not only for our own satisfaction; not simply for the good of those who are to enjoy the benefit of it, but that there are those who will look to us to put in their hands a practical working machine. I hope nothing will be left undone to make this Bill in every respect a satisfactory and practical measure; and, if that is done, it will confer on those for whom it is intended immense advantage. It is not going suddenly to make men rich; it is not going to make agriculturists of men who know nothing of agriculture, or to make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before; it is not going to bring back men who have gone into our towns; but my idea of the Bill is that it will prevent boys going away from our villages; they will be employed in the village when youngsters, they will be learning their trade, and will be less likely to leave their parishes for the towns.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (, &c.): It is not difficult to
  1736
  imagine a case for the creation of a small holding in which the expenses will be so large as to make the purchase a very unprofitable operation. But, I do not think it is in the least necessary to suppose that the field next to the farm will be taken, or that the best field will be taken. And I think the operation may be carried out to a very considerable extent, as the hon. Gentleman opposite has pointed out. The question of compulsion on the landlord has been adequately dealt with. But there is another side of the question—that is, bringing compulsion to bear upon the tenant. In Scotland tenants under a 19 years' lease very often have a greater advantage than the landlord. It must be supposed that where there are long leases the Act cannot be put in force till their termination; the proprietor might be perfectly willing to sell the land, but the tenant on lease would not let him do so. Therefore, I think compulsion on the leasehold tenant is as important as compulsion on the landlord. In England, under Lord Cairns' Act, the owners of limited estates can sell for the purposes of the Bill; but that cannot be done in Scotland, and must be provided for. I have heard of the Lincolnshire custom; if that means that the tenant has an interest in his holding he will require compensation, and provision must be made for that also. The necessity of the holding being of £25 value before a house can be erected is a blot on the Bill; we ought to encourage the erection of houses, and the limitation should be one of area rather than value. This Bill will supersede a great part of the Crofters' Act in the Highlands of Scotland, and, if it be made sufficiently comprehensive, it will enable the same agrarian law to be in force in the Highlands as in the rest of Scotland. The creation of small holdings in the Highlands, however, will not be undertaken so long as this limit of £25 remains in the Bill, and I shall in the Committee move that the limit be one acre instead of £25. The limit of an acre would secure that each house should have a fair amount of garden round it, and prevent the crowding together which is the great disadvantage in many villages. As to

  1737
  the question of quit-rent I think where the County Council buys the land instead of selling the freehold to the tenant they should give something in the nature of the Scotch feu. The discussion before the Town Holdings Committtee showed how complete is the right the feuer enjoys notwithstanding the restrictions imposed upon him. The superior can enter under a town and extract the minerals, and allow the town to tumble to pieces without the inhabitants being entitled to any compensation; there are also restrictions as to the character of the buildings and so forth. I think the County Council should be entitled, in making a feu, to retain the minerals, and the right to re-enter on the land if it were required for building or other purposes. A peasant proprietary anywhere is none the worse for having certain restrictions imposed upon it, and being subjected to a certain amount of regulation. An hon. Member, speaking of the valuable land round towns, suggested that the principle of compulsory leases should be there applied. This would be specially desirable for promoting the establishment of small dairy farms in the vicinity of towns, by keeping out a small holder who might become a speculator in building land. The Scotch County Councils ought to have the title of land and sub-feu it with the power of re-purchase for Certain purposes. This system of compulsory leasing is the only method by which, in the Highlands of Scotland, you can give an extension of common outlands, which is very desirable. Compulsory leasing might be very desirable on the smaller sized holdings; the larger sized holdings might be created more upon the system of purchase. I think there is a provision in the Bill enabling the County Council to make improvements on the farm. The less the Councils have to do with buildings on holdings the better for them and for the ratepayers. The only way to carry this out is to give the tenant, under loan, sufficient assistance to enable him to do it himself. One cannot support too strongly the proposition of Lord Thring that payment of succession duty should be made in land; that would be a step in the direction of simplification of title.
  1738
  This House does not object to make the transfer of land easy, though the House of Lords takes rather a different view, but I hope it may yet be possible the House of Lords will accept the Prime Minister's invitation to adopt some better system of transfer. I am glad the Government have recognised the depopulation of the country, and I hope that with the experience gained under this Bill we shall be able to take further steps in the direction of attracting population back to the country.
  CAPTAIN BETHELL: One or two Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, in their anxiety to criticise this Bill, have suggested that the Government are not honest in their desire to benefit the agricultural population. That was the distinct suggestion of the Member for East Northampton; but I think we may at once dismiss any ideas of that kind, and look at the provisions of the measure. The discussion has been mainly on these subjects: the absence of the compulsory clauses the question of tenure, and also the further extension of leases. First, with respect to the objections which have been taken to the restriction which is placed upon £25 holdings, various suggestions have been made; and I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to weigh the criticisms which have been passed on this matter, may not be indisposed to consider favourably the possibility of removing the disability that he has imposed. Some Gentlemen have taken exception to Clause 10, which enables the authority to advance money to a tenant in present occupation, with a view to enable him to become a purchaser. I think that is a most valuable provision. It has been said that this is the Ashbourne Act extended to England, and an exaggerated view of the case may, perhaps, present it in that way; but I think the principle is a good one, and that in practice it would be found to be very useful. Whether it would have any considerable effect is another matter. Undoubtedly, in my part of the world the farming classes would very much prefer to be yearly tenants instead of purchasers, but I can offer no opinion with respect

  1739
  to other parts of the country. The reason of that is perfectly familiar. The farmer, if he became a purchaser, would have to spend money which he might employ in other ways, and for which he might get a larger rate of interest. Coming to another point, I am disposed to think that the County Council, which has been placed in this Bill as the body to carry it out, is for some purposes the best authority that could have been found, but I think the useful purposes are of a more limited character than is suggested by this Bill. For the purpose of the purchase of land and for the sale, the County Council is nominally adapted. Their credit is higher, and they can make better terms than any other Local Body; but when we come to the purchase of land for the purpose of letting it, that is another matter. I regret that my right hon. Friend has hardly gone far enough in this matter, and I think a scheme should be formulated by which the parishes should become possessed of a certain quantity of land for the sole purpose of letting it again; and if that principle can be carried out, we shall gain a very great advantage. After a lapse of time the parishes would be deriving an income which might be devoted to the relief of the poor, or to any other object which local necessities required. This would have another advantage, for it would be found that the rents charged by the parishes would become a valuable standard of the rents which private owners may get in times to come, and the parishes would invariably exact good rents. Another argument in favour of this idea is that the County Council is too large and too distant a body. I see that later there is to be an Instruction moved to carry out this idea, but I think the mistake the hon. Member who moves it will make is to endeavour to reform the system of Local Government by alterations in a Bill which is devoted entirely to the purchase and sale of land. I have considerable sympathy with the proposal to give such power as I have indicated to the parishes; but I have no sympathy with a proposal, which I think would be unfair to the Government, in a Bill of this nature to try to
  1740
  introduce reforms in Local Government. I thought it might be very simple in Committee on this Bill to make some Amendment by which the idea I have mentioned could be carried out, by constituting the parish as the authority; but, I am bound to say that, on looking into the matter more closely, I found that it would require four or five clauses—at any rate, a considerable number of clauses—even for the simple operation of giving to existing vestries the power I have spoken of; and, with my knowledge of the House, and my knowledge of the feeling of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin), gathered from his public speeches, I have come to the conclusion that it would be scarcely worth while to trouble the Committee with clauses designed to carry out that object. Nevertheless, I do not hesitate to press an my right hon. Friend that if he, during his period of power, can establish a system which ultimately will have the effect of giving parishes power to obtain land, and again will place revenue ultimately in their hands which may be devoted to parish purposes, for the good of the parish, I think he would undoubtedly mark his tenure of office by an act which would be of the greatest use, and would never be forgotten throughout the entire country. Since I have been sitting in the House this evening, I have seen another reason for not proceeding with the clauses I thought of attempting to draw to carry out the scheme I have suggested to the House. I marked that an hon. Member opposite, and also the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Gladstone), who both favoured Parish Councils, also favoured the idea that all the financial part of the work must be undertaken by a more powerful authority than such councils. If you do that you abandon the revenue that ought to go to the parish ultimately. It is quite clear that if the county rates are to be appropriated for the purpose of purchasing land for a parish, that ultimately the money must go back to the County Authority. Perhaps the most interesting part of the discussion upon this Bill has been that part which has been specially pertinent to the tenure of land. My right hon. Friend

  1741
  to some extent only has adopted the plan of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley (Mr. Jesse Collings) with reference to keeping part of the purchase money as a first charge on the land. My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford (Mr. Cust), who spoke early in this Debate, seemed, I think, to have missed the point of the advantage of keeping a certain amount of the purchase money as a charge upon the land. I take it that everybody in the House, no matter who he is, thinks that land purchased in this manner should be kept for the purposes for which it was specially designed for all time, that is to say for agricultural purposes, and I do not imagine that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin) at all wishes that at the expiration of the 50 years it should be within the power of some holder who has been created by the Bill to sub-divide or to sell. Nobody has suggested that they wish to see that, but my hon. Friend who has just spoken on the question said that power might be reserved without keeping a certain portion of the purchase money as a charge upon the holding. I think that is a mistake altogether. If a man has a fee simple of his land—and I think the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. R. T. Reid) answered that point very well—you cannot, except by Statute, interfere with his possession to prevent him from sub-dividing or re-selling for any other purpose. But if we are to have a condition of any sort attached to these small holdings, surely the simplest and the best way, as suggested by the hon. Member for Bordesley (Mr. J. Collings), is to keep a portion of the money as a first charge on the land. I am inclined to think that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin), when he gives more consideration to the matter after the discussion on the Second Reading of the Bill, will be almost disposed to admit that his own object will be best carried out by in some form or another adopting the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bordesley, and keeping some of the money as a perpetual charge on the holding. Does my right hon. Friend notice this also, which is an additional argument? The hon. Member for Bordesley himself pointed out that
  1742
  since the county must hypothecate its revenue to some extent for the good of individuals it is only fair that after a lapse of time when the greater portion of the purchase money is to be paid off, that the interest on the balance of the money left should go to the county to a certain extent, as a consideration for the hypothecation. But it goes even further than that surely. In the Bill, as my hon. Friend has got it, I am afraid it is almost a deadlock under these circumstances. The County Council buys a fee-simple. It is going to sell a limited ownership. There is a clause in the Bill which insists that the County Council shall only sell land for the amount of money which will cover the amount expended by it in purchasing the land, but surely you cannot expect to get as much for a limited ownership as you get for a fee simple. If you buy a fee-simple and sell a limited ownership you cannot expect to get as much as you paid, so that unless that restriction is to some extent modified I do not see how the Bill is likely to act, because, of course, these transactions in the County Council will be public, and be known to everybody, and I apprehend the intending purchaser will think twice before he gives as much money for his limited ownership as he knows the County Council gave for the fee-simple. Therefore, is not that argument in favour of the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bordesley to keep a portion of the purchase money perpetually on the holding, because then the interest of that purchase money for all time would flow to the county, and would be a make-up for the difference between the amount given for a certain quantity of land, and the amount for which it sold the land on a limited ownership. I undoubtedly think that the interest upon the deferred payment is a very just compensation to the County Council, not only for its hypothecation of a part of its revenue, but also for the actual loss which I can see it will have to submit to for a certain term of years. I will not enter on the question of compulsory purchase. It has been argued at considerable length by Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and I shall content myself with saying that, personally, I am opposed to compulsory

  1743
  purchase on principle. I think it is a bad principle to introduce. I think it will create friction in the country, although I do not think that it would have much practical effect. I do not think it would matter two-pence whether compulsory clauses were in the Bill or not. Still, I am opposed to it on principle. I think it is an unsound principle, and certainly it shall not have my support. On the contrary, I shall give it all the opposition I can. There is one other subject I have to mention to my right hon. Friend, and that is the question of leases. I cannot for the life of me see why my right hon. Friend has an objection to the County Council taking land on lease. It is a very different thing taking land under a voluntary agreement on lease to taking land under a lease compulsorily. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House I think was quite correct in his reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian upon the question of leases, subject always to the condition that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian was speaking of compulsory leases. Of course my right hon. Friend was quite correct when he said it was much more unfair to take from a landlord on a compulsory lease some portion of his land, seeing that you would prevent him from capitalising that portion of his possession for a definite time or perpetually. But a voluntary lease is a different matter altogether. I do not see what objection there is to the County Council agreeing with a landlord to take some portion of his land for 20; 30, or 40 years, and using it for their own purposes, and I hope my right hon. Friend will try to see his way to introduce a clause to prevent compulsory leases, agreeing as I do with the Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin) that they would work very great injustice to people who own land. There are many points we shall have to discuss later on in Committee. On some of them I trust we shall persuade my right hon. Friend to go further than he has gone, and on the others I shall be a great supporter of his in resisting encroachments of hon. Gentlemen from the other side.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: To use the expression employed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) in regard to this Bill, I look upon it as an honest attempt to solve a difficult question and improve the condition of the agriculturists, and to use the phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill (Mr. Chaplin), I regard it as an experiment which ought to be tried, and for which I venture to predict a certain amount of qualified success. It is a contribution to the solution of one of the great problems of the present day, how to keep our country friends and neighbours more attached to the soil. Although it has been doubted from the other side of the House in a speech by an hon. and gallant Gentleman, the flow of people from the country to the towns has been going on. We want to bring the people back to the soil and to fix them there under reasonable conditions. I have spoken to a great many friends and tenants in the country, and they all tell me the same story—that they cannot get their boys and their girls to remain there. They know the discomforts of country life, and they have vague yearnings for the ulterior advantages which they think can be derived from flowing into the towns and congesting the towns. We want to very much increase the comfort and happiness of the agricultural labourer's life. We want to see him better housed, better fed, and have more opportunities for amusement and improvement. Above all we want to give him an inducement to make agriculture the career of his life. I am very much in favour of smaller farms in the country. It is a great pity it is not compulsory that landlords should break up big farms into small farms so as to give opportunities to the agricultural labourer. This Bill is a step in the right direction, though it is not a complete step. I look at it from the point of view of those people with whom I am more immediately concerned—the agricultural labourers and the farmers of Scotland. Amongst many of them I find there is no desire at all to purchase land. The idea of becoming a proprietor is not popular amongst them. With better

  1745
  conditions of tenure and better compensations for improvements, in my part of the country at least, the small farmers and the agricultural labourers who are looking forward to small farms are very much more content to remain as they are now. They say they have to sink their capital, and to pay a very much larger rent than if they were leasing the land. There are family difficulties, and the farm has to be broken up at death. Improvements have to be made, and then in bad times the holder has no one to help him. I should like to see the County Councils enabled to help the small leaseholders of the agricultural labourers' stamp by means of loans to stock and perhaps to build. The landlord nowadays rather dreads the small farm system. They dread it on account of the expense of building. Under modern conditions they must build very much larger buildings than formerly. Some provision of the kind I have referred to would induce proprietors to break up their large farms into small, and would give the agricultural labourer a better opportunity of gaining that home and that career and position he wants. As to the present Bill, I think the principle of compulsion must be applied if we desire to make the Bill a practical one. All the indications from my part of the country are very strongly indeed in favour of compulsion. If the landlord is willing to sell, compulsion will do him no harm. If he is not willing to sell, then it is in the interest of the small class of people whom the Bill was to encourage. We have been told that a great deal of unsaleable and uncultivable land could be palmed off by proprietors and others under this Bill. But I think we might very well trust the County Councils not to abuse their privileges in this matter. As to the position of the farmers, it is their interest to keep beside them steady workmen who are attached to the soil, and who are always available for agriculture. The great blot on the Bill is the limitation as to building on 25 acres. This provision makes the Bill entirely useless to the North of Scotland. Many people who are likely to become small holders are doing work in various ways. A man may wish to have ten or 20 acres. He cannot ab-
  1746
  solutely live upon the ground, though, under present conditions of market gardening in Scotland, many people have been able to make an extremely good living. But small tradesmen, shoemakers, and blacksmiths ought to be encouraged to settle down on the land and to build, if they can, themselves or with some help. I am not inclined to view with the same dissatisfaction as some others the machinery. I do not quite know what other machinery can be employed at present than the County Council. The formation of a committee which would include practical men is a fairly good working arrangement, by which local knowledge will be brought to the aid of the central body that commanded the funds. I look with a certain amount of suspicion on the municipalisation or resumption idea which we have heard something about recently. I think it would be a very deterrent influence on anyone who wished to buy land if, at any future period, when the land became more valuable, he should be liable to be summarily evicted and thrown absolutely out of the land. I do not quite see why this proposal is necessary in the interests of the general community, because the County Councils will probably work the Bill not at a loss. If the scheme is to be successfully applied, we ought to remove as many restrictions on ownership as we can. If a man wants to invest his money on land to a small as well as a large amount, he wishes to do as he likes. There are several drawbacks and restrictions which I think, at all events, would deter a cautious people like the Scots from investing their money on land under the conditions in this Bill. The Bill is not a perfect one, but it is an honest attempt to solve a difficulty. No doubt when it goes info Committee such a Bill will be produced as will do something to rectify the condition of things, which we know require a remedy, and which, I think, might fairly be remedied under the Bill.
  MR. JEFFREYS (Hants,): I have observed that a number of hon. Gentlemen are trying to persuade the country that this Bill will have no effect without compulsory power. I think those hon. Gentlemen

  1747
  will find when the Bill is passed there will be an ample and sufficient supply of land in the market for all wants. It has been found so under the allotments scheme. There is no want of land now. I wish to say that if you have this compulsory power you will be doing a great injustice to the farmers and the small owners. It has been truly said that land suitable for small holdings would be in the neighbourhood of villages, and it must be remembered that such land at the present time is always quickly let. Therefore, if you take land from one of these farms you will do a great injustice to the struggling farmer and the small holders of land near the villages. Suppose a man has land near a village, are you, on that account, on a petition from a few people in the village, to carve these small holdings out of it? It would do a great injustice to the one man, and confer, perhaps, illusory advantages on the others. I do not wish it to be understood that I am against small holdings; but I should be sorry if this Bill, instead of creating small holdings, gave rise to a number of land speculators. I am sure no one would like to see that, and I believe this is one of the great arguments against the exercise of compulsory powers. My experience has been that small holders are constantly desiring to get rid of their land. In my own part of the country a man who was earning a livelihood was left 20 acres of land with a small house upon it. He went to the holding, and without any knowledge of farming, and without much money, he tried to make a living upon it; he is now in a state of starvation. There are many such instances in which small holdings attract men to the land and they fail. Some people say that the reason why they cannot make a living upon such holdings is that the holdings are too highly rented. I can only say that in my part of the country the rents are very low indeed. I am afraid that small holders will not be able to make a living out of the land, because it takes so much money to stock it. Labourers are so badly off that I am afraid they will not be able to take advantage of this Bill. Therefore, I think that one of the most important provisions in it is that which
  1748
  gives to County Councils the power to take land and erect buildings upon it, and then let it to labourers. If this clause was put into force—although it might be too much to throw upon the County Council—I believe it would be of the greatest benefit to labouring men, and enable them by hard work and industry to get a livelihood out of the land without travelling into the great towns to the detriment of those who are there already, and to the injury of themselves and families.
  SIR W. FOSTER: This Bill is professedly a measure to bring about a wider distribution of land in this country, and check the depopulation of the rural districts. Such objects should have the cordial support of all Members of this House, whatever their political opinions. I hope, however, that that portion of the Bill which restricts the erection of houses on smaller plots of land will be altered so that the restrictions which I think the right hon. Gentleman has unwisely introduced may no longer exist. In the County of Hampshire, in the New Forest Division, there are striking examples of the fact that where there are a number of small holdings, there the population increases and pauperism diminishes. The evidence before the Select Committee strongly supports this experience, and therefore any measure which would be likely to bring the people back to the land deserves support. I was very much surprised to hear the comparison which was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House between the condition of the French peasant and the English agricultural labourer. If the condition of the French peasant had not been better than that of the English labourer, France would have been still under the heel of the German Emperor instead of being able to pay off the vast indemnity exacted by Germany. It was from the French peasantry that the money came in the hour of distress. We have no similar class of population in England; I should be glad if we had—that it might be able to do for this country, if required in the time of need, that which the French peasantry did for France. The power of producing food both in France and Belgium is considerably greater than it is in this

  1749
  country, when the respective populations are considered; and, that being so, everybody must be anxious to improve the food-producing power of this country. Now I find that the people to be benefited by this Bill are divided into three classes. First of all, there are the persons who buy the land; then there are the existing tenants, who are to be enabled to become owners of their farms; and, lastly, the labourers, who will be enabled to obtain larger allotments. Now, I think that that section which will have the effect of enabling labourers to obtain allotments is the best part of the Bill. I should be glad to see the limit of £10 rental extended, so that these people might become in time tenants on larger plots of land, even up to 20 or more acres. Then I think that the advantages offered to tenants in Ireland under the Ashbourne Act might well have been extended to enable the existing tenants in England to become the owners of their land, without exacting any lump sum at the time of purchase. I would also say that I am not satisfied with the authority which is to be appointed under the Bill—namely, the County Council. There is a desire in various parts of the country to give the powers to the Urban Sanitary Authority; but I am sorry that some scheme has not been devised by means of which authorities over smaller areas could be called in, so as to secure a more intimate knowledge of the wants of the people than can possibly be possessed by County Councils. In the matter of the Allotments Act, some County Councils do not act sympathetically. Some labourers in Kent the other day appealed that the Act might be put in force. A Commissioner was sent down to make an inquiry. He held the inquiry in a public-house, with no reporters present, at twelve o'clock in the day, when the labourers could not attend. Now, that is not the way that County Councils should carry out the Act. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board will insist upon the inquiries being for the future held openly, and at an hour suitable to the agricultural labourers. Now, Sir, as regards the question of
  1750
  compulsion, I may say at once that compulsory powers are not wanted for the purpose of harassing the landowners. We want them for the purpose of preventing land being unnecessarily forced up in price when owners refuse to sell land for the purposes of public benefit. If land is forced up in price there will necessarily be a failure of this scheme. That is shown by the experience of the operation of the Allotments Act. Some time ago I obtained from the Secretary of the Local Government Board a statement which showed that in a number of cases where land had been bought by voluntary agreement under the Allotments Act, an average price of £90 per acre had been paid. That would be a prohibitive price to pay for land to be let out to agricultural labourers, if they are to make a profit out of their holdings. It is clear to me that if voluntary sale alone is to be available, the price will be too high for the agricultural labourer to pay. Then, Sir, if we have not these compulsory powers we shall likewise have this difficulty, that land will be sold in too big parcels. It will be a question of buying a whole estate if the landowner wishes to sell, and not merely the portion required for the purpose of making the experiment. In these big parcels of land there would be many lots unsuitable for small holdings. The Bill apparently anticipates some such result, for in one of its clauses—I think in Clause 8—it says that if the land is unsuitable or superfluous for the purpose for which it was acquired, it may be sold. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture should be unwilling to give us these compulsory powers, because in 1886, in introducing his Allotments Bill, he avowed himself a convert to compulsory powers. If, Sir, in a Bill of that kind, to let out land in half-acres, the right hon. Gentleman proposed compulsion, surely in this larger Bill it is much more necessary that we should have compulsion. Now, Sir, there are only one or two other points. The Government call this Bill an experiment. It is, to a certain degree, an experiment, and I hope it will be a successful experiment.

  1751
  I have very little sympathy with the movement for the creation of small freeholders, and I think it will be most difficult to re-create the yeomen—a class that was exterminated by the operation of natural forces. They existed mainly because the common lands of the country were unenclosed, and, to enable them to exist again, you would require a recurrence of the economical conditions under which they flourished. I would rather see this class replaced by tenants under a Local Authority with a fair rent and secure tenure, or as tenants quasi-owners, if you like, with a perpetual quit rent. There is no guarantee that the small free owners will not be swallowed up again by the larger owners, and large estates again created. I hope the Government will seriously consider the question of allowing the land to be let by the Local Authority on a quit-rent, never to be redeemed, in order that the unearned increment may go to the community, and that the County Councils may keep a grip on the land, and, if necessary, resume possession of it. We want this Bill to be effective in its operation, in order that the agricultural labourers may be able to live on the land under conditions of independence and comfort such as their forefathers have never known.
  MR. GRAY: I quite agree that it is most desirable that the labourers should be made better off and their lives made happier; but I am afraid it will be many a long year to come before there can be any considerable increase of happiness from any attempt of this sort to place the labourer in the position of an owner as well as in the position of a farmer. For many reasons, I fail entirely to see where the labourer is to get money to buy the stock necessary to the working of his holding. One hon. Member said the Bill was not up to sample, meaning that it was not so good as he expected after the speech of the Minister of Agriculture, but the Minister of Agriculture said the Bill would only be an experiment, and we should be very unwise to weight it with compulsion. It will be time to adopt compulsion when it is proved that a measure of this sort will make that happy change in the condition
  1752
  of the agricultural labourer that is predicted. But I think what has to some extent been lost sight of during this Debate is this: I think it is of the first importance that if we are to get these labourers or rural people to take land as owners, that we should do our best to cheapen those legal costs that always occur when land changes hands. One of the principal reasons why we have not so many small holders in various parts of the country as we ought to have is when a man has tried to get land these legal expenses have run the price up to such a point that there was no prospect of his getting a profit out of his investment for many years. It is a disgrace to this Assembly, containing so many lawyers as it does, that at the present day the legal expenses attaching to the transfer of land in small pieces are practically prohibitory. I hope that before long we shall do something to cheapen the purchase of land. I want a promise that this matter will be dealt with. We have heard a good deal about the happy position of the French peasantry from the other side of the House. I think that was answered most fully by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. I was very pleased indeed to hear him say that many of these French peasants are not in such a happy position that we could take our English people over there and say that is the position we should like to see you in. I should be very sorry to take the villagers in my own neighbourhood over to some parts of France, and say, "We want you in that position." Who is there in this House who has been to France, and has seen ploughing for example carried on in the fields there, who would venture to compare it with our system of ploughing? I have often seen a half-starved donkey and a poor overworked woman side by side drawing a plough or harrow. Am I to go down to my constituency, and tell my people that I should like to see our labourers' wives and daughters working side by side with a half-starved donkey? I am fully aware that there are many Members of the House who know as much about agriculture as I do. But, speaking of France, I may mention that I have re-

  1753
  sided in that country four years at a spell. During the Franco-Prussian war I had the privilege of being sent over to the very peasants whom we have been told are so well off. My colleagues and myself were sent to distribute relief to these very peasants. The society which I had the honour to represent distributed about £80,000, and that was only one of many societies in England that did similar work. From what we have heard to-night one would be led to think that the money was not wanted—that the peasants were humbugs. I do not believe they were humbugs, but that they were really poor, as they represented themselves to be. We are generally agreed as to the Second Reading of this Bill, and the details can be adequately discussed when we get into Committee. But I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture a question in reference to a provision in Clause 1, Sub-section 1, which says that the persons for whom small holdings are to be selected must be residents of the county. I would ask the Minister of Agriculture if that is really vital to the Bill? If the persons from whom small holders are to be selected are to be limited to residents of the county, cases of very great hardship might arise. There might be the case of a man who had got plenty of money, and who was in every way suitable for a small holding, but who would be deprived of the advantages of this Bill just because he happens to live over the road, and so was not in the county in which the piece of land he wanted to have was situated. But that is a point also more suitable for discussion in Committee than it is now. The only other point that I will touch upon now is whether we should allow the small holder under any circumstances to free himself of all monetary responsibility in the holding, whether we should allow him to be in the position simply of being a small freeholder who could do what he liked with his holding. I am afraid if we allow the small holder to pay off the balance of his purchase money, all the trouble of the County Council and the sacrifices of the farmers, landlords, and ratepayers will in too many cases be useless. In respect to the population of our villages, we are just as
  1754
  anxious to keep our villages filled with a respectable, happy, and industrious population as you gentlemen in towns are anxious to have the towns in the same flourishing condition. We want industrious, healthy, strong labourers, and these small holders will be just the families from whom we shall get the best class of labour for our farms. I hope no one will think there is any wish to put any obstruction in the way of a fair trial for a measure of this sort. But I do think if we allow these small holders, after having made a bargain with the County Council, to become absolute freeholders, then we shall find that all the trouble which has been taken, and the sacrifices which have been made, will be in vain, because the small holder will have the power of selling his holding when he is in difficulties or wishes to raise money, and in the long run we would be no nearer the goal we have in view than we were when we started.
  MR. DUFF: There is one point with regard to compulsion which has not been sufficiently brought before the House, i.e., in the case of settled estates. It might be competent for any gentleman holding a settled estate, if the County Council came to him and said, "We want your land," to say "I will be very happy to give you my land, only the conditions of my estate prevent me from doing what you want." I should like to see these settled estates put in the same relation to the County Council as Railway Companies. A Railway Company passing through an estate takes the land by compulsion, and I should like to see the County Council put in the same position. It is said that would be hard upon the tenant. But that also occurs in the case of a Railway Company. I do not think this Bill will have much effect in its main object of creating small holders to any great extent unless something of that kind is done. In the first place, you have to compensate the tenant, then you will have to buy the land from the landlord, and then the County Council will have to erect buildings. After that will it be possible to let the land to advantage? In my part of the country, if a landlord wants to resume

  1755
  possession of his land, he generally has a clause in the lease by which the tenant is compensated. I do not think there is any fear under the Compulsory Clause of the tenant being unfairly dealt with. I have often known cases in Scotland where a landlord was not allowed to let his land for building purposes. There has been a good deal said about the legal expenses of getting land in England, but they are much greater in Scotland than they are here. I remember some 30 years ago, when I succeeded to my property, I had to spend a very considerable sum before I could get the land to let for building purposes. But if compulsory powers were put into this Bill, you would get over this difficulty. If the buildings to be put up are suitable buildings, and if they are erected under conditions approved of by the County Council, I cannot see why you should not put up buildings even on an acre of ground. If that is within the scope of the Bill it would meet one of the greatest evils we have to contend with, overcrowding of labourers dwellings, and in that way it might be possible to do Something to relieve the overcrowding which exists. The hon. Member for Bordesley said the object was to encourage a man to purchase a piece of land for a house in which he and his family could reside, and I agree with him. I do not think this Bill will be taken advantage of by the purely agricultural labourers. The people who will take advantage of this Bill will be men who have come from the towns—retired tradesmen and others—who have come from the towns and desire to take two or three acres of land to build a house upon. Much more will be done in that way than by the purely agricultural labourer. I do not believe the land hunger of this country is confined entirely to a desire to cultivate the land. There are many people living in towns who desire to get land to live upon; and if this Bill can do anything to promote this object, it will be very beneficial to the community. I should be very glad to see this Bill take the place of the Allotments Act in Scotland, where no Bill of the kind is in force. It is constantly said that a great deal of land is in the market.
  1756
  That is perfectly true, but it does not come to the market in quantities which poor people can buy, and even the legal expenses are quite disproportionate to the value of the land acquired. The more numerous the people are who reside in the country the more will that benefit the agricultural labourer, because you find, other conditions being similar, that wherever holdings are small the agricultural labourers' wages are proportionately high. Therefore, the more people you get on the land the better will it be for the agricultural labourer. I have no doubt hon. Members are well aware of what is going on in their own counties, but, in reference to London, I may say there is a great desire of people in the East End to get to the country. Let any hon. Member take a railway journey from Fenchurch Street to Southend, and, before he has gone 25 miles from London, he will see land which has gone out of cultivation on both sides of the line. I went down on Saturday to the county of Essex to see an experiment being tried there by Mr. Varty, which has some bearing on this question. He bought this estate of 250 acres last September, and cut it up into very small lots of 1–14th of an acre, and a man might buy one or half-a-dozen lots. He has now sold nearly a quarter of the land. The great inducement held out to purchasers is that they get a title to the land for one shilling, and there are no other legal expenses. They pay ten per cent. of the purchase money down, and the whole is paid off in 16 years. I was told that, after making roads and paying legal expenses, Mr. Varty had a very remunerative return for his money. The land was apparently good land, such as would be sold at £15 or £20 an acre. This could not be done in all parts of the country, but the scheme is worthy of the attention of the House and of imitation in many parts of this Bill. The last speaker said that if you could get over the difficulty of a cheap title the scheme of small holdings would be facilitated. If individuals can carry out this experiment with perfect safety, surely it can be done by any County Council which will exer-

  1757
  cise ordinary caution. I have no doubt that in the neighbourhood of large towns you will get plenty of men to take these small holdings and build their own houses, thus relieving the towns and improving the condition of the people in rural districts. It is in the direction of assisting those who have acquired a certain amount of capital, whether farm labourers or anybody else, that there is the greatest possibility of doing good by the Bill. I do not believe that the Bill, if applied only to the rural districts, with the object of putting labourers on small holdings, can be worked profitably. In the neighbourhood of towns I think it it may be beneficial in doing a great deal in the direction of securing a wider distribution of land and the erection of an improved class of labourers' dwellings, and, on that ground, I have great pleasure in supporting the Second Reading of the Bill.
  DR. CLARK: It is evident from the remarks of the hon. Member for the Maldon Division of Essex (Mr. Gray) that he does not much believe in the success of the experiment made in the Bill. I agree with him. I wondered why the Government brought in this Bill, but the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury has shown us the reason. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill has always held that in agriculture large production, large farms, and large estates were the most productive form of cultivation, as you got more return at the minimum of cost. I see the First Lord of the Treasury still believes that.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I still believe that in agriculture, as in other things, the expenditure of large capital on labour is the best means of getting large returns.
  DR. CLARK: I believe you get a better return by spending more on labour: and in small holdings you can put in proportionately more labour and capital. We do not believe that the creation of small holdings will sink the agricultural labourer in penury and poverty. We might distrust the Greeks when they bring us gifts of this kind, and distrust the Tories when they attempt land reform. We
  1758
  now know that the object of the Bill is not to place labourers and small peasants on the soil as cultivators, but to create an outpost, a Mameluke Guard, to protect the big landlords against the attack which some of us are making on them. I admire the frankness with which the right hon. Gentleman told us that one result of the Bill would probably be protection. If you want to give the small agriculturists a chance, and so give them a tenure which would be good for them, the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) is the best and easiest way to do it. The Scotch feu may be described as the oldest form of tenure in the world, where you have a superior and inferior. It is desired that the increased value of the holding should go to those who earn it. If you take the land on a perpetual lease at a fixed rent, any increase in value will go to the County Council, because their tenure is not to be perpetual at a fixed rate, but with a varying rate according to values. They will get these values and so will be able to lessen taxation. You cannot try the experiment with a penny rate: that is absurd. The cost of making roads and boundaries, and building outhouses will require more than a penny rate to meet it, and if you add to that the cost of purchase you will require a great deal of money indeed. The best way would be for the County Councils to spend the money on the improvements, thus increasing the value of the land and of their security. I shall fight against the creation of a new set of landlords. We desire to see perpetuity of tenure in order to induce men to put more capital and labour into the land, and get the most out of it which it can produce. The Scotch system is a good one, and we get better returns than is the case in England, because we have 19 years' leases. While the school to which I belong is willing to give perpetuity of tenure to the cultivator of the soil we are not prepared to create new privileges and monopolies for another class. There is a legal fiction that there is no private property in England; but, as a matter of fact, the landlords in

  1759
  England have as much control over the land as those in any other country. The rents represent the value of superior soil and of desirable sites, buildings, and other improvements on the land. The value of the soil and the desirability of the site are not created by any man, and if you make a change in the system of land-tenure, a man should be called upon to pay to the community the difference between the economic value of the soil and of the desirability of the site. That might be done by the means suggested by the hon. Member for Bordesley (Mr. J. Collings) which would enable future changes to be made more easily. If the Government desire to create a new class of landlords we will do our level best to prevent them doing so; but if they desire to create a new system of land-tenure and so get rid of some of the difficulties of the old system we are ready to give them our support.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,: If it be true that the hon. Member for Caithness has failed to gather anything as to the reasons for the introduction of this Bill from the observations which I made in introducing it, I am afraid that nothing I could say to-night would add to his enlightenment, and therefore, with the permission of the House, I will pass from the hon. Member to make some general observations on the Debate which has taken place on the Bill. I am not aware that, with the exception of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, which has already been dealt with by my right hon. Friend, anything which has occurred or has been said in this Debate requires any lengthened intervention on my part at this stage of our proceedings. On the contrary, I venture to think I shall express the general sense of the House when I say that with one or possibly two exceptions this Debate has been conducted throughout with a general absence of Party spirit which has been as welcome as it is, most unhappily, unusual, and with an evident desire on the part of speakers on both sides of the House to promote the improvement of the Bill, and the object which we
  1760
  all have at heart. It is true that the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. H. Gardner) and the hon. Member who resumed the Debate to-night were unable, in spite of all their efforts, to conceal what I should describe as an under-current of snarling hostility towards the Party responsible for the Bill; but, with these exceptions, I am bound to say the Government have no reason whatever to be dissatisfied in any way with the general conduct of the Debate. It is in the same spirit that, while reserving to myself the full right to form my own independent judgment, I shall be ready to consider and deal with the various suggestions that have been made in the course of the Debate. In the first place, may I turn to some observations made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, as to which I wish to add a few words to those which have fallen from my right hon. Friend? The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to state that, in his opinion, this was an honest effort in the right direction, but far short of the necessities of the case. He considers it defective as regards the area of the Local Authority; he is of opinion that there should be subordinate Councils to deal with the question of the provision of land, though I did not gather quite clearly from the right hon. Gentleman what the constitution of these Councils should be. The rest of the speakers on the side of the right hon. Gentleman were strongly in favour of compulsion. With regard to the acquisition of land, he laid down the proposal that the tenure of land by the County Council without owning the fee-simple is not to be excluded. I do not find it quite easy to follow the right hon. Gentleman in that part of his subject, but my view is this: If the acquisition of land by lease is also to be by compulsion, then I think the right hon. Gentleman is confronted at once by a most formidable objection, an objection which ought to have been formidable in his own eyes from the statements which he made and the course he adopted in this House not a week ago, although I cannot help thinking that that objection escaped him this afternoon. You cannot have

  1761
  compulsory leases without adopting, at the same time, a system of valuation of rents. A lease cannot be compulsory so long as you allow the landlord to impose a rent which may be altogether prohibitory. ("Hear, hear.") Hon. Members below the Gangway say "Hear, hear," but they must remember that I am criticising the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. You must remember that the system of valuation of rents is a cardinal and essential principle of the Irish Land Bill, and it was against that principle that the right hon. Gentleman voted not a week ago; and it was against that principle, as I reminded the House the other night, he specifically declared, some years ago, that, so far as he was concerned, he would never be a party to consent to it. If, on the other hand, the land is to be acquired by lease by voluntary means, I admit the case stands, as far as the owner of the land is concerned, from whom the land is to be acquired, on a totally different footing, and my objection, so far as the owner is concerned, would disappear altogether. But that system is open to all the objections which I took the opportunity of pointing out on the introduction of the Bill, and not one of which has been answered in the course of the Debate. I pointed out, in the first place, that you would make the Local Authority into a middleman at once, and would subject them to all the vicissitudes and chances of a landlord's position, and that pressure would be put upon the Local Authority precisely as it is on the landlords to-day. Further, the present object of the Government—namely, the adding to the number of the owners of the land, would be defeated altogether. And then there is a difficulty as regards buildings, to which I will draw attention for a few moments. If the land is to be let by the Local Authority to tenants, it must be let obviously either upon yearly tenancy or else it must be let on lease. If by yearly tenure the tenant could not be expected to erect the buildings, and you will throw upon the Local Authority all the onus and all the necessity of that very important and difficult work, for it would be in the hands of the Local Authority a
  1762
  matter of much greater difficulty than in the hands of a landlord. If, on the other hand, the small holding was let on lease, then it is perfectly true that if the lease was of sufficient duration the tenant could make the buildings himself. But surely, under these circumstances, would it not be far better and more preferable in the interest of the tenant that he should acquire his holding by purchase from the Local Authority? for every year he would be approaching nearer the time when, if he had originally purchased, both the land and the buildings which he had erected would become his own instead of reverting to the Local Authority. Hon. Members will, I think, be disposed to admit that some reasons have been advanced by the Government against this system, to which the right hon. Gentleman attaches so much importance, of leasing land instead of acquiring it by purchase, and it must be fully considered before the Government can be expected to adopt this view of the case. Turning now to observations made by various speakers in the course of the Debate, the Member for West Sussex pointed out that under the 1st clause of the Bill the provision of these small holdings was to be limited to the labouring population. But it is not a true interpretation of the clause to think that all people would be prevented from having the enjoyment of these holdings except the agricultural labourers themselves. I do not quite know why you are to draw the line at the blacksmith or the small trader, as at various periods of the year all these labour in agriculture, and must be classed as part of the agricultural population. For instance, during harvest time, how many people are there in a village who are not actually engaged in agricultural labour? I do not think the hon. and gallant Member has any cause to be alarmed with regard to that provision of the Bill, especially when I remind him that it was taken verbatim from the language and phraseology of the Allotments Act in force at the present time. The suggestion was made to me that, instead of the money being lent upon the security of the rates, it should be entirely provided from the Imperial Fund. I quite understand

  1763
  the motives and object of that proposal, and I am ready to admit that, logically, the demand is perfectly, right, because this Bill is introduced in support of what is held to be a national object, and on that ground the hon. Member has maintained that it should be supported by national funds. But there are two considerations which the hon. Gentleman will find to be of great importance. It would clearly be impossible to provide funds for this purpose from Imperial sources alone, and yet to leave the administration of that to the Local Authorities. Whoever bears the cost must also have the responsibility of the administration of the measure; and if I adopted the suggestion which has been supported by several speakers, it is quite clear that this Bill which I am now asking the House to read a second time must be administered by some central Government Department. Not only would that involve an entire re-construction of the Bill, but I should have to ask myself this question, whether a central Government Department will be suited in any degree for carrying out a measure of this kind? I doubt very much whether it would be possible to adopt such a suggestion, and I am sure it would not be desirable. On the other hand, if the imposition of 1d. on the rate is viewed with alarm, I venture to think, for reasons which I will submit, that the alarm is not well founded. In the first place, Clause 11 of the Bill provides that the Local Authority shall not acquire land save at such a price as they can fairly expect will enable them to recoup themselves. In the second place, no difficulty whatever can arise except in the case of the failure of the holder of the land, and in that case the Local Authority would have not only the security of the holding itself, but the additional security provided by the sum which is required to be paid down in the first instance, amounting to one-fourth of the whole. Thirdly, there is nothing whatever in the Bill to prevent the Local Authority from charging the small holder interest in reasonable excess of the terms under which they have borrowed the money themselves. Therefore, there is no substantial ground for alarm lest there
  1764
  should be a permanent charge of 1d. on the rate. The Member for Stamford, whose able speech was listened to with pleasure on both sides of the House, suggested that Succession Duty in future might be paid in kind; that is to say, that a person succeeding to an estate might discharge his Succession Duty by offering so much land in lieu of cash. The suggestion is not new to me, and I frankly own that there is something attractive, and even fascinating, about the proposal. It could be carried out in one of two ways. The land could either be handed over directly to the Exchequer, or it could be handed over to the County Council. With regard to handing it over to the Exchequer, we are confronted with the difficulty that what the Exchequer requires is cash and not land, and if the Succession Duty is paid in land who is to take charge of that land and manage it until it has been converted into cash? It would mean the creation of a Government Department whose business would be to hold and manage this land till the time arrived when it could be sold. The State probably, under these circumstances, would become the owner of a great number of small holdings in all parts of the country differing in size and character and entailing a great difficulty in properly dealing with them. It would have to manage and cultivate these lands until they were disposed of. I do not say that it would be impossible even to do this; but, at all events, it would be an undertaking of enormous magnitude and importance—one which certainly could not be entered lightly upon, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have a good deal to say before he gave his assent to it. The second alternative is that the land should be handed over to the County Council, and I ask this question, is the acceptance by the County Council to be optional or compulsory? If it is to be optional, then I do not see how or in what respect the position of the owner of the land is improved, because he can go to the County Council under existing circumstances and offer the land; they can take it if they please and the owner can take the money and hand it over to the Exchequer. But if,

  1765
  on the other hand, it is to be obligatory, what is the position of the County Council? They may have already satisfied all demands for small holdings in the district over which it holds jurisdiction; but a landowner dies, and his successor, who has a large duty to discharge, comes to the County Council and insists on their taking over 500 acres. What is to be done by the Local Authority? I think the House will see that, attractive as it may be, the suggestion is full of difficulties, and it certainly is not one that I should like to endeavour to incorporate in this Bill. The Member for Stamford also made a suggestion that some means of registration should be established by the Bill. That is a point which I own I should be glad to see in the Bill if it were possible to incorporate it; but I have approached it with caution, because I thought it might lead to serious opposition, and perhaps be the means of defeating a measure which I am sincerely anxious to pass. But if I find that in the course of the Debate in Committee there is anything like a general desire that this proposal shall be included in the Bill, I shall be very glad to entertain and consider seriously any proposal that is made. I was asked whether in the case of life owners and settled estates the land could be disposed of for small holdings. That is the case. They can be sold under the Lands Clauses Act and the Settlement Act of Lord Cairns, and I do not think any amendment is required in that matter. I am also asked whether the amount the Bill insists upon being paid down in the first instance could not be reduced. That is a matter upon which I would rather reserve my opinion at present; but I should be ready to consider any reasonable suggestion, always having due regard to the security of the Local Authority. Another point which has been criticised is the limit which is imposed by the Bill on the erection of a dwelling house on a plot of land of less value than £25 a year. Especially from Scotland great objections have been raised to that provision; and, in my second speech on the First Reading of the Bill, I stated that that was a point upon which I was not
  1766
  specifically pledged, and I should be ready to consider any suggestion that was made. To that declaration I adhere now. I now come to the only point which has been treated in this Bill as of a Party character, or rather the one point in the discussion in which the opinions of hon. Members have been divided on strict Party lines. The Member for Ilkeston reminded me that some years ago I introduced a Bill dealing with the question of allotments which embodied the principle of compulsion. He said, that being so, why do you object to compulsion in this case. The reason and the answer are quite clear. There is a complete distinction between the two questions which I have never attempted to conceal. Allotments are a proved and ascertained benefit, but nobody in this House, unless it be the hon. Member for Bordesley, has ventured to go further in regard to the question of small holdings than this—that it is an experiment which we think it right and desirable to try. I cannot conceive why, with regard to an object which we treat solely as an experiment, we should adopt, in this Bill, a principle which certainly would give rise to ill-feeling, would create much friction, and would be calculated far rather to raise difficulties than to smooth the path and the future working of this measure. Moreover, I believe it to be wholly unnecessary. There are ample means of making an experiment without insisting upon the principle of compulsion. As, however, we are to have a future discussion upon this subject I take it as a matter of course that an Amendment will be moved in this direction. I think it will be for general convenience if I reserve until that occasion whatever more I may have to say on the subject. Objections were raised by a great number of speakers, and by also the right hon. Member for Midlothian, to the County Council as the authority. I do not propose to say anything further on that point because I think it was quite sufficiently dealt with by my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury. A good deal has been said as to the desirability of maintaining for all time to come a quit-rent, whereas in the Bill

  1767
  it is provided the quit-rent shall be redeemable; but I see no reason at present to change my opinion on that point. A question has been raised as to the power to repurchase a small holding at any time by the County Council. That is a proposal to which personally I take the strongest objection. I think, in the first place, it would tend to defeat the main object of the Bill. I cannot conceive anything more likely to deter intending purchasers from the purchase of small holdings than the knowledge of the fact that at any time in the future, especially when the holding became more valuable, it might be resumed by the Local Authority. Then the power to re-purchase carries with it the power to raise the rent. I should rather say to raise the interest, because it might well be in the power of the Local Authority, by this proposal, to say that the land had increased in value and they intended to repurchase it, and having re-bought the land they might sell it a second time, and at an increased price.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: Only for the public good.
  MR. CHAPLIN: What is the public good? The Local Authority might take one view of the matter and the unfortunate small holder another. I cannot help thinking that too much importance throughout the whole of these Debates has been attached to the advantages to be derived from these proceedings by the Local Authority. I honestly confess the main object I have had in view has been the advantage of the class who we hope and believe will become the owners of the small holdings in the future. I am a little surprised as to the cry for restrictions. I recollect the time, not so very long ago, when free land used to be one of the most popular and, perhaps, one of the most powerful cries amongst hon. Gentlemen opposite. But now, when I propose to create a number of freeholders, these gentlemen come forward and try to shackle me with every kind of restriction. The hon. Member for Ilkeston contrasted the amount of produce grown in France and Belgium as compared with this country, and drew dis-
  1768
  paraging comparisons between large farms on the one hand and the small farms on the other, very much to the disadvantage of the large one. All I know is, that the evidence of a gentleman exceedingly well versed in this matter—Major Craigie—differs entirely from the statements of the hon. Member. It is quite true that in Belgium the number of cows which are kept per square mile are in the proportion of 70 to 36 in England. On the other hand, cattle other than cows are in England 58 per square mile against 51 in Belgium. As to sheep, there are 322 maintained per square mile in England against 32 in Belgium. England returns an average of from 28 to 29 bushels of wheat against an average by Belgium of 24 to 27. As to potatoes, we grow in England 252 bushels to the acre; Belgium only grows 164 bushels. As to potatoes in France, the amount grown in four or five farms in France compared with a similar number in England was about three tons to the acre as against 6⅓ tons in England. I do not point out this evidence in any spirit of hostility whatever to the class of holdings which I am seeking to create, but I think it only right to say a word of warning to the House, and through the House to the country, that they should not be deceived by statements of the character to which I have referred, and which, I think, are misleading in the extreme. There have been many points raised in the course of the discussion, some of which I hope to be able to meet in Committee, although there are others which it will be my duty to resist. We have had a full discussion on the merits of the Bill, and I think the time is come when it might be read a second time, and I hope the day is not far distant when, with the general assent of the House, we may be able to pass into law a Measure which will receive general approval, and if it does not do all that is expected of it, will do something for that class in whose interest it has been introduced.
  MR. ESSLEMONT: I would point out to my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate that we are placed in an exceptional position in Scotland. We have had an

  1769
  Allotments Bill and an Amendment on the Allotments Bill for England, and the other day we passed an Allotments Bill for Ireland; bringing Ireland into the same position as England. Some years ago we dealt with the crofter counties; but, in regard to allotments nothing has been done in the Lowlands and the chief counties in Scotland. I think we ought to bring Scotland into unison with the privileges given to England and Ireland in this respect. I am quite satisfied the Scotch constituencies will not be content unless they are placed in the same position as the counties in England and Ireland. I am aware that allotments in Scotland are not of so great importance as in England. Still they are important in certain districts, and in those districts, at least, we might have an opportunity of giving allotments to the same class and under similar conditions to those which will prevail in England and Ireland. I may be allowed to acknowledge, which I do with great thankfulness, that the right hon. Gentleman has in various ways said he will approach the Committee stage with an open mind. In regard to Scotland he has given us reason to believe that he will yield certain points which we think important. The whole discussion on this Bill is one which lends itself to Committee in a very special way, and in the hope held out that we shall have a very full discussion, I think it unnecessary to detain the House beyond stating the single point in regard to Scotland.
  MR. THORBURN: Does this Bill cover pasture holdings?
  MR. CHAPLIN: With regard to the question of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, it seems to me it is perfectly clear that the right course to adopt is to extend the Allotments Act to Scotland instead of making this Bill applicable to allotments as well as small holdings. In regard to the question of the hon. Member for Peebles as to pasture lands, it is quite clear that the Bill, as drawn, applies to pasture as well as well as arable holdings, and will fully meet the object which I understood the hon. Member has in view.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  COLONEL NOLAN: I think I will be in Order on this Motion in alluding to what has taken place at Aldershot, where Private O'Grady, of the Welsh Fusiliers, was ordered by the officer, while on fatigue parade, to cease wearing the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day. I remember when Lord Carlisle was Lord Lieutenant, seeing an officer of high rank coming down with an immense bunch of shamrock all over his breast. I always made a point, when an officer, of wearing the shamrock myself on St. Patrick's Day, and I have seen General Officers almost covered with it. If I had anything to complain about I could write a letter to the Commanding Officer; but I can enter into O'Grady's feelings in this unfortunate matter, because a private soldier is in a very delicate position in that respect. I know considerable fault is to be found with the officer who gave the order to remove the shamrock. Some people do not know the shamrock from a piece of clover; but I think that Army officer, who has reached the rank of a captain, ought to know, when he sees something in an Irishman's hat about the middle of March, that it is St. Patrick's Day—that is, if he has ordinary reasoning powers. If Irishmen are to have their national feelings insulted and trampled on in such a small matter, they will naturally think that the officers will not be fair to them in matters of importance, and that they are in a certain amount of disrepute, which would naturally have a bad effect upon the Army. I should have no objection to Welshmen or Scotchmen wearing their national emblems, and I do not see why Irishmen should be prevented from doing so when they are in the Army.

  1771
  I do not see how the Secretary for War can justify a Vote for creating local feeling in the Army by means of depôts if, at the same time, the national feelings of Irish soldiers are insulted. What do you expect soldiers to fight for? Surely not for the miserable pittance of pay which they receive, but for a certain regimental and national feeling which you are doing your best to destroy in them by such acts as preventing Irish soldiers taking some pride in themselves and in their nationality. It is casting a slur on a body of men, who, it must be allowed, have acted with great gallantry when required. Some people may say that it is wrong to wear the primrose on Primrose Day in the Army. Let them have their primrose. But I say that that is a Party badge, whilst the shamrock is not a Party badge. I contend that the wearing of the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day should not be objected to in the Army, and that the national feelings of the Irish soldiers should be respected.
  MR. WALLACE: In this Bill there is an appropriation of £110,000 to be distributed towards the reduction of rates in Scotland. This involves a question of momentous importance to Scotland, and it has not yet received adequate attention from this House. It really constitutes a crisis in the educational and social history of our country. The question is, whether a great endowment shall be frittered away in uncalled-for, insignificant, and unjustly distributed doles to individuals, or whether it shall be kept together and devoted to some higher national purpose. The sum of £110,000, which is proposed to to be appropriated under this Bill, is really a first instalment of this great endowment, and we say it has not been properly considered. We ought to have had an opportunity of fully threshing the matter out in Committee. That which was offered to us on the Report stage was a mockery. The First Lord of the Treasury undertook in his time-table arrangements to start the consideration of the question at half past ten on the Friday, but he was 35 minutes behind time. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman did his
  1772
  best to keep faith, but the Chief Secretary went on talking for twelve mortal minutes beyond the stipulated time, in spite of the remonstrances of his chief. I venture to suggest, although the right hon. Gentleman is no doubt desirous of finding out the best plan of managing the Business of the House, that the Bradshaw system is not a conspicuous success. Now, this proposed appropriation for the relief of rates arose upon a Supplementary Estimate having reference to the financial year now closing. It is in effect a retrospective grant, not for the purpose of enabling the rating authority to diminish the rates in the future, but to help persons who have already paid their rates, and have paid them without a murmur. Now, how can you do that? Strictly speaking, you cannot relieve rates already imposed and paid. Like the celebrated proposal for the unpulling of a man's nose, it comes too late. It is really undertaking to do what is impracticable. As a matter of reality, it is sending the Chancellor of the Exchequer round to the Scottish ratepayers who have paid their rates, with a sackful of half crowns, shillings, sixpences, and threepenny pieces to give each of them what is strictly a "tip" for having done what he could not help doing, and which he made no grumble about having to do. Now, I submit that is a futile and ridiculous proceeding. The sums proposed to be given have been shown by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) to be absolutely insignificant, not much larger in dimensions than the coins which in some parts of the country are as a matter of custom flung out in the street to be scrambled for on the occasion of a wedding, and when the smallest and weakest among the crowd get the halfpence, the biggest and strongest the more valuable coins. This is precisely the position of the Government, only they are carrying it out in a more secret and more solemn form. For all practical purposes the Government would really do quite as well if instead of leaving this money to be distributed

  1773
  by Municipalities they were to give it directly to the recipients of these absurdly small gifts. That is what they are doing in reality, and it would be far better if they did it openly. Let us see how the operation would really work. Take my own City of Edinburgh. You would naturally at the outset begin with that important Edinburgh institution, Parliament House, where the Judges administer justice. You would tell off the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General as your almoners, and they would commence, I suppose, with 6s. 8d. for the two Presidents of the Court of Session, receiving vouchers of course. Then 5s. to the learned Lords of Division. Then, say, 3s. 6d. to the Lords Ordinary, on or off place. Then 2s. 6d. to the Master of the Court, should he happen to be there, and 1s. to the Macers, who would certainly be there. Then 6d. apiece to the Albany and other heralds, if present, and, say, 4d. to the trumpeters, who are bound to be there, and probably would be there in full blast. Then with respect to the laity of the City, the Lord Provost, the Baillies, Councillors, and others, through various grades, you would proceed to distribute in diminishing sums, and so through all classes, down to pence for workmen. If the astounded presentees should ask, "What is the meaning of all this?" the answer would be, "It is the recognition by a satisfied and benevolent Government of the good you have done in paying your own rates and securing your furniture against being impounded and sold at the cross." It may or may not be an edifying spectacle, but that is what is going to be done, and that is how the thing would be expressed in a straightforward way by those persons addicted to giving the right name to a spade. Now, what is the use of so wasting our money? What good do you expect to come out of it when it is done? The sums are far too insignificant to be worth banking or buying Consols with. They will be regarded simply as found money, and we know how people are apt to deal with found money, both in Princes Street Clubs and in High Street public houses. It usually goes in extra
  1774
  nicotine, alcohol, or other evanescent investment, scattering a fund which, if kept together, might prove a blessing to the nation. Besides the folly of the thing I object to the way in which the money is distributed. No attempt has been made by the Lord Advocate or other responsible Minister to meet the figures, which show most conclusively that while the working classes of Scotland must have paid in taxation half at least of this £110,000 they are only receiving back a quarter or a fifth and the remaining three-quarters or four-fifths goes straight into the pockets of the landlords and wealthier classes. The Lord Advocate says that the money does not come from general taxation, but from Probate Duty and money which is the product of taxation paid by other than the working classes. It seems to me an extraordinary argument to say that the money does not come from general taxation because it is derived from the Probate and other Duties. Are not the two organically connected? I wonder if the Lord Advocate in the course of his professional career had to defend a man against a charge of assault with an effusion of blood, he would expect much success in Court if he argued that his client did not bleed the plaintiff, but only the plaintiff's nose? But that is the argument here. Whoever bleeds the Probate Duty bleeds the general fund of the nation. The two are organically inseparably connected, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer chooses in his Budget to devote a part of the Probate Duty to local purposes, what he really does is to give money from general taxation of the country to an amount which shall rise or fall with the Probate Duty. Why he should have selected that measure of variation I do not know. It is, I suppose, one of the inscrutable eccentricities of financial genius. I do not know why he should not equally select the death rate or the bank rate, or the barometer, or his own political opinions, or any other recognised standard of mutability and fluctuation. But the Lord Advocate is mistaken in his recollection of the Act of Parliament of 1888, which says that certain duties shall be the measure of the Local

  1775
  Taxation Account, and this is the Consolidated Fund Bill. Further, I have to say the proposal is inconsistant and self-contradictory. You call it a fee grant, and say it is 11–18ths of the fee grant voted in 1891. If it be a fee grant, why not devote it to that or a cognate purpose? Have we not the right to do what we like with our own? Are we not in the moral position to exercise that elementary right of property? Is there any reason why the fee grant should be diverted from the purpose indicated in its name? You may quote against us the proverb that we cannot eat and have our cake, but here is a case of two cakes—the Probate Duty cake and the Fee Grant cake, and there is nothing to prevent us eating the one and still having the other. The great mass of the Scottish people view with disapproval this frittering away of a grant of £110,000 in the way proposed. Two years ago, when the Probate Grant was to a considerable extent converted into a means of giving free education, no measure passed by the Government was more popular, and even this grant would have received popular acceptation if devoted to a comprehensive extension of education. For the last few weeks the Lobbies and Courts of this House have, to a considerable extent, exhibited a seething mass of Scottish Provosts, Baillies, Deans of Guild, and representatives of a variety of bodies, all clamouring for a share of the plunder, and many clamouring for the whole plunder as their share, and to Scottish Members the precincts of this House have approached a resemblance to—I must not say a terrestrial pandemonium, but certainly something far removed from an earthly paradise. I do not blame these gentlemen. It is their business to keep down the rates; they are professional rate depressors. But there are higher matters to which this grant might be devoted, and we who represent the Scottish people, represent a people who for four centuries have held, and still hold, the principle that the highest interest of any nation is the intellectual and moral elevation of its people. So far I have a mandate from my constituents, and in that con-
  1776
  nection I may be allowed to remark that the Municipality of Edinburgh, keeping a position conspicuous and honourably isolated among Scottish burghs, devoted every penny of the residue of the grant from the enhanced spirit and beer duties to technical education, not a penny being scattered in the so-called relief of rates. So far as I have any mandate from my constituents, it is that I should give expression to their opinion that if money from Imperial taxation is to be flung about in this fashion then the first use to which it should be devoted is the perfecting of free primary education and continuation evening schools, and secundus to higher and technical education. The very last thing that ought to be done with the money is to waste it over the contemptible object of presenting eleemosynary half-crowns to the well-to-do and flinging insulting threepenny pieces to the humble.
  MR. P. O'BRIEN: I desire to raise in a more convenient form than by a question the incident at Aldershot in reference to the wearing of the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day. I hope we may now have a clear understanding, and if it is a crime for an Irish soldier to wear the shamrock, let us have it plainly declared. If it is not a crime, as of course it is not a crime, then I think we have a right to ask that the private soldier who has been punished for misconduct in relation to this wearing of the shamrock shall not suffer further punishment by being deprived of his chance of promotion in consequence of this incident. If it is a crime, then let the right hon. Gentleman declare it so in all ranks of service under the Crown. It is notorious that at Dublin Castle on St. Patrick's Day the decoration is generally worn by the Lord Lieutenant and his suite, and at the present moment it is recognised in all ranks of the Army. Private O'Grady must have witnessed, as I have witnessed on many occasions, the shamrock worn by officers distinguished in the Service, and private O'Grady may well have thought himself perfectly

  1777
  justified in imitating the example. Now, the only appearance of an apology for the consequences that followed is that Captain Tindal did not know that the 17th March is St. Patrick's Day. Well, in all seriousness I suggest that the School Board may well exert itself in a military direction. But, indeed, I have reason to believe that this battalion was recently in Ireland, and I think I once met some of the men on eviction duty. I really find it difficult to believe that this officer was not aware that 17th March was St. Patrick's Day. Is it not well-known that in times past commanding officers have worn the shamrock, and though Protestants have attended the church parade of some regiments on the anniversary? certainly a very different view from that taken by Captain Tindal. It was not unnatural that private O'Grady should resent an order to remove a decoration he had seen worn by his superiors, but it seems "That in the Captain's but a choleric word, which in the soldier is rank blasphemy." It was a bad policy to inflict this punishment on private O'Grady; it is a bad policy to offer an insult to the national Irish sentiment, for do you not rely on Irishmen for your recruits, and have not Irishmen fought your battles and poured out their heart's blood in your cause? The Irish soldier has won your battles, but, the battle over, he has been deported to Irish workhouses, and the remaining shred of his life has been supported by the rates. It is unwise, I say, to insult the sentiment of the Irish people. If you stop the wearing of the shamrock, then stop the use of all national emblems in the Army—the rose, the thistle, and the leek. I should like to see the commanding officer who would refuse to allow the wearing of a rose on St. George's Day. But my object is to get from the Secretary for War an assurance that with the punishment this soldier has suffered the matter shall drop, and private O'Grady shall not be further punished by loss of promotion or by deprivations consequent upon the punishment he has undergone. Recruiting has been slack in
  1778
  Ireland of late, and it will be more so, I hope, unless you give an assurance that the Irishmen in the Army shall be free to wear their national emblem on their festival day as is done at Dublin Castle, and by the Minister for Ireland in this House.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): There are two points involved in this question which it is well to keep separate. On the first point—the conduct of the soldier—I think there will be little or no difference of opinion as to the justice of the punishment inflicted for the offence committed. The punishment was inflicted for gross disobedience of orders, since private O'Grady refused to obey the order of his superior officer, and if you do not punish for such an offence there is an end of all discipline in the Army. The other point is very different, whether or not a soldier should be allowed to wear a distinctive badge. It is the duty of the soldier to conform to the Regulations and the orders of his superior officer, and on duty he must conform to the Regulations as to uniform. The Regulations apply to every part of the Army, and it is for the commanding officer to enforce them. I trust the incident may now be allowed to close, and that the Third Reading of the Bill may be taken.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY: The right hon. Gentleman had an opportunity of doing a gracious act, and I am sorry he did not avail himself of it. We do not quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman on the ground that the soldier was punished for disobeying orders, though I can well understand that a soldier being harshly told to throw away the shamrock might sent such an order, and decline to obey it. But that is not the point we lay stress upon. What we want, and what we expect from the right hon. Gentleman is something conciliatory and reassuring that such an incident may not occur again in an Army where Irishmen have always borne such a distinguished part. The right hon. Gentleman has told

  1779
  us of Regulation in the Army, but are not Army Regulations changed almost every day, and is there any difficulty in making a Regulation which will ensure that on this particular anniversary an Irish soldier, on or off duty, shall be allowed to wear the shamrock? I can tell the House that this is by no means a trivial matter. The Irish sentiment lies deep in the hearts of the Irish people, abroad and at home. Irish soldiers have served in our Army with an extravagant loyalty ill repaid, and it is but a slight concession to allow this exhibition of national sentiment on one day in the year. National sentiment is an important element in an Army. Marshal M'Mahon gave expression to it when he said that at a change in the national tricolour, "the chassepots would go off of themselves." A wise commander would encourage the national sentiment, and at a time when the two greatest soldiers in the Service are Irishmen I think some delicacy towards national feelings might find expression in such a Regulation as I speak of.
  COLONEL BLUNDELL: There is in the Army not only toleration, but respect for every religion and for every nationality. No distinction is recognised between Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, and Welshmen, and whether a soldier was born in Ireland or in this island makes no more difference than whether he was born on the Surrey side of the Thames or on this side.
  MR. SEXTON: We have every respect for the hon. and gallant Gentleman's sentiments, but he has scarcely touched this matter under discussion. I should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would have taken this opportunity to make quite clear his view of this incident at Alder-shot. By way of apology it has been said the officer did not know that the 17th March was St. Patrick's Day. This is a singular state of ignorance, but the inference is that if the gallant officer had happily remembered the anniversary, his action would have been other than it was.
  1780
  There was, I grant, a breach of military discipline in disregarding the order, but we should like to have the right hon. Gentleman's opinion—does he think that such an order should have been given? There are 27,000 Irishmen in your Army, and I have little doubt that the greater number of them were the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day on or off duty. Did any other commanding officer find it necessary to give such an order? Further, I should be glad to know if it is a fact, as I am assured by a correspondent it is, that the men of this regiment, the Welsh Fusiliers, are required to wear the leek on St. David's Day, 1st March, for "rouse" and "tattoo." Very pertinently my correspondent, who was formerly in the regiment, asks—
  "Why should a man after having been forced to wear the emblem of another country on 1st March not be allowed to wear the emblem of his own country on the 17th?"
  Recruiting has fallen off in Ireland, the Inspector General of Recruiting refers in his last Report to the difficulty of maintaining the supply for Ireland, and you will hot attract men to the Army from Ireland if you countenance such conduct as this towards private O'Grady.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I cannot help thinking that hon. Gentlemen will on reflection see that they attach a great deal more significance to this incident than it deserves. It has been almost suggested that there has been a settled conspiracy on the part of the authorities to discourage national sentiment among Irish soldiers, and allusions have been made to the diminution of recruiting. Now, I think hon. Members will feel on reflection that, whatever may be the reasons for the diminution in the supply of soldiers we in former times had from Ireland, at all events this is not one of them. We on this side of the House have always believed and we still believe that a very keen spirit of nationality is not only not inconsistent but is distinctly consistent with, and more than consistent with the strongest feelings of

  1781
  loyalty to the Empire as a whole. The very last thing that would occur to my right hon. Friend, or to any man on either side of the House in dealing with the Army, would be to discourage this legitimate feeling of nationality. We know—all who know anything of British history know—the gallant deeds of Irish soldiers in the past: we know these things, we recognise them, we are grateful, and the very last thing any man anxious for the well-being of the Army would do, would be to trample on their feelings of nationality, legitimate and honourable. Now the facts of this case are very simple. The commanding officer may have been to blame in not recognising the 17th March as St. Patrick's Day, but apt as we are to forget dates in which we have a domestic and personal interest, I do not think it is a very great crime to forget the anniversary of the patron saint of a country not your own. For my own part I confess I should be sorry to be required to answer off hand as to what is the date of St. George's Day. St. Andrew's Day I do know, but I frankly confess I do not know the date of St. George's Day. Well, then, I do not think it was a very serious lapse of memory on the part of the officer when he, seeing a soldier wearing a badge in his cap he did not recognise ordered him to remove it. The soldier replied in a manner inconsistent with discipline, and punishment followed.
  MR. SEXTON: But do not punish him further.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is not likely to be brought up against him.
  MR. MACNEILL: Oh, yes; he is a marked man.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am sure hon. Gentlemen would see if they looked at this matter impartially and not through the coloured medium of national prepossessions, that the commanding officer when the thing went so far could not do less than he did. The idea of premeditated studied insult to Irish national sentiment is out of the question. I hope now that the House will agree, the matter having been very fully discussed, to read the Bill a third time.
  MR. J. O'CONNOR: In the speech of the right hon. Gentleman I recognise a conciliatory character which was absent from the speech of his right hon. Colleague (Mr. Stanhope). But we are still at a loss to understand the policy of the right hon. Gentleman and of commanding officers in the future in these matters. It is consistent with the stubborn character of Irishmen that they should resent this interference, and I suppose they are still to be punished. We have heard of the Regulations. Now I have heard of Regulations in connection with another Army, and of an incident in connection therewith, which I suppose the right hon. Gentleman would equally defend if it concerned the English Army. The incident to which I allude occurred in the Russian Army. Three private soldiers declined to salute their officer, and he, with a strong sense of the value of discipline and regard for the proper tone of the Army, drew his revolver and shot down these three men, one after another. He was, I suppose, within the Army Regulations; but I suppose there will scarcely be two opinions about the punishment being greatly in excess of the offence. In like manner, my hon. Friends maintain that the punishment meted out to Private O'Grady was more than the offence demanded. I quite admit that "discipline must be maintained," but I think 48 hours' confinement was more than sufficient punishment. There is such a thing as local influence in recruiting for the Army. You have abolished the numbers by which regiments were known; you give them territorial titles, so that there is a local feeling in the Army, recognised and fostered; and I say you should not discourage the national feeling. It has been said this man was on duty; but on fatigue duty, at half-past 6 in the morning, a soldier goes about pretty much in any dress he likes. This was a slight breach of duty that might well have been overlooked; and, though Captain Tindal had not sufficient knowledge of botany to recognise the plant, and did not

  1783
  remember the anniversary, the commanding officer who imposed the sentence knew all the circumstances. That commanding officer had probably worn the shamrock himself, or he must have seen, as I have seen, distinguished officers wearing the badge at Dublin Castle. Would the Duke of Wellington have sanctioned such a punishment for a slight offence? I think not. I remember hearing from an old soldier who had served under the Duke in many a bloody campaign a story of how the Duke was reviewing troops before some great Spanish potentate, and one regiment passed the saluting point in straggling order, the 88th Connaught Rangers. They had suffered heavily in the recent campaign, and their ranks had many new levies from other regiments. The men did not march well together, and their straggling order called forth a comment from the Spaniard. "Ah, yes," said the Duke, "but how they marched at Badajoz!" The Duke had a high regard for the feeling of his men. The right hon. Gentleman had not a word of condemnation for the severity of the punishment inflicted on O'Grady, and I take it he endorsed that sentence. But we want the right hon. Gentleman to say, Will Irish soldiers in future be treated as Private O'Grady has been treated, or may they, without fear of punishment, wear the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day? Rest assured that whatever you do, the words of the song will come true—
  "Pluck the shamrock from your hat
  And throw it on the sod;
  But never fear, 'twill take root there,
  Though under foot 'tis trod!"
  MR. MACNEILL: I have a letter her from a gentleman in the Service, and he says, what indeed we know to be a fact, that the commanding officer and the Staff at Dublin Castle may be seen on St. Patrick's Day wearing the shamrock as a decoration. If we had had the speech from the First Lord in the first place, we should have been satisfied; but what we now want is an admission that the officer has been guilty of want of
  1784
  tact and discretion, and that it shall not occur again. We know that on this anniversary the shamrock is sent to the men by mother, sister, or sweetheart, and worn by men in far distant climes where they are on service. In the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, I believe, the shamrock is interwoven in the colours and the decorations of the uniform. As I mentioned before, the late Duke of Clarence were the emblem on a State occasion, and indeed the wearing of the shamrock has been so much an ordinary occurrence that it is difficult to understand how an officer should fall into this indiscretion of which Captain Tindal has been guilty. It was a foolish action, and it is likely to create a bad feeling among Irish soldiers. The Secretary for War has not improved matters; he has not shown himself a friend to the private soldier. His action in this matter will be taken as an affront to Irish soldiers. I confess if I had been in the position of O'Grady I should have done as he did, and I believe his action had the approval of his comrades in the ranks. This is not the spirit to induce Irishmen to enter the Army. Let the Secretary for War take a lesson from the First Lord, who has had some experience of Irishmen, and has made to-night a nice little Nationalist speech. Let the right hon. Gentleman make the amende honorable acknowledge that a mistake has been made, and give an assurance that private O'Grady shall not suffer in the future, and have a black mark against him.
  DR. TANNER: The reply of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War was characterised by the cynicism of the First Lord without his philosophy. I hope we shall hear something from the Treasury Bench calculated to allay the irritation that has been caused. The mistake was on the part of the officer, though, of course, I admit the soldier committed a breach of discipline. But then, he were the emblem out of respect to his nationality, and felt it a degradation to lower his colours. I remember once seeing an Highland regiment embark at Cork on 17th March, and every man were a sham-

  1785
  rock in his bonnet; and, as we all know it is customary for officers to wear the decoration. I trust that we shall have a declaration that private O'Grady, having suffered for his breach of discipline, will be subjected to no further penalty because of the indiscretion of the officer.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I hope it may be possible to close this incident and allay the irritation that has been excited. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that discipline must be enforced and am not disposed to lay any blame on the officer who felt it necessary to inflict punishment on the private, yet I do think, considering all the circumstances, it is possible for the War Office to take a lenient view, and, granting that an offence was committed, that may be considered as sufficiently purged by the punishment the man has endured. This private soldier had been accustomed to see gentlemen of high position wear the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day. I do hope that what has occurred may not prejudice his future position, that he will not in any sort of way be a marked man.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: With the permission of the House I may be allowed to say, in reply to my hon. Friend and hon. Gentlemen opposite, that there can be no doubt that this soldier having suffered punishment for his breach of discipline has purged his offence; and although I do not wish to say—I would rather not be called upon to say—anything as to the previous character of the man, I will take care that representations are made in the proper quarter, so that, if possible, his conduct on this occasion may not be recorded against him to his detriment in the future.
  MR. CONWAY: I should like also to hear an assurance that Irish soldiers shall be permitted to wear the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day. It would relieve much anxiety to have such an assurance.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.—(No. 223.)
  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed "That the Bill be now read a third time."
  COLONEL NOLAN: I just want to mention the very wide discretion allowed to commanding officers to punish trivial offences with a severity out of all proportion to the character of the offence. I know that commanding officers do not interpret the clause with the severity of which it is capable, but the incident which has engaged our attention just now shows that some limitation is desirable in the enormous power placed in the hands of commanding officers.
  MR. KNOX: I take the opportunity of asking the right hon. Gentleman for some explanation in reference to his answer to a question that it is intended that the Cavan Militia shall train with the Antrim Artillery?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: No; I said at Antrim.
  MR. KNOX: Then the point I was about to mention does not arise. But may I ask is it intended that the Antrim Militia shall train in Cavan, or is there to be no exchange? I do not say there is any connection between the facts, but it happens that the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh takes command of the Cavan Militia.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's remarks do not appear to be relevant to the Bill.
  DR. TANNER: May I ask is it a fact that soldiers who have an attack of pneumonia while on duty and are sent to hospital suffer a deduction in their pay at the rate of sevenpence a day?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  DR. TANNER: I will ask the question on the Estimates.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 1) BILL.
  Reported without Amendment (Provisional Order confirmed); to be read the third time To-morrow.

  PARISH COUNCILS, &c. BILL.—(No. 98.)
  Order for Second Reading upon Wednesday 18th May read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  TEACHERS' REGISTRATION AND ORGANISATION BILL.—(No. 117.)
  Order for Second Reading upon Wednesday 6th April read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  CLERGY DISCIPLINE (IMMORALITY) BILL [Lords.]
  Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 239.]

  PLYMOUTH TRAMWAYS [REPAYMENT OF DEPOSIT].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the repayment, subject to the provisions of section sixty-five of "The Plymouth Tramways Act, 1889," with respect to compensation to landowners and other persons injured and for the protection of creditors, and subject also to the provisions of clause four of the Bill now pending in this House, intituled "A Bill to revive the powers and extend the time for completion and opening of the Plymouth Tramways and for other purposes," of the sum of Two hundred and fifty-five pounds and nine shillings, which in pursuance of the said Act is now forfeited or liable to be forfeited, together with any interest or dividends thereon.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION ACT, 1889.
  BROMLEY, — Copy presented, — of Minute sanctioning the Subjects to be taught under Clause 8 of the Act for the District of Bromley (Kent) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  DEWSBURY, — Copy presented, — of Minute sanctioning the Subjects to be taught under Clause 8 of the Act for the Borough of Dewsbury (Second Minute) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  PORTLAND, — Copy presented, — of Minute sanctioning the Subjects to be taught under Clause 8 of the Act for the District of Portland [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  BIRTHS, DEATHS, MARRIAGES, AND VACCINATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented,—of Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Registrar General in Scotland for the year 1891, and Twenty-Seventh Annual Report on Vaccination [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (VETERINARY DEPARTMENT).
  Copy presented,—of Annual Report of the Veterinary Department for 1891, with an Appendix [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS, 1878 TO 1890.
  Copy presented,—of Order by the Board of Agriculture, dated the 22nd March, 1892, entitled "The Animals (Amendment) Order of 1892, No. 3" [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
MOTION.

  STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Lloyd-Morgan, Bill to enable County Councils to provide for the appointment of Stipendiary Magistrates, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lloyd-Morgan, Mr. Dillwyn, Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Lockwood, Mr. Philipps, and Mr. Abel Thomas.
  Bill presented, and read first time [Bill 238.]
  House adjourned at twenty minutes after One o'clock.

BLACKROCK AND KINGSTOWN MAIN DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT BILL.
THE EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY: My Lords, as what I ask your Lordships to do, to refer this Bill back again to the Standing Orders Committee, is very unusual if not altogether unprecedented, I hope you will have patience with me for a moment while I explain what this Bill is and the fate it has met with. The Blackrock Township is one of the townships in that thickly populated district that runs from Kingstown to Dublin. All the way from Kingstown to Dublin the sea is extremely shallow; there are sands which run out a long way to sea and which are all dry at low water. I want your Lordships to take in the geographical aspect of this question; I only wish I had one of the big maps with a long stick that they have in the Committee Rooms upstairs to make myself clear; because unless you understand the geographical position it will be hard for your Lordships to understand what the peculiar difficulty of the Blackrock people is in dealing with their sewage, why they have always had to wait upon the people of Kingstown, and why they are perfectly justified at the present time in persisting with this Bill. My Lords, owing, as I say, to the shallow water and flats in front of these townships, to deal properly with their sewage it is absolutely necessary to intercept it and take it away to the right past Kingstown and away out to the deeper water beyond at Dalkey or elsewhere. They cannot possibly deal with it in front of their own township for the reasons I have stated. What happens at the present time is that this sewage is poured upon the sands; at low water it festers in the sun, and at high water it is all washed up again on to the shore all along Dublin Bay and causes a tremendous nuisance. If there is any noble Lord present who is in the habit of travelling, particularly by slow trains, backwards and forwards along
1626
that way from Kingstown to Dublin, especially at low water when the wind is off the sea, I am sure he will back me up in saying that, it is now almost an intolerable nuisance, the smell is so horrible. [After reading some letters from medical men in the district in support of his statements the noble Lord proceeded.] My Lords, I think the letters which I have read will leave no doubt upon your Lordships' minds that this question is most urgent, and, in the words of the Kingstown Commissioners (those very Commissioners who are now opposing this Bill) in a resolution which they passed last September, "the cleansing of the foreshore is an absolute necessity." My Lords, what is the history of this question up to now? For the last 20 years efforts have been made on the part of the Kingstown Commissioners to deal with the question, but they have all come to nothing; and, if I have made myself clear to you, you will understand that it was not such a pressing question 20 or even ten years ago as it is now. Things went on in this way until last year, when the Kingstown Main Drainage Committee devised a scheme which is the scheme now before your Lordships' House. As usual they asked the Blackrock people to contribute towards it and the Blackrock people did. What happened at the last moment? For reasons, about which I shall have a word to say presently, the Kingstown Commissioners dropped the Bill, and on 7th January they turned round and passed a resolution opposing their own Bill and their own scheme. Then it was that the people of Blackrock, being utterly sick of suffocating in the smell of their sewage, and despairing of getting any efficient assistance from the Kingstown Commissioners, made up their minds to go on with this Bill by themselves in the teeth of the Kingstown Commissioners. What has happened to this Bill? My Lords, the Bill came in the ordinary way before the Examiner of Private Bills, who pointed out that it was inconsistent with the Standing Orders on three points, of which the first and third, which I may take together as consequent upon each other, are I understand the most important. The Examiner pointed

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out that the words of the Bill were so wide in connection with the sewage works,—their drains, that it really gave power to the promoters to construct sewage works; and if that were done, of course consistently with the Standing Orders, their limits ought to have been denned, and proper notice ought to have been given in the Bill to the people likely to be affected by this nuisance. The promoters of the Bill were very much taken aback at this announcement; they had no more idea of constructing sewage works near the outfall than they had of building a lighthouse there. They had no idea of stealing a march or taking an unfair advantage of anybody. The mistake was due entirely to careless drafting and inadvertence. Before the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons therefore they offered to insert a clause restricting these wide words entirely to the two sewage pipes, which was all they wanted, to go past Kingstown and to go 600 feet out to sea. The House of Commons Standing Orders Committee took the view that such a safeguard as that would be sufficient, and they allowed the Bill, so far as that objection went, to proceed. I now come to the second objection taken by the Examiner, namely, that the notices for the Bill do not state the intention to compel the Kingstown Commissioners to contribute towards such a course and its expense. To anyone who knows the private history of this matter this objection will appear a very technical one; because, as I told your Lordships just now, it is the Kingstown Commissioners own scheme, drawn up by their own Main Drainage Committee, and the one they asked the Blackrock people to co-operate with them in. They cannot possibly plead that they have been taken by surprise in any way, for this is what passed on the 4th March last year. Their Committee reported to them that—
"As the Commissioners of the Blackrock Township represent the next largest township to our own in the suggested drainage district, we invited them to say whether they would join your Board in preparing and promoting a main drainage scheme which would provide for the townships and the area draining into them, on the basis of contribution and representation pro rata."
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I think your Lordships' curiosity may well be excited at the way in which the Kingstown Commissioners have dropped this scheme of their own,—it is really a very curious reason. They have dropped it I understand because certain members of the Kingstown Commissioners hold leases of landlords in Kingstown which will shortly expire, and they think they can get better terms from the landlords for renewing their leases by opposing this Bill, which the landlords are promoting. And, just to show that I am not repeating any mere malicious gossip, I think I had better read you this short extract from a speech of Mr. Myles, late chairman of the Kingstown Commissioners, when seconding the resolution passed on the 7th January of this year to oppose the Bill. He said that—
"They were now going to pass a resolution to oppose the Bill, and he hoped it would be unanimously passed. He thought that any main drainage scheme in the present deplorable condition of the Kingstown leases would be a mistake."
So that they avowed that as their reason for turning on the Blackrock Commissioners and opposing their own Bill. Again I refer to what passed before the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons. The Committee thought that this objection might reasonably be met by allowing the question of costs to be dealt with by the Committee before whom the Bill might come. The first objection they thought might be met by a restricting clause; the second by leaving the question to the Committee on the Bill; and the House of Commons Standing Orders Committee allowed the Bill to proceed. Your Lordships' Standing Orders Committee took a more severe view; they held that the Bill had not been drafted in compliance with the Standing Orders and that it could not further proceed. Well, my Lords, I for one am not going to say that they were not perfectly justified in coming to that decision. I quite understand the extreme importance of insisting that people should comply properly with the Standing Orders; and there is no one in the world to blame in this matter but the draftsman of the Bill, through whose carelessness or inadvertence the whole difficulty has arisen. But looking at

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it from the point of view of the Blackrock people and their feeling upon the subject, it does seem to me very hard thing that a measure of such urgent necessity for their health and comfort should be lost, perhaps indefinitely, on account of a merely technical objection. My Lords, upon what ground can I claim a re-hearing? I claim it partly on this ground: that there was a certain irregularity in the way in which the Bill was opposed before the Standing Orders Committee of your Lordships House. The agents who represented a noble Lord in this House, Lord Carysfort, did not appear before the Examiner, but appeared before the Standing Orders Committee, without any notice to the promoters of the line they were going to take. I am informed that such conduct is very irregular. Anyhow it is highly inconvenient and very hard upon promoters. I believe there were several things put forward on behalf of Lord Carysfort which could have been shown to be inaccurate. There are several other things which could have been met and answered in a way that would I think have satisfied both the Committee and the noble Lord. For instance, the noble Lord representing the people of Dalkey was very much alarmed at the wide Parliamentary limit taken in the Bill for the possible outfall of the sewage; but, if the promoters had had notice and had been able to meet him before the Standing Orders Committee, I think they would have proved to the Standing Orders Committee and to the noble Lord that his fears were groundless, because there are other people to be consulted, and the Dublin Port and Docks Committee have confined the area in which they may discharge their sewer to the small area marked blue on the map which I have here, and which I shall be happy to show to any of your Lordships, in the extreme furthest corner of the Parliamentary limits, and at a spot where there is always 30 feet of water at low water, and where I am also informed the strong ebb tide (and the sewer is only to discharge at ebb tide) would carry all the sewage away. I base my appeal for a re-hearing partly upon this: that there was some irregularity as to the evidence which
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could have been given, if there had been proper notice, before the House of Lords Standing Orders Committee, evidence which would be given if the Standing Orders Committee should consent to allow the promoters a re-hearing; but I also appeal, my Lords, very strongly on the ground of the urgent sanitary necessity for this Bill, coupled with the fact that the non-compliance with the Standing Orders was due entirely to inadvertence, and did not conceal any unfair or nefarious design. I am fully conscious of the extreme importacen of enforcing compliance with the Standing Orders by a sharp lesson if need be, and I think what has passed with regard to this Bill will have taught such a lesson. On the other hand it does seem a great misfortune that so desirable a measure as this, of such urgent sanitary necessity should be lost upon a merely technical ground. My Lords, I may be met by saying that as a precedent it would be dangerous. But I ask your Lordships to remember that I am not asking that this Bill should pass. I am not even asking that it should be referred to a Committee to be sat upon. I only ask that it should have a re-hearing before the Standing Orders Committee. The Standing Orders Committee will always have power to throw out this Bill or any other, and therefore I think the argument as to its being a dangerous precedent will fall to the ground. No dangerous precedent will be set by this Motion of mine if you pass it, and I hope the Standing Orders Committee will listen to the plea that I have brought before them and will consent to my Motion. I beg leave to move the Motion that stands in my name.
Moved, "That the Report from the Standing Orders Committee of the 14th instant be referred back to the said Committee forre-consideration."—(The Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY): I hope the noble Earl will excuse me if I do not follow him into the details of the merits of this Bill which he has so ably brought before your Lordships. It is not a question of merits at all; it

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is simply a question of the Standing Orders not having been complied with; and it is a question for the Standing Orders Committee whether they should be dispensed with in this case or not. It is a perfectly simple question, and the merits I venture to think do not enter into the question at all. My Lords the facts are these: The Committee to which the Bill was referred was particularly strongly composed; no less than 15 Members were present and heard with patience, and I think with perfect fairness, everything that was brought forward by those whom the noble Earl represents to-day. I beg the noble Earl not for a moment to imagine that the Committee entered into the question, or would deny what he has said as to the desirability of the scheme. Of that we knew nothing; but we considered the question whether in this case the Standing Orders, which undoubtedly had not been complied with, were so unimportant that they might be dispensed with with safety; and the Committee, without any division, came to a decision that it was not a case in which the Standing Orders should be dispensed with, and in that sense we reported to the House. Now my Lords the Motion of the noble Earl is a very unusual one; I think I may say that in the particular form in which he has brought it before the House it is almost without precedent. I can imagine cases where new evidence was forthcoming that was not produced before the Committee, and which had arisen subsequently, where it might be desirable to refer the Bill back to the Committee; but in this case the only plea that the noble Earl has brought forward is certain irregularity with regard to Lord Carysfort's Petition. Now that irregularity certainly was not brought to the notice of the Committee when we heard the arguments for and against dispensing with the Standing Orders, and I am not quite certain that it existed. But, at any rate, I may say I think, without much fear of contradiction from my colleagues, that the grounds upon which they based their decision were not very materially strengthened by that Petition, whether it was regular or whether it was irregular. My Lords, I think there might be cer-
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tain cases, such for instance as when there was a considerable divergence of opinion on the Committee, or where a Member of that Committee desired that the Bill might be again referred to it, that I think might,—I do not say that it would,—form a justification for a re-hearing. But in the present case I am bound to say, sorry as I am if the district is deprived of a beneficial scheme in consequence of its failure to comply with the Standing Orders of your Lordships' House, I should not be doing my duty if I did not state to your Lordships that I think it would not be desirable to re-open a question that has been already decided unequivocally by so strong a Committee as that which sat upon this Bill.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: It is with great deference that I rise to say anything in opposition to the noble Earl who has just sat down; but as one of the ground landlords of Kingstown, whose supposed oppression of their tenants is the so-called cause of the opposition on the part of the Kingstown Commissioners, and, I am afraid, of the greater part of the Kingstown Corporation to this measure, I really hope your Lordships will excuse my saying a few words, especially when I say that I do not so much rise on my own part as on behalf of my partner in the ground landlords of Kingstown, Lord De Vesci, who is out of England and unfortunately cannot come back, or I would not trouble your Lordships at all. I quite defer to all the noble Earl said about the great impolicy of creating a precedent for revising or re-considering the decisions of the Standing Orders Committee of your Lordships' House. And I daresay I am perhaps rather prejudiced by my local position and local views upon the subject. It is of course rather a thankless task to take any part in a Debate in your Lordships' House on one's own property, especially in such a question as this, and I certainly shall not say anything more than the noble Earl, the Mover of this Motion, said concerning the actual merits or demerits of this Bill. I do not think there can be any dispute about them, because this is not a question of merits or demerits of the Bill at all; it is really a question whether the Bill ought to have a

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fair show before your Lordships at all,—I do not use the term in an invidious sense, but in the sense that we should have what is vulgarly called a run for our life. Under the present circumstances the whole project is disqualified before ever it gets a fair show at all, owing to the error for which all of us who are interested in the Bill are I suppose in a certain sense responsible. Yet I think we may be forgiven if we feel rather sore that a project, in which we have so great an interest, and in which so many other people are interested, should not be tried absolutely and entirely on its fair merits. And my Lords if I were opposed to the Bill in any way, if I were a Kingstown Commissioner, or a ground landlord of Dalkey, or if I were in any way anxious to destroy this Bill there is nothing I would sooner do than second the Motion which I am now seconding; because, if this scheme is a bad one and deserves to be destroyed, surely that should be done by a Select Committee. I know this is more an appeal to your Lordships personally than anything else when a Bill comes before you rather as a culprit. But we ask for forgiveness for the mistake simply on account of the great inherent merits of the Bill, and because it is so absolutely necessary that something should be done to remedy the state of things in Kingstown and Blackrock; and if this scheme is not discussed before a Select Committee of your Lordships' House, I do not suppose anything more will be done. My Lords, the matter is of course entirely in your Lordships' hands. I say we ask rather for mercy perhaps than strict justice; but still if your Lordships will give us another chance, at any rate a project of great public importance and benefit will be submitted to your Lordships. If on the other hand your Lordships decide against us, that will continue the horrible nuisances that have been already described, and it will serve no purpose except to warn promoters against the drafters of Private Bills to be brought before your Lordships' House.
On Question put; Resolved in the negative.

CONVEYANCING AND LAW OF PROPERTY ACT, 1881, AMENDMENT BILL.
COMMITTEE.
House in Committee (according to Order).
Clause 3.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I understand that the contents of this Bill will be considered in the Standing Committee. I have given no notice to the House; but it appears to me that an amendment is desirable in the last sub-section of Clause 3 so as to enlarge the clause, and I shall certainly be disposed at the proper time to suggest some amendment in that respect.
LORD HERSCHELL: I quite agree with my noble and learned Friend on the point to which he has called my attention, that it would be desirable to enlarge the terms of this sub-section. I shall be very glad, therefore, if he will propose such an Amendment as he suggests when the Bill is before the Standing Committee. There are several detail Amendments which I propose to suggest then; but as they are matters of detail entirely, of language rather than principle, I have thought it better to defer them to the Standing Committee; more especially as I understand that representatives of Building Societies desire to propose certain Amendments,—they are not prepared with them to-day, but they will be prepared with them by the date when the Bill goes before the Standing Committee,—and as they may affect some of the Amendments that I myself should propose, I have thought it better to take them all together.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY): There are several observations that arise upon the particular clause in question; but I entirely agree that they would be better discussed in the Standing Committee as they are more or less technical, than in Committee of the Whole House.
Bill reported without amendment and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

BETTING AND LOANS (INFANTS) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
STATUTE LAW REVISION.
Message from the Commons that they concur in the Resolution of this House communicated to them on the 14th of this instant March on the subject of Statute Law Revision as desired by this House.
SALE OF GOODS BILL, [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, this is a Bill for the purpose of putting in the form of a Code the law relating to the sale of goods. The Bill now before your Lordships is exactly in the form in which it passed this House last Session after careful consideration, first by the sub-Committee and then by the Standing Committee; and I apprehend your Lordships will have no difficulty under those circumstances in giving it a Second Reading.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Herschell.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

HARES BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE EARL OF WHARNCLIFFE: My Lords, I have been requested to lay this Bill before your Lordships for Second Reading, and I think I had better just state in a few words what the progress of it in the other House of Parliament has been. It was introduced in 1887 for the first time, and the Bill then provided that no one should kill hares between 12th March and 12th August in any part of Great Britain, the penalty being then £1 and costs. That was supported by one side of the House and carried by a majority; but subsequently the Bill was blocked. It was again brought in in 1888, 1889, and 1890; but in 1890 the principle of the Bill was carried by a majority of 109, that is to say, 239 to 130. In 1891 the Bill provided that the close time should be left entirely to
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  the County Councils. This was an alteration of the original conception of the Act; but it was carried by a majority of 61 in a House of 191. It failed, however, to get into Committee on that occasion. The Bill as it stands at present simply provides that during the months of March, April, May, June, and July, it shall be unlawful to sell or expose for sale in any part of Great Britain any hare or leveret under a penalty of £20. The Bill does not apply to foreign hares, and there are some other minor details of no importance. My Lords, I have been sometimes asked whether it would not be difficult to discriminate between English, Scotch or Irish and foreign hares, and it appears that experts are of opinion that there would be no difficulty. I cannot state that as my own opinion because I have had no opportunity of testing the difference between the two kinds of animal; but certainly if my information is correct that will not prevent the Act being carried into force if it is once enacted. Your Lordships will observe that by the passing of this Act there is no restriction imposed upon owners of property in this country or those who hold farms with the right of shooting; they are allowed to carry on just the same as before under the provisions of the Ground Game Act, and the only restriction placed upon them is that they cannot kill a hare and expose it for sale. I think I may mention incidentally that, as we all know, hares at those times are really not fit for consumption, and should the hare have young which are left behind, where they are deposited, it is impossible that those poor creatures should live when their mother has been killed at the time when she is teeming with milk and ought not to be destroyed, and is not fit for human food. Another curious fact is that English salesmen complain of the great diminution in the number of English hares—not that you could expect any other result to take place from the passing of the Act; but the curious thing is that they are almost all doe hares that are killed, and hardly any buck hares are brought into the market at this time. That shows that it is the doe hares that are the sufferers, those which we ought to protect just at the time they ought not to

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  be shot. With regard to foreign hares it must be remembered that a great many of them come into this country which have not been shot during this time, but have been kept frozen and brought over here in a frozen state. It is not therefore the continental dealers who suffer in favour of the English dealers, because they have opportunities of introducing hares which we have not in consequence of the difference of climate. My Lords, I have spoken on the subject to the noble and learned Lord who leads the other side of the House, and he is aware that this Bill is not a contentious Bill in any way; it has been passed by both sides of the Houses of Parliament, and the noble Lord is aware that it is a compromise, and, being such, we can only hope that your Lordships will accept the Bill as it stands and let it pass without any amendment. I may say that as regards my own part of England I find there is a great dissatisfaction created by the killing of hares and their diminishing numbers. In my neighbourhood near Sheffield there are a great many packs of harriers that afford enjoyment to neighbouring farmers and small occupiers. I am constantly being asked to allow these small packs to go across my grounds that they may get a day's hunting, and I always tell them I shall be very happy to allow them if they will find the hares; but in consequence of the Games Acts they cannot, and great dissatisfaction is expressed accordingly. I think therefore that this Bill is a remedy for that dissatisfaction, and perhaps in a political aspect it will be a wise thing if your Lordships will give a Second Reading to the Bill and let it be passed.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Wharncliffe.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill road 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

  MARRIAGES ABROAD BLLL [H.L.]
  Amendments reported (according to order); and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.
  MILLBANK PRISON BILL.
  Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
POOR LAW (IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, the object of this Bill which has passed the other House is very simple. The Poor Law in Ireland at present permits Boards of Guardians to provide for the education of workhouse children, children that is to say under the charge of the Poor Law in places of education outside the workhouse. As the law stood until 1889 they could only keep them at these places of education till the age of 15. In the year 1889 the Poor Law Act of that year enabled them to keep deserted children, if they were boys to the age of 16, and girls to the age of 18, without any necessity for returning them earlier to the workhouse. This Bill proposes to extend that by applying the same law in the case of other children which the Act of 1889 applied to deserted children, and also to any other children under the charge of the Guardians to whom they think it expedient that it should be applied. There seems certainly no reason why that which was desirable in the case of deserted children should not be desirable also in the case of orphan children and some of these other children, enabling them, instead of returning to the workhouse at the age of 18, to continue another year.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Herschell.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  LABOURERS (IRELAND) ALLOTMENTS BILL.
  Committee of the Whole House (which stands appointed for this day) put off till To-morrow.

  SMOKE NUISANCE (METROPOLIS) BILL [H.L.]
  House to be in Committee on Thursday next.
  House adjourned at ten minutes past Five o'clock.