Sitting of 13 September 1893

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1893–4.

    CLASS II.
    1. £6,410, to complete the sum for Secretary for Scotland's Office.
    MR. T. SHAWsaid, he had placed on the Paper a Motion for the reduction of the salary of the Secretary for Scotland by £100, but he had no desire to reduce the right hon. Gentleman's salary, his object being to elicit some information from him with regard to the split in the Deer Forests Commission, which would be reassuring to the mind of the people of Scotland. He had no title to attack the general policy of the appointment of the Commission, but he desired to know what action the right hon. Gentleman was taking with respect to this Commission. His own feeling was distinctly favourable to the appointment of the Commission, and he had nothing but the highest praise for the action of the Government in regard to it. But certain circumstances had arisen within the last few weeks which he desired, in the public interest, and for the peace and good order of the Highlands of Scotland, to call the attention of the Committee to. He thought it was very evident that recently the Commission had not been performing its proper work.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I desire to point out that the hon. Member cannot on this Vote enter upon the performance of the duties of this Commission.
    MR. T. SHAWsaid, he had no desire to attack the Commission or the performance of its duties, but he wished to elicit some information from the right hon. Gentleman as to his own conduct in regard to the Commission. What he would say with regard to the Commission was that he trusted the Commis-
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    sioners would put aside all personal feelings and look to the far wider and more important interests that were at stake rather than take into consideration any question of private wrongs to any one of them. He had the highest regard for the Chairman of the Commission, who was well qualified, both by his legal experiences and the able services he had rendered on the Crofters' Commission, to ably perform the duties attaching to the Office; but he felt bound to say that, whatever might have happened within the Commission, the feeling in Scotland was in the direction of a healing of the trivial squabble that had occurred. He hoped they would have from the Secretary for Scotland something of an assuring character to show that efforts on the part of the Government had not been wanting to heal up the contention, and that the Scottish people should obtain from this Government by the operation of the Commission something that, at all events, would be the basis of legislation so much desired in Scotland to enable crofters beyond the Highland line to have further land on which they might exercise their calling. In respect of that demand he only desired to say that, unless contention in the Commission came speedily to a close, the demand on the subject would grow in intensity; and as the question of social order and the peace of the district was involved, he hoped to hear from the right hon. Gentleman something to assure the Committee that no effort had been wanting on the part of the Government to allay the feeling that had arisen. Perhaps his own connection with this matter was known to the Committee. He was personally acquainted with the Chairman, and was known to some of the others, and he would appeal to them to put aside all sense of private wrongs, and keep in view the fact that the wrong and injustice to the crofter population demanded that all temporary ill-feeling should be put on one side. Unless they put aside their own personal feelings and had a sense of patriotism, a great amount of evil would be wrought in Scotland. There was one other general topic he should like to refer to on this Vote, and it was, that he thought the time had come for Scotchmen to ask themselves whether, after all, the Office of Secretary for Scotland was one that could longer satisfy the needs of Scotch-

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    men. For the administration from Dover House he had nothing but praise; and if administration were all that was demanded, Scotland would be probably the best governed country in the world. But that was not the sole point of view from which they looked at this Scottish Office. The Office was created not from an administrative standpoint, but to give a more effective means of legislating for Scotland, and from that point of view he must express a sense of great disappointment. So far as legislation was concerned, they thought that a further step would have been gained when the Secretary for Scotland was appointed to Cabinet rank; but they found that Scotland was governed by a bureau, and that would not do for the Scottish mind. Scotland would not be governed by a bureaucracy, however good it might be. Year after year Scotland had seen her legislation dragging wearily behind that of England, and they too readily realised this fact on the questions of Registration and Local Veto. In conclusion, he asked from the Secretary for Scotland some ray of hope that the trivial squabble in the Commission would be healed, and that the right hon. Gentleman had done all in his power to make the Commission a success.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,): I will say nothing as to the latter portion of the remarks of the hon. Member until I have heard what other Members have to state with regard to the subject. As to the Crofters' Commission, in the 7th Class of the Estimates the Committee will be called on to vote a substantial sum of money for the purposes of this Commission.; and I conceive that that will be the occasion on which to discuss the general question. On the other question of the difficulties that have arisen in the Commission, I earnestly entreat those who are friends to the Commission, and those gentlemen of considerable eminence who are serving on the Commission, not to press the Government on the matter at this moment. My own belief is that the difficulties that have arisen will be healed up, and the process by which the question will be healed up will be the influence of those considerations to which my hon. Friend has referred—namely, that personal matters should give way to a sense
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    of public duty by men carrying out a public work.
    DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he did not wish to join in any enterprise for the reduction of his right hon. Friend's salary, because he thought he deserved a bigger sum. He was willing to pay a tribute to the success with which his right hon. Friend had fulfilled the duties of his Office. There was one spot on his administration, however. He thought his right hon. Friend would feel disappointed if he did not carry out the pledge he made to bring that subject before the House, because he would probably remember he (Dr. Farquharson) had the honour to introduce a deputation to him to protest against the withdrawal of the Circular of the Board of Supervision prohibiting County Medical Officers of Health from engaging in private practice. By a recent Act it was made compulsory that County Councils should appoint Medical Officers of Health for districts or combinations, and at that time the idea was that Medical Officers of Health, except in special circumstances, should not be allowed to engage in private practice.
    THE CHAIRMANpointed out that this matter was covered by the Vote for the Board of Supervision.
    DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, in that case he would reserve his observations.
    MR. A. CHAMBERLAINhad hoped that the hon. Member for Hawick would have referred to a question which concerned more nearly his own constituency, and in which he (Mr. Chamberlain) had some interest. Having been for some time a candidate for a Scotch constituency, he was bound to make himself acquainted with the matter which he wished to bring before the Committee. The hon. Member for Hawick had travelled a long way from his own constituents, who had a grievance at least as great, as serious, and as worthy of attention as any the hon. Member had mentioned. The Secretary for Scotland, in his happier days, was a Member for the Border Burghs, and probably was aware of the question be (Mr. Chamberlain) was going to call attention to. What he wished to ask was whether the right hon. Gentleman was going to take any action to inquire into the grievances connected with the fisheries in the Tweed and neighbouring

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    rivers and inlets—to do anything to give satisfaction to the inhabitants of those districts? It was alleged that the public rights of fishing enjoyed by people living near the Tweed and other rivers of the district were taken away from them by a side-wind in an Act of Parliament without Parliament knowing what was being done, and without Parliament having any intention of taking them away. The hon. Member for the Border Burghs knew what a hold this subject had on the electors of the district, and how much it had influenced recent elections. It was stated again and again before the last Election, and he believed during the Election, by the supporters of the present Government that this matter would be gone into, that redress would be given, and that the rights which the people alleged had been taken from them would be restored. The Secretary for Scotland had taken no legislative step to restore these rights. The right hon. Gentleman had not even made any kind of inquiry into the grievances which existed. He wished to ask what steps the right hon. Gentleman would now take to fulfil the pledges of his supporters and friends in that district?
    MR. T. SHAWconsidered this discussion premature, and said he had intended to raise this question on the Vote for Law and Justice, and he had given notice of a reduction of that Vote in order to bring the matter under the notice of the Committee.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he joined in the protest of the hon. Member as to the unsatisfactory nature of the way in which Scottish Business had been attended to in the House of Commons, and particularly as to the late hour at which Scottish Business came on.
    THE CHAIRMAN: This discussion is not appropriate to the Vote, because it is due to the action of the House of Commons.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he wished to endorse what the hon. Member for the Border Burghs had said, that Scotland dragged wearily behind in all those measures which were promoted in their interest. He hoped the Secretary for Scotland would pay attention to any endeavour to further Scottish Business. He would receive the support of the Unionist Members as well as the support of those who habitually supported him. He
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    wished to call attention to the opening of a portion of the Clyde to trawling. The whole of the Clyde was closed to trawling, but under the bye-laws a certain portion of it had been opened.
    MR. CROMBIEasked whether this was not a matter for the Scottish Fishery Board?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I thought so, but I was waiting to hear what was the argument of the hon. Gentleman. I think this is a matter for the next Vote.
    MR. COCHRANE: This is a matter for the Secretary for Scotland.
    THE CHAIRMANobserved that it would only be material on the next Vote.
    MR. COCHRANE: Very well; I will call attention to it on that Vote.
    SIR W. WEDDERBURNwould like to draw the attention of the Committee to a matter that very strongly affected his constituents in Banffshire. He had put down an Instruction to the Committee on the Scotch Fishery Bill on the subject, but the Speaker ruled that a matter which related to the use of the foreshores did not come within the scope of the Bill. He now desired to ask whether the Secretary for Scotland would be willing to take some measure to mitigate the difficulties from which fishermen suffered in regard to the use of the foreshore? For a very long period the fishermen had enjoyed the use of the foreshore. They needed it in order to dry their nets, and for other purposes. They had enjoyed this right by Common Law, and he thought he might say by common-sense as well. But, in addition, there were Statutes under Queen Anne (before the Union), and under George II. and George III., giving them the use of the foreshore and of 100 yards beyond. But the difficulties from which the men suffered now were that they were not able to get the full use of the foreshore for this purpose, and that there was a great want of house accommodation in those very localities where it was necessary for fishermen to carry on their industry. There was no doubt about the right of the fishermen, both under Statute and Common Law, to the use of the foreshores; and what he would ask was that the right hon. Gentleman should take steps in order to place in the hands of some authority the duty

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    of enforcing this right, and of seeing that the men got the use of their foreshores, which was essential to their industry. They hoped that the County Councils would give access to the mountains; but that was a matter of pleasure. He hoped that the Fishery Board and the District Committee would have power to secure for the fishermen access to the shores, a matter on which a very important industry depended.
    MR. H. SMITHsaid, that no Member of the House was in a better position to speak as to the enormous wickedness of the Tweed Laws than he was himself, because he happened to be one who had suffered from the arbitrary and inequitable character of these laws. He was probably the only Member of the House who had ever been tried and sentenced in his absence by any legally constituted Court. That had been his fate under the Tweed Fishery Laws.
    THE CHAIRMAN: This subject is not relevant to the Vote before the Committee.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, he did not know that there was any other Vote on which the Tweed Fishing Laws could be alluded to more advantageously than the Vote for the Secretary for Scotland.
    MR. H. SMITH MR. H. SMITH, proceeding, said, if anything of the kind had occurred in any of the other portions of Her Majesty's dominions it would not have been necessary to draw attention twice in that House to the wickedness of the system which permitted such acts of tyranny. He agreed with the hon. Member for the Border Burghs when he said that, much as they valued the administrative services of the Secretary for Scotland, and highly as they appreciated his constant sympathy with all legitimate Scottish grievances, still they did not think that was sufficient to satisfy the just Scottish demands upon the House. He was perfectly certain that if, instead of having a Department in Dover House—excellent as it might be—they had had a body of men sitting in Edinburgh or Glasgow who were themselves allowed to deal with matters of that kind, the Tweed Fishery Laws would have been swept off the Statute Book at least 20 years ago.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, with regard to the action of the Deer Forests Commission, he would remind the hon. Member for the Border Burghs that the remit from the House of Commons to that Commission was carefully worded, and that the Commission was in no sense executive, but was merely a Commission to inquire and report. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member in his wish that the labours of the Commission would not be rendered nugatory by a very trivial point. At the same time, he could not endorse the idea that either the object or the necessary outcome of the Commission's labours should be in the direction which the hon. Member indicated. They would do well to suspend their judgment upon these matters until they saw the Commission's Report, and saw what really practically could be done. In regard to the Tweed Fishery Laws, he hoped if the Secretary for Scotland was going to say anything about them he would rather say it upon this Vote than upon the matter of Police. If the Tweed Fishery Laws were wrong, let them be amended; it would not do simply to talk about the wickedness, and relate an interesting family incident in the life of the hon. Member for the Falkirk Burghs, who it seemed had on one occasion been tried and sentenced, but who in another place had himself been engaged in the work of trying and sentencing other people. He was afraid that on this occasion the hon. Member was voicing the complaint of a good many people who would wish to abolish property in fishing altogether. [Mr. H. SMITH: No, no!] That was undoubtedly the popular tide at Galashiels. What they wanted was to be allowed to fish for salmon without interference. That would be a violation of a very valuable right, and he protested against the idea of dealing with a valuable right by way of paralysing the police arrangements of the country. He wished to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether there had been any change in the attitude of the Government in regard to the Minute on Secondary Education, or whether they had heard the last word upon the matter?
    MR. T. SHAWsaid that, in view of the course of the discussion, he would on the present Vote refer to the question of

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    the administration of the Tweed Fishery Laws. In the course of the present Session he obtained a Return dealing with all cases in the Tweedside counties for the 10 years ending 1892. He found from that Return that in that period the fines from all ordinary criminal cases in the Counties of Roxburgh, Peebles, and Selkirk amounted to £1,042. That figure demonstrated that the community in these districts was of the most law-abiding character. But would it be believed that in the same counties for the same period the fines, under the Tweed Fisheries Acts alone, amounted to no less a sum than £3,954? Such a contrast of figures showed that the existing state of the law in those counties was nothing less than a social and public scandal, and there was a case for immediate and stringent inquiry into the operation of these laws. There was a third heading in the Return, "Offences under the Game Laws," and the fines under that head amounted for the same period to £1,141. So that if they added the fines under the Game Laws and the Fishery Laws together they had this startling contrast: that these fines for Statute-made crime were five times the amount of the fines for all other Common Law offences in these counties. The figures under the one heading were £5,095, and under the other £1,042. He did not think that any Minister could look upon that state of things as satisfactory, and he thought the time had arrived for a most stringent inquiry into the matter. He believed that the Sheriffs of these three counties view the administration of those laws, not with discredit only, but with absolute disgust. Two-thirds of their time was occupied in trying poaching offences. The position was simply this: that no one was thought the less of by his fellows in the community for a breach of the Tweed Fishery Laws, whereas anyone who offended against the ordinary Criminal Law was at once looked down upon. The hon. Member for Bute (Mr. Graham Murray) said that it was desired to abolish property in salmon. They did not desire to abolish property in salmon, but they did desire to see that Crown property in salmon should be given not to individuals, but for the public use and enjoyment. Until that state of matters was brought about, they might tinker at a remedy for years and
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    years, but they would never bring the community at large into a state of sympathy with the law. The Return he had given proved that there was no more law-abiding class of men than the men in his constituency. But why should they be turned into criminals?
    THE CHAIRMAN: You cannot discuss the law. As I understood, you desired to put a question for an inquiry.
    MR. T. SHAWsaid, he had only been replying to the view of the hon. Member for Bute, who seemed to suggest that he (Mr. Shaw) and others had sympathy with breach of the law. Their desire, on the contrary, was to bring the law into line with the feelings of the community at large; and he hoped a Commission would be appointed to inquire into the whole subject. The Secretary for Scotland knew the facts as well as any man in the House, and Scotland had a right to look to him for special and speedy action. They demanded it in the interests of social peace; and for himself he would never be content until he saw those law-abiding counties put in the position of having the Statutory Law applicable to the Tweed fisheries brought, into line with the sentiments of the-people.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, he had no desire at all to go counter to any wish for an inquiry, because he thought that those who represented proprietary rights had nothing to dread from-a full and ample inquiry. At the same time, he did not think the figures which his hon. Friend had quoted quite bore out the conclusion at which he arrived. He would remind his hon. Friend that, as a matter of fact, in the ordinary criminal work of the Sheriff Court the punishment of a fine was practically reserved to the offence of being drunk and disorderly. All other forms of criminal offence, such as assaults and so forth, were, as a rule, punished in another way. Therefore, it did not do to take the mere amount of the pecuniary fines, and think that they had got a means of comparison of the various kinds of crime. He thought that an inquiry would show that all those whom his hon. Friend represented did not entirely share the opinions he had expressed, and that the acquision of these rights for the benefit of the public could only be done with justice by paying those who at present

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    possessed them. Even then, unless the manners and customs of certain persons altered, it would be necessary, in the interests of the public, that there should be a close time, because some of the offences were the taking of salmon out of season, and also for capturing salmon by unsportsmanlike methods.
    MR. A. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that undoubtedly at present the mass of public opinion—for instance, in Galashiels, and that district—was against the present law, and, therefore, the wise course would be to inquire and see whether there were real and genuine grievances underlying this feeling, and whether, without doing injustice to anyone, those grievances could be redressed. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the right of fishing in all those waters was vested in individuals, and that those individuals had indefeasible rights which could only be bought out. For himself, he contended that while a large part of those waters was properly private property, a large portion was really Crown property, which in these days was as much as saying public property; and the private rights acquired in those Crown waters had been acquired without the knowledge and, as they believed, against the will of Parliament, owing to an oversight in the drafting of an Act which passed some years ago. That was one reason why there should be an inquiry.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: The questions that have been raised, and that could have been raised legitimately on this Vote, narrow themselves down to a small compass in point of number, though I will not say of importance. The Member for Banffshire (Sir W. Wedderburn) has referred to the question of foreshores with reference to their being used by fishermen for the purposes of their craft. My hon. Friend will recognise that now that the Scottish Fishery Bill has, by the wonderful forbearance, among other qualities, of Members of this House, become law, as far as this House is concerned—and I trust is on its way to become law in the other House—that there will be now in all districts a Fishery Committee representing the fishermen, who will be able to put in the most powerful manner the grievances and aspirations of their constituents before Parliament and the Government. But I
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    will not wait for that. If my hon. Friend will come to the Scottish Office, I have the assurance of the Lord Advocate that he will go very carefully into the legal position of this very vexed question, and ascertain how the matter stands at present, so as to enable the doubts regarding it to be cleared up. The Member for Buteshire asked a question with regard to the Secondary Education Minute. The second Minute, which was laid on the Table, and which was approved by an immense majority of this House, is the final decision of the Government on the matter, with the single exception of the alteration to take place next year, which is that £200 will be paid over to each County Committee and each Burgh Committee, as a sort of instalment before the main dividend is paid in accordance with the number of the population. I now come to the only other subject before us; but it is one of great importance, and that is the question of the Tweed. I thoroughly agree with Members who have spoken as to the great gravity of the situation. For 20 years past the sympathies of the people of the countryside have been entirely opposed to the law, and the manner in which it is enforced. I will give a few sample statistics. They are 20 years old, but I have very carefully watched the Returns since then, and I find that the same proportion still generally holds good. In the years 1873 and 1874 there were 580 people brought up on criminal charges in the district that borders on the Tweed, and the fines amounted to £580 and costs. In those two years 22,000 salmon were caught in the river by those who had right to the fisheries. That is to say, for every 37 salmon taken, one person was brought up on a criminal charge, and £1 was paid in fine and costs. In the County of Peebles one person in 100 in those two years was brought up on a criminal charges connected with the Tweed Fisheries; and I observe that in the last 10 years the same proportion obtains. That is a state of things which can only be accounted for in one of two ways—either that the population is exceptionally lawless, or that the law is exceptionally bad. The population is not exceptionally lawless. I have lived among them for 20 years, and I know that they require the least equipment of police to keep

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    them from breaking the law, and to keep the peace in ordinary matters. I have seen them under great excitement at several contested elections, and have never seen a population which is more able to keep the peace for themselves without extraneous interference. Therefore, the fault lies in the law, which is different from the law of England in these matters. An hon. Member asked me whether I will grant an inquiry. My own opinion is that except on the special question of the Charters we do not require inquiry. We have all the facts before us at the Scottish Office.
    MR. T. SHAW: But the Charters are a very important question.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: Yes; that is so. But the Government have the facts in their possession. The state of things is well known at the Scottish Office, and also so is the feeling of the population. The law is exceptional in the highest degree. If it were placed under the general Salmon Fisheries Acts of Scotland, that alone would be a very great improvement. But it might be said that the South bank of the Tweed is in England, and, therefore, that we could not make that alteration. But I have had a most important deputation from the English side, who informed me that they would be perfectly satisfied that the whole of the Tweed should be placed under the general law of Scotland, and not only so, but that that law should be altered in several particulars, which I will not enter into now, but which would greatly ameliorate the relations of the fishermen to the law. As to the question of Salmon Charters, that is a purely administrative matter, and upon that I am not afraid to face Parliament. Very much more has been done during the last year or so to assert the rights of the public as against the rights of individuals, or the straining of the rights of the Crown, than ever has been done before. The Committee which sat on the subject recommended that no further salmon leases should be given without the sanction of the Secretary for Scotland, and also that licences in the case of fresh grants should be given to the public. Last November I induced the Treasury to consent that no lease at all should henceforth he given without the consent of the Secretary for Scotland. That consent has in no case
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    been obtained from that day to this, and I have given it to be thoroughly understood that no fresh lease will be made except to the general fishermen of the district on the payment of a reasonable licence. That unfortunately, however, concerns a very small part of the Scottish Salmon Fisheries, and when we come to deal with the main question we shall have to see that as leases fall out they shall be brought under the same regulations. I have stated on two or three occasions this Session that until the Scottish Sea Fisheries Bill was out of the way we could not deal with the question of salmon, and I have promised that next Session I will lay the Bill on the Table. That promise I now repeat. I had hoped that something might have been done in regard to the Salmon Law in the Scottish Fisheries Bill. That is impossible at this time of the Session. If, however, as I earnestly hope, the Bill meets no difficulties in another place—and it is a Bill which will not bear retrenching, because it is the least we could give to the Scottish fishermen—then next year I hope to deal with the question of salmon fishing, and to deal with it in no ungenerous spirit, but in a spirit that will be advantageous to the public, and not unjust to individuals.
    SIR W. WEDDERBURNsuggested that any inquiry that was instituted with regard to salmon should be extended to trout fishing, which in some parts of Scotland was quite as much a burning question as salmon fishing was in other parts. In the Spey and its tributaries it was a matter which interested his constituents almost more than any other local question. He wished to ask a question on another point. There was a strong feeling in the North-East of Scotland that the Crofters Act should be extended to the small holders in these parts. It was not because his constituents had any complaint against the landlords personally. His county was particularly fortunate in its landlords, and it was against the system that complaint was made, and his constituents were extremely anxious that this protection of the fruits of their industry should be extended to a class which were in exactly the same industrial position as the crofters in the Western or Northern parts of Scotland. All the Members for the North-East of Scotland joined in an appeal

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    to the right hon. Gentleman on this subject. He therefore asked whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take any steps in this direction?
    DR. FARQUHARSONendorsed what his hon. Friend had said as to the desire for the extension of the Crofters Act. He did not know any other question on which his constituents had urged him so much.
    VISCOUNT WOLMERsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary for Scotland as to how certain matters stood regarding which the right hon. Gentleman had heard several times from the Trades Council of Edinburgh and district? That body had approached the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the professional waiters in Edinburgh, and the grievance they had laid before him was that they allowed certain public servants under the control of the Secretary for Scotland unfairly to compete with them in their professional duties during the hours for which they were paid to serve the public, and that sometimes special holidays were given them to enable them so to compete. He (Viscount Wolmer) had had no opportunity of testing personally whether the case was correctly stated; but it seemed to him it was a subject on which the Trades Council were perfectly within their rights in approaching the right hon. Gentleman, and he wished to ask whether the grievance was a substantial one; find, if so, what steps were to be taken to remedy it? The second point he wished to raise was what showed to him the very unfair disadvantage under which the Scottish Police laboured in the matter of superannuation compared with their English colleagues. He would give only one instance of the great disproportion.
    THE CHAIRMAN: This is matter of an Act of Parliament, and, therefore, not in Order.
    VISCOUNT WOLMER VISCOUNT WOLMER, on the point of Order, wished to point out that there was no Vote for the Scottish Police. It was paid for out of an Imperial account; but the Secretary for Scotland was responsible for its distribution, and this was the only Vote on which it would be possible to bring the question forward. The English Police were allowed 30–60ths of their pay as a pension after 25 years' approved service, but the Scottish Police got only 28–60ths after
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    28 years' approved service. There was no such corresponding disadvantage between Scotland and England in regard to pensions in the Customs or Post Office, and he would ask the Secretary for Scotland whether this subject had engaged his attention, and whether he did not admit the unfairness of the arrangement? He would also ask the right hon. Gentleman if, before the next Estimates were framed, he would approach two of his Colleagues on matters of great interest to Edinburgh? A large sum had been paid to the Crown as compensation for property taken by the North British Railway Company in Edinburgh. That money was claimed by the Lord Provost and Town Council of Edinburgh as due to Edinburgh for the improvement of the Castle, part of the laud of which had been taken, and for which this money was paid. He did not think any Member of this Committee would deny that money so paid to the public for a piece of the Castle rock actually taken by the Railway Company should be appropriated to no other purpose than that which would be to the interests of the City. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to see if the wishes of the Town Council of Edinburgh could not be carried out. Lastly, he would ask whether before next year the Secretary for Scotland would endeavour to induce the First Commissioner of Works to make provision for the proper maintenance of Holyrood Palace?
    MR. H. SMITHsaid, as resident in Edinburgh, he supported the appeal of the noble Lord (Lord Wolmer) with regard to the sum paid for that part of Princes Street Gardens which had been taken from the Crown. There had been a great deal of litigation about the matter. The Bills in Parliament were opposed by the Town Council, and the main subject of interest to the inhabitants of Edinburgh was the question whether the contemplated alteration in the railway would alter for the worse the appearance of Princes Street Gardens. They were unsuccessful in their opposition, and the Railway Company got power, not only to take off a part of the Gardens which belonged to the city, but to detach a point of the rock upon which Edinburgh Castle was built. It was perfectly plain that the operations of the Railway Company had not inflicted any injury upon

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    the nation at large, but had inflicted serious injury upon the inhabitants of the City of Edinburgh. That being so, the sum of £2,000 ought not to go into the general coffers of the State, but ought to be given to the Corporation of the city. Then, he wished to say a word in reference to another complaint by the noble Lord. He (Mr. H. Smith) had also been made aware of the grievance of the professional waiters in the City of Edinburgh. They were called upon to compete on very unfavourable terms with those public servants who were somewhat numerous in Edinburgh, and who were employed and paid by the State as attendants at the Picture Galleries and in the Courts of Law, and elsewhere. He thought the Secretary for Scotland might well be called upon to inquire into that grievance, with a view to its being remedied.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, he would point out that the ground in Princes Street Gardens referred to had been given by the Crown to the city for an indefinite period. There was every reason, in his opinion, that the money should go to the City of Edinburgh.
    MR. W. WHITELAWsaid, with regard to the Secondary Education Minute, that in the discussion which took place last May a complaint was made that, generally speaking, the burghs were insufficiently represented on the Committees, and the Secretary for Scotland promised that an inquiry would be made, and that, if necessary, he would bring in a Supplementary Minute. He wished to know if the right hon. Gentleman had made the promised inquiry? He should be glad to think they had heard the last of this matter, and whether the right hon. Gentleman was in a position to tell them that the matter would have further attention.
    MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, having taken some interest in the restoration of the Castle and Palace mentioned by the noble Lord (Lord Wolmer) he supported his view. With regard to the Princes Street Gardens, no money would have been paid at all but for the action of the Edinburgh Town Council. The Corporation fought the matter and bore all the expenses, and then the Crown, as usual, came in and collared the money. He
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    thought it should be returned. Then, with regard to the Fatal Accidents Inquiry Bill, which had been dropped, he regretted that the Government had withdrawn the measure, and asked when it was proposed to re-introduce it? Legislation on this matter was urgently asked for by the working men of Scotland, and he hoped the Secretary for Scotland would give them an assurance that the Bill would be re-introduced.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member is not strictly in Order.
    MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, he was not going to discuss the question, but a Bill, introduced six months ago, had been withdrawn, and he wanted to urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of having another brought in as soon as possible.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. Member could not argue as to the question of a future Bill.
    MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, he thought he had a right to complain on the Vote for the right hon. Gentleman's salary that he had not gone on with the Bill, and to ask him when he was going to produce another measure of a similar character. This was a question that commanded a great deal of attention in Scotland. He knew there was some objection to the measure, especially as to the jury; but he hoped the Government would re-introduce it, with a provision for the jury system, and pass it into law. He was aware that the dropped Bill did not contain all that was desired; but it would have been a great advance on the present state of the law. Under its provisions friends of the parties could appear at the inquiry, or they could be represented by counsel. The inquiry would be immediate and automatic. There would be sworn evidence, copies of all the papers and documents could be had by the parties interested, and there would be the great advantage of publicity and an open Court. He would ask the Government to hold out some hope that a measure of the kind would be re-introduced and pressed forward. Generally speaking, he thought it would have the support on both sides of the House, and he had no doubt its operation, when passed, would remedy some of the grievances complained of in Scotland. The request was a reasonable one, and he hoped to hear that the right hon.

    1075
    Gentleman was prepared to give a reply that would satisfy working-men and their families in Scotland.
    MR. PAULsaid, be agreed with the hon. Gentleman in urging the desirability of the Government introducing another Fatal Accidents Bill early next Session. But he would point out that the last Bill under went, after it passed through the Standing Committee, at the instance of the Government, a considerable change. As it was introduced, it provided for an inquiry before the Sheriff without a jury. He was sure it would be the desire of the great majority of the working classes in his constituency that the Bill, if introduced again, should provide for an inquiry before the Sheriff with a jury. As the Lord Advocate had so far recognised that as to put upon the Paper an Amendment providing the machinery for inquiry by jury, he hoped they might take that as an earnest that the Government would, at the earliest possible opportunity, insure that the working classes of Scotland should have, in the case of all fatal accidents occurring to any of them in the course of their employment, not only a full inquiry with the publicity which was desirable, but also such a tribunal as would command their general confidence and respect. He wished also to refer to the points which had been so ably raised by his noble Friend and Colleague (Lord Wolmer), especially as regarded the sum of £2,000 which he claimed on behalf of the city. He (Mr. Paul) submitted that the city was entitled, not to ask this from the Treasury as a favour, but to claim it as a right. The money properly belonged to them, and if there was any doubt about their getting it, it was merely because of the want of legal machinery. He understood it to be the view of the Treasury that the only way in which this money could be paid over was by placing an item upon the Estimates, and he hoped they would have from the Secretary for Scotland a positive assurance that this sum would appear upon the Scottish Estimates for next year. He desired also to support every word which his noble Friend had said about the superannuation of the Scottish police. He thought his noble Friend had said this was the only case of unequal payments in the two countries.
    VISCOUNT WOLMER: No, no!
    MR. PAULsaid, he was glad to hear that, as he knew there were other cases of a like kind. Then, with regard to the question of the professional waiters, he had received a communication from the Trades Council of Edinburgh. He understood their strongest ground of complaint was that persons in the employment of the Government were allowed to pursue the avocation of waiters in the time which belonged to the Government.
    SIR R. TEMPLEasked permission to say that while he had confidence in the management of the Scotch Education Department, he would like to have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that no money granted for elementary education would be given for secondary education until the exact state of the law was ascertained. This was a matter of consequence, not only because of the practice in England, but because of questions arising in England. He merely put the question, saying nothing with regard to the Scotch Department for Education.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: Sir, the first question, in which we are told a grievance is felt, is that of the professional waiters against the messengers in the Government Offices. That is a question I have gone into very completely, and I have laid down, so far as it is in my power, very positive orders about it. I conceive that my hon. Friend the Member for South Edinburgh strains the privilege of Government very strongly when he says that a Government servant owes the Government his whole time. What a Government servant owes to the public is the number of hours which are required to carry out the duties which the Government impose upon him. That is the principle which has been carried into every branch of the Public Service. A man is allowed to do with the time which is his own what he likes. It is really just as hard to prevent a messenger from waiting after office hours or from waiting at a Highland gathering during the fortnight which constitutes his leave as it would have been to prevent Sir Henry Taylor or Anthony Trollope from writing books out of office hours. I have inquired at every office in which there are any messengers who wait, and in all cases I find that either in the cases where they have done so they waited

    1077
    after office hours at dinner parties, or that, when they waited in the daytime, the day in which they so waited for private profit was strictly deducted from their fortnight's leave. The Regulation appears to be perfectly just, and to that Regulation the messengers will be strictly kept. The next question is that of superannuation of the police. I do not think it will be possible for me to enter into that. Police superannuation is governed by an Act which was passed in the last Parliament, and is not a matter which can be properly discussed on the Vote for the Salary of the Secretary for Scotland. The hon. Member for Perthshire wants to know whether burghs might have a larger representation on the County Committees. I cannot say that any burghs have applied in such a manner as to bring their claims very seriously before the Office. If they do so, and if I find that there is a real desire on the part of any important burghs to be specially represented, I shall not have the slightest hesitation in laying an additional Minute upon the Table if it is desired. Then comes the question of my speaking to other Members of the Government on the money matter referred to by my noble Friend. I do not know whether it is strictly regular for one Member of the Government to speak to another upon a matter concerning the latter's Department, but I may say that the Scotch Office has found the Treasury exceedingly generous within the last 12 months. On two occasions large sums of money—thousands of pounds—have fallen to the Treasury under the intestacy custom in connection with the burgh of Ayr; and in consequence of the urgent representations of the hon. Member for Ayr to the Scotch Office, and from the Scotch Office to the Treasury, I am glad to say that in both cases the entire sum of money was made over to the Corporation for the public purposes of the town. Therefore, I think the Scotch Office is not unwilling to put in a good word in that quarter. That is, perhaps, all I can say. As regards inquiry into fatal accidents, it was absolutely necessary to withdraw the last Bill on the subject in consequence of the understanding arrived at between the two sides of the House. It always was a contentious Bill. It was blocked by an hon. Member who most certainly would
    1078
    have made good his objections to it. Since then very great pressure has been put upon the Government by, as far as I can make out, every body of people who asked for the Bill, and my right hon. Friend was told in the most 'decided language—with great vehemence in some instances—by hon. Members and representatives of Trade Bodies that the Bill would be valueless and would be opposed if Jury Clauses were not put in. The Government have always thought that the objection to the Jury Clauses was that they would weight the Bill. We were prepared to introduce Jury Clauses, but that would have made the Bill more contentious than it already was. Now, Sir, I think I have answered the questions brought forward upon my salary, and I hope I may appeal to the Committee to pass the Vote so that we may proceed to others.
    SIR W. WEDDERBURNsaid, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman of his questions with regard to trout fishing and the extension of the Crofters Act to the north-eastern Counties.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, that these were questions relating to future legislation. They were certainly both before the Government, but he could not speak at any length, or give any definite promise on them on this Vote.
    VISCOUNT WOLMERasked whether he was to understand that the Scotch Office would approach the Treasury with regard to the Princes Street Gardens? He would, at the same time, ask him to bear in mind the question of superannuation.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, the first step in regard to the question of the money would be that the Edinburgh Corporation should approach him.
    MR. A. C. MORTONasked when the Government would reintroduce the Fatal Accidents Inquiry Bill?
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, the Bill would be reintroduced. It was a measure they had very much at heart. He could not say more.
    Vote agreed to.
    2. £15,858, to complete the sum for Fishery Board, Scotland.
    MR. CROMBIEsaid, at present the sea police force, which was under the command of the Fishery

    1079
    Board, was very inadequate for the purpose for which it existed. The force was now the same as it was in 1885, but since 1885 the Fishery Board had been allowed to shut certain areas against trawling; and farther, the number of trawlers had increased something like four-fold. Therefore it was perfectly obvious that if the police force in 1885 was inadequate, it must be sadly inadequate now. Then there was a small gunboat, the Jackal, and for only one season of the year there were three gunboats put at the disposal of the Fishery Board by the Admiralty. When they looked at the speed at which these boats went they would find that the average speed was five to seven knots an hour. Those boats were intended to catch steam trawlers, some of which went at the rate of nine knots an hours. He need hardly point out, therefore, that it was no use setting a boat which went at the rate of five or seven knots an hour to catch one which went at the rate of nine knots. He wished that the speed of the gunboats could be increased in order that the trawlers might be more closely watched. Another subject which he wished to speak on was harbour accommodation on the coast of Scotland. Since the passing of the Sea Fisheries Bill they were somewhat better off than they were before in this respect. The sum of £3,000 a year was given by the old Act of Parliament. That had not always been entirely spent on harbours, and it was perfectly impossible to carry out a complete scheme of harbour extension with such a sum. But under the new Act they were allowed to use a sum as a basis for borrowing a larger amount, and he hoped this arrangement would prove sufficient. He wished, however, to point out that the money which was accumulated from the herring brand surplus should, as in the case of the Ayr Burghs, go in aid of Scottish harbours, because the Committee which sat on this subject reported in favour of such an arrangement. The sum of £31,000 accrued from this source, and he hoped the Treasury would follow the same generous policy they had pursued towards the Ayr Burghs, and give back the money to help in the improvement of harbours round the coast. In connection with the money coming from these herring brands, he did not think that the
    1080
    sum given back was fairly spent. Some 90 per cent. of the money was raised on the East Coast, and the remaining portion on the West Coast; but he regretted to say that almost all of the money given back was spent on the West Coast in telegraphic communication. He hoped that in future a fairer arrangement would he observed, and that the East Coast would benefit proportionally to the money it contributed.
    MR. BEITHsaid, that the Finance Clause of the Sea Fisheries Bill having been dropped, the Scottish Fishery Board would be in a very weak position financially for the carrying out of the measure. He wished to ask the Secretary for Scotland what steps he intended to take to place at the disposal of the Fishery Board a larger sum of money than was provided by the Vote. There were two objects which urgently required a larger sum of money. One was the improvement of piers and harbours, and he would instance the case of Nairn Harbour, on which the local community had spent no less a sum than £38,000, but which had become inadequate for the accommodation of the larger boats that were now used in the carrying on of the sea fisheries. They had recently a liability of £2,500 for making the harbour safe for the protection of such boats. The Fishery Board recognised the importance of this harbour and the justice of its claim; but the answer to-day made was "No funds." They said—
    "They stand second or third on the list of those we mean to give a grant to when we have funds, but no funds being in existence, the position is very awkward and difficult.'
    The obligation he had referred to rested on the town of Nairn, and the people naturally felt extremely anxious that the Fishery Board, by the command of funds, should be enabled to carry out what they admitted was required, and give a grant to the town in order that the harbour might be put in a satisfactory state. In regard to the question of sea police, the Fishery Board, owing to the inefficiency of the vessels at its command, was unable to enforce its bye-laws. Moray Firth had been closed to trawling by an order of the Fishery Board. In consequence of the want of a sufficient police to see the order given effect to, trawling was carried on night and day in the Moray Firth just

    1081
    as if no order had been made on the subject. This was a condition of things which ought not for the credit of the country to be allowed to continue. He hoped that the Secretary for Scotland would be able to see his way to make a demand on the Treasury, and that the Treasury would accede to it.
    MR. WASONsaid, he wished to join in the appeals which had been made to the Secretary for Scotland to see that proper police protection was given to the line fishermen in those waters in which trawling was prohibited. The Firth of Clyde was closed to beam trawling, except in a small portion of it, and he hoped before long the whole of these waters would be closed to seine trawlers as well as beam trawlers. In that case it would become very necessary that there should be an effective policing of the Firth of Clyde, so that the orders of the Fishery Board might be carried into effect. He had had some complaints of great damage done by trawlers to the crammel nets of the fishermen at Ballantrae, and in many cases the men who had caused that damage had not been brought to justice. With regard to the question of harbours, he believed that, so far as the South West of Scotland was concerned, practically there were next to no harbours at all, and he did not think a shilling of Government money had been spent upon them for many years past. If they wished really to see a harbour which was in a disgraceful state, he would advise hon. Members to go to one of the most charming little places in the whole of the South West of Scotland—namely, Portpatrick. The harbour was originally constructed for the short sea passage between Scotland and Ireland, and an enormous sum of money—something like £100,000—was spent upon it by the Government. The harbour was now in a worse condition than before that enormous sum was spent upon it, and he hoped that the South West of Scotland would not be forgotten in this matter by the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. COCHRANEwished to call attention to a point which had already been alluded to with reference to the opening of certain portions of the Clyde to trawlers. He believed that every hon. Member who was acquainted with the dis-
    1082
    trict sympathised with the line fishermen in this matter. Last year a very influential and important deputation waited upon the Secretary for Scotland on the subject. Under the Act of 1889 the whole of the Clyde was closed to trawlers, but permission was given to the Fishery Board by a bye-law to throw open any portion they liked to a certain class of trawlers. Soon after the Act was passed the Fishery Board made a bye-law throwing open a part of the river which was essentially the part which they should have kept closed, as it was of all others the place where the fish bred. It was within territorial waters, and was the very narrowest part of the Clyde. The result of opening it was that the line fishermen of the Clyde had been subjected to great hardship. There were 18 trawlers now fishing in the part of the Clyde which had been open to them. They used originally to trawl in the whole of the Clyde, but were now confined to the narrow portion of the river he spoke of. There they trawled day and night, raking up all the fish, and also the spawning beds. The consequence was that the line fishermen were unable to get their lines out, and that if they did get them out they were unable to catch many fish. It was alleged that the trawlers did not exceed eight tons in burden, but the fishermen declared that they did exceed that burden, and they had been known to carry as much as 50 tons of gravel from one part of the Clyde to another. The deputation asked the right hon. Gentleman to produce the Report of the officer who had inquired into the subject, and the right hon. Gentleman promised that the Report should be forthcoming; but he (Mr. Cochrane) had never seen or heard of it since. The Secretary for Scotland also promised a new inquiry. Sir Thomas Boyd and another member of the Fishery Board had held an inquiry. The investigation was not, however, considered sufficient by the fishermen. It was held in Greenock and Rothesay. Inasmuch as nearly the whole of the 18 trawlers belonged to Greenock, it was considered that the opinion of people in Greenock ought not to influence the Fishery Board in the matter. The Secretary for Scotland had promised a new inquiry, but he (Mr. Cochrane) thought the right hon. Gentleman had not ful-

    1083
    filled the letter, and that he had hardly fulfilled the spirit of that undertaking. In reply to a question put to him in the House, the right hon. Gentleman said an inquiry had been made by Mr. Anderson Smith, a member of the Scottish Fishery Board, into the allegation of the Clyde fishermen that the boats exceeded the limit of eight tons, and he considered that the allegation was not proved. He (Mr. Cochrane) should like to know whether the gentlemen who made the inquiry had the boats measured, and also what the measurements were. He had now to raise a rather difficult and delicate question, because it affected the Chairman of the Fishery Board, who was formerly a Member of the House of Commons, and who, he believed, had a great many personal friends in the House. A considerable question of principle was involved in the matter in reference to Government officials interfering in political contests, and it was also desirable to clear up a charge that was made on a former occasion by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) against Colonel Russell, who was Parliamentary candidate for Aberdeenshire at the time that Mr. Esslemont was made Chairman of the Fishery Board.
    MR. BEITH MR. BEITH, rising to Order, asked whether the question referred to by the hon. Member could be discussed on the Vote before the Committee?
    MR. COCHRANEremarked, that the question distinctly affected the character of the Chairman of the Scottish Fishery Board.
    THE CHAIRMAN: As I understand, the Chairman of the Fishery Board is upon this Vote, and if that is so, although I think it is somewhat doubtful how far the hon. Gentleman is justified in going into matters apart from the duties of the Chairman of the Board, I do not think at the present moment I can stop him.
    MR. COCHRANEwent on to say that he had put a question to the Secretary for Scotland as to the conduct of the Chairman of the Fishery Board in addressing a public meeting in September, 1892, in support of a Parliamentary candidate for East Aberdeenshire, and had inquired whether the interference of officials of the Government in Parliamentary elections was in accordance with the Regulations. The right hon.
    1084
    Gentleman made a somewhat lengthy reply, and quoted the speech which Mr. Esslemont delivered. The right hon. Gentleman stated that Mr. Esslemont went to the meeting in order to reply to personal attacks upon him. The question arose, of course, whether these attacks were such as made it necessary that Mr. Esslemont should break through the Regulations of the Office by addressing an election meeting. After the right hon. Gentleman's answer the hon. Member for North Aberdeenshire (Mr. Hunter) asked the following question:—
    "Is it not a fact that the sole topic Mr. Esslemont dealt with was to contradict a lie?"
    He (Mr. Cochrane) thought this was a very serious statement to make when Colonel Russell was not in the House to defend himself. He had carefully examined the extracts from Mr. Esslemont's speech, read to the House by the Secretary for Scotland, and as far as he could make out, the only attack that had been made upon that gentleman by Colonel Russell consisted of a statement that as a Member of the House of Commons he had spoken against the Vote for the Fishery Board in 1888. Having referred to Hansard, he (Mr. Cochrane) found that Mr. Esslemont did speak against that Vote in 1888, and expressed the opinion that £800 a year was too large a salary to give to the Chairman of the Fishery Board, when nothing was given to the non-official members.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I do not think this is material to the Vote. What the Chairman of the Fishery Board said on some other occasion has nothing to do with the Vote. The answer given by the Secretary for Scotland was that the Chairman of the Board went to the meeting to defend himself from the attacks that had been made upon him.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he only wanted to show that these attacks were unfounded, and were not of such a character as called for Mr. Esslemont's interference in the election.
    MR. C. CAMERON MR. C. CAMERON (Glasgow, College), on a point of Order, asked whether it was competent for the hon. Gentleman to refer to matters that occurred during a period not embraced by this year's Estimates?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I have already pointed out that to refer to what the Chairman of the Board did before he

    1085
    was appointed Chairman is out of Order, but with regard to his conduct on this particular occasion I cannot interfere. What he did as Chairman may be brought under the notice of the Committee.
    SIR C. CAMERON: My point is that what he did as Chairman at a period anterior to that embraced by this Vote cannot be dealt with.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must remember that the answer given was that the Chairman went there to defend himself from attacks, and if those attacks were made before the period covered by the Vote, that is a matter which the Committee could consider. To go into details, moreover, as to what he said and did is out of Order.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he would merely add that at the political meeting Mr. Esslemont said—
    "You know the duty before you well, and I am not going to ask any man here to give a vote for one candidate more than another."
    This was obviously a very considerable hint as to what he was present at the meeting for. The Secretary for Scotland had stated that Mr. Esslemont received from the Scotch Office a statement as to what the official custom was before he went to the meeting. He was, therefore, aware of the dangers he ran and, in view of the fact that he was a Member of the House of Commons when a similar case was dealt with, and the present Member for. South Belfast (Mr. Johnston) was deprived of his office of Inspector of Fisheries in Ireland for similar conduct, the warning given to Mr. Esslemont ought to have been sufficient to deter him from going to the meeting. But there was a further question connected with the honour and good faith of the Fishery Board. Colonel Russell called attention to this: that he had been told that day, on what seemed very good authority, that one of the first things the Chairman of the Fishery Board proposed to do was to open the Moray Firth for four months in the year to trawlers. At the end of the meeting a gentleman got up and read a telegram from Mr. Esslemont—
    "Moray Firth rumour or statement absolutely false. Neither suggested nor proposed anything of the sort. Contradict this at public meeting."
    That was a very distinct and clear statement by Mr. Esslemont. He would not go into all the correspondence which
    1086
    passed on the matter. He would merely call attention to the fact that this statement of Mr. Esslemont had been characterised by the leading paper in Scotland as being a falsehood. [Cries of "What paper?"] The Scotsman. This gentleman, Mr. Esslemont, who was so tender about his honour that he was compelled to go several miles on a snowy night to attend a political meeting in order to refute these very mild attacks made upon him, had not found it necessary to his honour and dignity, or to the honour and dignity of the Fishery Board, of which he was Chairman, to make any reply whatever to the distinct statements in The Scotsman. He would quote an extract from The Scotsman which appeared in The Daily Free Press on December 23.
    MR. DALZIEL: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I beg to ask your ruling, Sir, on a point of Order. I wish to ask whether, in bringing a charge against the Chairman of the Scottish Fishery Board for attending a particular political meeting, the hon. Member is justified in quoting from a leading article in The Scotsman?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I cannot say that in this particular instance the hon. Member is out of Order, although he is somewhat near the line. The particular charge, I understand, against the Chairman of the Board was attending a political meeting and making a statement there. I do not think the hon. Member should go into other matters.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, that the second charge he was bringing under the notice of the Secretary for Scotland was that Mr. Esslemont sent this telegram to be read at a public meeting; that he invited the receiver of it to read it; and that in it he made a statement which had been declared in a public print to be not a true one. He considered that in that regard the honour of the Chairman of the Fishery Board was distinctly at stake as to whether this telegram was true or false. It was maintained that the telegram was sent for political purposes.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: It did not contain a falsehood.
    MR. COCHRANE: The telegram did not contain the truth.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: Do you say it is untrue?
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he was not in a position to say whether it was or was not. He was not sufficiently acquainted with the facts. But what he said was, that it was stated to be a falsehood by The Scotsman, and that statement had never, so far as he was aware, been refuted by Mr. Esslemont. The quotation was—
    "Never was a man in a more unenviable position than Mr. Esslemont. He has, in the service of his Party, descended to the dirtiest of dirty work—"
    [Cries of "Order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! It is irregular to bring a charge against a gentleman in this way, supported merely by some matter in a newspaper which may or may not be accurate. If the hon. Member makes a charge he ought to support the charge by material evidence, and if he does not I must rule him out of Order.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, he was not sufficiently acquainted with the facts to make the charge himself; nor did he wish to make a personal attack on Mr. Esslemont. But what he did wish to do was to call the attention of the Committee to the difference of the treatment meted out to this gentleman and the treatment meted out to the hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. Johnston)—
    THE CHAIRMAN: But then the Secretary for Scotland is not accountable for that. That was done by a former Government. The Secretary for Scotland and the Government are only accountable for their own acts.
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, that what he wished to ask was, what were the principles on which such questions were dealt with? The hon. Member for South Belfast was dismissed for taking part in a political meeting, which was a meeting of the Church Synod in Ireland, and it was on that account that he received his dismissal; and he wanted to know how it was that, after that warning, the Chairman of the Fishery Board had been permitted to take part in these political meetings?
    MR. DALZIEL: Are they meetings or a meeting?
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, that after the example of Mr. Johnston—
    MR. DALZIEL: I rise to Order. I wish to ask whether it was one, or more than one, meeting?
    MR. COCHRANEsaid, that Mr. Esslemont sent a telegram to one meeting and personally attended another. He did not wish to make a personal attack on Mr. Esslemont. He had never met him, and there was nothing personal in this matter. He merely wished to clear up the ground, and to say that it was a great hardship that one gentleman should be dismissed from the Public Service for the part he took in political meetings, while another who did so should not. He did not see why the same fate should not be meted out in both cases.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, that the hon. Member had said quite sufficient to show that if his views were accepted, to take a place in the Public Service would become intolerable to any man of delicacy and honour. What were the charges brought against Mr. Esslemont and the Government? The serious part of the charge was that a gentleman in an official position had gone to assist the candidature of a political candidate at a political election. That was the only matter which concerned the Government, and the ground on which he would have to defend the Government. What course could the Government adopt in this matter? Were they to censure Mr. Esslemont for what he did? Were they to follow the example of the course taken in the case of Mr. Johnston, under very different circumstances, and dismiss him from the Public Service? He would read what Mr. Esslemont did do, and would ask any single Member to say whether it merited such a step. Mr. Esslemont took absolutely no part whatever in the election that was then going on, until certain charges were made against him. These charges had been stated by the hon. Member. They were personal charges against Mr. Esslemont—charges that he proposed to reduce the expenditure of the Fishery Board, and afterwards took a salary upon that Board. But whatever these charges were, Mr. Esslemont in his speech never went outside them in any particular, except in the passage which, after the speech the hon. Member had just made, he was absolutely bound to read to the House. Mr. Esslemont was the first speaker at the meeting. He said that it should be understood that, in the position he now occupied, not being a candidate, and not seeking the suffrages of the

    1089
    electors, he should not be attacked by any of the candidates before them. He then went straight, and in moderate language, into the specific charges which had been made against him, and then they came to the latter portion of his speech, in which he protested that he should have been spared any misrepresentation, and should have been left alone in the position which he had undertaken. He added—
    "You know the duty before you well; and I am not going to ask any man here to give a rote for one candidate more than another."
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Was the candidate there?
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, he could not speak as to that. In the report he had the candidate was not mentioned as being there.
    MR. HOZIER: I do not think he was.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, he had read these words, which were the words which had been quoted as showing that Mr. Esslemont was taking the part of a partisan in the election. They were the words which the hon. Member had picked | out for that purpose. But he had noticed that there was not a single cheer to show that anyone in this House put that construction upon them. Mr. Esslemont had sought to justify himself in the face of neighbours on whose good opinion he set great value. He went to that meeting, although he had been warned by the Scottish Office of the official custom that members of the permanent Civil Service ought not to take part in a contested election, and that was the part which Mr. Esslemont took. He would ask any gentleman in the House whether for that indiscretion—if it was an indiscretion—and under the circumstances, the strong measure should have been taken of dismissing Mr. Esslemont from the Service? He thought it was absolutely impossible that such a course could for a moment have been followed, and, therefore, he thought that on that point he had justified his own action.
    MR. HOZIER: Did the Government tell him not to do it again?
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, that he had written to Mr. Esslemont several times, but he could not remember the words, and he considered that the preliminary warning was enough. Mr. Esslemont went and made his speech, and he was
    1090
    bound to say that he did not feel inclined subsequently to censure Mr. Esslemont for what he said on that occasion. But the hon. Member said that Mr. Esslemont took part in another meeting, and he founded that charge upon the telegram in which Mr. Esslemont referred to the charge of what he had said within the precincts of the Boardroom. He was really surprised that that question, at any rate, had again been brought before the House. What was Mr. Esslemont's position? He was a member of a Board concerned with the discharge of public business. But that Board, for all administrative purposes, was the same as one man. What passed at that Board was never known outside. If there was one axiom in public life it was that proceedings at Boards of the nature of the Admiralty and the Fishery Board were absolutely confidential. On a disputed point within the Board, no member was entitled to go outside and give his own version of what had passed in private at the Board; and a man who betrayed the confidence of the Board laid himself open to flat contradiction, and deserved no other contradiction. No person who was attacked by a colleague on account of what had passed behind the scenes and around the table was bound to discuss the matter at all. But then came the question whether the gentleman attacked ought to leave the matter absolutely alone, or simply say, in the plainest terms, that the statement put before the public was not the true one. A man who had been so shamefully used as Mr. Esslemont by a colleague bringing forward matters which passed in the strictest confidence had a right to take either of these courses—to treat it with contempt, or to say that the charge did not convey a just impression to the public. He was sorry that question had been brought up a second time before this House. But as to entering into it because The Scotsman newspaper had used violent language against Mr. Esslemont, he was surprised that the hon. Member, if he had any real charge to make against Mr. Esslemont—any charge of falsehood—he forgot the exact terms of the | passage the hon. Member quoted—he should have been prepared to make that charge himself. It was easy to blacken the character of a public man by reading an offensive and scurrilous passage out

    1091
    of a newspaper in that House. Was there a man in that House who had not such things written about him in some paper or other? But were they to be read aloud in that House along with the allegation that if he did not answer them in a Court of Law, or take some steps to have his character vindicated, he was suffering under grave imputations? Who would stand such an ordeal as that? Absolutely not one. He did not want to enter into the case of Mr. Johnston. That question was all discussed not long ago in Mr. Johnston's presence, and that hon. Gentleman took such a kindly, pleasant, and honourable part in the discussion that he (Sir G. Trevelyan) disliked extremely to say a word about it in his absence. The difference, however, in Mr. Johnston's case was that he used pretty strong Party language over and over again after the Government had earnestly and pathetically warned, entreated, and urged him not to do so. But he did not want to make charges against Mr. Johnston. He was exceedingly sorry that this question had been brought a second time before the House of Commons, and he could not think that there were any hon. Member who would take a strong view of it.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think anybody will blame the right hon. Gentleman for defending in warm language any official whom he had appointed, and who, even before he was an official, was no doubt on friendly terms with him, nor will I say a single word against Mr. Esslemont, whom in common with all the other Members of the House I respect for the manner in which he discharged his Parliamentary duties. But I do not think the question raised by my hon. Friend is quite so simple as the right hon. Gentleman appears to suppose. In the first place, the attack on this subject was not an attack upon the Government. If it had been the case, the proper time would have been on the salary of the right hon. Gentleman and not upon the Fisheries Vote. The criticisms my hon. Friend made were not passed upon the Government, but upon the course which Mr. Esslemont thought it is duty to pursue in the face of certain statements or attacks made with regard to his conduct on the Fishery Board. I shall not enter into the question of how far it is or is not
    1092
    honourable for one member of the Fishery Board to make a statement to the public with regard to the action taken by another member of the Board in regard to matters which should remain confidential. I do not think there could be anything more disastrous to the Public Service than that a habit should spring up of members of the same Board, first discussing questions of public importance in private, and then going about the country giving their own version of what their colleagues on the Board had done. I agree with the general view that what passes at a Board should be as confidential between members of the Board or Department as if they were secrets discussed between Cabinet Ministers with closed doors; and, although Mr. Esslemont might have received provocation on the occasion referred to, I think it would be as disastrous to the Public Service that members of the Board should go and make public explanations at contested elections as that they should discuss in public what had been gone over between themselves in private. To take a parallel case. When I was Irish Secretary, and when the right hon. Gentleman was Irish Secretary, it was constantly the practice for attacks to be made in and out of this House by Nationalist Members from Ireland upon permanent officials in Ireland. Suppose those permanent officials had taken the view that it was their duty to go before their old constituents or their neighbours and publicly relieve themselves of the odium heaped upon them, because they were alleged to have done this or that in private. The whole government of the country, if such a course were pursued, would fall into complete dissolution, the whole Civil Service of the country would be dragged into the vortex of Party controversy, and it would be absolutely impossible to prevent this country from sinking into the abyss into which other democratic countries have dropped, I do not think the contention would bear examination for a moment, and do think it is a very serious responsibility for any gentleman to attack the conduct of a permanent official of the Crown. I do not say it ought never to be done; we all know it is constantly done, but the responsibility of doing so is great. But when it is done, if it were said to the permanent officials who had been attacked in their

    1093
    administrative work, or whose characters had been impugned—"You may rush into print, or go upon a public platform, or take part in a contested election in order to justify yourselves," the thing will be found impossible. I do not wish to attack Mr. Esslemont, or even to weigh the amount of provocation he has received, which, for anything I know, may have been great; but still I think it is the duty of the Government of the day at the time to lay down clearly and publicly the principles on which alone the Civil Service can be carried on, and under which it is absolutely impossible to allow gentlemen in the position of Mr. Esslemont to take part in these public meetings at any time, and least of all at a time when a contested election is going on in the very constituency for which within a few days he had himself been Member. It will be impossible for any man to say that Mr. Esslemont's appearance on a public platform in his old constituency did not have, and was not known to have, a great political significance. He ended his speech by saying every man knew how to do his duty, and he was not going to tell them. Those words, coining from an ex-Member, and spoken at a meeting convened, I presume, in the interests of one candidate, had, and must have had, political weight. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman, while defending warmly, as he had a right to do, both the character and the conduct of Mr. Esslemont, does not take this occasion for laying down what I believe must be the right hon. Gentleman's view, the true principles and policy of this matter, as I am sure they are in the view of the Committee—the true principles of public policy—namely, that the Civil servants of the Crown holding permanent appointments must on no provocation be induced to take part in public meetings which had, and were intended to have, political influence and political weight in the struggle that goes on between two Parties.
    MR. DALZIELsaid, he was sure the Committee had heard with satisfaction the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and so far as he and his friends were concerned the matter might-be allowed to rest. He wished he could think that this attack on Mr. Esslemont had been brought forward purely in the interests of public policy and in the in-
    1094
    terests of the purity of the Civil Service. If the hon. Member who had raised the subject had known Mr. Esslemont he would not have made the charge he had made. He could only express his surprise that the hon. Member had not shown the zeal he had displayed in this connection in other quarters. Did the hon. Member know that the Deputy Chairman of the Fishery Board, who was Sheriff Guthrie Smith, was an active supporter of the noble Lord the Member for West Edinburgh during his electioneering campaign. ["No."] Well, he was Chairman of the Liberal Unionist Association before the election.
    VISCOUNT WOLMER: He was once.
    MR. DALZIELsaid, that if he were not mistaken, Sheriff Guthrie Smith gave his moral support to the noble Lord before the election, and showed his zeal in the contest by acting as his host during that election.
    VISCOUNT WOLMERwas understood to dissent.
    MR. DALZIELsaid, at any rate, he was not wrong in saying that Sheriff Guthrie Smith was a supporter of the noble Lord. Why, then, was this charge made against Mr. Esslemont if Sheriff Guthrie Smith, who was Deputy Chairman of the Fishery Board, was to be allowed to attend political meetings?
    MR. COCHRANEasked whether the Deputy Chairman received a salary?
    MR. DALZIELsaid, he was inclined to believe he did not; but that made no difference. What they had to do was to deal with Sheriff Guthrie Smith in his official capacity. Moreover, if this charge had been made in the interest of the purity of the Civil Service, notice would have been taken of the action of the Sheriffs in Scotland. He knew one Sheriff who went from door to door canvassing on behalf of a particular candidate, and that Sheriff might, a fortnight afterwards, have had to try cases in connection with the election. So long as that continued, a charge such as that now brought against Mr. Esslemont was ridiculous and absurd.
    VISCOUNT WOLMER: It is the invariable custom that Sheriffs do take part in politics. As regards the position of Sheriff Guthrie Smith on the Fishery Board, I maintain that the hon. Member has made out no case whatever. The

    1095
    only Member of the Fishery Board who is paid a salary by the State is the Chairman. The others are, without exception, gentlemen who give their services gratuitously.
    DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, that it was evident that the Tories of Aberdeenshire were still smarting from the defeat which Mr. Esslemont inflicted on them at the General Election. He had no doubt Members would be pleased to learn that this mean and ignominious attack had the effect of greatly increasing Mr. Esslemont's reputation in the constituency. Mr. Esslemont's character had been attacked, and he should have thought that the first place he would go to to make a reply was before a meeting of his own friends. His information was that Mr. Esslemont did not go down to that meeting and speak until he had got from the authorities in London distinct permission to do so, to the extent of clearing his own character. Before he made the speech Mr. Esslemont had got a distinct authority to make a personal explanation on a public platform, and on the basis of that permission he went down and did so. Mr. Esslemont's remarks upon that occasion were entirely restricted to the defence of his own personal character from charges and accusations which he thought were a great detriment to that character. He did not utter a single political word, and when he had finished he left the platform and sat among the general body of the meeting. What Mr. Esslemont did he was perfectly entitled to do; and he (Dr. Farquharson) was glad to hear the manly and straightforward defence made for him by the Secretary for Scotland.
    SIR J. GORSTsaid, that after the speech of the hon. Gentleman, this ceased to be an altogether Scottish question. It was now one that concerned the order and discipline of the Civil Service. He understood that the attack made upon Mr. Esslemont had been a, slight one. It was not an attack upon his honour, but merely upon his discretion, and now he gathered from the speech of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire that it was at the instigation of the Government that Mr. Esslemont went North. This gentleman was not to observe the universal rule of the Civil Service, and to leave his defence to the head of his
    1096
    Department, but the Government itself suggested that he should go to a public election meeting, and at that meeting, presumably in the interest of the political candidate of his own Party, make a statement which might or might not be an accurate one, but which was obviously most improper to make at that time and in those circumstances. He really thought that the Committee had a right to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the statement of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire was correct or not. If it was correct, he should like him to explain how he reconciled the conduct of the Government with proper discipline in the Civil Service.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: I should have thought that after my speech, and after the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, the rule in this matter had been clearly laid down. The only thing I know about it is that before Mr. Esslemont went to this meeting he had received a telegram from the Scotch Office warning him that the public servants were not allowed to take part in public meetings.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, that was quite different from the statement of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire, who said that the Scottish Office authorised Mr. Esslemont to go to the meeting.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: There was no mention of the Scottish Office in what the hon. Member said.
    MR. HOZIER: Does the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire say so?
    DR. FARQUHARSON: I believe the Scottish Office had nothing whatever to do with this matter.
    MR. HOZIER: Then from whom did Mr. Esslemont receive the telegram authorising him to attend the meeting and make a statement? Might I ask that of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire?
    DR. FARQUHARSON: I believe the Scottish Office had nothing to do with it.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, he could now understand why the Scottish Secretary was embarrassed when he asked whether the Scottish Office told Mr. Esslemont not to do this again.
    SIR G. TREVELYAN: I have said that the only part I took, or was cognisant

    1097
    of, was that the Scotch Office warned Mr. Esslemont beforehand that public servants ought not to take part in elections. Then the hon. Member says I was embarrassed—which can only mean that I did allow Mr. Esslemont to go.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, he did not mean that at all. He did not mean to impute any untruth to the right hon. Gentleman. That would be the last thing in the world he would think of doing.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAY: The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy has spoken about the part which Sheriffs take in elections. He spoke of their having to try political offences, but it is the case that no Sheriff ever takes part in any political election connected with his own Sheriffdom. That makes the whole difference. It has been the universal custom of Sheriffs not to disassociate themselves from political life. Even among the few Sheriffs who belong to the political Party opposite, there are those who take part in political meetings.
    MR. CROMBIE: I rise to Order. May I ask if this is relative to the subject of the Fishery Board?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I cannot say that the hon. Gentleman is out of Order.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAY: I shall simply add that the Prime Minister has had frequently on his platforms the Sheriffs of Scotland, few in number, who agree with his general policy.
    MR. H. SMITHthought it would be for the convenience of the House and the country if the rule which was laid down on all sides as a proper rule to regulate the conduct of the Chairman of the Fishery Board was also to be laid down to regulate the conduct of the Deputy Chairman of the Board. The Deputy Chairman was not paid as such, but he held his position on that Board because he happened to be one of the Sheriffs who was obliged to occupy membership upon it in virtue of his office. He got £1,000 as Sheriff, and it was therefore a mere quibble to say that he was not paid for discharging the duty of Deputy Chairman of the Board. The sooner the practice of Sheriffs taking active part in political elections was put an end to the better, and they could not in this respect do better than begin with the Deputy Chairman of the Fishery Board.
    MR. BARTLEYsuggested that the Parliamentary Secretary might be able to tell the Committee something about this mysterious telegram. He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman could, if he wished, throw a great deal of light upon it. He quite agreed, as an old Member of the Civil Service, that there should be a general rule regulating the attendance of Civil servants at political meetings, and that that rule should be applied to both political Parties alike. He had been in the Civil Service for some 20 years. When, some eight years ago, he was adopted as the candidate for a constituency by a public meeting which he had attended, thereupon he was requested, though a Conservative Government was in Office, to resign his position, and he did so. He thought that rule should be applied to all Parties alike.
    SIR C. CAMERONreminded the House that this was the 13th of September, and that what they had been discussing was purely ancient history. He thought the hon. Member who had just sat down was justified in his brief interposition, but this was the Vote for the Scotch Fishery Board, and as the Scottish Members had the reputation of being practical men, he thought they could better devote the time that remained to them in discussing other questions. He was not going to rake up an old story, but he would point out that one of the Sheriffs in his own constituency attached his name to a handbill issued against him (Sir C. Cameron) during the Election of 1886. The right hon. Gentleman was then Secretary for Scotland, but nothing could be done in the matter. These things occurred constantly, and there was no use in going back to them.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURconsidered that it would be out of Order now to discuss at length the existing system under which Sheriffs took part in public meetings. Any Englishman listening to the speech of the hon. Member would be under the impression that the Sheriff had taken an active part in local politics.
    SIR C. CAMERON: That was what I referred to, although I did not say so.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURwas quite aware that Sheriffs in Scotland did take part in political demonstrations, but he

    1099
    never heard of a Sheriff within the jurisdiction of his own Sheriffdom taking the active part which the hon. Gentleman appeared to suppose was taken in 1886, and unless the facts were brought before him by the hon. Gentleman he should continue to believe he was labouring under a mistake. At all events, he would go so far as to say that if such a course was pursued by any Sheriff he thought it was unfortunate. Whether Sheriffs were or were not entitled to take part in political matters, they ought not within their sphere of jurisdiction to do anything to bring into question their absolute impartiality. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Marjoribanks) would give the House all the information he possessed with regard to the telegram.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MARJORIBANKS,)said, he would only be too happy to offer himself as a corpus vile to be gibbetted as the sender of the telegram if it would at all produce harmony in the Committee or expedite proceedings. As a matter of fact, Mr. Esslemont telegraphed to him, when these statements were made with regard to him, asking whether he thought he might reply. He (Mr. Marjoribanks) said, "Certainly, I think you might." And Mr. Esslemont did so. He did not understand that Mr. Esslemont took part in the political meeting. He went simply to reply to the charges made against him. If any blame was attachable to any Party at all it was to him (Mr. Marjoribanks), and he hoped he would be allowed to offer himself as a sacrifice on Mr. Esslemont's behalf.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, it now turned out that the telegram was sent by the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury—that was, by the political official who worked the political organisation of a political Party. In his opinion, and he was sure in the opinion of the Committee, the explanation just given made the transaction ten thousand times worse.
    SIR A. ROLLITsaid, that as a Member of the Deep Sea Fisheries Committee, he should like to express his view of the vital importance of the scientific investigations carried on by the Scotch Fishery Board. This Board dealt with, perhaps, one of the most important industries of the country,
    1100
    and he desired to emphasise his sense of the value of the work of the Board in the scientific investigation of the fisheries, and to point out how valuable an example the Scotch Fishery Board had shown to them in this country in regard to dealing with their fisheries. The Scotch Board had done a great deal to throw light upon the migration, the food of fishes, and the means of increasing the supply of fish, but in England they had only one great organisation for this work—at Plymouth and Grimsby—in the Marine Biological Association, and even that Scientific Body had not pursued the history and character of the fishes and the best means of saving them and utilising them for food so well as the Scotch Fishery Board. There was no doubt we were throwing away, to a great extent, the harvest of the sea in this country, and of the North Sea especially. As far as one could judge, it did not seem to be the case that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out, except only proverbially. On the contrary, the seas were ceasing to be the sources of fishing industry they had been in the past, and unless great care were taken in protecting the nurseries for fish, and some steps also adopted for limiting the size of the fish which might be taken, the time was not far distant when a great source of food and a most valuable means of change of diet would be, to a great extent, denied the people of this country. It was a serious state of things that while the catching power had increased so largely the quantity of fish caught remained stationary or nearly so, if it was not even decreasing. The fishes caught were also much less in size than was the case formerly. This required investigation, and he wished to bear his testimony to the value of the scientific work of the Scotch Fishery Board. Scotland had a Fishery Board, but in England they anticipated Scotland by having their District Committees. He was glad this step had been taken in Scotland, that the representative principle had been extended, and that practical fishermen were to be represented on the Boards, and he hoped the time was not far distant when the Sea Fisheries Committees of this country would be equally representative of the fishermen. He trusted, too, that they

    1101
    should have a National Sea Fisheries Board as well as Committees, which would follow the valuable example set by Scotland. With reference to the grant for telegraphic extension, it was most important that intelligence of large catches should be quickly conveyed to the markets to avoid the great waste that must ensue from the non-consumption of fish. The amount of that grant was £1,200, but he hoped it might be increased. It was very necessary, too, that the question of harbours and piers should be borne in mind, especially with regard to Ireland. He trusted that what had been done in Scotland would be done in England and Ireland.
    Vote agreed to.
    3. £2,872, to complete the sum for Lunacy Commission, Scotland.
    4. £4,887, to complete the sum for Registrar General's Office, Scotland.
    CAPTAIN SINCLAIRasked whether the Census for Scotland was approaching completion?
    SIR G. TREVELYANreplied that it was. £3,500 was taken this year, and he had every reason to believe that the work was approaching completion.
    Vote agreed to.
    5. £4,830, to complete the sum for Board of Supervision for Relief of the Poor, and for Public Health, Scotland.
    DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he wished to make a protest against the somewhat retrograde step which had been taken by the Scotch Office in the withdrawal of the Circular of the Board of Supervision prohibiting medical officers from engaging in private practice.
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, he could only state that the Board of Supervision, of which he was a member when this matter came forward, considered the matter as best they could, and they certainly took the best practical advice they could obtain. As the right hon. Gentleman had departed from the official declaration of the Board, he hoped he would be able to give them some satisfaction on the subject. The position of the' Board was acquiesced in by the vast majority of the counties.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, it was impossible to carry out the Circular in four or five counties, including Ross-shire; and so far from being a general
    1102
    Regulation, it dealt with the subject in an arbitrary manner, which excited a great deal of bitterness in those counties, notably Haddington, Forfar, and Berwick. These counties were not allowed to have their share of the grant, because they had not a medical officer engaged for his whole time. He (Sir G. Trevelyan), therefore, decided that those counties should receive the grant where it was shown that the duties of the medical officer were efficiently and properly done. If it should turn out that he had made a mistake the system would have to be changed.
    SIR C. CAMERONsaid, the only item for medical professional advice to the Board of Supervision stated in the Estimates was a sum of £200 paid to Dr. Littlejohn, who, though possessing high qualifications, had a number of other official duties to discharge. Last night they had a declaration from the President of the Local Government Board that he had increased the medical staff of his Board in view of the threatened visitation of cholera. He (Sir C. Cameron) did not ask the Secretary for Scotland to rush into any great expense in this matter, but he thought that it would be money well spent if some definite arrangements were made in connection with the Board of Supervision to take care that they should have some really efficient Central Department of medical advice. If a suspicious case broke out in Scotland, it was of supreme importance that there should be arrangements whereby experts could pronounce upon the real nature of the case, and at present there was no machinery connected with the Board of Supervision to enable that to be done.
    SIR G. TREVELYANsaid, that nobody was more deeply impressed than he was with the inadequate staff which the Board of Supervision had for such a matter as this. His earnest hope was that the very first measure of importance introduced by the Scottish Department might include the reorganisation of the Board of Supervision.
    Vote agreed to.

    CLASS III.
    6. Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £25,506, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will

    1103
    come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894. for the Salaries of the Law Officers; the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, Queen's Proctor, and Director of Public Prosecutions; the Costs of Prosecutions, of other Legal Proceedings, and of Parliamentary Agency."
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAY MR. GRAHAM MURRAY moved the reduction of the Vote by £500, in order to call attention to the inadequacy of the salaries of the Scottish Law Officers. About 15 or 16 years ago a Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole matter of the remuneration of the Law Officers of the Three Kingdoms. Their recommendations were embodied in a Report which they presented, and they came to the conclusion that the salaries were to be fixed at a certain figure. The Treasury not only did not print the Report which dealt with the Scottish Law Officers, but so effectually suppressed and buried it that at this moment there was only one copy in existence, which be had been fortunate enough at one time to see. From that day to this nothing had been done to carry forward the recommendations regarding the Scottish Law Officers. Of course, they did not for a moment suppose that the salaries of the Scottish Law Officers ought to be fixed at the same scale as those of the English Law Officers; but the inadequacy of the Scottish Law Officers' salaries was too well known to need any comment whatsoever. The Solicitor General for England received a salary of £5,000, whilst the Solicitor General for Scotland received only £955. Whether judged by the value of their services or the question of the quality of the sacrifice, in neither case could they possibly justify the two salaries on the same principle. Therefore, he hoped that they would at least have from the Government some satisfactory promise that they would really give this matter some consideration, and put into some practical shape the recommendations of the Committee come to so long ago.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, be reduced by £500, in respect of the salary of the Attorney General."—(Mr. Graham Murray.)
    MR. POWELL WILLIAMScould not allow this Vote to pass without a protest, and in making that protest he desired to dissociate himself from any charge of desiring, either directly or indirectly, or by implication,
    1104
    to reflect in any way upon the two distinguished gentlemen who held the offices of Her Majesty's Law Advisers. No one who knew their career and eminent abilities would desire in any way to make any attack upon them. The Attorney General, if he might say so, had rendered an additional service to the country by the extreme ability with which he had conducted a delicate and important case abroad. But that did not prevent him, and ought not to prevent anyone who held the idea that the Law Officers received excessive payments for the services they rendered to the State, from challenging the Vote, as he did on this occasion. In taking this course he was glad to know be was sustained by the very strong opinion expressed in this House some years ago by his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. II. Fowler), who in the year 1888 said he thought that £12,000 a year would command the services of the very ablest and most eminent man at the English Bar, and the same view was taken by the hon. Member for Poplar, who went, so far as to say that if the Law Officers took private practice they must necessarily, to some extent, neglect their public duties. The Attorney General received £7,000 and the Solicitor General £6,000, and additional payments in respect of contentious business. Formerly the fees for such contentious business were calculated on a very much lower scale than the fees payable by an ordinary client to a Queen's Counsel of eminence. But now, under the terms of the Treasury Minute, the Law Officers agreed to give up their private practice except in cases before the Privy Council and the House of Lords, but the payments to be made to them in respect of contentions business had been greatly increased. He agreed with the hon. Member for Poplar and with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton in thinking that £12,000 a year was a sufficient payment for these services, and he hoped the Treasury would adopt the opinion of those eminent Members of the Government.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,)trusted the Committee would not think it necessary for him to go into the whole subject, seeing that it had already been discussed at very great length on the

    1105
    Supplementary Estimates, when the hon. Member had expressed his views on the matter. The new system was a very simple one. In old days the Law Officers took private practice. The Government made the change by which they were not to take private practice, and offered them an indemnity, which was that, instead of the limited amount under the old system, they were to receive the same amount as any barrister of similar position in the profession would receive for the like work. That was really all that was given for the purpose of obtaining the whole time of the Law Officers of the Crown. In regard to the question raised by the late Solicitor General for Scotland, that the fees of the Law Officers for Scotland were on too low a scale, he only wished the hon. and learned Member had taken advantage of the distinguished position he occupied in the former Administration to give effect to the recommendation of the Commission which reported 16 years ago, since which time there had been two Conservative Governments in power, with the opportunity of doing this particular justice to Scotland. Personally, he could not say he regretted it was not done. Scotland in this matter was rather in the position of the man in the parable, who came in at the eleventh hour, and who claimed that he should get as much as those who had borne the heat and burden of the day. The adhesion of Scotland to the Union came at a more recent period than the establishment of the office of Attorney General for England. The first comer was first served. However, he did not wish to pronounce any decided opinion on the question of the remuneration of the Law Officers for Scotland. He thought that might be a proper matter for consideration with reference to the larger question which had been raised. He hoped the Committee would consider that it had already been sufficiently discussed in the present Session.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, they did not want to discuss this matter over again, but he thought they should be quite clear what the principle was. He did not think it was quite correct to say the Law Officers of the Crown were to give them practically the whole of their time, or to renounce private business, because there was one reservation, to the
    1106
    effect that they were to retain their right to certain retainers which they had when they took Office. He was told that, under that reservation, if the Attorney General and Solicitor General were retained for a particular Railway Company, they would have the right not only to argue the particular case for that Railway Company on which they had been engaged or retained when they took Office, but they would also be able to argue all subsequent cases of such Railway Companies during all the time of their tenure of Office. If that construction applied to private clients also it was a very large reservation indeed. He might be wrong, but he was told that what he had stated was the case, and therefore to say that the Law Officers were giving up their private business and giving their whole time to the country was hardly a fair statement of the case. The President of the Local Government Board had expressed the opinion that for £12,000 a year they ought to be able to get the best lawyer in the country, without any private practice at all. He understood the salaries, without fees, were £7,000 and £6,000 for the Attorney General and Solicitor General respectively, and he was told that in one particular suit—which the country lost, and in which large additional costs had to be paid besides fees—the fees actually paid to the Solicitor General amounted to something like £1,700. The Solicitor General had £6,000 a year, and if he were to have four cases like this in a year that would amount to another £6,000, thus bringing his salary up to £12,000 in addition to private practice. It seemed to him that £1,700 was an enormous price to pay for one suit. One of the chief complaints he (Mr. Hanbury) and others made was that the scale of fees upon which the Law Officers were to be remunerated was much higher than anything that had been adopted before. He believed that previously their fees were based on the scale that counsel would receive from ordinary clients, but the new scale was one to which the most eminent counsel at the Bar would be entitled. He should like to know on what scale the Law Officers were being remunerated now in these contentious suits, and what proportion it bore to the scale paid under the old system?
    MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, he was afraid they would never get justice on the point he had raised as to the remuneration of the Law Officers of Scotland until hon. Members made themselves a little unpleasant in regard to it. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he was spared for another year, would do something for his long-suffering supporters behind him. He would not press the Amendment.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question again proposed.
    MR. HAYES-FISHERcalled attention to the fact that they had no information at the present moment as to what the fees for contentious business amounted to. He could not see why the Estimates could not be framed so as to give them the amount of fees which the Attorney General and Solicitor General received.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: We cannot estimate these fees beforehand.
    MR. HAYES FISHERsaid, the amount of the fees for 1892–3 might be stated so as to give them some idea as to the probable amount in each year, and he considered they were entitled to some information on this subject. The Law Officers were the only officers whose salaries with fees were not placed on the Estimates of the House of Commons. He was not in the least complaining of the salary they had, and he was certainly not prepared to vote for a reduction until he knew how the new plan would work. He agreed that there was a great disparity between the amounts paid to the Law Officers of England and Ireland and those of Scotland. He wondered the question had not before been raised by the Members for Scotland. Whenever it was raised, he for his part would join them in protesting against the very unfair treatment of Scotland in this matter.
    MR. POWELL WILLIAMSsaid, he would like to be told the amount of fees already paid to the Law Officers. This matter was not discussed at any great length on the former occasion, because they were told that the proper time to
    1108
    raise the discussion would be upon the Estimates. He had now made his protest, and would there leave the matter.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir C. RUSSELL,)said, it was due to the hon. Member for Preston that he should answer one or two questions, which that hon. Member had put to him. He had requested to know whether the Law Officers of the Crown considered themselves free to act on a general retainer, or whether they considered themselves confined to the definite cases in which they were retained before their acceptance of Office in the Government. He answered this question in a previous discussion, and stated that although they might, according to the letter of the arrangement, act on general retainer, he thought it would not be in accordance with the spirit of the arrangement that they should do so, and for himself he confessed he had no intention of doing so. He had no doubt the Solicitor General took the same view. The hon. Member also asked a question about the Hansard Union prosecution—for that was the case to which he alluded—and the Solicitor General's fees. He did not know whether the figure stated by the hon. Member was correct, but it must be remembered that that case extended over a great number of weeks, and he would undertake to say that whatever fees were received by the Solicitor General they would turn out to be very much less than the fees of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Sir E. Clarke), or the other leading counsel representing the several defendants. The last question put by the hon. Member was whether the new arrangement which had been made would not lead to a large increase in the fees paid to the Law Officers? No doubt it would increase such fees, but at present experience did not enable one to say to what extent. The new arrangement only provided that the Law Officers should receive, in respect of contentious business, such fees as counsel of life-standing received from private clients. He thought it would be derogatory to the position of the Law Officers that (if they were to be paid for contentious business) they should receive less.
    MR. TOMLINSONsaid, the Attorney General's argument was rather surprising. He now said that he approved of the new arrangement; but on the previous occasion when the subject was discussed he said he preferred the old system. But that was the system which he now said it was beneath the dignity of the Law Officers to accept. He did not see how the two views could be reconciled. He also wished to ask whether the new clerks on the permanent staff—he presumed of the Civil Service—were subject to the ordinary Rules of the Service as to retirement and other conditions;
    VISCOUNT WOLMERasked whether the Secretary to the Treasury could give the amount of the Law Officers' fees up to date?
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, he could not do that; but he saw no objection to a note being inserted in the Estimates for any year showing the amount of the fees in the previous year. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for Preston, the clerks of the permanent staff were subject to the Rules and Regulations of the Civil Service. He saw no reason why they should be treated in any other way.
    MR. HAYES-FISHERsaid, there was a different arrangement in Ireland.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, before the Question was put he wished to call attention to a statement by Mr. Justice Day, when on circuit at Bodmin and Exeter, as to the immense amount of perjury in the Law Courts. His Lordship said that perjury was rank in the Courts. He (Mr. Hanbury) thought the Public Prosecutor ought to have taken some notice of those observations and to have taken steps to bring perjurers to justice. The comments of the Judge were sufficiently startling to demand something should be done; and perhaps the Attorney General could tell them whether any steps were to be taken in the matter, with the object of having the offenders made amenable. There should certainly be some means of punishing perjury where it existed. Again, he wished to refer to a very important case, which, to a large extent, affected the
    1110
    working classes, and that was the prosecution of the Directors of the Portsea Building Society. In that case the jury could not come to a decision, but Mr. Justice Hawkins expressed a very strong opinion that there ought to be another prosecution. It certainly seemed strange that no further action had been taken. The Solicitor to the Treasury drew an extra £500 a year for acting as Director of Public Prosecutions, his total salary being £3,000. Remarkable changes had taken place in his office during the last year. One was a large increase in the pay of the upper clerks, and a decrease in that of the lower clerks. In his opinion, there should be fewer of the Upper Division and more of the Lower Division clerks, as a rule. Then there was an allowance made to the Solicitor for a personal staff of eight clerks. Last year that allowance was £1,200; this year it was £2,200. Thus, the Solicitor was allowed a fixed lump sum for clerks, who were nominated by himself, and were not Civil servants. To that system the Public Accounts Committee had objected. There was no Department that required so thoroughly to be inquired into as this legal Department. These officials did not even come within the purview of the Royal Commission which inquired into the Civil Establishments. There was no Department opened up so wide a field for inquiry as the Law Department—an inquiry which he believed would result in great economy to the Public Service.
    SIR C. RUSSELLsaid, with regard to the statement that a great deal of perjury was committed in the Courts, he feared it was true, and the remark would particularly apply to the Divorce Court, and yet the circumstances were exceedingly rare where they afforded any reasonable expectation of a successful prosecution. The offence of perjury stood on a different footing from other offences, as it required the evidence of two witnesses, who must support one another on material points. Further, any Judge who had before him a case in which he had come to the conclusion that perjury had been committed had in his power, then and there, the initiation of a prosecution; and he had also another course—

    1111
    he might send the papers to the Public Prosecutor and require him to examine into them. He was not aware of any case where that course had been taken in which the Public Prosecutor had not done his duty. With regard to the prosecution of the Directors and officers of the Portsea Building Society, one person had been found guilty and was suffering imprisonment. Although the results of their misdeeds undoubtedly caused to a poor and deserving class a great deal of mischief, yet it also appeared to be the case that none of the Directors or officials had corruptly put the money into their pockets. In these circumstances the jury disagreed. It became his duty to consider what should be done, and, after consulting with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries, who was senior counsel in the prosecution, he came to the conclusion that in the circumstances the case was not one in which there should be a re-trial.
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, with regard to the other matter alluded to by the hon. Member, the question of the upper and lower clerks was gone into by the Committee which sat in 1887. A Treasury Minute was issued in December, 1888, based on their recommendations. Those recommendations were generally in accordance with the views stated by the hon. Member, and were being gradually carried out. A reduction had already been made, but a more considerable one would be effected. When the whole scheme was carried out there would be a considerable decrease in the staff, and a consequent economy.
    MR. HANBURY: If that is so, how does it come that we have an increase in the sum for providing clerks? It was only £1,200 last year, and this year it is £2,200.
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, that the effect of the scheme as a whole would be to decrease the staff and secure economy.
    SIR J. GORSTsaid, he would like to refer to another question. The Director of Public Prosecutions was under a statutory obligation to attend, either him-
    1112
    self or by his counsel, every Election Petition trial. He was to attend in the interests of public morality, and to prosecute all persons found to have been guilty of corrupt practices. A great deal of expense, therefore, was connected with that duty; and the money he thought was wholly wasted, as the Public Prosecutor never brought to justice persons charged with bribery, and there was no result whatever. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tell them what his view of the matter was.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,)said, no doubt the duty was imposed on the Public Prosecutor, but the facts were made known at the trial, and, where a prosecution was necessary, the requisite steps could be taken. He would be glad to consider favourably the suggestion that the Public Prosecutor should not be required to attend, either himself or by counsel, as this did not seem to be necessary. The facts being on record, as he said, his presence should not be essential. In that way, perhaps, public money might be saved.
    MR. JACKSONsaid, he would point out, in reference to a question put by the Member for Preston (Mr. Han-bury) that the sum on the Paper for providing clerks was not a fixed sum. It was only the maximum sum that might be required.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, there was an item of £25 on the Paper in respect of Admiralty Agents at Lisbon and Madrid. He did not think such Agents were necessary.
    SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, he hoped the Committee would now allow the Vote to pass.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £23,282, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for certain Miscellaneous Legal Expenses."
    It being half-past Five of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee also report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  SUPPLY.—REPORT.
  Resolutions [12th September] reported.
  SUPPLY.—REPORT.

    ARMY ESTIMATES, 1893–4.
    Resolutions read a second time.
    Resolution 1 agreed to.
    Resolution 2.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £780,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for Capitation Grants and Miscellaneous Charges of Volunteer Corps, including pay, &c. of the Permanent Staff, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st (lay of March 1894."
    VISCOUNT WOLMERsaid, he wished to have some information, if not now, at any rate, before the next Estimates were presented, respecting the payment of the Capitation Grant, as to whether it would not be possible for the Treasury to lend money to corps at a less interest than the corps were able to get it on the strength of their own credit. Some corps had their armoury and drill-hall provided for them, while other corps had not, and it was for these purposes that the money was required. In some cases the money was given by private individuals, who took an interest in the corps; but other corps, which were not so favourably situated, had to borrow the money and pay interest for it out of the Capitation Grants. Could not this money be advanced by the Treasury? He also wished to know whether the allowance of £100 for each battery in position was enough; and whether there had been a movement in the district of Edinburgh for the formation of a corps of fortress engineers? There was permission given by the War Office for the formation of such a corps, which he understood had been withdrawn. He earnestly asked, before the next Estimates were framed, if the Secretary of State for War would consider the desirability of re-granting this permission. Then as to the mobilisation scheme, the people of Edin-
    1114
    burgh and neighbourhood wanted to know what provision was to be made when, in the event of mobilisation, troops of all kinds wore withdrawn and taken away to the South. He also asked the Secretary of State for War to reconsider the point as to the desirability of bestowing decorations on Volunteer privates before next year.
    MR. TOMLINSONsaid, he desired to support some of the suggestions made by the noble Lord opposite. As to the Capitation Grant, it appeared to him that it would be a good plan to lend money in advance to such corps as might desire it. At present, not only had a high interest to be paid, but officers had to borrow on their own personal security. He did not suppose this involved any risk, as the Capitation Grant was sure to come ultimately; but many men did not care to give a personal security to their banker. As to engineers, he hoped the War Office would take into consideration the desirability of making the proposed extension. There were a great many skilled persons who would be invaluable in the Volunteers in carrying out engineering duties, who, at present, did not think it worth while to join the Service. If the Volunteers were ever called out, the necessity for men of this kind would be felt, and would have to be met. Another point was as to requiring adjutants to alter their uniforms, in some cases to take off their gold lace and change it for silver. He did not know why this should be a universal rule in connection with the Volunteer Infantry. In some cases the uniforms of the Regular regiments of the battalion to which the Volunteers were attached was exactly the same as that of the Volunteers, with the exception of the lace. It was an advantage to Volunteers to have the services of an adjutant who was a trained soldier, but it was very hard that when an officer took the position of adjutant in a Volunteer regiment he should be put to the expense of altering his uniform.
    COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTsaid, the whole Service was delighted to hear that Her Majesty had been pleased to recognise the services

    1115
    of the non-commissioned officers by bestowing the new decoration upon them. He thought, however, that these decorations would be more valuable if given not altogether for length of service but for special service or efficiency. As a Volunteer Commanding Officer, he desired to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his good offices. But he earnestly hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would take steps to make up the deficiency in the number of subalterns. At present they were 1,500 short, and in some battalions the evil was becoming more and more serious.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN,): In reply to the noble Lord the Member for West Edinburgh, I would ask him to assist me by recalling the points to which he has referred to my memory in the future. Several of the points are well worthy of consideration. As to the question of advancing money from the Treasury, I am afraid I cannot meet the noble Lord. My views upon the matters raised by the hon. Member for Preston are well known, and I am afraid the hon. Gentleman has not urged anything which will cause me to alter those views.
    Resolution agreed to.
    Resolutions 3 to 6 agreed to.
    Resolution 7.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £126,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for Sundry Miscellaneous Effective Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1894."
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNEsaid he wished to refer to the sanitary condition of the Windsor Cavalry Barracks.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The matter was discussed last night.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNEsaid, he had read the Debate, but the subject did not seem to have been adequately dealt with. There was serious dissatisfaction with the condition of these barracks. He understood that very severe Reports had been forwarded to the War Office with respect to the condition of the barracks. One Report, made no later than last month, asserted that the condition was so bad that the barracks were
    1116
    unfit for occupation. There have been one or two cases of sickness, and not long ago a non-commissioned officer, who died at Aldershot shortly after leaving the Windsor Barracks, showed very distinct symptoms of enteric poisoning. It was important that this matter should be looked into and carefully dealt with, in view of the possible approach of the cholera epidemic. The Government would incur serious responsibility if they allowed these barracks to be re-occupied without satisfying themselves as to their sound sanitary condition. He would ask whether the Secretary of State would be willing to, lay upon the Table the Reports of the medical officers who had, on behalf of the War Office, examined the barracks. The danger was not only as to the insanitary condition of the premises, but, as the question had been mooted in another place as well as in this House, there was also a danger of creating a feeling of alarm amongst the troops who had to occupy the barracks. Now that the question had been mooted, the Secretary of State would probably agree that the proper course to adopt would be to take the public into his confidence, and let them see the Reports. If it should turn out that the danger had been exaggerated, he (Viscount Cranborne) would be more pleased than anybody else. Still, they must satisfy themselves whether this was really the case or not.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is not usual to lay on the Table purely Departmental Reports, but I can assure the noble Lord that the greatest care has been taken in investigating this question. I can say that the Chief Officer of the Army Medical Department, the Chief Officer of Engineers, and the Quartermaster General, all agree that the system of drainage is old-fashioned and bad. There is no doubt that it ought to be renewed; but that is the case with many barracks in the country. The particularly urgent matter with regard to Windsor Barracks is that in the officers' quarters there has been for some time an offensive smell. That has been traced to a foul latrine, and to other sources unconnected with the drains. These smaller defects will be remedied before the regiment returns. The Director General of the Army Medical Department and his

    1117
    advisers cannot find anything in the Reports indicating that the general effect on the health of the men has been bad. I am afraid I cannot put the alterations of drains at the Windsor Barracks forward as the first and most urgent case.
    Resolution agreed to.
    Resolutions 8 and 9 agreed to.
    Resolution 10.

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1893–4.

    CLASS II.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £90,621, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board."
    SIR J. GORSTsaid, he was sorry he was not able to remain in the House last night, owing to the physical restrictions put upon the House by the Government, to hear the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, when he replied to him upon the question of the acquisition by Boards of Guardians of land on which to set the unemployed to work. He should now, however, like to protest against the doctrine which he understood the right hon. Gentleman laid down—namely, that Guardians were to be restrained from exercising powers which they possessed by law, because those powers had not been exercised for 60 years, and because, in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, it was desirable that the use of those powers should be conferred by fresh legislation. Everybody knew that it would be difficult to pass legislation of that kind through the House. It would require a large amount of belief in the efficacy of the experiment to induce many Members to support such a Bill even in the present Parliament. He thought it was a fortunate thing that it had turned out that the law had given those powers, and he deeply regretted that when Boards of Guardians were willing to try the experiment of obtaining land, and setting those out of employment to work upon it, and giving them reasonable wages, such an interesting experiment could not be tried.
    MR. BYLESsaid, he, too, had been disappointed with the reply of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board last night. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that although these Acts of Parliament existed, and although he had ascertained by conference with the Law Officers of the Crown that they were still in force and could be made operative, yet, for his part, he could not advise that they should be put in operation without fresh legislation. He had thought at the time, and he thought still, that it was rather a piece of good fortune that the House of Commons should find itself with some Acts of Parliament in its locker which it could take out and use when it wanted them. No doubt the policy of the Poor Law had been very largely altered when the new Act was adopted, but they had arrived at a time when the question of the unemployed had become a very difficult and a very acute one, and one which, if it had not already, must very shortly call for effectual treatment. He wished to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he did not think that at least a portion of the ancient Acts to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred, and especially that enabling Boards of Guardians to acquire lands up to 50 acres with the object of employing men upon it in useful remunerative employment, might not be put in force? He thought that Act might with advantage to the nation be revived, at any rate, experimentally. Various schemes for dealing with the unemployed existed. He was interested in one in Westmoreland, where a young Unitarian minister, who had studied this question all his life, had devoted himself to obtaining voluntarily money with which to purchase land on which to employ men at remunerative work. The principle on which this scheme was worked was that the men employed should produce what they consumed, and consume what they produced. Thus there was no necessity to go into the open market, or to displace outside labour. The idea was that the Poor Law Unions should adopt the same principle in dealing with the unemployed in their districts. Surely it was a solu-

    1119
    tion of the unemployed question to which Parliament and the Department should not close their eyes.
    MR. CREMERsaid, that before the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board replied he should like to ask him if there was any record of the transactions of the late Government which went to prove that during the six years they were in Office they made any effort to relieve the distress amongst the unemployed which was then much more acute and general than at present? Had any effort been made by the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, who were now professing so much sympathy with the unemployed, to carry out the Act referred to? He should like to know when the right hon. Gentleman discovered the existence of the Act.
    SIR J. GORST: I did not make the discovery.
    MR. CREMERsaid, it was unfortunate that the Act was not discovered when the right hon. Gentleman was in Office, because this looked very much like the usual attempt on the part of the "outs" to prove that the "ins" were sinners above all men, and that the "outs" were the party to whom the country must look for reforms and relief.
    MR. LONGsaid, the remarks of the hon. Member who had just sat down were absolutely undeserved by the late Government. The hon. Member was mistaken in thinking that the "outs" desired to return to Office on the application of an Act which had not been in use for 60 years. It would be found that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge had a very small following in making this demand, and he regretted that his right hon. and learned Friend had unwisely returned to the charge. He would again express the earnest hope, in what he believed to be the best interests of the unemployed, and also of the wage-earning classes generally, that the President of the Local Government Board would not depart from the wise and statesmanlike position which he had assumed on this
    1120
    question. If the unemployed were to get work, it should be not at the expense of the poor rate, not from the Board of Guardians, but from Imperial funds, voted for the purpose, and placed at the disposal of a Public Department; or it should be done, as was being done now, by private enterprise. Some hon. Members seemed to think that the cultivation of land was perfectly easy, and that a man had only to get a spade and so many square yards of land to get a livelihood. As one connected with the land all his life, to his pecuniary loss, he said there could be nothing more ridiculous. If a distressed watchmaker could not break stones he could not perform the hard work connected with farming—he could not hold a scythe, and cut a crop of hay and pitch it into a wagon. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had the interests of the unemployed at heart, as everybody on the Ministerial and the Opposition side of the House had. He therefore hoped that the President of the Local Government Board would give no more sympathy to the proposed experiments by Boards of Guardians than he gave last night. After all, it must be remembered that the Guardians administered funds compulsorily raised for the benefit of the whole community, and if dangerous experiments such as were suggested were to be carried out at all they should be conducted by private enterprise, and not by public officials by means of public funds derived from the rates.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,): I think I have some ground of complaint against the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge, who put a question to me last night similar to that he has put to-day, and who, when the time came for me to reply—and it certainly was not at a late hour—had left the House. I do not find fault with the right hon. Gentleman's private engagements taking him away from the House, but I do complain that he should, on the strength of a necessarily condensed report of my speech, have attributed to me language which I had not used and a policy which I have no intention of

    1121
    adopting. The right hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to make some political capital by attributing to one of Her Majesty's Ministers, who has a very difficult and delicate duty to perform, a policy which he has never enunciated, and which he certainly has no idea of following. I must repeat what I said last night as to the position in which I find myself placed. Last evening I stated that, to the surprise of myself, of every lawyer, and of most practical men, the Law Officers of the Crown have advised the Government that when the Poor Law system of 1834 came into existence certain obsolete clauses of the original Act of Elizabeth remained in force. One of these clauses is singularly favourable, no doubt, to providing labour at the public expense; but another is by no means favourable to our modern notions of the freedom of the subject, inasmuch as it empowers Overseers or Guardians to apply to the Magistrates to inflict punishment on those of the unemployed who refused to work. The Law Officers of the Crown held that these laws were still in force. What was the position of the President of the Local Government Board under these circumstances? No applications had been made to him by any Board of Guardians to put these laws into force. It is very doubtful whether they can be put into force without the sanction of the Local Government Board. The question is, whether the Local Government Board should take initiatory steps under these circumstances? I said there were two questions to be considered. In the first place, the application of these powers would involve a great change in the administration of the Poor Law—a change which would practically amount to a reversal of the whole policy of the Poor Law during the last 60 years, and the restoration of the eleemosynary character of the relief which was given prior to 1834—and I said that if such a proposal was to be made, I would not, as an individual Minister, undertake the responsibility of making it, but that so great a change must be made by Her Majesty's Ministers as a body. I said further that, assuming that the Cabinet as a whole were in favour of making the change, it was a Constitutional question as to whether so great a change should be
    1122
    made by the action of any Government, of whatever Party that Government was composed, without the distinct sanction of Parliament. I shall not shrink from exercising what I may call the ordinary and well-understood powers of the Department entrusted to my care, and I have not shrunk from doing a certain number of things in the course of the last few months; but there are limits to administrative discretion, and I think that such a question as the reversal of the policy of the Poor Law which has prevailed for the last 60 years ought to be submitted to the House of Commons, and decided by no other Body. To that policy I mean to adhere. It will be for my Colleagues in the Cabinet to decide, first, whether they intend to initiate this great change; and, secondly, whether, if they do so intend, they will or will not submit their policy to the approval of the House of Commons. As to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for the Shipley Division (Mr. Byles), I can only say that my sympathies are all in the direction he mentions. I wish to make no distinction whatever between myself and any other Member in this matter. I believe there is no man in the House who does not regard this question of the unemployed as one of the gravest questions that could possibly be considered, and I view the difficulties and complexities of the situation as strongly as any man can do. Anything I can do, consistently with the proper discharge of my functions, I should be most happy to do in endeavouring to help Boards of Guardians to grapple with the difficulty. It has been pointed out that Boards of Guardians are called upon to administer funds which are compulsorily exacted in the way of rates from the whole community. They cannot be generous with other people's money, however they may deal with their own. If Parliament should be of opinion that the proper mode of administering these funds is to carry out the experiments that are suggested Parliament will have the responsibility, and it will be the duty of the Guardians to act accordingly. I do not think anyone will say that I ought to act in so grave a matter as this without the concurrence of my Colleagues, but do not let anybody impute to me that I am in any way indifferent to the gravity of the

    1123
    question, or have any want of sympathy with the efforts that have been made to provide relief for the unemployed. I said last night that I was prepared to recommend the Government that when the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor made their Report—and I expect the Commission will report before the end of the present year—it should be reconstituted, or another Commission should be constituted for the purpose of inquiring into the larger question of the whole administration of the Poor Law, which I admit ought to be brought into more perfect conformity with the requirements of the day than a law passed so long ago could possibly be. I trust that the House will see there was no other course open to me than that which I have followed.
    MR. BYLESsaid, he wished to explain that the employment he had spoken of was remunerative employment.
    MR. THORNTONthought it his duty to inform the President of the Local Government Board of the fact that a very large number of medical men in London were adverse to the importation of foreign rags. That adverse opinion was not mitigated by the statement that certain scientists had resolved that there was no danger to be apprehended from imported rags. He had been told by medical men that it was perfectly certain that from time to time disease, and especially small-pox, had been brought to this country by means of rags, and there was no reason, in their opinion, why cholera should not be so brought.
    MR. HOWELLsaid that, having called the attention of the President of the Local Government Board to the consideration of the Poor Laws early in the Session, he hoped the Government would see its way either to introduce a Consolidation Bill early next Session, or, at any rate, to put Members in possession of the facts of the case, by producing a digest of the Poor Laws.
    COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTsaid, he had no doubt that the unemployed had the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. H. H. Fowler), but it would have been very
    1124
    much more satisfactory if the right hon. Gentleman had been able to announce some definite views on the part of the Government in reference to the unemployed. He had come that afternoon from a manufacturing district of Yorkshire, where the distress was very great indeed, and where many men who were quite willing to work had been compelled to go into the workhouse, in order that relief might be afforded to their wives and children. If the Government appointed a Commission it would be the end of next year before anything could be done. The question was one which pressed for urgent consideration. The hon. Member for Haggerston (Mr. Cremer), who had suddenly displayed an interest in this question, was one of those who spoke and voted against the Amendment to the Address at the beginning of the Session. He was glad that, although somewhat tardily, the interest of the hon. Member had been now directed to the question, and he would urge the President of the Local Government Board to deal with it as promptly as possible, and not to wait for the Report of the Royal Commission.
    MR. BANBURYsaid that, although he did not often agree with the President of the Local Government Board, he had seldom heard a more common-sense speech than that which the right hon. Gentleman had just delivered, and he hoped he would not sanction any of the suggested experiments with ratepayers' money, especially when it was remembered that a scheme of Municipal Law Reform had been tried in Paris and had failed. The idea of putting those who had been brought up in towns to work in the country was ludicrous. The farmers could not make agriculture pay when they had the assistance of ordinary agricultural labourers, and it was absurd to suppose that anyone could make it pay when the work was carried on by men who knew nothing about it.
    Resolution agreed to.
    Resolutions 11 to 14 agreed to.
    Resolution 15.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £13,129, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum

    1125
    necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Her Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, and of the Office of Land Revenue Records and Inrolments."
    MR. PRITCHARD MORGANsaid, he had placed on the Paper a Motion for the redaction of the Vote yesterday, and he should have been in his place to move it, had it not been for the unfortunate death of Her Majesty's Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Inasmuch, however, as some of his hon. Friends had raised the question last night, he felt it his duty to say a few words to-day on the subject. Before doing so, he wished to impress upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the advisability of appointing in the place of the gentleman who had just died a practical man who had some knowledge of the subject he had to control. The Treasury were not so conversant with this subject as they might be. Had they known more about it, in all probability he should not have had to carry on a contest with the authorities for 10 years, as he had done. He had to record with satisfaction the fact that the Government had now, to some extent, endeavoured to meet him, although not to the extent which the importance of the question deserved. In Wales the system prevailed of granting long leases, and leaseholders who wanted to mine had to obtain a lease from the authorities before doing so. His complaint was that the Office of Woods and Forests would not fix the mining royalties for the whole of the term. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer had certainly consented to fix the royalties for five years, but that was not a sufficiently long period for opening up a mine. At the end of the five years, when a large amount of capital had been spent on a mine, it would be necessary to go to the Office of Woods and Forests again, and have the royalties fixed just as the Commissioners pleased. As there was some question as to the impression entertained by the Royal Commission respecting the amount of the royalties charged, he might say that the Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Burt), who was a Member of the
    1126
    Commission, had expressed the opinion that the Commission had in their mind's eye the fact that 1 per cent. was the amount to be charged. The hon. Member for the Rhondda Division (Mr. W. Abraham) and other Members of the Commission had expressed a similar opinion. He contended that the royalties on these mines should be charged upon the profits. There was the question also of affording employment to labour. One mine in which he was not interested was obtaining a return far in excess of any mine in South Africa or the Australian Colonies. In another mine, where over 100 men were employed, there were 40 square miles of this auriferous country, and it was only natural that officials of the Office of Woods and Forests, with salaries fixed by Act of Parliament, should not desire this area to be opened up lest their duties should be increased. It was admitted on all hands that if there was any possibility of gold being produced in the United Kingdom at a profit, every possible encouragement should be given to it. It was an extraordinary thing that a man could go to any part of the Australian Colonies, and for a fee of 10s. could take all the gold he could get and be paid a handsome reward for having discovered it; but that in Whales a man could not mine on his own land without being harassed by officials, driven in the Court of Chancery, or having his property locked up for ever. He trusted he should receive an assurance that inasmuch as the company's leases from the landowners existed for 32 years from June last the Government would fix the royalties for the same period of 32 years at the amount they were now, and not put them in the unsatisfactory position of having imposed on them at the mere caprice of any permanent officials higher royalties than should be levied. He moved to reduce the Vote by £100.
    Amendment proposed, To leave out the sum of "£13,129," in order to insert the sum of "£13,029,"—(Mr. Pritchard Morgan.)
    Question proposed, "That the sum of '£13,129' stand part of the Resolution."
    THE CHANCELLOR OP THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): I am a little surprised and

    1127
    somewhat disappointed at the tone the hon. Member has adopted towards Her Majesty's Government, for if anybody has done what he could to satisfy another man, I have done that for the hon. Member. From the first I regarded with the greatest possible favour any arrangement which could be made for the purpose of encouraging gold mining in Wales, both to increase the gold production and to give employment in a poor country; and as soon as I entered Office in the present Government I used my authority for the purpose of fixing the royalty at 1–100th instead of 1–30th, which the mine-owners had previously paid. The hon. Member has enjoyed the benefit of that reduction, and has expressed his gratitude; but he has been informed that the Government could not come to a final decision until they had the Report of the Royal Commission on Mines. The conduct of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests has been impeached, but only two or three years ago a Select Committee of the House investigated the whole conduct of the Department, including its action in this matter, and a more complete vindication it would be impossible to have had than was contained in the Report of the Committee. Then came the Report of the Royal Commission on Mines, which said—
    "To sum up the opinion we have been requested to give upon Mr. Morgan's complaints, it does not appear to us that the royalties received by the Crown upon gold, which have amounted in all, from the year 1836 to April 1891, to less than £7.000, have interfered with the investment of capital in gold mining."
    We consider that the Commissioners of Woods have throughout the proceedings into which we have inquired dealt with the Crown rights in as liberal a manner as was consistent with their duty. They have had the assistance of two most competent professional advisers in Sir Warington Smyth and Mr. Forster Brown, and they have shown, by the reduction they made in the royalty payable under the lease of the Clogan Mine, as well as by the modification they proposed of the royalty payable by the Morgan Mine Company, that they are prepared to give an equitable consideration to the altered circumstances of mines, and not to take their stand upon
    1128
    the strict letter of agreements. Our conclusions upon this subject concur with those of a Select Committee of the House of Commons upon the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown, which sat in 1889 and 1890, and in whose Report there is the following paragraph with regard to Welsh gold mining:—
    "During the last few years the Commissioners have granted a large number of licences to explore for gold in Merionethshire, on a royalty of l–15th of the ore extracted if obtained on Crown land, and of l–30th to landowners if obtained on private lands. The results do not appear to have been encouraging, as of a large number of projected mines only three or four are doing anything, and none have so far been successful. It has been complained that the Crown royalty is too high, as a reason for this want of success. The late Sir Warington Smyth, who, until his death, acted as Mineral Inspector and adviser to the Commissioners, gave conclusive evidence that this complaint is not well founded. He called the attention of the Committee to a prospectus of a Gold Mining Company with a capital of £210,000, out of which £190,000 was to be given to the promoter, who had, no doubt, spent some money upon it, but whose bonus of £190,000 rendered it next to impossible that the company should succeed as a commercial undertaking. The company referred to in this paragraph is the Morgan Gold Mining Company (Limited), and the promoter referred to is Mr. Pritchard Morgan."
    It is, I think, quite plain that the mining royalties could not be said to have prevented the success of that undertaking, especially when you compare the £7,000 got in royalties with the £190,000 paid to a promoter. I wish to say distinctly that Crown property is national property, and we are bound to deal with it as property in which the whole community is equally interested. To suggest that the Commissioners discourage mining, or any other industry because it would give them more trouble, is an unjust, unfounded, and unworthy insinuation. I have always recognised the principle that we ought to regard this matter in the general interests of the community, and that industries, when they are struggling in their commencement, ought to be encouraged. That was why I only asked for a nominal royalty for the first five years. If the industry succeeds, not being overloaded with promotion money, and ultimately becomes a profitable undertaking, I think it ought to pay its contribution to the Public Exchequer, and therefore there ought to be a terminal period for the

    1129
    nominal payment. If the term of five years is not sufficient, then it can be reconsidered at the proper time; but I should like to see the mining tried as a fair commercial experiment. I cannot say that has yet been done, for the reason I have already stated.
    MR. PRITCHARD MORGAN: I wish to tell the right hon. Gentleman some facts which he does not appear to know. There have been £120,000 expended on the Morgan Mine. I spent £30,000 looking for this gold before I saw a speck of it as large as a pin's head, and the Government never interfered with me for four years. The company has paid a dividend of £10,500, and the Woods and Forests Department has received royalties to the extent of £3,000 in hard cash, or 30 per cent. on the amount paid in dividends.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I have no doubt, if the hon. Gentleman says so, that that is true. I take my stand on the principle I have enunciated—that these industries ought not to be interfered with by a burden in the early years; but when they develop into a profitable undertaking, I think on all fair and just principles they ought to pay their contribution to the Public Exchequer.
    COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTsaid, he knew nothing whatever about the promotion of this company, or the amount paid to the vendor, but he could not understand why royalties should be levied by the Crown upon the production of gold or any other article. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would agree to limit the royalty to 1 per cent. over the whole term of the lease. The mine-owners would still contribute to the Exchequer, because the income derived from the mines would be taxed as other incomes were.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid, he did not wish to argue the point raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he wished to remind him that the present Government had not made the reduction of 1 per cent., for it was made by their predecessors—who
    1130
    brought the royalty down from 3½ per cent. to that figure; and he trusted the Government would see their way to extend the reduced royalty for the whole period the contract had to run. He had visited the mines himself, and found that they gave employment to 200 very poor people, who altogether supported a population of 1,000. He hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to give his favourable consideration to the whole matter.
    MR. CONYBEAREsaid that, in his opinion, the royalty paid to the nation was a very proper thing. In gold mines abroad—in South Africa, America, and elsewhere—everyone who was commencing mining had to pay what amounted to a considerable royalty. The real point in this matter, which deserved more consideration than apparently the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given it, was that the gold royalty of 1–100th which was to be raised after five years should be raised solely on the profits. However satisfactory the Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties might be in regard to Wales, in Cornwall the Commission was regarded as a farce, and its result as absolutely worthless. The Commission, so far as Cornwall was concerned, was composed of landlords and land agents, and, therefore, the grievances of Cornwall never received any consideration from it.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Resolution agreed to.
    Resolution 16.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £30,287, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings."
    MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, there was a sum of £320 on the Votes for supplying double sashes to the windows of the Tea Rooms, Dining Rooms, and Reading Rooms of the House of Commons. He understood the work had not been done, and he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether the money had been returned to the Treasury, or used for some other purpose? He also wished to

    1131
    know whether the structural alterations recommended by the Kitchen Committee in order to provide proper facilities for cooking would be carried out? So far as he could see, the offices devoted to the Kitchen were not fit for the purpose. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would also tell him what decision he had come to with regard to his suggestion that more seats and the means of obtaining temperance refreshments within the grounds should be provided for visitors to Hampton Court Palace Gardens? So as to accentuate his inquiry as to the £320, he would formally move to reduce the Vote by a sum of £320.
    MR. SPEAKER: The subject which the hon. Gentleman last touched upon does not come under this Vote.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE,)said, it was true that £320 was voted last year for making double windows in certain rooms of the House. He understood the money had been spent in doubling the windows in the Tea Room. He would consider the question of structural alterations in the Kitchen, which he admitted was in some respects not all that it should be. He had considered the subject of refreshments at Hampton Court, and he had decided against it, as there were many refreshment houses in the neighbourhood, and it might interfere with the enjoyment of the people in the Gardens. He had made arrangements that seats should be provided.
    MR. CREMERsaid, it was reported that the First Commissioner of Works had inspected the part of the House in which it was suggested that alterations should be made in conjunction with an official who was opposed to any structural alterations at all. He therefore hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would preserve an open mind upon the subject until the Committee had had the opportunity of laying their views before him.
    MR. BRUNNERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had considered the suggestions made with a view to additional accommodation being provided for the hanging of hats?
    [No reply was given.]
    Resolution agreed to.
    Subsequent Resolution agreed to.

  ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
  Account [presented 12th September] to be printed. [No. 415.]
  FISHERIES (IRELAND)
  Copy presented,—of Ad-interim Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries on the Mackerel Fishing off the Coast of Ireland during the Spring of 1893 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC RECORDS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented,—of Twenty-fifth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented,—of Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, Nos. 1289 (Manila), 1290 (Bahia), and 1291 (Munich) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NATIONALITY AND NATURALIZATION (MISCELLANEOUS, No. 5, 1893).
  Copy presented,—of Report from Her Majesty's Minister at the Hague inclosing a translation of the Netherland Law on Nationality and Domicile of 12th December, 1892 (in continuation of Miscellaneous, No. 4, 1893) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Copy presented,—of Copies and Extracts of Correspondence relating to the British South Africa Company in Mashonaland and Matabeleland [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  NAVY ESTIMATES, 1893–4 (STATEMENT).
  Copy presented,—of Statement regarding the probable insufficiency of the Estimate for Vote 14 (Naval and Marine Pensions, Gratuities and Compassionate Allowances) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  It being after Six of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at ten minutes after Seven o'clock.