Sitting of 21 March 1893

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  BRIGHTON AND ROTTINGDBAN SEASHORE ELECTRIC RAILWAY BILL.— (By Order).

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill he now read a second time."
    MR. LODER: I do not know whether there is any Representative of the Board of Trade here, but I think we are entitled to ask why the Bill is opposed. There is no opposition to the Bill in the borough.
    MR. STOREY: I understand it is not opposed at all.
    MR. LODER: The President of the Board of Trade has put down a Motion against it.
    MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman is not here.
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed.

QUESTIONS.

  VALUE OF THE RUPEE.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps, if any, the Government propose to take to prevent a further fall in the value of the rupee, in view of the serious losses to the Indian Government, amount-
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  ing, at the present price of the rupee, to something like £9,000,000 to £10,000,000 sterling per annum, producing a very serious reduction in the value of the salaries of Civil servants and the pay of officers and soldiers of the British Army, more particularly where they have to remit to their families resident in England; and whether it is not possible, by charging a seigniorage on all silver shipped to India or by a temporary shutting down of Indian mints, to gradually raise the value of the rupee?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL,): The whole question is under reference to a Committee presided over by the Lord Chancellor, which, it is hoped, will before long submit a Report to the Secretary of State for India.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I do not know whether the hon. Member can tell me what is in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer—whether he has any idea of increasing the standard of the rupee, thereby solving the difficulty we all desire to see solved?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: I believe this question has not yet come before the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is still under the consideration of the Currency Committee.

  RAILWAY RATES.
  SIR JAMES WHITEHEAD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the reduced rates at owners' risk, set out by the Great Northern and other Railway Companies in the supplementary lists recently issued, are from 7½ to 10 per cent. in excess of the reduced rates at owners' risk contained in the Railway Clearing House Classification Book prior to 1st January; and whether there are any provisions in the Railway Rates and Charges Confirmation Acts, 1891 and 1892, which necessitated the alteration?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,): I have received a communication from the General Manager of the Great Northern Railway which fully answers the question of my hon. Friend, which I think I ought to read to the House—

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  "The Railway Companies' Association,
  King's Cross Station, London, N.,
  March 18.
  Sir,—With reference to your letter of the 17th inst., calling my attention to Sir James White-head's question, I have to inform you that Sir James Whitehead's question does not apply to the present position, but to a supplementary list which is cancelled by the undertaking recently given to the President.
  The allowances made by the companies in 1892, in consideration of owners' risk, &c., will be substantially re-established, they being included in the undertaking above referred to.
  The work is being pressed forward as quickly as possible, and the reduced rates will be put into operation without delay.
  It will be necessary to modify many millions of rates, and time must be afforded to complete the work.
  I am, &c.,
  H. OAKLEY.
  Sir Courtenay Boyle, K.C.B., Railway Department, Board of Trade, S.W."
  I hope hon. Members will be patient with the Railway Companies and will give them time to deal with matters.

  NATIONAL SCHOOLS AND THE HOME RULE BILL.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the use of National School No. 2, Derry-noose, County Armagh, for a meeting against the Home Rule Bill is regarded by the Board as permissible, since the recent Resolution of the House of Commons respecting State-aided school buildings; whether he is aware that the Protestant rector acted as president and the schoolmaster secretary to the meeting; and whether patrons and masters in other parts of Ireland are free to use their schools for meetings held in favour of the Bill?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): The Commissioners of National Education inform me that having made inquiries they learn that no political meeting has been held in the school referred to. There was a meeting of the select Vestry held in the rectory, but it is denied that the teacher was present. The Commissioners do not, under any circumstances, sanction the use of National Schools for political meetings.

  TROWBRIDGE BARRACKS.
  MR. DUNBAR BARTON (Armagh, Mid) for Mr. LONG): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is the intention of the War Office to send any other troops to occupy the barracks at Trowbridge, or whether they are to be left empty; and, if so, whether he would entertain an application from the locality for the use of the barracks for other purposes?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): It is not yet decided whether these barracks will be used for troops.

  THE YEOMANRY.
  MR. DUNBAR BARTON (for Mr. LONG): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any decision has been arrived at with regard to the Yeomanry regiments whose maximum strength has been fixed at three squadrons; and whether he is prepared to give them a year's grace in order to see if they can keep and maintain four squadrons; and, if so, whether he will permit them to retain an extra troop sergeant major for the said 12 months?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have every desire to make some concession in this direction, if possible; but it must depend on the extent to which the other contemplated reductions are carried out.

  UNITED STATES RECIPROCITY TREATIES.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been actively directed to the fact that the United States have already concluded, under Clause 3 of the M'Kinley Tariff, 12 Reciprocity Treaties, securing for 2,000 classes of American goods in markets which have heretofore taken a large proportion of British exports either a remission of the whole duty or an abatement of 25 per cent. on the import charges levied upon British goods, and that the result has already been an increase in the American trade with those markets, amounting to nearly 155,000,000 dollars in 1892 compared to

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  1888; and if any steps are being taken, having regard to the falling trade and the growing dearth of industrial employment in the United Kingdom, to conclude similar Reciprocity Treaties, or, at least, to meet in a friendly spirit the overtures of Canada and other British Colonies for preferential trading arrangements with the Mother Country?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): The attention of Her Majesty's Government has been actively directed to this fact. It is impossible to discuss the whole subject in a reply to a question, but the hon. Member will find some valuable information in the Foreign Office Report No. 277, Miscellaneous Series. The Government do not consider that a policy of preferential duties will increase the volume of trade or the amount of industrial employment in this country.

  CRIME IN LEITRIM.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the County of Leitrim is at present in a crimeless state; whether the Reports, on which Lord Chief Justice O'Brien at the Winter Assizes at Sligo, and Mr. Justice Andrews at the Spring Assizes in Leitrim, based their Charges to the Grand Juries, were supplied by the County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who is a non-resident in Leitrim; and what steps will be taken to compel this County Inspector to reside in the County of Leitrim?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I regret to say that the County Leitrim cannot be regarded as being free from crime at. present. The Return of offences in Sligo presented to the Lord Chief Justice at the late Winter Assizes was prepared in the ordinary way by the County Inspector who, however, was unable from illness to personally present it to the Judge. With regard to the question of the residence of the County Inspector of Leitrim, it is true he resides, geographically, outside that county; but his residence is only a little more than a mile distant from Carrick-on-Shannon, his county headquarters, and as no incon-
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  venience is caused thereby, it is not proposed to take any action in the direct ion suggested.

  REPAIR OF ROADS IN LONDONDERRY.
  MR. M'GILLIGAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) how many miles of public roads in County Londonderry are out of contract and remain un-contracted for at the Summer Assizes, 1892; (2) is he aware that contractors refuse to keep such roads in repair, although the prices charged for their maintenance is from 10 to 15 per cent. higher, according to the county surveyor's statement, than has been the case for the past 10 years; (3) is he aware that the sum of £1,374 1s. 9d. of the money to be passed to the contractors at the Spring Assizes for said county was, by the directions of the county surveyor, represented by the grand jury; (4) will he explain what legal authority has the grand jury or county surveyor to represent the said money: (5) is there an Act of Parliament for dealing with contractors who fail to properly carry out their contracts for keeping roads in repair; and, if there is, does the county surveyor for the said county avail himself of the provisions of the Act in all cases; if not, can he assign any sufficient reason for not doing so; (6) does the county surveyor receive the full amount of money levied for the keeping in repair of those roads which are in his own hands; (7) and does he supply the full quantity of metal mentioned in the presentment for these roads?
  MR. J. MORLEY: My reply to the various paragraphs of the question is (1) 230 miles; of these 173 were put into the hands of the county surveyor, the rest, being unimportant. (2) From 10 to 15 per cent. was allowed in addition to former prices, and in most of these cases tenders were taken. (3) A sum of £489 17s. 10d. only was re-presented, and by the grand jury, not the county surveyor. This sum was the value of the work unexecuted by the contractors. (4) It has been decided under the h and 7th William IV., cap. 116, Section 145, that money in the hands of the treasurer unappropriated by reason of the contractor's default may be re-presented by the grand jury, and applied by the treasurer on the certificate of county

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  surveyor to other works. (5) The Grand Jury Act of 1836, and the Amending Act of 1856, provide remedies in the case of defaulting contractors. I am informed that the county surveyor has endeavoured to avail himself of these remedies. (6.) No; payment is made through the treasurer. (7) It depends on the state of the road, and money not expended for this purpose is re-presented.

  TITHES.
  MR. JOHNSON-FERGUSON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the case of land let under lease or agreement since the passing of "The Tithes Act, 1891," in accordance with which the landlord now pays the tithe and the same is included in the amount of the rent, in assessing the annual value for the purpose of the Income Tax, Schedule A, a deduction is to be made equal to the tithes now paid by the landlord?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): The passing of the Tithes Act, 1891, does not affect the amount of the assessment under Schedule A of the Income Tax Acts. The full annual value, inclusive of tithe, is the measure of the charge on owners of lands, under that Schedule, unless the tithe-owner elects to be directly assessed under Section 32 of the Income Tax Act of 1853, in which case there is a deduction of the Tithe Rent Charge on the assessment of the owner of the land under Schedule A.

  THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY.
  MAJOR DARWIN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Metropolitan District Railway Company has for years habitually charged fares in excess of its legal maxima for journeys between the Mansion House and Earl's Court Stations, and between other intermediate stations; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
  MR. MUNDELLA: Representations have been made to me on behalf of the Metropolitan District Railway Company to the effect that they do not admit that they are charging, or that they have at any time charged, fares in excess of their
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  legal powers. The whole question will come before the Committee in connection with the pending Bill of the Company, when the questions at issue can be fully gone into, and the rights of the several parties concerned can be determined.

  THE CASE OF JAMES M'GRITH.
  MR. MACFARLANE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to a serious accident to a man, named James M'Grith, who was run over on the 11th inst. at Dalmally station level crossing, and has since died of the injuries received; whether it is a fact that there is no light at this crossing, which is the only access from the station to the main road; and whether this poor man, with one leg severed below the knee and one arm below the shoulder, was in this condition sent by train to the Poor House at Oban, instead of being treated in the station or in the hotel adjacent?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I have been in communication with the Caledonian Railway Company in regard to the accident in question, which occurred at Loch Awe Station and not Dalmally. I am informed that there is no light immediately opposite the crossing, but there is a lamp between the crossing and the station platform about 25 yards from the crossing. This lamp was not lighted on the night of the accident owing to the stormy nature of the weather. After the accident the unfortunate man was carefully conveyed by the station master to a comfortable waiting-room, and placed on a mattress in front of the fire, and two doctors were sent for. They remained in attendance night and day until the man was in a condition to be removed to the hospital at Oban, which is the only one in the district. The doctor in charge there reports that the medical men who first visited the case did all they could do to arrest hæmorrhage and prevent collapse. I shall be glad to show the hon. Member the Report which I have received.

  THE IRISH CONSTABULARY FUND.
  MR. PATRICK M'HUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the subscribers to the Constabulary Force Fund have made repeated applications to have the Fund wound up and

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  distributed; and will he see that the request of the subscribers is acceded to by the responsible authorities in Ireland?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I understand that application has been made to wind up the Fund; but on the general question I am afraid I cannot add anything to what I said yesterday or on Thursday last.

  ENFIELD AND SPARKBROOK FACTORIES.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the amount of which the land, buildings, and machinery at Enfield stand In the books of the factory, and whether he will give similar information with regard to the Sparkbrook Factory; and whether interest on such amounts is charged in calculating the cost of the rifles manufactured at each of the two factories?
  MR. WOODALL: According to the latest account rendered, laud, buildings, and machinery at Enfield stood for £200,702, and at Sparkbrook at £87,883. Interest is not charged in calculating the cost of the rifles manufactured in the factories.

  THE NEW BATTLE COLLIERY ACCIDENT.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will lay upon the Table the Report of Her Majesty's Inspector of Mines on the accident which took place at Newbattle Collieries on the 20th January, 1893, whereby John Neesam, a workman, was killed, so that the working men and their representatives may have the fullest information for their protection?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): The Report of the Inspector does not indicate any breach of the Act. It is a confidential document prepared for the information of the Secretary of State alone, and it would be a departure from practice and create a very undesirable precedent, if I were to lay it upon the Table.

  CANAL RATES.
  SIR JAMES WHITEHEAD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can
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  state when it is intended to introduce Provisional Order Bills for the confirmation of the Board of Trade's proposed tolls, charges, and conditions in regard to five of the canals, Schedules relating to which were dealt with at the recent Board of Trade Inquiry; and whether it is the intention of the Board of Trade to make any alterations in the draft Schedules published by them, prior to introducing the Provisional Order Bills into Parliament?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I hope to introduce the Provisional Order Confirmation Bills in respect of the five canals already dealt with by the Board of Trade at an early date after Easter. Since the promulgation of the draft Schedules referred to by my hon. Friend various amendments have been pressed upon the Board of Trade, both on behalf of the Railway Companies and the traders, and some of these will be embodied in the Provisional Orders.

  CHARGE OF OBSTRUCTING THE FOOTPATH.
  MR. BURNIE: I beg to defer the following question in order that further investigation may be made, and I hope that investigation will be strict and careful:—To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with respect to the arrest of three men (William Howell, William Bird, and Robert Burns), in Albemarle Street on Friday, 17th March; their being marched through the streets to Vine Street Police Station by three policemen and there charged with obstructing the footpath; then marched to Marlborough Street Police Court, where the Magistrate dismissed them without any fine; was it legal to so arrest the men; is he aware that one of them (at least) was in the road when arrested; had the fact that they were carrying boards headed "Tailors' Strike" anything to do with the arrest; was there any ground for the statement made by one of the men before the Magistrate that the arrest was prompted by some tailoring establishment in the locality; and can he state how long since were any sandwich-board men previously so arrested in that locality for obstructing the footpath, and what boards were they carrying?

  THE TARIFF RETURNS.
  MR. GODSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the repeated applications for information on the subject made to his Department, he is able to give this House some idea of the date at which the fresh Tariff Return, in continuation of No. 376 of 1890, will be issued?
  MR. MUNDELLA: They cannot be ready for two or three months to come, but we are pressing them forward as much as possible.

  BOYCOTTING MR. WHITBREAD.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a letter which appeared in The Evening News and Post of 12th instant, signed H. A. Gray, and which called upon his (Mr. Gray's) fellow-traders to boycott Mr. S. Whitbread and his son because of their action on the Local Veto Bill now before this House; and what steps, if any, do the Home Office intend to take in the matter?
  MR. ASQUITH: My attention has been called by the question to the letter referred to. It appears to be a public declaration by the writer of his intention to cease to deal with Messrs. Whitbread and Company, and an invitation to others to follow the same course. I am not aware that such a statement constitutes any breach of any law, and in any case I think the firm in question are well able to take care of themselves.
  MR. FLYNN: In view of the fact that, in consequence of less aggravated utterances, editors and printers of newspapers have been prosecuted in Ireland, will the right hon. Gentleman prosecute those inciting to boycotting in England?
  [No answer was given.]

  ACCIDENTS TO PLATELAYERS.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fatal accident to two platelayers on the South Western Railway, near West Moors, on Wednesday, 8th March, during a thick fog; whether the South Western Railway Company have put into operation the revised rules for the protection of plate-
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  layers recommended by the Clearing House Committee after Major Marindin's Report on the Syston accident; and whether the Board of Trade will order an inquiry into the circumstances of this fatality?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The usual Return required from the Company has been rendered, and also the Coroner's Return, in which a verdict of "accidental death" appears, but no recommendation was made by the jury. The Company have put into operation the revised rules referred to; and, having regard to the result of the Coroner's inquest, I do not think any good purpose could be answered by an inquiry.

  EXECUTION OF THE CONVICT MANNING.
  MR. POWELL-WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the convict Manning was executed at Gloucester County Gaol on the 16th instant in full view of a newly-dug grave which had been prepared for the reception of his body; and, if so, whether he will make any representation to the authorities of the gaol with a view of preventing such a thing occurring again at executions at Gloucester and elsewhere?
  MR. ASQUITH: I am satisfied by the Report which I have received from the Governor of the prison, and by a letter from the foreman of the jury, that it was impossible for Manning to see the grave. If my hon. Friend desires it I should be very glad to show him the Report.

  COLONEL SAUNDERSON AND HOME RULE.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a report in The Times of a speech delivered by the Member for North Armagh on 15th March at an Orange and Unionist demonstration held in Hope Hall, Liverpool, from which it appears that he announced his intention of resisting "Home Rule," if necessary, by force, and expressed his belief that the British Army would refuse to act against Ulster loyalists; and whether, in view of the fact that the Member for North Armagh is Colonel of the Fourth

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  Battalion of Irish Fusiliers, it is intended to take any action in respect to these observations?
  MR. M'CARTAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nobody in Ulster believes for a moment that under any circumstances will the hon. and gallant Gentleman resist by force?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I should be sorry to answer any question for the whole of Ulster. I had not read the speech referred to until my attention was called to it by my hon. Friend's question. As is indicated by my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for North Armagh has two existences—he is the colonel of a regiment of Irish Militia, and he is also an Irish Member and an active if not "excited" politician. It was solely in the second capacity that he made this speech. My hon. Friend will agree with me that we have long ago learned in this House to gauge the value of the exaggerated language sometimes employed by the hon. and gallant Member, and I hardly think that special notice need be taken of this particular ebullition.

  PERJURY IN THE BIRMINGHAM COUNTY COURT.
  MR. PHILIPPS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a statement by Judge Chalmers that the perjury committed by witnesses in the Birmingham County Court exceeds anything he ever experienced in India; and whether he can take steps to deal with the matter, either by recommending the institution of criminal proceedings or by any other method?
  MR. ASQUITH: I am in communication with the learned Judge, and will consider the matter when I have received his reply.

  IDENTIFICATION OF FOREIGN PRODUCTS.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the Select Committee promised by the Government to consider the various proposals for establishing means for the identification of Foreign meat, cheese, fruit, and other agricultural produce from that raised by British and Irish rural
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  labour, will also inquire into the great and increasing necessity of establishing analogous means of identifying foreign cutlery, glass, and other manufactures from that produced within the United Kingdom?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H. GARDNER,): I do not think it would be either convenient or desirable that the investigations of the proposed Committee should be extended in the manner suggested. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade agrees with me in that view.

  KIDNAPPING BRITISH SAILORS.
  MR. W. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is able to state the result of the trial of the men of the Coast Seamen's Union of the United States, for kidnapping five sailors of the Belfast steamship Bawnmore, at Nanaimo, British Columbia, on 18th January?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. BUXTON,): The leaders of the men of the Coast Seamen's Union of the United States who kidnapped five sailors of the Belfast steamship Bawnmore, at Nanaimo, British Columbia, on January 18th, have been tried at Nanaimo, and three of them have been convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from one to three years.

  PROTESTANTS AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL.
  MR. BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if he will explain on what grounds the children in Birkdale, children of Protestant parents, are being sent to the Ainsdale Roman Catholic School against the wishes of their parents by order of the Education Department?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. ACLAND,): I have already stated in reply to the question addressed to me with regard to this case by the hon. Member for Leicester, on the 17th inst., the Elementary Education Acts make no distinction between Roman Catholic and other schools, so long as they are public

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  elementary schools, and it is not possible under the law as it stands to compel the provision of further school accommodation in a district where the provision made by existing public elementary schools is already sufficient.
  MR. BARTLEY: Are we to understand that under the Free Education Act as now administered Protestant children may be compelled to go to Roman Catholic schools, and Roman Catholic children to Protestant schools?
  MR. ACLAND: That is not a question of the Free Education Act. That Act does not alter the general law. The general law remains as it was before.

  SCHOOLS AT NORTON CANES.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he has received an application for the opening of an additional school at Norton Canes, Staffordshire; whether Article 80 prohibits the opening of unnecessary schools; whether the population being 2,280, the existing accommodation being 424, and further accommodation for 54 more children being nearly completed, the supply of 478 places is considerably higher than the Government requirements demand?
  MR. ACLAND: Article 80 of the Code (which, as regards districts under a School Board, puts in force the provisions of Section 98 of the Act of 1870) provides that no school which is unnecessary shall receive Parliamentary grants. Application was recently made to the Department for the recognition of a new school at Norton Canes. After very full and careful inquiry it appeared that school accommodation was required in the district for 478 children. The existing school has accommodation for 447, and when enlarged will accommodate 501. But the population is increasing, and the School Board for the district supported the application of the new school. In these circumstances the Department, following the general practice in similar cases, which was confirmed by a decision of the late Government in 1890, have allowed the new school to be placed on the Annual Grant list.

  COMMUNICATION WITH LIGHTHOUSES.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, inasmuch as the recommendations unanimously endorsed by the Commissioners as a means of saving life at sea involve a very small estimated cost, the Government intend without any further delay to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission upon electrical communication with lighthouses and lightships made in December last?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I informed the right hon. Gentleman a few days ago that a Committee had been appointed to consider and report on the best means of carrying out the recommendations of the Royal Commission. I am advised that they have now the whole matter under consideration, and will report soon after Easter. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that no unnecessary delay will take place.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: Is it the case that a letter addressed by the Treasury to the Board of Trade practically refusing to carry out the bulk of their recommendations has been communicated to the Commissioners; and, if so, will the right hon. Gentleman lay it on the Table of the House?
  MR. MUNDELLA: No, I cannot lay it on the Table. It is one of several communications and is a Departmental letter.

  FIREMEN OF THE ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can now state when the new Regulations in regard to the firemen of the Royal Naval Reserve will come into operation; and whether he will lay a copy upon the Table of the House, with a view to its being placed in the hands of Members?
  THE CIVIL LORD or THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): The final draft of the new Regulations is now under the consideration of the Board of Admiralty. I shall be glad to forward the Regulations to the hon. Member when issued, should he so desire it, but the detailed Regulations have not hitherto been presented to Parliament

  CLERKS IN SCOTCH PRISONS.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury have approved of the recommendations of the Secretary for Scotland in the case of the clerks in the Scotch Prisons; and, if not, when an intimation of the concessions proposed to be made may be expected?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): I understand that a letter is being sent to-day from the Treasury to the Secretary for Scotland expressing a general concurrence in his proposals.

  TELEGRAPHISTS' GRIEVANCES.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that there are clerks employed at the Central Telegraph Office with over 11 years' good service on the permanent establishment in receipt of 34s. per week; can he explain why, notwithstanding that the position held by these clerks has been defined as "senior in their class," a number of others have been promoted from the temporary staff to the second class of the permanent establishment on salaries in advance of those enjoyed by permanent establishment clerks with equal service, and also higher than those received by the senior telegraphists referred to; and can he hold out any hope that a searching inquiry will take place into the present condition of things in the second class?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,): The facts are not exactly as stated in the first paragraph. There are some telegraphists with 11 years' service in receipt of £90 and over who are on their way to the maximum of their class—namely, £110. In the second paragraph of the question a comparison is made between the telegraphists in question, who entered the service as learners from the school of instruction, and men who entered the service as highly-skilled telegraphists, with years' previous practical experience, and it is evident, that any such comparison is fallacious. Under these circumstances I cannot admit the necessity for inquiry.

  THE COMPANIES (WINDING-UP) ACT.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when the First Annual Report, which should be issued in accordance with "The Companies (Winding-up) Act, 1890," will be issued; and whether he can explain the cause of the delay which has arisen in preparing and printing it?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I hope the Report referred to will be issued before Easter or immediately after. The delay has been occasioned in determining certain points of difficulty that arose.

  OFFICIAL CHEMISTS AT SOMERSET HOUSE.
  MR. EGERTON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Dr. Bell and Mr. Bannister, the chief and assistant chemists at Somerset House, have resigned; whether it is true that the post of chief chemist at Somerset House has been offered to Professor W. Noel Hartley, and what his qualification is as an analytical chemist; and whether he will, before filling up the appointment, consider the advisability of appointing a person who has had practical experience in analytical chemistry?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I think it is a pity that lion. Members, before putting questions of this kind, do not take some pains to ascertain the facts. The answer to the question is this. Neither Dr. Bell nor Mr. Bannister has resigned, and the post referred to has not been offered to Professor Hartley.
  MR. EGERTON: I desire to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether, when one sees a statement in the public Press, it is not competent for a Member to ask a public official whether or not it is correct?
  MR. SPEAKER: I have always done my utmost to discourage the practice of asking questions based on statements that appear in the public Press. It is desirable that hon. Members should undertake the responsibility for the questions thus put.

  KEW GARDENS.
  MR. HANBURY (for Sir RICHARD TEMPLE,): I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he will consider favourably

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  the opening of the Royal Gardens at Kew during the hours of the forenoon?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE,): I am afraid I can only refer the hon. Baronet to the reply which I gave on this subject to a question by the hon. Member for North Longford on the 27th ultimo, wherein I explained the circumstances which had led the Government to decide that they would not be justified in incurring the expense of an earlier opening of Kew Gardens.

  ARREARS DUE TO THE IRISH NATIONAL TEACHERS.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will take steps to have the arrears due to the Irish National Teachers paid to them before Easter?
  MR. J. MORLEY: Every effort is being made to press forward the payments in question.

  UGANDA.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state approximately how many Catholics were killed and wounded in the civil war in Uganda, and also if the British commissioned officers were present and took part in the engagements when the Catholics were killed; and what was the estimated value of the buildings and stores belonging to the Catholic Party which were destroyed or burned?
  SIR E. GREY: We have no information on the subject to communicate beyond that contained in Captain Lngard's Report, which has already been given to the House.
  COLONEL NOLAN: That is a dubious answer. It may be that the hon. Baronet has information and refuses to give it, or that he has no information.
  SIR E. GREY: I am not aware of any information that I could give. We had no Representative in Uganda at that time.
  MR. SEXTON: In view of the suffering and loss which have been inflicted upon Catholics in Uganda, I wish to ask whether we may confidently take it as the desire of the Government that there shall be complete religious
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  toleration in that country, as far as Great Britain is concerned?
  SIR E. GREY: It is the desire of the Government to secure complete religious toleration and equality of treatment in Uganda, and the Commissioner in Uganda will use every effort in his power to secure those objects.
  MR. JOHNSTON: Are those not exactly the principles of the Orange organisation?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability of adding the hon. Member for South Belfast to the staff of Sir Gerald Portal?
  [No answers were given.]
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask whether any European or American country, in addition to Germany, has agreed to Uganda being included within the British sphere of influence?
  SIR E. GREY: Italy has also recognised this sphere of influence, and there is no risk of a conflict of claims as regards Uganda with any other Power.

  THE LAW OFFICERS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Attorney General whether the increased scale of fees payable to the Law Officers under the new Treasury Minute will entail any increased costs to unsuccessful private litigants in cases in which the Crown is plaintiff or defendant; and whether there is any class of business (other than that done for special Departments of the State) in which the Attorney or Solicitor General is engaged virtute officii?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,): This question has already been answered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  THE REGISTRATION BILL AND IRELAND.
  MR. HORACE PLUNKETT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the proposed Registration Bill is to be made applicable to Ireland by the addition of supplementary clauses, or whether a separate Bill for Ireland will be introduced; and whether, in either event, the supplementary clauses or the separate

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  Bill will be laid upon the Table and circulated among Members before the Debate upon the Second Reading of the English Registration Bill?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It is intended to make proposals for extending the Bill to Ireland, but no such proposal can be made before the Committee stage.

  THE WELSH LAND TEXUEE COMMISSION.
  MR. KENYON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, under the proceedings of the Commission on Land Tenure in Wales, the employment of counsel with power of cross-examination will be authorised?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: That is not a matter in which the Government have any power or title to interfere. It is a matter for the judgment and regulation of the Commission itself. Hearing counsel before Commissions is a common proceeding, but I understand that in the particular case in 1889, on the Welsh Sunday Closing Bill, the Commission refused to allow counsel to examine witnesses either on what is called the "liquor" or the temperance side.

  THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. HANBURY (for Sir R. TEMPLE,): I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that during each of the last four years three days or more have been allowed for discussion of the Vote on Account; what time, if any, will be available if the Vote is postponed till Monday the 27th; and whether he will reconsider his decision, and set the Vote down for Thursday or Friday?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The question is totally inaccurate in its statement of facts. It is not the fact that the Vote on Account has occupied the time mentioned. I am not in a position to make any change in the announcement already made, further than is connected with the arrangements made by the Government, so far as they depend on the Government, for the regulation of business. I may state, however, that to-day we propose to introduce the Bill known as the Parish Councils Bill, and after that Order stands the Report of Supply and the introduction of the Ways and Means Bill,
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  which, unless we obtain them at the Morning Sitting, it will be necessary, with a view to compliance with the provisions of the law, to take in the evening. Perhaps that may be avoided. On Wednesday it will be necessary to take a stage in the Ways and Means Bill, which will be placed as the first Order, to avoid any risk of failure. On Thursday will be taken the continuance of the Debate upon the Employers' Liability Bill, and after that measure will come the introduction, if time permits, of the Bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments from seven years to five. On Friday we shall take the Registration Bill for England at 2 o'clock, and afterwards the Registration Bill for Scotland. In case these Bills should not be disposed of on Friday it will be necessary to prosecute them on Monday. If they should be finished on Friday we shall then on Monday take the Vote on Account.
  MR. GOSCHEN: May I ask whether, on the occasion of Morning Sittings being asked for, the right hon. Gentleman did not enter into an engagement that Morning Sittings should only be applied to financial business, to the introduction of Bills, and to the Second Reading of the Employers' Liability Bill?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: No, Sir, I made a sort of overture to that effect across the Table to the Opposition, that we were ready to enter into an engagement of that kind, but it was not accepted.
  MR. GOSCHEN: I know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is distinctly under the impression that a direct statement was made by the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to force the House if there has been such a statement even in the spirit, if not the letter, and I wish to know whether under these circumstances the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the question as to the advisability of taking the Second Reading of the Registration Bill?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It appears to me that my right hon. Friend is under an entire misconception. The overtures I made were with a view to a pacific arrangement of the case before

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  the House. The pacific arrangement, however, was declined, and the Opposition voted against the proposal.

  THE FAIR WAGES RESOLUTION.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of practice, whether the Resolution agreed to unanimously by the House on the 13th of February, 1891, as to fair wages and contracts is binding on this Parliament and on the present Executive Government? Some doubt has been expressed on the point.
  MR. SPEAKER: It is very difficult for me to lay down the exact bearing of a Resolution of this House. There are no penalties attaching to the infraction of that Resolution. The question is one for the House to decide.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: Then it would be desirable to move the Resolution again in this Parliament?
  MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member thinks that will add to its force.

MOTIONS.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND AND WALES BILL.

    LEAVE. FIRST READING.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,): Mr. Speaker, I have to move for leave to bring in a Bill to make further provision for Local Government in England and Wales, and in so doing I must recall to the House some of the circumstances connected with the introduction and progress of the Local Government Bill of 1888. Hon. Gentlemen who were Members of the last Parliament will recollect that that Bill as originally introduced was much more comprehensive in its character and much larger in its powers than the Bill which eventually passed into an Act. Yet my right hon. Predecessor, in bringing in that Bill, frankly admitted that it did not cover the whole area of Local Government. In the speech in which he introduced the measure, he said—
    "The Government would have been glad to have proposed a reconstruction of parochial organisation, and reform in the system of valuation, in order to make it more simple and more uniform;"
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    and he added—
    "That if he had not dealt with these questions in the Bill it was not because the Government did not fully recognise their importance, but because they felt the absolute necessity of keeping their Bill within reasonable limits."
    That Bill contained a very large provision for the constitution of District Councils. But owing to Parliamentary pressure, or, perhaps, to pressure of time, the Government found it necessary to omit those clauses. Those hon. Members who were present when the Government announced that intention will, however, recollect that they admitted—and I will quote the words—a paramount obligation to introduce the Bill in the next Session of Parliament. That was in 1888, and we are now in 1893. I am not recalling that pledge or the omission to keep it by way either of complaint or criticism. I know the pressure that the late Government had in other matters, and I am not disposed to find fault with them because they were unable to complete their scheme of Local Government. But the bringing in of that Bill in the original form, and the promises—the distinct promises—which were made by the Government when that Bill was attenuated, formed a distinct pledge to the House and the country, that no further delay, if possible, should take place in completing the re-construction of our system of Local Government. I think, therefore, the present Government are not open to the censure which has been rather freely cast upon them of introducing a sort of harum-scarum Bill for which there is no necessity or demand, and which is supposed to serve some political purpose. This Bill is introduced in fulfilment of pledges given by the late Government; and the present Government would have been guilty of a serious neglect of duty if they had allowed this Session to pass by without submitting a scheme of Local Government. Some years ago a high authority now sitting in this House said that there was no labyrinth so intricate as that of our local laws. I will in a sentence or two tell the House of some of the extraordinary anomalies under which we live, so far as our local administration is concerned? The inhabitant of a borough lives in a fourfold area for the purposes of Local Government—he lives in a borough, a parish, a union, and

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    a county. None of these is coterminous, unless by accident, with any other. Different parts of a borough may be in different parishes and in different unions. He is, or may be, governed by no less than six Authorities—the Council, the Vestry, the Burial Board, the School Board, the Guardians, and the Quarter Sessions. The inhabitant of a Local Board district lives in four kinds of districts—the Local Board district, the Parish, the Union, and the County. He also is, or may be, under six governments, and most of these Authorities or districts may be different for inhabitants of different parts of the same Local Board district. The inhabitant of a rural parish lives in a parish, a union, and a county, probably a highway district; he is, or may be, governed by a Vestry, a School Board, a Burial Board, a Highway Board, a Board of Guardians, and the Justices. My hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon (Mr. W. Rathbone) once stated in this House that, in the place where he lived, there were no less than 35 different Local Authorities. I can give the House some statistics as to the state of things now existing. The Local Government areas into which England and Wales are divided may be enumerated as follows: 62 counties, 302 Municipal Boroughs, 31 Improvement Act Districts, 688 Local Government Districts, 574 Rural Sanitary Districts, 58 Port Sanitary Districts, 2,302 School Board Districts, 362 Highway Districts (comprising about 8,000 Highway Parishes, 6,477 Highway Parishes (not included in Urban or Highway Districts), 1,052 Burial Board Districts, 648 Poor Law Unions, 13,775 Ecclesiastical Parishes, and nearly 15,000 Civil Parishes. The total number of Authorities which tax the English ratepayers is between 28,000 and 29,000. Not only are we exposed to this multiplicity of authority and this confusion of rating power, but the qualification, tenure, and mode of election of members of these Authorities differ in different cases. For Town Councillors the only qualification is practically that the man to be elected is an elector—that is, household suffrage pure and simple. In the case of Guardians the qualification has been a rating qualification, ranging from £10 to £40. The Government last autumn decided, in the due and proper
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    exercise of their statutory authority, to make a uniform qualification of £5. As nearly every act of the Government in the Recess has formed the subject of criticism and debate in this House, and as no allusion has been made, either directly or indirectly, to the reduction of this qualification, I think we may take it that it has met with practically the unanimous approval of the House of Commons. When I come to the case of Local Boards, I find that the qualification is it rating of £15 where the population is under 20,000, and of £30 where it is over 20,000. Real or personal property without rating is available, provided the amount be £500 or £1,000 according to the population. For Burial Boards ratepayers are qualified. For Highway Boards (Waywardens) the qualification is real estate of £10 value or personal estate of £100 value, or occupation of premises of £20 rateable value. In the case of Lighting Inspectors, the qualification is being rated at not less than £15. Overseers must be substantial householders. For School Boards, where, if any qualification be needed, it ought to be the higher on account of the duties the members have to discharge, no qualification whatever is required. As to the method of election: A Town Council is elected by ballot, and one man one vote; Local Boards by voting papers left at the houses of voters, and collected in about three days, plural voting; Boards of Guardians, by voting papers left at the houses of voters, and collected on the following day, plural voting; Burial Boards, Highway Boards (Way-wardens), Lighting Inspectors, by show of hands, and open poll, if demanded, involving plural voting; Overseers are appointed by Justices; School Boards are elected by ballot, with the cumulative vote. Then as to the scale of voting: Town Councils are elected by occupiers, one vote for each candidate up to the number to be elected; Local Boards by owners, one vote to six votes, according to rating, up to £250, and by ratepayers on the same scale; persons can vote in both capacities, and, therefore, when rated up to £250 can have 12 votes; Boards of Guardians by owners and rate-payers respectively, according to the same scale as Local Boards; Burial Boards, Highway Boards (Waywardens), and Lighting Inspectors by rated inhabi-

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    tants, with from one to six votes, according to assessment; School Boards by ratepayers giving as many votes as there are candidates, which may all be given to one candidate or distributed as the voter pleases. With regard to the tenure of office: Town Councillors are triennial, one-third retiring each year; Local Boards are triennial, one-third retiring each year; Boards of Guardians are annual generally, but in many cases triennial, with either one-third retiring each year or all retiring together; Highway Boards (Waywardens) are annual; Lighting Inspectors are triennial, one-third retiring each year; Overseers are annual; Burial Boards triennial, one-third retiring each year; School Boards triennial, all retiring together. Such a state of things justifies what was said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goschen) some 22 years ago. The right hon. Gentleman said—
    "The truth, Sir, is that we have a chaos as regards authorities, a chaos as regards rates, and a worse chaos than all as regards areas. And not only that, but every different form of election which it is possible to conceive is applied to the various Local Authorities who administer these various rates in these various areas. It is a curious fact that, while we might expect to find not identical, yet, at all events, very similar, principles governing the election of Guardians, the election of Local Boards, the election of highway surveyors and overseers, and the election of other Local and Parochial Authorities, yet in all these cases a different form of election actually prevails. In some instances you have an election by plurality of votes, in others by single votes; in some instances you have an election by owners and occupiers, in others by occupiers only; and where you have a plurality of votes the scale varies, there being, for example, one scale for the election of Guardians and another for the election of highway surveyors."
    But what is the cause of all this confusion? It is the legislation of this House which has created special authorities and special districts for special purposes, but in doing so has not proceeded on a uniform or a symmetrical system. And at what a cost has this system been created! We have multiplied officials, we have divided and confused jurisdictions, we have diminished the authority and impaired the efficiency of the various Governing Bodies. Our Local Government system has been extravagant in the time which is occupied in its administration, extravagant in the men needed to administer its affairs, and extravagant in the cost of that adminis-
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    tration. I should be the last to deny that the Act of 1888 was a great step in advance. The Opposition of that time frankly admitted from the first day the Bill was brought in down to its Third Reading the statesmanlike lines on which the Bill was drawn; and although they differed in many respects from the policy of its authors, and succeeded in introducing some great improvements in it, no Member of the Opposition hesitated to welcome the extension of Local Government to our counties under that great Act. We think the time has arrived to develop and enlarge, if not to complete, the work then accomplished. The first question we have to discuss is this: what is to be our primary area, what the unit of our Local Government? In dealing with this question we must remember that there is an essential distinction between urban and rural districts. The conditions of the two differ in their requirements, in the number of their population, in the massing of that population in limited spaces in the one case, and in its spreading over large districts in the other case, and in their necessary expenditure and available income. In our urban districts, according to the last statistics, the average population to the square mile was 4,000, while in the rural districts it was 158. To a great extent the machinery of urban government has already been organised, at all events, so far as our large towns and cities are concerned, and except in one or two points, there is very little room for improvement. Those great Municipalities are doing, in my opinion, the best work ever done by Municipalities in this or any other country; the people are contented with them, and, therefore, as far as this Bill is concerned, the Municipalities are left alone. I therefore come to deal with the question exclusively as it relates to rural districts. Are we to create a new area, or are we to utilise an existing area; and, if so, what is that area to be? Very high authorities on Local Government differ on this point. What I may perhaps call the doctrinaire school have advocated forming a new area totally irrespective of what has been done in the past, and of all the machinery and institutions now at work. Whatever may be the opinion theoretically, I

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    think both sides of the House will agree as to the undesirability of creating a new area except in the last resort. Our two great areas are the parish and the union. The parish is an ancient institution influenced by local sentiment and invested with local interest. It represents the old township, or rather, a group of the old townships. It is the oldest aggregation in this country of men for the purposes of self-government and local administration, and many difficulties would arise if we were to disregard the parish in any scheme for rural reform which might be set up. On the other hand, very high authorities who have written on the question of Local Government are strongly in favour of the union. The union was formed for a specific purpose 60 or 70 years ago, and it seems to me, looking at it as a matter of history, that the idea which those who formed the unions had in view was the grouping together of certain areas round a market town, which would be convenient for the Guardians to attend. There was a disregard of every other local consideration, and one of the great impediments in dealing thoroughly with this question of Local Government, and in selecting the area, was the crossing by the union of the counties in so large a number of cases. The union has its advantages. It has its complete organization with a large area of administration, and for all administrative purposes in which the expense is likely to be large you want a large area. You cannot have a small area, which is a costly area, and there are many points in which it is desirable to have an area which will bear a sufficient range both of taxation and expenditure. The Government propose to take both the parish and the union. We shall follow the right hon. Gentleman opposite in taking the parish as the primary unit of local administration in rural districts, and we shall propose to re-constitute it entirely. Let me explain the meaning of the word "parish" as far as local administration is concerned. We have in this country upwards of 13,000 ecclesiastical parishes, upwards of 14,000 civil or Poor Law parishes, and upwards of 14,000 highway parishes, which in many cases are not identical with either of the other two areas. So far as this Bill is concerned, I think we shall dispose of the highway
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    parish altogether. I must, however, draw attention to the distinction between the ecclesiastical and the civil parish. The civil parish—and this the Legislature has declared to be the true test of a parish—is a district or area for which a separate poor rate is or can be made, or for which a separate Overseer is or can be appointed. The ecclesiastical parish was once identical with the civil parish; but now, according to the last Return presented to Parliament, out of 15,000 civil parishes, not more than 10,000 had the same boundaries as the ecclesiastical parishes. Therefore, the terms by no means represent the same area or the same population, or, in many cases, the same interests. How has this great discrepancy arisen? It has arisen partly from the Church side, and partly from the Parliamentary side. The Church, under powers given to it by the numerous Church Building Acts, has divided large and populous districts into ecclesiastical parishes, these being created solely for ecclesiastical purposes, not affecting the civil parish. On the other hand, the Legislature, at least 200 years ago, took a large number of outlying townships of large parishes which had long acquired the right of appointing their own Overseers and of being separately rated, and regarded them as civil parishes. That was chiefly done in the North of England, and I find that the Poor Law parishes which are townships, or parts of ecclesiastical parishes, chiefly in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Durham, amount to upwards of 5,000. Therefore, the House will not be surprised to find that there is a great discrepancy in the exact boundaries of these two great divisions. But for the purposes of this Bill and of all legislation for many years past, we deal exclusively with the civil parish, the parish which Parliament devised and has defined. Well, what is the organization of the parish? The parish simple is organized into its Vestry and has its Overseers, and I take it that those two institutions practically represent what the parish is and does. The Vestry is, I believe, the technical term for the ratepayers of the parish assembled in Vestry. The clergyman is entitled to preside, and questions are settled by show of hands. If a poll is taken the system of voting is

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    plural, the voters having from one to six votes, according to rating, and the female ratepayer can vote. There are also select Vestries in certain parishes, which are practically Parish Councils. The functions of the Vestry are mainly the management of the parish property and parish charities, and the adoption and working of certain specific Acts. Now is this organization, and are these officers working satisfactorily to the present day? I venture to think the Vestries and the officers of Vestries are decrepit survivals of former days. They have the form but not the power of Local Government; they do not possess the confidence of the rural population, and they are in the main useless and obstructive. They do not meet at convenient hours; they do not transact business in the way that other Representative Bodies do, and, as far as any practical efficiency is concerned, I think their duties are practically nil. Let me quote on this point an authority far better than mine, that of a gentleman from whom we differ in politics, but who certainly is a very high authority upon parochial government, and upon all the phases of the land question in our rural districts. I refer to Mr. George Brodrick, the present Warden of Merton College. He says—
    "It is impossible to survey county administration in its entirety without being; struck with the extraordinary absence of self-government in rural communities. We are wont to look on Saxon times as barbarous, and on the feudal system as oppressive; but the simple truth is that nine-tenths of the population in an English country parish have at this moment not merely less share in local government than belongs to the French peasants of the present day, but less than belonged to French peasants under the 18th century Monarchy.… With all its advantages, the parochial system, as it exists in English country parishes, is singularly ill-calculated to supply democratic training for self-government, or to promote the recognition of common interests and mutual duties in village communities. The humblest member of a Presbyterian congregation, by virtue of his spiritual independence, is made to realise that he is a citizen, but the ordinary English farm labourer, accustomed to depend on the clergyman in spiritual matters, as he depends on the squire for his cottage, and the farmer for his wages, does not feel himself to be a citizen, and will not be made to feel it by the mere acquisition of a Parliamentary vote."
    Before speaking of the first step in the re-constitution of the parish, I must tell the House the number of
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    parishes with which we have to deal. After deducting the urban and metropolitan parishes there are left, in round numbers, 13,000 rural parishes. Those Members who were in the last Parliament will remember that the great objection to any re-organization of the parish always was the large number of parishes that have a small population. I hope that this Bill will deal with that objection to some extent. Speaking in round figures, there are over 6,000 rural parishes that have a population of less than 300; there are 2,500 between 300 and 500; there are 2,300 between 500 and 1,000; 1,200 between 1,000 and 2,000; and 1,000 between 2,000 and 5,000. Therefore, I think the House will see that it will be impossible to take a parish as a unit without any regard to, its population. We must draw a line, and the line we propose to draw is at a population of 300. There is a precedent for that limit in the power of the Local Government Board to group parishes for the purpose of election of Guardians which is exercisable in the cases of parishes of less than 300 population. We are not going to leave the small parishes out in the cold, but hon. Members will understand that, as regards the organization I am submitting to the House, I am dealing with parishes in rural districts which have a population of 300 and over. We propose that there shall be constituted in every such parish a Parish Council. A rural parish is a parish in a rural sanitary district. If a parish is partly in an urban district and partly in a rural district, it will be automatically divided into two parishes, and the parish which is in the rural district will come under the Bill.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Does that apply to urban districts?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: No, I will explain subsequently how we deal with those. Whether a parish be a rural parish with a population of 300 or part of a rural parish possessing that population, the other part of which is in an urban district, it will form the area for the Parish Council. How are the Parish Councils to be elected? Who are to be the persons entitled to vote in the election of the Parish Council; or, in other words, who are to be the people

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    who are to form the parish meeting which will be really the electing Body? The electors will be all the men and women who are registered as County Council electors, and every man who is registered as a Parliamentary elector. The Parish Council will consist of a Chairman and Councillors, and the number of Councillors will be such as is fixed from time to time by the County Council, being not less than five and not more than 15. If a poll be demanded, it will be taken by ballot, and there will be no plural voting. The Chairman will be elected by the Council itself. There are certain purposes for which the Chairman will preside over a parish meeting, and others for which the parish meeting will choose its own Chairman. A parish meeting is to be opened not earlier than 6 and not later than 8 o'clock in the evening. This is to be fixed by Statute, He that no question shall arise on that point. The election will take place at a parish meeting in the first instance, and any elector will have the right to demand a poll. The Council will be elected annually in the month before the 15th April. Immediately after the election it will hold a meeting to elect a Chairman; and we make the holding of four meetings of the Parish Council in the year compulsory. We give the parochial electors the right to use, free of charge, for any parish meeting or meeting of the Parish Council at all reasonable times, any suitable room of a public elementary school receiving a grant out of moneys provided by Parliament. In every rural parish the power and duty of appointing Overseers of the Poor and Assistant Overseers, and of filling up casual vacancies will be vested in the Parish Council. The House will understand that we draw a broad dividing line between civil and ecclesiastical matters. We do not touch the parish in its ecclesiastical aspect at all. We do not interfere with its ecclesiastical functions or powers, but as in all civil parishes Churchwardens are ex officio Overseers, we see no necessity that they should continue in that capacity in the future. We therefore provide that in rural parishes Churchwardens shall cease to be Overseers, and that an additional number in their place shall be appointed by the Parish Council. We propose that the parish meeting and the Parish Council
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    together shall take the place of the Vestry. There will be defined certain matters in which the Parish Council exclusively will act, certain matters in which the parish meeting exclusively will act, and certain matters on which the Parish Council will require to have the consent of the parish meeting. Subject to these considerations we transfer to the Parish Council the appointment of the Overseers and the appointment of persons to be Overseers in lieu of Churchwardens. We transfer to them, in lieu of the Overseers, the holding of parish property; the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Vestry, except as regards Church affairs and except powers which are specifically given to the parish meeting; the powers and duties of Churchwardens, except as respects to Church or ecclesiastical charities; the powers and duties of Overseers and Churchwardens as to rating appeals, and the provision of Vestry rooms, parochial offices, parish chests, fire engines, fire escapes, and all the various minutiœ which various Acts of Parliament have imposed or conferred upon Vestries and Overseers. We transfer the powers of Boards of Guardians as respects the sale of parish property. We also transfer to them the power of making representations with respect to allotments and the election of allotment managers, and, in fact, in the whole machinery of the Allotments Acts we substitute the Parish Council for the authorities therein mentioned, although we do not interfere with the power Parliament has given to a certain number of electors to take action of their own volition. Then there are certain of what draftsmen call adoptive Acts, dealing with lighting, watching, public improvements, baths, Public Libraries, and so on; and we say that, where under existing Acts the consent or approval of the Vestry is required, the parish meeting shall be substituted for the Vestry. That meeting will have the power of adopting them, and the Parish Council will be the instrumentality by which they will be carried out. We give new powers to Parish Councils. We propose to confer on them power to provide and acquire buildings for public offices, and meetings and other public purposes, and to acquire land for such buildings, for recreation grounds, and for public walks. The Parish Council

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    will have the power of utilising any supply of water within the parish. There are a great many parishes which cannot bear the cost of waterworks, which have no necessity for waterworks, but which have an adequate supply of water if there were anybody to look after it, to keep it pure, and to see it properly distributed. There would, therefore, be great advantage in giving a Parish Council power to utilise a supply of water existing within the parish. There are also powers to deal with any pond, ditches, drains, stagnant water, and any matter likely to be prejudicial to health. We give the Parish Council power to acquire any right of way, casement, or other right within or without the parish, the acquisition of which is beneficial to the parish; power to accept and hold any gift of property for the benefit of the parish, and to execute any works or improvements incidental to such power. I may say in passing that it is, of course, the absolute statutory duty of the District Council, and we hope to make it more binding upon them, to see to the supply of water and to the sanitary requirements of every parish within their area. We do nothing to interfere with that, and these powers of the Parish Council are additional and cumulative. Then we deal with the question of the purchase of land. It is no good giving Parish Councils power to acquire land without giving them the instrumentality of getting the land, and I think the House is pretty well convinced that, so far as allotments are concerned, there is need of at all events some further power in order to make effective that which is believed to be compulsory. As the law at present stands, if the Allotment Authority, which is the District Council, require land for the purposes of allotments, they are enabled to do so on presenting a petition to the County Council, which is the Local Authority, to put into force the compulsory clauses of the Lands Clauses Act. That order has to be confirmed by Parliament in the shape of a Provisional Order. Practically that is a useless and costly power. What we propose is that if a Parish Council cannot acquire land by agreement, for any purpose for which they are authorised to acquire it, they may represent the case to the District Council, and the District
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    Council shall inquire into the representation. If the District Council are satisfied that suitable land for the purpose of the Parish Council or for the purpose of allotments, as the case may be, cannot be acquired on reasonable terms by voluntary agreement, and that the circumstances-are such as to justify the District Council in proceeding, they shall petition the Local Government Board for an order for the compulsory purchase of the land, and after the order is made by the Local Government Board it is not to require any confirmation by Parliament. We shall not have the machinery of two arbitrators and an umpire, but the price; will be settled by one arbitrator, and we insert what I frankly admit is a novel proposal, though there is Irish sanction for it—we insert words enacting that in determining the amount to be paid as compensation the arbitrator shall not make any additional allowance in respect of the purchase being compulsory. We go a little further. We give compulsory machinery not only to purchase, but to hire. Where land is proposed to be taken for allotments we are going to authorise the Parish Council to hire compulsorily any part of the land for a period not less than seven years. We protect—Section 3 of the Allotments Act of 1887 amply protects—the owners in respect of the compensation to be paid to them on the determination of the tenancy. If a District Council refuse to make the application to the Local Government Board for which the Parish Council ask them, then the Parish Council shall have a right to-appeal to the County Council for that purpose. I have now arrived at that portion of the Bill when I shall be fairly asked, How are you going to meet the cost of all this? We propose that the Parish Council shall be subject to certain limits. They are not to have boundless power of expenditure. It is to their advantage that they should have those limits, because the area over which their rating powers extend will be necessarily limited, and because we propose that the larger expenditure for these local purposes shall continue in the future to be as it has been in the past, although I hope under very changed conditions, vested in the District Council. We restrict the Parish Council from in-

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    curring any loan or any expenditure which involves an annual rate exceeding 1d. in the £1, unless these two conditions are complied with. First, they must have the consent of their constituency, the parish meeting; and, secondly, they must have the consent of the District Council, which represents for that purpose what we may call the central or larger authority—the district area of which they form part. Somebody may ask how are we to deal with a future year. The Parish Council may incur an expense which will bring the rate up to 1d. in the £1. Are they to be precluded from further expense? Certainly not. The Bill provides that any expense so consented to shall, unless the consent otherwise directs, be excluded from future consideration. I think the combined effect of these clauses will be to insure a wise economy, without unduly or unnecessarily interfering with the perfect freedom of the Local Authority. We restrict the Parish Councils from selling parish property without the consent of the Central Authority. We allow them to borrow with the consent of the Local Government Board for the purchase of land for buildings and for other permanent works, and we allow them to borrow either from the County or from the District Council.
    MR. JESSE COLLLNGS: May I ask whether the Parish Councils will be empowered to purchase land for small holdings as well as for allotments?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: The only part of the Bill which deals with the machinery of the Small Holdings Act is a provision relating to the allotment managers referred to in Section 16 of that Act. For them we substitute two members of the Parish Council, but we give the Parish Council no power to acquire or sell land for the purpose of small holdings. The remarks I have made in regard to allotments are confined exclusively to proceedings under the Allotments Acts. We propose to give the Parish Council power to apply to the District Councils to protect roads the closing of which is threatened. Coming to the holding of property, the Parish Council replaces the Churchwardens and Overseers as the legal holders of parish property, and it may also take over the trusteeship of parochial charities with the ap-
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    proval of the Charity Commissioners. We propose that the District Council may delegate to the Parish Council any powers it may delegate to a Parochial Committee under the Public Health Acts; and where the District Council appoints a Parochial Committee, consisting partly of its own members and partly of other members, the other members must be members of the Parish Council. If the District, Council does not do its duty and does not provide sufficient sewerage or water supply, then the Parish Council may complain to the County Council, and that Body may do the work at the cost of the locality. There is great need for that power, because Rural Sanitary Authorities—though I hope some change may take place—have not been quite so vigorous in the prosecution of sanitary reform as the Urban Authorities have been. The Parish Council may appoint one of their number to be clerk without pay, and if no one is willing so to act the Assistant Overseer is to be appointed, and the performance of these duties is to be taken into account in determining his salary. Where a parish is so large as to make a parish meeting impracticable, we give power to the County Council to divide the parish into wards, and there shall be a separate election in. each ward. In the case of small parishes with a population of less than 300 we provide that they are to be grouped with other parishes. The group must have a population of at least 300, and will elect for itself a Parish Council; but each parish, no matter how small its population, is to be entitled to have a parish meeting. The parish meeting will annually choose a Chairman for the ensuing year, and all the powers exercisable by the Vestry, except those relating to the affairs of the Church, will be exercisable by the parish meeting. The provisions of the Bill with respect to the stopping of a public right of way are also to rest with the parish meeting. These parish meetings are to be in the evening. I think, on the whole, these are very ample powers we propose to give to the Parish Council. It may be said, Is there a necessity for them? We have had the poet's picture and we have had the politician's picture of rural life in this country. After we have allowed for the exaggeration and colouring with which the imagination of

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    the one and the partisanship of the other have invested these pictures, I think we are bound to admit that the one tells us what might be and what ought to be but what is not, and the other tells us what ought to be and what can be. The Reports of my own Department with regard to the sanitary condition of stores of the rural parishes of this country disclose a state of things which is a discredit to our civilisation. And yet a Rural Authority has facilities which an Urban Authority has not. There are a variety of conditions, such as crowded populations and unhealthy trades, attaching to a town involving an enormous expense to deal with them. None of these conditions are present in a rural district. What are the conditions of local government in a rural district? Yon want the localities to be supplied with pure water; you want the houses and roads properly drained; you want the air uncontaminated and the dwellings fit for human habitation. For these purposes I venture to submit there is no authority better than the authority of the people who themselves reside in the localities. You cannot make these improvements by the exercise of mere authority. You have made the change in the great towns not by the act of the Central Government, but by the act of the Local Authorities, working on local lines and spending local money. No man can point to a single instance in which our municipal system has broken down. Look at our great towns what they were half a century ago and what they are to-day. What strides they have made forward! No man can look at the things going on in the towns without desiring that the same benefits should be conferred on all parts of the country. I know there is an idea abroad that the rural labourer is inferior to the artisan of the towns. [Cries of "No!"] I am glad to hear hon. Members deny that. I do not believe a word of it myself. You say sometimes that appeals are made by us to their baser instincts in order to obtain their votes; but you, at any rate, appeal to their nobler instincts. You tell them that they are citizens of a great Empire, and you ask them by their votes to prevent the disintegration of that Empire. Surely, if the rural labourer is capable of pronouncing an opinion on Imperial questions, he is
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    capable of pronouncing an opinion on rural questions. I do not suppose that these Parish Councils will not make mistakes. Many of us here heard of the aphorism of the late American Minister, that if a man never made a mistake he never made anything. Town Councils have made mistakes, County Councils have made mistakes, and there is another assembly I know of that has made mistakes. Parish Councils will make mistakes, Parish Councils will be extravagant, Parish Councils will possibly do foolish things—all that is inevitable to any system of popular government. But I am ready to run the risk of my rural friends making mistakes. I believe that, on the whole, they will do a great service not only to the locality in which they live, but the country of which they form a part. We may be asked, Are there any precedents for this delegation of large powers to Local Authorities? Now, Sir, I will take precedents from two great countries only, both closely associated with ourselves, the one characterised by its complete centralisation, and the other, I may say, by its complete decentralisation. I take, in the first instance, France. France, for purposes of local government, is divided into 86 departments; the departments are sub-divided into arrondissements, and the arrondissements, again, are sub-divided into communes. The total number of communes is 35,989—that is to say, rather more than double the number of English parishes, and three times the number of parishes on which we propose to confer the right of electing Parish Councils. The commune has a Corporate Body, with a maire and a Council; the members of the Council are elected for three years. The duties of the Body consist in assisting and to some extent controlling the maire, and in the management of the communal property and affairs. Among the functions allotted to the commune are the making and repair of roads, the enclosure and maintenance of burial grounds, elementary education, &c. The maire appoints most of the communal officials, and is empowered to make bye-laws on such subjects as the abatement of nuisances, and other matters relating to public health, the sale of provisions, the regulation of street traffic, the preservation of order in public places, and the control of theatres. The communes vary

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    immensely in size, but the only difference in constitution between a small and a large commune consists in the number of the members in the Council. This number varies from 10 to 36, according to the population. When the number of inhabitants is less than 500 the Council consists of 10, and when the number exceeds 60,000 the Council consists of 36. But a nearer illustration to us is the illustration of America. You have three types of local government in America—(1) the first, characterised by its unit the town or the township, exists in the six New England States; (2) the county is the unit in the Southern States; and (3) the mixed system, conbining features of the first and second, prevails in the Middle and North-Western States. The township of America is what in England would be called a hamlet. The population in the New England States, excluding cities, varies from 500 to 700. In some cases it falls below 200. It is governed by an assembly or towns meeting of qualified voters resident in the township, who meet at least once in the year. It chooses the select men, who are equivalent to our Overseers, the School Committee, and executive officers. It enacts bye-laws for the regulation of local affairs; it passes accounts, votes, expenditure and taxation, deals with the schools and the aid to the poor, controls the highways, appoints supervisors, clerks assessors, collectors, Commissioners of Highways. The voting is by ballot. The constituency consists of every male citizen over 21 who has resided in the State one year, in the county three months, and in the township one month. A year's residence, however, in the township is necessary for eligibility for office. In the Western States the same institutions prevail. The average population of a township in Ohio is about 1,000—a few as low as 500, and a very few as high as 1,400. In Illinois the average is about 900; in Minnesota 450, and in Iowa about 500. "These townships meetings," as Jefferson said, "are the vital principles of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exorcise of self-government and for its preservation." So far as our own country is concerned, there is one other authority I should like to quote—a living authority, a clergyman
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    who has had great experience of the Poor Law in this country, and is familiar with local life—I mean the well-known rector of Islip, Mr. Fowle. In a letter to The Times, on August 21, 1891, he says—
    "I am absolutely certain that what the country labourers, and. indeed, country people generally, desire is restoration of that self-government of the villages of which by mere historic accidents they have been deprived. For, beyond doubt, there is a grievance, felt to be such, that seriously oppresses country life. Why, of all the people in the world, should the inhabitants of English villages be deprived of municipal life? So far as I know, the like condition of things exists nowhere in any civilized country. In France the communes—twice as numerous, by the way, as English parishes—enjoy municipal privileges. In the United States, where so many of the best traditions of old English life still survive, the system of townships is, by common consent, one of the most valuable and successful of their institutions."
    These, Sir, are the grounds on which we venture to recommend to the House the adoption of the principle and machinery of Parish Councils. I would now ask the House to consider for a moment the question of District Councils. Under our present system every part of the Kingdom is either under an Urban or a Rural Sanitary Authority. The Urban Authority, as the House knows, consists of Town Councils or of Improvement Commissioners or of Local Boards, and every part of a union not included in an urban district constitutes a rural sanitary district, with the Guardians acting as the Rural Sanitary Authority for the remainder of the population. There are 574 Rural Sanitary Authorities; but before I come to the question of Sanitary Authorities, I have to say a word or two about the unions. So far as the towns are concerned, the course is very simple. We shall convert the Improvement Commissioners and Local Boards into Urban District Councils; we shall abolish all plural voting; we shall propose to abolish all qualifications, for we think the only qualification a man ought to possess is the confidence of his constituents; and we propose to make women capable of serving on these District Councils. Then as regards rural districts, the union is the administrative area with which we have to deal. Except in 25 cases, in which, if I may use the expression, the union consists of a single parish, the union is an aggregation of

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    parishes. There are 648 unions altogether. There are 137 in two counties and 32 in three counties. The Guardians by whom the union is administered are elected or ex officio. The Local Government Board fixes the number of elected Guardians, but there is required to be one Guardian for every constituent parish. There is a property qualification and plural voting, and voting by proxy. We could not ask the House to continue the existing powers in, much less to confer new powers upon, an authority so constituted and so irresponsible. We therefore venture to submit that the safest and wisest way is, before we proceed to constitute the authorities in rural districts, and to define their duties, to grapple with the question of the Guardians at once if we are in any way to utilise the area of the union. We therefore propose to abolish, firstly, all ex officio or non-elective Guardians. We propose to abolish all qualifications for Guardians, and we propose that the electors of the Guardians shall be the same constituency as that I have mentioned for the Parish Council—namely, the county electors and the Parliamentary electors. We propose that there shall be no plural voting, no proxy voting, and no voting papers, but voting by Ballot and One Man One Vote. The Body so elected will hold office for three years, one-third of the members retiring every year, thus securing a continuity of administration, and at the same time bring to bear on the Body at short intervals the judgment of public opinion. Having made the Guardians a popularly elected body, we do not propose to disturb the existing machinery. We take the Rural Sanitary Authority as it now exists, but elected and qualified under new conditions, and we continue that as the Rural District Council. Therefore, the Rural District Council will be the old Rural Sanitary Authority altered, and, I think, very much improved.
    SIR J. DORINGTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that Body will have the administration of the Poor Law?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Certainly. The Poor Law administration will remain as it is with the Board of Guardians, but the Board of Guardians
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    elected on a new franchise and under new conditions and circumstances.
    MR. J. COLLLNGS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the same method of election will be applied in the case of cities?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have already said we do not touch the Town Council wherever it exists.
    MR. J. COLLINGS: The Urban Guardians.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Certainly, we apply the same principle to the election of Guardians in London and every other urban district. Then we propose to abolish all separate Highway Authorities in rural districts and to transfer the whole powers of the Highway Board or the highway parish to the Rural District Council. We give the District Councils powers with regard to rights of way, roadside wastes, licences of gangmasters; licences of dealers in game, and other matters which are vested by various Acts of Parliament injustices. We propose that the Chairman of the District Council shall be put in the same position as the Mayor of a borough, by virtue of his office, and become a Justice of the Peace for the county. I come now to the areas and boundaries. At present we have rural sanitary districts, partly within and partly without the county, and we have parishes partly within and partly without rural sanitary districts. We have 174 rural sanitary districts and some 800 parishes so situate. We propose that every parish is to be within one county, that the district of every District Council is to be within one county, and that the County Councils shall have the duty of readjusting the existing overlapping areas and divisions. We think the County Council far the best tribunal to undertake this duty. They understand the localities, and how the districts can best be divided. They are to have 12 mouths in which to discharge their duty; and if at the end of that period they have not made this readjustment, it will devolve upon the Local Government Board to interfere and carry the matter out. Thus I hope we may before long arrive at some uniformity in respect to areas. There are various other powers in the Bill, some of a transitory, some of a supplementary nature, and also a schedule detailing the course of procedure both of

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    parish meetings and of Parish Councils with which I need not trouble the House on the present occasion. When the Third Reading of the Local Government Bill of 1888 was agreed to, I ventured to say that it was the first volume of the great work of Local Government. We now ask the House to write the second volume. But you cannot complete the work, for there is a large subject still outside, and no scheme of Local Government in this country could ever be considered complete until it is grappled with—and that is the Local Government of the Metropolis. We have to deal with the unification of London, and the conflicting jurisdictions of London, and the creation in London of powerful and popular district, authorities. With the experience of the last five years it is easily to be seen that some necessary amendments should also be made in respect of the working of the County Councils, and I think we shall have to adjust also some of the bearings on the various matters which I have mentioned to-day, so far as District Councils are concerned. Perhaps I may be allowed to call that the third and last volume. I am satisfied that the system of Local Government will not be complete until you have delegated to the County Councils the disposition of a vast number of matters which may appear to some as trifling importance, but which are of great importance to the localities themselves, and which sadly interfere with the time which in this House we ought to devote to matters of greater moment. I ask the House to look at our scheme as a whole. We contemplate a three-fold authority—first, the Local Authority, the Parish Council, in the locality, a small locality it may be, but where local interests will be fully considered, carefully guarded, and as, I think, wisely promoted. Next we have a larger area, that of the District Council, which will deal not only with local sanitary administration, but also with the administration of the Poor Law. Then next we have the County Council, representing to some extent a Central Authority, and it is in the union of these three institutions under the control of the supreme legislative authority that we conceive that the local government of this country can be best administered. We believe that these
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    institutions are not only good for the purposes for which they are devised, but good for the State. I venture to quote from two great authorities a sentence or two enforcing this argument. John Stuart Mill said—
    "I have dwelt in strong language on the importance of that portion of the operation of free institutions which may be called the public education of the citizens. Now of this education local administrative institutions are the chief instruments."
    De Tocqueville said—
    "Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Towns' meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science—they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty."
    With these motives we ask the House to give fair consideration to our proposals. We ask it to regard them not as a Party measure. Parties come, and Parties go; they triumph, and are defeated in almost regular succession. But side by side with these Party conflicts the education of the English people in their duties and in their powers is always progressing. We want to deal with this question, apart from politics, as a question in which all the citizens of the State are interested. We want to establish a local system under which all shall have free play and all shall have fair play, and in which the advantage of all shall be the desire of each. Perhaps the House will allow me to say, in conclusion, that I have the hope and the belief that this new authority which we are now creating for the first time, purely local in its character, will be successful—that the Parish Council cooperating with the District Council and the Town Council and the County Council, and with the Great Council of the realm assembled in Parliament, will, by harmonious co-operation, by wise administration, by constantly advancing efficiency, display to successive generations of Englishmen the truest and noblest types of those representative institutions which are the surest foundation and the strongest bulwark of individual freedom and national prosperity.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision for Local Government in England and Wales."—(Mr. Henry H. Fowler.)
    MR. LONGsaid, he was sure the House would expect that, before he offered a few remarks on behalf of some of the hon. Members who sat on the Opposition Benches, in reference to the District Councils Bill, he should say how much he regretted how much hon. Gentlemen who sat behind him regretted, and he ventured to say how much hon. Members in all parts of the House regretted, the absence from the House of his late chief in the Local Government Board, Mr. Ritchie, who, as all Parties in the House would admit, had done good and excellent service in the cause of Local Government, and who would have filled—how much better it was not for him, Mr. Long, to say—the position he now occupied as a critic of the Bill. Mr. Ritchie would also have derived great satisfaction—as he had himself done—from the speech of the President of the Local Government Board, and he wished to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman alike upon the eloquence and ability, and the clearness with which he had placed the proposals of the Government before the House. The right hon. Gentleman talked about this being the second volume of the work of Local Government. He was not quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman had got so far as the publication of the second volume of Local Government. They had already had proposals by the Government which led some to fancy that there was more than sufficient occupation for Parliament during this Session, and, undoubtedly, this very wide and farreaching measure, involving very considerable changes, some of which were of a highly-technical and peculiar character, must have ample time for its discussion. He, therefore, did not know whether he ought to congratulate the supporters of the Government upon the fact that the supreme moment of their existence had at last arrived, when they heard from the lips of a responsible Gladstonian Minister a proposal agreeable to themselves; or to condole with them that they were already committed to so large a figure of legislation that they could only look on and gaze at this proposal without any hope of being able to taste it. He thought the House would admit that all Parties were pledged by votes and speeches to do their best to complete
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    the work of Local Government, and at that stage he would offer no unfriendly criticism, accepting entirely the concluding hope of the right hon. Gentleman that the subject would have fair play. But, if not now, then on the Second Reading of the Bill, criticisms on some portions of the Bill would have to be made; and he was afraid that when Conservative Members pointed out dangers and difficulties that might possibly be incurred, they would render themselves liable to the charge—at any rate it would be made outside of the House—that they were afraid to trust the people. If such a charge were made it would be an unworthy charge. After all, if it came to confidence in the people, he was not altogether sure that the right hon. Gentleman in the details of this measure displayed such an absolute confidence in the people. For instance, he gathered that the Parish Councils were not to be allowed to hold their meetings earlier than 6 o'clock or latter than 8. One would have thought that, with full confidence in the people, such a detail would have been left to the discretion of the Council. But passing from this, it was clear that full and careful criticism of the measure would be necessary, and he could only repeat the hope that both sides would give each other credit for dealing with it in a fair and candid spirit. The Bill proposed to completely reform parish government in the country, and it proposed, though in a lesser degree, to reform the administration of government by the District Councils. As to Parish Councils, he took it that nobody in that Democratic House of Commons would desire to adversely criticise their Constitution. They were to be popularly elected—to be elected by ballot, and on the principle of one man one vote—and the maximum number of the Council was to be 15, and the minimum number 5. He heard with very great satisfaction the limitation as to smaller parishes, but thought the minimum population of a parish which was to have powers to elect a Council might have been fixed at a little higher than 300. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to reconsider this proposal, for it was desirable that the area called upon to elect a Council should be large enough to offer some prospect of providing capable men to discharge the duty, and to

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    develop sufficient interest in parochial work to surround the Parish Council with the importance which it ought to possess. As to the powers of these Councils, he was not sure there would be found so much general agreement as would be found in regard to other parts of the measure. He understood that the provision of allotments, for example, would be transferred to the new District Councils, but that the machinery for dealing with the allotments, and for the management of the allotments, would be in the hands of the Parish Councils.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Hear, hear!
    MR. LONGsaid, there was nothing very serious in giving the new Bodies power to provide plots of land; but, taken in conjunction with the power to obtain land compulsorily, it was a very large and a very important power, and one which the House would do well to consider very carefully before assenting to it. As he understood, those new authorities would be enabled to acquire land compulsorily by simply obtaining an Order from the Local Government Board, which would not require confirmation by Parliament. He admitted there were many difficulties in obtaining land by the exercise of compulsory powers which required confirmation by a Provisional Order. No doubt in the great majority of cases where Provisional Orders were required they were obtained at the smallest possible cost. But where compulsory powers had to be exercised in the acquisition of land, Provisional Orders involved delay, and, in some cases, considerable expense. He did not wonder, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman had turned his attention to this subject; but he ventured to point out that it was a grave thing to place the power proposed in the hands of a great Public Department. He would be the last man to say one word in depreciation of a Department with which he had been connected, but he thought that to place in the hands of a particular Department the decision whether land should be taken compulsorily or not involved a very serious responsibility. That Department could exercise its control only by means of public inquiries held on the spot by one of its Inspectors. That was the course he supposed the right hon. Gentleman would adopt. He knew very well how careful the Inspectors were,
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    and how their Reports were subjected to close examination by the Parliamentary Chiefs of the Department. But it must be remembered that the conclusion at which the Local Government Board would arrive would be founded on the Reports of the Inspectors, and it was laying on the shoulders of these gentlemen very great responsibility by calling upon them to make Reports to the Department, and for the Department, on those Reports, absolutely to decide whether the land should be taken from the owner under the conditions of purchase mentioned in the Bill. He thought it might be necessary, if this principle was adopted by the House, to give power of appeal to some other Authority, or to provide some other procedure which would remove from the shoulders of the Local Government Board and of their Inspectors the very great responsibility which would otherwise be thrown upon them. He could not admit that it was an altogether fair proposal that the arbitrators, in fixing the price of land compulsorily acquired, should allow nothing for compulsory acquisition. He had no sympathy with those who declined to realise and act up to the responsibilities attendant on the ownership of laud; but there were, and must be, occasions upon which it must be absolutely necessary, through no fault of any owner, for land to be compulsorily acquired, and it did seem a harsh and unjust proceeding for the House to say that if a Local Authority wanted land, and the Local Government Board said they wore to have it, the owner was not to have one penny in consideration of the compulsory acquisition. He thought those were proposals which would have to be opposed, and he respectfully submitted to the House that they involved a very serious and a very important change. They deserved, and must receive, the careful attention of the House, and if they were affirmed in principle he hoped it would be found possible to amend them in detail later on when the Bill got into Committee. They next came to the financial clauses of the Bill. They found that the power of the Parish Council was limited to the imposition of a rate of a penny in the pound unless the consent of the Parish Council and District Council was obtained. The right hon. Gentleman said that this pro-

    707
    vided a very efficient check. He did not think it any check at all. He was bound to say that he could not see in the provisions mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman any check worthy of the name. The consent of a parish meeting was what the right hon. Gentleman regarded as a sufficient check upon expenditure beyond the limits of a penny in the pound, but he was afraid that if the Parish Councils decided to spend this money, it was not very probable that a meeting of the parish would object to the proceeding, or that the District Council, whose consent to the proposed expenditure was also to be obtained, would see any objection to the action of the Parish Council. It was all very well to talk about "trusting the people" and "fearing the people;" but it must be remembered that whether it was right or wrong, the fact was undoubted that they were going to give one body of men the power to make proposals in their own interest, while another body of men would be called upon to provide the money by which those objects would be carried into effect. It was desirable there should be a limit upon the possible expenditure of these Parish Councils, and in his opinion this supposed check of the consent of a parish meeting, or of the District Council, was not one which would have any real effect if the Parish Council proposed to be lavish or unwise in its expenditure. That House had been very careful in all its legislation with respect to expenditure by the Local Authority. When the proposals of the late Government with regard to the borrowing powers to be given to the Councils about to be created was under discussion, although there was no reason to believe they would be extravagant or make an improper use of the funds at their disposal, it was pointed out from all parts of the House that Parliament ought to check and limit those powers. It must be borne in mind that there would be to many of these Councils, if they were inclined to spend money, great temptations to do so; therefore the House, before it placed in the hands of a newly-elected authority the right to spend money, should take care that there existed an adequate control, and he questioned very much whether the control proposed by the right hon. Gentleman would be at all real or effective. He
    708
    hoped this point would receive the careful attention of Members on both sides of the House who were acquainted with local government and who would realise that there was a practical difficulty to be considered in relation to it. The right hon. Gentleman at the end of his remarks upon Parish Councils said that what those who agreed with him wanted was that people should be given pure water, good drains, and good houses, and he referred to the fact that under our municipal system very good work of that kind had been done in the great towns. He quite admitted it, and he would be very glad to see in our rural parishes the same thing done. He should be very glad indeed if a tithe of the good things which the right hon. Gentleman expected to flow from this measure did result from it, but here, again, he came to a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. There could be no doubt, and he imagined no one, however enthusiastic he might be in this work of local government, would deny that when a man had to bear some portion of the burden, however small it might be, he was apt to be a little more careful as to what he did. In this case, owing to the fact that they had the compound householder in their rural districts, they would have, he was afraid, practically the whole, or certainly a vast majority, of those who exercised the control not bearing even the smallest portion of the cost which they might incur. Everybody who knew anything about their villages agreed that there was much to be done in the direction of providing a good water supply, good and efficient drains, and clean and comfortable houses. That could not be done without great expenditure, and the question was on what area were they going to lay this charge. It must be borne in mind that in the matter of water, houses, and drains, those districts which were worse off were the poorest and the least able to bear additional burdens. The places where the land had to be cultivated by the owner were the places which were absolutely unable to bear any additional burden which might be laid upon them. He questioned whether, in this respect, the working of the Act would be effective, because these additional burdens would stand in the way of good parochial work being done. The question of the

    709
    provision of pure water, good houses, and good drains was of the highest importance, and though a great deal had been done already in our country districts, particularly during the last 25 years, an immense amount of work still remained to be done. There wore villages in this country which were in a scandalous condition, and which certainly ought in the interests of humanity to be put into a sanitary condition immediately. He believed that in dealing with that important and great question they would have to give some larger and more effective powers than were given to a mere parish committee, and he was not prepared to admit the accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, that in questions of that kind the parish authority would be the best to deal with them. Their capability would be commensurate with their rateable power, and their power of raising funds would be very small unless they overburdened the district with rates by a very heavy expenditure, and his own opinion was that there should be a larger area and a larger authority if they were going to remove a crying evil, and to provide good water, good houses, and good drains where neither one nor the other existed at present.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: I should like to make it clear that we do not propose to take from the sanitary authority the rating power they already possess with regard to sanitary matters. The powers conferred on the parochial Councils are additional. They have certain powers, over a limited area, of rating, but the District Council will remain the rural sanitary authority.
    MR. LONGsaid, he had rather gathered from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that he proposed to transfer those powers, but he now understood that what was done by the Bill was to create now powers, and to leave to the existing local authority the powers they already possessed. That, of course, disposed of some portion of what he had said, but that did not, however, dispose of the whole of the difficulty, and he hoped that when Local Government reform in our country districts had gone a little farther than at present they would see some enlargement of the areas for those purposes. He was convinced that,
    710
    whether it were for sanitary or Poor Law administration, they would get bettor administration and larger benefits for the people who lived in the rural districts in proportion as they had larger areas represented. The House was agreed that it was absolutely necessary and essential that something should be done to improve the condition of things in the rural districts, but he did not feel sure that the proposals of the Government altogether held out the promise of success that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think. Then he came to what he thought the House would admit was the most serious change involved in the Bill—the proposal to set up District. Councils. So far as the urban District Councils went, they did not call for any comment from him at this stage of the Bill, but with reference to the rural District Councils there was a word or two to be said. The right hon. Gentleman, he was glad to find, proposed to leave the area of the Poor Law Union the same as he found it, but he proposed to change the mode of election of members of Boards of Guardians and to abolish the ex officio element. Hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House must have smiled when they listened to the one hearty cheer from the opposite side on the mention of that change; it was acceptable to them, as they believed it got rid of one of the privileges of that much-abused individual, the country landowner, who was looked upon as fair game for attack on all occasions. He did not attach the slightest importance to the proposed abolition, and with regard to qualification, and seeing that the President of the Local Government Board had reduced, and he thought properly reduced, the qualifications of Guardians to £5, he did not see the object of keeping it. But when it came to the change involved in the transference of the Poor Law within existing areas, he felt bound to point out that it involved a very serious change indeed. He would not weary the House now by dwelling at length upon it, as he hoped to do so upon a subsequent occasion, but the same objections which they urged in the Debate upon the introduction of a Bill dealing with Poor Law Guardians earlier in the Session were to be urged in reference to this proposed change. They

    711
    might say it was the right thing to do if they thought so; but merely to say that these men who might be trusted to elect Members of Parliament ought also to be trusted to elect members of Boards of Guardians was not worthy the right hon. Gentleman; the one did not follow the other at all. He ventured to point out that these men who would be called upon to elect Boards of Guardians would be subjected to very great temptation, and the change in this respect was a much more serious and a greater one than any other involved in the Bill, and was one the House would do well to pay careful attention to when it came to a later stage. He gathered the chairman of the District Council was to be made a Justice of the Peace. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman upon conferring that honour upon the chairman of the District Council and he had no doubt it would be much appreciated. They had been told in the House and in the country that the Bill before the House was a measure that was going to revivify village life and was going to make agricultural depression vanish. ["Oh, oh!"] That had been stated times out of number. They had been told that the cause of agricultural depression was that the labourers were leaving the villages, and that they were going to be kept in the villages by giving them Parish Councils and enabling them to look after their own affairs. He ventured to say, however, that the creation of Parish Councils and District Councils, even including making the chairman a Magistrate, would not affect by a jot or tittle the agricultural difficulty they had to deal with, or the depopulation of the country districts. As for the measure seriously dealing with the difficulties that had to be contended with in the agricultural districts, anybody who knew anything about the matter would say that such a proposition was absolutely untenable. With regard to the area, he thought that the right lion. Gentleman had done well to leave the matter to the County Councils for a year, and he should recommend him in his own interest, if he looked forward to enjoying the position he now filled at the end of 12 months, to make the period two years instead of one before the Local Government Board was brought in. Unless he did that, he ventured to say the right hon. Gentleman would find out
    712
    what was the fate accorded to those who rushed in where wiser people declined to tread. The right hon. Gentleman would find this question of areas a much more thorny one than he probably conceived at the present moment, and would take greater settlement than many hon. Members imagined. They owed their thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for the ability, clearness, and courtesy he had shown in introducing the measure. The Opposition might find some fault with the proposal, and be unable to accept it in full, but they wished the Government to go on with domestic legislation and leave out their proposals for dealing with Ireland, which the Opposition considered to be bad, and a waste of the time for the House to discuss. The Bill contained much good, and they were prepared to give it the most careful and the fullest consideration. They were anxious to see reforms carried which would be wise, and have good effects, and if the Government would make use of their opportunities the Opposition would help them. He hoped tie measure when it became law would be productive of good results, and that it and similar measures would increase the interest felt by our country districts in what went on around them, that it would improve the surroundings and brighten the lives of the people, and that it would make our country districts better and happier than they were at present. If they were successful in doing that, they on that side of the House would be proud to bear their share in passing such measures through the House.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. Long) in the Second Reading portions of his speech, because I cannot help thinking that the Debate on the First Reading should be confined to making clear that which is not made clear already, and to that point I shall direct my observations. The hon. Member seemed to think this Bill was brought in to be seen, and, having been seen, we should hear little more of it. Whatever may happen to other Bills, I hope this is one that is likely to pass both Houses, and if the hon. Member will produce his forces to work on the side of the Bill, I am sure this Bill will pass through both Houses in the course of the present year. We shall all feel the speech of the right

    713
    hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill is worthy of the Bill he had to explain to the House. Those of us who have some knowledge of the difficulties of drafting Bills upon the subject of Local Government will be the first to appreciate the success with which the right hon. Gentleman has grappled with many of those difficulties, and it seems to me he has gone as near to overcoming many of them as it is possible for human skill to do. There are several hon. Members who hear me who know that the overlapping of areas creates difficulties that are immense, and whatever criticism one may offer upon the obvious difficulties that still remain, we must all feel that no scheme can be perfect, and that it is only a question of greater or less difficulties, and success in dealing with them. The right hon. Gentleman in the first part of his speech almost frightened us by speaking of the completion of Local Government Reform. Surely the words he used in the latter part of his speech were more apposite to this Bill; it is rather one to enlarge and develop the system than to complete it. The great omission from this Bill is one I congratulate the Government upon; they have done right in excluding one great topic that was dealt with in some of the previous Bills; I mean the question of Licensing Reform, though no Bill that does not deal with that system can be said to complete Local Government Reform; but as this lays the foundation for dealing with licensing it has done all that can be expected at this moment from any Government. One great difficulty about this Bill, although it is not important in its consequences, is a certain marring of the completeness of the Bill—is, so far as I can understand, the complete leaving alone of the urban parish. There are very considerable powers, not powers of immense importance, but numerous powers, such as the election of overseers for example, which are in the same position in urban as in rural parishes. As I understand, this Bill leaves urban parishes alone, and if so the duties of the overseers will continue to be exercised. There is a certain want of completeness in this proposal, and I cannot but think it might be possible to include the overseers of urban parishes within the scope of the Bill. The first point in which this Bill seems to me to be superior to its predecessors
    714
    is in moving with the times, in putting Parish Councils first. The first portion of the Bill follows very closely, as it was intended it should, the lines of the Bill commonly known by the name of the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Henry P. Cobb), but there are a few points in which it differs; for instance, it substitutes 300 for 200 as the limit below which there should not be a Parish Council; it does not make the Chairman of the Parish Council a magistrate, but still it does pretty closely follow the lines of that Bill. There is one point I should like to ask a question upon. I understand the separation of the ecclesiastical and the local government functions of the churchwardens, but I should like to know how the election of the people's warden remains under the Bill, because; there are considerable duties that fall upon him that are not of an ecclesiastical nature, therefore would it not be better to transfer the people's warden to the Parish Council and get rid of the separate election? There was one omission from the speech of my right hon. Friend as regards the Parish Councils. I have no doubt we may assume the Parish Councils will follow the lines of the District Councils, but he did not say whether women were to be eligible to sit on Parish Councils, though they were eligible to sit on District Councils. He used the phrase "any person," and I understand he establishes for the Parish and District Councils the same absence of qualification as in the case of the School Board. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having had the courage to take that step. All those who have served on Boards of Guardians and School Boards with women know that the getting rid of the ratepaying qualification has been a vast service to the State. By excluding London from the scope of this Bill one curious circumstance will remain. The qualification for London vestrymen and that for county magistrates and Commissioners of Land Tax will be the only qualifications existing in this country after this Bill has passed. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the powers he proposes to give to County Councils, but I cannot quite gather whether they will have power to divide parishes.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: They will.
    SIR C. DILKE: I am glad to hear that, because, as my right hon. Friend well knows, there are many villages that have grown up on the margins of parishes and far away from their centres, and there are some villages which are in four different parishes, but yet are complete villages, which ought to have a Parish Council and their Village Meeting, and unless such power is given there would be difficulty in dealing with cases of that kind. Now I come to the District Councils portion of the scheme, and the House will feel that the District Councils portion is less revolutionary than the Parish Councils portion. The District Councils portion of this scheme is, perhaps, a little timid, though I am bound to say my right hon. Friend has followed the line of least resistance, and done that which he has a right to do in a Bill intended to pass through both Houses. There are great difficulties connected with this scheme of areas of District Councils such as you cannot deal with by more alteration of boundaries. In the North of England, and especially in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the country is almost covered with a network of Local Board districts with a lace-work of little rural districts around them, and the government of a district consisting of mere lacework is a difficult thing, and if you are going to give them any new powers greater than they possess, districts such as these in the West Riding of Yorkshire will present difficulties that are almost insuperable. The difficulty has been caused by giving the County a great number of powers that ought to have been reserved for the District or Parish Councils. There is another difficulty which is also great, and it is the case of parishes which are technically urban parishes, but which, as a matter of fact, are more rural than the average of the county in which they exist, and there ought to be some power to enable the County Council easily to assimilate rural parishes of that kind to others in their neighbourhood. In Mr. Ritchie's Bill there was a power given to abolish Local Boards, but that has never been made use of. One word more only before I sit down. I hope that, whatever may be the difficulties of this Session, there may be no idea of dropping the District Councils portion of the Bill. There has been some idea got about, from
    716
    the admirable nature of the Parish Councils portion of the Bill, that, just as the District Councils part of Mr. Ritchie's Bill was dropped, so the District Councils portion of this Bill might be dropped. Unless you get rid of qualifications and plural voting in all portions of the country, you will be doing a great injustice to the miners and others who live in Local Board districts, and no scheme can have the least pretence of being a complete scheme unless it abolishes qualifications and plural voting.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I wish to interpose but for a very few minutes in this Debate. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have been Members of Parliament during the last 25 years may possibly remember that I was associated in 1871 with a Local Government Bill of a similar kind. The right hon. Gentleman who with such eloquence introduced this Bill to-day referred to some of the observations I made upon the occasion when I submitted that proposal to the House. I wish to associate myself fully and in the most ample manner with that portion of this Bill which desires to establish rural life as far as it possibly can be done. I and my colleagues of that day selected the parish as the unit, and I am glad to be present to-day at the exhumation of that idea. It was derided at the time. It was said, "Are you going to set up again the most antiquated portion of our local institutions? Are you going once more to attempt to put life into the overseers or into the vestries?" And for years it seemed as if the Union was going to triumph over the parish as the future unit of local government. I should have regretted that extremely, because I held then, and I hold now, that it is of great importance for local life that every area which is practically a unit, should have someone to represent it, and to be responsible; for a certain portion of the administration. The overseers are not officers filling any real responsible position; if there were any abuses or any needs in the parish, no single person could come forward and say he was responsible; therefore it seemed to me and my colleagues when we introduced our Bill that it was most important to have a single person to represent a parish, as well as a body who would represent the parishioners. We proposed to establish

    717
    what we called a Parochial Board, which is much the same as the Parochial Council. The present Government propose that there shall he a Chairman of the Parochial Council; we proposed that there should be a Chairman of the Parochial Board, and that he should represent the parishes in all those things where parishes would have to act together—that he should be an ex officio representative of the parish. We proposed at that time that the minimum number of councillors should he three and the maximum 20. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that the minimum should be five and the maximum 15. I presume these figures are capable of alteration. I myself incline to think five a better number than three, but I am not certain it may not be wiser in very large parishes to extend the Council from 15 to 20. But there is one feature in this proposal which is, I think, a great improvement upon the Bill with which I was connected, and that is the importance that is given to the Parish Meeting side by side with the Parish Council. I hope that will be a matter on which there will be very general agreement in this House. It seems to mo to be a wise provision in a double respect. It will act as a valuable check upon the proceedings of the Parochial Council, and at the same time it will stimulate the interest which the parishioners will take in the affairs of the parish. If their business was confined to merely electing the Council we should not secure that to which I have always attached very much importance—namely, accustoming them to take an interest in their own affairs, which in the case of boroughs the citizens generally have been accustomed to take. The House will sec that, so far as that part of this Bill is concerned which would give considerable power and considerable interest to the parishioners in the affairs of the parish, I associate myself most heartily both with the spirit and, so far as I can judge, with the provisions of the Bill. I have been charged with distrust of the agricultural labourer. It has been brought against me over and over again by my political adversaries, but if I may in all humility put this point before the House, what I desired to see was the education of the agricultural labourers in parish life, teaching them to take an
    718
    interest in their own affairs, so that they might be educated for the exercise of the Imperial franchise, as in the towns the people had been educated up to the exercise of that franchise from their experience of municipal life. Though I have been so often denounced as wanting in sympathy with the agricultural labourer because I could not associate myself with giving him the Parliamentary vote before he had what I may call the local vote, if the House considers the attitude I took at that time with reference to my desire that the agricultural labourer should have opportunities of public life, I trust they will see that neither then nor now was there any distrust in my mind as regards the agricultural labourer. The House has thought best to give the Parliamentary franchise first; now the labourer is to have the local franchise. I believe it will improve his grasp of public questions, just as in our towns a grasp of public questions has been given to the populations from their experience of their own local affairs. With regard to the powers given by this Bill, I will not on this occasion make any comments. They are large powers. Many of them are powers which, I think, would have been transferred under any Bill to a Parochial Council, but there are some of the powers which seem new powers, and those new powers, of course, will have to be examined very closely. It will also be necessary to watch carefully those limits as regards expenditure which have been put into the Bill. I understand there is a cumulative power at first of a penny in the £1, which struck me as a moderate limit; but a penny may be added every year, and there is no limit to the aggregate amount, therefore I presume it would be a matter of Committee as to whether at any point it would be necessary to introduce a limit. With regard to the appeals, it struck me that there was some cumbrousness in the arrangement that sometimes the appeal is to the District Council, sometimes to the County Council, and in one instance to the Local Government Board. In the case of allotments the appeal is to the Local Government Board.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: The District Council will be asked to apply to the Local Government Board for an Order under the Allotments Act. If the District Council refuses to apply, then the

    719
    Parish Council may ask the County Council to apply.
    MR. GOSCHEN: There are successive channels through which the Local Government Board is to be approached in any case?
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Alternative channels.
    MR. GOSCHEN: On one point only will I detain the House any further, and that is to say that, so far as regards the areas and simplification of voting, I think it is most important that the vote should be given in a clearer manner than it is now. I mean that the parishioners should be better able to understand the duties they have to perform than is possible when every vote, as now, is given on a different system. We proposed in 1872 that there should be an immense simplification in the voting. It is a pity that it was not carried out at the time. I heartily agree with and endorse the general views of the right hon. Gentleman as to simplifying the various franchises and qualifications. Now, Sir, several Members have spoken as to the chances of a big Bill passing. The right hon. Gentleman seems to me to have fallen into the same danger that Local Government reformers have before fallen into—that is, in endeavouring to complete the scheme, to almost overload it and thus make it more difficult to pass. There have been suggestions that certain portions of the Bill should be dropped. I do not suggest that any particluar portion of the Bill should be dropped; but it struck me, as the right hon. Gentleman was unfolding his proposal, that there were such cumulative demands that it would not be possible to pass such a Bill as this in the proportions the right hon. Gentleman suggests. For instance, he is not content with giving the power with respect to allotments to the Parish Councils, but he must change the manner in which laud is to be leased, and in that way he brings into the Bill what may be necessary in his opinion, but at the same time raises a controversial point unconnected with the structural parts of the Bill, and will make it more difficult for him to pass the Bill into law. I think the proper mode of proceeding is not to ask for more than is absolutely necessary to construct the general machinery in the first place; but at the same time to attempt not only to give new powers, but
    720
    new powers in a new shape and under new conditions, overloads a Bill of this kind to such an extent that you are obliged ultimately to give up the Bill. I think I have spoken in a sufficiently friendly tone to show the right hon. Gentleman that it is in no captious spirit that I have made these remarks as to controversial matters, and I now reiterate the words of my hon. Friend near me, that we shall be disposed to look at the Bill in an impartial spirit. There is much in it we shall be able to approve of, though there is much in it we shall be bound to criticise and possibly to oppose; but on its main lines I shall, personally, be glad if we can add to the Statute Book a law which, I believe, will greatly improve the conditions under which our villages are governed.
    MR. J. COLLINGSwas glad the Government had undertaken one of its earliest duties—namely, the completion of the system of county government begun by the late Administration, and they had also followed the lines laid down by Mr. Ritchie, in the Debate of 1891, in establishing District Councils and the reform of parochial government. He did not think there would be much divergence as to the principles contained in the Bill as laid down by his right hon. Friend. But there was one thing he was very anxious about, and that was to see the Bill become law. His right hon. Friend was a little hard on the late Government for what he called breaches of their promises in not completing the measure shadowed forth in the Act of 1888; but he would remind his right hon. Friend that, although they did not deal with this question in subsequent Sessions, they were engaged in good, sound work for the rural districts, such as the Small Holdings Act, free education, and so on. If the present Government, instead of using every effort to pass the Bill into law, gave their attention to some great constitutional measure in which the country districts had no interest whatever, he did not think the rural electors or the country generally would be very well satisfied. As far as District Councils were concerned his right hon. Friend seemed to have adopted almost bodily the proposals of the Government of 1882, except as to the all important part that dealt with the election of Guardians. It appeared that

    721
    smaller parishes were to be grouped, but there were some parishes of enormous size, and he would like, to know whether the very big parishes would be divided.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: They will be divided into wards, each ward holding its meetings.
    MR. J. COLLINGSwas glad to hear that. He did not understand from the right hon. Gentleman what the Parish Councils were to do with respect to allotments than to manage them, or whether they would have the power of rating for the purpose of buying land for allotments. If it was simply a power to manage allotments, that power already existed in the most excellent and efficient manner under the Allotments Act of 1887. if it, was the intention of the Government to confine the supply of allotments to those to be procured out of the resources of the parish, he hoped the Government would reconsider that in some parishes there would not be more than £25 a year available for the purpose, so that there would be very little chance of the rural population getting anything in the form of allotments for a parish so circumstanced. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the advisability of including amongst the parishes small agricultural towns which existed throughout the country, such as Devizes, Salisbury, and Shaffesbury—whose prosperity depended on agriculture—so that they might assist in the provision for allotments. He urged the right hon. Gentleman to make the area as large as possible for the supply of allotments, so that the more wealthy districts—the small agricultural towns—might be brought in for the purpose of helping the smaller and poorer parishes, otherwise the Bill would not be an improvement on the Act which at present existed, but quite the contrary. He was glad to find the Government had dealt with this great question. It was a mistake to call the measure a Parish Councils Bill. It was a Bill for the completion of the system of county government inaugurated by the late Government, which he hoped and trusted would not be prevented from being passed by any great question which would place the Government in the position of the late Government—namely, of not having time to pass the Bill. He thought the Opposition would give all
    722
    the help they could, probably indulging in less delay than the Opposition of 1888 indulged in its treatment of the Bill of that year.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERasked the House to agree now to the Bill being brought in, as there were other important matters to be disposed of before the Sitting was suspended. He appreciated the manner in which the Bill had been met; but it would be impossible for him to answer all the points that had been raised without making a long speech. The true answer, however, was the print of the Bill, and if the House would allow him to bring in the Bill at once he would undertake that it should be printed and circulated without delay, and then hon. Members would be better able to criticise its provisions, and point out those features which they thought deserved alteration and improvement.
    SIR R. PAGETrose, when——
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    MR. SPEAKER: I put the Closure, as I understand the exigencies of the Public Service demand it.
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Henry H. Fowler, Mr. Secretary Asquith, Mr. Arthur Dyke Acland, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, and Sir Walter Foster.
    Bill presented and read the first time. [Bill 274.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY—REPORT.
  Resolutions [20th March] reported.
  SUPPLY—REPORT.
    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1892–3 (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES).

      CLASS V.
      1. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £24,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1893. for the expenses of Her Majesty's Missions Abroad, and expenditure chargeable on the Consular Vote."
      SIR JAMES FERGUSSON: I do not desire to renew the Debate we listened to with so much interest last night; but I cannot help calling attention to a rather remarkable feature in the conduct of that Debate by Her Majesty's Government. One would have thought that, in a matter peculiarly concerning one of the Departments of the Government which has been engaged for several years under successive Administrations in the conduct of a very difficult and important branch of public affairs, that we should have heard from the representative of that Department the view taken by the Government in that Department, whose Chief is so largely responsible in the matter. But whether it was the intention or not it was remarkable that by the action of the Prime Minister, and afterwards by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who at the end of the evening was in charge of the House, the Representative of the Foreign Office was prevented from addressing the House, and possibly it was remarked that the Member for Haddington, hastening to the assistance of the Government, promptly moved that the Debate be closed, and there the incident ended. I should have thought the Government would have been glad that the House should have heard the views of the Foreign Office on this question. I do not know if it will be a precedent that the Minister peculiarly concerned will not be heard. Perhaps, when the Channel Tunnel Bill comes on, the representatives of the War Office and of the Admiralty will be similarly excluded. I am the last to wish that this Debate should be in any sense a Party question. The hon. Member for Leicester last night tried to throw the responsibility on the late Government for our present position in Central Africa. He said that the danger, the cost, and the blame would rest on the late Administration. Well, Sir, if that be so— and they, undoubtedly, are responsible for much that has been done in this matter—so also, I apprehend, the honour will belong to them if they shall be found to have asserted the claims of this country to a largo share in the civilization of Africa, as we are undoubtedly committed in solemn conference, and in honour, to taking part in the further measures for the suppression of the
      724
      Slave Trade, and the improvement of that great Continent. But, Sir, I would rather hope that any honour there might fall on those who had taken this step might also be shared by those who succeeded us. I should hope that the desire to uphold our interests, for the opening up of new channels of trade, and the relief of our industrial classes by increased opportunities for our commerce, may not belong to the Party which sits on this side alone, but that in foreign affairs we may be actuated by higher considerations—that both Parties in the State may equally desire that this country shall continue to be powerful abroad and prosperous at home, and that the great developments which have been accomplished in past generations, when our means were infinitely inferior to what they are now, and greater difficulties had to be contended with, may, by future generations, be carried still further, and every means taken to secure that our people at home may be better employed, and so be more prosperous and contented. It would be a great pity if the impression went out from the Debate of last night that the Government were half-hearted in this matter. There were some things said which might lead to that conclusion, but we must recognise the difficulties caused by political exigencies. The Department most responsible in this matter has spoken out with no uncertain voice. We may not believe there is much necessity for inquiry in this matter. On the contrary, I think signs are not wanting to show that the Party now in power possesses within itself many of those who consider our honour is now pledged to this matter. We could not withdraw from Uganda without disgrace, and if we did so, and evil consequences were to ensue, it would reflect discredit upon this country and upon all concerned in such withdrawal. We have had enough of abortive expeditions and premature withdrawals, and I cannot believe any step is in contemplation with regard to Central Africa which would undo the good work that has been done there, or place our fellow-countrymen, whether missionaries or laymen, in peril, or which would expose those who have placed confidence in the promises of England to spoliation and destruction. I hope, therefore, the singular course the

      725
      debate took last night does not indicate any vacillation on the part of the Government or any intention of receding from the position we have taken up in Africa.
      COLONEL NOLAN,who had an Amendment on the Paper to reduce the Vote by £1,000, called attention to the massacre of Roman Catholics in Uganda, quoting the evidence of various persons in support of his statement. He said that after this terrible massacre had taken place hundreds of women and children were sold into slavery, and the lauds of the Catholic people were taken and divided up, the Protestants most unfairly getting much the larger share of them. While he did not wish to accuse Captain Lugard of a desire to shed blood or of a greed of money, yet he did accuse him of trying to make himself supreme in the country, and of being, to a large extent, responsible for the unhappy quarrel and hostilities that took place in Uganda. His policy had the effect of at length setting one set of Christiana actively against another set, and, bearing in mind that Captain Lugard and Captain Williams were commissioned officers of the Army, he did not see how this country could entirely escape responsibility in the matter. It was satisfactory to know, however, that a thoroughly capable man had been sent out to Uganda to inquire into the question, and he only hoped that Sir G. Portal's instructions included directions that the ordinary principles of religious toleration should be observed in the country—that the same rules of fairness and toleration should be shown to the Catholics in Uganda as was shown to Catholics in every other part of Her Majesty's dominions.
      VISCOUNT WOLMERasked what progress was being made with the delimitation in Eastern Africa by Kilina Njaro?
      SIR E. GREY: Yes. The Commissioners for England and Germany differed on the spot as to certain terms. These differences have been referred home for the Government here, and at Berlin, to settle between them, with the help of the two Commissioners, who, it has been suggested, should come home to Europe to finish the delimitation. In answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, it is impossible to give him
      726
      anything like a complete answer to the questions he has raised at the present time. It is quite true that there was, as he said, a slaughter or a killing of a certain number of natives who belonged to the Catholic or the French faction in Uganda,. But such events always attend civil war, and before it is possible to give a definite reply on the merits of the case responsible inquiry must be made into all the circumstances. The late Government instructed Captain Macdonald to make such an inquiry. The present Government have repeated those instructions, and we are bound in honour to Captain Lugard, and to every party concerned, to wait for Captain Macdouald's Report, and then come to our decision as to what the merits of the case really are. If the hon. and gallant Member presses me for a decision on the point, I can only say that the evidence at present at the disposal of the Government shows that the French Party fired the first shot, and were, therefore, to a great extent responsible for what afterwards ensued. But I do not wish to pronounce any definite opinion in view of the inquiry that is to take place. In answer to the right hon. Baronet opposite, I might say that I can assure him that he need be under no doubt that, as regards this question of Uganda, the Government fully recognises the obligations which have been imposed by the urgency of the case. It is due to the urgency of the case that the Commission under Sir G. Portal has been sent. It is not that responsibility was imposed upon the Government by the fact that the Company had a Charter, or by the fact that we had a sphere of influence—though I think it would be rather strong to say that this country was no more concerned in the question than it might have been if no Charter or sphere of influence had existed at all. The responsibility imposed on the Government—the obligations imposed on the Government—were imposed by the facts of the present and by the prospects as regarded the future. What are the facts? First of all, it is an undoubted fact that the Slave Trade was rampant in Uganda until a few years ago. [Mr. LABOUCHERE dissented.] I have any number of quotations which I shall be glad to show any hon. Members, and which go to prove that the Slave

      727
      Trade was rampant in Uganda, and that Uganda was the very centre of the Slave Trade at one time. We were assured that if the British East Africa Company loft Uganda the Slave Trade would again revive. There was good reason to think that it would revive. In proportion as the Congo State strengthened its administration, and as Germany strengthened hers, the Slave Trade within these quarters will decline, and, therefore, it is more likely to seek an outlet in Uganda. It would be a pretty state of things if a country within our sphere of influence was to become the home and one of the last refuges of the Slave Trade. Under all the circumstances the Government were bound to get information, and while getting that information to guard against what might happen. Then there was some responsibility with respect to the natives. King Mwanga delayed to accept the first Treaty, because he had made a Treaty with Dr. Peters, and he was not quite sure whether Dr. Peters or Captain Lugard was the stronger man, or whether Uganda was within the sphere of British influence.
      MR. LABOUCHERE: He was compelled to accept it by violence and force.
      SIR E. GREY: Where is the evidence of that?
      MR. LABOUCHERE: That is what the Prime Minister said last year on the Vote for the Survey of the Mombasa Railway.
      SIR E. GREY: The Prime Minister had not then got full information before him. What subsequent information has done is to explain Mwanga's reluctance to sign the Treaty at that moment. Mwanga was a simple savage, and the moment he was assured that Captain Lugard was a stronger man than Dr. Peters. He came over to his side. In fact, he took the only possible line which could be taken by a savage or by a civilised man either. To say that we were forcing ourselves upon him was contrary to the facts of the case, and any one who could read between the lines could see that. The Catholics, it was stated, had received a large importation of arms, while the Protestants, by the action of the representative of the Company, were left without arms, and, therefore, the missionaries had a strong case. And therefore they said:—"As you
      728
      have taken away our arms and left us at the mercy of those who are strongly armed, you are bound to make some provision to see that we do not suffer consequences which we might never have suffered had you not come near the place." There is one more point. We do not know what the commercial value of Uganda may be in the future. It may not be much now, but the question is as to the future. The hon. Member for Sunderland said we ought to stay and concentrate our attention at home and spend what money we can on the people here. Where are we to get the money to spend? We have to get the money by our export trade. I do not venture to assert that Uganda will produce a great export trade ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member who cheers that statement ironically is not in a position to disprove what I am about to say, which is this: I have numerous quotations giving the statements of a number of people who have been on the spot, and who state that the climate is good and the soil such as will produce great natural wealth. Hon. Members may disbelieve the words of these persons if they like, but to say that Uganda is for ever to remain valueless they must not only disbelieve the assertions of those who were on the spot, but they must also satisfy their constituents on the point. There is a great preponderance of statements to the effect I have stated from people who have been on the spot.
      MR. LABOUCHERE: Cite one.
      SIR E. GREY: I have not got the quotations with me, but I have them in the House. If hon. Members wish to have a collection of them published I shall have no objection to their being published and circulated in any constituency they like. If no Commissioner had been sent to Uganda I think the point against us would have been put most forcibly. We should have been told we had abandoned the country without inquiry—when we are told for certain that the evacuation of the country meant not only the massacre of the missionaries but also of the natives who have trusted a British Company. Then, again, if we had adopted any other course than the one we have adopted we should have been told that we wanted new markets, there was some evidence that Uganda would be valuable,

      729
      and yet we had not spirit enough to inquire. It would have been said that we had abandoned it without taking the trouble to make sure what the facts of the case really were and what reasons could have been given. The only reason would have been that our Empire was so large, and our population so dense, and that on the narrowest possible construction of our possible obligations we could prove we had no technical responsibility. The Government have proceeded in the only possible way open to them. They prolonged the occupation for throe months—they had no other alternative by which to gain time to decide—and having done that, then they sent a Commissioner, a man of experience and ability, to inquire. By doing that they did their best to prevent calamities, to secure peace in Uganda, and to safeguard the possible interests of this country, and any other policy would inevitably lay them open to blame and reproach.
      SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTrose to make an appeal to the House. They had been discussing this Vote for the last hour, there were Resolutions in Ways and Means to be passed, and a Bill was to be introduced. If they did not dispose of these things to-day the law would be broken. They ought now to close the financial part of the proceedings and leave the evening free.
      MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he only wanted for one moment to register a protest against the action of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The closure was put on the previous night and the Under Secretary did not speak. The Under Secretary, however, had got up that evening and attacked not only the Radicals, but the Prime Minister. He (Mr. Labouchere) was there to defend the Prime Minister. He would like to know whether the Under Secretary had obtained the consent of the Prime Minister to say that, when last summer the right hon. Gentleman stated that the first Treaty had been obtained by Captain Lugard by violence and fraud, he did not know the circumstances and had altered his mind at present?
      MR. R. WALLACEdesired to know If, upon the Appropriation Bill, they would have an opportunity of answering the historical inaccuracies of the Under Secretary, to say nothing of the bad argument?
      SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, that if he could make time he would give his hon. Friend and everyone else such opportunity as they wished, but, unfortunately, he could not make time, and time was lapsing very fast.
      MR. A. C. MORTONdesired to protest against the speech of the Under Secretary, and to say that he would call attention to the matter on the Appropriation Bill.
      Resolution agreed to.
      Resolutions 2 to 10 [see pages 605–6] agreed to.
      Resolutions [20th March] reported.

  WAYS AND MEAN'S.

    CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
    1. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the Service of the years ending on the 31st day of March, 1891, 1892, and 1893, the sum of £806,711 4s. 7d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
    2. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1894. the sum of £9,497,300 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
    Resolutions agreed to:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mellor, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir John Hibbert.
    Bill presented, and read first time.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked that it be put down for Second Reading on the following day.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURasked in what stage it would be put down for Wednesday?
    SIR W. HARCOURT: First, to-morrow.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Before private Members' Bills.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I understand it is necessary to do that for the purpose of making the Bill safe. I am told that that course is in accordance with precedent.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURasked the Speaker whether it was according to precedent that there should be a discussion on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill before private Members' Bills came on for discussion on Wednesday?
    MR. SPEAKER: The stage of the Appropriation Bill has to be put down before the private Members' Bills. Whether there is a discussion on it is a matter for the House.
    Bill to be read a second time Tomorrow, at Twelve of the clock.

  NOTICE OF ACCIDENTS BILL.—(No. 199.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    It being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed this day.

  REGIMENTAL DEBTS (CONSOLIDATION) BILL.—(No. 116.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  EVENING SITTING.
    MOTION.

      SHOPS (HOURS OF LABOUR.)
      SIR J. LUBBOCKin rising to call attention to the excessive and unnecessarily long hours of labour in shops; and to move—
      "That, in the opinion of this House, the excessive and unnecessarily long hours of labour in shops are injurious to the comfort, health, and well-being of all concerned; and that it is desirable to give to Local Authorities such powers as may be necessary to enable them to carry out the general wishes of the shopkeeping community with reference to the hours of closing,"
      said: The Resolution dealt with a subject of urgent importance, and yet it had been strangely neglected by statesmen. It was ignored in the Newcastle Programme, and yet was surely far more important than several, if not most, of the proposals contained in it. Even those who did not think that a legal eight hours for artisans was possible sympathised very much with their wish for shorter hours, but the unfortunate shop assistants and the small shopkeepers were working more than 12 hours, in thousands of cases even over 14 hours. The Factory Acts limited the hours for our manufacturing population; but the men and women and boys and girls em-
      732
      ployed in shops were working in many places 30 hours a week longer than those engaged in factories. He was fortunately able to rest his case on the Report of the Committee of that House which sat in 1886. There was also a Committee last year, and the action they took showed how keenly they felt the gravity of the case. The Report of 1886 derived additional weight from the fact that, so far as the passages on which he relied were concerned, it was absolutely unanimous. They reported that—
      "In many districts the shops are kept open until very late, especially on Saturdays," and that "the hours of labour in shops in many districts range as high as 85 per week."
      The Committee also reported that little could be expected from voluntary action, and that nothing short of legislation would be sufficient. The facts being admitted that thousands and thousands of shop-assistants are being worked 14 hours a day and 16 on Saturday, surely there was an overwhelming case for legislation. When the Factory Acts were proposed, their supporters were never expected to prove that manufacturers themselves were in their favour. But in this instance the shopkeepers themselves were in favour of legislation, which strengthened the case immensely. The Report of the Committee went on to point out that the protracted hours of labour in shops were dangerous, often ruinous, to health, especially in the case of women; and on this point the evidence was very strong. Dr. Rutter, Medical Officer to the Milliners' Association, stated that he had occasion to see professionally a great number of women engaged in shops, and that it was impossible for women, and especially for girls, to work so many hours without great injury to health, and that the evil was greatly aggravated by the fact that they had to stand so much. Dr. Abbotts called the special attention of the Committee to the question as affecting women. He said he had no doubt that the long hours led to diseases of the pelvis, and that girls who had stood so long could not expect to be mothers of healthy children, so that the question was of vital importance as regarded the physical condition of our race. He called the attention of then Presidents of the College of Physicians and College of Surgeons to the evidence, and so impressed were they by the

      733
      gravity of the case that Sir Andrew Clark, Sir James Paget, Sir R. Quain, Dr. Duncan, Dr. Priestly, Dr. Wilks, Mr. Marshall, and Mr. Savory issued a Circular to the medical men of London, in response to which over 300 London medical men—in fact, a large majority—signed a Petition to Parliament in favour of legislative interference. The question was scarcely less important from the moral point of view. Thousands of shop men and women scarcely saw their families from Monday morning till Saturday night; the Committee were told that half the shop assistants of London never enter a place of worship. As one poor girl said:—"After the fatigue and worry of the week, I am so thoroughly worn out that my only thought is to rest on a Sunday: but it goes too quickly, and the other days drag on slowly." These were no sensational statements of his. They were literal and melancholy facts brought out by the House of Commons' Committee. It was under-stating the case to call it slavery, for no slaves ever worked or could be worked so long. He saw the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who made for themselves inquiries among the clergy, and having done so took the step, most unusual and indeed unprecedented, of issuing a Circular to the London clergy containing a form of Petition to their House in favour of legislation. Several of the loading Nonconformists also took up the matter, and the result was that over 500 of the London clergy and Nonconformist ministers signed the Petition. Cardinal Manning, who took a warm interest in all social improvements, for which his memory would be long and gratefully cherished, took a similar course with the Roman Catholic priests. Now, would the interests of the public suffer if the recommendation of the resolution were carried into effect? On this point, also, there was, he submitted, a very strong case. The appeal which had been issued in support of the Resolution bore the names of the hon. Members for the Wansbeck Division, for Battersea, for North-West Norfolk, for North-West Durham, for Glamorgan, and other Members, specially connected with the organisations of working men, and though the hon. Member for Morpeth, from his official position, was precluded from signing it, the movement had
      734
      always had his cordial support. Moreover, the London Trades Council unanimously adopted the following resolution:—
      "That this delegate meeting, representing more than 26,000 adult artisans and mechanics in the Metropolitan district, strongly denounce the system and practice of late shopping as being fraught with injurious consequences, both moral and physical, to a vast portion of our over-worked industrial population, and therefore earnestly urges all workers in the constituencies of the United Kingdom to call upon their Parliamentary Representatives to support Sir John Lubbock's Early Closing Bill, which, in its operation and result, is calculated to become a blessing to those employed in shops and an advantage to the national welfare."
      Similar resolutions had been passed by the Trades Councils of Glasgow, Oldham, Bolton, Bath, and other places, and, finally, by the Trade Union Congress itself. It was clear, therefore, that the working population were in favour of shorter hours for shop assistants. Moreover, it was obvious that the Local Authorities would certainly not act in a manner which would create any general inconvenience. It was in evidence, moreover, that the Factory Act; Inspectors were now almost unanimously in favour of some legislation as regards the hours of labour in shops. Lastly, he came to the views of the shopkeepers, which was the strongest part of his case. Strong testimony was laid before the Committee from various parts of the country that the great majority of shopkeepers were anxious for shorter hours, and would welcome legislation on the subject. The editor of The Chemist and Druggist came to bin, and asked why, in the former Bill, chemists were excluded. He replied that, in his opinion, he thought they stood on special grounds. The editor said he believed that the chemists would wish to be included, and he issued a special Circular to the whole trade, the result of which was to show that a large majority were in favour of legislation, of course with a provision for the usual night bell in case of emergency. There was hardly a large town in the United Kingdom where the shopkeepers had not held meetings, generally presided over by the Mayor, in support of earlier closing. Moreover, he might quote many resolutions passed by Trade Associations, such as the Liverpool and District Provision Dealers' Association, the Reading Grocers'

      735
      Association, the Dublin Purveyors' Association, and the Federation of Grocers' Associations of the United Kingdom. It would be easy to give more evidence of this character, but probably the shortest course would be to quote the words of the Committee of this House. They reported that—
      "A wide-spread desire has been expressed by grown-up persons employed in shops that in some way their labour should be limited by law, and your Committee believe that employers are not indisposed to such limitation, provided it takes the form of a general early closing. The witnesses generally expressed their opinion that any regulation of retail trade would be practicable only by Local Authority, after having been set in motion by the traders themselves. Your Committee have evidence that in many localities the desire of the great majority of shopkeepers to close early has been frustrated by the action of some few individuals."
      In most places the Early Closing Associations were mainly Associations, not so much of shop assistants as of shopkeepers. It was of shopkeepers that they were mainly formed. To the honour of shopkeepers, he said that it was the shopkeepers themselves by whom the early closing movement had been mainly supported. Indeed, on this point the Resolution spoke for itself. They only asked that the Local Authorities should be empowered to carry out the wishes of the majority of shopkeepers. Circumstances and competition now enabled the minority, and often a very small minority, to keep the majority open, and legal powers were sought to enable the majority to keep the minority shut. But perhaps it would be asked why, if this was so, was any legislation required? Because in most cases a small and selfish minority insisted on keeping open, and thus forced others to keep open also. He would give an illustration of what had happened over and over again. In one district of London some years ago the drapers wished to close earlier, and they all agreed to do so. Two hundred and fifty shops closed. But a new man came. He opened a shop and kept open late, hoping to get all the late business. Very soon his neighbour opened too. Then another and another, until in a few weeks they were all open again, except the committee of the Association. The committee met and passed a unanimous resolution that nothing short of legislation would shorten the hours. Thus one
      736
      man kept these 250 shops open. He dwelt on this point because it was so important to realise that this was no question of class against class, of shop assistants against shopkeepers. On the contrary, the shopkeepers themselves were foremost in wishing to benefit their assistants by shortening the hours, and they asked Parliament to enable them to do so. The main objection which was urged against the old Factory Acts could not be brought against this proposal. It had no bearing on foreign competition. Under it all would be treated alike; the shops would do just as much business. The only difference and the great advantage would be that, under early closing, the business now done between 8 and 10 would be done better between 6 and 8'clock. The last two hours were the most trying to the shop assistant. It was after the gas was lit that the air became hottest, driest, foulest, and most impure. As to the small shopkeepers, it had been said that any early closing would place them at a disadvantage. But he would point out that early closing would really benefit them. There would be less time for shopping, and customers, therefore, would make their purchases nearer home instead of going further to the larger shops. As a matter of fact, the small shopkeepers supported this movement warmly.
      SIR B. MAPLE: Do not all the larger shops now close early?
      SIR J. LUBBOCK: That is so. The large shopkeepers closed earlier than the small shopkeepers, but if this Resolution was carried out the large shopkeepers would close earlier still. He knew there was a feeling that small shops employing no assistants should be excluded. That would be a point to be considered; but the smallest shops competed keenly with one another, and inquiry showed that they were anxious to be included. The Committee of the House had unanimously reported that in many places the shop assistants and small shopkeepers were working 14hours a day. Just let them consider what 14 hours of work a day meant. Less than eight could not be reckoned for sleep, which only left two for dressing and undressing, for supper, and for going to and fro from the shop. This absorbed the whole 24 hours, and not a moment was left for self-improvement or amuse-

      737
      ment, for fresh air or family life, or for any of those occupations which dignified and ennobled life. The whole country would gain if shop assistants had greater opportunities for intellectual, moral, and spiritual improvement. Moreover, the cruel effect of the long hours was considerably increased by the fact that the unfortunate assistants had to stand the whole time. If this was hard in the case of men, how much worse must it be in the case of women? It was, in short, a terrible evil. How injurious and fatiguing standing was they might clearly see from the fact that though customers remained in a shop for a comparatively short time, they were generally accommodated with seats; but considering the relative need of rest as between the assistants and their customers, it must be admitted that the seats were on the wrong side of the counter. The witnesses examined before the House of Commons Committee were all but unanimously of opinion that voluntary action could not remedy the evil, which, indeed, many persons thought was growing worse. Without legislation, then, there was little hope of shorter hours—the lives of shopmen and shopwomen would still be the same weary monotony of shop and bed, a life of drudgery and an early grave. If the Resolution was passed they would have, on the contrary, a hope of brighter and happier days, of stronger health, and of longer lives. The Resolution was based on the unanimous Report of the Select Committee of 1886. They urged it on the House because the present long hours of labour in shops, especially in great cities, were under-mining the health of the people; they urged it on moral grounds, because these hours left absolutely no time for self-improvement or family life; they urged it in the name of the shopkeepers, who were themselves worn out by long hours of toil, who sympathised with their assistants, and who begged the House to enable them as a body to do that which as individuals they were powerless to effect. Lastly, they appealed on behalf of the shop assistants themselves, and especially of the women, who had no votes, and were on that account all the more entitled to claim the mercy and consideration of the House. They had suffered grievously and too long, and he besought the House to pass the Resolu-
      738
      tion in the name of many a weary worker whose life was now one of constant weariness and almost incessant labour, who would be condemned, if they did nothing, to a life of suffering and an early grave, but on whom if the House passed the Resolution they would throw a ray of light and hope.
      MR. BARTLEY: said, he rose with very great pleasure to second the Resolution. They might congratulate themselves that the whole question of the hours of labour had now become recognised as of natural importance. The time had gone by when they could consider that all these matters wore to settle themselves in a haphazard sort of way, and the time had arrived when steps must be taken, where proper arrangements were not made without the interference of the law, to secure the proper regulation of all labour. Of course, in dealing with the matter they must remember that work was a necessary function in this world; for it was the lot of the great bulk of the population to labour: but at the same time they must recognise that life was not simply intended for labour, and that the object of labour was to secure life, happiness, and independence. A certain school of persons seemed to think, on mathematic principles, that the results achieved depended solely on the number of hours worked. Practice had, however, shown that that was a fallacy. There was a maximum beyond which they could not go with benefit either to the worker or to the community at large, and the aim of all legislation in this direction should be to secure in some way the minimum amount of labour compatible with the maximum amount of well-being to the workers. He regarded this Resolution before the House as tending strongly in the direction of influencing this most important matter. They must acknowledge that during the last 30 or 40 years considerable steps had been made in the direction of reducing the hours of labour, and no one had helped this movement more than the right hon. Baronet who moved the Resolution, and who was regarded as one of the pioneers of this great reform. But although the hours of labour in factories and workshops had been reduced, there had not been a corresponding decrease in the hours of shop assistants. There were very few who

      739
      would attempt to dispute the facts laid before the House by the right hon. Baronet—facts which made it obvious that, in the words of the Resolution, the "comfort, health, and wellbeing of the assistants and the shopkeepers are seriously impaired." The ordinary working days of the week were unusually and unnecessarily long; but when they came to Saturday, Londoners especially ought to blame themselves extremely for the long hours during which shops were kept open. He had frequently to go to the North of London on Saturdays, and on his return at midnight and even later he saw the shops open and men, women and children even actively engaged in buying and selling. The practical question was could that be avoided. He believed it could. This was not a subject into which complications were introduced by foreign labour or foreign interference, for the shopkeepers were distributors and not producers, and they would not suffer if they could induce the public to do its shopping earlier in the day. There could be no doubt that the shopkeepers and the shop assistants really demanded this change. At a meeting in his own constituency a few days ago it was stated that the traders in a certain district had by an overwhelming majority demanded that something should be done to bring about a reform. The same feeling prevailed throughout the country, and the public were fully alive to the mischief which the system of long hours inflicted. If the shopkeepers and the public desired the change urged in the Resolution, why was it not brought about? There were two reasons—first, the thoughtlessness of the public; secondly, the selfishness of a few individual traders. Legislation had got to meet those two difficulties. He believed that the public often shopped late without thinking of the evils caused by long hours of labour in shops, and that many of them aggravated the position of the assistants by inspecting goods without intending to purchase. The working classes, as well as other classes, might do much to reduce this evil, and efforts should be made to persuade them to discontinue the practice. Then as regarded the shopkeepers themselves, no doubt, as the right hon. Baronet had told them, competition was very keen, and hon. Members who repre-
      740
      sented poor districts well knew what a struggle it was for the smaller traders even to pay their way. But the great bulk of the shopkeepers would undoubtedly be glad if some means could be devised to prevent the selfishness and greediness of a few necessitating the late opening of all shops. How was this to be amended? He emphatically objected to Parliament fixing the hours of labour, and did not believe that men and women ought to be treated as children. But this Resolution was emphatically against that course. It was called a local option Resolution, but it was not one in the ordinary sense. Local option, as generally understood, meant two men refusing to let a third have something that he wanted. That was not the principle embodied in this Resolution. It was a Resolution which said that when a majority desired to do a thing good in itself they should have a right to do it, and on that ground he had great pleasure in supporting it. Some persons wanted to know how the assistants would employ their time if they were given increased hours for recreation and leisure. That, however, was not a matter which concerned at present the House, except in so far as it became their duty, when they had secured shorter hours, to provide reasonable facilities for recreation and educational improvement, and, therefore, concurrently with legislation for shortening the hours of labour they should make special efforts to throw brightness, improvement, and happiness into the homes of this deserving class of the community. As the Resolution tended in that direction he heartily supported it.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That, in the opinion of this House, the excessive and unnecessarily long hours of labour in shops are injurious to the comfort, health, and well-being of all concerned; and that it is desirable to give Local Authorities such powers as may be necessary to enable them to carry out the general wishes of the shopkeeping community with reference to the hours of closing."—(Sir John Lubbock.)
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): The Government desire that upon this question Members should feel themselves perfectly free to vote in accordance with their own wishes and convictions. For my own part, I have strong sympathy with the language of the Resolution and the object at

      741
      which it aims. There has been no attempt, and will be no attempt, on the part of those who dispute the appropriateness of the remedy to minimise the gravity of the evil against which it is directed. The evidence is overwhelming and conclusive that in a large number of retail establishments in the country the persons employed are occupied for a number of hours far in excess of what is compatible with the conditions of health and decent and reasonable existence. I will not go into details, but it is clear that in a large number of cases men and women are employed 80, 84, and 90 hours a week in occupations which, if not physically exhausting in the sense that manual labour is, yet are destructive, when prolonged, of physical, mental, and even of moral health. The evil being admitted, the only question is, What is the most appropriate and effective remedy? We have tried legislation on a small scale and in a somewhat tentative manner. The Shop Hours Regulation Act of 1886, continued from year to year, was, after being slightly amended, rendered permanent by an Act of last year. The object of that Act was to protect young persons under 18. It provides that no persons falling within that category shall be employed longer than 74 hours a week. That is a very excellent and very justifiable enactment, but experience has shown that it is extraordinarily difficult to enforce. The Act of 1892 for the first time provided machinery to enforce it by empowering Local Authorities to appoint Inspectors. We have had statistics collected to show the extent to which the Authorities have availed themselves of that power. I find that in England and Wales four counties have appointed Inspectors and 45 have not; 35 boroughs have and 191 have not. In Scotland one county, Linlithgow, and 18 burghs have done so, so that in a great part of that country the Act is absolutely a dead letter. In Ireland, so far as I can learn, no Inspectors have been appointed. The House must feel that the Act has not produced any serious result; and, in my opinion, the blame is to be ascribed not so much to the Local Authorities as to the limited scope and illogical character of the Act itself. In a matter of this kind it is not easy to deal only with the labour of young persons. In retail trade
      742
      you cannot effectively control or interfere with excessively long hours so long as you merely direct your legislation or administration to the cases of young persons. Operations are inextricably mixed up, and young and old, males and females, work side by side. I do not deny that the limitation of the hours of young persons might indirectly, by a sort of reflex action, operate upon the hours of those of mature age; yet, if you are to deal with the question comprehensively and effectively, you must ignore distinctions and look to the employés as a whole. We are often told that there is no evidence that voluntary combination would not be effective for the purpose. Undoubtedly voluntary combination has proved a powerful force in the attainment of a Saturday half-holiday in London and the large provincial towns, where it has become an established institution. But the difficulty to be dealt with in this matter arises from the isolated action of selfish persons, who will not bring themselves into line even with the great body of their own class, and who are totally insensible to the operation of public opinion and to the calls of public duty. I have myself come across a remarkable instance of that in the City. A year or two ago the hairdressers of London, as the result of considerable agitation, arrived at an understanding, to which both masters and men were parties, to close on Saturday afternoons at 4 o'clock. In a few months I saw in one establishment a notice changing the hour from 4 to 6; and on inquiry I was told that a single large employer of labour had held aloof from the arrangement which all the others had come to, and a single person was therefore able to deprive a large body of men of two hours' recreation. That may seem to be a result wholly disproportionate to the cause, but it is astonishing how small a proportion of shopkeepers can effectively coerce a whole body into adopting longer hours than are either necessary or healthful. Combination is a very different thing as between employer and workman and as between trader and customer. As between employer and workman it is comparatively easy through the instrumentality of the trade union to bring all, or, at all events, the great majority, of the competitors for the wage fund into line,

      743
      and in that way to bring to bear upon the competitors for labour overwhelming and irresistible force. But in dealing with trader and customer the conditions are entirely different. You cannot organise the customers of a country, or even the customers of a particular town into an effective union. Many attempts have been made by appealing to philanthropic and benevolent sentiments in the matter, and we have heard of ladies and others who have bound themselves that they would not shop after certain hours of the day or in the afternoon of a certain day of the week. But you are dealing there with an isolated, incoherent, and disorganised movement. There is no esprit de corps amongst communities of customers and of persons who go shopping, and who make the fortunes and businesses of traders; and so long as you rely merely on that method you are always at the mercy of any individual person in want of some particular commodity, who, finding the shop open, cannot resist the temptation of going there to buy, irrespective of the time. I have therefore come to the conclusion long ago that this is one of those eases in which voluntary combined action is ineffective for the end in view, and that it is necessary to bring into operation some force more effective than public opinion to operate on traders, and reduce those amongst them who, through selfishness and greed, are unwilling to close their shops, to a sense of the inhumanity of their action. Once we have arrived at that conclusion, the question is what form the compulsion should take. The right hon. Baronet, whose exertions in this matter, continued as they have been over a long period of years, through evil report as well as through good report, with an energy and strenuousness to which I venture to pay my humble tribute of admiration—the right hon. Baronet in past years attempted to deal with the question by means of general legislation, for he has been the author and promoter of two Bills, one for establishing a compulsory weekly half-holiday, and the other, which may be called a General Closing Bill, requiring all shops in the country to be closed at 8 o'clock on five days in the week and at 10 o'clock on the other day. My right hon. Friend drafted a clause in the Bill by which Local Authorities, in deference to local
      744
      requirements, might relax the rigidity or altogether dispense with the general law. I confess that there are grave practical difficulties in that particular solution of the question, because it appears to me to lay down a hard and fast rule, the enforcement of which, notwithstanding the discretion given to Local Authorities, would necessarily lead to friction and inconvenience. I therefore welcome very heartily the terms of the Resolution which the right hon. Baronet has now proposed. It does not proceed on any difference of opinion, but on a different method. The right hon. Baronet, instead of laying down a general rule for the whole country, with a latitude to Local Authorities to make particular exceptions, proposes that the initiative should be a local initiative, and that in the first instance the shop-keeping community in a particular place should indicate in some unmistakable form its wishes in the matter, and that when that condition precedent has been fulfilled, it should be left to the Local Authorities to take the action necessary for the purpose of giving it effect and carrying it out. So far as my opinion is concerned, I think it is a wise and statesmanlike manner of dealing with the question. I do not in the least fear that under these conditions any substantial or permanent injustice can be done to any class of the community. I confess that, so far as my opinion goes, the critics and the opponents of this Resolution will be driven to take refuge in the principle that under all circumstances and for any purpose it is wrong for Parliament to interfere with the voluntary action of adult persons. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Gentleman opposite applauds that statement. Well, Sir, I agree that if that is to be laid down as a general and universal rule of legislation to which no exception can be allowed the proposal of the right hon. Baronet must be condemned. But that is a rule to which I, for one, am not prepared to subscribe. It is time for us to emancipate ourselves from the thraldom of economic abstractions. The whole of our factory legislation, beginning with the cases of the children and women, has been to affect, indirectly it is true, but none the less effectively, and to limit the hours of adult labour. That being so, I can see no distinction in principle between direct interference and indirect interference, if their result be the same. The adoption of the principle of

      745
      local option, whether it should be applied to trades or places, I care not which, reinforced in the last resort by compulsory legislation, either general or special, appears to me to be the only effective solution of the very large number of difficulties, not only as between capital and labour, but also as between tradesmen and customers, which we shall have to deal with in the future which lies immediately before us. For these reasons I heartily support the Resolution, and in the interest of a large, but very inarticulate, class in the community I hope the House will assent to it with absolute unanimity.
      SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLEsaid he rose to express his dissent to the Resolution, not because he did not agree that shops were kept open much longer than they ought to be, but because he recognised that by voluntary action every day the shopkeepers were closing their shops much earlier. He yielded to no one in his anxiety to give more pleasure and recreation to the working classes, for he was the President of the Voluntary Early Closing Association, which was doing a great deal of good work. He would ask hon. Members to remember that the good work which had been done in England during the past 20 years—the Saturday half-holidays and the weekly half-holidays—had been produced by voluntary action. The Reports of the Early Closing Association, with which the right hon. Baronet was connected, showed that the number of shops which closed early were increasing by thousands every year, and he had no doubt that they would continue to increase. He therefore agreed with the first portion of the Resolution, but differed altogether with the latter part, which proposed to confer on Local Authorities powers to enable them to carry out the general wishes of the shop-keeping community of each district in regard to the closing of shops. The House should remember that shops were of a different nature. All the large shops in London were closed at 7 every day, and at 2 on Saturdays. But in the constituency which he represented there were numbers of shops which kept open late to supply the wants of the working classes, which did all their business after 7 or 8 o'clock, and which would not keep open late unless
      746
      there was business for them to do. He would ask how were they going to arrive at local option, and how did they propose to classify the shops. It was ail very well to talk in the air; but they should do something practical; a Bill should be introduced embodying these proposals, which they could look at and examine. In 1888 the right hon. Baronet did bring in a Bill for the early closing of shops. But what was the result? It was thrown out by a majority of 278 against 95. He did not think that the question could be settled by any Bill which proposed the compulsory closing of shops. In every locality there were a. number of small shops which kept open late for the dealings of the working classes. It would be very hard on these small shops if they had to close. The House should also remember that it was not these shops which had the employés. The assistants were in the large shops which closed early. The small shops might have one or two assistants, but in most cases the work was done by the members of the family. Then how was local option to be brought about, and how was the classification to be effected? In the Bill introduced by the right hon. Baronet in 1890 there was a clause which declared that shops in which trades of two or more classes were carried on should be closed for the purposes of trade at the hour at which it was required to be closed for the purposes of any of them. So that if that Bill had been passed shops in which, as often happened, four different trades were conducted, might be compelled to close at 4 o'clock one day for one business; on another day for another business; on another day for another business, and on a fourth day for a fourth business. He asked hon. Members also to remember that the question before the House was not a question affecting young labour, for under existing legislation all young persons under 18 years of age wore not allowed to work more than 72 hours in the week. In 1890 he introduced a Bill which was not agreeable to the right hon. Baronet, and which proposed to give all shop assistants a half-holiday on one day in the week. They did not close factories, or workshops, or mines in order to shorten the hours of labour of the workers. His Bill proposed to lessen the hours of shop assistants without

      747
      closing the shops. Under his Bill each owner of a shop would be bound to keep a return of his assistants, and to allot to each a half-holiday on a particular day of the week, and prevented him from altering that day without giving three days' notice. Therefore, under that Bill, shop assistants would have their weekly half-holidays, and the owners would be able to keep open their shops at hours which suited them best. If the shop assistants were too long worked let their hours of labour be limited in that fashion, but he did not believe in the practicability of any legislation which gave to local option in any locality the power of deciding the hours during which shops should be opened in that locality. What would be the area of the locality? Would they take the whole of London, for instance, or would they divide it into Parliamentary divisions, or parishes, or into some other sort of districts? Under such an arrangement they might have shops closed at certain hours at one side of the street and opened during these hours at the other side of the same street. He should be delighted to see early closing adopted throughout the country, but he was convinced that that object was best attained by voluntary action amongst the owners themselves. He would, however, not trouble the House by going to a Division on the Motion. He would rest content by entering his protest against the latter part of the Motion, which suggested the early closing of shops by local option.
      MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I shall have a few words to say as to the arguments of the hon. Member for Dulwich before I sit down, because they are entitled to respect, not only for his kindly feeling towards the employés, but for his knowledge of the subject. I rise chiefly to express my satisfaction at the statement which has been made on the part of the Government by the Home Secretary. That statement was a little remarkable in its form, and I do not know whether the House entirely appreciated its importance. The Home Secretary commenced by saying that the Government desired that hon. Members should vote in this matter according to their own convictions and consciences. Well, Sir, it is possible to draw from that the inference that there are questions on which the Go-
      748
      vernment do not desire that hon. Members of the House should vote according to their convictions and consciences. I confess that I should be delighted to know that this principle which the Home Secretary has laid down for our guidance for the present Debate is one of universal application in matters of even greater national importance than these which we are now discussing. I should be delighted if the Government would always desire that hon. Gentlemen behind them should vote according to their convictions and consciences. But I am not quite certain that the House thoroughly appreciates the importance of the statement made by the Home Secretary. Older Members of the House will recollect a number of occasions on which what are called abstract Resolutions have been brought before the House, and whenever such Resolutions have been brought forward the Prime Minister laid it down that no Government and no Member of the Government was justified in giving support to an abstract Resolution, unless the Government was prepared immediately to give effect to it. I am sure the Prime Minister has not changed his opinion, and, therefore, the statement of the Home Secretary amounts to this: that the Government are prepared to give forthwith their attention, in order that this abstract Resolution may become a practical measure. I am aware of the difficulties of the Government. They are going to run, not six omnibuses through Temple Bar—they are going to run a score of omnibuses through a passage much narrower than old Temple Bar. I am perfectly well aware that in order to give effect to the abstract Resolution now accepted it is absolutely necessary that some other matter should give it a place. I should not like to make too great a demand upon the Government, but I should venture to make a suggestion which I hope will be received in the spirit in which it is tendered. I am always glad to assist the Government in the progress of Public Business. Now the Government are devotees of the principle of local option. They are in favour of local option on more than one subject, and they have burnt their fingers. They have tried their hand this Session already, and they have burned their fingers, and I now suggest to the Home

      749
      Secretary that they should withdraw that proposal for local option which is now before the House, and substitute a new proposal for local option in reference to the early closing of shops. My right hon. Friend has pointed out that the question for us to consider to-night is the remedy for a state of things which, on both sides of the House, is admitted to be urgent. It is universally admitted that the hours of shopkeepers, and especially assistants, are excessive. In these days of shortening hours, when we have Motions brought before the House for a universal eight hours day, it. seems ridiculous to suppose that a large proportion of the labouring class, numbering, I believe, something like 1,000,000 people, who are engaged in the work of distribution, should be compelled by circumstances beyond their own control to labour for 10, 12, 14, and even 15 hours a day. It is generally admitted, except by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich, that voluntary effort is altogether incompetent to deal with such a matter; and I would say to my hon. Friend that I think he takes too narrow a view of this question. He talks of the whole country, and of the circumstances of shopkeeping in provincial and country towns, and in many parts of London, as if they were all governed by the circumstances of the West End or Tottenham Court Road. It is perfectly true that in such cases as those with which my hon. Friend is most familiar, where there are numbers of large employers who are actuated by kindly feelings, and who are not put under the pressure of this competition which weighs so heavily upon small shopkeepers, by voluntary arrangement alone all that is desired may be accomplished. But in the majority of cases, and throughout the whole country, that is absolutely impossible. Experience has shown it to be impossible. The Home Secretary spoke of the success which has attended the Saturday half-holiday movement. I am bound to say I think the illustration is a very unfortunate one. In provincial cities Saturday is the worst day, and in Birmingham—I am not speaking now of the greater shopkeepers, but of the smaller shopkeepers—the shops are open until 12 o'clock at night, and I believe that is almost universal. The
      750
      fact is, that in this matter, as has been so well pointed out, the objection of a single one amongst a great number of shopkeepers is sufficient to prevent any arrangement at all—one cantankerous, cross-grained man can do that. It is not like the case of Trades Unions, to which it has been likened. In that case you have a majority of the workpeople with you, and you may compel the rest, because the trade cannot be carried on without the consent, at all events, of the majority of the workpeople. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that if this object, which we all admit to be desirable, is to be accomplished, it can only be accomplished by legislation. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke of the inefficiency of previous legislation, especially in connection with the question of shop hours, and he said that the majority of Local Authorities who have discretion given them to appoint Inspectors under that Act have not availed themselves of the privilege. I am not in the least surprised at that. In the first place, the Act has only been in force a few months; in the second place, the object is hardly worth the expenditure; and, in the third place, it is hardly to be expected in a matter of this kind that the Local Authorities will be the first to move.
      MR. ASQUITH: I did not mention that in any way as blaming the Local Authorities, but simply as a fact, which proves the inefficiency of this measure.
      MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I quite understand my right hon. Friend's position. What we now propose is that the majority in any trade shall put the Local Authority in motion, and we are quite prepared to admit that if the majority in a trade are not anxious for this reform, in that case there will be many and sufficient reasons why it should not be forced upon them, because, as my right hon. Friend has said, we are not dealing only, as the Member for Dulwich has dealt in his Bill, with the case of persons employed in shops, but with the small shopkeepers themselves. After all, I am not quite certain that they are not more numerous than the assistants; for it must be remembered that the assistants in shops, especially where they are numerous, are employed in those large establishments

      751
      in which already reasonable hours obtain. The best case can be made out in favour of the small shopkeepers themselves, whose employés will frequently be found to be their own sons and daughters. It is for them chiefly we have to plead, and we are willing to take the opinion of the majority of persons concerned before this law is put into operation. I do not think it necessary to argue the question of interfering with adult labour. I hope the hon. Member for Battersea, and the Labour Representatives, will take notice of the admission of the Home Secretary, that the idea of interference with the liberty of adult labour is an economic abstraction which has ceased to have any influence, at all events with the right hon. Gentleman. To me that is a great satisfaction, because I never entertained any respect for that economic abstraction; but I am glad to find that, when a short time ago we banished political economy to Saturn, we banished this particular portion of the economic doctrine to that planet at the same time, and no doubt we have adopted Saturnian philosophy in place of it. I say that we have a great evil, that we know that those who suffer from the evil, and who are chiefly concerned in the matter, are, as regards the large majority of them, in favour of legislation. We know by experience that without legislation nothing can be done. That is the case we put before the House, and the remedy which my right hon. Friend proposes is, I think, a more practical one than my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich is prepared to allow. He made a complaint against my right hon. Friend that he has not brought in a Bill. Well, my right hon. Friend tried; he took his chance with other Members of the House to get an opportunity of bringing in a Bill; but when there are 670 Members, most of whom desire to bring in two or three Bills at least, it is not easy for a single Member to get the first place on a single Wednesday, and it is failing this opportunity that he has fallen back upon a Resolution. But the proposal of my right hon. Friend is as clearly before the House as though it was embodied in a Bill, because what he proposes is a combined operation of local option and trade option. He proposes that any trade in any district may meet and decide by a consider-
      752
      able majority that they desire in future to keep open for such and such hours. Then he proposed that their scheme shall be submitted to the Local Authority of the district, and the Local Authority will have full power to deal with it according to its discretion. The object of bringing in the Local Authority is that the convenience of the district, and of those who are outside the trade, may also be considered. There are conceivable circumstances under which the majority of a trade might be desirous of closing their shops; but that might be felt to be a wrong by the people in the district which the Town Council or County Council ought to look after. Therefore, we offer to the House two securities: In the first place, that you shall have a large majority of the trade concerned; and, in the second place, that you shall have a majority of those who are specially representative of the community, and it is only when those two conditions have been fulfilled that we ask that anything in the nature of penal or coercive legislation shall be brought into effect. I think the House appears to be inclined unanimously to adopt the Resolution of my right hon. Friend; but I beg hon. Members on both sides of the House to bear in mind the language of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, to which I have already referred in regard to these Resolutions—
      "You cannot discharge your consciences by accepting an abstract Resolution unless you are prepared to accept a Bill which will subsequently be brought in, and which will be based upon that Resolution."
      Therefore, I take it that the unanimous vote of the House, if it is unanimous, will pledge the House to speedy, even to immediate, legislation. In sitting down, I have only to congratulate my right hon. Friend, who has been labouring in this cause for 20 years, and who in a short time, I hope, will celebrate the majority of his mission by being able to say that in his case, at all events, his Parliamentary labours have not been in vain.
      MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he thought the declaration of the hon. Member for Dulwich (Sir Blundell Maple) had taken a good deal of the life out of this Debate. At the same time, he felt bound to remind the

      753
      House that he had some special experience with regard to this subject, having sat on both Select Committees, and having presided over the latest of them. Certain things must be borne in mind in considering this subject. The first was the legislation which was the outcome of the labours of the last Select Committee. The Home Secretary had remarked that that legislation had had very little apparent effect. But he denied that it had had so slight an effect as the right hon. Gentleman would cause the House to believe. This evil, if it existed to any aggravated extent, existed only in the large towns. He never expected County Councils would have much work to do in the appointment of Inspectors to enforce previous legislation, because, by the nature of the constitution of County Councils, the area over which they had jurisdiction excluded all the greater towns. Barely six mouths from the passing of the Act recommended by the Select Committee, 35 of the great towns of England appointed Inspectors. That was a very respectable result, and still more so was the fact that 18 out of the Scotch burghs had done the same. The Select Committee last year had not within the scope of its Reference or within its powers the opportunity of dealing with legislation on the lines of the Resolution of the hon. Baronet. They were obliged to deal with the illogical legislation which was before them. That illogical and inefficient legislation was legislation for which it was true the Home Secretary did not vote on that occasion, but for which nearly all the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen now sitting on the same Bench zealously rushed forward to record their votes. He thought, in these circumstances, a little more recognition might have been given to the labours of the Committee, which did its best with the materials before it. Now, a word as to the provisions of the right hon. Baronet's Motion. They must avoid two things. They must not either overstate the extent of the evil or minimize the difficulties in the way of finding a true remedy. In the case of this particular kind of labour, it was not all unceasing manual labour; it was not carried on under the depressing surroundings and the conditions of physical exertion which usually were regarded as
      754
      the attributes of labour. There were many town districts far removed from the centres of life and amusement in which the retail shops were the principal centres of social intercourse, the labour of the assistants being lightened to a great extent by social intercourse, which they might have great difficulty in finding out of doors. This was one of the great difficulties which this problem presented. Were they going to close the retail shops in any town at an earlier hour than they closed public-houses, so that during several hours the only place of attraction to a large section of the public would be the licensed houses for the sale of intoxicating liquor? That would be a great danger. Again, how were they going to deal with refreshment houses, tobacconists, and that large class of shops which dealt in perishable goods which, after a certain hour in the day, had to be thrown upon the market at low prices, greatly to the benefit of the poorer classes. He was instrumental in procuring the rejection of the Bill to which the Home Secretary had alluded, and he believed the argument that had the greatest weight was that a hard-and-fast closing by cast-iron rule, applied equally to all kinds of shops, would do more than anything else to interfere with the cheap and easy distribution of the food to the poorest classes of the people. Another difficulty was, how were the supporters of the Resolution going to deal with the case of London? That had always presented to him an almost, insoluble enigma. No one in his senses would propose to apply the same rule all over London; and if they allowed a Local Authority to adopt varying methods of procedure, and different standards of legislation, they would arrive at the result at which, pressed by competition, all would surely adopt the lowest possible standard. It was objected to early closing that they must not interfere with the labour of adult male persons; and the Factory Acts, which he had had the honour of assisting in administering, had been alluded to. But he would point out that in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 they had for the last 40 years had legislation conceived in a most paternal spirit interfering with the labour of adult persons. This argument was used by those who declared that the

      755
      people should be taught to rely upon their own efforts. There were only three possible parties to such disputes as would be raised if the Resolution were put in force—the shopkeepers, the shop-assistants, and the general public. By the very terms of the Resolution nothing would take place without the initiative of the shopkeepers themselves. Nothing could conceivably be done unless the public were satisfied with it, and unless the shop-assistants themselves threw their energies into such agitation as it might be necessary to set on foot for the purpose of securing an amendment of their condition, he could not conceive that any action would be taken. The shop-assistants would therefore still have to rely on their own efforts. It struck him that the only issue before them that night was not whether early closing was good or bad in itself, but whether the great communities in the shape of (he Town Councils were as good judges of the questions involved as that House? There might be circumstances under which those communities would be even better judges. He hailed with great pleasure the fact that the right hon. Baronet had at last cast his proposal in a form in which it was possible for him (Mr. Stuart Wortley), who formerly opposed it, to accept it. The House, in adopting that proposal, would relieve itself of the difficulty of solving one of the most embarrassing questions which, owing to its being complicated by sentiment and innumerable local difficulties, it could possibly have to address itself to.
      DR. FARQUHARSONcongratulated the right hon. Baronet >on having secured the support of the Government to a proposal which, when given effect to, would be of enormous advantage to the hygienic conditions of life in London and in many other parts of the country. He thought the hon. Member who had just sat down had very much minimised the disagreeable incidents of shop-assistants' lives, for he seemed to refer to them as places of cheerful recreation, and he altogether ignored the peculiar and unhealthy conditions under which the unfortunate assistants had to work. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London had spoken
      756
      of the great evils of standing for long hours in shops, and he could himself state, as a medical man, that those evils were very great, especially in the case of women. Some people thought it hard to sit for some hours together doing nothing in particular or listening to speeches which were not of a very exciting character; but when they thought of the poor shop-people standing for hours together in bad air, breathing the products of the combustion of bad gas, they might conceive how prejudicial the effect must be upon thorn. And to that they must add the fact that oft-times they had to sleep in bad bed-rooms, and were in the midst of bad sanitary arrangements. Surely, then, this was a matter of urgent public importance. No doubt, as the hon. Member for Dulwich had told them, the best shops closed early; but in the East End of London, where competition was excessively keen, they were kept open till 11 or 12 at night, and many of the poor assistants were mere slaves. An eminent shopkeeper, Mr. Whiteley, had told him that, as a result of long and practical experience on the subject, he fully sympathised with the spirit of this Resolution. Now, he had no intention of giving a professional lecture, but he would like to point out that, in consequence of living in these bad conditions, shopwomen became bloodless and fell below par, and, should they marry and become mothers, the effect of their bad health upon their off spring was very serious. When their hours were unduly prolonged the constitution was run down, the fires of life burned low, and depression set in with disastrous results. The House had heard about black slaves in Uganda, but there were white slaves to be found here; and these poor people had, moreover, no Trade Unions to protect them. On these grounds he heartily supported the Resolution of the right hon. Baronet, and wished the movement, at which he was the head, every success.
      MR. J. BURNSsaid, he had much pleasure in congratulating the right hon. Baronet on his Resolution, and on the excellent, sympathetic, and very humane speech with which he introduced it. As one who knew the difficulties which workmen, and particularly of

      757
      workwomen, experienced in getting reduced hours, and who had taken part in voluntary efforts to secure the reduction. He desired to say a few words on the subject. He had been appealed to on numerous occasions by assistants, male and female, to assist them in forming a Union of shopworkers; but wherever this had been attempted intimidation on the part of an employer or snobbery or ignorance on the part of shop-assistants or other causes had prevented voluntary effort for bringing sufficient pressure to bear on shopkeepers and customers to secure the end aimed at. He only intended to criticise one or two objections which had been raised in the course of the Debate. The hon. Member for Islington had said that he was against fixing hours for adult labour in shops, and yet he had admitted that voluntary effort had signally failed. That was surely an extraordinary position to take up. The fact was, either local option in some form must he resorted to, or, failing local option, centralised Parliamentary action by Statute must be adopted. Upon this occasion there was no particular occasion to quarrel as to methods. The Resolution was sufficiently vague to be adopted by all parties in the House, but it would have a good result in focussing the agitation, and in enabling it to be carried on on more direct lines. They had heard the previous night a good deal from the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and others as to prospecting for posterity. Here was an opportunity for them to prospect for the health of a large and deserving class at home. They might follow up their sentiments by letting their charity begin at home. He would rather prospect for the benefit of shop-assistants at home than take up claims in Uganda for the benefit of rich capitalists abroad. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham twitted the Government for not voting in favour of local option in this matter. That was a very dangerous criticism for the right hon. Gentleman to direct against the Front Bench, because they could say that it was a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman, who appealed for support in favour of local option for shops, was not prepared to extend the principle to a larger area for larger purposes, and for purposes which more directly concerned
      758
      one portion of this Kingdom. The Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield was under the impression that if the shops were closed earlier there would be a probability of the shop-assistants going into public-houses if the public-houses also were not closed earlier. But the universal experience was that in proportion as the working hours of artizans and unskilled labourers were reduced, to that extent, and, he believed, even to a greater extent, the tendencies to intemperance were minimised. They were told that it would be impossible to apply this reform to drinking houses and that the distribution of food in the poorer districts would be made very difficult under the right hon. Baronet's Resolution. One of the saddest features of working-class life and of working-class domestic economy was the extraordinary ignorance, disorganisation, and selfishness which prevailed among working-men who shopped late to an extent which he heartily and deeply regretted. But the only way to alter that state of things was to prevent selfishness, ignorance, and disorganisation in the domestic working-class life from having that scope by indiscriminate late shopping. Let there be reasonable hours of shopping, say from 8 to 8, and the necessity for keeping within those hours would be—to the great profit of the family—to revolutionise for the better the domestic economy of every working-class household throughout the country. He had been away in Africa for several months, and when he landed in Liverpool one of the most brutal sights he over saw was in the working-class districts of the place, where shopping went on to 11, 12, and even 1 o'clock at night. What was the result? The consequence was, that all the stale and putrid food which would not be bought in the light of day made its way into the poorer districts, and was purchased by poor people, who, but for the befuddled condition in which they were, would reject it. Coming to the Resolution, he regretted that the "shop-keeping community" alone were referred to in it. He should have preferred to see the shop-keeping community and the shop-assistants spoken of together in this matter. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) in his criticism of

      759
      the Home Secretary's speech. He had not failed to notice the right hon. Gentleman's observations, and he might rely upon it that he (Mr. Burns) should hold him to what his words implied in regard to the question of the hours of labour for working-men. It was to be regretted that the Home Secretary's repudiation of economic abstractions was not earnest enough to convert the Front Ministerial Bench to shorter hours for working-men as well as to early closing for shops. On this question of the restriction of the hours of adult labour the Government were in the same position as that occupied by the Opposition when they were in power. On this question he would give the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham an opportunity of squaring his practice with his professions, and he would now offer him the chance of seconding the proposal he would be submitting to the House in the course of a few days for shortening the hours of labour.
      MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: In answer to my hon. Friend, I may remind him that I did support, both by vote and speech, the Eight Hours Local Option Bill for Miners.
      MR. BURNSsaid, he was glad to hear it, but there was a great difference between an eight hours local option day for miners, who had almost gained it, and an eight hours day for 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of adult workers. He took it, however, that the right hon. Gentleman's attitude with regard to the miners was a guarantee of his good conduct in the future. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Sir J. Blundell Maple), in his way, had done his best to reduce the hours of labour by voluntary effort. That hon. Member had made the extraordinary statement that shopkeepers generally were closing earlier than formerly, a statement which he (Mr. Burns) must traverse. The hon. Gentleman must not judge everybody's cloth by his own measure—he was evidently too much inclined, in opposing the right hon. Baronet's Motion, to cite special cases, and give them general application. According to the Shop Assistants' Union, many shop assistants were working 16 and 18 hours a day, to the deterioration of their mental and physical energies; and though after
      760
      a certain hour in the evening the shutters of the shops might be up, the assistants were still kept hard at work, though receiving no extra remuneration. When the hon. Member said there was a tendency for shops to close earlier, he was forgetting the poorer districts. The Chairman of "The Sir J. B. Maple Society," at the Glasgow Early Closing Congress, had declared his unalterable devotion to the principle of legislation in dealing with this question, and had said that in Bermondsey the majority of the shops were open from 84 to 88 hours a week. He added, "In Bermondsey we are later now than we were three or four years ago." The hon. Member for Dulwich said that early closing had been brought about without compulsion, but, as a matter of fact, compulsion of the worst possible kind had been resorted to. Exclusive dealing was not unknown in England; and if his (Mr. Burns') own transgressions had been brought home to him, he might have been called upon to serve many terms of imprisonment for recommending exclusive dealing as against bad shopkeepers. Placards, frequently of a libellous nature, were issued by shop assistants against shopkeepers, and pressure was put upon the public to withdraw their custom from offending traders. If the middle and upper classes could do their shopping at the Army and Navy Stores and the Civil Service Stores between 9 o'clock in the morning and 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, he could not see why the working classes could not do the same. In this matter the ignorant poor ought not to be considered; for though it was said that they did not receive their wages until late on Friday or Saturday night, if legislation required them to do their shopping at an early hour, the employers would soon be compelled to change the day and the hour for paying. It might be that wages would have to be paid earlier, or on Thursday night or Friday instead of Saturday night. Though not a medical man, he was in a position to support the views of those eminent practitioners to whom the right hon. Baronet had referred. As an engineer, he had worked for several months in London hospitals; and as he never lost an opportunity of inquiring into the social and physical condition of

      761
      the classes he wished to help, he had learnt a great deal as to the baneful effects of long hours in shops, particularly amongst young women. Varicose veins, lapsus uteri, and many other disorders were common amongst them owing to the excessive amount of standing and the long hours to which they were subjected. What was the remedy for the existing state of things? Voluntary effort had failed. Though 999 shopkeepers out of 1,000 were willing and anxious to close early, one trader, coming in it might be from the outside, could frustrate their wishes. The number of hours to be worked was practically dictated by the most unscrupulous, ignorant, and selfish shopkeeper. In behalf of a class he had tried time after time to help by voluntary effort, and in behalf of many organised trades which had been able by unionism to reduce their own working hours, and which sympathised with the shop-assistants in their endeavour to get better hours, he cordially supported the Resolution; and he hoped that the House of Commons, in entering on a new period of social legislation, would pass this Abstract Resolution, looking upon it as a promise to do better and as an instalment of a wider measure of social justice securing the legislative reduction of the hours of labour in other callings. If the House did not yield in this matter to-day it would certainly be compelled to do so in the near future.
      MR. CORBETTsaid, that as Chairman of the Early Closing Association which had been in existence over 50 years, and meeting from mouth to month members of the Board of that Association who were shopkeepers, he had had peculiar experience of the effects of the voluntary movement. He wished to deal with one or two practical arguments which had been raised. The hon. Member for Sheffield had stated that early closing might endanger the opportunities of the poorer people for buying perishable goods at a cheap rate at a late hour of the evening; but the proprietors of these perishable goods would be as anxious to sell them at an earlier hour if they knew an early hour of closing was fixed by the Local Authority. Allusion had been made to the fact that
      762
      the public-house would still remain open; but one of the reasons why practical shopkeepers were in favour of this legislation was that they wished to get their customers before and not after they went to the public-house. As to the progress made, he might say that he had just received a letter from a trader in the Old Kent Road, announcing that a movement in which he and others had been engaged to secure the closing of shops three days a week at 9 o'clock had practically broken down because a minority were opposed to it. His correspondent assured him that it was absolutely necessary to have legislation to support the majority in such circumstances. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Sir J. Blundell Maple) seemed to forget that, although the early closing movement had been going on for 50 years, and although they had been securing adhesions to the movement from time to time, relapses were constantly taking place. They were year after year getting shopkeepers to join in combination; but year after year they were saddened by seeing combinations breaking down through individuals taking up a position against the general movement of their fellow-traders. The hon. Gentleman spoke about large shops where assistants were kept, and where there was early closing. He spoke about 7 o'clock being the rule in these large shops on ordinary days and 2 o'clock on Saturdays. That might apply to the very largest class of shops, where hundreds of assistants were kept; but in the east of London and the south of London, and in other districts, it not un-frequently happened that the traders who caused the Association most trouble by refusing to join the movement were traders employing 15 to 20 or more assistants. Voluntary effort, he asserted, had been fairly tried—there had been 50 years of it; organisers had been constantly employed during that period seeking to form combinations, and no less a sum than £60,000 had been expended. What they now desired was that voluntary effort should be supplemented by legislation—and that the combinations for good should be established by law. He appealed to the House in the name of the Early Closing Association, as well as for himself, to pass the Resolution.

      763
      The question was not how early closing was to be accomplished—the question now before the House was whether or not these long hours were to cease? There was no new means in the way of voluntary effort that they could devise, and it was for the House to say whether a remedy should be applied—the only remedy which could meet the case.
      MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONwas anxious to give the House his experience on a subject in which he had taken the greatest possible interest for many years in the East End of London. In the year 1888 he had presided over a large meeting to move a resolution almost identical with that before the House, but such a large number of objections were taken to it by the small shopkeepers of the East End that he decided on taking a plébiscite. The result of the plébiscite was that 75 per cent. of the small shopkeepers—those people who for the most part had no assistants, but conducted their businesses, themselves—objected to the resolution altogether. That was extremely disheartening to him.
      SIR J. LUBBOCKinquired what was the total number of shopkeepers canvassed?
      MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONsaid, the total number was 1,100. As the Bill of 1891 included the small shopkeepers, he felt it his bounden duty to vote against it. There were a large number of artizans in the East End who returned from their work at 7, 8, or 9 o'clock at night, and for whom their wives were naturally desirous of obtaining something for supper or breakfast in the morning. The only means of obtaining that something was through the medium of the small shopkeeper who kept his premises open late at night? He should like to know how the case of these people was to be legislated for? He should be more than happy if it could be done with anything like satisfactory results. These shopkeepers were comparatively idle all day long, and only really commenced business at 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. If the hon. Baronet would bear this in mind and
      764
      would introduce into any Bill which might be the outcome of the Resolution a clause protecting the small shopkeepers he (Mr. Isaacson) would give that Resolution his hearty support. No doubt there were large traders in the East End who employed each some 15 or 20 assistants who were anxious for early closing, but he did not know how their wish could be gratified in the face of the necessities of the numerous class of whom he spoke. If they legislated in the way the right hon. Baronet was desirous of legislating, without taking measures to protect the small shopkeepers, all the business of those poor people would be driven into the large shops. The Army and Navy and other Stores had been referred to as closing early, but it must be remembered that in the case of those establishments the business was a ready-money one, the capital was turned over rapidly, and large profits were ultimately realised. It was not so with the small East End shopkeepers. In many cases they did not receive more than 50 per cent. of the money due to them when purchases were made. They had to wait until the artizans received their wages. It was absolutely necessary for them to suit the convenience of their customers, and to obtain as much custom as they could.
      MR. J. H. WILSONwished to support the Motion. He could not agree with those who contended that if the shops were closed earlier, working-men would not have the opportunity of purchasing what they required. The hon. Member who had last spoken seemed to think that early closing in certain districts would prevent shopping by artizans who got their goods on credit. But that difficulty could be got over by a better system of paying wages. If the employers wanted to assist the cause of early closing as they said they did, why could not they pay the men at reasonable hours? As a matter of fact, the people who dealt with these very small shopkeepers were the victims of the sweater. If sweaters paid their workpeople at proper times, there would not be so much need for the small shop-dealers to keep their shops open so late.
      MR. FIELDhad no desire to detain the House at that late hour (11.50); but as no Irish Representative had spoken, as he was connected closely with the Trades Council of Dublin, and as he knew the feeling not only of the artizans, but also of the shop assistants—being a shopkeeper himself —he could say that the Resolution would receive the hearty assent and approbation of those concerned in trade in Ireland.
      Question put, and agreed to.

  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS AND SWEATING.—RESOLUTION.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTwished to move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of the Government in all Government Contracts to make provision against the evils of sweating, and to insert such conditions as may prevent the abuses arising from sub-letting, and to make every effort to secure the payment of such wages as are generally accepted as current in each trade for competent workmen."
  This subject was so well-known to hon. Members that it would not be necessary for him to make a speech in recommending the Motion to the House. It was fully dealt with in the late Parliament by the Under Secretary for the Colonies, who proposed a Resolution on the subject. The Resolution he (Colonel Howard Vincent) was now moving was practically the one agreed to unanimously in the late Parliament. It was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), who was at that time First Commissioner of Works. The House, it was to be hoped, would re-affirm it to-night. It would not have been necessary for him (Colonel Howard Vincent) to have moved the Resolution if doubts had not arisen in the minds of some right hon. Members as to whether a Resolution of the last Parliament was binding on the present Parliament.
  MR. TOMLINSONseconded the Resolution. He said that, seeing that it was accepted in the last Parliament, there was not likely to be any difference of opinion about it now. It was desirable that the present Parliament should emphasise the Resolution passed in the last Parliament. It was surely well that in all Government con-
  766
  tracts the spirit of this Resolution should be observed; and he desired to know how far it would apply to foreign goods?
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of the Government in all Government Contracts to make provision against the evils of sweating, and to insert such conditions as may prevent the abuses arising from sub-letting, and to make every effort to secure the payment of such wages as are generally accepted as current in each trade for competent workmen."—(Colonel Howard Vincent.)
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): This Resolution was passed by the late House of Commons, and it may be as well that the present House of Commons should affirm it. I should like to add, however, that, as far as the present Government are concerned, it is a work of supererogation to pass it, inasmuch as they have not only done all that in them lies to carry out its spirit, but have gone even beyond the spirit of the Resolution. As regards Public Departments, the working out of the Resolution is fraught with many difficulties, although it seems simple enough in itself. Many of the Departments have met the principle of this Resolution in a very friendly spirit, and have carried it out in a way that the House of Commons desires that it should be carried out. The hon. Member has moved the Resolution in the terms in which it was accepted by the late House of Commons, but those terms might, in my opinion, be improved, and I would ask the House, in agreeing to the Resolution, to accept the spirit rather than the exact wording of it. And here I may say that the hon. Member touched upon a rather difficult question. He asked how far the Resolution applies to foreign goods. Coming as the question does from the hon. Member opposite, I must regard it as emanating from a suspicious quarter. I cannot, on this occasion, go into the question of how the Resolution can apply to foreign goods, but I would ask hon. Members to remember that in regard to matters of this kind you cannot supply absolutely rigidly the terms of a Resolution of this character. There must be some elasticity of working. This Resolution cannot put our own workpeople in any worse

  767
  position as regards foreign competition, and I am sure the Government in carrying it out will take care that they are in no way prejudiced. I would ask the hon. Member to put at the beginning of the Resolution these words—namely, "That this House affirms the Resolution unanimously passed on February 13, 1891." This will show that this is no new Resolution that the House is agreeing to.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I have no objection to that addition.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the hon. Member for Sheffield had raised a most difficult and dangerous point of Parliamentary practice. The hon. Member's view seemed to be that because a Resolution had been carried in a previous Parliament that therefore it should be re-affirmed in the present Parliament. If this were so, they ought to go a little further, and confirm every Resolution, not only at the beginning of each new Parliament, but at the commencement of each Session, as they did certain Standing Orders, for in no two Sessions was the House constituted exactly of the same Members. In fact, it would be necessary to re-affirm every Resolution every time a new Member entered the House. It seemed to him (Mr. T. M. Healy) that the hon. Member for Sheffield, instead of strengthening the former Resolution, was weakening its effect. The former Resolution affirmed the view of the Government, and they knew it had been laid down in the highest quarters that there was continuity, as it were, in government, each succeeding Administration being bound by the acts of its predecessor, unless those acts were formally repudiated. Take, for instance, the question of Swedish matches. The Conservative Government affirmed that it was intended to use Swedish in the Government Offices. Charges of sweating were made.
  It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: The hon. Member does not oppose the Resolution, I presume?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I have not concluded my speech.
  Debate to be resumed upon Tuesday next.

  PUBLIC AUTHORITIES PROTECTION BILL [Lords].—(No. 270.)
  Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 270.]
  HOUSE OF COMMONS (ADMISSION OF STRANGERS).
  Ordered, That evidence before the Select Committee on the House of Commons (Admission of Strangers) (1888) be referred to the Select Committee on the House of Commons (Admission of Strangers).—(Mr. Secretary Asquith.)

  COAL MINES REGULATION ACT (1887) AMENDMENT (NO. 2) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Philipps, Bill to amend "The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887," ordered to be brought in by Mr. Philipps, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Joicey, and Mr. Woods.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 271.]

  SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Macfarlane, Bill to amend the Small Holdings (Scotland) Act and the Allotments (Scotland) Act, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Macfarlane, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Beith, Mr. Birkmyre, and Dr. Cameron.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 272.]

  BUILDING SOCIETIES (NO. 3) BILL.
  On Motion of Sir John Lubbock, Bill to amend the Law relating to Building Societies, ordered to be brought in by Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Byrne, Sir Charles Hall, Mr. Picton, and Mr. Charles Roundel].
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 273.]

  IRISH POLICE ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Colonel Howard Vincent, Bill to remove the Disabilities of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police to vote at Parliamentary Elections, ordered to be brought in by Colonel Howard Vincent, Viscount Cranborne, Mr. Cavendish, Mr. Barton, Mr. T. W. Russell, Captain Norton, Colonel Waring, Sir Thomas Lea, Mr. Burdett Coutts, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Butcher, Mr. Whitmore, and Mr. William Kenny.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 275.]

  BUILDING SOCIETIES (No. 2) BILL.
  Select Committee nominated of,—Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. Banbury, Mr. Bartley, Mr. Thomas Henry Bolton, Mr. Cremer, Mr. Crosfield, Mr. John Ellis, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Mr. Thomas Healy, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Herbert Lewis, Sir John Lubbock, and Mr. Rankin.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum.—(Mr. Marjoribanks.)
  House adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
The Lord Bishop of Bangor—Took the Oath.
SECONDARY EDUCATION IN CARNARVON.

  QUESTION.—OBSERVATION'S.
  LORD SANDFORDcalled attention to the delay which had occurred in the circulation of the scheme for Secondary Education in the county of Carnarvon under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889, and asked the Lord President of the Council whether any Address to Her Majesty for the disallowance of that scheme might not, in consideration of the delay, be deferred till after the Easter Recess? The scheme was presented to the House on the 9th February, and in the other House on the same night. It was circulated in the House of Commons on the 3rd March, and to their Lordships on the 18th March; a delay of 37 days, and only 16 days before the Recess, leaving only six days for consideration. The Legislature intended that these schemes should be known to and considered by Parliament for at least two months, and the few days he had mentioned was far too short a time for the consideration of so important and intricate a scheme as this. Possibly, the delay would be said to have been caused by the Stationery Office. In the University of Scotland Act, and other measures, provision was made that any time of prorogation or adjournment should not be counted, and if that were so in the present case, sufficient time would be given after the Easter Recess to consider the scheme and take action upon it. Behind the Stationery Office, on whom blame was sometimes laid, stood their great master the Treasury, and he was quite certain that if better arrangements were made by the Treasury as to the printing for that House no cause of complaint would be given by the Stationery Office.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY of STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): My Lords, I entirely con-
  622
  cur with the last remark of the noble Lord—namely, that it is very desirable that the arrangements as to printing should be put upon a better footing, because I cannot understand why this scheme, which was duly presented to this House, and sent to the Queen's Printers on the same day, was not printed until long afterwards. It was distributed in the House of Commons, as the noble Lord has said, on the 3rd March, but not in this House until the 18th. I have no control over the Stationery Office, and really they have nothing to do with it. This is entirely a question for the Queen's Printers, and I most heartily desire that some better arrangement should be made with them, if it can be made. The procedure to which the noble Lord referred was regulated by Section 15 of the Endowed Schools Act, 1873 (amending Section 41 of the Endowed Schools Act, 1869), which provides, in effect, that, unless an Address is presented by one or other of the two Houses of Parliament within two months of the date at which the scheme is laid before this House, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty to approve the scheme. No power to extend this period of two months is given by the Act. It should be observed that when, in 1873, it was desired to extend this period in regard to certain schemes then before Parliament an Act of Parliament was passed for the purpose—namely, the Endowed Schools (Time of Address) Act, 1873 (36 Viet. cap. 7).
  LORD NORTONasked, with regard to schemes having lain on the Table for a certain number of days, how did the days count?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The days count according to the order in which and the time when they are laid on the Table of the House.

  PRIVATE BILLS—STANDING ORDERS.
  Standing Orders considered and amended, and to be printed as amended, (No. 45.)
REFORMATORY SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 29).)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD BALFOURsaid, that this Bill proposed to amend the law regarding

  623
  Reformatory Schools in Scotland in one very small point. Under the existing law, which was passed in 1866, it was not possible to send any youthful offender to a reformatory, unless the offender had undergone some term of imprisonment. The result was to cause juvenile offenders, who would not otherwise be sent to prison, and some of them were little more than children, to be sentenced, in order to qualify them for a reformatory. But the stigma of imprisonment was one which clung to a child for years, and it was quite unfair to them in many cases; all that the Bill proposed to do was to make it optional with the magistrate before whom the youthful offender was brought to say whether or not he should, in the first instance, be sent to prison before he was sent to a reformatory. This alteration was almost universally wanted in Scotland, and representations had been made to himself that the Bill should be passed without delay. There was this additional argument, that while the Industrial School to which these children might be sent were full sometimes to overflowing, the Reformatories close by were standing practically empty. It seemed that, after the nearly 30 years' experience we have now had in the operation of the law, this discretion might now be safely given to the magistrates an the full belief that it would be wisely exercised. The Bill had been passed unanimously through all its stages in the other House, and he begged to move that it be now read by their Lordships a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Balfour.)
  LORD VERNONsaid, that the Bill had passed through the House of Commons with the full approval of the Home Office, and if the noble Lord would postpone the Committee stage of the Bill until after the Recess he had no doubt they would pass it in a slightly amended form, because the Amendment which the Home Office proposed would not interfere in any way with the main object of the Bill. It was simply a question, as he understood, whether it would be necessary to have two Justices on the Bench on these occasions, or whether one should be allowed to sentence a youthful offender to the reformatory. But that was a matter which would be dealt with
  624
  later. The object of the Bill was to enable a Judicial Court to send a youthful offender to a reformatory without making it obligatory that such an offender should qualify for a reformatory in a prison. He had no idea till he studied this Bill, and he did not suppose that many of their Lordships were aware, that children had to go through a preparation of cram in prison before being allowed to enter a reformatory school. Sydney Smith, speaking of prisons, called them large public schools, maintained at the expense of counties for the encouragement of profligacy and crime, and for providing a proper succession of housebreakers, profligates, and thieves—schools conducted with the smallest degree of partiality or favour. Any man, however mean his birth or obscure his situation, could easily secure admission to them. The moment any young person evinced the slightest propensity for these pursuits he was provided with food, clothing, and lodging, and put to his studies under the most accomplished thieves and cut-throats the county could supply. Instead of prisons being called public schools, they might more appropriately be termed preparatory schools for reformatories, as evidently it was thought not only wise, but necessary, to teach children possessing evil propensities to be thoroughly bad before endeavouring to improve their moral condition. It was the principle that they must be worse before they were better, or even before any endeavour was made to make them better. Noble Lords would wonder why the operations of this Bill were confined to Scotland only. This was because there might have been opposition to the Bill if it had been extended to England from, he imagined, what had been termed the fat and sleek and well-as-we-are people. In Scotland, however, the opinion of both magistrates and managers of schools was almost unanimous, and the Government were only paying regard to the voice of the people, who had knowledge forced on them by experience without long deductions or deep research. It had been forced on them in a most practical way. Some girls' reformatories were almost empty in Scotland because the magistrates would not impose the imprisonment which was the necessary preliminary to committal to the schools. The Home Office did not wish to imperil the Bill by

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  trying to extend its provisions to England; it was, therefore, confined to Scotland to ensure it becoming law as soon as possible. With regard to the imprisonment of children generally, Lieutenant Colonel Inglis, the Inspector, said that in his opinion it would soon be in this country, as in many others, a thing of the past to imprison children at all; and the sooner they took this step in the right direction and erased from the Act the words which insisted on preliminary imprisonment as a qualification for a reformatory the better. When the Bill arrived at the Committee stage one or two Amendments might be moved which were now under consideration, but, as he had said, they would not affect the main object of the Bill. Perhaps the noble Lord would postpone the Committee stage of the Bill until after Easter.
  LORD BALFOURat once acquiesced, and named Friday, 21st April. If a few days' further postponement were required perhaps the noble Lord would give him notice. He would ask the Home Office in the meantime to reconsider the point as to whether the presence of two magistrates upon occasions to which the Bill referred should be necessary, or whether a single magistrate should have jurisdiction. He hoped they would consult the Law Officers of the Crown. In many cases stipendiary magistrates and sheriffs, or sheriffs' substitutes, as Justices, sat on the Bench with satisfaction and general approval; but if the Home Office insisted upon having two Justices one of them would have to be brought in for that purpose alone, probably not accustomed to sitting on the Bench. He did not think adding a Judge in that way would strengthen the Court, and hoped the Home Office would consider the point carefully.
  LORD VERNONsaid, they had been consulting the Lord Advocate. That was the difficulty, and no doubt all those matters would be taken into consideration.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday, the 20th April next.

POLICE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 27.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD MACNAGHTENsaid, that the object of the Bill was a very simple one. It was to provide that constables, when aiding in the extinguishing of fire, and acting in the protection of life and property in case of fire, although according to the police theory not then acting in the execution of their duty, should be deemed to be engaged in the execution of their duty, and should, if injured, be entitled to pensions upon the same scale. The Bill had already passed the House of Commons, and he moved that it be now read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Macnaghten.)
  LORD VERNONsaid, that this Bill also had received the approval of the Home Office. The main object of the Bill was to make the extinguishment of fires a police duty in such a way as to entitle constables injured in helping to extinguish tire to receive the high rates of pension granted to constables injured in the execution of duty. The Government were only too glad to secure to the police constables who might be injured while engaged in connection with the extinction of fire pensions on the same scale as police constables injured on police duty. It was only right, if a constable was employed in the exceptional and unusually hazardous duty of saying life and property from fire, that neither he nor his family should suffer because he was gallant enough to undertake duties not usually considered to be those of a police officer. Speaking generally, fire-brigade duty was not regarded as part of a police constable's duty; it was not so in any county; it was not necessarily so in any borough. If, therefore, a constable was injured while engaged in fire-brigade duty he would not ordinarily receive the pension on the higher scale as if injured in the execution of duty, but only the pension on a lower scale applicable to constables accidentally injured. In some cases, however, the extinguishment of fires was made police duty by Local Act. There was either a special clause to this effect in the Local Act, or the provisions of the Town Police Clauses Act were incorporated, one of which was as follows:—
  "Constables appointed by virtue of this and a special Act shall keep watch and ward within the limits of the special Act, and shall use their best endeavours to prevent mischief by fire, all felonies, misdemeanours, and breaches of the peace."

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  The Government thought that, so far as the amendment of the law affected constables occasionally acting as firemen, it should be allowed. It only made universal what was already the law in many large and important boroughs. The Government, however, while approving the general principles of the original Bill, that a police constable acting as a fireman should be deemed to be in the execution of his duty, thought it right, amongst other Amendments, to put in one safeguarding the interest of the Police Pension Fund. Its present income was derived from a small deduction from the pay of constables, from fines and fees, from interest on investments, and from a Government contribution. If the fire-brigade-men joined the fund it would involve a heavy new charge, and would bring no additional income except the deduction from the pay of the men. Mr. Herbert Gladstone in the other House inserted an Amendment that the Police Pension Fund should obtain contribution from the fund or rate chargeable with fire-brigade expenses. He had drawn attention to these one or two points because, although the Bill was not initiated by the Government, it was practically remodelled in the House of Commons by Amendments moved by the Under Secretary of State for the Home Office, after which it received the approval and support of the Government. It was proposed to insert some further Amendments when the Bill reached Committee stage in their Lordships' House, not with a view to alter the provisions which now appeared in the Bill, but to make some additional amendment in the provisions of the Police Act, 1890. He hoped the Committee would be deferred till after Easter.
  LORD MACNAGHTENsaid, he would accept any time which would suit the Government.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid that on going into Committee he would move, with the concurrence of the Scotch Office, that the provisions of the Bill be extended to Scotland.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday the 20th of April next.

CHURCH PATRONAGE BILL.—(No. 24.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to Order).
  Clause 1.
  LORD GRIM THORPEsaid this was only an Amendment of expression. He assumed their Lordships had made up their minds to the principle of the Bill, and therefore would not say a word upon that; but they would see that Sub-section 2 of the clause was expressed very clumsily, and failed to tell people what they were to do. What it really meant, he supposed, was as he had now put it. Lawyers might remind him that by the Act of 1881 covenants were implied though not expressed, but that only referred to those which used always to be expressed, and they were merely allowed to be omitted by that Act to avoid superfluity of language. This was the first time in history that a deed was to be made to say something which it did not say or imply in the smallest degree. If this Bill passed as it was, any person making the smallest assignment in ignorance or under bad advice, and not intending to convey the whole of his patronage, would find that he had conveyed it.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 1, to leave out lines 12 to 15 and insert ("No sale of a right of patronage after the passing of this Act shall be valid which does not transfer the whole right of the vendor.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEthought the noble Lord was right in his criticism, and in the intention of his Amendment, but would suggest the addition of the words "or transfer" after "no sale."
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The only thing that occurs to me is whether this might not give rise to inconvenient questions some time afterwards. The sale is not to be valid if it does not transfer the whole right of the vendor. It may turn out afterwards that it did not transfer the whole right of the vendor, and then the sale is made invalid. But upon that sale there may have been a presentation by the person to whom the sale has been made. That, I imagine, is the reason it was put in the first form: that in whatever way you propose to

  629
  convey, it shall transfer the right. My noble and learned Friend's suggestion would expose many transactions to being declared invalid, and there might in that way be a doubt as to the result. I suppose that is the reason why it was put in the form which my noble and learned Friend has criticised, but would not his be open to that difficulty?
  LORD KNUTSFORD: I venture to think that if this Amendment is passed, anyone who is making a sale or transfer being aware of the wording of the subsection would take care that the sale or transfer should in words pass the whole right of the vendor, and I should think there could be no difficulty raised afterwards.
  LORD GRIMTHORPE: Then there is nothing else to be done than for the most ignorant transferor to say, "I transfer my right in the patronage," and when he has done that, the whole thing is at an end, and he cannot possibly complain of having been deceived.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, the purpose of this Amendment was that sometimes a vendor made an agreement that he would go on paying interest until the living was vacated, and it was desired to put a stop to that being done.
  Amendment moved, in page 1, line 17, after ("by the") insert ("vendor or"), line 18, after ("by the") insert ("vendor or.")—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  LORD GRIMTHORPEwas not quite sure whether that was illegal.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid that it had been distinctly held to be legal by the Courts of Queen's Bench or Common Pleas in a case some time back.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, he had not questioned the most rev. Prelate's statement of the existing law the other night. He did not himself see any harm in paying interest except upon the principle that gambling must be connected with the transaction to prevent it from being simony.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, the practice operated in a way which substantially affected the general rule as to dealing with advowsons. What was the object of a stipulation for payment of interest in a transaction of this kind?
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  It was obviously something tending to facilitate those arrangements which were contrary to the principle of the Bill, and it had a tendency to the very abuses the Bill was intended to prevent.
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this was a much more substantial Amendment than the previous one he had proposed. If their Lordships had read the accounts which he had seen of Debates in Convocation upon the Bill, they would see that this clause required more attention than it lad yet received. This Bill had been discussed by no less than five Debating Societies, the Lower and Upper Houses of Convocation of York and Canterbury, for in this matter both Houses of both Convocations were only Debating Societies, because they had no power under the Crown to legislate, nor had they been in any way consulted by the Crown, as they were on Bills for altering the Prayer Book. The fifth Body, the House of Laymen, had only been called into existence by the most rev. Prelate himself. Those Bodies had been very much perplexed by this curious provision that a right of patronage should not be sold again until the benefice was full after two avoidances thereof. He could not do better than repeat the statement of the York Prolocutor, that he knew instances in which that would keep the matter in suspense for respectively 95, 97, and 105 years; and the same thing would of course happen in other cases running down to smaller periods of two or three years. It was only necessary to state that fact to show most people the unwisdom of this provision. The Lower House of Convocation at York had adopted the suggestion of an alternative of five years or two avoidances, whichever happened first, and the Canterbury House of Laymen had adopted five years absolutely. Apparently the Upper Houses, one or both of them, had yielded to the suggested alternative to the extent that they were willing to accept 10 years. He should himself consider five years quite long enough, but that was a matter of discretion, and there was no great reason for disputing between five and 10 years. The principle of gambling seemed very much to underlie this matter also, which was purely one of chance. Why was it not to be sold again

  631
  after the whole right had been once transferred under the former clause? Considering himself merely as a sort of mouthpiece of the bodies he had mentioned, he thought the time should be altered to five years, or if they preferred to keep in the two lives—although he did not see the necessity for it—it was very easy to do so. The two lives might possibly fall in very soon, and that might he equally objectionable. He proposed an alteration, therefore, to five years, adding at the end "whichever event should first happen."
  Amendment moved, in page 1, line 22, leave out ("subsequent to") and insert ("or for five years from"), line 23, after ("sale") insert ("whichever shall first happen.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEthought it would be well to insert five years, but would prefer to say "whichever event should last happen," for the reason that the real object of the section was to prevent in substance the sale of the next presentation under the colour and form of sale of an advowson. Whenever that kind of transaction took place the object was to prevent the buyer selling again immediately, and the advowson from being sold over and over again, which was really the same evil as the sale of next presentations. Of course, if some delay were interposed over which the purchaser could have no control, a substantial advance would be made towards the prevention of that evil. The provision for two vacancies was only to prevent the sale of the advowson for a certain time. The reason he disliked "whichever event should first happen" was that if an absolute period of five years were adopted an arrangement might possibly be made with the person first presented to remain only for a short time and then go out, and then another sale made, the real man intended to be benefitted being the person to be next put in—the first being a warming-pan in the meantime. He did not think the transaction would be very easy, yet he could not say it was absolutely certain the ingenuity of those who carried on these practices might not manage that. Therefore he would prefer "last" instead of "first."
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, that was the reason why the alteration was not adopted in the Upper
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  House of Convocation of Canterbury. They thought that if either were adopted it should be "latest," but the House of Laymen had altered that word to "first." If the noble and learned Lord agreed to the insertion of the five years and "latest" instead of "first" he would have no objection to assent to it.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, of course he did not assent to it. A long period was the worst thing they could have. Of course, if the idea was to make everything as unpleasant to purchasers as possible he could understand it, but he had not gone quite so far as that. In the Lower House of the Canterbury Convocation, Dean Gregory said, "As it is, this legislation will reduce the value of livings," not to 75 per cent. of their present value, but "by 75 per cent." People had forgotten, in doing these violent things, that while they were damaging the property of sellers they were making things easier for purchasers; the price of livings would go down enormously, and those who wanted them would get them on very easy terms. That was worth considering; but people who adopted extreme views never did consider all sides.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 2.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, that every now and then a living was purchased with the express intention of putting it into the hands of the patron; but that could be done at present only by an application to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and by the offer of a certain sum of money to be added to the endowment of the living, so as to satisfy the condition that there was some improvement in the spiritual provision for the parish. The further endowment, in addition to the value of the living itself, constantly checked proposals of this kind, which he thought were, generally speaking, really worthy of being entertained. It was proposed in one case in Cornwall to transfer a living to the most rev. Primate when he was Bishop of Truro, and the transaction had been stopped for a considerable time on account of the difficulty in raising a, sufficient sum of money, and in that case unquestionably, it being a place of some

  633
  importance, it was particularly beneficial in the public interest of the parish that the living should have been transferred to the Bishop. He thought it was not advisable to check the desire that livings should pass from private hands to public patrons. This clause was in the former Bill which had passed through their Lordships' House, but had been omitted from the present Bill by accident, and he moved that the clause be here inserted.
  Amendment moved, in page 2, to add as a new Clause—
  "2A. Every public patron. as defined in this Act, shall have full capacity to purchase, receive, take, hold, and enjoy any right of patronage without any license in mortmain, the statutes of mortmain, or any other law to the contrary notwithstanding." — (The Lord Bishop of London.)
  New Clause agreed to.
  Clause 3.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid this Amendment was really only a re-arrangement of the wording to make the clause read better.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 2, line 9, leave out from ("by a patron") to ("Cornwall") in line 11; line 22, after ("Act") to insert ("Provided that this subsection shall not apply where the patron is either Her Majesty the Queen in right of her Crown or of her Duchy of Lancaster, or the Duke of Cornwall").—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  LORD GRIM THORPEsaid, as he had an Amendment on exactly the same lines he would say a word about it now. A clause came later in the Bill which he assumed would be adopted, and therefore he thought it would be to put it except as hereinafter defined.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYthought it quite right that the dignity of the Crown should be regarded, and that Her Majesty should be excepted from the necessity of making statutory declarations, but he could not think that all public patrons should be excepted. He saw no objection to a Bishop or a Dean and Chapter or College making a formal declaration. There were certain other bodies of persons entitled to acquire and hold rights of patronage upon whom he would object to confer this privilege of exemption, so that persons nominated by
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  them should be relieved from making statutory declarations.
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid that Deans and Chapters, Colleges, and bodies of that kind seemed to be beyond the purpose of the Bill, and it appeared really to be intended to make every transaction as unpleasant to the parties as possible.
  Amendment moved, in page 2, line 9, after ("patron") to insert ("except public ones as hereinafter defined"), and leave out from ("other") to ("benefice") in line 11, both inclusive.—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, the statutory declaration should be made in the prescribed form by patrons, but how could a Dean and Chapter or University make one?
  THE LORD CHANCELLORasked whether it would not be necessary to put in something in reference to Bishops who were among public patrons. Was it intended that a Bishop should make a declaration?
  THE BISHOP OF LONDON: Certainly.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, in reference to livings within the diocese he could not help thinking that the exception ought to apply to Bishops in regard to patronage in right of their sees.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEcould not perceive that any answer had been given to Lord Selborne's former objection. It was really absurd for public bodies to make these declarations.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, this was only with the view of putting the matter in a more satisfactory form.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid he proposed to re-arrange the clause as the Amendment had been adopted. Other exceptions could be considered at a further stage. The proviso with regard to Her Majesty's patronage had been made to follow the section, and that might answer the purpose. He would consider the Amendment.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this Amendment was more a matter of language than anything else.
  Amendment moved, in line 13, to leave out ("to the effect that the patron or") and insert ("that neither he nor").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Verbal Amendments.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEproposed to put in this or some other such word, because he took it for granted that was what was intended, to make it as comprehensive as could be.
  Amendment moved, in line 29, leave out ("benefices") and insert ("ecclesiastical ").— (The Lord Grimthorpe)
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid there were such cases as secretaries for societies or persons holding the trusteeship of a school. Neither of those positions could be called ecclesiastical offices, and yet a record of them should be presented. They ought certainly not to be excluded.
  LORD KNUTSFORDasked whether those cases would not come under the words "offices and employments"?
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, "employments" would certainly come under "benefices."
  LORD GRIMTHORPEwould consent to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, in regard to the words "ordination as a deacon," that a deacon was just as much ordained as a priest.
  Amendment moved, in line 30, to leave out ("as a deacon").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, the only reason for keeping in the word was to prevent the possibility of future litigation. They only wanted not to have to fight over such words.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEthought even clerical ingenuity would hardly be able to manage that.
  Amendment negatived.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this involved a question on which the bodies he had alluded to had been considerably exercised. Much dissatisfaction had been expressed by some of them that this provision would not apply to cases of
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  collusion, so that the Bishop should not institute his own clerk. Very strong opinions were expressed, and he must say he would have expressed them himself had he been present. Notice of a Bishop's presentation or intended presentation was quite as important to be given to the parish as that of anybody else.
  Amendment moved, in line 38, leave out ("a presentee") and insert ("any person").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, it was an omission by oversight. It was not perceived that in that case he would not be called a presentee, but the word "presentee," in the Definition Clause, "would include a person collated to a benefice. However, he was quite willing to alter the word here.
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEthought another alteration would be necessary to make it quite right. Instead of "a presentee," it should be "or that the Bishop proposes to institute him." If notice were to be given to the parish, which the most rev. Prelate approved of, some such words as these should be inserted—"Bishop proposed to institute him."
  Amendment moved, in line 39, after ("presentation") insert ("or that the Bishop proposes to institute him").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYassented.
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD GRIMTIIORPEsaid, this Amendment again was more a matter of form than anything else. He was not particularly fond of this new phrase which had got into Acts of Parliament, that it was "the duty" of people to do so and so. The whole phrase was that it should be done by them, and he proposed therefore that the notice should be published by the churchwardens in the prescribed manner simply.
  Amendment moved, in lines 40 and 41, to leave out ("it shall be the duty of the churchwardens to publish") and insert ("shall be published by the churchwardens").—(The Lord Grimthorpe)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Verbal Amendments.
  Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 4.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, this was a re-casting for the sake of simplicity, and "may" was altered to "shall," because it seemed absurd that if the Bishop were satisfied the appointment was not in the interests of the parish he might refuse to institute, implying also that be might not.
  Amendment moved, in page 3, line 4, to leave out from ("The Bishop") to ("grounds") in line 6, and insert ("If the Bishop is satisfied, either.")—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsuggested that it would be better to make another transposition. Later on in the Bill there was a provision that nothing should affect the existing right of the Bishop to refuse to institute a presentee, and it would be better to comprise the whole thing at once. It was exactly the same thing in effect, only putting it all at once.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYthought it better to make a distinction, as there was a little ambiguity about the Bishop's present rights.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, they ought to see at once the grounds of refusal—namely, the existing ones, which were the only grounds.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEhoped the noble and learned Lord would not press this matter. The clause was not intended to refer to any refusal, except on those grounds which were defined by the clause itself. It was not proposed to takeaway existing remedies in other cases, and that being so, he would prefer making no reference in this clause to any other grounds than those expressly mentioned.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, it was only a question of position, and was not worth arguing.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Verbal Amendment.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this clause was the most difficult one in the whole Bill, and he suggested some improvements in it as it stood. Hardly anybody was satisfied with it. It provided that pecuniary embarrassment was to be proved by bankruptcy, a declaration
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  of insolvency, composition with creditors, sequestration or execution upon goods. However small a man's failure, or however little moral offence might attach to him, those were all to be grounds on which the Bishop would be expected to prevent him being instituted. What was really wanted was to enable Bishops to refuse to institute people who were really under pecuniary embarrassment, as far as he could judge. This was one of the things that could only be dealt with by leaving it to the discretion of somebody to be trusted, and the best substitute for those words, he thought, would be the expression "likely to be permanent."
  Amendment moved, in page 3, line 12, to leave out from ("proved") to ("goods") in line 14, and insert ("likely to be permanent.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe).
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, for the Bishop to inquire into the circumstances of the presentee, without reference to any definite legal test, would appear to him to be open to serious objection. While he would not object at a later stage to any words which would require those tests, but would make it clear that the Bishop was not to be bound by anything which was not continuing at the time, he thought that principle was sound. Pecuniary embarrassment ought not to be made a ground without any test whatever.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYhoped their Lordships would accept this Amendment. The words proposed, "likely to be permanent," were much better. The clause in the Bill contained a number of matters, some of which might have been long passed. Any Bishop might have felt himself obliged to refuse to institute a clergyman who had compounded with his creditors. He could give the case of a most exemplary clergyman who had done so, and was asked about the matter. He consulted a right rev. Prelate, and asked him what he thought of it. He said, "It entirely depended upon circumstances, and that it might even be laudable;" he did not say how, but left him to find that out. It appeared that this particular clergyman had been building a house under Queen Anne's Bounty. The contractor bad exceeded his contract, as generally happened, and the clergyman had to pay

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  the difference. The consequence was that he was in debt with his butcher and baker, and eventually had to compound with his creditors. Now he had only heard of all this 20 years afterwards, and yet under this Bill any patron who proposed him might be told that he was not a lit person because he had compounded with his creditors. He thought the only way in which compounding with one's creditors could be laudable would be compounding with a butcher who had supplied one with Australian mutton and called it Southdown. In that case 10s. in the £ would, no doubt, be a very laudable composition.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, the point was that the Bishop had to be satisfied that the man was unfitted for the discharge of a pastor's duties, and then came various grounds on which he was to be considered unfit. The question whether past pecuniary embarrassment unfitted a man would have to be considered. Even beyond that, supposing the Bishop refused to institute on the ground of some past embarrassment, the Archbishop on appeal would certainly be able to correct any mistake on the part of the Bishop. As the words stood the Bishop would have some reason for making an inquiry whether the man was still in circumstances of pecuniary embarrassment or not, and would not be left to the general vague question of what his circumstances were, which was always a very difficult matter to inquire into. He doubted whether the clause was open to the difficulties pointed out by the noble Lord and which he proposed to amend; and thought that, as it stood it would work very well.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYpointed out the clause said that the Bishop should say the man was unfitted by reason of pecuniary embarrassment, and he did not see why the proposed words should be introduced.
  LORD KNUTSFORDhoped the noble and learned Lord would not press this Amendment. There was much force in what Lord Selborne had said, that there were well known ways of ascertaining whether a man is in a position of pecuniary embarrassment or not, and that would be better than having a general inquiry by the Bishop. Clearly a Bishop was not bound to decide that a clergyman was unfitted because he had been at one time embarrassed and had com-
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  pounded with his creditors. Indeed a man might be acting laudably in compounding with his creditors instead of going on spending his and their money recklessly, and finally not being able to pay them at all.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It might be better to change the word "proved" into "evidenced." These things are not under all circumstances proveable. The fact of a man having compounded with his creditors may afford under certain circumstances evidence that he is in pecuniary embarrassment, and under other circumstances it may be obvious that he is not. The fact to be inquired into is pecuniary embarrassment, but you must have evidence of it.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, showing that the man had been bankrupt at some time or other was not really the object of the clause. He wanted something to indicate that the ground of complaint was present financial difficulty.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Might we not insert "existing"?
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, anything which would confine it to the present. Then the other point was moral offences, misconduct, evil life, and so on. That was all quite right; but to mix it up with the fact that the man was once in debt was wrong. He thought the suggestion of the Most rev. Prelate would do.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEcould imagine no greater misfortune than for a man to be appointed to the cure of a parish who was loaded with debt.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEquite agreed.
  Amendment to insert the word "existing" agreed to.
  THE BISHOP OF ELYasked whether it would not be advisable the clause should run also "existing physical infirmity," though he should have thought, it. unnecessary, as it must be of course existing.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEthought it would be much better to have it in.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I quite feel the objection to the particular word I suggested, though I think some amendment of that kind is needed. But I think I had better consider in what form it should be put.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEasked why they should not in the meantime have "evidenced." That word, as the Lord Chancellor said, had acquired a meaning quite different from "proved."
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, it was only a little more barbarous than many other words which might now be found in Acts of Parliament.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Then for the present leave out "proved" and insert "evidenced."
  Moved accordingly.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Verbal Amendment.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, he put in these words as the clause would justify the man's mere temporary inhibition under the Clergy Discipline Act. Now, that was what was called in slang "a very large order" indeed. They ought to consider whether the parishioners would be debarred from stating any other cause of unfitness. A great many people thought they ought to have that power, and if this clause were to stand it should be so amended.
  Amendment moved,
  In line 17, to leave out ("that he ought not to be instituted"), and insert ("and is of opinion that the institution would on such ground be injurious to the interests of the parish, the Bishop shall refuse to institute the presentee.") —(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: "Any other cause than as expressed in this Act"?
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, supposing it was stated to the Bishop that the man could not be heard half way down the church. It had been stated that in that case the Bishop could at once refuse him, but he ventured to say the Bishop certainly could not refuse him.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Yes, on the ground of physical incapacity.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, that was not physical incapacity in the ordinary sense; it was only incapacity in that particular church. Then again, ought not the fact that the man had quarrelled previously with everybody in the parish to be a matter within the Bishop's jurisdiction? There might be clergymen whom no Bishop would accept, and in whose cases he would be very glad to be able to put his finger upon this: that he
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  could not be heard in a church or had quarrelled with everybody in the parish, and that he was unfit to be presented to a new living for that cause. However, that was very much a question for the discretion of their Lordships, and, of course, in some degree of the Bishops; but he thought the House should be made acquainted with the fact that that: feeling had been expressed in both Convocations.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEdid not like a latitude of objection by parishioners which would go into everything on earth, recognised or not recognised definitely by the law, if rights of patronage were to be respected at all. If there were a physical infirmity or incapacity, of voice or any other, so great as in the opinion of the Bishop to prevent him discharging his pastoral duties that ought to be taken into account. But what was proposed would extend to whatever anybody chose to think an objection, and he did not think they ought to go so far as that. And the effect would also be, that all the grounds on which, independently of this Bill, and by the present law, a Bishop might refuse to institute, would be brought within the clause; and they give a final jurisdiction in the Bishop (subject to an appeal to the Archbishop) as to matters for which remedies were provided which the Bill did not propose to take away and ought not to take away.
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this involved the question of appeal. He was unaware whether it was intended to give the objector the right to appeal to the Archbishop, but he thought in the Clergy Discipline Bill an appeal was given to both parties. He could not see why both parties should not have the power of appealing.
  Amendment moved, in line 20, after ("presentee") insert ("or the objector.") —(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: There could be no necessity for giving an appeal to the objector in the only case for which this clause provided, that of the presentee being refused; which would be a decision in the objector's favour.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, this Amendment involved the question how the appeal was to be heard by the Archbishop, and as it stood in the Bill the appeal was to be heard in like manner as an appeal by a curate against the revocation of his licence. He did not think the two things were at all in pari materiâ. In old times the incumbent of a parish had the absolute right of dealing with his curates as he pleased. By one of the modern Acts—the Omnibus Act of 1838, as it has been called—the curate might appeal to the Archbishop against the Bishop. That was the law that he could do so, and these appeals were heard in camerâ.
  Amendment moved,
  In line 22, to leave out from ("appeal") to end of subsection, and insert ("with assessors from the diocese where the benefice is, as if it were a complaint under the Clergy Discipline Act, 1892, including the Chancellor thereof, and they shall openly state their conclusions, and there shall be no further appeal.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: No. Solemnly, with the Vicar General.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, sometimes they were, but sometimes they were not, and he had known the latter to happen. The Vicar General, as far as he could make out, only acted as an assessor and adviser, and had no judicial power. Many people thought that was not giving sufficient weight to what might be the law of the case, and that the Vicar General should be in the position of a Judge. He did not see why there should not be some similar jurisdiction to that in the Clergy Discipline Act, and for that purpose he had put in these words, as if it were a complaint under the Clergy Discipline Act, 1892. In this case the Archbishop would be the presiding Judge and not the Chancellor.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYwas afraid there would be a great anomaly in bringing in the assessors of a particular diocese to sit with the Archbishop. At present the assessors were diocesan officers elected under the diocesan regulations to sit in eases of discipline; but this would mean that the assessors in a diocese would be elected for Provincial purposes to sit with the Archbishop. It would be necessary to provide for that by a whole system of regulations. There was nothing like
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  that in the Clergy Discipline Act, where they were made assessors with the Chancellor of a diocese, but in this way they would suddenly be made assessors in cases of Provincial jurisdiction. He was quite willing that the Vicar General should be associated with the Bishop if that would improve matters, but practically that was so now, as the Bishop never acted without his Vicar General.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, that in this case also he was rather the mouthpiece of other people than speaking for himself, but he thought the suggestion of the most rev. Prelate would give satisfaction. He did not think much of the anomaly point—it was only a word, and the Archbishop would only be in the position he was in under the old Clergy Discipline; Act wherever he took the place of the Bishop of the diocese. The Archbishop had been held by the Courts in Westminster to be, in that case, only acting for the Bishop. If it were distinctly intimated that the Chancellor or the Vicar General was to sit with him as a Judge that would be of great advantage and would give considerable satisfaction.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYintimated that the point might be further considered, if it required consideration, on the Report.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, in that case he would not now move the Amendment.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, this clause provided the mode of procedure in cases where the Bishop refused to institute, and that when the matter had been hoard and decided the decision was to be final. But it did not appear whether or not that excluded the other remedy which would admit of the duplex querela, or whether, under the other sections, the other remedies would not be concurrent with what was here provided. It certainly was not a good tiling that opportunity should be given for trying a case first in one way and then in another, and he did not think the present wording excluded that.
  Amendment moved, in Page 3, after line 33, insert a new Subsection: (5) Where on any presentation, institution is refused under the provisions of this section, such refusal shall be a bar to any

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  action of quare impedit or suit of duplex querela in respect of that presentation.—(The Lord Bishop of London).
  LORD GRIMTHORPEadmitted that ought to be done, if it was not the law already.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 5 agreed to.
  Clause 6.
  Verbal Amendments.
  Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 7 agreed to.
  Clause 8.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, the Amendment was to simplify this clause. Under the Pluralities Act a distinct penalty was enforced for not coming into residence after due summons, but these provisions were of a very different kind, and he thought it would be better to say at once what amount of pecuniary disability would be a reason for confiscating a living, and to do that in the plainest possible way. With that view he had suggested the Amendment. In Convocation, cases were mentioned where men had been innocent of anything like misfeasance themselves, but they had debts of an incurable kind. He agreed with the noble Earl that the permanent incumbrance and debt was a reason for preventing presentation to a living just as much as if the man had been away for two whole years.
  Amendment moved, to leave out Subsection (1.) and insert: If a benefice is sequestrated for debt incurred by the existing incumbent for two whole years, or twice within that time, it shall thereupon become void.—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEinquired how that Amendment would meet all the cases which ought to be provided for.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEremarked that if there was a charge upon the living, the present incumbent was liable. If the man were bankrupt his living could be sequestrated.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid that would not be sequestration incurred by him, but incurred under the Bankruptcy Law.
  Amendment negatived without a division.
  Clause 8 agreed to.
  Clause 9.
  Amendment moved, in line 13, to leave out the word "inhabitants" and insert "parishioners."—(The Lord Knutsford.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not quite sure that I prefer "inhabitants" to "parishioners," but I am not sure that I understand what a parishioner is.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE BISHOP OF ELY THE BISHOP OF ELY moved to add the words "of full age."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 10 agreed to.
  Clause 11.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid the first lines seemed entirely unnecessary, because, without restricting law, it had no meaning whatever. The lawyers; The House would agree with him that saying these communications to Bishops were to be privileged was not enough, because, though a communication might be privileged, that would not prevent a jury from giving any damages they pleased. The intention was to leave the Bishop to do what he pleased, without the risk of an action for libel. Anyone who had lead the proceedings, in cases of drunkenness especially, would come to the conclusion that there was not sufficient privilege unless it was absolute. If the clause were passed with the words "bonâ fide" it would be necessary to allege in an action that the representation, whatever it was, was not made bonâ fide. On the other hand, if they were struck out, that would leave people at liberty to send to the Bishops any malicious communication they pleased, without the slightest risk of suffering for it in any way. Steering between that Seylla and Charybdis, he thought it would be better to leave the words in."
  Amendment moved, in page 5, line 31, leave out from ("Without") to ("that"), in line 32, both inclusive; line 36, leave out.("a") and insert ("an absolutely"); line 37, leave out ("statement or").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The object of inserting the words with which this section commences was to satisfy doubts which were entertained, I imagine, whether the clause went beyond the existing law; and those doubts I certainly should share. As the clause now stands, I do not think it affords any protection beyond that which the law affords. I dare say it was felt that in introducing this new procedure it was well to reassure those who were invited to make representations by a statement of what the law was, and consequently it was not put in as an enactment but as a declaration, to make it quite certain that the law is as here laid down, though it has never been declared by the authority of the Legislature. That is the reason of its being put in the present form. Undoubtedly the noble and learned Lord opposite proposes a considerable change in the law, because, as I understand, he would put the person making these representations in the same position as a Judge, that it should be impossible to maintain an action for libel or to go into the question of malice at all. If that is intended it would be necessary to leave out the words "bonâ fide" altogether, because if you introduce those words you obviously enable any person by alleging and proving that it was done malâ fide to go to trial with an action for libel. At present it is a privileged communication, and if it is so no evidence can be made out unless there is express malice. If my noble and learned Lord desires so great a change in the law I do not think it should be carried out by leaving in the words "bonâ, fide"and inserting "absolutely." I do not think that word has any technical legal meaning, but a mere expression used to describe the kind of privilege to which my noble Friend has referred. Consequently I do not think it would do to put in the word "absolutely" and to leave in the words "bonâ fide." If it is intended to make hat change in the law, I think bonâ, fide would have to be left out, and you would have to describe in terms what is popularly called an absolute privilege. There-fore, I do not think the Amendment pro-posed by my noble and learned Friend could answer.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEdid not press as Amendment.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  Clause 11 agreed to.
  Clause 12.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid as the clause stood not merely was the living to be avoided but everything that had been done since the false declaration was made was to be made void. That seemed to be entirely unmanageable, because if that were so all sorts of acts would be made void. What was intended, or ought to be intended, was that the benefice to which the false declaration related should become void on the person who has got it being convicted of having made a false declaration. Then again. how was it to be proved that a declaration was made falsely? No reference was made to the Declarations Act, and no mode of trial provided that he could see. The clause seemed to be either unworkable or to do a great deal more than was intended, and something of the kind provided by the Amendment was required.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 5, line 39, to leave out from ("declaration") to end of clause and insert ("is proved to have been made falsely under the Statutory Declarations Act, 1835, to the knowledge of the incumbent before his institution, the benefice to which such declaration related shall be void."—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsuggested that it would be better not to let the incumbent retain the living which had been obtained by a false declaration on the part of the patron, but to which the incumbent himself was not privy. A case had happened within his knowledge. A man had bought a living simoniacally—there was no doubt about that—and had presented his son, who was quite innocent in the matter, and entirely unaware of what had been done. There were no means of dealing with him in the circumstances of the case. It was necessary to stop things of the sort, and therefore here the patron was required to make the declaration. No doubt if care were not taken cases would occur in which patrons would make false declarations in order to put in their own nominees, at the same time taking good care indeed that the persons concerned should not know they were false.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEdid not think that was at all reason sufficient for ruining the Bill. Hitherto these declarations had not come under the Statutory Declarations Act, which makes making a false declaration a misdemeanour. That was something quite now, and when that additional security was obtained in regard to the act of the patron it seemed a monstrous thing that a perfectly innocent man who might have been holding the living a considerable time should be turned out and made liable to forfeit to somebody or other all his receipts for many years, because somebody else had committed a misdemeanour.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONpointed out that at Common Law, where property was acquired by a transaction which turned out to be unsound, the man lost the property. Here the man was put in and held his living on what was really an unsound title, and he ought not to have got in at all.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid in the case of property it belonged to somebody else, and the question arose as between two innocent people. There was no analogy. Here the patron had committed a crime, and was liable to be punished for it; and it was monstrous to punish and ruin somebody else who was perfectly innocent and who would have had a perfect right but for that act.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDON: He would not have got in at all but for that act.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is a trying thing very often no doubt for somebody who has received stolen goods quite innocently to be deprived of them by the real owner, and he sometimes suffers heavily. Is not there some analogy between this case and the case of a man who has been presented to a living by means of a crime?
  LORD GRIMTHORPEasked who ought to have been there instead of him? The stolen property belonged to somebody else; the living did not.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsuggested that the answer was, if it was wrongly done, possibly neither he nor anybody else could prevent a lapse. The clause in the Bill covered cases which would not otherwise be covered; among others, the important case dealt with by the second section, where, after a sale or transfer, the prescribed declaration of ownership was required to be made,
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  without which the legal right of patronage would not pass. This clause provided that registration obtained by a false declaration should be void, and that would avoid the title of the patron altogether.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid he must move the Amendment, because he thought the noble and learned Lord was entirely wrong, both verbally and substantially.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clauses 12 and 13 agreed to.
  Clause 14.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, it was desirable that the Rule Committee under this Bill should be the same as under the Clergy Discipline Act, and he therefore moved to leave out the words "Archbishops of Canterbury and York," and to associate with the Lord Chancellor the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Judge of the Provincial Court, and the Archbishops and Bishops who might be members of the Privy Council, or any three of the said persons, two of them being the Lord Chancellor and one other of the aforesaid Judicial persons.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 6, line 9. to leave out ("The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York") and insert ("The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of Eng-land, the Judge of the Provincial Court, and the Archbishops and Bishops who are members of the Privy Council, or any three of the said persons, two of them being the Lord Chancellor and one other of the aforesaid Judicial persons '').—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment made, in line 23, after ("thereof") insert ("but subject us aforesaid every such rule shall, while un-revoked, be of the same validity as if enacted in this Act ").
  Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 15.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, he was inclined to think the noble and learned Lord's Amendment which he had courteously postponed to his own was an improvement upon it. The difference was between "held under the same title" and "being in the same parish." The former did not appear to be necessary at all, and it was sufficient and important to recognise property

  651
  in the same parish not held under the same title. The noble and learned Lord's Amendment seemed to be an ingenious and desirable change.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 6, line 30, leave out from (" hereditaments ") to the end of subsection (2) and insert (" and sold or mortgaged therewith, nor to the mortgage of any right of patronage held under the same title as any hereditaments in the same parish, and mortgaged therewith").—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  LORD GRIMTHORPEwould like to have an opportunity of conferring with the most rev. Prelate upon a still further improvement of it. There was really no use in mortgaging a living, because the mortgagee cannot appoint. If there is a power of sale he cannot avail himself in that way. But then sale would be stopped under this Act, and, therefore, with only one exception that he knew of, the word "mortgage" was inapplicable: that was the case of an advowson appendant to a manor being sold by the owner himself. That required dealing with, and it was the only case in which it was possible under this Bill to mortgage a living with any effect at all. All livings founded by owners of estates were not held under the same title, because the patronage was only made over to them by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. They were people who would be entitled to consideration more than anybody else. However, a Conference would probably take place before the next stage of the Bill, and the matter could be dealt with afterwards.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEwas surprised at the noble and learned Lord saying a mortgagee could not sell. He should have thought a mortgagee in possession with a power of sale in his deed could do so.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, all the law books say the contrary.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYwas willing to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEsaid, as the most rev. Prelate thought this Amendment a little better than his own, they had better put his in provisionally at least.
  Amendment moved,
  In Sub-section (2), line 36, to leave out from second ("or") to ("hereditaments'') in line 38, both inclusive, and insert (" or belonging to the owner of not less than one hundred acres of land in the parish where the church is, and not sold or mortgaged separately therefrom.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid that Lord Westbury's Act of 1863 had produced up to the present time about £300,000, a great part of which had arisen, not from advowsons, but from accumulations, because, as their Lordships were aware, when an advowson was sold the then incumbent only received half the interest of the purchase money. The other half went to the fund, and was afterwards distributed among poorer livings. He hoped the most rev. Prelate would accept this clause, because it would do no harm. It was entirely permissive, and left everything to the discretion of the Bishops. There was no obligation upon them to put the clause in motion, but he saw no other remedy for the recent complaints of the great poverty in the Church. He had taken three sees, St. Albans, Ely, and Norwich in the Eastern Counties, and he found there were as many as 131 poor benefices in the patronage of those three Bishops. Of these, 23 were of the gross value of £300 a year. That was brought down at present rates to £225, and £25 would not be sufficient to pay the rates and taxes; so that those livings must be under £200 a year. Of livings at less than £200 a year there were 14, and of under £100 a year there were perhaps more. In other parts of England the same complaint existed; but he had taken the Eastern Counties because they had suffered most. He had proposed this some years ago to their Lordships, but some difficulty was raised at that time on the score of the responsibility of the right rev. Bench; but he would ask them to remember that this was the same principle as that which underlay the law of patronage. There was no difference between this and the old patronage created some hundred years ago.
  Amendment moved,
  After Sub-section (3) add as a new Subsection—"It shall be lawful for the archbishops and bishops, if they should think fit, to sell the advowsons of poor benefices in their gift for the

  653
  augmentation thereof in accordance with the provisions of the Lord Chancellor's Augmentation Act, 1868."—(The Lord Stanley of Alderley).
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONhoped the Committee would not accept this proposal. For himself, he heartily concurred with the Lord Chancellor, when the Bill was read a second time, in saying it was not altogether satisfactory, because it did not go further in the way of stopping those sales altogether. It was not thought right to go further, because in present circumstances it was not clear how these sales could be stopped without doing injustice. To those facts mentioned, however, should be added the number of saleable benefices. It seemed to him the most inconsistent thing possible for Parliament to do, and he hoped they would not accept the Amendment.
  EARL FORTESCUEdid not agree in the desirability of change in the patronage of livings. Though some instances of very bad exercise of the power of patronage in the case of private individuals might be found, yet, on the whole, the lay patronage of the country had at least been as well exercised as that of public patrons, and a good deal better than that of any Government. Not, he was happy to feel, because the First Lords of the Treasury, and still less the Lord Chancellors, had been for a long while at all indifferent about the spiritual welfare of the parishes of which they had to administer the patronage, hut because the pressure of their arduous and most responsible work as Cabinet Ministers in both cases, and in that of the Lord Chancellor as the highest Judge in the land besides, rendered it inconsistent with their yet more important duties to make as careful and minute an examination of the qualifications of clergymen recommended to them as most private patrons had leisure for. Formerly, during a very long period, Bishops and Ministers of the Crown had been equally opposed to that school of divines who had suffered from neglect, but who had done excellent work in obscurity and poverty. At the present time tithes had fallen off by 25 per cent. on an average, and in the case of arable glebes the loss was even greater, so that great difficulty was experienced in filling up many of the small livings, or "starvings" as they ought rather to be called. It was
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  to ignore the substance of the question, and to be led by a mere name, to say that all transfers, not of next presentations, but of livings to the owners of estates comprising much of those parishes were undesirable. He did not see why the opportunity should not be taken to augment these miserable starvings by selling some of them to persons who. for different reasons, might be willing, provided the patronage was vested in them and their heirs, to augment their value appreciably.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, there was no doubt a great difference between what were called sales under the Act of 1863 and the ordinary transfers of livings. That Act made the transfer of patronage conditional upon an augmentation of the living, which no ordinary purchaser who aimed at passing the living through the market would ever think of doing. He thought, however, that the House should not entertain this proposition. It would require the greatest possible consideration, and should be done upon its own policy, and by a Bill expressly framed for that purpose, if it were thought right to do it, at all.
  Amendment negatived.
  Amendment moved, at the end of the Clause, to add as a separate Sub-Section. "Nothing in this Act shall apply to any of Her Majesty's chapels royal."—(The Lord Bishop of London.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 16.
  LORD GEIMTHORPEsaid, that a clergyman had intimated to him that these words were unknown in any present legislation. He did not himself know whether that was the case or not. Unless he were informed that it was a recognised term it was plainly not right to have it in here.
  Amendment moved, in line 3, leave out ("new vicarage").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, it was certainly a recognised term.
  LORD GEIMTHORPE: Not by law. as far as he could ascertain.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, it was not always easy to be sure about verbal questions, but he thought by Lord Blandford's Act a certain class of incumbents of district parishes were made vicars; but he did not recollect that there was anything in it which made their cures vicarages. Presumably that was the reason why this expression had been introduced. He agreed that the term was new, and what was new was not always recommended; but, on the other hand, he was not absolutely certain that a question might not be raised, and it was an object to avoid raising questions as much as to solve them. If that could be made certain at a further stage, he suggested it should be done.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEthought there was no risk whatever. In the transfer of perpetual cures the title only was affected; they remained perpetual cures, and they therefore took care of themselves. But he was tolerably certain Lord Blandford's Act did not recognise anything like the term "new vicarage." However, he would look into this, among other things, before the Report stage.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEdid not think the word "preachership" ought to stand alone in the Bill as it did. Take the case of Lincoln's Inn Chapel. Certainly in some senses that was a public chapel; it was consecrated. The other Inns of Court stood on a somewhat different footing, Gray's Inn being perhaps most like it. But there ought not to be two powers in existence to deprive a man of his preacher-ship, into which he could be re-instated by his patrons immediately afterwards. Therefore, he proposed the addition of these words, which he thought spoke for themselves.
  Amendment moved, in line 7, after ("preachership") to insert ("the holder of which is not appointed and removeable by some governing body or corporation or body of trustees").—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE BISHOP OF SALISBURYwished to bring under the operation of the Bill a curious benefice in the Diocese
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  of Salisbury—Laverstock—which was held in a sort of commonalty by the priest-vicars of the Cathedral, and he believed there were likely others of the same kind. It was not presentative, and it ought to be made so, and, therefore, he would like to insert after "donatives" words to that effect.
  Amendment moved, after ("preachership") to insert ("or to the priest-vicars or minor canons of any cathedral or church.")—(The Lord Bishop of Salisbury.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment moved, in page 7, after line 26, insert—
  "The expression 'public patron' means any of the following, that is to say, Her Majesty in right of her Crown or of the Duchy of Lancaster or otherwise, the Duke of Cornwall, the Lord Chancellor, any archbishop or bishop, any chapter or cathedral body, any university or college, any body of governors or trustees of a. college, school, hospital, or charity, and any person or body of persons entitled to acquire and hold in a corporate capacity rights of patronage."—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment moved, after line 30, insert: the word ("presentee") includes a person collated to a benefice; line 31, after ("admission") insert ("to a benefice.")—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Verbal Amendment.
  Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 17 agreed to.
  Bill re-committed to the Standing Committee, and to be printed as amended (No. 46.)

  OFFICIAL LIQUIDATORS (IRELAND) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to provide for the appointment of official liquidators and receivers in Ireland— Was presented by the Lord Acton; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Friday next. (No. 43.)
  APPEALS (FORMÂ PAUPERIS) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, so far as regards appeals in formâ pauperis—Was presented by the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 44.)

  TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  Commons Amendments considered (according to order), and agreed to.
  House adjourned at five minutes past Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.