Sitting of 25 April 1895

Preamble
The House met at Three of the Clock.
MOTION.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. George Russell, Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, under the Metropolitan Police Act 1886, relating to lands in the parishes of St. Pancras and Wimbledon.
  Bill presented accordingly, and read the first time; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.—[Bill 212.]

  LANDS CLAUSES (TAXATION OF COSTS) BILL.— [H.L.]
  Read 1° to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 213].
PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAIL -WAY BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of the London and North Western Railway Bill,
  MR. D. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid, that he should object to a Second Reading being given to the Bill until the Directors of the Company had had an opportunity of reconsidering their attitude in regard to certain action of their officials in that part of the country which the new powers were asked for—namely, North Wales. The Company had used the powers it already possessed in a way prejudicial to the interests of the inhabitants. He was
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  aware that, under the ruling of the late Speaker, given in 1891, it would be out of order to discuss a question of the general policy of the railway company when the remedy rested not with the company but with some outside authority. With regard to the crying grievance which he now brought before the House, the redress rested entirely and alone with the London and North Western Railway. Some time ago it was observed that the Directors were weeding out their Welsh-speaking workmen on this railway. The Directors, with whom he entered into communication on the subject, asked him to submit specific instances of workmen who had been discharged because they were unable to speak English; and he gave a number of cases, into which the Directors professed to institute an inquiry. They stated in a letter that the reason for the dismissal of these men was not that they were unable to speak English; but what it was they would not divulge. That left the impression on other employers of labour that the men had been dismissed for incompetence. The Directors, however, promised that nothing of the kind should occur again; and for two years there was no ground for complaint. But a short time ago they resumed the old policy. Their attention was again called to the matter, and he would read to the House a letter written in reply by one of the chief officials of the company.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I understand the hon. Member proposes to object to the Third Reading of this Bill on the ground that the railway company have adopted a certain policy as regards the non-employment of what the hon. Gentleman describes as monoglot Welsh platelayers. It seems to me that would be a course that would be out of order [Opposition cheers] on a Bill of this kind and at this hour. It is my duty to see that the time devoted to private business is consumed solely with those matters which are relevant to private business. I quite understand the hon. Gentleman is seeking to show that the case he has in mind is relevant. So far I quite understand what his point is; but it seems to me it would be out of order to raise the question on this private Bill. The conditions of employment is a matter of general policy not confined

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  to a single railway company; it does not affect the making of this particular line; it does not affect the particular locality or the particular public for whom the line is to be made; it is a question of policy which refers to all railway companies, at least, in all parts of Wales. It should be applicable not to any one company only, but to all companies working railways in any part of the country. ["Hear, hear."] Under these circumstances it appears to me that the course of argument which the hon. Member is adopting is out of order on this occasion. [Opposition cheers.]
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he would bow absolutely to the Speaker's ruling, but he might be permitted to point out he was objecting more particularly to the 11th and 13th Sections of the Bill. The London and North-Western Railway Company asked the House of Commons to give them special powers with regard to the acquisition of lands in a particular part of the Principality where he thought they had already misused their powers. As he could not go into the reasons why he objected to those clauses he would move that the Debate be adjourned for a month [hear, hear], in order to give the directors of the company an opportunity of reconsidering their decision.
  MR. DAVID PLUNKETsaid it was not possible for him to enter into the subject upon which the hon. Member who moved the adjournment was about to proceed, because the Speaker had ruled it out of order, but he desired to say a word with regard to one statement the hon. Gentleman had made. The hon. Member spoke of an earlier occasion on which he brought certain cases of alleged hardships before the London and North-Western Railway Company. These cases were most carefully gone into, and he assured the House they had nothing to do with the employment of men as Welshmen or as Welsh-speaking Welshmen, or in any other respect as regarded their nationality or their language. He had also to say there was, so far as he was informed, no foundation whatever for the statement that the railway company admitted anything—
  *MR. BRYNMOR JONES: I rise to order, Mr. Speaker. Is the right hon. Gentleman in order in
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  referring to topics which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs and which you said ought not to be touched upon?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Of course, the policy of the company cannot be argued, but, at the same time, the hon. Member having made reference to a certain point—an attack upon the company—I think I ought not to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman in what, I am sure, will be a short statement.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: May we reply to it?
  *Mr. SPEAKER: There cannot be anything in the nature of a general discussion.
  MR. PLUNKETsaid he was not referring to a question of policy, but to a statement of fact, which he challenged.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: What about the circular?
  MR. PLUNKETsaid, that the statement of fact was that the Railway Company so far admitted the grounds of the charges made that they gave an undertaking that no such thing should occur again. So far as he was informed, no such undertaking or condition of any kind was ever given. As to the Motion for Adjournment, he had only to say that the main object of the Bill in all its clauses, and especially in the clauses referring to Wales, was to give additional facilities to the public. If the Bill were adjourned, or if it were thrown out, the results would be much more injurious to the people of Wales and of the other portions of the country affected than to the London and North Western Company. He would be ready at any time to meet the hon. Member's charges, if they were the charges which he had seen in the newspapers and elsewhere.
  *MR. BRYNMOR JONESthought the right hon. Gentleman had furnished the best argument for the Adjournment of the Debate for, at any rate, a short period, inasmuch as he had challenged the accuracy of the statement of fact made by the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs. It was well to remember that the right hon. Gentleman was one of the directors of the London and North Western Railway Company; he was a man peculiarly interested in that great monopoly, and the fact that he had made statements which hon. Members disputed was the very best

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  ground for the Adjournment of the Debate.
  MR. A. C. MORTONhoped the right hon. Gentleman, who was generally very fair, would consent to the Adjournment of the Debate, not necessarily for a month, but for a few days, in order that the directors of the company and the hon. Members from Wales might have an opportunity of coming to terms. He understood that they could not discuss this matter on this Bill, but if necessary he should be glad to join the hon. Gentleman from Wales and throw out a Bill without giving their reasons; but he hoped that with an adjournment the London and North-Western Railway would do what was right in this case.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTSsaid, that, as a Welshman, a Welsh-speaking Welshman, and also as a shareholder in the London and North Western Railway, and as a Member of the House of Commons, he was quite prepared to accept the result of throwing out the Bill until the directors of the company, which he could not but denominate as a most arrogant company, could be brought to their senses.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid, it seemed to him bad policy on the part of the London and North Western Railway Company to fly in the face of local public opinion upon a matter that evoked national sentiment to an extraordinary degree. In his opinion the right hon. Gentleman who supported the Third Reading of the Bill had, in the face of his traversing the facts alleged by the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, no choice but to accept the Adjournment of the Debate. If in the meantime the right hon. Gentleman could prove that the statements of the hon. Members were untrue, he would win many hon. Members to his side.
  MR. PLUNKETsaid, he and the Railway Company had not the least objection to any amount of inquiry. He had only to repeat that he trusted the adjournment would not be of a kind that would baffle a Bill, the passing of which was much more to the interest of the public than of the company.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to an adjournment for a month?
  MR. PLUNKET: That is a very long time. [Cries of "A week."]
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,suggested that the hon. Member for Carnarvon had been met in a fair way by the right hon. Gentleman, and thought the object would be attained if there were an adjournment for a fortnight.
  Debate adjourned for a fortnight.

QUESTIONS.

  THE AGED POOR COMMISSION.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Government has considered the various Reports made by members of the Royal Commission on the Provision for Old Age; and what action they propose to take in regard to this question?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. G. J. SHAW LEFEVRE,: The Reports of the Royal Commission on this important subject show very great difference of opinion among its Members. It appears, however, that a majority of them, in their separate Reports or Memoranda, are of opinion that further examination should be made of the various schemes for old age pensions, with the object of ascertaining whether the difficulties and objections which have been raised to them can be removed. In view of this the Government will take measures for a further examination of the matter, but they are not able at present to come to any final decision on the subject.
  MR. WALTER LONG: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that portion of the Report which refers to friendly societies, and which will involve but a slight alteration of a non-controversial character in the law relating to friendly societies, has been considered by the Government?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: That has not yet been considered by the Department concerned, but I will communicate with the Department, and I have no

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  doubt that a communication will be made to the friendly societies.
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir JOHN HIBBERT,: I wish to say, in answer to my hon. Friend opposite, that the Treasury is about to introduce a Bill to amend the Friendly Societies Act, which will contain some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
  MR. WALTER LONG: May I ask does, it include such an alteration in the Act of 1870 as will enable juvenile societies to be merged in adult societies?
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERT: Yes.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any intimation of the time when he will be able to state definitely the measures the Government intend to take?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Not, at present.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, whatever his Department may contemplate in connection with friendly societies, he will see that those societies have ample notice of what the Department intend to do?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Most certainly.

  VILLAGE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN SCOTLAND.
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the Scotch Education Department has decided as to the legality of school boards granting allowances for the board in villages of children residing at distances too great to enable them to attend school from home; and whether, if such allowances are held to be illegal, Her Majesty's Government will consider how children so situated can be provided with education?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN,: The Scotch Education Department have been advised that there is nothing in the Education Acts which enables School Boards to grant allowances for board under any circumstances, except under the Blind and Deaf Mute Children Act, 1890. The cases where children reside so far from school as to make their attendance impossible are rare, and the Department holds that
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  each case should be considered on its own merits. We are ready to advise where the circumstances are brought to our notice.

  SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES IN INDIA.
  MR. W. S. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India—(1) what steps, if any, have been taken by the various local governments and administrations in India with respect to the recommendations of the Viceroy in Council, under date 17th August, 1882, relating to discipline and moral training in schools and colleges in India; and (2) whether he will call for a Return showing in what respects the several suggestions and desires of the Viceroy in Council, contained in the above-mentioned document, especially the desire that each Local Government and administration should, either by the appointment of a committee, or by employing selected individuals who need not be officials, or by the offer of suitable prizes, effect a revision of readers in the Government schools in a direction indicated, have been carried out, and with what results?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL,, answering in the absence of Mr. HENRY FOWLER: The Secretary of State is not in a position to give a complete reply to the first branch of this question, but he will have no objection to call for a Return showing what has been done in the matter of revising the text-books, or to carry out any of the other suggestions of the Government of India as to which my hon. Friend specially desires information.

  MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN BALLO LOCH, FIFE.
  MR. HERBERT PAUL: On behalf of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. BIRRELL), I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether his attention has been called to the mysterious death of a man whoso body was recently found in Ballo Loch, Fife, and to the delay of the county Procurator Fiscal in the matter, and to the delay of that official to hold a public court of inquiry into the case, and to his not ordering a post-mortem examination of the deceased; and whether it is his intention to propose

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  any alteration of the present method of inquiry into sudden and violent deaths in Scotland?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR,: The body was found in Ballo Loch on Sunday the 24th of March. Information was at once given to the police; and on the following day the Procurator Fiscal directed Dr. Hay, of Leslie, to make an examination of the body, which was immediately done. Dr. Hay reported that there was nothing to suggest that the death was due to violence, and that the whole appearances showed that it was due to drowning. As the body was still unidentified on Tuesday the 26th, the Procurator Fiscal telegraphed to Dr. Hay authorising him to make a post-mortem examination; but on the same day the body was identified by the father of the deceased, who objected to a post-mortem examination being made, as he was quite satisfied that death was caused by drowning, and that there were no grounds for suspicion. Dr. Hay again expressed himself as fully satisfied with respect to the cause of death, and the body was accordingly handed over to the relatives for burial. In the meantime the Procurator Fiscal made full inquiry in regard to the movements of the deceased since he left Edinburgh on the 19th of March. As the result of the whole investigation there is no ground for suspecting violence or foul play. There is no authority, according to the law or practice of Scotland, for holding a public inquiry in such a case; but I consider that the Procurator Fiscal should have gone as soon as possible to the place where the body was, and personally made such investigation as he could there. Except as regards the class of cases to which the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Bill relates, there is no intention to propose any alteration of the present law and practice of Scotland in regard to inquiries into sudden or violent deaths.

  SURGEON MAJOR-GENERAL GIRAUD.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether, and for what specified period, the services of Surgeon Major-General C. H. Giraud, Principal Medical Officer at Netley, has been extended beyond the age laid down by Regulation
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  for retirement; and whether, and when, the period of extension was notified to the Officer concerned.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN,: The services of Surgeon Major General Giraud have not been extended beyond the maximum age laid down by Regulation for retirement. The age laid down by the Royal Warrant for retirement of a Surgeon Major General is 62 when the interests of the public service would be materially advanced by his retention to that age; and it was deemed advisable to retain Dr. Giraud's services at Netley till he reached that age. He was verbally informed of this at the time it was so decided.

  THE MOMBASA AND UGANDA RAILWAY.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, having regard to the terms of the Report of Sir Gerald Portal and what has since occurred, what are the intentions of the Government with reference to the construction of the Mombasa and Uganda Railways?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,: The question of the Railway in East Africa is under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, but I am not able at present to make any statement on the subject.

  CADASTRAL SURVEYS IN INDIA.
  MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of Bengal obtained the consent of the Behar Planters' Association to the Bill for the maintenance of the Record of Rights, and for recovering the costs of Cadastral Surveys, imposing on the land of Bengal heavy additional taxation, on the express pledge of the Government that the Patwari Regulation of 1817 should be abolished; whether the Secretary of State in a subsequent despatch encouraged the expectation of abolition; whether the Government of Bengal, at the last moment, when the Bill came from the Select Committee to be passed into law by the Legislative Council, admitted the promise, but stated

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  that they had amply redeemed it by their endeavours to get the Regulation repealed, but stated that the Government of India had decided against repeal, and that, consequently, they had struck out the repealing Clause; whether the Maharajah of Durbhanga, as an elected member of the Council, thereon declared that this would be generally regarded as a breach of faith on the part of the Government; and, whether the Secretary of State will either veto the Bill, or instruct the Government of India to permit the Government of Bengal to fulfil their promise?
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: It was stated by the Bengal Government that a part of their scheme was to repeal the Patwari Regulation; but the Secretary of State for India is not aware that an express pledge was given that it should be repealed. The Secretary of State, in July 1894, assented to the proposal for repeal. The Report of the Bengal Council proceedings of the 9th March, when the Bill was discussed and referred to a Select Committee, has not yet reached the Secretary of State; so he is unable to verify the quotations from speeches made at that debate. But, so far as he is aware, the Select Committee have not yet reported on the Bill. The Secretary of State is unable to say what action he will take until he receives the Act in its final shape, and the discussions of the Bengal Council thereon.

  CHITRAL.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the present Ruler of Chitral, Amir-ul-Mulk, secured his present position by murdering his brother, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to support Amir-ul-Mulk as Ruler of Chitral?
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: As the question of the policy to be pursued in Chitral is under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, the Secretary of State must request the hon. Member to postpone his question for the present.

  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
  MR. E. H. HULSE: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if
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  he is prepared to furnish the House with a Return of all elementary school teachers, male and female, who are at present occupied in the work of education, and have attained the ages of 60 and 65 respectively?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. A. H. D. ACLAND York, W.R., Holderness): A Return including this information, for all certificated teachers employed in elementary public schools during the year ended 31st August 1890, was furnished on the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Kingston, in 1891, when the School Board for London Superannuation Bill was under consideration by a Select Committee of this House, of which the hon. Baronet was Chairman. The figures of this Return, which will also be found more fully analysed in Appendix 10 to the Report of the Select Committee, were used as the basis of the calculations made by the Departmental Committee in its recent investigations into the general question of teachers' superannuation, and that Committee did not find it necessary to ask that a fresh Return should be prepared. Such a Return would involve a great deal of labour, and I hardly think it is necessary at present; but if the hon. Member still wishes to press for it, it can be furnished.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he proposes, during the present Session, to introduce any measure for the superannuation of teachers in the public elementary schools, in accordance with the recommendations of the Departmental Committee appointed by him, with the concurrence of the Treasury, to consider the question?
  MR. ACLAND: This is a very large question which involves a very large sum of money, and requires very careful consideration; but the Government are not without hopes of being able to deal with it in the course of this Session.

  CIVIL SERVICE APPOINTMENTS.
  MR. HERBERT PAUL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state the number of nusuccessful candidates at the last examina-

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  tion for the First Division of the Civil Service to whom appointments have been offered; whether it is intended to give any further appointments to unsuccessful candidates; and whether he has considered the advisability of adopting the alternative course of promoting clerks from the Second Division to such appointments?
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERT: The term "unsuccessful candidates" is misleading. The recent examination was held in order to fill eight existing vacancies and others that might occur during the next six months. Two such have occurred. No candidate has been, or will be, offered an appointment who has not shown himself to be fully qualified, nor has any one been appointed who has not graduated in Honours at the University. Although it is not proposed to depart from the established principle that admission to the First Division shall be by competitive examination, the Treasury is always ready to consider a recommendation from the head of a Department for the promotion of a Second Division clerk of exceptional ability and qualifications to fill such a vacancy in his Department.

  EMPLOYMENT OF SLAVES BY BRITISH SUBJECTS.
  MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a contract has been entered into with an English firm at Zanzibar to convey a Government steamer from the Coast to the Victoria Nyanza Lake; whether the contractor is allowed to employ Zanzibar slaves to carry portions of the steamer and the necessary fittings; and whether the edict originating in Sir Gerald Portal's warning that the employment of slaves by British subjects in those caravans encourages the slave trade, has recently been made void; if so, for what cause?
  SIR E. GREY: A launch has been bought from an English firm, who have contracted to deliver it on the Victoria Nyanza. The contractor will have to comply with the existing regulations of the Zanzibar Government for the engagement of porters, so far as they are recruited at Zanzibar. The chief origin of the edict alluded to was the scarcity of labour in Zanzibar, and it had no
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  special reference to slaves. It is considered that the interests of Zanzibar and the good treatment of the porters employed are protected by the present regulations.

  PATENTS.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade in view of the fact that there are in and out of this country 1,339,062 old and new patents up to 1st January 1894, can he state whether there are abstract indexes of all these patents, complete and fully classified, available to the public to consult in London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, or other large business centres; and whether, short of a costly trial at law, any English patent under our present system of issue is definitely known to be valid and free from old matter from one or more of the foregoing patents?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,: Printed weekly and annual indexes of all British patents are regularly supplied to libraries in the cities referred to by the hon. Member, and also to 31 other business centres. It is well known that the grant of a patent carries with it no guarantee of validity.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the all-round average lifetime of patents in this country for the year 1892 was only about four years ton months and two weeks; whether he will state what it was for the years 1893 and 1894 respectively, together with the number of patents voided for each year; and whether he will forewarn, or safeguard, the public from taking out patents, under the belief that all patents live 14 years, by instructing patent agents acting in connection with the Patent Office to state spicuously, yearly, on all their advertisements, books, or other publications, what the all-round average lifetime of patents has been for the preceding year?
  MR. J. BRYCE: I am aware that the average lifetime of a patent in this country is about five years. In 1893 and 1894 it was about four years and eight months. The number of patents which lapsed in 1893 was 9,302; and in 1894, 9,925. The Board have no power to instruct members of the profession of

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  patent agents to make any statement on the subject. I believe that, as a rule, inventors are aware that the life of a patent depends on the payment of renewal fees. There is a statement to this effect on every patent issued.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: Arising out of that question, I would like to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, considering the way in which Members of Parliament are badgered by patentees, and the advantage that would accrue from publicity being given to the answer he has made to the hon. Member's question, he will consider the advisability of publishing it in The Labour Gazette and The Board of Trade Journal?
  MR. J. BRYCE: I thought the points were perfectly well understood, but I will consider the suggestion of my hon. Friend.

  DISTRESS IN IRELAND.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the distress existing in Glencoe, in the Belmullet Union, and Derry, in the Ballina Union; and whether it is the intention of the Government to take any steps to provide employment for the people in these districts?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JOHN MORLEY, New-castle-upon-Tyne): There are a few families in the division of Glencoe for whom it may be necessary to afford relief by employment on a relief work, and such a work will be opened in this neighbourhood on May 1. As regards the Derry division, a most careful inspection was recently made of the district, and the Local Government Board inform me that the circumstances of the people there are not such as to render necessary, at present, the opening of relief works.

  MEDICAL SERVICES IN THE NENAGH UNION, IRELAND.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that Dr. M. J. Calahan, who was called on at night to attend four urgent cases in and about Nenagh, on 6th March 1895, when no other medical man was available, and was appointed
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  by the Nenagh Board of Guardians and the Dispensary Committee; but that, after a month's delay, the Local Government Board wrote to the Committee of the Dispensary not to pay him, on the plea of his being dismissed over 17 years since, by a sealed order, from a Dispensary for refusing to prosecute extremely poor patients for not complying with the Vaccination Act; and, whether he will look into the matter?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The facts, I am informed, are substantially as stated in the question. Having regard, however, to the fact that the gentleman referred to was the only medical man available when the permanent doctor took ill, and that his services were urgently required in some cases, the Board have reconsidered the matter and authorised payment for the temporary services rendered by him.

  THE ORDNANCE STORE DEPARTMENT.
  MR. ELLIOTT LEES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether it is the fact that 62 regimental officers serving in the Ordnance Store Department have been ordered to rejoin their regiments on the termination of their appointments; whether he is aware that, when the Army Service Corps was formed out of the Commissariat and Transport Staff, the regimental officers serving with the Commissariat and Transport Staff were given the option of continuing their service in the Army Service Corps; whether his attention has been drawn to the promise given by the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, in the House of Commons, on 2nd August 1879, that the Ordnance Store officers would receive treatment "on all fours" with the Commissariat and Transport Staff; and, whether the War Office contemplate the appointment of Artillery officers at enhanced rates of pay over the heads of the present senior officers in the Ordnance Store Department?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Regimental officers now serving in the Ordnance Store Department will rejoin their regiments on completion of the periods of service in terms of their engagements. Only such officers as were selected from the Commissariat and Transport Staff for service in the Army Service Corps were given, the option of

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  continuing their service in the latter corps. It must be remembered that the organisation of the Supply Department of the Army has been completely changed since 1879. It is not contemplated to appoint Artillery officers over the heads of officers at present serving, except in one or two cases in the highest ranks, where the establishment will be increased so that no hardship will arise.
  MR. ELLIOTT LEES: Has the Commissary General been consulted?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have no doubt that everybody concerned has been consulted?

  RE-DIRECTION OF LETTERS.
  MR. HERBERT PAUL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether he is aware that some local postmaster's consent to forward letters for persons who have left the neighbourhood after giving notice of their new address, while others refuse to do so; whether there is any official rule on the subject; and, whether, for the public convenience, he will direct that letters shall be forwarded in all such cases?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. ARNOLD MORLEY,: Postmasters are required to redirect letters for householders and the members of their families who have permanently removed and have furnished their new address; but the Post Office does not undertake to re-direct letters addressed to hotels or lodgings which can be more conveniently re-directed after delivery. If the hon. Member will let me have particulars of any cases which he has in mind, I shall be glad to make enquiry into the matter.

  JAPANESE COMMERCIAL PRIVILEGES IN CHINA.
  SIR RICHARD TEMPLE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether Japan is bound by existing engagements to share with the United Kingdom any commercial privileges she may possess or acquire in China or elsewhere?
  SIR E. GREY: No engagement exists with Japan to this effect, but under Article 24 of the Treaty with China of June 26, 1858, "it is agreed that British subjects shall pay on all merchandise imported or exported by them
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  the duties prescribed by the tariff, but in no case shall they be called upon to pay other or higher duties than are required of the subjects of any other foreign nation," and under Article 54 of that Treaty, the British Government and its subjects are" confirmed in all privileges, immunities and advantages conferred on them by previous Treaties," and it is "expressly stipulated that the British Government and its subjects will be allowed free and equal participation in all privileges, immunities and advantages that may have been, or may be hereafter granted by His Majesty the Emperor of China to the Government or subjects of any other nation."

  OUTBREAKS OF SHEEP-SCAB IN HAMPSHIRE.
  Mr. W. H. MYERS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been called to the recent outbreaks of sheep-scab in Hampshire; and, whether he will direct an inquiry into the origin of the disease, and take prompt measures for stamping it out.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HERBERT GARDNER,: Yes, Sir, I have received returns respecting the five outbreaks of sheep-scab reported from Hampshire during the present year. It rests with the local authorities to make all necessary enquiries and to carry into effect the requirements of the Orders of the Board of Agriculture on the subject of the disease in question, and I gather from the reports before me that those authorities are fully alive to their duty in this respect. In one instance, the person in charge of the sheep was prosecuted for not giving notice of the appearance of the disease, and a penalty was imposed by the magistrates.

  HAWAII.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for West Kerry (Sir THOMAS ESMONDE), I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the Republic of Hawaii is under the protection of the United States; and, whether it would be possible for Her Majesty's Government to approach the Government of the United States with a view to obtaining proper treatment for Queen Liliokuolani?
  DR. MACGREGOR: Before this question is answered, as I happen to know the lady who was formerly Queen of Hawaii, I wish to ask the hon. Baronet whether he will allow me to join the hon. Baronet opposite in bespeaking for her kindly treatment, and whether he is aware that she is imprisoned against the will of a very large majority of her subjects?
  SIR E. GREY: I cannot add anything with regard to the imprisonment of the Queen to what I have already stated in reply to previous questions. In answer to the question on the paper, I have to say that the Republic of Hawaii is not under the protection of the United States, and no such action could be taken by Her Majesty's Government.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Can the hon. Baronet not make an ad misericordium appeal to the American Government?
  SIR E. GREY: As I have said, the Republic of Hawaii is not under the protection of the American Government, so that they are not the proper people to refer to.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Has the Republic of Hawaii been recognised by the British Government?
  SIR E. GREY: Yes, Sir; the present Government has been recognised.
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether he has observed the communication of Mr. Frederick Harrison, a British subject resident for 17 years in Honolulu, in The Standard of 18th April; (2) whether any official confirmation of the outrages, alleged by Mr. Harrison to have been committed on himself and other British subjects at the instance of the Government of the Republic of Hawaii, has been received; (3) whether any protests from oppressed British subjects in Honolulu have reached the Foreign Office; (4) whether he can state the number of British subjects that have been sentenced to imprisonment for alleged complicity in the recent Royalist rising at Honolulu; (5) whether it is a fact that no British war vessel was present at Honolulu to support the protests of Major Hawes, the British Resident Commissioner, against the ill-treatment of British subjects under martial law; and (6) what steps, if any, have been taken to enforce treaty obligations with the
  1624
  Republic of Hawaii, guaranteeing to British subjects the protection and enjoyment of the due and regular process of law?
  SIR E. GREY: The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. Many British subjects were arrested for charges of participation in, or complicity with, the insurrection. The reports do not confirm the stories of outrages described by Mr. Harrison; but they contain numerous complaints of hardships suffered while in prison. Protests have been received from the British subjects arrested and they are being carefully considered. Besides the British subjects who have been sentenced to imprisonment, many have been dealt with under martial law and subsequently induced, under pressure as they assert, to leave the country. No British man-of-war was at Honolulu at the time of the outbreak. The proceedings of the Hawaiian Government were all taken during the interruption of the regular course of law by the proclamation of martial law, which has now ceased, and Her Majesty's Government are now considering whether the facts, when fully known, would justify them in taking any action.

  OUTBREAK AT BRASS.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state what arrangements have been made for a full inquiry into the late difficulties on the Brass River; and what is the tenour of the instructions given to the Commissioner charged with the inquiry?
  SIR E. GREY: Sir John Kirk has been appointed Commissioner, and will proceed to Brass by the steamer of the 11th of May. His instructions will embrace an inquiry into all the circumstances connected with the recent outbreak, the redress of grievances, and the maintenance of order in the two Protectorates.

  THE SUB-POSTMASTER OF ASHLEAGH, COUNTY MAYO.
  DR. ROBERT AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he is aware that in October 1894 a complaint was lodged against the sub-postmaster of Ashleagh, County Mayo, that he had given the use of the

  1625
  post office room to the Church Mission Society for a night school; that he acted as reader to the church mission; that an inspector was sent down from Dublin to inquire into the matter; and that the sub-postmaster admitted being guilty of both offences; and, will he see that, the district in question being a purely Catholic one, the successor to the present sub-postmaster will also be a Catholic?
  MR. W. JOHNSTON: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, I would like to ask him whether he does not consider it extremely undesirable to establish a sectarian test for official appointments in Ireland?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: In October last a complaint was made to the effect stated by the hon. Member. On inquiry it transpired that Mr. Courcey, who was acting as Postmaster during a vacancy, had lent the room, in which the post office duties were being temporarily carried on, to a benevolent lady for the purpose of holding a sewing class. No religious topics appear to have been introduced at the meetings; but as it was considered that a post office was not a proper place for such a purpose, the class was at once removed to other quarters.
  DR. R. AMBROSE: Is it not the fact that the Church Mission Society have already removed this Postmaster?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: No, I am not aware of that fact.

  MACHINE GUNS.
  VISCOUNT CURZON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Maxim and quick-firing guns are served out to all regiments when on foreign service; and whether he will consider the advisability of supplying them to all regiments. Cavalry and Infantry, at home and abroad?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The question of the best tactical distribution of Machine guns is under consideration. Till this is settled, I cannot give a reply to the noble Lord's inquiry.

  DISEASED SHEEP.
  *SIR HERBERT MAXWELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if his attention
  1626
  has been directed to a report recently submitted by Mr. Alexander Pottie, V.S., Paisley, to the directors of the Renfrew Agricultural Association, on a disease affecting 70 per cent. of the sheep imported from America; whether the Inspector of the Board of Agriculture has confirmed or disproved the accuracy of that report; whether the disease has been ascertained to be parasitic or hereditary, or both; and whether any precautions are in contemplation or operation for the protection of the home stock?
  *MR. HERBERT GARDNER: I have received a copy of the report to which the hon. Baronet refers, and have been in communication with the Renfrewshire Agricultural Society respecting it. Specimens of the diseased parts of the sheep in question are now under examination by my veterinary officers, and so soon as I receive their report I shall be in a position to give the hon. Baronet the further information he desires, and to determine whether any further action on my part is requisite.
  *SIR H. MAXWELL: Have reports been received from any other district on the same subject?
  *MR. GARDNER: No, Sir; not that I am aware of.
  *MR. C. B. RENSHAWasked the right hon. Gentleman if he was aware that there had actually been a case in which these American ewes had been bred from, which was followed with disastrous results; whether that case had been reported; and whether the right hon. Gentleman, having regard to that fact, would communicate the result of the inquiry he was now making at the earliest possible moment.
  *MR. GARDNER: I shall be glad to communicate the result at the earliest possible moment. I have no information such as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

  SCOTCH BOUNDARIES.
  MR. J. H. C. HOZIER: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether a decision has been arrived at with regard to the boundaries between the parishes of Hamilton and Dalziel?
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: I hope that a decision may be reached in the course of next week.

  GLAMORGANSHIRE INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION SCHEME.
  MR. DAVID THOMAS: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, if he can state the position of the Glamorganshire Intermediate Education Scheme?
  MR. ACLAND: A Petition under Section 39 of the Endowed Schools Act 1869 was presented towards the end of last year to the Queen in Council, by the Rector and certain inhabitants of Galligaer against this scheme; and was, in accordance with Section 14 of the Endowed Schools Act 1873, referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council It is understood that the petitioners do not desire to proceed with this Petition, and it may be anticipated that it will very shortly be dismissed by the Judicial Committee for want of prosecution. In that event the scheme will, in accordance with Section 15 of the Endowed Schools Act 1873, be laid before Parliament.

  MEASURES IN THE POTTERIES.
  MR. WILLIAM ALLEN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it has been brought before his notice that the Inspector of Weights and Measures at Lincoln has refused to pass a number of measures from the Potteries though they were stamped; and if he will issue instructions to prevent such occurrences in the future?
  MR. BRYCE: The Board of Trade are not aware that the Inspector of Weights and Measures at Lincoln has refused to pass stamped measures from the Potteries, but they have had brought to their notice a case in which the same Inspector has refused to pass measures stamped in another district. The law provides that a measure duly stamped by an Inspector shall be a legal measure throughout the United Kingdom, unless found to be false or unjust, and shall not be liable to be re-stamped, because used in any place other than that in which it was originally stamped. If the hon. Member will send me the particulars of the case, I will communicate with the Local Authority at Lincoln, but the Board of Trade are not empowered to issue instructions in the matter.

  WELSH EMIGRANTS.
  MR. DAVID THOMAS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if, in future Returns, he will cause Welsh Emigrants to be distinguished from English, as is now done in the case of Irish and Scotch; and if further legislation is necessary for the purpose whether he will provide for it?
  MR. BRYCE: The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 provides for the classification only of English, Scotch, and Irish Emigrants. To distinguish Welsh Emigrants from English, further legislation would be necessary. I do not think it will be possible this Session to amend the Merchant Shipping Act, and the addition of a further classification is a point which would in any case require some consideration, as, the further sub-division is carried, the more difficult does it become to frame Returns, and to rely on their accuracy.

  MR. DURSTON'S PAPER ON "THE MACHINERY OF WARSHIPS."
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he would give, as a Parliamentary Return, the valuable Paper recently read by Mr. Durston, Engineer-in-Chief of the Royal Navy, before the Institute of Naval Architects, entitled: "The Machinery of Warships," and the discussion which ensued thereon?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): This Paper is the property of the Institution of Civil Engineers; and Mr. Durston did not deliver it in his official capacity as Engineer-in-chief of the Royal Navy. I do not think the Admiralty can take the unusual course of giving as a Parliamentary Return a document of this kind for which they have no responsibility.

  THE ROYAL LIVER FRIENDLY SOCIETY.
  MR. J. HEATH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a combination of agents and collectors and of the Committee of Management of the Royal Liver Friendly Society has sought, by interference in elections of delegates throughout the country, to secure the return of a body of delegates pledged to subvert the delegate system whereon the

  1629
  Society is founded, and so to obtain a control of the Society by agents and collectors, contrary to the Friendly Societies Acts; and whether the Government can interfere to prevent the said Committee of Management from expending the funds of the Society in convening from all parts of the United Kingdom, and holding in Liverpool, a meeting of the Royal Liver Agents and Collectors Union, wherein the Committee of Management took part to promote their common design of subverting the constitution of the said Society, as settled by its rules and the said Friendly Societies Acts?
  SIR JOHN HIBBERT: The Government is not in possession of any information on the matters referred to in the question. If the delegates of the Society should make any alterations in its rules giving the control of the Society to its agents and collectors, such an alteration would be contrary to the Friendly Societies Acts, and would not be registered; and, not being registered, would not be valid. If it is the fact that the Committee of Management have wilfully applied any part of the funds of the Society to purposes other than those expressed or directed in its rules, arid authorised by the Friendly Societies Acts, any member of the Society can obtain from the Registrar of Friendly Societies authority to take proceedings under Section 16 (9) of the Friendly Societies Act, 1875.

  REPORTS OF ROYAL COMMISSIONS.
  MR. W. S. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that The Times newspaper has, during the last six days, devoted six columns to an analysis and criticism of the Reports of two Royal Commissions, namely, the Opium and Hemp Drugs Commissions; and that the Hemp Drugs Commission Report was commented upon by the Indian Press, with copious quotations, more than two months ago; and, if so, will he cause inquiry to be made how copies of Reports not yet presented to Parliament have got into the hands of the Press; and is he now able to state when these two Reports will be issued to Members of this House?
  MR. CYRIL DODD: I would like to ask the Secretary of State
  1630
  for India whether these two Reports were sent to all the principal London papers at the same time, or only to The Times; and, if only to The Times, why that paper alone was selected?
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: The Secretary of State has seen the notices to which my hon. Friend refers. The Report of the Hemp Drugs Commission, with the orders of the Government of India thereon, have been published in India. The Secretary of State has been informed by the Secretary to the Opium Commission that, owing to an unfortunate misapprehension on his part of the practice in such matters, a copy of the Report was prematurely shown by him to a representative of the Press. His error has been pointed out to him. The Secretary of State will be happy to lay a copy of the Hemp Drugs Commission Report on the Table if my hon. friend will move for it. The Report of the Royal Commission on Opium will be laid upon the Table this evening.
  MR. DODDasked why the error was confined to one paper only?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: My hon. Friend continues to ask me for information which I do not possess. I would tell him if I knew, but I do not.

  DISMISSAL OF AN ARMY SURGEON IN MADRAS.
  MR. W. S. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he is now able to state his decision in the case of Surgeon Major Smith, lately dismissed by the Government of Madras, who appealed to the Secretary of State against his dismissal on the 18th of January last; and, if he will lay the papers relating to this case upon the Table of the House?
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: The case of Surgeon Major Smith is still under the consideration of the Secretary of State.

  PRISON CLERKS.
  MR. T. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Treasury asked the Commissioners of Prisons, in a Minute of even date (10th August 1889), for a Return to be filled up under two heads, viz., clerks of the Lower Division and other established clerks, rising

  1631
  through one or more classes to a maximum not exceeding £400 per annum, including duty pay; and, if the competitive clerks in Her Majesty's prisons, who paid an examination fee of £3, entitling them in the customary course of promotion to a maximum of £400 pet annum, were not included in this Return under the head referring to that maximum, will the Treasury send it back for correction in this particular, and exchange these clerks' certificates for those of the Second Division in order that the Royal Commissioners' recommendations for the Civil Service as a whole may be acted upon?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. H. H. ASQUITH,: The Return referred to was duly sent to the Treasury by the Home Office, and the prison clerks were included in it. The storekeepers and first- and second-class clerks of the Prison Department were placed in this Return under the head of "Established Clerks" (other than the Lower Division), rising through one or more classes to a salary not exceeding £400 a year.

  THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS COMMISSION.
  MR. J. G. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state when the maps, which were to be issued with the Report of the Highlands and Islands Commission, will be ready?
  SIR JOHN HIBBERT: I am informed that the maps will in all probability be delivered at the House of Commons by the end of this month.
  DR. D. MACGREGORasked whether it was the case that the maps in question were promised before the Easter holidays?
  SIR JOHN HIBBERT: No; I do not think there was any promise about the matter. I said they were expected to be ready about the end of the month.

  KITCHEN BOILER EXPLOSIONS.
  MR. J. G. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has, since the 19th March last, considered whether some means might be taken to warn householders how to prevent kitchen boiler explosions during
  1632
  winter; and, if so, will he state his decision?
  MR. BRYCE: The matter to which the hon. Member refers is still receiving my careful consideration, and I am in communication with my right hon. Friend, the President of the Local Government Board, with a view of devising some efficient means of warning householders of the steps to be taken to prevent domestic boiler explosions in winter. No definite decision as to the precise means to be adopted has yet been arrived at.

  WINDING-UP OF PUBLIC COMPANIES.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been given to the Treasury letter of 23rd January 1893, stating the opinion of the Treasury that alterations should be made in the instructions of the Board of Trade to official receivers, and that a Committee should be appointed to investigate the question in all its bearings, and to advise as to the limits within which the action of the Department should be restricted, and to the memorial to the Lord Chancellor, dated November 1894, of bankers and merchants in agreement with that letter; and whether Her Majesty's Government will agree to the appointment of a Select Committee of this House to make the investigation suggested by the Treasury?
  MR. E. BOULNOIS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is intended that any action should betaken in consequence of the memorial addressed in November, 1894 to the Lord Chancellor, and signed by 125 leading bankers and merchants, which memorial requested that effect should be given to the views of the Treasury on the subject of the winding-up of public companies; and whether any instructions have been given to the official receivers not to act as permanent liquidators in any case unless the parties interested are unable to find a competent representative of their interests elsewhere?
  MR. BRYCE: Subsequently to the letter of 23rd January 1893, the whole subject to which it related was considered by a Departmental Committee, presided over by Sir J. Rigby, which took evidence at considerable length, and whose Report was presented,

  1633
  in due course, to both Houses of Parliament. The Treasury and the Board of Trade accept the view of the meaning of the Statute which will be found in that Report, and the Treasury authorised the expenditure necessary to give effect to it. The practice of the Board of Trade is in accordance therewith. There does not, therefore, seem to be any necessity for an inquiry by a Select Committee.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES, arising out of the answer, asked whether the Board of Trade had acted or had neglected to act on the recommendation of the Committee; that the official receivers should be instructed to take all reasonable means to discourage their functions as permanent liquidators; whether, as a matter of fact, since the Report was received, the official receiver in a particular case, had not acted as official liquidator; and whether he had not, contrary to a specific recommendation, borrowed a sum of a million-and-a-quarter in order to carry on the company.
  MR. BRYCEadmitted that the practice of the Board of Trade had varied. As regarded the particular case alluded to, what was done was done under the orders of the Committee.
  MR. BOULNOISasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Treasury still adhered to the objection to the existing system contained in the letter sent by himself on January 23rd, 1893?
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERT: Certainly, so far as I know, the Treasury hold the same opinion.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Well, then, do the Board of Trade act upon it?
  MR. BRYCE: The Board of Trade are acting in accordance with the Report of the Committee, which is subsequent to the letter of the Treasury.

  THE OFFICE OF WOODS AND FORESTS.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the Government intend to appoint a Commissioner of Woods and Forests in the place of Sir Nigel Kingscote?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT, Derby): I am informed that the Queen's pleasure has been taken upon this appointment, and it will be announced immediately.

  GAMBLING IN AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES.
  MR. E. HENEAGE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government have now received any information in reference to any legislation or other steps to be taken by the United States of America, or any of the Governments of European countries to prohibit gambling in agricultural commodities; whether the Government have given any consideration to this important question; and whether they intend proposing any legislation on the subject during the present Session?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Papers containing this information were issued yesterday. (Commercial, No. 2, 1895, C. 7,645.) I do not expect the Government will be able to propose legislation on this subject during the present Session.

  SCOTCH GRAND COMMITTEE.
  MR. J. G. WEIR: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he intends to move for the appointment of a Scotch Grand Committee; and whether arrangements will be made to push the Crofters Bill through its various stages without delay?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am unable at present to say when the Government will be able to move for the appointment of a Scotch Grand Committee. I hope that the Government will be able to do so when we have made further progress with Scotch business, as I trust we shall do to-day. In regard to the Crofters' Bill, we shall push it through its various stages as fast as we can.

  THE NAVAL WORKS BILL.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESasked on what day the Naval Works Bill Committee would be taken.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQER: I hope, Sir, on Monday.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELLtrusted it would be put down as an early Order.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, Sir, I hope so.

  GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERgave notice that, on Monday next, he would submit a Motion for

  1635
  giving further time to the Government for Government business. He would put down the terms of the Motion tonight, but he might state generally that it would be on the same conditions as those which were granted to the Government before Easter.

  MR. SPEAKER'S RETIREMENT BILL.
  On Motion of the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,
  Bill read 2°

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On the Order for the Adjourned Debate on the Motion for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Crofters' Acts,
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN,said: It will be well we should inquire how the leading principles laid down by Parliament in 1886 have worked, before we consider how those principles may be more carefully carried out by amended legislation. Have the Crofters' Acts been a blessing to the districts to which they have been applied or have they been the reverse? Now, on this point, the Government are able to give a straight and impartial opinion to the House. A Commission has lately been appointed, drawn from all Parties in politics and from gentlemen in various callings, and this Commission has, in the most unqualified manner, reported very strongly in favour of the operation of the Crofters' Acts. On that favourable opinion I am quite prepared to base the Bill. Everyone who knows the Highlands knows this favourable verdict is well deserved. How did the Act find the Highlands, and what did it make of them? The crofter had no security of tenure. In the house he had built, the farm he had improved, he had no property whatever recognised by the law. Again, he had no protection against arbitrary increase of rent. He was overwhelmed with arrears, which he could not pay or ever hope to pay. More
  1636
  than that, he was confined within his small and sometimes diminishing holding. The hills on which the black cattle of his fathers fed were not for him. He earnestly desired, and in vain, to be allowed not to appropriate or invade, but to lease, at a full rent, grazing land which would enable him to utilise his crops by feeding stock, and keep his stock first, and then, perhaps, his family, from starving. And, as the outcome of all this, the people were first miserable, then discontented, then turbulent, at last openly defiant of the law. I think none of these propositions will be disputed, nor will it be disputed that from the moment the Crofters' Commission appeared in the Highlands all these evils began to mend. The first fair rents were fixed in December 1886. Since that date more than 14,000 holdings have been visited and dealt with. Besides that, a large number of rents have been voluntarily reduced by landlords. More than 1,250,000 acres have been visited and settled by the Commission. The rents have been reduced from £73,000 a year to £52,000 a year. The arrears were £180,000, and of these £122,000 have been cancelled, and the rest may fairly be said to have been paid. The reductions granted on excessive rents and the extinction of the burden of hopeless arrears have brought about among the tenants a widespread feeling of satisfaction and contentment, and have enabled thousands of crofters to make a new start, with a sense of having been fairly treated, and with legitimate hopes for the future never entertained before. That is the case as to fair rents. The provision for the security of tenure has had a marked effect on the moral and material welfare of the crofters. It has fostered in them a spirit of independence and manhood. It has led to the better cultivation of the holdings, and it has led to the erection of a great number of excellent houses and farms, of a more healthy and permanent description than ever were erected in the old days of insecurity. That is what it has done for the tenant, and it has likewise done a good deal for the landlord. By the nominal sacrifice of a proportion of rent not greater than Lowland landlords and landlords in England have been obliged to give on account of economic causes, the crofter

  1637
  landlords have been saved from a state of friction and of actual hostility with their tenants. Instead of struggling with their tenants for a rent which the latter were unable to pay, and for arrears which they were still less able to pay, they have now a right to demand, and in the great majority of districts quite readily obtain, the new rents and the remains of the arrears. The result has been that the tenants and the landlords have gained, and that the State have gained also, for the old state of semi-rebellion that formerly existed in the Highlands has passed away, and the old scandals are a thing of the past. The crofting counties under the operation of the Act are as quiet as Cumberland or Surrey. I will now go to the provisions of the Bill; and I will deal first with that part of it that relates to the extension of holdings. Parliament sanctioned that principle in 1886. The immemorial industry of the Highlands is a combination of arable farming with grazing, and it is in order to enable the crofter to have the indispensable mountain grazing that Parliament accepted the strong, and perhaps in these days new, principle of compulsory leasing. Great hopes were entertained by the crofters and their friends from the operation of the Act, but, on the whole, those hopes have been disappointed. Between 1886 and 1893 there have been 217 applications for the enlargement of holdings by 2,450 crofters. There would doubtless have been a great many more if they could have been made with a fair chance of success. But only 57 holdings have been, enlarged, and only 840 crofters benefited, and these figures include some extremely handsome arrangements that have been made by landlords voluntarily. This state of things has to be remedied, and the goodwill that Parliament has shown towards the crofters has to be carried into practical effect. Therefore the first step of the Government has been to appoint the Commission which has just brought its labours to a close. Once for all, I must say that I think the public owe a very great debt of gratitude to the gentlemen who have served on the Commission. It was a vast work—a sort of cadastral survey of six Scotch counties—and no one who knows anything about the nature of the work can possibly doubt that it has been quickly and thoroughly done. At what
  1638
  expense of time, and of health too, I am sorry to say, that extremely rough work was done may be guessed from the fact that there were 64 sittings of the Commission during the two years, and that the work of survey went on in many cases for a week after each sitting. The Commission ascertained that in the six counties 440,000 acres of land still remained which are suitable for the extension of existing holdings. How much of that land has been utilised for the purpose of the Act? Only 843 acres of arable land and 25,500 acres of pasture—not 27,000 acres in all, or not 5 per cent, of what might have been brought within the beneficial intentions of Parliament. In 1888, during the late administration, at my request a Report was called for in which reasons were given why the intentions of Parliament had been defeated, and why the enlargement of holdings could not be carried out with the same success as the fixing of fair rents. The Crofters' Commission were of opinion that one of the main causes that had prevented applications for the enlargement of holdings being lodged was to be found in the Act of Parliament, in Section 13, which fixed the scope of the words "available land." The first sub-section requires that land applied for must be "contiguous or near" to the land already occupied, and the second that the land applied for be "not under lease other than a sporting lease" for a term of years at the date of the passing of the Act. But besides that, since I have held my present office I have been continually inquiring of those who were able to inform me, and the result of my inquiries is that the Government propose to embody in the Bill certain clauses which they believe will make the Crofters' Act completely effective in this respect. In the first place it is proposed that in the case of pasture land the condition of its being contiguous to the crofter's holding shall be removed, but in the case of arable land that it shall be maintained. In the second place, the Bill removes the restriction against taking land in the case of a farming and grazing lease in existence at the time of the passing of the Act of 1886; that restriction does not exist in the case of a sporting lease. At present land can not be taken from a farm which is let at less than a £100 a

  1639
  year. Now agricultural rents have undoubtedly fallen 20 per cent., and perhaps more, in those parts of the Highlands, and the Government propose to recognise that fact and so allow land to be taken from a farm having rent of £80 instead of £100 a year. In the next place, under the existing law, if an application is made for the enlargement of a holding it can not be granted if the combined rent of the crofter's croft and his share of the grazing amounts to over £15. The limit appears to the Government to be unfortunate. Thirty pounds is the limit of the crofter's rent, and a farm of £30 a year is the sort of farm that the Government would like to see the crofters have, and therefore they propose to raise the limit for the combined holding from £15 to £30 a year. Under the Act land taken for the enlargement of a croft must belong to the same landlord, and there is a great deal to be said in favour of the provision, but it has been brought to the knowledge of the Government that there are cases in which the land has been alienated by the landlord in other than what might be called a bonâ fide manner for the purpose of evading his obligations under the Act. In order to carry out the spirit of the law the Government think that the matter should be dealt with. It can be no grievance at all to a man who has made other than a bonâ fide alienation of his land that they should make provision against his withdrawing himself from the scope of the law, and, as the Government hope by these new provisions that the enlargement of holdings will be very much increased, so there is a danger that this practice would increase likewise, and they think that it were well that Parliament should meet it on the threshold. We therefore propose that the vacant land of a holding shall be available for the enlargement of other holdings, and in case land is taken for the enlargement of holdings from a farmer under an existing lease we propose that the Commissioners shall have the same powers they now have in the case of a deer forest and shall be enabled to arrange the amount of the rent that has to be paid under that lease. Then we propose to do away with the necessity for five crofters applying for the enlargement of a holding, and to enable
  1640
  a single crofter to make the application. Finally, it is proposed by the Bill that, instead of having the beneficent powers of the Act of 1886 renewed by successive Expiring Laws Continuance Acts, those powers shall be made as permanent as the Commission itself is I now come to the provisions for improving the status of the crofter. A considerable number of people belonging to the crofter class and residing in crofter parishes are at present excluded from the benefits of the Act because they hold under lease. By the Act of 1887 leaseholders generally were admitted to the benefits of the Irish Land Acts, and the arguments which held good in the case of Irish leaseholders appear to me to hold good for the Highland leaseholders also. These men see their neighbours enjoying fixity of tenure and reduced rents in farms like their own in respect of the nature of the soils and the character of the cultivation, and yet they are possibly paying agricultural rents which are on a level with those which existed before the great fall in agricultural prices. These leasehold communities still form centres of great discontent, and the men who compose them command the sympathy of the immense majority of their neighbours of every class. These leaseholders, then, the Government propose to admit to the benefits of the crofter legislation. Then there is the case of the crofter who in 1886 held under a lease which has now run out, and who has been defenceless since its lapse. The general policy of Parliament in dealing with Ireland has been that no tenant should suffer because he happened at a particular moment to be under lease, and similarly under this Bill anyone who is under lease at the time of the passing of the Act will be admitted to the benefits. The framers of the Bill have been very careful to admit all the crofters, but do not wish to admit people who are not crofters. For this reason the Government refused in 1886 to have anything to do with free sale, and they still refuse, because under free sale farmers from all parts of the country might claim the benefits of the Act. But, as I have said, they are desirous to admit all genuine crofters, and as some genuine crofters do not fulfil the condition of actual residence on their holdings, the Bill proposes that a crofter

  1641
  residing within the crofting parish where his holding is situated shall be admitted to the benefits of the Act as being in bonâ fide occupation of his holding. The Bill makes the decision of the Crofters Commission final upon the question whether a man is a crofter or not. The next point for consideration is the question of common pastures. The Government hope for a greater extension of such pastures. In connection with them grave difficulties have arisen in the past, and if care is not taken there will be a development of such difficulties in the future. Where crofters enjoy the benefit of common pasture, the clever, energetic, and more wealthy man can, if he chooses, and often does, get more than his share of the common property, and the weaker and poorer men suffer in consequence. Parliament supplied a remedy in the Act of 1891 for the regulation of common grazing. In the case of existing grazing, the Commission, upon the request of two crofters, can under that Act appoint a committee to regulate the amount of stock which each crofter can put upon the land, and can frame rules for the management of the common pasture. It is not, however, in the power of the Commission when they grant common pasture for the first time to regulate the amount of stock or to appoint a committee. Then it is alleged that the more powerful crofters—and in remote parts of the country a single strong man can exert a very powerful influence upon his weaker neighbours—having put more than their fair share of stock on the grazing, prevent the poorer crofters from applying to have the grazing regulated. Again, persons who are not crofters, but inn-keepers, clergymen, schoolmasters, farmers over £30, often have shares and interests in crofters' grazings, and sometimes the landlord and the crofters have concurrent rights. These people can not by statute be brought within the scope of the Grazings Act. The Highlands and Islands Commission said in their Report—
  "From all these considerations it is abundantly plain that mere extensions of grazings, unaccompanied by the presence and enforcement of rules efficiently directed to the regulation of the stock and to the equitable maintenance of the grazing rights of each crofter interested, is not to be thought of."
  It would be impossible to report in
  1642
  stronger words than those, and the Government have, in concurrence with the view of the Commission, inserted in the Bill a little code of Amendments which they hope will be of great value. They give power to the Commission, when making a now common pasture, to issue regulations as if it were an old one. With regard to existing grazings, they make the powers of the Commission to put the Grazings Act in force universal in all cases, and do away with the condition as to an application from the crofters. They allow the Commission to apply their regulations to the cattle of persons who are not crofters, but who have the common rights. One most valuable power of a kindred nature the Bill gives to the Commission. Prior to the Crofters Act local difficulties and disputes between crofters were dealt with by the landlord or his factor or ground officer, the decision being in the last resort enforced by the power of removing the crofter. That was a patriarchal and very effective system, but since the passing of the Act this irregular tribunal has disappeared, and in this Bill there is a clause giving the Commission power to settle these little controversies. I wish now to say a word about a particular clause. One of the conditions to be fulfilled by a crofter desiring to obtain the advantages of the Act is that he should not allow his dwelling to become dilapidated; but in Orkney and Shetland the crofters at present find it impossible to obtain stones with which to repair their buildings, and they ask to be allowed to pick stones on their own ground for the purpose, which they can do now because the landlord enjoys all the mineral rights, or to be allowed to take stones from the quarry where the crofters have been in the habit of getting stones. This the Government consider to be a very moderate request, and they propose to comply with it. Concluding my review of this group of questions, I desire to refer hon. Members to the recommendation of the Commission with regard to club farms. They said—
  "We desire to recommend n large extrusion of the 'club-farm' system. Under it crofters have no individual hill storks, but only a joint ownership in the stock. Where this system prevails the crofters, or townships of crofters interested in a grazing, hold a common stock

  1643
  duly proportioned to the 'carry' of the ground, with one central management for herding, breeding, clipping, selling, and dividing of profits, or, where necessary, imposing assessments required for the undertaking; as, for example, to pay wintering, shepherds' wages, and the general upkeep of buildings and fences. When this system is carried on honestly and properly, not only is the very most made of the ground, but the individual crofter is more certain of his or her return than otherwise, especially where as in the case of a widow, an invalid, or an occasional absentee, grazing interests fail to receive due attention."
  In accordance with this recommendation we propose a Clause giving the Commission power, when they are satisfied that a club farm is the only way in which land can be worked, to provide for the management of the common grazing under regulations which carry out that principle. These then are the proposed Amendments of the Crofters' Act; and the question is whether the Act so amended ought to be confined to special districts or to be extended to all crofters wherever they may be. The Act of 1886 was founded upon what I may call the historical basis. That was the view of Parliament in 1886, and that is the view of the Government to-day. I may perhaps be allowed to read a few lines from the speech which I made when introduring the Bill of 1886:—
  "What is the reason that Parliament is interested in this population? It is partly from respect of their character; it is partly from the interest which everyone who travels and reads takes in them, and the country in which they live; but it is, above all, that, as a population, they suffer from a very great grievance, which I hope is not irremediable. That grievance is that, taking the population as a whole, they are originally a population under circumstances entirely different from those which now exist, and that those circumstances were altered, by no fault of theirs, for the benefit of others."
  Next, I propose to read a passage from a speech of Lord Salfsbury's, not because the noble Lord expressed in that speech any concurrence with the principles of the Crofters' Act, but because this passage contains the very best description which I have ever seen of the reasons given by the defenders of the Act for their attitude. The noble Lord, speaking at Edinburgh on November 30, 1888, said:—
  "The Scottish Crofters' Bill was no Measure for which I am responsible, and I do not profess to admire it in all respects, but it had this particular note, it was not a disturbance of old long-established rights. The ground on which you interfered with the position of the Scottish
  1644
  crofters was that you said that up to a comparatively recent period they had held upon a tenure not the general tenure of these islands, and that,hat tenure had by lapse, by carelessness, by use, by encroachment, been converted into a condition of things wholly and unjustly disadvantageous to themselves. It was said that the old clannish tenure, which was very different from the ordinary law of landlord and tenant in this country, had slipped into the law of landlord and tenant, entirely to the advantage of the landlord, without any consideration for the valuable interest which the clansman formerly had in the land on which he lived. Well, that is a very fair argument, and the Act of Parliament, the Crofters' Act, 1886, which followed from it was that the rule of prescription observed generally in this country should be considerably extended—extended from 60 to 80 years—and that all who these 80 years had been in the condition of crofters should have their case specially considered. Well, that was a decision perfectly consistent with ordinary doctrines of the rights of property. Whether you thought it wise or thought it foolish, there was nothing in it which affected the rights of property in general."
  It would be most unfair for me to claim that as Lord Salisbury's opinion on the subject of the crofters, but a better description of the principle on which the Crofters' Acts were founded could not be given. Parliament wished to legislate for the benefit of the old Highland population, and did its best carefully to define that population in the Act. The definition states that—
  "a crofter is a tenant who resides in a holding of not more than £30 a year, situated in a crofting parish; and a crofting parish is a parish in which at the commencement of this Act there were, or had been within 80 years—"
  —that was Lord Salisbury's 80 years—
  "prior thereto holdings consisting of arable land held with a right of pasturage in common with others."
  The task of ascertaining whether a parish was or was not a crofting parish was not a very difficult one to the men who sat on the Crofter Commission. In 1886 they began the great work by ascertaining where these crofting parishes were. The information necessary was very easily obtained in most cases. In a few instances the work was attended with difficulty, and special inquiry became necessary; but before long it was determined by them, and confirmed by the Secretary for Scotland, that out of 163 parishes in the seven counties, 151 were crofting parishes, and, as far as I know, no serious objection was ever taken to that decision. There will be no great difficulty, of that I am assured, in finding

  1645
  out in other counties besides the seven, which are crofting parishes and which are not; and I am assured likewise that in other counties in Scotland, in some cases many, and in some cases several, such parishes exist. Common sense shows that it must be so, because any one who knows anything about old Highland history knows that the conditions of old Highland life had no concern with boundaries of counties. The line between Aberdeenshire and Inverness-shire and the line between Perthshire and Argyllshire was not the line of demarcation between the clansmen and Lowland farmers. The line drawn in the Act was fixed for several reasons. In 1886 the work on hand was very heavy, and that part of the country which most stood in need of reform had to be first served. The seven counties on which the Commission reported, and in which crofting parishes lay most thickly and most universally, had to be first attended to. In the second place, and this is a most important point, the legislation was novel and strange, and most people doubted whether it would be successful, and hon. Members, in the most perfect good faith, expressed in the House doubts whether there was any serious amount of over-renting or any large amount of arrears in the Highlands; and, finally, the crofters in the counties which were excluded had been very quiet and peaceful. They had taken no part in any disturbances, and had made their representations only through the mouth of their Parliamentary representatives. What a difference there is now. The work in the old crofting counties is as good as done so far as rent and tenure are concerned, and the Act has proved an enormous success and an immense benefit. I do not wish to make any comment on the Irish Land Acts, but everybody must have noticed that there was a period of some years during which there was a great deal of disapprobation expressed with regard to them, though afterwards they were extended and generally approved. That never took place with regard to the Crofters' Act. From the very first it received the general approbation of that part of society acquainted with its operation. The great reduction that took place in rents, and the vast extinction of arrears, prove how very much the Act was
  1646
  wanted where it was applied; and the natural deduction to be drawn from that was that it was probably wanted where it had not been applied. And, finally, the crofters outside the seven counties have deserved the attention of Parliament by nine more years of law-abiding patience under their exclusion from the benefits of the Act. That they have been quiet is not a disqualification; it is a title to the recognition of the House. The Government propose to extend the Act to all counties in which there are crofting parishes. The additional counties named in the Bill are: Elgin and Nairn, Banff, Aberdeen, Kincardine, For-far, Perth, and Bute and Arran. Those are counties in which, according to information which has reached us, crofting parishes exist. If it can be shown that such parishes exist elsewhere most careful inquiry will be made before the Committee stage; but for obvious reasons it would be most unadvisable to include in the Bill any counties or districts which, when the Bill conies to be worked, would be disappointed by finding that they contain no crofting parishes. This is a Bill for making legislation with respect to crofters as complete as Parliament can make it, and for extending it to crofters wherever they reside. It is a Bill for applying for the benefit of crofters nearly half a million of acres, which the Commission have ascertained to exist, and have carefully surveyed, for the extension of their holdings. It is a Bill which makes good on behalf of crofters not only every promise that has been made but every claim put forward inside or outside Parliament. It is a very important Bill; but it is one that is possible and practicable, unless we endeavour to embrace too much within it. At the end of their Report the Members of the Highlands and Islands Commission say:—
  "Mere extensions of existing holdings, or extensions of grazings, may be obtained without much difficulty and without raising any serious questions; hut, on the other hand, we have not failed to notice that the transference of tenants and their establishment on new holdings might raise questions of public policy."
  That is a most true, most statesmanlike conclusion. The question of forming new farms and of settling down in them people who are not farmers now, of what in Ireland was known by the, name of

  1647
  "migration," would be an undertaking on new lines, of enormous magnitude, and which would require, in order to carry it out, vast sums of public money. To enter on such an undertaking in this Bill would be to endanger, even, I believe, to wreck and destroy all we hope to accomplish for the crofting population of the Highlands. On one point the friends of the crofters may be reassured. The Government do not intend to interfere with, and never dreamed of interfering with, the existence and efficacy of the Crofters' Commission. It has been suggested that the Commission should be abolished, and its duties transferred either to the Sheriff's Court or to the County or Parish Councils. The experience which the Commission has gained, the great and wide-spread confidence with which it is regarded, are qualifications and attributes of the greatest value to the public, and could never be recovered in the same measure by any other body if the continuity was once broken. The leader of the Opposition, on the Second Reading of the Irish Land Bill, expressed a wish that the Irish land machinery could be rendered less costly. It is not too much to say that the proceedings before the Crofters' Commission could hardly be made cheaper than they are at present. Fortunate, indeed, was the country in securing the services of such men as Sheriff Brand and his colleagues, including Mr. Mackenzie, the Secretary, in order to set on foot a system which, entirely new and strange only nine years back, is now regarded with gratitude by those who have the benefit of it, and with hope and envy by those who are still excluded from it. I trust that hon. Members, in approaching this question, will give a thought to the public opinion of those counties whose interests are concerned in it. Is there one of those counties opposed to the provisions of the Bill? I doubt whether any candidate or member of any Party for any county from the Pentland Firth to the river Forth could be found who would not say-that among the people whom he represents there is only one feeling and one sentiment, and that is, that the boon which in 1886 Parliament intended to be given to the crofters should be made complete and permanently secure, and should be extended to everyone who holds the
  1648
  position and bears the name of crofter. I hope the House will allow this Bill to be read a first time.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think that this is the occasion upon which it would be desirable, or in accordance with the convenience of the House, that I should attempt any main survey of the legislative project which the right hon. Gentleman has laid before us; but his speech naturally suggests some comment, and there are some questions which it may be to the convenience of all interested in the question should be made and should be asked. The right hon. Gentleman began his observations by a survey of the effect of the Crofters' Commission, in which he saw no dark spots at all. I do not at all wish to minimise the good results that may have occurred, and I believe did occur, in many parts of the country from the Crofters' Act; but it is a melancholy fact known to every one who has read the Report of the Commission, that in that part of the Highlands which gave most trouble to the Government of the day, where the economic problems connected with the crofter question press most severely both upon the populations concerned and upon politicians and Statesmen who have considered their case, the effect of the Crofters Act has not been all that its authors had hoped. There is an ominous paragraph in the Report of the Commission which gives an account of the condition of the Island of Lewis. From this it appears that if peace is given to that part of the Highlands, and if the law is not openly defied, it is none the less true that legal debts are not paid, and the evils of overcrowding and the sub-division have gone on unchecked. The arrears which the Crofters' Commission adjudged to be just arrears, and which ought to be paid to the landlords, remain at the present day for the most part unpaid; and I am not aware it has been in the power of the landlords to put any machinery in motion by which those just obligations may be enforced. After all, it is not our business to-day to discuss the exact degree in which the Crofters' Act may have succeeded or failed. What we have to deal with are the proposals of the Government which they have made with regard to the population in the six crofting counties, and in some others as

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  well. The first observation I have to make is that this extension of area is one that necessarily raises very grave issues indeed. I perfectly understand the position of the Government. They say—
  "You have given to the Crofters in six counties in Scotland certain immunities; there is a population situated precisely as they are but beyond the arbitrary borders of the six counties to which the original Act was confined; you cannot in justice or in policy exclude from the benefits of the legislation those persons who resemble them in every other respect except the accident of locality."
  I admit the force of the argument; but you cannot avoid in legislation some hard and fast line, though a line in every part of its course cannot be logically justified. Have the Government contemplated this result? It appears that if one tenant exists outside the six counties in a parish who is able to prove that for 80 years he has held, year by year, with the rights of grazing, a farm under £30 value, he not only gets the benefit of the Act himself, but he constitutes the parish in which he resides a crofting parish. When a crofting parish has been constituted by the action of one individual, everybody else in that parish, though they may only have come into it 10 years ago, though every improvement on their farm may have been made by the landlord, and though they may have a lease from the landlord—those persons, as I understand it under the Bill, will find themselves entitled to all the privileges of crofters, though they have not one single attribute characteristic of that class, except the attribute of living in a parish where there happens to be a crofter. If I have rightly interpreted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, I think he would agree that he has raised a question of very great difficulty, which will necessitate a great deal of discussion in the House, and will require most careful safeguarding in the Bill if it is not to lead to grave abuse and injustice. I pass now to the provision in the Bill which extends the Crofters' Act to the leaseholder— a provision which, in my opinion, is dangerous in itself, but which derives increased significance from the fact that the old limit of area has been abandoned by the Government. The Government have quoted, in justification of their
  1650
  action, arguments which show, as I understand, what was done by the late Government in the Act of 1887 with regard to Irish land. They appear to think that their action at the present time is on all fours with the action which we took seven years ago. That is an entire misconception of what was done in 1887 and what is proposed to be done now. It has been stated over and over again that we in 1887 were the people who first broke leases in Ireland. Leases were absolutely destroyed by the Land Act of 1881. What is the essence of a lease? The essence of a lease is this, that a man makes a contract with a landlord to hold land for a certain length of time at a certain rent, and at the end of the time to hand the land back to the landlord in the condition and in the circumstances in which he took it. Under the Act of 1881, with regard to land under lease in Ireland, the result was that when a lease fell in, the land was not handed back to the landlord in the condition in which it stood under the original leaseholder; on the contrary, it came, under the Act of 1881, and was subject to all the limitations of ownership which that Act imposed on all owners. Leases were, therefore, destroyed; the essence of them was struck out by the Act of 1881, and all we did by the Act of 1887 was to carry out to its logical issue the process which had been begun, and put an end to a state of things which could not be justified, as far as I know, on any principle whatever. But the state of things in the Highlands is very different. The Crofters Act did not touch the position of the land when the lease came to an end. It was handed back to the landlord under the Act of 1892 in the same condition and under the same tenure as it was let to the tenant; and, therefore, if you wish to quote any analogy for the action you are taking with regard to leases, I point you to the action of the Land Act of 1881, and not to the action which was taken in 1887. I come to what may be described as the main provisions of the Bill, those, namely, which have to do with the extension of holdings. The first question I ask is whether the extension of the holding which the Government contemplate, except in the few particulars mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, is still subject to the limitations of the

  1651
  Crofters Act of 1886? The right hon. gentleman contemplates that land shall be taken from farms which are a going concern, and shall be transferred from those farms to the crofters. That may result in no damage either to the landlord or to the tenant. In that case the question of compensation will not come in; but suppose that it results in damage both to the landlord and to the tenant, or to one or the other, what provision or compensation is to be made, or is the transference to the crofters not to take place? I believe the original words of the Crofters' Act of 1886 provide that—
  "if the land forms any part of any farm, whether subject to lease or not, unless the Crofters Commission are satisfied that the part proposed to be assigned… can be so assigned without material damage to the letting value of the remainder,"
  the Commission shall not contemplate any action. Will the right hem. Gentleman say whether that provision is abrogated by the new Bill, or whether it still stands? If it stands, it is, I think, manifest in a large proportion of cases that the Crofters Commission will be powerless to increase the size of the holdings. If it is abrogated, the right hon. Gentleman will have to provide compensation out of some fund not yet specified by which the landlord or the tenant may be recouped for the injury thus inflicted upon him. That is a very important question, and I hope before the Debate closes he will let us know how it stands.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: I think I stated actually all the changes made.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I now understand, then, that there will be no power on the part of the Crofters Commission to enlarge any holding by the addition to it of land, if the transference of that land in any way injures the letting value of the farm. In that case the question of compensation falls to the ground, and it is also evident that many of the hopes founded on the proposals of the Government are destined to disappointment. The next matter to which I desire to call attention is the question of the class whom you expect to benefit by your procedure. Everybody knows that in the main the difficulty will be as to grazing pasture and not arable land. There may be here and there a case of the latter kind,
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  but all of us who have knowledge of the affair must be aware that in the main the questions we have to consider are those which have reference to the increase of grazing land. Arable land can be made useful as to labour, but grazing land is absolutely useless except to the possessor of stock; and I would venture to say that the persons who will benefit by the grazing are not the poor classes whose interests we all naturally especially desire, but crofters who are already extremely well-to-do persons, whose existing stock exceeds the amount of grazing land which they possess. The only way by which we can carry out the object we aim at is by providing machinery by which the poor crofter can be supplied with the stock necessary, but the Government have made no proposal of that kind, and I think they were well advised not to do so, for they would have been plunged at once into a Serbonian bog. Yet, though I think an omission of this kind exremely natural under the circumstances, it makes their Bill almost valueless for the very class whose condition they and we desire to improve. Who is it among the population of the Highland counties whom you most desire to aid? It is the cotter, and it is the small crofter, whose condition differs hardly at all from that of the cotter; and, as I venture to say, there is not a line, there is not a word, in these proposals of the Government which in the slightest degree will benefit either the cotter or the small crofter. There are three problems connected with the Highland land question which have been the cause of serious anxiety, pain, and perplexity to everyone connected with that country. There is the problem of over-population. There is the problem of the cotter, and there is the problem of the poor crofter. Can you do anything for the problem of over-population? I am not saying—I am not suggesting—that I have any legislative scheme by which that problem can be solved; but it appears to me that to bring forward a Bill for the benefit of the Highlands and leave all these things outside, absolutely untouched, either by the surgical knife or any alleviating medicine, is not statesmanship, and it is likely to lead to a great deal more disappointment than any benefits likely to follow from the

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  proposals of the Government. I have mentioned the case of the Island of Lewis. I do not lay blame on any individual or on any class; but if you leave untouched this central blot you will have done absolutely noting. ["No, no!"] I think the condition of the Highlands is illustrated by the Island of Lewis, and this Bill does nothing for the Lewis; perhaps no Bill can do anything for the Lewis. What will the overcrowded population of that island gain from proposals to extend their holdings when there is no available grazing land? What will they gain by a proposal to give them additional pasture for their stock when they have no stock to put on the pasture? What will the cottiers gain from a Bill in which the word "cotter" does not appear at all? I give the Government credit for good intentions. I am far from saying that there are no proposals in their Bill which will not benefit some parts of the population of the counties to which in the main the Bill refers; but as a solution of the present question—which is how to improve the poor Highlanders most deserving of our sympathy and support—I fear, unless I am greatly mistaken in the purport of the speech, it will be found that we shall fail in the object we have in view, and that the position of the people will not be in any tittle benefited by the proposal of the Government.
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he was sure his right hon. Friend must have felt, in introducing this Bill, great satisfaction in reflecting on the success which had attended the present Act as far as it had gone. They had had the highest and most emphatic testimony as to the excellent working of the Act. The crofters under it had improved their holdings and built houses; they had made new men of themselves. If there had been no further achievement he thought his right hon. Friend might well congratulate himself. As to the Island of Lewis, it was a dark spot. It was an object-lesson, showing the absolute necessity of the extension of the Crofters Act. The people wanted more land. They were cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined in small villages, and they were crying out with a voice which was to be answered now, "More land." There was land
  1654
  which might well be devoted to the crofters of Lewis. The islanders were a very kind people, as anyone who travelled in the island knew. The women were handsome, the men strong and vigorous, and the children particularly healthy, and if such people were satisfied with their conditions of life then all he could say was that they were easily satisfied. These fine people should be allowed to live in their native country, and not driven abroad to live in an uncongenial climate under conditions that they did not understand. He should be glad to see the principle of fair rent and fixity of tenure extended to every part of Scotland. The fair rent should be fixed by traveling Commissioners—men of the same type as those on the Crofters' Commission; and as to the second principle nothing was so vital in the present condition of agriculture as stability of tenure. He was bound to say that he confessed to a shadow of a flicker of disappointment such as had been indicated by the Leader of the Opposition—namely, that the benefits of the Act had not been applied to almost all holders in the north of Scotland. In Aberdeenshire, for instance, they had a larger number of small holdings than in almost any other part of Scotland; and he would like to ask whether it would not be possible to admit small holders in the north, who carried out one or two of the crofters' conditions, to participate in the benefits of the present measure. Perhaps this suggestion might be taken into consideration at some future time, and thus mitigate some little of the disappointment which might be experienced in the north when the people in that part found that only persons living under all the crofting conditions were to come under the present measure. They could not expect it to regenerate all the human conditions of farming, which, as every one was aware, were bad enough, even on large farms; and it was even more difficult to get a living out of a small holding. If the suggestions which had been made could be given effect to in the Bill, it would infuse hope into the small holders in Scotland, and he should predict for the Bill in the future no less success than had attended the Act in the past.
  DR. G. B. CLARKsaid, that he had to congratulate the Secretary for Scotland on his Bill, and he also had to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on the suggestions which he had made. He hoped that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland would accept those suggestions. The class of leaseholders under £100 would be much benefited by inclusion in the Bill. Nine years ago the present Duke of Sutherland—the largest crofting landholder in Scotland—strongly urged upon the Government of the day to include leaseholders in the Crofters' Act. The answer of the Law Officer of the day was that, although he recognised that these men had a strong claim, still Parliament had not come in and broken contracts. Since then, however, 150,000 contracts—some of them leases for 99 years—had been broken in Ireland by the Act of the late Government. The Leader of the Opposition said that they would have come under the ordinary Irish Land Act when their leases expired. Yes, if they had been living in 80 or 90 years' time. At the end of that time, when the leases expired, the then holder would, no doubt, have got the benefit. The same reasons which now compelled the Secretary for Scotland to bring in this Bill were similar to those which led to the Irish Land Bills—the poor people on the land were a cause of disturbance. In Sutherlandshire, the Queen's writ did not run, and there was not sufficient local police force in the county to enable it to run. An application was made to bring in some foreign police from Glasgow or Edinburgh. This was refused, as being a grossly unjust thing to attempt to get rid of people, and to try to make them pay impossible rents. He did not blame some of the men who had been trying to get those rents; some of them were trustees, and were obliged, as such, to do so by the terms of their trust deeds. On the other hand, they had impecunious people who were trying to live, and who were unable to grant reductions. In this state of things, it was right that the Government should step in now. The same state of things existed in Ireland when the late Government brought in their Bill and broke all contracts in Ireland. Experience had shown that these changes were necessary, but he thought
  1656
  that the Secretary for Scotland would require to go further, and to take in a class of men whom he had not mentioned, namely, those who did not hold under the existing Act. Undoubtedly, the question raised by the Leader of the Opposition was a most important one: What was to be done in the congested districts; what was to be done for the poor crofter; what was to be done for the poor cotter? In the island of Lewis, they had an average rental value of under £3 a year for each holding, and if they were to be allowed their grants rent free, they would only benefit to the extent of about a shilling per week. What was wanted was to get rid of the deer forests and large farms in Lewis, and then it would be possible to do the poor people good. He and his friends had tried to do something of the kind about ten years ago, but they were unable to accomplish their object. Changes had, however, occurred since then. They had now local bodies: Parish Councils and County Councils; and what, he asked, was to hinder the Imperial Government from lending to those local bodies money which they could see invested for the purpose which he had indicated? All the difficulties had been met, and the plans had been laid down under the Act of last year. He did not propose to discuss now what was in the present Bill, but he would say that, in his opinion, it would require modification. He thought that the Government would do well to follow the lead which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had given them, and do something to solve this problem fairly, fully, and completely. It was worth remarking that the people of Scotland had been able to get money from a Conservative Government more easily than from a Liberal Government; but whereas, in the past, the aid had been more to the landlord, it could now be given more to the people, through the medium of the local bodies. Scotchmen did not generally spend money in a foolish fashion, and they would not err in being extravagant. If the Leader of the Opposition would aid the Government in passing this measure and making it effectual, Scotchmen would be obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.
  SIR D. H. MACFARLANEthought that hon. Members had better

  1657
  reserve discussion till the Bill was in their hands. He concurred with the last speaker in being extremely pleased to hear the open statement of the Leader of the Opposition, because he gathered from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks that the Government were not going far enough in their legislation. A little time had brought about many changes. He remembered quarrelling many nights with the right hon. Gentleman in 1886 on the Crofter question, but he was now glad to think that nine years had wrought a change in the right hon. Gentleman's views. He hoped that hon. Members would now allow the Bill to be brought in, for there would be plenty of time to discuss it on the Second Heading and in Committee.
  *DR. D. MACGREGORsaid he was very glad to join in congratulating the Secretary for Scotland on being able at last to bring in this long-looked for Bill, which, however, would have been brought in earlier but for the action of the Leader of the Opposition. While on the one hand he was willing to admit that the Bill was a good one as far as it went, he was bound to say, on the other, that it fell far short of what the Highland people had a right to expect. As the right hon. Gentleman opposite had remarked, it did not touch at all the real sore in the Highland question, and he could not but regret that the Secretary for Scotland, whose sympathy with the Highland people was well known, had omitted the crucial point of the matter from the Bill. The Bill extended legislation, no doubt, by admitting the leaseholders to the benefits of the Act; but that the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to do last year. It was nothing new. It also made some minor amendments of the present Act as far as the parishes and townships were concerned, and it likewise proposed to extend the benefits of the Act to other counties. But what about the enlargement of holdings to the people who had too little land to live upon, and to the cotters who had no land at all? What were those cotters? They were simply crofters without land. They had been spoken of as outsiders, and as unconnected with the crofters; but they were men of exactly the same class, who had either been evicted from the land they occupied, or who had been
  1658
  unable to get any land at all. He would point out to those who were interested in the Imperial question of the public services, that many of these cotters were old soldiers and sailors who had served their country well, and had returned to the land of their fathers with the hope of getting a little land to cultivate in order to end their declining years in comfort. But they were denied this by an ungrateful country. They need only look to the splendid work which the Highland soldiers were now doing in the mountain passes of India for the relief of Chitral, to see what the character of these men were, and he thought they deserved sympathy and consideration when they returned to their homes. But without regard to their heroic services, they were denied on their return even sufficient ground in which to cultivate the necessaries of life. It was a fact that thousands of Highland people were without the necessaries of life, because they were denied the land wherewith to cultivate them, a condition of things which was unworthy of a country which called itself Christian. Too much money was spent on the public services. If less money were spent on the Navy and Army and Civil Services; if fewer pensions were voted by that House to people who little required them; there would be money left to provide the Highland people with land enough to support their families by their own industry. It had been shown that when those people got fixity of tenure, compensation for improvements, and fair conditions they were not only industrious and paid their rents, but built better houses and surrounded themselves with better sanitary conditions. They had been called indolent. Why? Because, before the Crofters' Act was passed, whenever they reclaimed any land from the bog, or from the mountain-side, and made a little crop to grow upon it, the landlord put up the rent immediately to an exorbitant extent, and thus took away all encouragement from the poor people to persevere. If they refused to pay, or were unable to pay rent, they were turned adrift by the landlord. Many of these men were the cotters to whom reference had been made, but the right hon. Gentleman had made no attempt whatever to do anything for them. The

  1659
  Report of the Highland Commission, which had been so long delayed, was simply valueless so far as the present Bill was concerned. But that Report showed that there was land enough in the Highlands—and more than enough—to give a reasonable croft to every industrious cotter. The Commission were able to schedule nearly 2,000,000 acres of land which were available for crofter holdings, and which would be greatly benefited by occupation. What was to be done with that land? No practical suggestion whatever was made on the matter by the right hon. Gentleman—no suggestion to increase, or enlarge, the holdings. Yet, there could be no solution of this question until some proposal of the kind was made. Moreover, there were estates in the Highlands suited to crofters which had been altogether passed over by the Commission; not an acre of these estates had been scheduled. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give some explanation of this fact. He did not intend to insinuate partiality or favouritism, but it was an unfortunate coincidence that certain Members high in the Government should be the owners of some of those estates. Then the important question relating to the congested districts, which was at the bottom of much of the distress in the Highlands, had been passed over, and the question of migration also had not been referred to. Several years ago proposals were made by the late Government to migrate a portion of the Highland people to Columbia as a remedy for the congestion, and a grant of £150,000 was voted for that purpose. Where was that money now? He believed that the whole of it except £5,000 or £6,000 was still in the Treasury. Why could not that money be laid out, in a practical and businesslike way, for the relief of the congested districts in the Highlands? But, after all, would it not be a great mistake from an Imperial point of view, to emigrate those people—who were in many respects the backbone of the population—especially while there was land enough in the country for their industry and maintenance I Was it not the far wiser course to make an effort to provide them with land, since they were willing to till it, and to pay fair rent for it? Was it not obvious that this course was better for
  1660
  the country, for the landlord, and for the people as a whole? He hoped the Secretary for Scotland, or the Lord Advocate, would offer some explanation on the points he had raised, and would give some hope that the Bill would be made one which would be really worthy of acceptance by the people of the Highlands, who had waited so long and patiently for it.
  *MR. GRAHAM MURRAY, in common with other Members who had addressed the House, desired to reserve the observations he intended to make on the Bill until he had had an opportunity of seeing its provisions. He wished, on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, to express the hope that ample time would be given by the Government for the consideration of those provisions before it was brought up for Second Reading, especially in view of the fact that the maps in connection with the Highland Commission had not yet been supplied to hon. Members. He thought there was very little connection between the right hon. Gentleman's Bill and the Report of the Commission, and even in regard to the enlarging of the holdings he did not gather from the right hon. Gentleman's statement that this would be a help. He thought it was noticeable that what might be called the case against deer forests, so far as the Report of the Commissioners went, had broken down. They pointed out that even if the whole of the land that was given to deer forests was made over to the people it would only be a temporary alleviation of the evils from which they suffered. The part of the Bill with which he certainly had sympathy was that which dealt with the enlargement of holdings. No doubt the position of the cotter as regarded the enlargement, or even the creation of holdings was at present a little ambiguous, but he was content to wait until they saw the provisions of the Bill. He wished, however, to sound one note of warning with regard to the taking of land which was at present under lease, for the enlargement of holdings. Of course, the present Act only applied to leases current from the date of the passing of the Act. It was all very well to commit to the determination of the Crofters' Commission the question as to whether it would or would not do harm, on the whole, to

  1661
  take part of the land which was under an existing lease, but that would do very little good to the landlord and tenant without a provision for apportionment. There was an actual case where some land which crofters wished to have added to their holdings had been under lease at the passing of the Act, and the lease had expired about a year after the passing of the Act. At that time there had been no application made by the crofters, and the landlord had naturally re-let the land to a tenant under a 19-years lease. Then an application was made by the crofters to have this land given to them: the Court held that as the phraselogy of the Act only applied to leases current from the date of the passing of the Act, the lease was no embargo against the land being so allotted, and it was allotted. But there was no provision in the Act as to apportionment, and therefore the unfortunate landlord and tenant found themselves in this position—that part of the land was taken and, of course, a fair rent fixed as between crofter and landlord. Not unnaturally, the farmer from whom the land had been taken did not take the same view as the valuer of the Crofter Commission had done, and there was no means of extraction from the impasse into which they had got. The practical value consequently was reduced, and the sum total got by the landlord afterwards was not equal to the sum total before. He should therefore scrutinise the Bill somewhat jealously, to see whether there was a practical provision for making it impossible to take land unless there was also some provision for apportionment. The application of the Act to leaseholders was a difficult and delicate matter, and he was not at present inclined to view the proposition with favour. The right hon. Gentleman had founded his claim for this extension on what he called historical reasons. He understood that the peculiar position the crofters were in was—first, that they were people who with their predecessors had lived from time immemorial upon the same spot, and whose right was, as a matter of fact, really coeval with that of the landlord; and secondly, that they were people who, as a whole, had undoubtedly made their own improvements, in which respect their case was analogous to that of the Irish tenants. If the leaseholder
  1662
  could say the same thing, undoubtedly the logic would be irresistible, but he asserted they could not. There might be particular crofting parishes in which the leaseholders could say so, but there were also numberless leaseholders in Scotland, in parishes called crofting parishes, of whom it could not be said that they had occupied their holdings from time immemorial, or had made their own improvements. It would be easy to instance whole estates where the improvements had not been so made. Therefore the historical basis of the right hon. Gentleman entirely failed. He understood it was not proposed to alter the definition of a crofting parish, and it would be remembered that the existence of two or three crofters' holdings stamped the crofting character on the whole parish; in such cases everyone whose rent was under £30 would be admitted to the benefits of the Act. Was this not an attempt to introduce the thin edge of the wedge, and to make a Land Court and a Land Bill for Scotland altogether, an aim which the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire had avowed? Such an attempt would undoubtedly be resisted by that side of the House. A Land Court to fix rents was nothing else than a system of dual ownership, and the only possible justification for such a system was, that the improvements had been made by the tenant himself. In Scotland such a state of things did not exist except with this very limited class, and he feared that, under the guise of seeking to benefit this limited class, they would be really introducing a system which would be not only unjust, but radically bad. These remarks had all the more weight when they considered the proposition in the Bill to extend the parts of the country to which the Crofters' Act applied, for the extension of the benefits of the Act to leaseholders would be more far-reaching in the added counties than in the counties to which the Act at present applied. He did not know whether any parish in Bute could be held to be a crofter parish. Although there might possibly be an instance of a person holding from year to year with common pasture which would entitle the Crofter Commission to declare it a crofting parish, yet taking the tenantry of parishes altogether—and there wore only three parishes in

  1663
  Bute—they were certainly not people who had inhabited from time immemorial on a year to year tenure. They had been under leases, and they were persons who had had much done for them by an exceedingly generous landlord. And no one admitted this more than themselves. Arran, on the other hand, was a part of the world where holdings were very much smaller. His right hon. Friend asked whether by Member for these counties would say they did not look forward to the application of a Bill with hope. But last year the hon. Baronet who sat for one of the Divisions of Glasgow, introduced a Bill to attend the Crofters' Act by including Bute therein. There were two Petitions—one in favour of the Bill, and one against it. The fact that spoke for itself was, that the signatures in the Petition against very largely exceeded in number the signatures in favour of the Bill. He himself did not attach great weight to Petitions one way or the other. Still there was the fact. Personally he had no doubt whatsoever that the passing of a Crofters' Act for Bute, so far as it was applicable to Arran, would not be of any practical importance to Arran holders. He said this not upon general grounds, but because anyone who knew anything about Arran knew that the conditions of Arran were exceedingly peculiar. Although they had an historical connection, so to speak, with the Highlands, and many of them had held from year to year for a long time, yet the conditions of the Arran crofter were quite different from those of the crofter in the West Highlands or the North, because he had come to be a person who did not maintain himself by the ordinary arts of the crofter, but by house-letting to the inhabitants of Glasgow and Paisley. When they came to the application of tenure to an island like that, it would be found that, practically, the islander would gain much more from liberal treatment, and no competition from other people, than he would gain under any Crofters' Act, by which the island would be opened up to others besides himself. He said that because he did not wish hon. Members to think his mouth was sealed about his own constituency. He took a larger view—as to how this Bill would affect Scotland. He had indicated what he believed to be the chief sources of danger in these two
  1664
  proposals which his hon. Friend had embodied in the Bill, and he associated himself with the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition in saying that he did not think these proposals, such as they were, touched that which they all considered was the real Highland difficulty and the real Highland grievance.
  MR. J. G. WEIRsaid, he wished to thank the Secretary for Scotland for introducing this Bill. But it should have been introduced two and a half years ago. The Highland people had not been fairly treated in the matter. Since the advent of the present Government to power many small tenants holding under leases had been turned out of their holdings. This would have been avoided if the promises and pledges given by the Liberal Leaders had been carried out, The Secretary for Scotland said the Crofters' Act of 1886 had been a blessing to the people. He agreed. In many remote parts of the Highlands dwellings of turf had been replaced by houses of stone, with slate roofs kept in nice order—very different from the sort of places in use before the passing of the Act. He was indebted to the Secretary for Scotland for doing what he had done for the Highland people. But it was a great mistake to suppose that the Highland people were contented. There was great discontent, but it was slumbering—waiting for the fulfilment by the Liberal Leaders of their pledges. He was glad the Leader of the Opposition had spoken as he had, and he hoped that he and his colleagues would be found supporting any Amendments that might be proposed for the inclusion of the small crofters in the Bill. The people of whom in 1886 the Lord Advocate of the day spoke as a "landless class," were crofters who had been evicted. The Secretary for Scotland had talked of the kindly feeling that had been promoted between landlord and tenant in the Highlands since the passing of the Crofters' Act. But in Lewis bitter hatred existed towards the landlords in consequence of the brutal treatment of the Highland people by grasping, avaricious landlords. Rack-renting had gone on to a scandalous extent. Fixity of tenure would be one of the greatest boons conferred by the Bill. The improvements made by the tenants were not considered by the

  1665
  Crofter Commission, and the result was they were charged rents which they were unable to pay. If the recommendations of the Crofter Commission in 1886, and what was proposed by the Conservative Government had been carried out, deer forests and large grazing farms would now have been in the possession of the people for the benefit of the people. The Conservative Government set aside £150,000 to promote the emigration of crofters from Lewis. It was strange that a Conservative Government should have been more liberal in providing funds for the Highland people than a Liberal Government. He hoped the Liberal Leaders would do what they could to induce the Chancellor of the Exchequer to open his purse strings more in favour of the Highland people. There was a large population in Lewis. The land which was devoted to deer forests and grazing farms—the former of which were in the hands of a few individuals from London and America—should be in the possession of the people. This Bill would not settle the Highland question. He for one should be sorry to see a repetition of what happened in the time of the Liberal Government in 1884, when gunboats were sent to shoot down poor honest people. One gunboat was lost. They did not want to have gunboats lost in trying to coerce the Highland people, Let a Bill, based on the recommendations of the Deer Forest Commission, be introduced and not "a blind" like the present Bill, which was not based on those recommendations.
  *MR. T. R. BUCHANANsaid, he must congratulate the Secretary for Scotland upon the Bill he had introduced, and the speech he had made; and he could hardly believe that the proposals now made would not be received with favour by the hon. Member who had just spoken when he came to see them in print. The Secretary for Scotland deserved the thanks of Members representing constituences in the north of Scotland for the way in which he had endeavoured to meet them with regard to crofters outside the Highland line by placing them in a position similar to that of crofters inside the line with regard to their obtaining the benefits of the Act. The point was pressed upon the Government in 1886, and there was still stronger reason for pressing it strongly
  1666
  now, because they had had a demonstration of the results that flowed from the operation of the Act. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman had seen fit to meet them, and trusted he would make sure that the terms of the Bill would really include the crofters of the North Eastern counties. One reason for pressing the point was—in this, as on previous occasion, the right hon. Gentleman had laid considerable stress on what he called the historic basis of this legislation. In a certain sense that historic basis might be claimed for the crofters in the North-East as well as for those of the Western Highlands. The crofters of the north-east undoubtedly embarked in the work of reclamation considerably earlier than and the crofters of the Western Highlands. Therefore the period of 80 years, in the original Act, however well it might be adapted to the circumstances of the Western Highlands, might possibly be insufficient to meet the cases of crofters in other parts of the Highlands. The right hon. Gentleman should see whether in the original Act the definition of crofters and crofter parishes were fair definitions, and whether they would apply to crofters outside the line. If he was going to include leaseholders he would have to alter the definition of crofters in the Act; and if he was going to alter the Act in one direction, it might be hoped that he would alter it in another direction. If the objection was taken that they were endeavouring to include men under a different form of tenure, he replied that they were not endeavouring to do that, but that they were seeking to include by this Bill two forms of Highland tenure, and to bring within the scope of the Act other forms of tenure than those which prevailed in the Western Highlands alone.
  MR. M. H. SHAW-STEWARTsaid that, whatever opinions might be held as to the finding of the Commission of which he was a Member, it could not be said that this Bill was based upon their findings. The hon. Member for Bute had already dealt with the proposal to include leaseholders, and he would therefore content himself by making one remark. If he were a leaseholder on a well-managed crofter estate, he should not wish to change

  1667
  his position; but, if he were a lease-holder on a badly managed estate, he should probably be better off under the Act. It did not at all follow that lease-holders would be benefited by the change in their position which would be made by them coming under the Act. He certainly heard, with some surprise, that the provisions of the Bill with regard to grazing were of such modest dimensions; and he knew they would not satisfy the wishes—whether they were reasonable or not he did not say—of the great bulk of the Highland population. The Bill did not attempt to deal in any way with new holdings, and perhaps the question of providing new holdings was the most vital point in any scheme for giving more land for crofter occupation. He did not say it could easily be provided; but if it were the provision of it would operate in two ways—it would allow fresh land to be given to a certain number of crofters, and the granting of new holdings would relieve the congestion of certain districts. Whether or not they thought it advisable to institute new holdings, that was the chief question of interest to the Highland population, and had been so for some time past. But this Bill did not touch that point at all. The Bill dealt to a limited extent with the extension of grazing. As he understood, the present allocation of grazing remained, with this alteration—that grazing might be taken by the Commission which was not contiguous to the present holdings. That might work usefully, but it would be of limited application, because the extension of grazing to a township was of little use unless the new grazing were tolerably near to the holdings of the people you wished to benefit. Therefore, while the Bill would provide a little more grazing for certain districts, the whole would be but as a drop in the ocean. Coming to the proposal to reduce the limit of the farms from which grazing might be taken he could not congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on wishing to lower the £100 limit. It was of great importance to the Highlands that there should be moderate-sized farms, such as were represented by a rent of £100, and it would be detrimental to injure such farms by diminishing them. It would be useful to allow one man, instead of requiring five, to make an
  1668
  application for extension and to apply the grazing clause to all grazing in the future; but there would be difficulty in dealing with a class of men who were not legally crofters, and who had rights of grazing which could not be proved by law. The hon. Member for Invernessshire had read the Report of the Commission rather largely; he had spoken of a million and a half or nearly two millions of acres having been reputed by the Commission as fit for crofter occupation. The Commission scheduled a little over 1,700,000 acres, but more than half a million of that was coloured brown on the map as not fit for ordinary crofter occupation. He believed that, as far as it was possible, every square mile of land had been visited by the Commission; and he did not agree that any had been overlooked. The land which was not included in the scheduling was omitted because the Commission did not think it proper for inclusion. For praise or blame he associated himself entirely with his colleagues on the Commission. They had agreed to report unanimously, and they must all take their share of the responsibility. They had been at great pains to produce results founded on common-sense, on the interests of the crofters, and on what would prove to be in the long run the interests of the proprietors as well. He was perfectly certain that the Bill would not set at rest the unfortunate differences existing between landlord and tenant in the Highlands, and he wished, for many reasons, that it had been a Bill of larger scope, difficult as such a Bill would be.
  MR. MARK NAPIERsaid, that he did not wish to sound any discordant note in the general harmony of praise and thanksgiving with which this Bill had been received, but he wished to refer to one or two objections which fell from the Leader of the Opposition, to whose speech he had listened with great interest, because, on the whole, it did not seem to betray hostility to the principles of the measure. The right hon. Gentleman's complaint rather seemed to be that the Bill would not bring within its scope the poorer class of cotters and crofters. But it was perfectly open to the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends to introduce Amendments in the direction

  1669
  which he had suggested; and he was very certain that the right hon. Gentleman would meet with hearty support from almost all the representatives of Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman cited the case of a man who had no capital and who would not be able to stock his land. That was not a substantial difficulty at all. In his own county there were many men who had come into possession of small pieces of land, and who had found the want of capital no bar to their enterprise. He did not suppose that any of the crofters who now cultivated the land and got something out of it had received any assistance from any source but their own energy and self-denial. There was one man who came to the county which he represented, from Ireland, possessing all the qualities which were so much admired in Irishmen—a large family and a small purse. The family was almost the whole store of the man's wealth; he was without a friend, and he was a Roman Catholic and opposed in religion to the prejudices of those among whom he settled. But he got hold of five acres of waste land, and setting to work on it with his sons, in a short time he had converted the waste land into pasture and arable. He had now calves and sheep and a pretty farm. An hon. Gentleman had complained that the explorations of the Lord Advocate had not been extensive enough in the north; and he would press the Lord Advocate to continue them in the south. He was grieved that hon. Gentlemen from Highland districts should assume that their constituents alone were entitled to the benefits of the Bill. Why should not crofters in the south, the south-west, and the south-east be included, as well as the Highland crofters? He knew of many parishes in the south where people conducted their crofting operations exactly as they were conducted in the Highlands; and he hoped that if proof were given of such cases the Government would consent to include them in the Bill. There was a village in his county, established 80 or 100 years ago, in which the people were granted leases of the land on which their houses stood, and were induced by the promise of small rent to build strong and substantial houses. But these were absolutely valueless to them without the
  1670
  land, and the land was not granted on the same tenure, but only by verbal lease, and from year to year. The people were thus at the mercy of the landlords' agents, and if they did not obey his mandate they found that the land, by which alone they were able to live, was taken from them, without any compensation for improvements. He wished to add his cordial thanks to those which had been already offered to the Secretary for Scotland, for the manner in which the Bill had been introduced, and he sincerely hoped that the Bill would be passed, including within its scope all crofters in Scotland.
  Leave being given, the Bill was brought up by Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN and read 1° to be read 2° upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill No. 214.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND). BILL.
  In asking leave to bring in a
  "Bill to make further provision for local government in counties in Scotland and for other purposes,"
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid, the sixth year of county government in Scotland is now drawing to a close, and it is a tribute to the soundness of the system that those who are engaged in working it take the greatest interest in amending it. It is also a great proof of the practical character of Scotchmen that they are agreed as to the sort of amendments which ought to be introduced. Last year the Government proposed, as a separate part of the Parish Councils Bill, a number of amending county clauses. But the work on that Bill was so heavy that the county clauses had to be deferred. They can now approach the undertaking, however, with several distinct advantages. We have the experience of two three-year periods of County Councils for the modelling of our proposals, and that experience is embodied largely in the Report of the Scotch County Council Conference, to the general tenour of whose deliberations I attach the greatest value. The Government also have the advantage of being able to consider the views of the Scotch Members of Parliament, as incidentally expressed in the

  1671
  course of the Committee last year. The Government have not only the County Council Act of 1889 to go upon, but the Parish Councils Act of 1894, so that they are in a position to amend the former Act with the whole map of Scotch rural administration before them. In the Bill which I wish to introduce several old clauses are included without any great amendment. The power of the county councils to provide new county buildings; the power to borrow for services for which at present that power does not exist, and to spread the loan over a period not exceeding 40 years; a simple and inexpensive procedure for the acquisition of land by county councils for public purposes; the readjustment of county boundaries for purposes of valuation and for the distribution of the Government grants, carefully guarding any interference with political Parliamentary arrangements; powers to construct bridle paths and footbridges, and to repair certain damage to roads of the nature which is so frequent in the Highland counties; the giving to the county councils the powers and duties of road trustees and justices over ferries, and powers from the Burgh Police Act extended to the county councils over vagrants: these were the old clauses. By the eight new clauses we alter the levying of the public health rate, and propose that it shall be imposed on lands and heritages within the area to be assessed according to the annual value, as appearing in the valuation roll, in the same manner as the consolidated rates. That is the form for which there was a very strong demand at the county convention, and it was essentially the proposal of the late Government in their Bill of 1889. That is one new clause. A strong necessity has been felt for giving what are popularly known as dean-of-guild powers to the county authority. That feeling we have met in a manner which I commend to hon. Members. Speaking broadly, at present the rural authority can proceed against old buildings as a nuisance, but they have no power over new buildings. That power it is proposed to give them. It is proposed to give to the county council the power to make by-laws with regard to the sanitary arrangements of new buildings. The execution will be
  1672
  committed to the district committee, which is the health authority on the spot and in practical exercise of health administration. They will have the power to insist that works in conformity with the by-laws shall be carried out, or that the owner shall pull down or remove buildings, or they may do the work themselves. Already the county authorities in England have these powers, and this is one of the cases in which Scotland is decidedly behind England. The Government propose to give dean-of-guild powers without a Dean of Guild. The counties have medical officers and sanitary inspectors, and by the provisions of the Bill the services of these officers are placed at the absolute disposal of the local authorities for these purposes. But the clause may be applied either to the whole or to a specific part of the county, and this is absolutely necessary in dealing with the Highlands, where many of the houses are built by the people themselves and are lamentably deficient in much that ought to constitute human habitations. We cannot possibly call upon, the poor crofters, and the still poorer cotters, at once to place themselves either on the recognised level of the demands of modern health requirements or to make themselves practically houseless. Therefore, the provision will be elastic, but it will be strong. Medical officers have done good service by their reports to the county councils, but there is great difficulty in getting statistics with regard to births and deaths and the cause of deaths, and that information is the very A B C of a real statistical system. They have hitherto got that information by a voluntary arrangement, but the Government now propose to give the medical authorities of the counties a legal title to obtain it. I now come to the question of protection against fire. There is considerable need in the counties for a better means of getting appliances for this purpose. The Scottish Office have been urged by several counties to allow money to be expended on this purpose out of the Equivalent Grant, on the ground that it is a work of public utility; but it is extremely difficult to accede to the request, because, though a work of public utility, it is not a work of public utility for the whole county, and, therefore, money given for the utility of the whole county can hardly be used for this

  1673
  purpose. We propose that the counties shall be able to make arrangements with the burghs to contribute a certain sum to the support of the fire-extinguishing apparatus and staff, and to have the command of it under certain conditions. If that is not sufficient, we propose that in a special water district a certain number of ratepayers may apply to the county council to provide engines, buckets, and pipes, and appoint officers. They will be allowed to appoint a superintendent, who may be a chief officer of police or a constable; but we have left out the words which occur in the Burgh Regulations, "erecting suitable dwellings for firemen." If hon. Members think fit to re-insert those words, the Government will offer no objection. Engines may be used outside the district, but a reasonable sum may be recovered from individuals whose houses or property are on fire. Attention has been called to the difficulty of providing against the communication of disease by milkcans, owing to their being washed will affected water. In the county I know very well there were no less than 100 persons attacked with typhoid fever, and 20 died through the washing of the cans of a single dairy, which had a large clientèle, with affected water. The Government propose to give the very strongest power to prohibit, under very severe and rapidly recovered penalties, the sale of milk from any dairy where infectious disease exists. We go farther than the English Act of 1890. In that Act it is stated that the powers can only be put in force when infectious disease is caused by the consumption of milk. In this Bill we have added the words—"or is likely to arise from the consumption of milk." Under the Local Government Act, the county councillors are elected in the month of December. It is proposed that the election shall take place on the first Tuesday in April, and I believe that that is in accordance with the general feeling of Scottish Members. The first election, according to the Bill, will be held in April 1896, and till then the present members will hold their seats. There is one difficulty, and one only, which stands in the way. The parish councillors for rural districts will be elected in April along with the county councillors, and in burghs and police burghs in November along with municipal councilors; and,
  1674
  therefore, in parishes partly rural and partly burghal the elections for the two parts of the same council will be at an interval of five months. If the House resolve to change the election to April, it will have several alternatives. The election of parish councillors in burghs may be altered to April, and an election can be held altogether separate from the municipal elections. But on the grounds of expense and inconvenience that is not what we recommend to the House. Then, if parish councillors in burghs and police burghs be elected in November, and in counties in April, one of two courses must be adopted. Either the new burgh parish councillors may remain idle for five months while the old councillors continue to serve, or the new burghal councillors may take office on the day of their election along with the old councillors from the landward districts. That is what we propose. It will have this good feature about it—that it will give some little continuity of administration to the council. The smaller provisions I can name in four or five sentences. We propose to enable writers or solicitors who are chairmen of district committees and parish councils to be justices of the peace as in burghs. We propose to remove the condition of "material change of circumstance" so as to enable the Secretary for Scotland to alter the number of county councillors and the electoral divisions, on the representation of a town council or county council, whenever that council may think it necessary to make such a representation. We propose to enable the surplus of the pension fund of the police force to be invested in loans raised for county council purposes, and to enable county councils to borrow three-fourths of the amount of the prospective rates instead of one half, so as always to have money in hand. I know it has been suggested that the local authorities should be allowed to raise a greater sum by taxation in a given year than was wanted, in order that they might have money in hand; but we think the most secure plan was to allow them to borrow three-quarters instead of one-half of the prospective rates. We also propose to allow the local authorities to use the best and most modern appliances for breaking stones for the roads. These are the proposals

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  new and old, of the Government, and I hope, when they have been reviewed and supplemented by the experienced criticism of hon. Members for Scotland, the system of County Government for Scotland will be as complete in its plan, and as smooth in its working, as its best friends could desire.
  *SIR CHARLES PEARSONsaid, the House was indebted to the right hon Gentleman for his statement of the provisions of the Bill. The details of the measure were, however, of such a character that one could not be expected, until they were printed, to express assent or dissent in regard to them, but his own feeling, taking the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as a whole, was one of agreement, to a very large extent, with his proposals. One thing was suggested very forcibly to his mind, as, no doubt, it was present in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman in the consideration of the measure, viz., that it was desirable to attack, at long last, the general question of the public health of Scotland. They went at the question, year after year, by piecemeal, and there were several provisions of this Bill which would more naturally find places in a Public Health Measure. He did not quite gather from the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and it would be interesting for the House to know exactly—whether the modification of the law in regard to the notification of diseases was to be confined to county areas, or whether it was to be common to the whole of Scotland. In reference to the changes in the public health rate, there was a considerable body of opinion in favour of reverting to the identical proposal made by the late Conservative Government in 1889, or to something like it. There was no doubt that the perplexity to which the maintenance of the old rule of rating as to public health had led, had created a desire for simplification. It was the case that, in the matter of public health rates, the subjects that would be rated would naturally fall into different categories, because it was quite obvious that certain classes of subjects derived little or no benefit from the public health rate, as compared with others. But he understood the Government did not propose to differentiate the rate, but to make it one rate, and he thought there was a
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  great deal to be said for the decision. It was the simplest arrangement, and would probably lead to the most easy administration; but it should be considered whether it would not need some modification in the direction to which he had pointed. The alternative which the Government had selected with reference to the change in the date of the elections seemed to him to introduce a totally new system into the constitution of representative bodies. Hitherto, the general desire was, that the new bodies should be constituted as nearly as possible at the one time. But the change of dates involved a gap which the Government recognised could not be bridged over; and, as he understood the proposal, the Councils would now be constituted partly of the old members and partly of the new. However, with the exception of these few details, he found himself in the main in very hearty agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman had said, and he was sure there would be a general concurrence of opinion amongst hon. Members that the Bill, though a modest, was yet a useful measure.
  *MR. C. B. RENSHAWwas glad, as one who knew the feelings of those who were interested in the present system of County Government in Scotland, that many of the provisions they had asked for in 1894 were included in the Bill, to its distinct improvement. In the enumeration of the old clauses which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to include in the Bill, he omitted the clause in reference to County Sanitary Authorities and Police burghs. He hoped, however, that was a mere inadvertence; and that they would have clearly laid down within the four corners of the Bill, what the precise relations were to be between the county Medical and Sanitary Officers and the burghs. If the right hon. Gentleman proposed to place those County Medical Officers in more responsible relations with the small burghs which might be created from time to time, he could view it with pleasure, because he thought it would contribute to improvement in public health in those areas. He thought the clause which dealt with the assessment under the Public Health Scotland Act would give rise to considerable discussion. Everyone who knew anything about Local Government in Scotland,

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  parochial or county, would welcome a change in the present system of rating. The system under which county authorities had to levy the whole of the county rate on one basis, and then adopt a parochial basis which might be changed from year to year in regard to the assessment of the public health rate, was most unfortunate, and, in his opinion, exceedingly expensive in its operation, for it gave an enormous amount of work to County Officers and Clerks. But the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties would begin when he tried to remedy that admitted difficulty. At the conference to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded there was a considerable difference of opinion in regard to the matter. Two views were submitted to the consideration of the conference: One suggested that the public health rates should in future be levied by the County authorities, not upon the basis of the system of deduction and classification limited to the particular parish, but upon a special system which would go beyond the parish, and which would empower the County Council—the authority that levied the county rate—to collect the rate upon a special system, with deductions and classifications which the County Council could fix in respect of the districts in which they levied the rates. That plan would simplify the existing system, and it would give a certain continuity to a recognised system in regard to the public health rate, which had increased more than any rate, and which would still further increase as demands for better sanitary arrangements in the dwellings of all classes of the public in Scotland were raised. As an alternative to that proposal there was the proposal in the Bill, which was that the County Council should in future assess for the public health rate on the gross valuation of the county. It must be perfectly obvious that, having regard to the special benefit which public health rates conferred on the more populous areas, there would be serious objection raised to the proposed change, unless they discriminated between agricultural holdings and other holdings, and therefore, in his opinion it would be better to adopt the first proposal. He was afraid this would be found to be a bone of contention when they came to discuss it. Whilst he should welcome
  1678
  the change, whatever was the ultimate way adopted in regard to it, he was in favour of the earlier alternative to which he had referred, and which, he believed, would be the fairer system to adopt in arriving at a determination of this question. With regard to the matter of the Dean of Guild jurisdiction, he was not quite sure, from the right hon. Gentleman's statement, whether it was to be in the power of the County Dean of Guild authority to deal with the character of the buildings erected and the particular sites selected for the purpose of erections. If that should be the case he thought it was to be deprecated. The county health authority, before any building was erected, should have the power to deal with the question of its sanitary arrangements and so forth. If in the case of buildings in counties where, as a rule, there was plenty of air, it was proposed to give the more drastic powers which were necessary in the case of town buildings it would be a mistake, and would lead to a considerable amount of contention. One other point to which he desired to refer was that which related to the question of "fire." That was one of the weak spots in their system of county administration. The burgh authorities had almost invariably shown themselves ready to assist in the extinction of fires when called upon by the county authorities. But there were parts of counties which were so remote from any burghs to which an appeal in such a case could be made, that it was high time that they had in the counties some such powers as the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give them in one clause of this Bill. He understood, however, that while the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give general powers of payment by the county authorities to the burghal authorities where the latter rendered assistance, that the proposed new provision would be limited to special water areas. He presumed the right hon. Gentleman meant that the rate which had been levied for the purpose of establishing these fire engines or escapes within that water area would be limited to the area within which the water rate was collected. If that was the case it would be only proper and right, in order to render these particular appliances available over adjacent parts of counties, that payments should be made by other portions of

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  the district in respect of the use of the appliances. He hoped that that was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, because it was exceedingly desirable not to cramp the power of the committees in the use of these appliances. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the proposal he had made to alter the date of the County Council election from December to April. He believed the general feeling of those in touch with local government in counties in Scotland would be found to be very largely in favour of the election taking place in April instead of December. No doubt difficulty would occur in regard to the appointment of members from parishes which were partly burghal and partly landward, but on the whole he did not imagine that such difficulty would be of a serious character. After all, the number of parishes of that kind was limited, and the work which the members who would have to represent the Parish Councils in the future had to discharge on these committees was not of that character that any great obstacle would be found in adopting the solution of the question which the right hon. Gentleman had suggested to the House. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman, not only upon what he had put in the Bill, but also upon some omissions from the Bill. He was exceedingly glad to see it was to be made an even more non-contentious measure than he could have ventured to hope. He was glad of this, because he was of opinion that on account of these omissions the Bill was more likely to pass quickly through this House. He believed that the Bill, containing the provisions which the right hon. Gentleman proposed, would conduce to good local government in the counties in Scotland, and he looked forward to its passage through the House with interest.
  DR. MACGREGORdesired to know if the right hon. Gentleman proposed under the Bill to give security of tenure to medical officers of health, and also power of appeal to a central board before they were dismissed for, perhaps, too faithfully doing their duty? If not it would be a weak point in the administration of the sanitary law, for it would not be reasonable to expect that medical officers could do their duty if they were liable to be dismissed by defaulters.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: There is no clause to that effect in the Bill at present.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Then I give notice that I will move it as an Amendment in Committee.
  *MR. GRAHAM MURRAYobserved that, as regarded what the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken had said about the medical officers of health, he supported him in the action he took on this question last year, and he should be prepared to do so again. As regarded the Dean of Guild jurisdiction which the right hon. Gentleman had intimated that this Bill was to introduce for the first time into the counties, so far as it was devoted to sanitary improvements he was quite in favour of the proposal. But he would say at once he hoped it was not going any further. He hoped, in other words, it was not proposed to assimilate their life in the county to life in the towns in the matter of putting up buildings. The law of the Dean of Guild as applied in towns was very much law based on private Acts, and which would not be applicable in many respects to counties. He thought, for instance, it would be perfectly absurd if a person could not put up a new hay shed, or add a bath to his house, or put in a new window without having first to go to the county Dean of Guild to got leave as was the case in towns. He did not know whether there was anything of the sort in the Bill, but if there was he should certainly feel it his duty to oppose it. With this criticism he desired to associate himself with what had been said by other Members who had addressed the House.
  MR. H. T. ANSTRUTHERinvited the right hon. Gentleman to make a little clearer the proposals he had foreshadowed as to giving powers to local authorities with regard to the employment of mechanical appliances in quarries and other such places. He took special interest in this point, which had been brought under the right hon. Gentleman's notice by a memorial from the County Council of Fife, and he desired to thank the right hon. Gentleman for acceeding to the wish of that County Council by giving the Amendment in the law which was introduced in the Bill. There was one other point as to which he did not quite

  1681
  catch the nature of the proposals. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the powers which the Bill proposed to give to the County Council or the Finance Committee of the County Council to invest the surplus of the Police Pension Fund to carry out extensions &c., with regard to roads. He should like the right hon. Gentleman to make this matter a little clearer. He agreed that it would be a great improvement to hold the County Council elections in April instead of in December, but he foresaw considerable difficulty in the scheme the right hon. Gentleman had suggested inasmuch as part of a Parish Council would be elected and take office in November, while the remaining members would only come into office under the election which was held upon the first Tuesday in April. When they saw the Bill in print they would be better able to judge of particular provisions, and with these criticisms he should welcome the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman, whilst he was sure that those associated with him would assist in passing the Bill quickly through this House.
  MR. J. CALDWELLdid not agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite that the effect of the omissions from the Bill would be to enable it to pass more quickly, but believed the reverse would be the, case. There was one omission with regard to which they should, perhaps, be able to do in Committee what they did before with regard to a similar omission, and that was to induce that House to supply the omission which the Government had neglected to supply, and leave it to the House of Lords to throw it out if they thought fit. He referred to the power to Parish and County Councils to acquire land for the purpose of erecting dwelling houses. That clause was carried through the House of Commons and was rejected by the House of Lords, and the Government said that whilst for the sake of the Bill they would agree to the Lords' Amendment on that occasion, they would at the first opportunity introduce the clause again. Now something was due on the part of the Government to its supporters in this matter. The Scotch people looked with great interest upon this proposal, and the supporters of the Government did not wish to have it
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  thrown in their teeth that the Government had not carried out their pledge.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN, in reply, said the Government had a Bill prepared which entirely carried out the promise which they made last year, but he did not believe that the Bill could properly be engrafted on the one now before the House. He remembered very well the Debate and Division which took place on the question of medical officers and of the support which his hon. Friend got, and he had no doubt that, the matter being germane to this Bill, would be reconsidered when the Bill got into Committee. With regard to the powers given to the local authority to use steam in quarries, he believed the Bill fulfilled the wishes of the influential County Council which had been most active, in demanding these powers. The words of the Bill were:—
  "In any land wherein the County Council as the road authority or other persons authorised by them, have power under the Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act, 1878, to search for, dig, and carry away materials, they are hereby empowered to use steam engines or electrical or other mechanical appliances for boring and blasting rock, or for breaking rock or rock-metal."
  The rest of the clause contained provisions to guard against the abuse of those powers. They appeared to be an absolute sine qua non. In regard to the Police Pension Fund, Clause 19 provided—
  "Sub-section three of section eighteen of the Police (Scotland) Act, 1890, shall be amended to the extent and effect that the surplus of the annual income of the pension fund of a police force may be invested by the police authority as a loan to any County Council for any purpose for which such County Council is entitled to borrow money"
  With regard to the days set apart for the different elections the Government quite acknowledged that difficulties existed. Whether the very bad councils after being elected should remain without functions for five months and should have those functions prolonged for five months at the next election was a small matter to which the Government would gladly accede. The Government thought their own proposal preferable, but whatever the result it was a small price to pay for a strong public desire.
  MR. JOHN WILSONcalled attention to the omission

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  from the Bill of any extension to police burghs or burghs other than royal burghs of the power of licensing. That was a grievance which was much felt in the burgh he represented. That in a large constituency of upwards of 60,000 people the governing body, the magistrates, should not have the power of either granting a licence or preventing one being granted, while they were responsible for peace and order in the burgh, and that in a royal burgh like Renfrew, having only 5,000 of a poplation, the magistrates should have such power, was a most anomalous state of affairs. He hoped his right hon. Friend would concede this power under the present Bill to the larger burghs.
  Leave was given to bring in the Bill, which was presented accordingly, and read 1° to be read 2° upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill No. 215.]

  FATAL ACCIDENTS INQUIRY (SCOT LAND)BILL.
  On the Order for the Adjournd Debate on Second Reading,
  *MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, that when the Bill was last before the House he was in course of pointing out that the Lord Advocate had made out very little case for the measure. Since the introduction of the Bill two years ago there had been, first the passing into law of the Notice of Accidents Bill of 1894; and in the present Session, there was a provision in the Factory and Workshops Bill for the holding of public inquiries whenever they were deemed necessary. With regard to fatal accidents arising from machinery, he asserted unhesitatingly that a jury was a bad tribunal to investigate a matter of the sort. A jury being full of sympathy, all you had to suggest was that if there had been some minute difference in the machinery the accident would not have happened, and then the jury at once rushed to the idea that that ought to have been done. What was wanted in order to avoid any suspicion of prejudice or favour on one side or the other was an opinion of experts, and this it would be perfectly easy to provide in the Bill. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to face this fact, that every one of the learned bodies which had had
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  this Bill before them, such as the Association of Procurators Fiscal of Scotland was against the provision as to a jury, and had condemned it. He looked upon the proposal contained in the Bill as an attempt to introduce the coroner's system of inquiry into Scotland, and thought that in embodying it in the Bill the right hon. Gentleman had yielded to the pressure that had been brought to bear upon him by the trade unions. He should have no objection to his right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate being placed in the position of having to decide whether an inquiry should or should not be held. He did not intend to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but when the measure got into Committee he intended to move such amendments as would give effect to the rooted objections to the methods of investigation which the Bill proposed should be adopted. The effect of the Bill as it stood would be to enable speculative agents to attempt to ascertain by means of the preliminary inquiry whether they had any chance of obtaining a verdict.
  *MR. RENSHAWthought that a Bill providing for a public inquiry into the causes of fatal accidents was one to which no great exception could be taken if it proposed to institute an inquiry into all cases of fatal accidents. But he objected to the limited application of this measure. He thought that the Bill submitted by the present Government in 1893 was a better Bill than this, and he believed he was correct when he reminded the Lord Advocate that a deputation waited upon him after that Bill had passed through the Grand Committee, and urged upon him the desirability of introducing a jury clause into the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out to that deputation the difficulties involved in such a proposal, and shewed that it would involve the appointment of a large number of sheriffs, and the summoning of something like 4,000 special jurors in one county alone. If those were good reasons for not inserting a jury clause in 1893, surely they were good reasons in 1895. He did not take objection to the Bill in any spirit of antagonism, but he thought that the House ought to be enlightened with regard to the definition of "industrial employment or occupation." He

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  did not know whether it was intended that it should include domestic servants. He presumed that it was, and if that was the case it only led him to entertain a stronger objection to the Bill. There was a large variety of industrial employments, and in the case of many of them inquiries had already been instituted; but if it was proposed to include other occupations than those hitherto dealt with, it seemed to him as though that would put the question on a broader basis, yet the basis would still be so limited that it would be unreasonable to extend the provisions of the existing Act, unless the logical and true course were adopted of extending the system of inquiry into fatal accidents to all classes of the Scottish population. There were one or two points he would like to bring to the notice of the Lord Advocate, which showed the absurd manner in which this Bill would work. He would suppose the case of a master slater who employed one or two men. He might go out with one of his journeymen to work upon a roof. Not infrequently a rope was held by one man on one side of the roof while the other man descended on the other side to do the work. If the rope was held by the journeyman and the master slater fell to the ground, there would be no public inquiry, although the accident might have been due to some fault of the man. On the other hand, if the master held the rope, and the journeyman fell to the ground, there would be an inquiry under this Bill. He would suppose another case: a market gardener, working with a man employed by him. The man held a ladder while the employer ascended it, and fell and lost his life. There would be no inquiry; but if the master held the ladder, and the accident happened to the man, then there would be an inquiry. Again, a coachman went out in a dogcart with his master, and an accident happened while the coachman was driving, the master being thrown out and breaking his neck. There would be no inquiry. On the other hand, if the coachman met with a fatal accident while the master was driving, an inquiry would be held. Suppose, again, a fire broke out in a mansion house, and caused the death of one or two of the children of the owner. It might have originated through the carelessness of
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  one of the servants, but no inquiry would take place. If, on the other hand, in consequence of the negligence or carelessness of a servant, a fire led to the death of a fellow servant, there would be an inquiry at once. This Bill seemed to him to suggest that there was a difference in the value of life among the different classes in Scotland; and he could not conceive why, if the Government were going to have an inquiry in one case, there should not be an inquiry in all cases where fatal accidents resulted from carelessness. What were the provisions with regard to factories, and mines, and other employments which already existed? In the case of mines, there was a provision with regard to inquiries; in the case of fatal accidents in factories, there was already legislation in the Act of 1891, which dealt very fully with that. There was a clause in the Factories and Workshops Bill, now submitted for the consideration of the House, rendering still more effective the provisions of the Act of 1891, with regard to inquiry in the case of fatal accidents under the Factories and Workshops Act. The Act of 1891 made a tolerably full provision in regard to this matter. In the 33rd Section, Sub-Section 5 of that Act, it was provided that, where a death occurred by accident in any factory or workshop, a public inquiry in open Court should be held by the Sheriff on the petition of any person interested. Surely that was an ample and sufficient provision? But it was to be extended in the present Bill, and it was proposed that, where it appeared by the 18th Section of the Factories and Workshops Act to the Secretary of State that a formal investigation of any accident was necessary, he might direct such an investigation to be held, and with respect to it Sections 45 and 46 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act should have effect. In those sections it was provided that the Secretary of State might direct an investigation to be held by a competent person in an open Court, which was to enjoy the same powers as a Court of Summary Jurisdiction; that a report was to be made, and the Secretary of State might make that report public. As an employer of labour he could not conceive why, with the existing provisions of the law in respect of

  1687
  any fatal accidents occurring either in mines or factories, there was any need for additional legislation. The Notice of Accidents Act of last year, by which the Board of Trade might hold an open inquiry in the case of serious accidents in railway, gasworks, building trades, and other employments, seemed to him to fill the gap left in regard to such inquiries by the provisions of the Factories Act, and the Coal Mines Regulation Act. He could not help looking upon this Bill as class legislation. Why was it proposed to inquire into fatal accidents, when they occurred to persons in industrial employment or occupation, while they were not going to inquire into the cases of men who were employers? Besides, it appeared that the Government were going to make everyone pay for the cost of this jury system, though they limited whatever benefits might arise to one particular class of the community. If there were a general feeling among Members who represented Scottish constituencies that a public inquiry in the case of all sudden deaths and fatal accidents, similar to the coroner system in England, was necessary, or a feeling of dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs—of which he had not become aware during his long residence in Scotland—then he should be willing to support the Bill, if it proposed to extend the benefits suggested to all classes of the community in Scotland. But it seemed to him that it was an illogical proposal to limit the application of the Bill to one class only while all classes were to be compelled to pay for putting the provisions of the Bill in operation. Human life was just as sacred in one class as it was in another; and, therefore, the provisions of the Bill, as far as they were good, ought to be extended to the whole population in Scotland, if it was intended to establish a jury system and to throw the expense on all classes of the community. He did not believe, however, that public opinion in Scotland was in favour of anything of the kind. As far as he was aware, the Lord Advocate had the power in any case in which it was thought desirable to set in motion machinery with regard to a public inquiry which the Bill suggested. He could not see the necessity for a Bill when the Lord Advocate could hold
  1688
  such an inquiry in open Court, where witnesses could appear and be examined—an inquiry, moreover, which thoroughly satisfied the public. The powers of the Lord Advocate was not limited to persons engaged in industrial employment or occupation; and it was because he looked upon this Bill as unnecessary and useless, and because it reflected, in a very unfair and uncalled-for manner, on those who were the employers of labour in Scotland, that he objected to it.
  MR. HARRY SMITHpointed out that the second clause of the Bill had been misinterpreted by the hon. Member. It was not the intention of the Government to limit the inquiries to the servants who happened to be employed in industrial occupations; on the contrary, all occupations and all classes were embraced within its scope. If the hon. Member should have the misfortune to be killed in an accident, he might rest assured that, if the Bill passed in its present form, his representatives would have the consolation of a public inquiry. As to the costly nature of the proposed inquiry, the hon. Member said that in a year 4,000 jurors would be summoned for Lanark shire alone. But as the county of Lanark embraced the second city of the Empire, which really meant more than half of Scotland, it seemed to him that the Legislature need not hesitate to expend £5,000 for the purposes of this inquiry. He, indeed, congratulated the Government on having brought in this Bill, which, he believed, would meet a very great public want in Scotland. He thought, also, that the hon. Member had misinterpreted the feelings of the working classes in West Renfrew, when he alleged that there was no public feeling in favour of an inquiry of this kind. He knew Renfrewshire as well as the hon. Member did, and he asserted that there was a feeling existing there in favour of an inquiry—not absolutely confined to the discretion of a Government official, however highly placed. What the workmen wished was that there should be a compulsory inquiry in any case of accident. He represented a constituency in which the use of very large machinery was common, a constituency in which there were a great many miners. There were many accidents in his district, and he had received

  1689
  many communications from his constituents on this matter, and they were one and all in favour of the Bill of the Government, and all in favour of an inquiry by jury. Looking at it from the point of view of those who had to conduct these inquiries, the resident sheriffs, he thought they would feel it to be much better to have the aid of a jury in cases of extreme importance.
  *SIR CHARLES PEARSONsaid, the Bill was one which deserved serious consideration. He said so because, in the first place, it seemed to be a departure at once from the established practice in Scotland, and from the course of recent legislation in this matter. He had not heard any one allege that there was a defect in the system which exists which the present proposal would correct. He did not know whether hon. Members who had spoken had realised the effect that this Bill would have on the ordinary working of criminal inquiry in Scotland. The Bill would affect the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office as regarded all cases where this Bill applied. At all events, they would not go on in the normal manner, and it seemed to him that this would be a most serious infraction of the practice in Scotland. He should like to know if this was a correct reading of the Bill. In the second place the Bill, as it was framed, seemed to be a serious departure from the proposals in recent years on this subject, the tendency of which had been to vest one or other of the great Departments of State with a discretion to order a public inquiry in cases of industrial accidents. This Bill proposed to limit inquiries to cases of death. Why was it to be applied to cases only where death occurred? Suppose there was an accident where 100 or more were injured, and they all recovered? This Bill would not apply in this or any similar case, but if a single life was lost—though there is no fault alleged against anyone, though it was a case of the sheerest accident—then there must be an inquiry. He contrasted this with the system in existence, and contended that the Bill would exclude inquiry into a large number of cases where inquiry might be far more fruitful in discovering liability and disclosing fault. Not that he was in favour of extending this Bill to all such cases, but that he thought it right to point out this
  1690
  inconsistency. The Bill was absolutely compulsory, and they were told that the workmen would be satisfied with nothing less. Why? Why should they be put to the expense of a public inquiry instead of leaving it as hitherto to the discretion of the Department? He thought that all legitimate claims would be satisfied by leaving the matter to the discretion of the Lord Advocate for the time being. What was the tribunal that was to be set up? There seemed to be an idea that sheriff court jury trials were quite familiar in Scotland in civil cases, but that was not so. Except in the rare cases of jury compensation trials under the Lands Clauses Act, he was not aware that such a thing was heard of, yet this Bill assumed the contrary, and pointed to a state of matters which did not exist. He should like to hear some justification of this. The Bill introduced two years ago made no provision for a jury at all, and the proposal, when made in Committee, was torn to pieces by the Lord Advocate himself, and was not pressed to a division. He wanted some substantial reason for this change of front. There were two other points which he desired to touch upon. They heard almost every day in Scotland of bitter complaint by jurors of the waste of time and loss of business which they had to undergo in these inquiries. This Bill would put a very considerable burden upon the jurors in Scotland. Then, what about the cost of carrying out the provisions of the measure? Had the Government really thought out that most essential particular? So far as he knew, not a single penny was provided for by the Bill, except merely the remuneration of the jurors. Was his right hon. Friend serious in proposing that the jurors should be remunerated at the cost of the locality where the death occurred? Where were the Members for Edinburgh and Glasgow? In those large towns there were large infirmaries, to which accidents from all parts were brought, and the jurors in those cities were to be called upon to deal with the deaths occurring there, and the ratepayers of those cities were to pay for it. The fact was that the Government had thought out this subject in a wholly inadequate way. Then, were there to be no costs except the costs of paying the jurors? These

  1691
  cases were sure to be very keenly contested; every one of them would be a rehearsal for the civil action which was to follow. The Bill provided that the witnesses were to be paid; but who was to pay them? There was no provision. Were these witnesses really to be paid for by the ratepayers of the place where the death happened to occur? Again, the sheriff and sheriff clerk could not get to the place where the inquiry was to be held for nothing. In the absence of the sheriff, the Secretary for Scotland was to appoint a person to hold the inquiry; was he to do it for nothing? If not, who was to pay? In one case there was to be a skilled inspection. That involved, he assumed, a skilled inspector; but not a word was said in the Bill as to remuneration. There were to be shorthand notes of the inquiry. Shorthand-writers would not, as a rule, work for nothing; who was to pay them? Again, copies of the proceedings were to be furnished; but not a word was said as to who was to pay the costs of furnishing them. All these details bore on the working out of this Bill as a practical measure, and he thought that the House was entitled to know whether the expenses were to be put upon the rates or upon the Exchequer; and, if upon the rates, whether they were to fall upon those unfortunate towns which were public-spirited enough to provide infirmaries for districts far beyond their own limits. These matters, taken together, constituted a severe criticism on the Bill as it now stood though he still thought it capable of being made a useful measure. He trusted that his right hon. Friend would show himself as open-minded, if the Bill got into Committee, as he did on a previous occasion. If he did so, then the anomalies pointed out might be got over.
  MR. DONALD CRAWFORDexpressed gratification that the Representatives of the front Opposition Bench had not anything to offer in opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill. They had not got a coroner's inquest in Scotland, and the only investigation was by the Crown Authorities privately, to ascertain whether there ought to be criminal prosecution. He had a good deal of sympathy with the objections—perhaps he might call them prejudices—which were so strongly
  1692
  entertained on the opposite side against any innovation by the introduction of any new kind of public inquiry, but he believed that Members of the House would, to use a common expression, be living up in a balloon if they were not aware that when they had the community of interests and opportunity of intercourse between workmen in all parts of the country, it would be impossible to maintain the position that if a man in England lost his father or his son in an accident he was to have a public inquiry, but, that in Scotland, such a man was to be content with a private inquiry, to which he was not to have access, and where the true causes of the fatal accident were not to be brought to light. That was a state of things which, if possible to defend, it would be impossible to maintain. He thought it required a very prejudiced ingenuity to discover a motive of the kind suggested from the Opposition side. The suggestion took him entirely by surprise, and he thought it was very easily answered, because, if it were the case that the examination at these proceedings and the public inquiry were to be the basis of action of speculative change, surely it might, and he thought it would, result in a great many improper civil actions being stopped. Therefore, if there were much importance in that consideration at all, it would tell quite as much on one side as on the other. The essence of this demand was that the inquiry should be a public inquiry, and it was perfectly natural that a person who had suffered the loss of a near relative should desire that the accident should be inquired into, not by an expert, as had been suggested, but by a body of common-sense men, or, in other words, by a jury. That was the natural want and the natural demand of the people of Scotland, and it was only just and humane to those who were the sufferers by such accidents that it should be granted. The jury system in England was a perfectly natural one, and it had worked well, and it was only reasonable that the people of Scotland, if they desired it, should have a similar system in relation to the class of cases in question. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities spent much time in showing that no provision was made for the expenses of those inquiries, and that the incidence of

  1693
  the expense would be fixed on the place where the death occurred, and not on the place where the accident happened. But the Government would be perfectly prepared to meet him on those points, which need not be debated on the Second Reading of the Bill. They could be easily adjusted in Committee. He admitted that to a Scotchman and a Scotch lawyer this question of a jury might seem a somewhat new one, except in the case of criminal trials, but he would remind the House that the demand had been a greatly increasing one until now it had become so strong that it could not be wisely resisted, and instead of blaming the Government for yielding to that demand, he would heartily commend them for doing so.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid he was glad there had been a certain amount of discussion on the Bill, for undoubtedly it excited a great deal of interest in Scotland, particularly among the industrial classes. Before he answered the chief questions which had been put to him by hon. Gentlemen opposite, he would briefly explain what the present system of inquiry into violent and sudden deaths in Scotland was. There was no coroner's inquest, and no public inquiry, but there was a carefully conducted investigation by the Procurator-Fiscal in every case, and that official reported to the Crown Office, which was under the control of the Lord Advocate, and further inquiry was then made if there was any reason for suspicion or doubt—thus, in Scotland very sudden or violent death was inquired into. That system he believed to be satisfactory in the great majority of cases, and not only so, but it often saved private feeling in regard to matters the publication of which must be painful to relatives and families without being of any advantage to the public. Accordingly, the last Commission which inquired into this and other matters connected with the administration of justice in Scotland, reported about 1872, that there was no general desire in that country that the system should be altered by the introduction of coroners' inquests. But within the last 10 or 12 years a strong feeling has arisen among the industrial classes that it would be desirable that inquiries in regard to fatal accidents occurring in industrial pursuits, should be public.
  1694
  Among the reasons for this there was the very cogent one that if any fault or weakness was found in the system of conduct or management of any industry, the publication of the fact enabled it to be noted, and the recurrence of the evil prevented by regulation or change of method. There were many other reasons, but undoubtedly the desire for public inquiry strongly existed, and it increased with the growing complexity and danger of certain forms of industry. When the Government came into Office, the matter was pressed upon them, and they came to the conclusion that, under the circumstances, it was reasonable to provide for a public inquiry in cases of the class referred to. His right hon. Friend opposite had twitted him with first making a proposal to hold such inquiries without a jury. It was true that he did so, and the reason was that it was desirable to provide a public inquiry with a minimum of change, expense and alteration of machinery; and those who had had great experience in such matters would feel confidence in such an inquiry conducted by the Sheriff, with the assistance of the existing officials, although there would be no jury present. But it was undoubtedly the case that legal and official persons were not always the best to deal with industrial facts in cases of the class referred to. At all events, the Government did bring in that proposal involving a minimum of change, but shortly after it came from the Grand Committee, very strong and numerous representations were made from nearly all the industrial centres of Scotland that there was an almost unanimous feeling that it was desirable to have a jury in the conduct of such cases in future. These representations came from the persons who were most directly interested in the matter—the persons whose lives and limbs were at hazard, and who, therefore, had the right to know how it was a man came by his death if a fatal accident occurred. The Government were not ashamed to say, when a demand of that kind was made by persons well entitled to make it, that they considered that it ought to be granted, especially when the demand was a reasonable one in itself. There was another strong consideration—namely, that there was often found upon a jury some one who could

  1695
  contribute from practical experience information or knowledge affecting the inquiry, which professional and official persons could not give or did not possess. The Government would not have been doing their duty if they had not recognised the perfectly natural and legitimate feeling which existed in all the trades in Scotland in regard to a matter affecting deeply the lives and limbs of those concerned, and taken the judgment of Parliament upon it. A number of small objections had been raised which, perhaps, were rather for a Committee; but out of respect for those who had raised them he would deal with them. The hon. Member for Buteshire said that the jury was the worst tribunal to have in a matter of this kind, but he could not expect a general assent to that. The hon. Member seemed to think that there would be a temptation to the jury to sympathise with the servant against his employer, but this was not a question of money damages, or of litigation of any sort; it was an inquiry, it was an inquest, and the answer to the inquiry would be not what damages should be given to A as against B, but when and where the death or deaths to which the inquiry related took place, and the cause or causes of the death or deaths.
  *MR. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid, it might be the fault of A or B.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, the criticism which had been made did not apply to an inquiry of this kind. It was complained that the inquiry was to be universal in the case of fatal accidents in industrial occupations; and it was proposed that instead discretion should be vested in the Lord Advocate. He thought, however, it would be better that it should be automatic; in the first place it would be known that the holding of an inquiry did not depend on the judgment of any official; and, secondly, in any inquiry relating to an accident time was of the essence of the matter. Before they could make a preliminary inquiry, report to the Lord Advocate, and obtain the issue of an Order, some days, perhaps longer, might have elapsed, and in the meantime valuable evidence might be lost, and possibly further danger incurred. It had also been argued that they were covering ground already to a large extent occupied by a
  1696
  number of separate Acts. It was true that under various Acts, such as the Mines, Boiler Explosions, Factories, and Merchant Shipping Acts, there were provisions for the institution of an inquiry at the discretion of a public Department. But experience had already proved that when an inquiry had been made by the Lord Advocate's Department, the other Department interested had been satisfied, and if this Bill became law the holding of an immediate public inquiry, where all parties were heard, would supersede all these optional inquiries. He was sure the President of the Board of Trade, or any other Minister, when considering whether an inquiry should be held, would first send for the papers relating to the inquiry which had been held on the spot, and if he found in them all that could be ascertained he would not open another inquiry. Consequently, there was no inconsistency, and they were not duplicating, but simplifying, these inquiries. It had been argued that the Bill was too large, and that it was too small; if any hon. Members wished to enlarge its scope they would be glad to consider their Amendments. He did not agree that the Bill was a class Bill; it affected industrial employments or occupations, and thus dealt with both master and servant.
  MR. RENSHAWasked how domestic service would be classed?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that that was an industrial employment. The matter of expenses had also been referred to, and it was true that they had provided that the expense of the jury should be paid in the same way as inquests in England were provided for, as that was an expense new to the law of Scotland. The other expenses would be official expenses, because they would be using a staff and a machinery which they had at present. He hoped the House would assent to the Second Reading of the Bill.
  *MR. A. C. MORTONheld, that the Bill would have passed long ago but for the opposition of the Tory Party. The hon. and learned Member for the Edinburgh University said the Bill might be made a capable Bill; if that were so why had he blocked it for the last two years.
  *SIR C. PEARSONstated, that he had never blocked it.
  *MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, the hon. Member had prevented its going to a Committee.
  *SIR C. PEARSONobserved, that, on the contrary, it had gone to a Committee.
  *MR. A. C. MORTONsaid the Bill of last year did not go to a Committee, and either the hon. Member or somebody who acted for him prevented its going through. It was practically his (Mr. Morton's) Bill. In 1893 he had moved to reduce the salaries of three of Her Majesty's Ministers in order to get this Bill introduced, and he was very glad the Government had given way. The hon. Member for the Edinburgh University said the Bill was a departure from present practice, but that might be urged against any and all reform. He also said that there was no defect in the present system. When he (Mr. A. C. Morton) induced the Government to bring in this Bill, however, he had proved up to the hilt that there was a defect in the practice in Midlothian. At present the Home Secretary only ordered an inquiry into accidents in mines in very special cases. The House was told there was no demand for this Bill. But long before he mentioned it in the House, the representatives of the working men of the United Kingdom, in their annual assemblies and at their Trades Councils, unanimously passed resolutions asking that the law on this subject might be altered. It had been said to be contrary to the practice of the Lord Advocate's office that the relatives of deceased men or anybody should see a copy of the Report of the Procurator Fiscal. So they were unable to find out whether anyone was to blame. What was wanted was, an immediate and open inquiry, so that before anything was removed or altered, they could find out if there was anyone at fault, or blame to be attached to any body—employers or workmen. It had been said that extra expense would be involved if the Bill became law. But he submitted that it would save expense and trouble to everyone concerned; because, when an inquiry was open, and everyone knew what went on, the friends of the deceased would be able to see whether there was any ground for going to law. At present the only possible way of finding out whether the employers were wrong or not was to spend £400 or £500 in lawyers' expenses,
  1698
  He was told that the real opposition to the Bill came from the legal profession in Edinburgh. Why they should object to a reform of this kind he could not say, unless it was that some legal officers, who had not enough to do at present, might have to earn their salaries more than they had hitherto done. His hon. Friend opposite said: "Why not an inquiry into every accident?" He should like to see in Scotland the system of coroners' juries that prevailed in England. It was said that a great many people were not in favour of that. But perhaps it would come by-and-by. They must be content with what they could at present get. He would like to see inquiries into non-fatal accidents. We were not, however, far enough advanced for that. But by a special Act in the City of London there were inquiries by the coroner into fires whether accompanied by loss of life or not. The English system of coroners' inquests was for the benefit of the people, and a system something like it in Scotland would enable working people and others to find out how accidents occurred and who was to blame. He did not think there would be very much expense in connection with the working of the Act, The Bill had been blocked for several years, and he hoped that now those who had blocked it would give way to the general feeling of the industrial classes in Scotland, and allow them to have these inquiries, which would be as much to the interests of the masters as of the men.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid, that as a Member of the Committee that dealt with this Bill two years ago, it was only just to say, in answer to the hon. Member for Peterborough, and in justice to the Scotch Members generally, that he alone could not be credited with sympathetic interest in the promotion of the Bill. Nearly all the Scotch Members, irrespective of politics, and who understood industrial questions, did everything to make this Bill a replica of the English coroner's jury system. In justice to the Scotch Members, this should be said by one who did not claim, like the hon. Member for Peterborough, to be Member for the Universe—Scotland included. The hon. Member for Renfrew asked why this Bill should be limited to employés and not extended to the employers and other sections of

  1699
  society. But Parliament was compelled to pass legislation affecting the industrial classes, because, by virtue of their employment, they laboured under disabilities that other sections of society did not. But if the hon. Member would guarantee that the employers in Scotland and elsewhere would have the good taste to be killed in as large numbers as the, workmen, he would move that the Bill be extended to them. The change proposed by the Bill was justified; and, as showing the opinion of the working classes in Scotland, he would read the following Resolution, which was passed two years ago by their representatives:—
  "That we express our great dissatisfaction at the action ef the Government in refusing to provide in the Fatal Accidents Public Inquiry (Scotland) Bill that investigations should be made by the Sheriff, or other competent officer, and the jury."
  The Government had, by the Bill, complied with the universal demand of the Scotch workmen. It was based on the principle of the coroners' jury system, but provided the advantage that there would be more competent officers to advise the jury than we had in England, and the Scotch jury was smaller than the English jury of 12. He cordially approved of the change proposed, and on behalf of the representatives of the working classes, and the trades unions in particular, who for the last 15 years had pressed this Bill on Liberal and Tory Governments, he sincerely trusted the Bill would be read a second time, and that the Scotch workmen would be living under its advantages that day 12 months.
  DR. MACGREGORasked whether the Bill would cover deaths from violence occurring in the industrial departments of lunatic asylums; he thought the Bill should cover them.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that, inquiry into cases of violent deaths in asylums was already provided for, and he did not know whether the persons to whom the hon. Member referred could be described as carrying on an industry, but he had no doubt that all that was required was already provided for by the Lunacy Acts.
  DR. MACGREGORwould put the case if one lunatic assaulted another when engaged in farming operations.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he was afraid that assault was not a known industry.
  Bill read 2°.

  LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD GF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,rose to move for leave to introduce a Bill to facilitate the construction of light railways in Great Britain. He said that frequently in past Sessions, and also in this Session, the House had had its attention called to the absence of facilities which ought to exist for the conveyance of agricultural produce from the agricultural districts to the markets of the country. At this moment, in particular, when the agricultural industry, in which they all felt so deep an interest, was suffering from a depression so severe and so long-continued, it became their duty to take every step they could to remove any cause which might contribute to that depression, and to show the interest they felt in the prosperity of that industry by facilitating, as much as possible, the conveyance of agricultural produce from the places of production to the markets. Besides the interest they all felt in the prosperity of the agricultural community, there was also the interest they all had in seeing that the rural districts were no longer depopulated by the influx of their people into the towns, and also in seeing that the establishment of industries in small towns and in rural districts was facilitated, as far as possible, by cheaper conmunication. He did not say that the measure would go very far in relieving the depression in agriculture, which was due to causes operating over the whole world, and many of which were by Parliament quite irremovable. He made no such claim, and he produced the measure as nothing more than a palliative of some evils, and one which, in many agricultural districts, would give the farmer a better chance than he now enjoyed. He would shortly state what were the provisions of the Bill and what had induced the Government to adopt them. In the month of December last he asked a number of gentlemen representative of various agricultural bodies, of railways, of engineering, and of municipal corporations, to meet at the Board of Trade in

  1701
  order to discuss the propriety of introducing a measure of this kind. That conference was widely attended, and it appointed a Committee, which held a very large number of sittings, and ultimately produced a valuable report, which had been already laid on the table. He tendered his sincere thanks to the members of that Committee for the great pains they had bestowed upon the subject and for their valuable Report. The Committee was presided over by the hon. Member for the Banbury Division of Oxfordshire (Sir B. Samuelson), and it included, besides eminent engineers and distinguished Members of the other House, the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach), the right hon. Member for one of the divisions of Leeds (Mr. Jackson), and hon. Members for Northamptonshire, Wolverhampton, Somerset, Montgomeryshire, Sunderland, and Islington. It would be seen that public opinion in all parts of the House was well represented, and the Bill he was introducing was based upon the recommendations of that Committee. Those recommendations went mainly to two points—namely, the cheapening of the method by which railways were now authorised in dispensing with the heavy preliminary expenses which were incurred in passing a Bill through Parliament, and also the relaxing of those requirements which it had been the custom of the Board of Trade to impose, in some cases under the absolute direction of Parliament, and in other cases under a sense of duty which had become practically imperative as regarded both the construction and the working of railways. As to procedure, the Bill proposed to commit the authorisation of light railways to county councils, including in that designation county boroughs, and it was provided that county councils should receive proposals made to them by the promoters of light railways. If a county council considered that a primâ facie case was made out, then it was to appoint a Committee to inquire into the matter. The promoters were to make out their case, to state the area through which they would pass, and to show that they had consulted all the local authorities; thereupon the Committee was to prepare a draft order, and that was to be sent to the Board of Trade, which was to consider it with a view to three
  1702
  points in particular. The first was the magnitude of the undertaking, so as to secure that under these exceptional provisions no railway should be carried out which ought—in respect of its length or the importance it might have otherwise, for instance, as a connecting link between two great systems—to be subject to the judgment of Parliament. It will be the duty of the Department to see that the provisions of the Bill are not used to remove from Parliament any of the jurisdiction which it ought in the public interest to exercise. Secondly, the Board of Trade will consider the proposals from the point of view of the safety of the public, and will insist on all the provisions required therefor. Thirdly, the Board of Trade will be charged with the duty of protecting landowners; and any landowner who thinks that his land ought not to be taken compulsorily, will have locus standi before the Board of Trade, in asking that the order for the taking of his land shall be varied. These will be found adequate safeguards for the new procedure which the Bill proposes. As justifying the provisions of the measure, I will read from the report of the Committee—
  "The Committee think that it is not reasonable that undertakings of limited scope, when they are approved of by the locality they are intended to serve, should be forced, as they are now, to have recourse to the expensive tribunal of a Parliamentary Inquiry. The Committee are of opinion that the recent creation of popular local authorities of various degrees throughout Great Britain opens the door to an escape from the great cost attending applications to Parliament, by enabling powers and responsibilities with reference to the authorisation and control of light lines to be conferred on those bodies; and that the time has arrived for Parliament to consider whether this should not be done, an ultimate appellate jurisdiction being reserved to the Government Department charged with the inspection of railways, which, it may be assumed, would be exercised with due regard to the existence of such local control and responsibility. If this were done, the initial cost of construction, and the expenses of working, could be so greatly reduced that many light railways or tramways, promoted either by independent companies, or by the existing lines of railway and tramway, could be undertaken to the great advantage of districts, and especially agricultural districts, at present without satisfactory means of transport."
  These words represent the unanimous judgment of the Committee, which was

  1703
  in every sense a representative body. Although several of the members of the Committee desired that its recommendations should go further, there was no difference of opinion find no minority Report on this particular point. In making these proposals the Government is, of course, asking Parliament to part with a certain measure of its power; but as far as experience of these local authorities has gone, there is every reason to believe that they are discharging their duties with circumspection and judgment. They act in the light of public opinion, and are responsible to their constituents; and it will be the duty of the Government Department, in charge of the matter, to see that they do not go beyond what is the proper scope and intention of this measure; and I submit that the time has come when, in a matter of this kind, Parliament might endeavour to effect the enormous saving which will unquestionably be the result of these provisions. As to the question of construction, everyone knows that the construction of our railways was excessively costly. No engineer will deny that our railways are, in respect of construction and service, the best in the whole world. But it would be quite impossible, if communication is to be readily extended, to continue to maintain the extremely high standard of convenience and safety thought necessary when the great trunk lines of the country were made. With respect to those trunk lines, I should not propose to reduce the elements of safety at present secured by the Board of Trade requirements, especially in connection with the swift passenger traffic. But these small lines will run at comparatively slow rates of speed, and in respect of them the severity of the requirements may be relaxed, and their construction may be permitted on a different standard. The Board of Trade may be a little more tolerant of level crossings, may dispense with the present elaborate station arrangements, and in many ways may materially diminish the whole cost of construction and working, if only the necessary authorisation from Parliament is given. It has been stated that the Board of Trade has been too severe. The Department has felt bound to consider the safety of the public as its first charge, until Parliament, as the organ of public opinion, authorises it to relax its
  1704
  requirements. But the evidence supplied has convinced the Board of Trade and the Committee that it is possible to dispense with a great many of those requirements in this case without any increased danger to the public or to the traffic. The same remark applies also to the working of the lines. It will be much cheaper if there is a less expensive permanent way, less station accommodation, and a smaller number of railway servants. Next, as to the probability that these lines will be made without the provision of some kind of public aid. It has been suggested that public aid should be given to these enterprises from the national Exchequer. I do think that the Government would be justified, in the present condition of the public revenue and of public opinion in regard to this question, in proposing a measure so novel and open to so many serious objections of policy. It has never been the policy of this country to subsidise railways, and Parliament would be making a serious new departure in taking such a step. The result of that policy in various foreign countries is well known. It has also been suggested that the making of these railways ought the be aided out of the local rates, and three members of the Committee signed a separate Report in which they made that suggestion. There is, no doubt, much to be said for this suggestion: and I do not suppose that the local authorities, seeing how strong an interest they have in avoiding any unnecessary expense, would be imprudent in using the power if it were conferred on them. But, at the same time, I must feel that very great objections would be taken in the House to the conferring of such a power. Expressions of opinion have reached me from many quarters which make me feel that if the Government proposed to give to the County Councils the power of subsidising these undertakings, some persons would fear that they would remain ultimately as a charge on the rates, and the measure would meet with a great deal of opposition, from which, I hope, it will escape. We are, to a certain extent, in a stage of experiment. It may turn out ultimately that the making of these lines will be so great and clear a public benefit that either the National Exchequer or local authorities may be author-

  1705
  ised to give them some aid or assistance. All I can say now is that the case does not seem to justify the trial of that experiment at present. The House knows how great has been the expense at which the railway system of this country hat been created. I have heard the total expense of our railways in Great Britain estimated at something like £50,000 a mile, counting all that has been spent on Parliamentary contests, upon construction, and upon the acquisition of land. Whether that estimate he an excessive one or not, there can be no doubt that the cost of construction and Parliamentary expense are estimated by the best authorities as being on an average not less than £10,000 per mile. That is a cost which has been found very largely prohibitive. Everybody knows that when the great railway companies are asked, as they frequently are asked by localities, to make branch lines, the localities are often told the lines will not pay. No doubt the reason why branch lines are so expensive is that they are constructed upon the scale applied to the great trunk lines. The estimates I have been able to obtain point to a probable reduction in the cost of making the proposed lines of from an average of £10,000 per mile to £35,500, or according to some authorities, to £3,000 per mile. That obviously is a diminution so great that it offers a very strong inducement to a railway company to make a great number of branch lines which it does not find worth while to make at this moment. Therefore, even apart from what may be done by private enterprise, the formation of companies and the public spirit of landowners, who, I believe will in many cases feel that so great a benefit will be conferred upon their districts and properties by the construction of these lines that they will give the land necessary at a very low price, or perhaps for nothing at all—even apart from this I believe it will be worth the while of many of the great railway
  1706
  companies to construct these lines. I have been unable to obtain any accurate estimate as to what the difference in working will be, because it is clear everything must depend upon the circumstances of the particular district and the particular railway, but there can be no doubt that the reduction in the cost of working will also be very large—in many places it will probably amount to half. Looking at these considerations, I hope I have shown the House good reason to believe that the proposals which the Bill contains will supply a sufficient inducement to the railway companies to make these lines, and thus dispense with the necessity of a subsidy from any other quarter. I trust that if the House accepts the Bill they will see as a result of it a considerable addition to the number of railway communications in the country, and incidental benefits to those trades which are most directly concerned, and a sensible benefit to agriculture in many parts of the country. Feeling that this is a moment at which we ought to take every opportunity we can to give such a stimulus, I commend the Bill to the favourable consideration of the House.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I have listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, who commenced by stating that this Bill is introduced mainly in order to give effect to the deep and abiding interest which Her Majesty's Government feel in the present condition of the agricultural interest. When I heard that I began to hope we were, going to have unfolded some proposals which would prove of real and substantial assistance to that distressed industry. I cannot, however, help owning to a feeling of disappointment now that we have heard explained what we understand to be the principal measure which Her Majesty's Government have thought it their duty to introduce this Session in order to give aid and assistance and support to that industry which requires

  1707
  it so greatly. It is true the right hon. Gentleman was careful to say the proposal is nothing more than a palliative, not a remedy, for the evils under which agriculture is suffering, and which I rather gathered from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman are, in his opinion, mostly irremovable. [Mr. BRYCE: "Some of them."] Perhaps the Government will make another attempt during the present Session to deal with the removable evils. Will the Bill be a palliative for the evils and the miseries under which agriculture is suffering? I have great doubt whether it will be a palliative at all. As far as I can gather, the main effect of the Bill will be to give greater facilities for the making of light railways and to render the construction of such railways, perhaps less costly than lines now are. But who is going to undertake the making of these light railways? What inducement is held out to anybody to embark on the enterprise? The right hon. Gentleman referred to the views which have been expressed in various quarters, that under no circumstances ought public aid to be given for the construction of these railways. He pointed out that there are two sources only from which public aid can come. First of all there is the National Exchequer. But what did the right hon. Gentleman say on that point? Why, that it would be an entirely novel precedent, and even if it would not be an entirely novel precedent the experience of foreign countries who have adopted such a course leads us to put it on one side. Surely, when he said that the right hon. Gentleman spoke without remembering what has occurred already in the United Kingdom. Was not public aid given from the National Exchequer for the construction of light railways in Ireland? [Mr. BERCE: "I am perfectly aware of that."] How am I to know the right hon. Gentleman was only referring to Great Britain when he said that this would be an entirely novel precedent in the legislation of this Parliament? [Mr.
  1708
  BALFOUR: "And in Scotland," And also in Scotland. Unless he was mistaken, aid had been given or had been promised by the Government for the construction of light railways in Scotland; and he should say that benefit from the policy of the Government was far more likely to be derived in parts of Scotland, especially in the Highlands, if applied there, than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Agricultural depression undoubtedly existed in Ireland; but it was nothing like so severe as he had reason to believe it was in numerous parts of Great Britain at the present time. And although State aid in the construction of light railways had been given in Ireland, where, as he had said, the agricultural depression was not so great as it was in England, when the subject was mentioned in regard to England, the President of the Board of Trade flew off at a tangent and said it would be so novel a precedent altogether, and one which the Government could not possibly adopt. One thing, however, he was glad to hear and that was that there was no possibility of any cost in connection with the light railways falling on the rates. If the agricultural party in the House had been offered this boon at the expense of the rates they would have declined it altogether. The condition of agriculture was so bad at the present time that agriculturists could not bear the slightest addition to their burdens which already fell upon them. Having said so much, he would not add anything that might appear to be hostile to the proposals of the Government. If the Government, by their proposals, facilitated the construction of light railways, he should be ready to heartily congratulate them on the success of their efforts. But he could not say he was so sanguine as to share the views of the Government. It seemed to him that the Government would be exceedingly fortunate if this measure, so far as he understood it, had any considerable effect towards the relief, or even

  1709
  the palliation of the agricultural depression. He sincerely hoped that the Government might be right and that he might be wrong. But he should say, on behalf of the agricultural interest, that if this Bill was the only measure the Government had to recommend during the present Session, for the relief of agriculture, there would be no bitter feeling of disappointment throughout the country. If this Bill was all the Government had to propose, it proved the truth of what he had said over and over again, that they did not recognise in the slightest degree the gravity of the agricultural situation or the sufferings which agriculturists were labouring under at present.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONsaid, the great object of the representatives of the agricultural interest was to secure that assistance towards the construction of light railways should be given not from the rates but from some Imperial source. That point could only be raised on the First Reading. If they were to allow the Bill to go to a Second Reading and then to move a clause wishing a charge on the public Exchequer they should find themselves entirely out of Court. He would, therefore, like to point out to the House a precedent as recent as 1889 for a grant being made out of public funds in aid of the construction of light railways. The Light Railways (Ireland) Act, 1889, authorised the Treasury to advance a capital sum as a free grant, or as a loan, or partly the one and partly the other for each of those undertakings. The Bill before the House, which was confined to England, proposed to mete out different treatment to English agriculturists. There were some principles of Irish legislation at any rate, which he should be glad to see applied to England. The boon proposed by the Bill was of a twofold character—first the Board of Trade was not to be so exacting in its requirements in regard to light railways, and the promoters of the light railways would not have to come to Parlia-
  1710
  ment. This boon was expected to reduce the cost of the construction of the light railways by one-half. He failed to see it. Under the Act of 1864 the promoters of a railway, if there were no opposition to their scheme, could at present get a certificate from the Board of Trade and proceed without a Private Bill. The only advantage of the Bill before the House was, that in the case of opposition, the promoters went to the County Council instead of to Parliament. But he believed the cost for inquiry before the County Council would fall very little short of the cost of an inquiry before a Parliamentary Committee. The only economy would be in the fares to London. Then there would be a second inquiry before the Board of Trade.
  MR. BRYCE: No, not an inquiry.
  MR. GRANT LAWSONsaid, that if the Board of Trade were to decide appeals without having counsel it would hardly be a satisfactory arrangement in the interest of the landlords at least. It appeared to him that everything rested with the Board of Trade. The inducement to people to put money into the light railways was that the Board of Trade would not be so exacting in the future as they had been in the past. But what guarantee was there that there would be always as lenient a President of the Board of Trade as at the present time? or that the Board of Trade requirements, unless limited by the Bill, would still continue moderate when the era of interest in light railways had gone by? [He was afraid the Bill would prove of no assistance to the agricultural districts.
  COLONEL W. KENYON SLANEY, remarked that the attention of the agricultural Members of the House had been concentrated for some time upon the measure which the right hon. Gentleman had asked leave to introduce. At the commencement of this Session they raised, to the best of their efforts, the needs and wants of agriculture, and

  1711
  they produced from the Leader of Her Majesty's Government in the House, nothing more than a long speech of chaff and ridicule. The only solace they could produce; for the agricultural constituencies was an oration from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was noted in every newspaper report as being accompanied by roars of laughter repeated over and over again. They had, therefore, looked earnestly to the time when they were to have produced for their consideration a measure which was really to embody the the collective wisdom and deliberate judgment of Her Majesty's Government, as to what was possible to be done in the circumstances under which agriculture was suffering. And so to-night, when they heard the preamble of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, they were struck by the weighty words he used, and the intense earnestness of his remarks. The President of the Board of Trade, in asking for leave to introduce this Bill, had told them the Government felt that every possible step should be taken to remove the depression under which agriculture was suffering. Every possible step to remove the agricultural depression, and alleviate the needs and miseries of the agricultural districts, was therefore bound up in the measure which the right hon. Gentleman was now asking leave to introduce. All he could say was, that this measure did not fulfil the idea of hon. Members representing agricultural constituencies of every possible step that could be taken, and it would be regarded as a poor and paltry measure indeed. The Bill not only expressed every possibility of which the Government was capable in the direction of removing the depression, but it was also, they were told, to prevent the depopulation of their districts and provide the cheaper communication so essentially important to all other rural districts. Those were the opening remarks of the right hon. Gentleman; but he afterwards went a tone or two lower, and told them that after all he did not expect it to prove more than
  1712
  a palliative. If he had said that at first' and left out the higher language with which he opened, it would have been more consonant with the conclusions the right hon. Gentleman had been able to put before them. What had they got before them? They had a measure which seemed to be conceived in a very simple spirit, and which was this—that if some people, but not the Government, chose to take an interest in this matter, then something might occur which, under possible circumstances, might be of benefit to some, districts connected with agriculture. The right hon. Gentleman had been emphatic in his declaration that there was to be no aid whatever from the National Exchequer. Agriculture did not expect that sort of treatment from the custodians of the national purse. There were other circumstances connected with agriculture in which the National Exchequer had been willing to spend money. He had a recollection of a proposal in which it was thought advisable to devote £250,000 of national money under a measure dealing with the evicted tenants of Ireland; but to a measure connected with the unevicted tenants of England the National Exchequer could not contribute a single farthing. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman repudiated the idea of putting this burden upon the rates, and he must have recognised that those who were interested in agricultural districts would have considered any such suggestion as a mockery and a farce. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the money was to be provided by national sources and national causes, and among these he had mentioned the public spirit which he hoped would induce landowners to give their land for nothing, in order that these experiments might be tried. The right hon. Gentleman should have remembered that he brought forward this measure appealing to the public spirit of the landowners in the year subsequent to that in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer did the utmost that was possible

  1713
  to ruin these landowners once and for ever. When he besought the public spirit of the landowners to come to the relief of the National Exchequer he should remember that last Session, by the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer the Government were engaged in mutilating and destroying the power of the landowners to do that which they were now appealed to do. If they could not get the landowners as a class to do that which the Government themselves would not do, they then said that the railway companies would possibly undertake this task. But they could not suppose that railway companies would undertake anything of the sort from the merely philanthropic point of view in which landowners had often done such things, and would now if the Government had not deprived them of the power. Railway companies could only do it where there was a prospect of a possible and legitimate profit to their shareholders, and it was a doubtful question whether in this case, there would be such a profit. The agricultural districts will be divided roughly into two classes. There were the districts near the main track which, being already well served by existing railways, could not be expected to benefit by a subsidiary measure such as this; and there were the districts situate in mountainous or rather wild parts of the country, where from the conformation of the country the expense of laying lines would be greater. These, too, would be the districts where, from the thinness of the population, the distances over which the lines would have to run would be considerable, and those were the very circumstances which would make the lines less likely to pay. The facts were inconsistent with the idea that railway companies could make these lines as paying concerns except under exceptional circumstances. The Government were depending on a broken reed. They were depending on the generosity of a
  1714
  class of the population from whom they had taken away the power to be generous. They were depending on the business-like capabilities of another class whose interests would go in the very opposite direction to that in which they hoped to enlist them. After the experience of last Session, when the Government inflicted upon the agricultural interest a wound from which their very life blood was now flowing, it was almost a mockery and absurdity to try to heal that wound with the ridiculous sticking-plaster of this Bill.
  *MR. E. STRACHEYsubmitted that those who represented English constituencies had a right to claim that as long as public money was given for the purpose of benefiting agriculture in Ireland and Scotland, the same policy should be pursued as regards England. On the other hand, he was quite ready to admit that there were strong arguments against any State aid at all for such local enterprises as light railways. But then it must be the same in every part of the United Kingdom, and no exception must be made in favour of one part. England should no longer be taxed for developing the local resources of Ireland or Scotland and herself receive no such aid. In the past it might have been argued that Ireland and Scotland were poor countries, and that England was a rich country and could afford to do without a guarantee while paying for a guarantee for Scotland and for Ireland. But that was not the case at the present moment, and he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade were to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture, the latter would tell him that an imperial guarantee for the making of light railways would be as much required in Essex as it would be in the case of any county in Ireland or Scotland. The fact was, that the cost of making these light railways

  1715
  would have to come out of the pockets of the local landlords and farmers.
  MR. BRYCE: I said that the great railway companies might be induced to make the light railways.
  *MR. STRACHEYconsidered that it was not very likely the great railway companies would undertake the cost of making lines which might eventually compete with their own. It was also most improbable that people would sell out of the Consols or out of the ordinary railway companies' stock in order to invest their money in the construction of these light railways, whatever might have been the case in the old days. The landlords and farmers would not now be able, in view of the present depressed state of agriculture, to contribute very largely, if at all, towards the construction of these proposed lines. He thought pressure might be brought to bear upon the great railway companies to lower their present excessive rates by the threat of the construction of light railways. It would be possible in many cases to construct these lines with some probability of success, and the great railway companies would think it worth while to make concessions. He knew of one case in which a railway company had consented to reduce their rates for the carriage of milk by one-half in consequence of the local farmers threatening to send their milk by road instead of by railway. In the same way it would be quite open to the farmers and the landlords of the locality to say to a railway company—
  "If you do not reduce your rates we will ask the County Council to sanction the construction of a light railway through our district;"
  and he believed that such a threat might be successful and would lead the railway company to reduce their rates. In many cases the reduction of railway rates would be as beneficial to a district as the construction of a light railway. In his view, however, the present Bill, if it
  1716
  were to pass, would remain a dead letter in too many cases.
  CAPTAIN BETHELLsaid, that he was inclined to think that in some parts of the country, at all events, the provisions of the Bill might possibly operate beneficially, but he thought that it was open to doubt whether a permissive Bill of this character could be useful to any great extent. If the railway company were to agree to construct these light railways, some power should be conferred upon the Board of Trade to prevent the companies from charging excessive rates. The measure conferred upon the County Councils for the first time very large legislative powers, and authorised them to sanction the construction of these lines by mere resolution. County Councils ought to be compelled to consider in certain circumstances these resolutions carefully and fully. [Mr. BRYCE observed that the hon. Member's point would be met by the Bill.] Then there was the question of guarantee. He quite agreed that they could not allow County Councils to burden the rates with these guarantees. The farmers would rise up in arms against such a proposal, agricultural distress being so great. A public guarantee was, of course, a difficult matter, but precedents were supplied by the cases of Scotland and Ireland.
  MR. BRYCEsaid, that as regarded Government interest in railways Scotland generally was no better off than England. What had been done by the Government for Scotland was done for districts corresponding to the distressed districts in Ireland.
  CAPTAIN BETHELLsaid, that in Scotland there were railways which were guaranteed in order that suffering agriculturists might be assisted, and the principle applied in the cases of Ireland and part of Scotland might well be extended to England, where, partly owing to circumstances beyond their control and partly to the

  1717
  action of the present Government and their supporters, agriculture was in an extremely distressed condition. He was inclined to think that the precedent might have been followed in the urgent circumstances of the case, but it would of course be necessary to use very great care in applying it. Something ought certainly to be done to palliate the distress in those parts of the country where the great railways were unwilling to undertake new works. One could not, of course, expect very much from a Light Railways Bill. It was introduced, he understood, to relieve hon. Gentlemen opposite from the charge that they were not very solicitous for the welfare of the agricultural interest, a charge rightly based upon their action a year or two ago. But he was afraid that this poor little Bill would not do very much to assist them in this matter, and he feared also that it would not do very much to assist the agricultural interest.
  MR. W. CROSFIELDthought that the chief merit of the measure lay in its simplicity and in the cheapness of the methods which it proposed. That being his view, he was not surprised that the hon. Member who represented Shropshire should have been somewhat more vigorous in his denunciations of the measure than the right hon. Member who represented Sleaford. The effectiveness of the measure would be different in different parts of the country. He could well believe that in Shropshire the element of cheapness would not be so conspicuous as in other counties. The hon. Member for Thirsk had expressed the wish that the bridges which should be built should be made wide enough to bear ultimately the ordinary gauge of railways. But this measure did not contemplate a plan of that kind. The light railways under consideration were to be accessories to rather than limbs of the great railway system of England and Wales. In Shropshire, no doubt, owing to the configuration of the country, it would be necessary to build bridges and make
  1718
  embankments, but in the Eastern counties there would be greater simplicity, and they would derive greater benefits and experience them sooner than the more hilly parts of the country. During the past week he had had the pleasure of visiting Holland, and he was very much struck with the extreme prosperity of the country. He could not help recognising the fact that that prosperity seemed a good deal to result from the network of steam tramways that existed in the country; which, by bringing not only produce but passengers to the stations of the larger towns, secured to Holland the benefits which he believed would ultimately result to this country from the Bill the House was now considering.
  *MR. W. E. M.TOMLINSONsaid, that in many parts of the country tramways had been constructed along roads. Their cost was considerably less than that of Light Railways, and it would be a matter of which the companies would have no right to complain if the Board of Trade required that, where it was possible, they should combine with the passenger traffic they now carried on certain facilities for dealing with agricultural produce. Two things would be required to make tramways available for this object, one that the tramway proprietors should be put under some obligation to deal with merchandise, and the other that they should be connected with the great railways. He felt sure that something might be done in this way to develop the resources of the agricultural districts. At the meeting in December, to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred, a good deal was said, and a paper was circulated upon what had been done in Belgium. He was strongly impressed with the idea that the tramways and connecting links with railways in that country received substantial aid from the Government; and he did not believe that it would be possible in this country in the agricultural districts to carry out any system unless

  1719
  some aid was given by the Government. The prospect of the railway companies doing anything to promote these Light Railways did not seem to him likely to be realised. Everyone knew from what took place before the Railway Rates Committee, how little the railway companies cared to give any facilities for carrying British agricultural produce. The revival of agriculture was impossible if the railway companies were to be allowed to continue to put the rural districts at so great a disadvantage as they did at present. In the light of their past action, it was hardly to be expected that any help was to be got from the railway companies.
  MR. J. A. PEASEsaid, that the case of Ireland was not a precedent. The position of Ireland was different from the condition of affairs which existed in agricultural districts at the present time here. When it was considered necessary to apply to the Exchequer for aid to make railways in Ireland, it was to save thousands of the Irish people from starvation in the congested districts. The Government had, therefore, done well to refuse any national funds for the purpose of the Bill in this country. Distress and depression existed in other industries besides that of agriculture, and if agriculture received this aid, in all probability other industries would claim it likewise.
  *MR. T. H. BOLTONsympathised with the Gladstonian county Members on this subject. They seemed to be in an exceedingly depressed frame of mind. They had gone about the country talking so much about this Measure being one which would largely alleviate agricultural distress, that they were now to be pitied when they found that, in satisfaction of all their large expectations, they received a little Bill like this. If the Bill would not do any harm, certainly it would not do much good. A great deal of simplicity appeared to prevail if it was believed that the
  1720
  Bill would do much for agriculture, or that railway companies were likely to invest the money of shareholders in these Light Railways, or that capitalists would give much capital to further such undertakings. If the Government had been anxious to promote Light Railways in England they would have adopted the course which was adopted in Ireland; they would have proposed some material assistance so as to induce the companies or the capitalists to embark upon such undertakings. It was suggested that landowners would give their land for the purpose of enabling the railways to be made; but it was not always in their power to give land. Where land could be given a Light Railway might not be wanted, or it might probably not be successful if made. The cost, moreover, of obtaining the necessary order for making the railway, if the scheme was opposed, would certainly approximate towards the cost of the inquiries before the House of Commons, because counsel and skilled witnesses would have to be taken into the country. It was novel, also, to find that the safeguards thought to be necessary in similar undertakings should be dispensed with to such an extent as the right hon. Gentleman had suggested. Take the case of level crossings. He was under the belief that the strongest abjection was entertained to level crossings being considered safe, even where they were attended, and if left unattended the danger was greater. He doubted whether there would be that enormous saving of expense which the right hon. Gentleman suggested. Upon the whole he must say that in common with every person in that House who took an interest in the agricultural districts, he viewed this Bill with great disappointment. He believed that it would do absolutely nothing to relieve the present agricultural depression. It night afford opportunity to certain speculators to bring out companies and take some money from the public, and a

  1721
  little might be spent in the agricultural districts, and it might promote and assist some railways here and there. But to suggest this as a policy for the alleviation or the palliation of agricultural distress was the height of absurdity. It was bringing forward a quack medicine to cure a serious disease. If this was the only measure that the Government had for the purpose of relieving agricultural depression, he very much sympathised with the Members who represent agricultural constituencies. He was very much inclined to think that they would spend a good many bad quarters of an hour in the country if they told their constituents that all the Government could do for them would be to pass an Act to allow them to make Light Railways at their own expense. Under those circumstances the Bill received a certain amount of indifference, which showed the general sense of the House with regard to it. Even Members who had spoken in favour of the Bill had spoken in a very qualified way. They had damned it with faint praise, but one, a strong supporter of the Government, had expressed his unqualified dissatisfaction with the measure. If only other Members would get up and say what they thought of the Bill, they might find out how many of them approved of it. He did not know that anything but barren sympathy was to be expected from the Government for the agricultural community. Having taxed the landed interest they now asked the landed interests to put their hands into their pockets and help themselves. He thought they would like to hear something from the Members for agricultural constituencies supporting the Government. This was the great measure, this was the only measure, which the Government had to relieve the agricultural interest. It seemed to him to be a measure which might do very little harm, but certainly would do very little good.
  *MR. J. W. LOGAN, as representing one of those
  1722
  agricultural constituencies, referred to by the hon. Member. He wished to trouble the House with a very few remarks. He should have felt regret if the Government had proposed to construct these Light Railways at the expense of the communities. His belief was that relief from agricultural depression would not be found in any Measure brought in by any Government. The late Government was in Office for six long years. What was the state of agriculture during that period? It was in anything but a prosperous condition, yet he failed to recollect that the late Government brought in any Bill to deal with it. Agricultural depression was a landlords' question and, if by means of Light Railways or by any other means, the tenant farmers of England could be put into a position to pay their present rents, then he asserted that the expense of measures to bring about that change should be borne by the landed interests of the country, and that it would be monstrously unfair to expect that the community should be taxed for the benefit of the landowners.
  *SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACHsaid, that the hon. Member had asked the Opposition to state any measure which the late Government had brought forward for the relief of the agricultural interest. He would tell the hon. Member what they did. They relieved the pressure of local taxation on the agricultural interest, and they did not increase Imperial taxation on that interest, as the present Government had done. He ventured to agree with the statement that it was impossible, by any measure of this kind, to relieve the agricultural distress of the country. Unfortunately for the President of the Board of Trade his colleagues had for many months past heralded the present measure as that by which the Government intended to relieve the prevailing agricultural depression, though the right hon. Gentleman himself was not so foolish, and said, in fact, that he did not regard this Bill

  1723
  as more than a palliatory measure. It was no doubt, a useful little measure as far as it went, as it took away some of the restrictions in the existing law, in regard to the manner in which light railways could be sanctioned and the mode in which they were to be constructed and worked. He hoped it was not ominous of any results of the policy initiated that night that the measure which stood in the Orders immediately before this Bill was one for inquiring into fatal accidents. He entirely sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman's desire to make the Amendments in the law which he suggested, but it was a delusion that these could be palliatives for agricultural distress, and such a delusion ought to be dissipated for ever. Not merely had that been scouted by Members of the Opposition side, but also by the most strenuous supporters of the Government. His view was that in the case of light railways in agricultural districts these restrictions might safely be modified, and he did what he could in the Committee to assist the Government in this matter. The principles of the Bill were good and useful, but he feared that the measure would not have the effect which they all desired. He thought that the financial question was at the bottom of the whole subject. Landowners had made these railways largely in the past. They had made branches at great cost to themselves, which the great railway companies had starved and had afterwards purchased at half the original cost. That did not hold out much hope that the railway companies would go to the expense of constructing these railways themselves. The landowners could not afford, in the present condition of agriculture, to do it. They had been penalised by the legislation of last year; they had suffered from the general depression, and it was impossible, under present circumstances, for the English landowners to do what they had done in the past. They were driven to the conclusion that, though in some more
  1724
  favoured districts, the making of light railways might be promoted by the legislation now proposed, yet, where they were most wanted, and where agriculture was most depressed, this Bill would not secure their construction. He was very sorry that the Government had put their foot down against any policy of assistance by the State. He entirely differed from the view expressed by an hon. Member that the assistance given to the construction of railways in Ireland was to save thousands of people from starvation. The assistance was not given for that reason at all. In many districts where it was given in Ireland no question of starvation arose. The construction of railways was aided in Ireland to enable agricultural and other produce in that country to be taken more cheaply to market, and what was good for Ireland in this respect ought, if wanted, to be good for England, too. He defied the Government to get over that argument. He asserted that there were agricultural districts in England where such help was quite as much required as ever it was in Ireland. In saying what he had said he did not, however, forget the dangers of extravagance arid jobbery in such matters. But the Irish example had taught thorn a good deal, and they had heard sufficient evidence before the Committee which had been appointed by the right hon. Gentleman to make it perfectly clear that there were modes in which assistance might be given, which would not be open to the extravagance and jobbery which might result from other proposals of the kind. He did not desire to press the Government to introduce any scheme of the sort into the present Bill. He knew that it was impossible to do so, and hoped the House would consider the Bill apart from any question of the kind, and entirely as a simple and small proposal for amending the existing law. It was really that and no more. The right hon. Gentleman was certainly entitled to some credit for having looked into the question, for having made these proposals, and for

  1725
  placing them before the House; and, therefore, he trusted that the Bill would not meet with opposition or with anything but reasonable criticism in its progress through the House. He should be glad to aid its passing, but he hoped that from that night forward they would hear no more about the Bill as a remedy for agricultural depression, and that if hon. Members opposite who represented agricultural districts found it necessary to go to their constituents and inform them that the Government were friends of the agricultural interest, they would find some better ground for proving that statement than any reference to this Bill.
  MR. J. G. WEIRcomplained that no attempt whatever was made by the Bill to benefit the "Western Highlands and islands of Scotland, which were greatly in want of facilities of the kind proposed. It had been asked how the money for the intended Light Railways was to be obtained. The money, he had no doubt, would be found by the Company promoters and the landlords, mainly by the former, who were certain to be pretty active in extracting it from the pockets of the widow and the orphan. In common with several other Scotch Members, he regretted that the Bill would not apply in any way to the congested districts of Scotland, and he could not understand why the Government should be so ready to grant large sums to Ireland for the construction of light railways, while Scotch Members could not get a shilling out of them for similar purposes. The poor people in the Highlands, it seemed, might die like rabbits for aught the Government cared; and why? Because they were law-abiding and peaceful, and did not raise disturbances. In the island of Lewis, for example, a light railway was very badly needed, and it was absurd to suppose that the owners there could raise the money required to make it. In those circumstances, he asked the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary for Scotland, to consider the propriety of making some provision in the Bill for the Western Highlands and islands. The necessity was urgent and the demand reasonable, and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that if no attention was paid to the request, he was resolved to take further action in the matter.
  1726
  Leave being given, Bill presented accordingly, and read 1° to be read 2° on Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 2l6.]

  TRAMWAYS (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  COLONEL KENYON-SLANEYsaid, before the Bill passed he would like a word of explanation. He understood that at present the National Exchequer was at the back of certain tramway arrangements in Ireland, and it was proposed to get rid of the guarantee and give a lump sum. They had, during the evening, been discussing the injustice of refusing to give to English railways that which they were now asked to give to Irish tramways. He thought the proposal under the circumstances, came with an exceeding ill grace from the Government.
  *MR. T. H. BOLTONasked whether these tramways were made for the purpose of saving the people from starvation or to relieve agricultural depression.
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERTsaid, the Bill was really introduced at the request of the cesspayers of Ireland, who found that the payment of the guarantee bore very hardly upon them year by year. It was desired that there should be a commutation, so as to relieve them of that necessity. It would be an advantage to the Treasury that these guarantees should be commuted, and for this the consent of the Treasury, the Company, and the Grand Jury was necessary. This Bill was asked for by the representatives of every section of Ireland, including the Ulster Conservative Members, and he hoped the hon. Member for Shropshire would not persist in his objection. The Bill had nothing to do with the one which they had been previously discussing.
  COLONEL KENYON-SLANEYsaid, the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman was adequate so far as it went; it enabled them to understand that it was introduced for the convenience of Ireland and of the Treasury. If he did not stop it that night it would be because

  1727
  he was certain that it would be against the feelings of many of them who were only too anxious that something should be done, but he would again point out that it came with an exceeding ill grace from the Government to ask for the boon for one country which they had denied to the other
  MR. E. STRACHEYasked, whether the Bill would increase the Imperial liability?
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERTreplied, that it would diminish it.
  *MR. T. H. BOLTONremarked, that the Secretary to the Treasury had stated the Bill was desired by the Irish cesspayers. These were the Irish ratepayers, and the Bill was, therefore, to vote money from the Imperial Treasury, it was true, but to relieve Irish ratepayers.
  SIR JOHN HIBBERT: It relieves Irish ratepayers, but does not impose any additional burden on the taxpayers. It does two good things, and is, therefore, twice blessed.
  MR. W. L. JACKSONsaid, he understood the terms of commutation were to be left to the future. No terms had been settled as to what the Imperial contribution was to be.
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERT: Not exceeding 33 years.
  MR. JACKSONasked when that was to be taken? It might be taken at the very time when the condition of the tramway from which the contribution was being commuted was at its worst point. He took exception to the statement that an additional burden would not be imposed on the British taxpayer, and said it was a strong order at 12 o'clock at night to ask the House to pass a Bill of that contentious kind through the Committee stage.
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERTsaid, that no arrangement could be carried out without the consent of the Treasury, and they would not sanction any arrangement which was not perfectly safe for the taxpayers. This security was fully provided by the Bill. As the Treasury was to be an assenting party to every case of commutation, the objection that had been taken did not hold good.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had a confidence in the Treasury which he could not expect to be shared by unofficial Members. He
  1728
  hoped the President of the Board of Trade had given attention to this discussion, and in particular to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Shropshire. As he understood the contention of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleague, it was that the cesspayers in Ireland had found these tramways to impose an intolerable burden upon themselves; and he trusted the President of the Board of Trade would bear in mind that piece of information in the discussion of his own Light Railways Bill, and would not impose an equally intolerable burden upon the ratepayers in the English constituencies.
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERTsaid, he was willing to report Progress if that were desired.
  MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid, he hoped that no redemption of the Government guarantee would take place except with the consent of a large majority—say two-thirds—of shareholders.
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERTreplied that he was going to propose an Amendment to carry out this suggestion.
  Progress reported.

  DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE BILL.
  Passed through Committee without Amendment and read 3°.
  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.
  Return ordered, arranged according to counties, showing the number of accounts of depositors in Post Office Savings Banks in the United Kingdom remaining open on the 31st day of December, 1894, together with the amount, inclusive of interest, but excluding fractions of a pound, standing to the credit of those accounts.—(Mr. Conybeare.)
MOTION.

  FIRES (FALSE ALARMS) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Conybeare, Bill to prohibit the giving False Alarms of Fires.
  Bill presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed.—[Bill 217.]
  The House adjourned at Twenty-five minutes after Twelve o'clock.