Sitting of 19 August 1895

Preamble
The House met at Three of the clock.
Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL [H.L.],
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (TOTTENHAM) BILL [H.L.],
Read a second time, and committed.
Ordered,—That Standing Orders 208A and 211 be suspended in the case of Bills to confirm any Provisional Order or Certificate proceeded with in the present Session under the Standing Orders of the 2nd July last.
Ordered,—That the said Bills be referred to a Committee consisting of the Chairman of Ways and Means, Sir John Mowbray, and a Referee.
Ordered,—That Two be the quorum.
Ordered,—That the Committee have leave to sit and proceed forthwith.—(Mr. Mellor.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 19) BILL, and
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 20) BILL.
Ordered,—That these Bills be committed to the Committee on Provisional Order Bills appointed this day.—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)

NAVAL SAVINGS BANKS.
Account [presented 16th August] to be printed.—[No. 424.]

CHARITABLE ENDOWMENTS (LONDON).
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House.
Further return relative thereto [ordered 2nd August 1894] to be printed.—[No. 425.]

QUESTIONS

  H.M.S. "RINGAROOMA."
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, with regard to the case of Surgeon Lea, of H.M.S. Ringarooma, who, doubting the mental fitness of Captain Johnson for the command of the ship, had him put on the sick list, whereupon the captain put the doctor under arrest, from which he was released almost at once by the senior naval officer of the port; what was the finding of the court martial convened by Admiral Bridge to try Surgeon Lea; whether he is aware that the court ruled that they had not anything to do with the question of the captain's health and refused to hear evidence on the point of his mental fitness, and also refused Surgeon Lea's offer to produce medical evidence; whether telegrams and reports have been received at the Admiralty from Sydney, where the court martial was held, and what decision has been come to on the question; what length of service has Surgeon Lea had; and whether it is a fact that his record is an untarnished one?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN,): This question is still under consideration, and I shall be obliged if the hon. Member will postpone it.

  POSTAL CYCLIST CORPS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Representative of the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the fact that the French Postal Authorities have authorised the formation of a cyclist staff' for the delivery of telegrams, and

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  have contributed a sum sufficient to pay for the hire-purchase of the machines; whether he is aware that in isolated cases London postmen use their own machines for travelling between distant offices; and, whether he will authorise the establishment of cyclist corps in this country for the more speedy delivery of telegrams and express letters in the large towns and along the country roads, and contribute towards the cost of the machines required?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBUHY,): —The Postmaster General has no official information as to a cyclist staff having been authorised by the French Administration of Posts and Telegraphs for the delivery of telegrams. In a few cases London postmen use their own machines for the collection of letters. The question of the use of cycles for postal and telegraph purposes has been for some time under the consideration of the Post Office, and they are already being tried in certain localities.

  POST CARDS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Representative of the Postmaster General—(1) whether he is aware that large numbers of plain (or private) postcards, bearing adhesive penny stamps, are only delivered abroad on payment of a fine of 3d. (or 30 centimes) in every case, solely on account of the absence of the printed words "post card" on the cards delivered; and, whether the Post Office will make arrangements with Foreign Post Offices that the required words may be written by the sender, or omitted, so that large quantities of private post cards may not be disqualified for use in Foreign correspondence, and the recipients heavily fined for the senders' want of knowledge of the rules.
  The hon. Member further asked (2) the Representative of the Postmaster General, whether, referring to the hon. Member for Canterbury's question in the House of Commons on 8th April 1895, requesting the Postmaster General to state under what authority, statutory or other, the fine levied on the delivery of an unstamped post card amounts to four times the deficient postage, whereas insufficiently stamped letters and newspapers are only charged double the
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  deficiency, and to the correspondence,which has since passed between the hon. Member and the Post Office, dated; the 29th of April, the 11th of May, he 24th of May, and the 11th of June, the supports the course taken by his predecessor against any reduction in the fine complained of; and, if so, upon what ground?
  MR. HANBURY: With respect to the first question, the Postal Union Convention requires that a post card shall have the words "Post Card" clearly printed upon it. The Postmaster-General cannot alter the requirements of the Union, and foreign post cards which do not conform to these requirements will be liable to be surcharged as letters. With respect to the second question, the essential feature of the private post card is that it must be prepaid. The rule is very clearly explained on page 6 of the "Postal Guide," where it is stated that a private card without a stamp is not a post card, but a letter. The hon. Member is aware that the authority for the rule is the Treasury Warrant of August 24th 1894.

  EAST LONDON WATER SUPPLY.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has made any arrangements with the East London Water Company with regard to reverting to the constant service system, with a view of preventing an increase of the disease and sickness which is so prevalent at the present time?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. CHAPLIN,): I understand that the Company have now extended the hours of supply from about six in the morning until about five in the afternoon daily, thus giving a continuous supply of 11 hours. In reply to the other part of my hon. Friend's question, I am much obliged to him for his courtesy in giving me ample notice of his intention. But I do not think there is anything I can add to the statement which I made in reply to another question on Friday last.

  BALLOON PARACHUTE ACCIDENTS.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the number of fatal accidents which have recently occurred to women who have descended from balloons in parachutes; (2) and, whether he will issue an order making it illegal for any performance to take place in future by which the lives of the performers are risked by these senseless exhibitions?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. W. RIDLEY,): I have seen in the newspapers reports of the accidents referred to. I can only repeat what has been more than once stated in this House by my predecessors, that, however foolish and degrading such exhibitions as the hon. Member mentions may be, there is no power to interfere with them by law, except in the case of children under 14.

  NAVAL SHIPBUILDING CONTRACTS.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that, owing to a clause inserted in recent specifications for line-of-battleships, sent to the shipbuilders in the East End of London to tender, that the said firms have found it impossible to tender; and, whether he will adopt means to expunge that clause from all future specifications, so as to place the shipbuilding firms of the East End of London in the position they hitherto enjoyed, by which they will be able to tender for future contracts?
  MR. G. J. GOSCHEN: I have had the question of the forms of tender for battleships under my most anxious consideration for the last few weeks. That is all I am prepared to say at the present moment, but the hon. Member may rest assured that I am giving the question my personal and earnest attention.

  RESIGNATION OF THE COMMANDER IN-CHIEF.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, having regard to the statement made on the 21st June last by the Secretary of State for War in
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  the late Administration, that the resignation by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge of the Commandership in Chief of the Army would take effect on the 1st of October, the name of his successor in that position will be announced now or before discussion in Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): The name of His Royal Highness's successor will be announced before discussion in Committee of Supply on Army Estimates; and the Secretary of State for War will make a statement on the subject in another place this evening.
  MR. MACNEILL: Are we not entitled to hear that statement which is going to be made in the other House by the Secretary of State?
  MR. BRODRICK: I think the hon. Gentleman will understand that upon a subject of this importance it is not desirable to anticipate a statement which will be made shortly by the Secretary of State.

  H.M.S. "MINOTAUR."
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can say when H.M.S. Minotaur will take up her station as training ship in Cork Harbour?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. W. E. MACARTNEY,): A large number of preliminary arrangements have to be considered before a training ship can be stationed at a fresh locality. These arrangements are now under discussion, and no conclusion has yet been arrived at.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the decision to station this training ship in Cork Harbour was announced early last March by the late First Lord of the Admiralty? Can the hon. Member give any reason for the long delay that has taken place?
  MR.
  MACARTNEY: There may have been some private communications ; but I am not aware that any announcement to that effect was made in the House.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I remind the hon. Member that the announcement was contained in the statement of the late First Lord of the Admiralty which was made in the House on the 7th of March?
  MR.
  MACARTNEY: Further questions were put by the hon. Member, and answers given on behalf of the Admiralty; but no decisive answer is reported. There are many important preliminary arrangements to be considered, and no final decision has yet been arrived at.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Do I understand the reply to be that no final decision has been arrived at with regard to the transfer of a ship to Cork Harbour?
  MR. MACARTNEY: I think the hon. Member must give notice of that question, which is different from the question on the paper.

  CHANNEL SQUADRON.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether the Channel Squadron will visit Queens-town this year?
  MR. MACARTNEY: It is not contemplated that the Channel Fleet will visit Queenstown this year.

  POLICE PENSIONS.
  MR. T. H. COCHRANE: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, if he will make inquiry into the conditions of granting pensions to the Scottish police, with the view to placing the Scottish police on the same footing as the English police in respect of their pensions?
  MR. W. THORBURN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether his attention has been drawn to the inequality as regards retiring pensions between the English and Scotch county police forces. And, if he will give his consideration to the subject, with a view of removing the inequality which the Scotch police complain of?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Sir CHARLES PEARSON,): In reply to this question and to a similar question by the hon. Member for Peebles and Selkirk, I have to say the Secretary for Scotland will consider this subject, and if the hon.
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  Members have any representation to make to him on the matter, he will be glad to receive it in writing.

  CHITRAL.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether, in accordance with Section 54 of the Government of India Act, 1858, the fact that orders were sent directing the actual commencement of hostilities beyond the external frontiers of India, were as regards the Chitral Expedition, communicated to both Houses of Parliament within three months after the sending of such order; and, if not, why this has not been done?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): No communication under the Act has been made to Parliament as regards Chitral. The orders sent for the advance of a force to relieve the Political Agent in Chitral have not been held to be of a nature to fall within the provisions of Section 54. An examination of the precedents shows that the Section has never been held to apply to cases such as the present, where the operations have been carried on with frontier tribes, and not an organised Power beyond Her Majesty's Indian Protectorate. The only cases in which the consent of Parliament has been asked since the Act of 1858 was passed, are those when hostilities were carried on in Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Egypt and Burma. As the House has already been informed by the right hon. the First Lord of the Treasury, papers relating to the Chitral Expedition, including the most recent instructions, will be laid on the Table of the House as early as possible.
  SIR W. WEDDERBURNasked whether the noble Lord considered Chitral within the external frontiers of India?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Yes.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether the papers relating to Chitral would be laid on the Table before the Indian Budget was introduced?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,)replied in the affirmative, but added

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  that he did not think the Indian Budget should be taken until Supply was finished, and he hoped that would not take very long.
  MR. W. J. GALLOWAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether the troops now in Chitral are to form a permanent force of occupation; if not, which regiments are to be withdrawn; and can he state an approximate date when such withdrawal will take place?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: There will be a permanent force in Chitral territory, consisting of two native infantry regiments, two guns of a mountain battery, and one company of sappers. What particular regiments will be selected I cannot say, but the Government of India, I understand, propose to withdraw the Pioneer battalion now there. Thus the addition to the force in the whole Gilgit Agency will be one regiment, one company of sappers, and one mountain battery. The withdrawal of the Pioneer regiment will take place as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made. ["Hear, hear!"]

  NEW CASTLE PIER, COUNTY DOWN.
  MR. M. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the dangerous state of Newcastle Pier, County Down, which is now a total wreck; whether his attention has been called to the last Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries, where it is reported by the divisional officer of the district that a good harbour at Newcastle would undoubtedly give a great impetus to the fishing industry on this coast, and, again, that it would be very valuable for landing fish and for refuge; and, whether, considering the danger to which the fishermen are now exposed and the urgent necessity for a harbour at Newcastle, he will consider the desirability of sending an independent engineer to report to him on the matter?
  MR. W. JOHNSTONsaid, that before the right hon. Gentleman considered the question he should like to ask him to give this matter his most favourable consideration, seeing that the Government were so anxious to foster the fishing industry of Ireland.
  MR. HANBURY: I am afraid that I must refer the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend behind me to the offer that was made by my predecessor on the 10th May last, to which no reply appears to have been received. What Sir John Hibbert said on that occasion was as follows:—
  "The Pier is vested in the County Authorities and its ruin is due, not to faulty construction, but to their neglect to make timely repairs. If the Grand Jury is prepared to present for the amount required, the Government on their side would be willing to assist by making a loan repayable in a term of years, and the Engineer of the Board of Works would make the necessary report and estimate, under the provisions of the Act 16 and 17 Vict. cap. 136."
  MR. VESEY KNOXasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would consider the matter during the recess.
  MR. HANBURY: I will certainly consider it.
  MR. M'CARTANasked whether the Authorities upon the spot were agreed that the ruin of the pier was due to its faulty construction by the Irish Board of Works.
  MR. HANBURY: That I do not know, but I will make inquiries into the matter.

  BELFAST LOUGH LIGHTS.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, with reference to the fog siren on Mew Island, at the entrance to Belfast Lough, whether the Commissioners of Irish Lights, after their long experiments, have yet come to a decision as to the improvements to be made; whether he is aware of the damage recently done to shipping on the county Down coast by reason of the inadequacy of the siren on Mew Island, and if he is aware of the constant dread of master mariners sailing to and from Belfast when entering or leaving Belfast Lough during a fog; and whether something will be done without further delay to remedy this dangerous defect.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (MR. C. T. RITCHIE,): As the result of the experiments with fog sirens, recently made at Mew Island, the Commissioners of Irish Lights have, with the view of remedying the defect complained of, recommended that

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  a second fog siren be established at Mew Island. This recommendation, having been approved by the Trinity House, has been sanctioned by the Board of Trade, and I am informed by the Commissioners that the work will be proceeded with at once.

  STATUTE LAW REVISION ACT, 1892.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland (1) whether he is aware that the Board of Works in Ireland were, at the Castleconnell Petty Sessions, on the 5th instant, fined in the sum of £1,820 and costs for having failed to provide a Queen's gap in two feel weirs on the Shannon; that the magistrates, in imposing this heavy penalty, acted on a decision of the Irish Court of Queen's Bench; and that such decision was based on the repeal of s. 41 of the 5 & 6 Vic., c. 106, and other enactments by The Statute Law Revision Act, 1892; (2) whether, seeing that the Statute Law Revision Acts are confined to repealing enactments which have become obsolete, and are understood to effect no practical change in the Law, he can explain how it happened that important enactments, such as those referred to, were repealed in this way, with the consequences described; (3) who is the official responsible for this repeal; and (4) whether any Vote for his salary appears on the Estimates?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Ms. J. ATKINSON,): The facts are stated in the first paragraph with substantial accuracy, except that the decision of the Queen's Bench Division was not based upon the express repeal by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1892 of Section 41 of the 5 & 6 Vic. c. 106, but on the implied repeal of this Section by the 9th Section and 3 following of the 26 & 27 Vic. cap. 114. With regard to the second paragraph of the Question, the repeal of this Section by the Act of 1892 was, under the circumstances, and according to the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, correct. Statute Law Revision Bills are prepared under the superintendence of the Statute Law Revision Committee, and any doubtful points affecting Ireland are referred to the Irish Attorney General. As to the
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  concluding paragraph, both the salary of the Attorney General and the expenses of the Statute Law Revision Committee are provided for in the Estimates.

  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES IN IRELAND.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland—(1) whether his attention has been called to the fact that though Towns Commissioners in Ireland are by s. 99 of The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, enabled to put Part III. of that Act into operation, and consequently to acquire lands for the purpose, neither that nor any other existing Act constitutes them a corporate body for the purpose of having the land vested in them, with the result that the land has to be leased or conveyed to individual Commissioners with resulting inconvenience and law costs whenever such Commissioners cease to be Commissioners; (2) whether he is aware that s. 4, ss. 7, of The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1871, made provision for such cases, but was inadvertently repealed by The Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878; (3) Whether under s. 67, ss. 3, of The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, other bodies putting the Act into force are constituted corporate bodies for the purpose of holding lands; and (4) whether he will introduce a Bill reviving s. 4, ss. 7, of The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1871?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: My attention has been, called to doubts which have arisen upon the point mentioned in the first paragraph of the question, but I am informed that no case of the kind referred to has come within the knowledge of the Local Government Board. The facts are as stated in the second and third paragraphs of the question, save that I am unable to say that the repeal of s. 4, ss. 7, of the Act of 1871 by the Act of 1878 was inadvertent. I hope to be able next Session to propose legislation in the direction suggested in the fourth paragraph of the question.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that two bodies of Town Commissioners had acquired land for the

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  purposes of this Act, and that in the cases of those two bodies the question arose?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: No such cases have come within the knowledge of the Local Government Board. I am not otherwise able to answer the hon. Member's question.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Local Government Board had had applications from the Middleton and Skibbereen Town Commissioners?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: I am not aware of that fact. If the hon. Gentleman will kindly repeat the question I will have an inquiry made in the meantime.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether it is the practice of local authorities in England acquiring land under Section 57, Sub-section 1, of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, specifically for the purposes of Part III. of that Act to obtain from the Local Government Board their consent, as provided in Section 57, Sub-section 3, to the appropriation of the rate for the purpose for which it has been acquired, or whether the local authorities have dispensed with such consent; and, whether, if such consents have been dispensed with, such action of the local authorities is legal?
  MR. CHAPLIN: In no case has a local authority applied to the Local Government Board for their consent to the appropriation of land under the circumstances mentioned in the question. I am not prepared to say that the action of the authorities in dispensing with such consent is illegal, or that any intervention on the part of the Board is necessary in such cases where the consent is not obtained.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYinquired whether the Local Government Board had taken advice on the question, and, if so, whether they were satisfied with the advice received?
  MR. CHAPLIN: We have taken the opinion of our own officers.

  FIJI REVENUE.
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he is in a position
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  to report the result of the departmental conference with Sir J. B. Thurston, Governor of Fiji, as to the practical working of the native taxation scheme and the objections that have been urged against it; and, whether any reforms in the mode of raising the revenue in the Crown Colony of Fiji are contemplated?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN,): Owing partly to the change of administration and partly to the ill-health of Sir John Thurston, the conference has not yet taken place. I am, therefore, unable to make any further statement at present. My predecessor in office, dealing with a similar question, said that he had no intention of making any alteration. ["Hear, hear!"]

  FATAL ACCIDENTS (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1895.
  MR. J. CALDWELL: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether his attention has been called to the remarks of Sheriff-Substitute Gebbie, at Dumbarton, on the 5th inst. in a case under the Fatal Accidents (Scotland) Act, 1895, in which he expressed his opinion that the Act was uncalled for and unnecessary, and would not accomplish any good purpose, although it would materially add to the expenditure of the country, and cast upon the officials a very large additional amount of work, as well as causing very great inconvenience to jurymen, called from their homes and business to act upon such inquests; whether it was within the province of the Sheriff Substitute, on such an occasion, to make any such remarks or criticism upon an Act so recently passed by the Legislature, and which was only coming into operation; and, whether the Government intend to take any notice of the conduct of the Sheriff-Substitute?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: I have referred to the Sheriffs remarks complained of. The statute made large alterations in procedure, and in such a case it is not unusual for a Judge to give his view of the operation of an Act. The remarks made do not suggest that the Sheriff will not loyally carry out the provisions of the Act, and they are not so clearly beyond his provision as to present a case for my interference.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask
  the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the repeated delays in the mail service to the North of Ireland, via Stranraer and Larne, occurring chiefly between Carlisle and Stranraer; whether any steps will be taken to secure regularity; and whether he will consent to the return on the subject on the Paper for this day?
  MR. HANBURY: The working of the Stranraer and Larne service is carefully watched day by day, and if any serious irregularity occurs representations are made to the companies in fault. Such representations have been made during the present month, and it is hoped that they will have a good effect. There is no objection to furnishing the return asked for by the hon. Member, and it is now being prepared for the four months from April 1 to the 31st ult. ["Hear, hear!"]

  LONDONDERRY SHIRT INDUSTRY.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the difficulties of applying Section 14 of the Factories and Workshops Act, 1895, to the shirt industry of Londonderry and its neighbourhood; and whether, before deciding to apply the section to this district, he will consider representations from those concerned in the manufacture?
  SIR M. W. RIDLEY: The section will come into force on the 1st January next, and I have no power to suspend or modify its application. This could only be done by an Amending Act. After the careful consideration given to this question by the Grand Committee in the last Parliament, I cannot think that it would be right to propose any amendment of the section, at any rate until fair trial has been given to its operation both in Londonderry and elsewhere.

  OMNIBUS TRAFFIC IN CHEAPSIDE.
  MR. T. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, under what authority the Commissioner of Police for the City of London has made regulations
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  determining the course to be pursued by some omnibuses passing through the City, preventing these omnibuses traversing Cheapside; whether the Home Secretary, on the 27th July, 1895, approved of these regulations; whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been drawn to the provision contained in Section 11, Sub-Section (2), of The Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867, prohibiting the Commisioner of Police and the Secretary of State from limiting the number of Metropolitan stage carriages that may pass down any street in pursuance of their ordinary trade; whether these regulations violate the above provision, in that they limit the number of Metropolitan stage carriages that may pass down Cheapside; and, has he withdrawn, or does he intend to withdraw, his approval of these regulations.
  SIR M. W. RIDLEY: The regulations were made under Section 11 of the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867, and were approved by me on the date mentioned. My attention was drawn to the provision of the Act quoted, which I do not think is violated by the regulations in question, although the point is not absolutely free from doubt. The regulations were made for the public convenience, and I do not intend to withdraw my approval from them. Regulations equally open to the objection raised by the hon. Member were approved by my predecessors in 1877 and in 1891; and if there be a doubt as to their legal validity, it must be settled by the Law Courts. ["Hear, hear?"]

  ST. CLEARS PARISH COUNCIL, CAR MARTHEN.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the Parish Council for St. Clears, in the county of Carmarthen, petitioned the Standing Joint Committee for the use of the magistrates' room for the purpose of holding their meetings in it (the Secretary of State for the Home Department having determined that the room was suitable for holding such meetings), and the Council being therefore entitled by Law to the use of the room; whether he is aware that this decision was communicated in June of the present

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  year to the Standing Joint Committee, and they again declined to grant the Parish Council the use of the room; and, whether he will state the course the parish council should adopt in order to enforce their legal rights?
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: It is the case that my predecessor determined, under the power conferred on him by the Local Government Act, 1894, that the room in question was a suitable place for holding the meetings of the Parish Council; and that this determination was in June last communicated to the Standing Joint Committee. Apparently through a misunderstanding as to the effect of this decision, the Committee did not give effect to it. I am now in communication with the Committee, and I am in hope that a friendly settlement will shortly be arrived at in the matter.

  QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether Mr. England, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Queen's College, Cork, was at the end of last year retired from that position under the "65 Rule," which at that date was considered to apply to the case of Queen's College Professors; (2) whether, since then, in the case of Dr. Moffatt, of Queen's College, Galway, it has been decided that the "65 Rule" does not apply to Queen's College Professorships; (3) what loss in salary Professor England has suffered by his compulsory retirement; and (4) whether it is intended to compensate him for the injury he has sustained by the mistaken application of the rule to his case?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): Mr. England was retired on December 22, 1894, when he had attained his 69th year of age and his 42nd year of service. The emoluments of his appointment were returned at £464. 10s., and he was awarded a pension of £309. 13s. 4d.—the maximum pension he could become entitled to. With regard to the second paragraph, the application of the Order as a matter of policy to the Queen's Colleges was referred to the late Lord Chancellor, who held that the regulations contained in
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  the Order "ought not" to apply to these colleges, and the Treasury have since appointed a Committee to inquire whether any, and what, age limit should be applied for compulsory retirement in them. I am not, however, aware that the Committee has yet made its Report. In reply to the last paragraph of the question, I am disposed to concur in the opinion expressed by my predecessor, who had a similar application before him, viz., that, under all the circumstances, the case presents no feature of hardship, and that it is not one in which any special recommendation could be made to the Treasury. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. EDWARD CARSONasked whether it was the fact that Professor England was compelled to retire under a rule which was subsequently held not to apply to his case?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir, the rule does apply to his case.
  MR. CARSONasked whether it had not been held in Dr. Moffatt's case that the rule did not apply?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir, I believe not.
  In answer to Mr. MAURICE HEALY.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid, that he believed that Dr. Moffatt was reinstated, and that the warrant was withdrawn in his case.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to lay upon the Table the Report of the Commission dealing with the 65th Rule?
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid, that he would consider the matter.

  IRISH LAND LEGISLATION.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the communications between himself and the Land Commission relating to the proposed legislation on the Land Question recently referred to by him?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have considered the case to which the hon. and learned Member referred me as a precedent, and have come to the conclusion that there is not sufficient analogy

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  between that case and the present one to render it incumbent on me to depart from the ordinary rule in these matters. The communications now in question were departmental. It is not the practice to publish correspondence of that nature, and it does not appear to me that any public purpose could be served by making an exception in the present instance.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would give the House an assurance that in future he would give up having any such communications? [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I do not think that it would be expedient under any circumstances to undertake not to make departmental communications.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously contend that Judges of the High Court in Ireland are officers of this Department?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is the Land Commission which is a part of the Government.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I would ask whether, as a fair rent can be fixed in these Courts as well as in the County Courts, Mr. Justice Bewley considered that it would be proper——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: On the point of order——[Ministerial Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice. I have already said that in my opinion it is not, a question arising from the question on the Paper.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The better course will be that I should raise the whole question on the salary of the right hon. Gentleman, and I therefore beg to give notice that I shall do so.

  SCOTCH PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE.
  MR. W. THORBURN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill next Session dealing with Private Bill Procedure in Scotland?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: I am unable to give any undertaking as to the legislative proposals for next Session; but I can assure the hon. Member that the subject he refers to will have careful consideration.

  NORTH DERRY ELECTION.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland—(1) whether he was correctly reported in the Belfast News Letter to have said on the 18th of July, in speaking of his opponent in North Derry, Mr. Houston, Q.C., that Dr. Houston had one great advantage in coming to the constituency. The time was short, therefore they would see little of him, hear little of him, and learn little of him, and that was his chance. If they saw as much of him, and knew as much of him as his profession did, they would hunt him from their quarters; (2) whether he is aware that, on the 22nd of July, Dr. Houston attempted to address a meeting at Limavady, but was prevented from, speaking by a mob of several thousands of Mr. Attorney's supporters, who repeatedly pelted Dr. and Mrs. Houston with stones, eggs, and other missiles; and, (3) whether any steps have been taken, or will be taken, to bring to justice the instigators of and ringleaders in this riot?
  MR. W. JOHNSTONasked whether this question, concerning an election dispute was a proper one to put upon the Paper?
  MR. J. G. SWIFT MACNEILL: Was not the right hon. and learned Gentleman at the time in question a Minister of the Crown?
  MR. SPEAKER: I remember that the question was brought under my notice before it was put down, and I expressed my opinion to the hon. and learned Member that it was very undesirable to put such a question on the Paper, but that I could not say that it was out of order.
  MR. KNOX: You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that I said that I only put it down under a strong sense of public duty. [Ministerial laughter.]
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: I have not seen the newspaper report referred to in the first paragraph of the question. If it be to the effect indicated, it is entirely inaccurate and conveys a false impression as to what I said on the occasion, and in this connection I may observe that when the matter was first brought under my notice, before the meeting of Parliament, I at once informed the learned Gentleman named in the question that the

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  report was entirely inaccurate, and assured him that I had not made, nor intended to make, any reflection on his private character or professional honour. With regard to the second paragraph, a report has been made by the police, stating that Dr. Houston attempted to address a meeting on the date mentioned, but was prevented from doing so by the shouting and hooting of about 150 persons composing part of a crowd of five or six hundred surrounding him. The police also report that there was no rioting, as alleged, but that two or three eggs, which did not come from this crowd, were thrown at Dr. Houston and his party. Two stones are also alleged to have been thrown on the occasion into the carriage conveying Dr. Houston's party, one of which is said to have lightly struck his conducting agent, without, however, inflicting any injury whatever. The police have been diligently investigating the matter, but have been unable to obtain any satisfactory evidence upon which to institute proceedings. A statement was made to the police that a stone was seen to have been thrown by a particular individual on the occasion, but no legal evidence could be obtained to establish this. The district inspector applied to the magistrates at Petty Sessions, on the 13th instant, for instructions as to bringing up this case, and stated the nature of the evidence forthcoming, but the magistrates came to the conclusion that the evidence available was insufficient and that it would not be advisable to have any prosecution, and further expressed the opinion that the police had done their duty in endeavouring to bring the offenders to justice.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to give notice that I shall call attention to the subject on the question of the right hon. Gentleman's salary.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it the law in Ireland, that in the case of stone-throwing, the evidence of a second witness is necessary?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: In this instance the report was made to the police by a person who did not allege that he himself had seen the stone thrown. In such a case, the evidence of another witness could not be dispensed with.

  DISTRESS IN COUNTY CLARE.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will inquire into the distress reported to exist in certain portions of County Clare, with a view to the opening of relief works, should such a measure be necessary, to afford employment during the coming winter?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No reports of the existence of distress in Clare at the present time have reached the Local Government Board, and I am glad to state that the Board see no reason to anticipate abnormal distress in the county during the coming winter. The condition and prospects of the poorer classes will, however, be carefully reported upon by the Board's Inspector from time to time.

  EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
  DR. KENNY:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will take an early opportunity, next Session, to bring in a Bill to remedy the omission from the Irish Education Act of 1892 of powers to local authorities to levy a rate, or otherwise provide funds, to defray the expenses connected with the putting in force the compulsory clauses of that Act, which omission has hitherto rendered the Act inoperative?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: An amending Bill in the direction indicated by the hon. Gentleman will no doubt be necessary, and I shall consider, during the Recess, the question of the propriety of introducing such a measure in the next Session of Parliament.

  CHARGES AGAINST A DISPENSARY MEDICAL OFFICER.
  DR. KENNY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that, at the recent investigation held by Dr. Clibborn, Local Government Board Inspector, into charges against Dr. James Matthews, dispensary medical officer of Cavan, contained in letters purporting to be written by the persons alleged to have been neglected, or by their near relatives, it was proved on oath that the letters

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  were not written by the persons whose signatures they purported to bear, nor by any person authorised to do so on their behalf; that it was also sworn to by those persons that they had made no complaints to anyone alleging neglect against Dr. Matthews; and that it was also proved on oath that the writer of the letters referred to was one John Byrne, one of the relieving officers of Cavan Union, and that he had written them and attached the signatures without authority? Whether if the facts are as stated, it is the intention of the law officers of the Crown in Ireland to direct legal proceedings against Byrne? And, whether it is the intention of the Local Government Board for Ireland to allow the Cavan Board of Guardians to retain the services of an officer proved to have been guilty of such conduct.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am informed that two letters were received at the office of the Local Government Board complaining of neglect on the part of Dr. Matthews; that these letters were sent, in the ordinary course, to that gentleman for his observations, and that subsequently the letters, together with Dr. Matthews' explanation, were forwarded to the Dispensary Committee, who considered it absolutely necessary that the matter should be fully investigated. The Local Government Board accordingly directed their Inspector to hold a sworn inquiry into the truth of the complaints, and as the result of the inquiry went to show that the charges were fully substantiated, Dr. Matthews was called upon to resign his appointment. It is a fact that Relieving Officer Byrne stated at the investigation that he had not written one of the two letters referred to in the question, but had written another at the request of a man named Patrick Reilly. The Board's Inspector saw no reason to doubt the accuracy of the relieving officer's statement, and the Board did not consider it necessary to take any further action in the matter.
  DR. KENNY: Is not a minute of the evidence on the subject in the possession of the Local Government Board, and will any further notice be taken of Byrne's conduct?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The matter has already been the subject of investigation, and the result is what I
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  have already stated in answer to the question on the paper. If the hon. Member will give notice of his further question, I will endeavour to answer it.

  EVICTION AT BALLYBAR, KILLARNEY UNION.
  MR. J. C. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the action of the paid Vice-Guardians of the Killarney Union in evicting from a labourer's cottage at Ballybar, on Tuesday last, a labourer named Sheehan, notwithstanding that his rent was fully paid up; and, whether he can state the reason for the eviction of this man.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Local Government Board have been informed by the Clerk of the Union that Sheehan owed 23 weeks' rent at the date of his eviction, but that the immediate cause of the eviction was brought about in this way. Upon the plot of land attached to the Guardians' cottage, occupied by Sheehan, stood an ornamental gate, the property of the owner of the land, to which neither the Guardians nor the labourer had any right or title. Sheehan refused to allow the owner to take away the gate and the Vice-Guardians were advised that the simplest course, under the circumstances, was to resume possession of the plot and hand over the gate to the owner. The Vice-Guardians informed Sheehan that this course would be adopted, but he persisted in his refusal, and they then recovered possession of the plot.

  5TH BATTALION ROYAL IRISH RIFLES.
  MR. M. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, whether he has received a communication from the Town Commissioners of Down-patrick, through their chairman, with reference to the training of the 5th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles at Downpatrick, where they have their quarters; whether he is aware they have been quartered there for 24 years, and that about 18 years ago a suitable drill ground was acquired there, and that from a sanitary point of view, and for a good water supply, it has always been considered one of the best drill grounds

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  in Ireland; and, whether, considering that a first class rifle range lately used by the regiment is within easy distance of the place, he will consider the desirability of directing that future trainings shall take place at Downpatrick?
  MR. BRODRICK: The communication referred to has been received. There is nothing to be said against Downpatrick from a sanitary point of view; but unfortunately the range cannot safely be used with any modern rifle; and it cannot be made safe. Two public roads cross the danger area. Under the circumstances, and with every desire to meet the wishes of the inhabitants of Downpatrick, the Secretary of State is unable to sanction the training of the battalion at a place where the men cannot have proper musketry instruction.

  ARREST OF BRITISH SUBJECTS IN HONOLULU.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what has been the result of the consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown with respect to the complaints of certain British subjects in Honolulu, who were arbitrarily arrested and harshly imprisoned at the instance of the authorities of the Republic of Hawaii for alleged complicity in an attempted restoration of the deposed Queen?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. GEORGE CURZON,): The Report of the late Law Officers was received, and instructions founded upon it were sent to the British Commissioner at Honolulu. It was subsequently ascertained, however, that some of the complainants had lost their right to British protection through having become naturalised in the Sandwich Islands. As regards the remainder, the Commissioner has been instructed to obtain and to forward fuller information than is at present available about the status of the applicants, and the illegality of procedure, undue severity of sentence, or hardship of treatment from which they are alleged to have suffered.

  RIVER SHANNON DRAINAGE WORKS.
  MR. JASPER TULLY:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether he is aware that the Drainage
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  Works on the Shannon, near Battle-bridge, which it was promised by the late Government would have been commenced early in April, have not yet been taken in hand; and (2) whether he can state the cause of the delay, and how soon the work will be begun so as to afford employment to the people in the adjoining district of South Leitrim, which is in an impoverished condition?
  MR. HANBURY: The delay is caused by the fact that the occupier of a mill has sent in a claim for compensation which the Board of Works are advised is quite unreasonable, and more than the funds available would permit of their spending on compensation. The Board hope that he will soon come to terms, and the works will then be commenced immediately.

  ALLEGED MASSACRE OF MUSSULMAN VILLAGERS.
  SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if Her Majesty's Government will direct one of Her Majesty's Consuls in European Turkey to inquire into the alleged massacre of Mussulman villagers by Bulgarian marauders?
  MR. CURZON: The question is one for discussion between the Turkish and Bulgarian authorities, and an official investigation on the spot by a British Consular Officer would be out of place unless it were requested by the Porte.

  IRISH MAGISTRATES.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when the Return, ordered to be printed on 6th July, of the Magistrates appointed by the late Government will be circulated?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I understand that the Return referred to will be forwarded to the printers to-morrow.

  PORTADOWN POST OFFICE.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what steps have been taken to erect the new post office at Portadown?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General has to-day received a telegram

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  from the Irish Board of Works stating that tenders for this service had to be invited a second time, that they are due on the 28th instant, and that it is expected that one can be accepted immediately after that date.

  THE CHANGES AT THE WAR OFFICE.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether the President of the Council has recently been brought into new relations towards the great spending departments concerned in Imperial Defence; and, if so, what is the nature of those relations; and whether the changes at the War Office, announced by the late Government for 1st October, are to take place?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYreplied that it was true that the President of the Council had recently been brought into new relations towards the great spending departments concerned in Imperial Defence, but he was not in a position to give a more detailed answer. The matter was receiving the most careful consideration of the Government.

  ARTILLERY PRACTICE IN PLYMOUTH SOUND.
  MR. F. B. MILDMAYasked the Under Secretary of State for War whether the wording of the proposed new by-laws in respect of Artillery practice seawards in the vicinity of Plymouth Sound had been so amended as to preclude the possibility of power being given under the said by-laws to shut up either entrance to Plymouth Sound?
  MR. BRODRICK: Correspondence with the local authorities is still taking place as to the wording of the proposed by-laws; and it is hoped to be able to remove all reasonable cause of objection on the part of those who navigate the entrances to the port.

  EVICTED TENANTS IN IRELAND.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid, he wished to put a question to the Leader of the House with regard to the
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  Notice of Motion standing in the right hon. Gentleman's name as to the business of the House. If the Motion were carried as it stood, it would prevent him from proceeding with the Motion he had on the Paper as to the introduction of a Bill dealing with evicted tenants in Ireland. The Chief Secretary had stated that the Government objected to anything in the nature of contentious legislation on the subject being introduced this Session, but would be prepared to favourably consider any non-contentious proposal. In consequence of that he gave notice of his Motion for leave to introduce a Bill to re-enact the 13th Clause of the Land Act of 1891, which he thought everyone would admit would be a non-contentious Bill. He handed in this Notice of Motion before the right hon. Gentleman handed in his, and he wished to ask him whether, on behalf of the Government, he could see his way to make an exception of his Bill, so as to enable the House by a non-contentious measure to deal with a limited portion of the question of the evicted tenants in Ireland.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYreplied, that he thought to permit the hon. Member alone among private Members to introduce his Bill would be extremely inconvenient and lead to great difficulty. But the Government had no objection to themselves introducing a short Bill re-enacting the l3th Clause of the Land Act of 1891, on the distinct understanding that it was not put down in the Orders until the Appropriation Bill had passed its various stages and the measure was accepted as it stood. [Irish cheers.]
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked whether the Arms (Ireland) Act would be included in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, in view of the pledge of the First Lord of the Treasury that no contentious legislation should be introduced.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,)said, there was nothing in the Bill which was not included in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act last year.
  MR. T. M. HEALYintimated that if the continuance of the Arms Act was proposed, its discussion would occupy several days.

  NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked the Under-Secretary for War whether, having regard to the statement made on June 21st last by the Secretary of State for War in the late Administration, that the resignation by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge of the Commandership-in-Chief of the Army would take effect on October 1, the name of his successor in that position would be announced now or before discussion in Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates? In asking the question the hon. and learned Member said he wished to call attention to a very objectionable variation from the ordinary practice of the House. A Minister of the Crown was perfectly entitled to refuse to answer a question, but the Under Secretary for War went further, and told him a statement would be made in the House of Lords in which the question he had put down would be answered, and he was to get his information there. As a Member of the House of Commons he objected to obtaining information anywhere but from his place in Parliament.
  MR. SPEAKERpointed out that a question of Order did not arise in the
  matter.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: No, but it is a question of practice closely bordering on privilege. [Ministerial cries of"Oh!" and Opposition cheers.] What he wanted to know was, whether what the Under Secretary did was usual or not. In his own experience he had never known such an answer to be given.
  MR. BRODRICKsaid, the hon. and learned Member was under a misapprehension. He asked whether, before the Army Estimates were taken, a statement would be made as to the new Commander-in-Chief, and he informed him that a statement would be made in both Houses. The hon. Member then pressed him as to the nature of the statement, and he said it would be better not to anticipate it. If the hon. Member now pressed for further information, he had not the least objection to stating that when His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge relinquished the Commander-ship-in-Chief of the Army that Field-Marshal Lord Wolseley would assume the position.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked when the Government determined to appoint Lord Wolseley, and whether they were aware that in 1889 Lord Wolseley made a public apology, which was read in that House by Mr. Stanhope, Secretary for War, in reference——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order ! The hon. Member must see that that is a question of which he should give notice.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Tomorrow, Sir.

  PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  MR. T. M. HEALY,referring to the motion down in the name of the First Lord of the Treasury relating to the Business of the House, asked whether there was any precedent for or advantage in proceeding with it before the Debate on the Queen's Speech was disposed of.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid, there were precedents in large numbers. He intended moving a motion to-day giving precedence to the Queen's Speech to-morrow, and in the event of the Queen's Speech going over perhaps it would be better to deal with motion as to the business of the House that night.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked if the right hon. Gentleman based his Motion entirely on the view that a Private Members' day could not be taken for the Queen's Speech unless it was appropriated by special Resolution?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir. It is a fact that a Private Members' day cannot be taken for that purpose, but I gave a distinct pledge on Friday, in answer to the hon. Baronet opposite, that I would move this Resolution to-day, and as some Motion of the kind is required, I think that is a reason why that pledge should be strictly observed. I beg to move—
  "That for the remainder of the Session no Notice of Motion for leave to bring in a Bill be given except by a Minister of the Crown; that Government Business do have precedence every day, be not interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order regulating the Sittings of the House, and may be entered upon at any hour, though opposed; that whenever the Committee of Supply stands as an Order of the Day Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair without question put; and that, so soon as Government Business has been disposed of, Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without question put."

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  I trust that the House generally will accept this proposal without much discussion, because it will be felt universally that the Motion is devised in the interests not of the Government merely, but of all sections of the House, and as much in the interests of the Private Members as of the Government. When a person holding my Office is obliged to take special privileges of this kind for the Government it is very common for Private Members to declare that their rights are being infringed. But I very much doubt whether any large section of Private Members at the present time have any overmastering desire beyond that of finishing the business of the year, and of then proceeding to enjoy a well-earned holiday. Of course this proposal involves a certain amount of sacrifice of two kinds, a sacrifice, in the first place, of the right of proposing Bills—I will not say of carrying Bills, because of that there would be a very slight prospect—and, in the second place, the sacrifice involved by the House consenting to sit, on some nights, later than 12 o'clock. I do not believe that the first of those privileges is one which in August, in fine weather, and after the labours of a General Election, anybody will be very anxious to retain. As regards the enforced sitting up after 12 o'clock, I do not desire that the House should understand that we mean to press the Estimates to any undue hour in the morning. I think we shall be able to get through our necessary work without putting that great strain either upon the officers or upon the Members of the House. But in order that the Estimates should be readily got through everybody is aware that it is convenient to suspend the 12 o'clock rule. Under those circumstances I beg to recommend the House to adopt, in its own interests, the Resolution I now submit. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. T. M. HEALY: On the point
  of Order, will the right hon. Gentleman put the Motion in separate propositions?
  MR. SPEAKER: I propose to put it as one question.
  MR. J. W. LOGANsaid he wished to make an appeal to the Government. As they had already made a concession to those who were in distress in Ireland he thought that a similar concession might be made in regard to England. In
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  view of the probable distress which would occur in this country during the coming winter, the Government might spare time to pass a short Act carrying out the recommendation of the Committee appointed to inquire into the distress arising from want of employment, that those men who were compelled under exceptional circumstances to apply for Poor Law relief should not be disfranchised. The recommendation of the Committee was in the following words:—
  "Your Committee believe that this provision may have a salutary effect as a check upon ordinary Poor Law claims, and may thus foster independence of character and prevent unnecessary burden falling on the rates. But in cases of exceptional distress they do not see why it should be difficult to discriminate between the deserving man, forced to become dependent upon public aid, and the ordinary claimant for parish relief. Your Committee, therefore, are of opinion that it would be both humane and wise to exempt the former class from the disability as regards the Franchise, whether Local or Parliamentary."
  He was fortified, in making tins request, by the remembrance of the words used by the Prime Minister in the House of Lords on the 6th of July, four days after the Report of the Committee was issued, on which occasion he said that there was very much to be clone in alleviating the condition of those who, by no fault of their own, were cast into misery in these great vicissitudes of trade, and there was much to be done in revising the operation of the Poor Law.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONsaid, the question of disfranchisement was scarcely touched upon by the Committee, which, owing to a change of Ministry, was dissolved, and he had understood that it was to have been reappointed this Session. He hoped the appeal made by the hon. Member would be attended to by the Government as speedily as possible. The Committee omitted to make a discrimination between those of the unemployed who could have obtained work, but did not work, and those who could not obtain work and were willing to work. That was where the Committee would like to take up the thread of the subject when they were reappointed.
  MR. H. E. KEARLEYprotested against the suspension of the 12 o'clock rule, and asked to what hour of the night the discussion on the Estimates would continue?
  MR. T. R. BUCHANANasked what Bills the Government proposed to introduce during the present Session. He wished to know further whether Supply would be taken continuously, and in what order, and whether the Civil Service Estimates would be taken first, and in what order, because shortly before the Dissolution a suggestion was made that the more important of these Estimates should be taken first, the ordinary course being so far departed from. Then as to the Motion made by the right hon. Gentleman, he ventured to suggest that the first paragraph was somewhat of a novelty and an anomaly, and was unnecessary, because the object in view was really secured by the second and third paragraphs so far as Private Members advancing business was concerned. The first part of the Motion was therefore unnecessary, and would prevent Private Members from exercising the privilege of introducing Bills with the view of having them printed and circulated in the country during the Recess.
  MR. T. LOUGHwished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in support of the point raised by the Member for the Harborough Division of Leicester, whether he did not base his refusal to do anything to carry out the recommendations of the Report of the Committee on the Unemployed on the ground that the principle involved was contentious; whether it was not a fact that an Act of the kind recommended in the Report was passed by the Conservative Government in 1880 so far as Ireland was concerned; and whether, as regarded Ireland, that principle had not been sanctioned more than once since by the Liberal Party. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman further whether he did not think that, under the circumstances, this would not be a good opportunity to apply a principle which had been found useful and uncontentious in Ireland to Great Britain as well? Further, whether as regarded medical relief, in 1885 the very exception with respect to the Franchise was not made in Great Britain by a Government of the same complexion as the one now in power?
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the Motion made by the right hon. Gentleman represented a number of important aspects
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  on the point of procedure. He admitted that for an omnibus resolution of this kind there were precedents, but he thought the Government would be well advised if in motions of the kind they put each proposition separately. There was no precedent, however, for interposing a Motion of this character in the Debate on the Queen's Speech. At the same time, he held that the rule the Speaker had laid down was one which greatly enlarged the privileges of Members, because, as he understood, the Speaker had ruled that the time of private Members could not be taken away in future by the Queen's Speech without a special Motion in that behalf. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] This was the first occasion when a Minister of the Crown, supported by the high authority of the Chair, had declared it to be necessary that during the Debate on the Queen's Speech it was necessary to make a Motion to take time. In 1882 the Debate on the Queen's Speech lasted a fortnight, and it went on day after day uninterruptedly the whole time. There had been times when other Governments were in distress for time, but this course had not been followed. In 1881–2 the then Government were most anxious to get to the passing of the Coercion Act, but in that day, notwithstanding their hurry and alleged urgency, did not set aside the Queen's Speech for a Motion to take time. The course taken by the Government, therefore, was anomalous. So far as he knew, it had always been the constitutional practice that the humble Address in response to Her Majesty's gracious message should have precedence of all business in the House of Commons. But now, for the first time, Her Majesty would have the satisfaction of contemplating the fact that, while in all previous Parliaments of her reign the Address in response to her gracious Speech had had precedence of all business, a Conservative Administration, supported by the largest majority ever returned to that House, had made an innovation upon this time-honoured practice. What was the advantage of this extraordinary innovation? The advantage of it, except so far as it might be considered a slight on the Sovereign, was absolutely nil, because the Government might have made the motion immediately after the Debate on the Queen's Speech. The

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  advantage the Government sought, from their own point of view, was hardly worth upsetting the practice of 700 years for, and at the same time implying a slight on the Sovereign, for that was what it amounted to. They might be told that the Royal Address and the dutiful reply to it were only a matter of form; but he ventured to say that, at least as far as a Tory Ministry was concerned, this was a remark that could hardly be respectfully made, and the course taken was one, moreover, which would start a precedent that might have important results in the future. He had always understood that the Conservative Party, before they were contaminated by contact with their Liberal Unionist allies—[Laughter]—attached the greatest weight and importance to the maintenance of those ancient rights and forms; and he was amazed to think that it should be a Conservative Government—even though in alliance with the right hon. Member for West Birmingham—who for the first time made a departure from the ancient usages and practice of the House. [Laughter.] The Government, by this motion, not only proposed to take full time, but to place the House under a rule in debating the Queen's Speech which it had never been put under before; for the Address had never before been discussed under the rules of urgency—under the suspension of the 12 o'clock rule. It was the first time, he believed, that any Government had ever placed the House in manacles in discussing the reply to her Majesty's Speech, and if the Government had any precedent for their action they ought to have cited it before adopting such a course. Again, the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire had pointed out a most remarkable confusion so far as the practice of the House was concerned, namely, that Her Majesty's Faithful Commons were to be deprived of any opportunity of even introducing Bills. It was true that one Bill had escaped the operation of the rule, but what did the Government propose to do? And here was the fifth innovation, that so soon as Government business was disposed of the Speaker was to leave the Chair without question put. Of course there were precedents for that, but who had ever known a Minister make such a Motion on the third day of the Session? After
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  the Government had had a free run up to 12 o'clock, private Members, who had borne the burden and heat of the day, were to be deprived of the few minutes after midnight. This was the most manacling Resolution ever introduced by a Minister, and its importance was this, that when they passed Resolutions in times of supposed urgency, they were afterwards cited as precedents in times and on occasions when there was no urgency at all. The Government had, he understood, given notice of a Bill in connection with the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, and they proposed that it should be discussed after midnight under this Resolution. That would be a very strange departure. The right hon. Gentleman had said that no Bills except purely Departmental Bills of a non-contentious character should be taken. The word "Departmental" covered a multitude of sins. They had heard from the Chief Secretary that communications from Judges were departmental, and now they heard that the, introduction of a Bill which must lead to great contention was also to be defended on the ground that it was purely departmental. He had explained, defended and justified the course he and his friends took on this Bill in former Sessions, and he had given notice to the late Government that if they introduced the Bill this year he should oppose it; and he would now ask the Government whether, if they were so anxious to wind up the business of the Session, it would not be possible to arrive at some modus in this matter. The suggestion was thrown out that every one was anxious to get away. Some people were not anxious to do so. They had spent a great deal of time and money in getting into the House and they were anxious to use the House to the advantage of their constituents. He certainly was not anxious to get away. On the contrary, he was not anxious to turn the House to account in the interest of his constituency and the country generally, though they all meant different things when they used that latter expression. They were now met, so far as Ireland was concerned, after three years, in which they did not succeed in winning for their country one rag of a Parliamentary Measure. [Ministerial Cheers.] He was glad to hear those cheers, and relying upon the cordial concurrence that seemed

  287
  to exist on the subject between himself and hon. Gentlemen opposite, he founded on that statement this argument. Here they were now after three years. The Irish Members have come back like giants refreshed to address a fresh demand to the Government of England. So far as his experience went it did not matter much to their country which Government was in. The result to Ireland seemed pretty much the same, and in conclusion he would invite the Government, if they desired that they should go back to their constituents in a pleasant frame of mind, to make some arrangement whereby some satisfaction might be given to the minor and moderate claims of Ireland. When they gave time to the Government, it was always the plan of the Irish Members to insist on some kind of quid pro quo. The mere re-enactment of the 13th Clause of the Land Act of 1891 was entirely insufficient, and, therefore, he would press strongly on the Government that if they hoped for a safe passage and an easy deliverance, even upon the. Estimates, they should be prepared to give some assurance to the Irishmen who had come there and spent their time in the House, getting so little for their country, that they should not go back empty-handed to their country.
  SIR; W. HARCOURT: With reference to which my hon. and learned Friend has said, I should like to state what I know of the practice of the House on the Motion for the Address. I find in the Journals that on Tuesday, March 13, last year, when the Address was under discussion, I made this Motion—
  "That the Order of the Day for resuming the adjourned Debate on the Address in answer to her Majesty's Speech have precedence this day over Notices of Motion."
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Notices of motion?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: Of course, Tuesday is a day for Notices of Motion. Therefore, but, for that Order, anybody who chose to place a notice of motion on the paper would have been in a position to prevent the Motion for the Address
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  being proceeded with. I find, also, that this Order was made on the same day—
  "That the proceeding on the Address in answer to her Majesty's Speech, if under discussion at 12 o'clock this night, be not interrupted."
  I do not think there can be any doubt that the principle laid down is one that has governed the practice of the House. There was even a still more remarkable exception with reference to the Debates on the Address in 1884. When the Address was under discussion precedence was given to a motion of censure upon the Government, and the Debates on the Address were interrupted and suspended until that motion was disposed of. Therefore it is quite plain that the Debates on the Address do not have an absolute command of the time of the House, as seems to have been the impression that prevailed in some quarters of the House. ["Hear, hear!"] With reference to this motion generally, I think it is a motion which in all circumstances would have been, made at this time of the year whatever Government had been in office. ["Hear, hear!"] The month of August having arrived, it has always been usual for the Government to propose to take the whole time of the House to the exclusion of other business, in order to proceed with the conclusion of the Debates upon the Estimates. The Government have stated, and will no doubt act upon the statement, that any non-contentious measures that are necessary or expedient to be passed they will take measures to forward. Beyond that I do not see how the House can possibly go, because if private Members introduce Bills of their own it is quite plain they could not proceed with them to any advantage, and if they were Bills to which the Government objected, it is quite obvious that they could make no progress at all. ["Hear, hear!"] I cannot see the advantage of endeavouring to proceed with Bills which have not the support of the Government. I should like to mention one matter. There is a measure which I believe receives the general support of the House—the measure with reference to the King Street site. The Government have power to proceed with that measure, and if it is one which is agreed to by Members on all

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  sides of the House, that might be included among the measures which can, without delay or interruption, be carried out. ["Hear, hear!"] It is quite plain that it is impossible for us now to succeed with any measures which are of a contentious character and which are opposed by the Government, but there ought to be fair and ample opportunity given to Members from Ireland and all parts of the United Kingdom, upon the Estimates to discuss matters which they consider of interest and importance; and I suppose the Government are perfectly prepared to give an assurance that a reasonable time shall be given for the discussion of the Estimates, and that the suspension of the 12 o'clock rule is not intended to prevent such discussion as may arise on the Estimates. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR CHARLES DILKEpresumed that the Motion applied to Wednesdays, and therefore he was anxious to know whether it was intended by the Government that the House should sit long after the usual hour on those days. There was another point on which information should be given hon. Members. The Leader of the House would admit it was an undesirable thing to discuss important Estimates late at night, when the Debate could not be properly reported. Apart from Irish votes, there were the votes for the Uganda Railway, for additional ammunition, and for the Foreign Office. Was the right hon. Gentleman prepared to arrange that such important votes should be taken at an early hour?
  MR. VESEY KNOXthought the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Monmouthshire (Sir W. Harcourt) ought to carry conviction to a good many Members who sat on the opposite Benches., They must see that this was really not a Party question, but one between the two front Benches and the rest of the House. The right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the present Estimates, and it was quite natural he should like to pass a Motion which would interfere with a thorough discussion. He appealed to hon. Members opposite, who wished to take an independent line on these questions, to make them stand at the beginning of this new Parliament in
  290
  favour of a full discussion of the Estimates, which was the original business of the House. The Motion was aimed much more at hon. Gentlemen opposite than at the Irish Members. The Irish Members did not wish to obstruct in this Session. To be perfectly frank he limited himself to this Session. There was nothing to obstruct. There was no object in obstructing when there was no legislative programme to keep back. Whatever little attention they might give to the Estimates this Session would be given purely with the view of bringing forward legitimate questions of public interest. It was right that in this Session of all Sessions the Estimates should not be pushed through late at night. In other Sessions the 12 o'clock rule might be suspended in order to put down obstruction, but this Session, when there was no probability of obstruction, he contended it was a very strong thing to interfere so much with the convenience of the vast majority of Members on the back benches as to suspend the 12 o'clock rule throughout the discussion of Supply. The Report of Supply could be taken at any hour, and therefore if under this Motion Supply was taken up to say, 1 o'clock, they might be kept here with Report of Supply until 3 o'clock. That was not the way to do the work of the nation; it was not calculated to smooth the way of business. He begged to move to leave out of the Motion from the words "every day" in line 4 to the end of the second paragraph. In other days no Member would have resisted a Motion such as the present more strongly than the present Secretary to the Treasury. He trusted that now that that right hon. Gentleman had gone the way of all good men, there would be some left behind the right hon. Gentleman—he thought he could see one—who would support the interests of the majority of the House on this occasion.
  MR. HERBERT LEWISseconded the Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYhoped the hon. Gentleman would not press his Amendment to a Division. It was not necessary for him to argue the point. Every hon. Member was well acquainted with the business of the House. As the hon. Gentleman was perfectly

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  a ware, it was customary at this time of the Session to abolish the 12 o'clock rule, and that the abolition of the rule greatly facilitated the progress of business. He trusted that under those circumstances the hon. Gentleman would not ask them to start a new precedent.
  SIR C. DILKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the questions I put to him?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I thought we had better dispose of the Amendment first.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: We are extremely glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman at any time.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, he was entirely in disaccord with the Mover of the Amendment. The House was called together solely because of the necessity for passing the Estimates, and that necessity had arisen simply in consequence of the neglect of those Estimates by Her Majesty's late Government during the whole of the months from February to June. They had been reminded that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had occasionally felt it his duty to resist attacks upon the time of the House. Whenever he did so he was in his (Mr. Bowles') opinion right. Motions to reduce the right hon. Gentleman's salary might be made, and might be supported by quotations from his own speeches. If such were the case he trusted he would be present to defend his right hon. Friend, and to show what was the true meaning to be attached to his speeches. It seemed to him reasonable, under all the circumstances, to give the Government as much time as possible in which to get the money they required. And it also seemed reasonable to give hon. Gentlemen in the back Benches all the time the forms of the House or a Motion of this sort afforded them to discuss the Estimates. Under this Motion hon. Members would, instead of being pulled up sharp at 12 o'clock, be permitted to go on calmly until 3, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. He was as strong an advocate for the rights and privileges of Private Members as anybody could be, and he quite agreed that in the matter of the Estimates the two Front Benches were pledged to the Estimates, and consequently no assistance in the way of criticism could be got from
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  either of the Front Benches. But no assistance in the way of criticism was ever got from them; they always had been in accord. It was the occupants of the Back Benches who were found attacking the Estimates, and they were now in the same position as they always were.
  MR. J. H. DALZIELsaid, the point was whether they ought to sit after 12 o'clock or not. He rather regretted the Leader of the House had not replied to the question addressed to him, because many votes might depend upon the answer he gave.
  The FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: By leave of the House I will reply to the questions which have been put to me in regard to business. The Leader of the Opposition has saved me the trouble of dealing in detail with the speech of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth. That learned Gentleman has not shown on this occasion that minute acquaintance with the procedure of the House which, to do him justice, he usually shows beyond all other Members; for, in truth, the course he declares to be an invasion of the procedure, of 700 years, and which, he says, conveys in some obscure manner a slight on the Crown, is a course invariably adopted when a private Member's Motion or a private Member's Bill is down for a day when the Queen's Speech ought to be taken. If a Motion is down on a Tuesday or a Bill on a Wednesday and the Queen's Speech overlaps, it is absolutely incumbent on the Government to make some Motion by which the rights of private Members would so far be disturbed and the progress of the Queen's Speech secured. Then as to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, it is quite true that in my original statement I said we did not intend to take controversial business, but seldom or never in the history of this House has that Bill been regarded as controversial.
  Mr. T. M.
  HEALY: It was in 1874 and 1875 by Mr. Butt.
  The FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: There may have been some instances to the contrary, but, practically speaking, the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill has always been regarded as uncontroversial. The hon. Member for the Harborough Division made an appeal

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  to us to make an exception to our general procedure in favour of a Bill carrying out the proposal of the Select Committee on the unemployed to abolish the regulation by which persons who receive outdoor relief are disfranchised. I do not now commit myself to any judgment upon that proposal, which very likely indeed is a very sound and a proper one. But I would observe, in the first place, that it cannot be described as uncontroversial ["Hear, hear!"] and, in the second place, that even if carried it would confer no material relief on the unemployed. ["Hear, hear!"] Even the exercise of a vote is a poor substitute for employment and regular wages; and what we desire is to find, if possible, some method be which the number of the unemployed may be diminished. ["Hear, hear!"] And then, what Franchise is likely to be exercised during the period that distress may possibly prevail in the course of the coming winter? The Municipal Franchise is exercised before the 9th of November; there are no county council elections and no parish council elections in England in the winter; and, although for my part I never prophesy with confidence in those matters, I do not myself contemplate a General Election in the course of the present Session. [Laughter.] Under these circumstances the hon. Gentleman will see that while the Bill he desires must necessarily take up some time of the House, the amount of benefit it would confer on the unemployed would be infinitesimal. The hon. Member for Devonport asks me as to the spirit in which we mean to deal with the 12 o'clock rule. It is impossible for the Government to make any pledge as to the length of time the House will be asked to sit at night. I am reluctant to conceive it possible, but I can conceive circumstances which may require prolonged proceedings.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The Irish Estimates.
  THR FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: If they do arise, discretion must be left to the Government; but, generally speaking, we do not desire to inconvenience the House by asking it to sit up to an abnormally early hour in the morning. The same observation applies to Wednesdays. It is not our intention or desire, except under stress of circumstances very unlikely to arise, to ask the. House to
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  sit much beyond the usual hour for rising on those days. As to the uncontroversial Bills we are going to carry through, I do not pledge myself at this moment to a complete list, but, so far as I am aware, the only Bills we are likely to bring forward besides formal Bills, like the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, are a small departmental Bill in the charge of the Colonial Office which is intended to remove some doubt as to the legal interpretation of an existing Act, and which is strongly pressed for by the Government of the Dominion of Canada (the point will be fully explained when the Bill is introduced), also a Bill to facilitate the acquisition of the site between the great group of the Foreign Office buildings and Westminster Abbey, and, in addition to these, the Bill promised in regard to the evicted tenants of Ireland.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will all those Bills, like the Evicted Tenants Bill, come after the Appropriation Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes. That is to say that after we have, passed Supply we will bring in the Appropriation Bill, which will stand during its successive stages as first Order each day it is brought forward, and when the stage of that Bill is passed we will deal with the non-controversial measures to which I have alluded. As to the order of the Estimates, we shall take the Civil Service Estimates first, the Admiralty second, and the Army third, and we shall endeavour to consult the convenience of the House as to the order in which particular Votes are to be taken. I hope now that the hon. and learned Gentleman who has moved the Amendment will consent to withdraw it, and allow us to proceed with the next business.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked whether the Public Works Loans Bill was included in the Bills proposed to be taken.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I have no doubt it is included in the Bills to be taken.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 271; Noes,87.—(Division List No. 4.)
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, that he proposed to move an Amendment so as to put himself in Order, but he hoped that the Government would relieve him of the necessity of pressing the Amendment. The Resolution standing in the name of the Leader of the House would deprive the House of all opportunity of general discussion when the Speaker left the Chair for the first time, in order that the House might go into Committee of Supply. Standing Order 56 said:—
  "Whenever the Committee of Supply stands as an Order of the Day on Monday or Thursday, Mr. Speaker leaves the Chair without question put; unless on first going into Supply on the Army, Navy, or Civil Service Estimates respectively, or on any Vote of Credit, an Amendment be moved or question raised, relating to the Estimates proposed to be taken in Supply."
  He submitted that inasmuch as these Estimates were to be begun over again, and especially as part of them had already been voted, the House was entitled to a general discussion on the Speaker first leaving the Chair. He did not think it was the intention of the Government to deprive the House of this opportunity, therefore he proposed to move as an addition to the main Resolution the words of the Standing Order he had quoted from, "Unless on first going into Supply" to "proposed to be taken in Supply." The discussion which had already taken place on these Estimates did not at all meet the case, because many new conditions had arisen since that discussion took place. Since the general discussion had taken place in the last Parliament there had been made the announcement, for example, that the Army was to have a new Commander-in-Chief, while large changes were to be made in his powers and in those of the Defence Committee. Such changes as these appeared to him to render it eminently necessary that an opportunity should be afforded to the House to discuss their effect with the Speaker in the Chair. In the Navy also changes of the highest importance had taken place. A new Order in Council affecting the status of naval lieutenants in a most material way had been issued, and this Order had already excited a great deal of discontent in the Navy. It was an Order which he should feel it to be his duty to resist, but unless he
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  had an opportunity to raise a general discussion with the Speaker in the Chair the opportunities which would be otherwise provided on the Estimates would be altogether inadequate, if not entirely destroyed. He trusted that the Leader of the House would be able to give the House some explanation as to the reason why the ancient practice of Parliament should be discontinued on this occasion.
  MR. J. C. FLYNNseconded the Amendment, and congratulated the hon. Member upon his independence in having moved it. He submitted that this was a dangerous innovation on the part of the Leader of the House, the effect being to take away the rights and privileges of discussion enjoyed by hon. Members generally.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid, that when he submitted the Motion to the consideration of the House he thought it was one which would meet with approval on the ground that it was designed in the interests of the general convenience of Members. The questions referred to by his hon. Friend in connection with the Army and the Navy could be dealt with on the Vote for the. War Office and the Vote for the Admiralty. His hon. Friend made light of the fact that the House of Commons had already had its usual opportunities of engaging in a general discussion with the Speaker in the Chair. It was true that since that general discussion there might be new Estimates or a slight modification of the Estimates originally presented. That was always the case in the circumstances of a new Parliament like this; but if they admitted this to be a valid argument in the direction pleaded by hon. Gentlemen, it was evident that the House would always have suspended over its head the prospect of a fresh discussion. The fact that this was a new Parliament was not an argument relative to the issue which had been raised as to the subjects dealt with in the Estimates, and he did not think that anything would be gained by repeating discussions under the conditions in which the House had now assembled. He hoped that his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the assurances he gave him, that an opportunity would be forthcoming on the Estimates, with the Chairman of Committees in the Chair, to lay before the House all the details and

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  arguments he was anxious to review applying either to the Army or to the Navy.
  MR. KEARLEYpointed out that since the Dissolution many new questions had cropped up in connection with the Estimates. In addition to the questions referred to by his hon. Friend, there was the question, of the health of the Mediterranean Fleet. A very large amount of sickness existed in that fleet; indeed, he was informed that 60 officers wore invalided at the present time. The proper way to open a new Parliament was to give an extended opportunity to new Members to discuss fresh questions.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid the Leader of the House had declared that as one Parliament had enjoyed the opportunity of discussing the Estimates this was a reason for hindering the new Parliament from discussing them. The Government went to the country upon the cry of "Cordite and Kynoch" [laughter,] and was this the way it was proposed to treat so vital a question—that the discussion in the old Parliament was sufficient for the new Parliament? It was alleged that the late Government was unpatriotic in not laying in sufficient ammunition, and now they need an estimate for £70,000 for more cordite. Were they not to have an opportunity of discussing what was the net result of the General Election? They were to be asked to vote £70,000 to Kynoch and Company. Was that a sufficient response to the demands made for the defence of the British Army? Surely the Members of the present Government who discussed this question in the last, Parliament would not refuse to the Opposition the opportunity of discussing it in their turn. It seemed to him that this was the gravest question, which had yet arisen, and the Member for King's Lynn was to be congratulated for the way in which he had put his finger on the spot. They wished to discuss this question with the Speaker in the Chair. They wished to find out whether £70,000 was sufficient to remove the appalling scandals on which the Member for Guildford turned out the Government. Then he wished on the Civil Service, Estimates to challenge the, whole, policy of the Government in regard to their dealings with Irish Civil Servants. How could they, with the Chairman in the Chair, ade-
  298
  quately discuss a question of that kind? They ought to have the opportunity of ransacking the policy of the Government in this matter. They had just heard of the promotion of Lord Wolseley, who boasted that there was not a drop of Irish blood in his veins, but he could not escape from the misfortune of having been born in Dublin. [Laughter.] They did not forget the declaration he made some time ago on the Irish question. Were they to be shut out from an opportutity of moving a resolution in connection with that? He was sure the Member for Preston must sympathise with his old comrade in arms and vote for the Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid an opportunity would arise.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 106; Noes, 259.—(Division List No. 5.)
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: I wish to move a further Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I beg to move that the question be now put.
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 238; Noes, 110.—(Division List No. 6.)
  Main Question put accordingly.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 248; Noes, 100.—(Division List No. 7.)
  Ordered, That for the remainder of the Session no Notice of Motion for leave to bring in a Bill be given except by a Minister of the Crown: that Government Business do have precedence every day, be not interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order regulating the Sittings of the House, and may be entered upon at any hour though opposed: that whenever the Committee of Supply stands as an Order of the Day Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair without Question put; and that so soon, as Government Business has been disposed of Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put.

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALformally moved for leave to bring in a Bill to continue various expiring laws.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he could only regret that the promise of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to explain the nature of the Bills to be dealt with had not been kept. The course of proceeding adopted by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General in making this Motion without a word of explanation was most unusual, but he supposed that that was the kind of thing that hon. Members had to expect after the Closure Resolution had been forced through that House by the majority at the back of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman, however, would find that such a course of procedure would not facilitate the transaction of business.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that he had no desire to rush the Bill through the House, and if it were thought desirable to do so he would not resist a Motion for the Adjournment of the discussion on the Bill.
  MR. T. M. HEALYthen moved the Adjournment of the Debate.
  Question agreed to.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

  LIMERICK ELECTION (JOHN DALY).
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY moved—
  "That the Order of the Day be deferred until after the Order for resuming the adjourned Debate on the Amendment to the Motion for an Address in Answer to Her Majesty's Speech."
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked whether there was any precedent in the whole range of the history of the British Constitution for this Motion. In spite of his warning on Thursday last the Government had insisted on making the Motion the first Order of the day. They said that they would postpone the Order if it was required, and the right hon. Gentleman had that day given an additional undertaking that the matter should not be brought on after 9 o'clock. It was, therefore, now proposed to manufacture two Orders of the day out of one, by putting the John Daly Motion down as the first
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  Order for 3 o'clock, and then putting it down again as the second Order at 9 o'clock. He wished to know whether that was a fair way of dealing with the House. In view of the fact that this Motion concerned a Member of that House, and that the Member in question was in gaol, and therefore unable to defend himself, at least he might ask that no new or strange procedure should be followed in regard to it. The Government had no hesitation in moving a long series of resolutions early in the day, and they had just Closured the discussion upon them, and now the right hon. Gentleman had wound up by proposing to adjourn the Debate upon this question until the Debate on the Address in answer to the Queen's Speech was brought to an end, as the right hon. Gentleman hoped, before 9 o'clock, in which case the present Order of the day was to be discussed as the second Order of the day. They were entitled to know when the Debate was to come on. The Debate on the Queen's Speech might break down at any moment; there might be no division on it; and the Irish Members, who were more keenly concerned than any others in the Daly motion, might find it called on suddenly in the dinner hour, when the Attorney General might rise and simply take off his hat. That was riot the way to take a motion of this kind. It should be taken on a stated day, and at a stated time of day, when every Member of the House would know that it was to be brought on. At present they did not know whether it was to be brought on at 9, 10, 11, or 12 o'clock that night, or at 1, 2, or 3 o'clock in the morning. [Sir R. WEBSTER made a sign of dissent.] The Attorney General shook his head, but did the Government intend by the aid of the Closure to squeeze the four Amendments on the Queen's Speech in three or four hours? What was the advantage of the present motion? The Government having now taken the whole time of the House, having swept away every rule under which the House worked, and every order for the protection of private Members, now proposed to add the additional disability that hon. Members were not to know when such a motion as that concerning John Daly was to be brought on.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The hon. and learned Gentleman has hurled a large number of accusations at my head with regard to the conduct of our proceedings. Let me remind the House of the facts. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford put a question to me, inquiring after what hour I would deal with the subject of John Daly to-day. With the general assent of the House, as I understood it, I mentioned 9 o'clock. That appeared to meet with general assent. I was then asked by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean how I proposed to alter the notice of motion, and the right hon. Gentleman admitted that it could be done, with the general assent of the House, in the manner that I now propose, and which is intended simply and solely for the convenience of the House. ["Hear, hear!"] If the hon. and learned Gentleman had told me, at question time, that he and his friends had any strong objection to the course proposed, I should not have put forward this motion, which is not a matter of principle, but simply intended to meet the convenience of the hon. and learned Gentleman and those who sit near him. If, however, he takes so strong a view, let us by all means proceed with the Queen's Speech and finish that as soon as may be, and we will bring on the question of Daly as the first Order to-morrow.
  Order deferred till to-morrow.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
  [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
  [THIRD NIGHT.]
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Main Question [15th August]—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the Most Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament:"—
  And which Amendment was, at the end of the Question, to add the words—
  "But we humbly beg to draw the attention of Your Majesty to the existing widespread depression in agriculture, and submit that it would be expedient to pass remedial measures during the present year."—(Mr. Price.)
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."—Debate resumed.
  MR. F. A. CHANNINGwished to express the satisfaction felt by agricultural Members on that side of the House at the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman to the Board of Agriculture. They were confident they would have from him firm, vigilant and clear-sighted administration, and that he would give fair consideration to the arguments of those who differed from him. He entirely agreed with what his right hon. Friend had said with regard to the importation of foreign cattle. He thought there would be great satisfaction in agricultural circles that the firm policy adopted by his Liberal predecessor would be fairly maintained in the future. It was not, as he understood it, a policy for the absolute exclusion of all cattle from abroad, but it was, he believed, a policy, that so long as there was the least chance of spreading disease amongst our cattle, the present position of affairs should be absolutely maintained. They were demanding an Autumn Session, and he would have been glad if his own Amendment could have been brought before the House, as it combined the two subjects which urgently claimed attention, the provision for the unemployed and the relief of agriculture. He usually listened with pleasure to his hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, who generally spoke with the moderation which gives weight, but he was bound to remark that his speech of last Friday was not a very happy one. He challenged the right of the Opposition to move this Amendment, because in the previous Parliament they had voted against similar Amendments which had been put down by the opposite side. But there was, he contended, an absolute gulf between the, Amendment moved by the Member for Hampshire, in February last, and that moved the other night by the Member for East Norfolk. The

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  reason why he and his friends voted against the Amendment of the Member for Hampshire was because it was a condemnation of the Liberal Ministry, and because it was based on the absolutely wrong and groundless argument that the Liberal Administration had done nothing and were then doing nothing for agriculture. He was astonished at what fell from the hon. Member the other night. He said that the Liberal Administration had done nothing for agriculture except to appoint a Royal Commission which was of no use. Would the two Members of the Government (Mr. Chaplin and Mr. Long) now sitting on the Treasury Bench say that that Royal Commission was of no value? In his view, it had collected evidence more complete and of higher value than any previous inquiry, and would be of the greatest use when presented to Parliament. His hon. friend must have spoken without recollecting the most important inquiry relating to dairy farming, initiated by the late Government into the working of the Margarine Act and the Food and Drugs Act, on a Motion made by him (Mr. Channing) when Chairman of the Central Chamber of Agriculture. Its report would have been ready and would have done much good in the interests of dairy farmers, had it not been interrupted by the Dissolution. The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Bill and the Swine Fever Bill, which meant a considerable money gain to agriculturists, and which the previous Tory Government had failed to deal with, had been carried into law. He was glad to hear the President of the present Board of Agriculture say that he intended to use the administrative powers of the Board, and hoped this would apply to the Act to give the Board of Agriculture the same power to prosecute as the Board of Trade possessed in the case of misrepresentation of foreign produce. Besides those matters, practically all farmers whose rents were under £487 were now freed from income tax, and by the exemption of 12½ per cent. in Schedule A, one step further was taken in relieving landowners also. He thought that amount insufficient to cover repairs and other outgoings, which could hardly be put at less than 20 per cent., but at any rate it was a step in the right direction. It was
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  not the fault of the late Government that a Light Railways Bill was not passed last Session, nor that the Agricultural Holdings Act was not amended. He hoped he misunderstood the President of the Board of Agriculture, when he was believed to have said that Members on that side had opposed agricultural reforms advanced from the other side of the House. If that was his impression, he would advise him to consult his hon. friend the Member for Evesham, who would not complain of want of help in carrying the Market Gardeners' Compensation Bill. He and his friends would have been voting that white was black if they had voted for the Amendment in February last. [Ministerial cheers.] No doubt hon. Gentlemen opposite had been talking to their constituents on the subject, but he ventured to assert that not one of those hon. Gentlemen would now get up and deny that the Liberal Government had done the good things for agriculture which he had briefly referred to. This was not an Amendment of condemnation; it was an invitation to the Government to give time at an early date for the urgent and pressing problem of the condition of agriculture in this country. He did not wish to introduce partizan arguments into the discussion, and he could assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that, so long as they obtained help, he did not mind from whom it came. He should always resist any attempt to obstruct or delay any practical measures for the benefit of agriculture. A lively expectation had been raised in the country during the Election by the speeches of hon. Members on the platform that agricultural questions would be promptly dealt with at the earliest moment by Her Majesty's Government. Many hon. Members opposite probably owed their seats to the expectation which had been raised among many of the voters. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, speaking at Donington, in the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire, on the 16th July, used these words:—
  "They had no great sensational measures to bring forward, but their attention would be devoted to measures of social progress and reform for the improvement of the condition of the masses of the people, and it was imperative

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  that the question of the condition of agriculture should be quickly dealt with. There were vast districts in this country where the state of things had become so desperately bad that thousands of acres of land had gone out of cultivation altogether—farmhouses were abandoned, and cottages empty. That was a serious condition of affairs, which ought to command the attention of any British statesman."
  In the notable speech at Bradford, on the 23rd of May, Lord Salisbury made a striking and eloquent reference to the urgency of the questions of the unemployed and of agricultural depression. After dealing with the question of the unemployed, Lord Salisbury said:—
  "Then look at the state of agriculture. Everywhere, especially in the eastern counties, you hear of farms being abandoned, lands uncultivated, labourers unemployed, poverty and misery increasing. Is that no subject for the consideration of Parliament?''
  He invited Her Majesty's Government to realise the expectations they had raised in the country. The late Government loyally tried to do their best in the interests of agriculture. They were denounced, and in repeated debates immediate measures were demanded. He would ask, was there any point in those incessant appeals, so frequently uttered in the past with thundering and passionate eloquence by the President of the Local Government Board and others, if there was no intention on the part of the present Government to deal promptly with this question? It was neither an unfair nor an unfriendly suggestion to make, that the Government should do so this autumn. There was a danger that they might become callous to the facts. In the speech to which he had referred, Lord Salisbury had said:—
  "We do not take note, as this information flies rapidly under our eyes, of what misery, what despair to men, what utter despair to women and children, what physical suffering is involved in those frightful facts."
  Some of the reports sent in by the Assistant Commissioners on agricultural depression were of a most striking, if not ghastly, character. The report on Essex had been frequently brought before the House. The report of Mr. Hunter Pringle on Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire also
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  showed a deplorable state of things. Mr. Pringle says:—
  "The number of men whose affairs are altogether in disorder is very distressing. We feel that anything that is to be done should be done at once."
  The country immediately to the north of Welling borough, he said, had nearly all changed hands within the last 15 years, "many failed, and others left because of losses." Of the Rockingham district:—
  "There is much land which the farmers have thrown aside, and allowed to grow thistles and rubbish. The last tenants were ruined, would not stop, and gave it up. The country is rapidly changing hands."
  In a parish in Hunts:—
  "All the old tenants have gone since 1879, 12 of the principal farmers (farming three-quarters of the parish), have been partly or entirely ruined since 1875. Of the 12 nine are dead, one by suicide." "All save two were absolutely killed by agricultural depression."
  This was a sad picture, but it was not an exaggerated one, and it was not a question of the farmer only. The ruin of each farmer meant that many labourers lost work and were driven into the towns. He had last year visited a farm in Essex, which a north-country farmer was trying to cultivate with the work of his sons and occasional labour. Only a few years back that farm had not only brought four times the rent, but had given work to 12 labourers and their families. He did not condemn Her Majesty's Government for dealing with the evicted tenants in Ireland during the present short Session, but he would point out that, according to many hon. Members opposite, these evicted tenants were men who had broken the law. Surely the English farmers, who had suffered in silence, who had broken no law, and had striven to meet their obligations, were, if anything, more entitled to speedy consideration. Why should these men be put off for ten or twelve months longer? Mr. Pringle explained a great, deal of the deterioration of farming in Northamptonshire and elsewhere by saying that to a large extent rent was being paid out of capital. He said:—
  "There has been either a melting away of the working capital represented by their stock, accompanied by increasing indebtedness to tradesmen,

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  dependence on dealers, and all-round deterioration of farming, and ultimately resulting in bankruptcy and abandonment, or the private banking account and investments have been drawn upon to meet liabilities."
  Speaking of Bedfordshire, Mr. Pringle said:—
  "I am constrained to believe that of those who still remain as the remnant of the old stock farmers, a very large proportion have remained because they had some private means to fall back upon."
  In the report of Mr. Wilson Fox as to the condition of Suffolk there were some still more frightful pictures. Then Mr. Pringle in his report pointed out how enormous were the landlords' outgoings as compared with their gross rentals. He said that in Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire there were cases where the proportion of outgoings to rental had risen to 50 and 60 per cent. That state of things needed the prompt and careful attention of Parliament no less than the reduction of the capital of the tenants. Both were part of the same unfortunate natural law which was working itself out. Landlords were overburdened with charges upon their estates. They had not money enough to effect improvements or to grant necessary reductions of rent, and the farmers were paying high rents that the land did not earn. He had read with great pleasure a speech delivered the other day in Norfolk, by Mr. Clare Sewell Read, who said that farmers were largely paying out of their private incomes the wages of the labourers. Mr. Herman Biddell had made the same statement with respect to Suffolk. In Northamptonshire there were, to his knowledge, many farmers who were straining every nerve in the endeavour, and expending their own resources, to maintain the fertility and high standard of cultivation, and even the mere smartness of their farms. All honour to them for doing their duty by their landlords, their labourers and the land! The knowledge of these circumstances made one desire to do something promptly to relieve the agricultural distress. If there were grievances which could be quickly and quietly dealt with without arousing the miserable antagonism of party interests, it would be a scandal to postpone dealing with them for eight
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  or ten months longer. The supporters of the Amendment were willing to give up a portion of their holidays, and they asked Ministers and hon. Members opposite to make a similar sacrifice in order to deal with such portions of this great question as could be taken in hand without delay. It was true that a Royal Commission on Agriculture was sitting, and that argument was sometimes adduced that whilst a great inquiry was proceeding it was not expedient that Parliament should attempt to legislate on the subject committed to the consideration, of the Commission. To that doctrine he had never assented without qualification. On various occasions in the past two or three years he had maintained that the Government of the day would be quite right not to wait for a commission's or committee's report before dealing with questions ripe for settlement, such as the Amendment of the Agricultural Holdings Act, the adulteration of food products, and other subjects in which a convergence of opinion and a concurrence of evidence could be shown to exist. It was perfectly true that the report of the Commission would be of the greatest value to Parliament and to the Government of this day. He regretted to be compelled once more to refer to the position of the Commission. In February a debate took place with respect to the Royal Commission. The Chairman of the Commission, and Lord Rosebery also, said in another place that it was a misfortune that the Report of the Commission had been delayed by proposals made by the present President of the Local Government Board. In the debate in February it was stated that the influence of the right hon. Gentleman had been used to prevent the interim report respecting the Agricultural Holdings Act from being presented, and also that the suggestion then made that there should be an extension of the evidence had resulted in delaying the proceedings of the Commission. The Commission had now obtained satisfactory evidence from Scotland, and also from many Welsh witnesses, and a short time ago all the Commissioners, he thought, were under the impression that the inquiry would terminate in the month of July.
  MR. CHAPLINasked the Speaker whether it was convenient that they should discuss in the House the proceedings of the Commission upon the ex parte statements of one of its members, the Commission not having yet reported. He absolutely repudiated the statements of the hon. Member.
  MR. CHANN INGremarked that the subject was discussed in February.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that he understood the hon. Member to be referring to statements made in a debate in the previous Parliament, and not to anything that had taken place in the Commission. It could hardly be said that the hon. Member was out of order, but he might remind him that the question before the House was the expediency of passing remedial measures, and although it was, perhaps, difficult to avoid references to what occurred in the last Parliament, the hon. Member's allusions had not really much bearing on the question whether legislation was now required. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. CHANNINGexplained that his observations were directed to this, that there had been a general expectation that the Commission would be in a position to present its report at the close of the present year. The Commission, however, had been placed in a difficulty, because at the last moment the right hon. Gentleman opposite had sprung new topics upon it.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that it was unusual to refer in the House to the proceedings of a Commission before a report on the points raised had been published. He understood that no report had as yet been published respecting the particular fact alleged by the hon. Member, and further references to it would, therefore, be out of order.
  MR. CHANNINGexplained that he did not intend to carry the argument further than this, namely, that if the proceedings of the Commission, owing to what occurred last winter or to any other cause, had been and were likely to be greatly delayed, and if the action taken last winter by the President of the Local Government Board or other Gentlemen had conduced to that delay, a grave responsibility rested upon them. The mere fact that there had been delay and that a certain amount of responsibility for it did attach to the right hon.
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  Gentleman, ought to induce him to join with the supporters of the Amendment in trying to get carried through Parliament at the earliest possible moment some remedial measures for agriculture. The fact of the Report of the Commission being delayed, in the existing condition of agriculture, was a strong reason why the President of the Local Government Board should join hon. Members in urging upon his colleagues the necessity of adopting such reforms as might be usefully carried out at the present time. He might be asked to what reforms he alluded. Now, everyone who had studied the question would admit that there was no one measure which would be a panacea for agricultural distress; what was wanted was a considerable number of comparatively limited and special reforms, which collectively and severally would build up, little by little, slowly but surely, once more the prosperity of agriculture. It was primarily the duty of the Government of the day to say what measures should be applied, but he was not going therefore to excuse himself from the responsibility of stating what reforms he thought might be carried out. In the first place, there were at least two questions which might be dealt with during an Autumn Session—some change in the law as to preferential railway rates on foreign produce, on the lines which the recent decision in the South Western case had shown to be indispensable, and a strengthening of the law with regard to the adulteration of dairy produce, which had been made perfectly clear by the conclusive evidence of the Select Committee. But if he was asked his own opinion he would boldly go to the root of the matter. Protection was out of the question, and bimetallism if practicable would do little good, and that tardily. The present position of agriculture was governed by the question of money, pure and simple. As he had said before, the landlords and tenants had not sufficient money to keep up the equipment of their estates and farms, and to thoroughly carry out agricultural work. Another defect was the bad system of land tenure that existed, and the want of protection under which the tenant farmer suffered in respect of the money he laid out for improvements. For want of the

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  necessary capital farms were being depleted year by year. Those points alone should suffice to induce the Government to deal with the agricultural question in an Autumn Session. Moreover, he thought the Government might, as the hon. Member for Norfolk suggested on Friday night, give agriculturists a thoroughly sound and useful Agricultural Holdings Act. The Bill introduced last Session by the hon. Member for South Molton might require some amendment and expansion, but, after all, that Bill went to the real point, namely, to give the industrious tenant a fair chance of securing his capital, and of obtaining a fair rent which would not swallow up the capital. His object, and that of those who agreed with him, was to give encouragement to the men who worked on the land, and to encourage the free application of money to the land, which was indispensable for the future of agriculture. In a letter to The Times the other day, the hon. Member for Hampshire (Mr. Jeffreys) pointed out that there were many millions of money now idle which might be invested in the land, to its relief and advantage, if real security was given, and he was perfectly willing, for his own part, to see a system of loans to landlords, and, if possible, to landlords and tenants, initiated for the benefit of the agricultural classes on cheaper and easier terms, so as to facilitate the improvements necessary to restore the fertility of the soil. He had thus suggested four topics which would give some relief to the present state of things, and which, seeing that all parties and all classes were agreed that it was necessary something should be done, to relieve existing depression, might be advantageously dealt with by the Government in a short Autumn Session. And he thought he had fully made out a case for their doing so. The question of the readjustment of local and Imperial taxation as bearing on agricultural land was one of great importance, and deserved the gravest consideration, but its complexity demanded time, and it could not be entered on now. It had been said that in this matter there should be no sectional remedies, and he concurred. He would add that while there should be no sectional remedies, so there should be no remedies sectionally applied to one class as opposed to another. He should
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  be opposed to any readjustment of taxation on the land unless it was accompanied by such reforms as would guarantee, either by a division of the rates, or by some power to reduce rents, or both, that the relief proposed should not be given to one class only, but should be shared by the tenant farmers and by the labourers. The mere announcement of a policy, providing that the tenant farmer should henceforth have full security for the capital he invested, and that the State was willing to provide a system of loans at cheaper rates, would do a great deal at once to stimulate the hopes of agriculturists. He had endeavoured to point out certain remedies for the existing distress which, if promptly carried out, would, he was sure, confer much advantage upon agriculture during the coming year, and he thought it would be a great misfortune to the country, and would reflect little credit on the House and on Her Majesty's Government if an effort were not made to initiate, during the present year, some such reforms as he had indicated.
  MR. A. M. BROOKFIELDsaid, the hon. Member for East Northampton might be congratulated on the tone of his speech, and on his invitation to hon. Members to sink Party feeling on this particular question. He did not know, however, that he could congratulate the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment on the practical light they had thrown on this difficult problem. Now, on this question he was only entitled to speak on behalf of those who sent him to the House for that express purpose, and on behalf of his constituents he had to say two things. The first was, that this question of the wide-spread agricultural depression was not only one which interested them particularly, but one which painfully absorbed their whole attention at the present time. The other thing he had to say was, that they confidently looked—and, he believed, with justice—to the present Government to come to their rescue, not only as regarded good administration, which he thought they were sure to have, but also as regarded wise, timely legislation, about which he had some doubt. He thought there was a good deal of truth in what the hon. Member who had just sat down said,

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  when he reminded hon. Members on that side of the House how much they owed their present commanding position to hopes they had raised in the breasts of the farming community. The question arose whether those hopes were going to be realised. The hon. Member who proposed the Amendment seemed to consider that they would not be realised. He supposed they must all wait, though waiting was a tedious and exasperating process. Most of them could contribute individual tales confirming the general story of depression throughout the country. Even in the favoured part of the country in which he lived, the county of Sussex on the border of Kent, he had known within a few miles of his house quite recently, farms out of which men still living had made their fortunes, sold—that was the freehold—for £13 an acre; that record was beaten in other parts of the country where stiff clays and arable land prevailed He would content himself with quoting one instance of individual suffering that came to his notice. It was that of a farmer who a few years ago made his will, leaving, and being entitled to leave £30,000 to his family. When he died the other day, purely through his farming losses, his family had nothing, his widow was a candidate for relief from the Agricultural Benevolent Society, and his son was going out as a day labourer. The hon. Member who last addressed the House spoke sympathetically on the subject of dealing with local taxation and burdens on land, but he found on reference to the Journals of the House, that on 27th February, 1891, the hon. Member supported this Resolution—
  "That in the opinion of the House the proportion of taxation that falls upon and is payable by land and its rentals is insufficient, and ought to be increased."
  Had the hon. Member, then, changed his mind on this subject?
  MR. CHANNING: I am under the impression that the Motion in question referred not to agricultural but to urban land. It was in that sense I gave my vote.
  MR. BROOKFIELD: That explanation will not hold water, for the Motion was a general one. It was supported not only by the right hon. Gentleman now
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  sitting on the Front Opposition Bench (Sir W. Harcourt) but by the Gentleman who was recently Minister for Agriculture, and who was raised to the peerage for his important services. It was difficult to believe that the Party who as a Party voted for that Resolution were quite sincere in their desire to free the land from undue taxation. The hon. Member for East Norfolk advocated good pure beer as one of the panaceas for agricultural distress, but there again he found the Journals of the House did him injustice apparently, because last Session, when he had an opportunity of supporting the demand for pure beer, he voted against the motion of the right hon. Member for Thanet.
  MR. PRICE: That was a Motion in the direction of taxation, introduced as an Amendment to the Budget.
  MR. BROOKFIELD: I would ask the hon. Member what he has ever done to promote pure beer legislation?
  MR. PRICE: I have backed the Bill of the hon. Member for the Sudbury Division ever since I was in the House.
  MR. BROOKFIELD: Yes, sir, but he did not appear to support it whenever it had any chance.
  MR. PRICE: When?
  MR. BROOKFIELD: And I am surprised at the hon. Member for East Norfolk having seconded any demand on the subject of pure beer; I should have thought his constituents, by their behaviour at the late Election, rather showed they would be better without any beer at all. The hon. Member also wished to place some restrictions on the sale of foreign meat.
  MR. PRICE: The fraudulent sale.
  MR. BROOKFTELD: But there again he was not exactly in agreement with the hon. Member for Leicester, who was a warm advocate for increasing the importation of Canadian cattle, and a warm advocate apparently of free trade in pleuro-pneumonia. He much preferred those blunt suggestions, however, whatever inconsistencies there might be in the movers, to no suggestions at all. But in his opinion they ought frankly to admit that as regarded the more drastic and effectual remedies, the Government had a very good case for demanding delay until the new financial year. For instance, as regarded a wide change in

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  the direction, of transferring local burdens to the Imperial charge, any great modification or alteration of the Finance Act, any extensive reform in connection with the revenue duties (and on the subject of pure beer), it was fair to wait until they could discuss them in connection with the new Budget. But none the less he regretted that two or three lines could not have been inserted in the Queen's Speech to express the sympathy of the Government with those who had done so much to place them in their present position. Though barren sympathy might not appear to her Majesty's Government a thing of much practical value, he could assure them that it would have been appreciated by large numbers of farmers and landowners throughout the couutry who, as it was, might be erroneously led to suppose that the Government took a greater interest in the sufferings of distant people like the Armenians than in those of people at home whose welfare should be their first care. ["Hear, hear!"] He wished, therefore, that a few words could have been inserted in the Gracious Speech to have given a little timely encouragement to the farming class, who were a well deserving, sorely-suffering, and marvellously patient section of her Majesty's subjects.
  On the return of Mr. SPEAKER after the usual interval,
  MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid, he would not have intervened in the Debate at all, but for the speech made by the President of the Board of Agriculture on Friday night. It had been his privilege in the last Parliament to listen to several speeches from the right hon. Gentleman, and he had come to the conclusion that, of all the Members of the House the right hon. Gentleman was probably one of those best acquainted with the condition of the agricultural interest, and best qualified to deal with the solution of the difficult problems that were presented by the existing agricultural depression. Perhaps that fact accentuated the disappointment he felt with the right hon. Gentleman's somewhat perfunctory performance on Friday night. He could not help contrasting the right hon. Gentleman's attitude, now that he
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  was in Office, with his attitude last year when he was in Opposition, when he supported the Motion, of the hon. Member for South Essex for the Adjournment of the House on the ground that the state of the agricultural industry was such as to be a matter of urgent public importance. In order to further emphasise that striking contrast he would call the attention of the House to the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford, now President of the Local Government Board, spoken as recently as February of this year:—
  "What did seem strange to him,"
  said the right hon. Member for Sleaford on that occasion,
  "when they remembered the deplorable condition the agricultural interest was now in; when they knew that so many other interests were greatly depressed; and that vast numbers of people were every day being put out of employment, the Government showed no adequate sense of the urgency and gravity of the situation. It was quite impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the agricultural situation. It was reported that in almost every district of the country it was steadily and rapidly growing worse."
  He (Mr. Brynmor Jones) ventured to repeat the words of the right hon. Gentleman and say, that the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was now a Member showed no adequate sense of the urgency and gravity of the situation. The Government could not put them off with the procrastinating platitudes of the President of the Board of Agriculture on Friday night, that he would honestly, sincerely, and straightforwardly do his duty—next year. He said so much in justice to his hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, whose Motion had been denounced as having no sincerity behind it. But the more particular purpose for which he rose was to complain that the Minister for Agriculture had made no reference at all to the disastrous condition of things in the Principality of Wales. He had had ample opportunity as a Member of the Welsh Land Commission of gauging the extent of the agricultural depression in, the Welsh counties, and, without any polemical intent, but by way of appeal to the Minister for Agriculture, he declared that unless there was some great change in the economic situation, or

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  unless some remedial measures were introduced by the Government, then they were face to face with the bankruptcy in the Welsh Counties of one of the largest and most influential industrial classes in the community. As he was a Member of the Land Commission, which had not yet reported, he would not go into the question of the tenant-farmers, because to do so would necessarily involve his dealing with delicate questions between landlords and tenants which, for the present, he desired to avoid. But he desired to deal with the question of small freeholders, and he did so the more readily because public attention had been drawn to it by his hon. Friend and colleague on the Commission, the hon. Baronet who represented Swansea town, in a speech delivered in Wales some time ago. One of the peculiarities of the Welsh counties, so far as agriculture is concerned, is that tenants were chiefly members of families who had been connected with the same holding, or at any rate the same estate, not only from generation to generation, but in some cases from century to century. In support of that proposition he could refer to the evidence of Colonel Hughes of the Wynne estate—one of the largest in Wales—who said he could mention at least one case in which the same family had been farming the same holding for about one thousand years. It therefore happened that, when estates were broken up, those men paid extravagant prices for the farms with which their families had been so long connected. In nearly all instances they were unable to pay the purchase money down. They had to mortgage their holdings. They mortgaged them at a time when there was greater prosperity in trade and agriculture. Their condition now was that in a large number of cases they were face to face with bankruptcy and eviction, and they had to contemplate sinking down into the position of labourers, or else of going into the workhouse; because, for Welsh-speaking farmers, above middle age and without capital, migration to English towns or emigration to the Colonies was out of the question. The hon. Baronet who represented Swansea town drew attention to this question in a speech that had attracted a good deal of public notice. He did not say that the seats won by the Government in Wales were
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  due to the expectations, held out by the hon. Baronet. He made no point about that. But the hon. Baronet said it was quite possible for the State, by a simple financial operation which would involve no loss, to relieve those men. Whatever was done must be done quickly. Those men had to deal with mortgagees, who were more difficult persons to contend with than landlords. From a landlord a tenant might expect to receive consideration; but a mortgagee was in most cases only a trustee for persons who had no other connection with the district in which their money was invested. He brought forward the question new in the hope that the Government in considering the financial matters of next year would take into account the position of those small freeholders in Wales. He did not intend to labour the question or to go into details; but he should like to point out that Mr. Morgan Richardson offered a reasonable scheme for the relief of those freeholders, which he hoped the Minister for Agriculture would take into his consideration. Also he should like to hear something from the Government about Railway Rates in Wales. There, as in every part of the Kingdom, they had to complain of excessive rates on agricultural produce, and of undue preference given to the Irish over the Welsh farmer. The through rates of some railways operated to the disadvantage of the Welsh agriculturists. He hoped that some indication of the policy of the Government would be given. There was another important question with reference to Welsh agriculture. From its physical conditions, it was not a country where arable cultivation could prosper much, except in some of the valleys. It was upon dairy produce and sheep farming that Welsh farmers must mainly hope to prosper. Could the Government see their way to do what had been suggested from both sides of the House—namely, through the, local authorities, or otherwise, to encourage butter and cheese factories in Wales? As a Welsh Land Commissioner he was much struck with the fact that; wherever he went in Wales, it was not Welsh, but Devonshire or Danish butter that he got; and when he asked the; reason, he was told by many competent; witnesses that the Welsh farmers were not able to make the kind of butter

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  which the English visitor required. The establishment of butter factories had been suggested as one of the smaller remedies for relieving the agricultural situation in Wales. The farmers themselves had not sufficient capital among them to start these factories. He mentioned these facts to show that if the Government were in earnest in this matter they must act quickly, for the situation brooked no delay. If he were to speak as a party man, he could tell how the Unionist candidates throughout Wales went about saying that a Liberal Government spelt ruin for the farmers; but that a Unionist Government would mean big balances at the bank; silk dresses for the farmers wives; low rates; no cattle disease; a minimum of foreign competition; and, in fact, that a Unionist Government would "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land." [Ministerial cheers.] Then let them do it. [Opposition Cheers.] That was what they asked in moving this Amendment. The hon. Member for Hampshire (Mr. Jeffreys) said that the Amendment was a mere trick. It was not a trick of the Opposition. It was an opportunity for the Government. The hon. Member spoke with some trepidation and perturbation of spirit; because, if he voted with the Government on this Amendment—which offered the hon. Gentlemen opposite the sincerest flattery in the shape of imitation of their Motions in the last Parliament—he knew that it would be awkward for him in his constituency. And he would promise that he and his friends would pay a visit to the hon. Member's constituency in order that the plain and unvarnished truth about the hon. Member's vote might be known there. On this question, of all others, the Government ought not to put the House off with a speech like that of the President of the Board of Agriculture. Before the General Election Lord Salisbury said that the policy of his Party was Dissolution. Did the Government want the Opposition to tell the country now that the policy of Lord Salisbury's Party was Delay? If not, let them give a better answer to this Motion, for which he, at any rate, should vote.
  MR. RADCLIFFE COOKEsaid that he should go down to his constituents with a clear conscience after
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  having voted against this Amendment. They would not require much explanation, for they were intelligent people, and when they read this Debate they would understand for themselves. He should tell them that this was an Amendment which, when brought forward by the Unionist Party in Opposition, was invariably voted down by those who now proposed it. [Cheers.] He should tell them, as the hon. Member who last spoke had practically admitted, that it was a political dodge, with the object of putting the agricultural supporters of the Government in a difficulty. [Cheers.] He should further tell his constituents that when the Resolution was brought forward the front Opposition Bench was as empty as the Radical promises and as blank as their legislative record. [Cheers and laughter.] And by whom was this Amendment proposed? By the Representative of the wildest part of the British Empire—of the constituency inhabited by savages. [Cheers and laughter,]
  MR. PRICE: I beg to state that my constituency is quite as respectable as any in England. [Laughter.]
  MR. RADCLIFFE COOKEsaid that it was a constituency which at the last Election showed a long series of political atrocities. [Ministerial cheers, and Opposition cries of "Question."]
  MR. W. REES DAVIES: I rise to a point of order. I wish to ask, Sir, whether the hon. Gentleman is in order in casting gross imputations upon a constituency?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not out of order. [Ministerial cheers.]
  MR. RADCLIFFE COOKE,continuing, said that the attacks were made without respect of age or sex. He would read a passage from a newspaper to show that he did not exaggerate—[Opposition cries of "Question."]
  "In East Norfolk, during- the excitement of an election, it is evidently almost as necessary to carry firearms for self-defence as in any quite uncivilised and savage country."
  [Cheers and laughter.] That was not from a Tory organ, but from one which generally supported the Opposition. Then the Resolution was seconded by a Gentleman (Mr. Broadhurst) who had been honourably connected with manual labour in early life, but who knew very

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  little of agriculture. The hon. Member had never turned his trowel into a ploughshare. [Laughter.] If he were to compare the Seconder of the Motion to a character in antiquity, he should liken him to Balbus, the friend of our youth, whose only exploit was to build a wall. If they were to go down to the hon. Member's pleasant retreat at Cromer—[Opposition cries of "Oh!" and "Question"]—and there were many hon. Members who would like to have a pleasant retreat at Cromer—they would probably find the hon. Member, with the late Home Secretary, conducting agricultural operations on the shore of that seaside resort. [Laughter.] The Amendment was supported by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Channing), whose acquaintance with agriculture was purely theoretical, being derived entirely from Blue-books; and who knew no more of agriculture practically than "the beasts which roam over the plain." [Laughter and cheers.] Indeed, not quite so much, because the beasts could distinguish between varieties in the vegetable world, and he doubted whether the hon. Member could. [Laughter.] No doubt a great deal ought to be done for agriculture; and at the last Election he and other Unionists promised to urge upon the Government the necessity of devoting much attention to agriculture. But this Amendment was not an honest attempt to bring the matter before the attention of the Government. [Cries of "Oh!" and cheers.] A Government which had just got into office could not be expected to bring forward mature proposals. He invited the House to give attention to the question of local taxation, stating that the land was burdened with a much heavier rate of taxation than it ought to be. The only way in which the farmer could be enabled to live was to cause him to make his business more profitable. The produce of English farmers was pure, genuine and cheap; but when it reached the consumer it was generally adulterated and dear. It was not legislation which they wanted so much to prevent existing evils, as enforcement of the law. Private individuals, however, would not take the initiative on their own behalf, and local authorities were lax in seeing the provisions of the law carried out. He should like to see a
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  Department of the State empowered to undertake inquiries on behalf of persons injured by preferential rates, and if a large portion of the canal system was acquired by the State, a method of competing against the high rates of the railway companies would be established to the benefit of agriculture. Much might also be done by the farmer in opening up new industries. He mentioned cider-making as a question in which he personally took great interest, and as an agricultural industry which he had striven greatly to foster among farmers. Twenty years ago, English farmers were warned by Professor Lloyd that if they did not take care and make their butter better and of uniform quality, they would be beaten by the foreigner. The English farmers paid no heed to that warning, and the foreigner appeared as a competitor in the butter market; and it would be very difficult to drive him out again.
  MR. G. LAMBERTsaid, the House had listened to a little political Billingsgate from the hon. Member. Although his language might be strong it would do little to relieve the agricultural depression of which he and other hon. Members complained. That an immediate remedy for agricultural depression was needed appeared to be proved by the fact that hon. Members were conscious of it last year and the year before. In 1893 and 1895 Amendments to the Address were moved, and in 1894 the Adjournment of the House was moved in order to call attention to the necessity of doing something for agriculture. If the subject was urgent in those years it was none the less urgent now. He thought he was justified in assuming that the Government, by their present attitude, had not that earnest desire to deal with this matter which they professed to have before the General Election. They were told last winter that there was great want of employment, and that the distress among the unemployed was very severe. A Member of the present Cabinet informed them then that the distress of the unemployed was due in a large degree to discharged agricultural labourers, but the Government now did not propose to do a single thing for agricultural labourers until next spring. They were going to leave all legislation for the farmers an

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  labourers until next year. The President of the Local Government Board made a very interesting contribution to the Debate of 1895. He said in very eloquent language, that they might conceive the pitiable condition of these men, unable to obtain the means of getting food or clothing or warmth. If that was true in February last, was it not true now, when crops were infinitely worse? The Member for Essex asked how were the children to be fed in the coming winter. Why not press that on the President of the Local Government Board, whose sympathy was so keen last February, but who now took himself anywhere but on the Government Bench to carry legislation. He remembered a cartoon published during the Elections; it showed by way of contrast the agricultural labourer under a Unionist Government and under a Radical Government. In the former there was a great joint of meat upon the table and a foaming tankard of beer. The scene under a Radical Government, showed a distracted wife, a despairing husband, and a hungry child. Well, what was the Government going to do to fill the stomachs of these starving persons? Let them do something to fill the cupboard if the Government was in earnest. For his part he did not wish to treat this subject in a controversial spirit. Legislation for the benefit of agriculturists should not be dealt with in a party spirit. Let them raise the question above that and give the farmer and labourer some encouragement. [Ironical cheers.] Yes, but what were the Government doing? Where were the three acres and a cow? as one of his friends near him suggested. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture had the interests of agriculture at heart, and recently he had said that he did not intend to reverse the position of the late Government with regard to cattle disease. The only indication he gave was that he intended to shut out lean cattle, but in that he was only following the example of the late Liberal Minister of Agriculture. Why should the right hon. Gentleman not show the country something more of his policy, instead of only carrying out the policy of his predecessor? They had heard a great deal about Railway Rates. It was a burning grievance amongst agriculturists that they were
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  charged more for conveying their produce over English railways than were the foreign competitors. He knew that the right hon. Gentleman was a Director; and, on the principle that an old poacher made a good game-keeper, the right hon. Gentleman might know something of the dark and devious ways of the railway companies. Was there a single measure introduced by any Unionist for the protection of tenants' improvements before his Bill was read a second time, although it had been again and again stated in the country that the Tory party were the only friends of the tenant farmer? He read the report of the Agricultural Union which had assembled in one of the rooms upstairs. When on the subject of pure beer, one of the Members said:—
  "You must not talk of substitutes now in making beer, or you will offend the brewers."
  They used to he told that the Irish Party were the masters of the late Government; he hoped the masters of the Party opposite were not the brewers. Where was that remedy so often proclaimed, the reform of the currency? They had not heard much about that in the present Debate. There was another remedy, the duty on foreign barley. Where was that? Were they going to introduce that next year? They were told, too, that fair trade was the panacea for agricultural distress. Many advocated fair trade—protection in other words—as the cure for all the evils. But besides these remedies, there was another. He never could quite understand it, and he did not understand it yet. They were told that prosperity would come to the agricultural interest, owing to the confidence generated by the return of a Conservative Government. That seemed to be the latest phrase of the confidence trick. Why, wheat had gone down 2s. a quarter since the present Government came into office. He did not say they were responsible for it, but do not let them go about the country preaching that the return of a Conservative Government would alone bring a return of agricultural prosperity.
  MR. JASPER MORE> reminded the hon. Member who had just spoken, and others, that the late Government, after they were

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  returned to power in 1892, remained for six months without doing anything. He had been associated with Mr. Clare Sewell Read and Mr. Pell, who were Members for Norfolk and Leicester in 1865. The latter signalised himself by a great meeting against cattle plague, and the former was associated with him in the repeal of the Malt Tax. The hon. Member for East Northamptonshire would have set the other Members of the Royal Commission a better example if he had at once proceeded to the remedies. They had examined witness after witness, who said depression was owing to low prices and foreign competition. What remedy did they propose for that? As wheat and barley had not been mentioned, let them try if they could affect cereals without falling into any economic heresy. The first point he would suggest was, whether it might not be a convenient time now to carry out what the farmers of England had so long desired—namely, a uniform weight for corn. He had had the honour of being Chairman of a Committee which sat to consider that subject, and though some difficulty had been expressed in respect to the eastern counties, he had heard that Norfolk had changed its opinion on that subject, and he hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for East Norfolk might join in assisting the Government to do away with the barbarous system of maintaining about 200 different weights. With respect to the price of wheat, they had heard statements made in the House that the price was not regulated by the law of supply and demand, and that that law could be overridden by rings of speculators. He wished now to suggest, for the consideration of hon. Members and the Government, whether there would be any objection to England joining in the invitation of the representatives of the farmers of Germany, Belgium, and Hungary, in holding an inquiry together into the alleged manipulation of prices by rings of speculators. He understood that the Government were likely to consider the question of throwing more of the burden of the taxation on personal property. On that point he wished to make a suggestion. When he was first in the House he had the honour of presiding
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  over the first large meeting held on that subject in the town of Leicester, when the Royal Agricultural Society met there, and he then made the suggestion that it would be desirable to reprint the evidence of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, given on the subject before a Committee of the House of Lords which sat in 1850; and he would now urge that suggestion on the Government. He thought they might also, during the autumn, consider the evidence that had been laid before the House on the assistance given by Foreign Governments to light railways. As it was a private Committee which first set that question in motion, followed by an inquiry by the Board of Trade, he would suggest that that Committee should be reconstituted, with a view to giving the Government assistance in that direction. The farmers had, no doubt, had great influence in putting this Government into power. That he fully admitted, and he sincerely hoped that they would have no ground for disappointment. He remembered a celebrated speech of the late John Bright, in which he said he saw the dawning of better times for the nation and people he loved so well, and he believed that if they were sincere they might try this autumn to do something themselves to assist the Government in doing something for the farmers, in whom they were all so much interested.
  SIR W. WEDDERBURNsaid, he wished to associate himself with his hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire in urging the Government to state what they proposed to do for the crofters of the north-east of Scotland. The First Lord of the Treasury, speaking in the Debate on the Crofters' Bill last September, admitted very fully the claims of these industrious men to proper protection in their improvements. He thought this particular class had a special claim to consideration on the ground that their claim had already been recognised. Owing to the legislation begun in their behalf, these men had had their expectations raised more than any other class of the agricultural community. He believed that if the Opposition had allowed the Crofters' Act Amendment Bill to be referred to the Scotch Grand Committee last Session,

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  and if the Leader of the Opposition had given it his support in another place, these men would at this very moment have been enjoying the protection for their improvements which would be given by fair rents and fixity of tenure. He thought, therefore, that they had a particular claim on the Government of the present day; at any rate, they were entitled to know what it was proposed to do on their behalf. The only other point he wished to refer to was the remark of his hon. Friend the Seconder of the Amendment as to the farmers of the North East of Scotland being interested in the unrestricted importation of Canadian cattle. They were mostly breeders of cattle, and although they were perfectly prepared for free trade in cattle, they did not want free trade in disease. They were, therefore, strongly in favour of the enforcement of precautions against disease. They also did not wish to see free trade in fraud. They desired that it should not be possible for people to have an inferior kind of meat palmed off upon them, at an additional price, as prime Scotch. Those were the only two points with which he desired to trouble the House, and he would only make an appeal to the Government to state what they would do to protect the improvements of one of the most industrious classes in the country.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN,): This Debate has taken a somewhat peculiar line. Hon. Gentlemen opposite appear to me to have been occupying themselves much more in endeavouring to explain why they ought not to have been defeated at the General Election, and why the farmers ought to have been grateful to them for all they did for them in the last three years, instead of in making any practical suggestions for the future. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not think I should have risen to take any part in the Debate but for the speech of the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire. The hon. Member has adopted a peculiarly unusual course, and one which I hope will not be imitated in this House in the future. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman has referred to certain of the proceedings of
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  the Commission of which both he and I are Members. At one of the first meetings of that Commission it was decided that the sittings should not be open to the Press, and therefore, the proceedings were necessarily confidential. I have sat on many Commissions in the course of my life, and the course the hon. Member has pursued to-night is the gravest breach of propriety I ever recollect, not to attach any harsher name to it. [Hear, hear!]
  MR. CHANNING: The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps allow me to state that the Chairman of the Commission took exactly the same course in February last.
  MR. CHAPLIN: That is not an accurate statement. On that occasion, in consequence of certain statements about myself, made with equal impropriety, an attack was made upon me by the late Prime Minister in the House of Lords, and I was compelled to defend myself against untrue charges in the House of Commons. My object was simply to make a reply, the necessity for which I regretted, but which is forced upon me by the introduction of the name of Mr. Shaw Lefevre. The right hon. Gentleman spoke solely in reply to what I had said. The object of the hon. Member on this as on a former occasion has been to impute to me that I have been endeavouring to delay the proceedings of that Commission. On the former occasion, last winter, in this House, I answered the statements of the hon. Member, and absolutely refuted them; and if the hon. Member wished to do so, why did he not take the course that was open to him, and reply to me at once? It was because he knew well that he was powerless to do so. As to what happened last week, although I feel loth, even in self-defence, to follow the example of the hon. Member, I will say first that he has been sufficiently answered by the hon. Member for Swansea, who gave us most interesting information with regard to Wales, but complained that the Minister for Agriculture, in his speech of Friday last, made no reference to the condition of Wales. Well, Sir, at this moment we are examining Welsh witnesses, and the Welsh evidence is not completed, and if the motion made by the hon. Member last

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  week had been accepted by the Commission, we should have been quite unable to take further evidence.
  MR. CHANNING*MR. CHANNING rose to order. He understood the Speaker to have ruled that it was not competent to hon. Members to refer to the private proceedings of the Commission, and, therefore, he abstained from pursuing his own argument. Was the right hon. Gentleman in order in referring to a motion made in the Commission?
  MR. SPEAKER: I did not understand the right hon. Gentleman to do more than deny the statement which had escaped from the hon. Member before I interrupted him. I think the right hon. Member will be wrong in pursuing the matter further.
  MR. CHAPLIN: At all events, the course adopted by the hon. Member and others, in first making charges against hon. Members and then seeking to prevent replies to them, is one which, I hope, will not be imported into the Debates of this House. The hon. Member observed that he did not wish to prolong the Session; but he made a wandering speech of an hour, the object of which I was at a loss to understand, until near the close he let out that what hon. Gentlemen opposite want for the relief of agriculture is an Autumn Session, for which the House should meet in November. We are near September already, and, if Debates are to be conducted as they have been this evening, it seems uncommonly likely that we shall have an Autumn Session to get the Estimates of the year passed. I put it to hon. Members opposite, is it really a practical proposal that we are to have an Autumn Session for considering measures for the relief of agriculture and the distress from want of employment? Is there the slightest chance of its being accepted by the House or by the Leaders of the Opposition? If the House meets in November, we are to be expected to produce our measures. [Opposition cheers.] How is it possible for us to prepare them? We want a little time to prepare our measures. It is idle and ridiculous to suppose that we can produce them, as certain generals are said to have summoned armed men, by a stamp of the foot. We have been in office barely three weeks, whilst Gentlemen opposite had
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  been in power three years. Why should we be called upon to do in three weeks what they have not been able to do in three years? It is an unreasonable demand, and I do not think a single farmer will be hoodwinked by it. [Cheers.]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The speech which we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman is a singular comment upon the language which he and his hon. Friends have been holding throughout the country during the last three years. They have constantly imputed to the late Government that they were indifferent to the interests of agriculture, and that was a charge that was absolutely unfounded. The late Government never professed to be able to restore exceptional prosperity to the agricultural world by legislation; they left that to Gentlemen opposite, who declared that we did not understand the interests of agriculture and they did, and that, if they were only in our places, agriculture should be made prosperous at once. That was the language they held in this House and throughout the country. We made the contributions we were able to make towards the agricultural interest. ["Hear, hear!"] Gentlemen have denied these facts, but contrary to the truth. They know perfectly well that under the late Government the farmers were largely relieved in respect of income-tax. ["Hear, hear!"] They called upon us to make provision with reference to swine fever. Large sums were spent upon that head of agricultural distress. I wish I could say, from what I have learnt, that they had been more successful. Like many other remedies proposed, they have not had the results that they hoped and expected; but month after month and year after year Motions were made by Gentlemen who then sat on this side of the House calling on the Government to find remedies for agricultural distress. We ventured to ask these Gentlemen what they thought were remedies for agricultural distress. They said, "Only put us in Office and we will tell you at once." [Opposition laughter.] They are in office now and unable to tell us at once. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Give us time. We have only been a few weeks in office." But what had they been doing during the previous three years? I

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  supposed when they challenged us to bring forward measures they had some idea what were the measures they would bring forward, and now the right hon. Member for Sleaford, the President of the Local Government Board, wants time in order that he may consider what are the true remedies for agricultural distress and what are the measures which will restore agriculture to prosperity. I thought the right hon. Gentleman had the whole of his remedies at his fingers' ends. I thought his whole public life had been occupied in discovering what these remedies were and only desired an early opportunity to lay them on the table of the House of Commons. He wants six months to study the question of agricultural distress. He has had I do not know how many months on the Committee. I will not enter on the thorny subject of the Committee. At all events, I think I am betraying no secret when I say the right hon. Gentleman has not been extremely anxious to accelerate the conclusions of that Committee. Why? Because his education is not complete. [Laughter.] He wants the Report of the Committee. There are many subjects which the President of the Local Government Board has not yet studied. There is the question of rating as it affects the agricultural interest, and he wants six months more, perhaps twelve months, to enlighten him on the subject of the bearing of rates on the agricultural interest. He wants more information it appears on other subjects. Well, but how unreasonable it is that a right hon. Gentleman who is omniscient on agricultural distress wants so much time to inform himself what are the remedies for those disastrous evils, that for three years he denounced the late Government because they had not made up their minds, and has gone about denouncing them in the country because they did not discover themselves—what shall I call them?—remedies which he is not yet prepared to express an opinion upon himself! What is the position, and what are the expectations? We know the expectations the right hon. Gentleman has raised. What are the measures he is going to take to fulfil these expectations? We know these already. The Leader of the House
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  has told us that the first business of the Session is to be an Irish Land Act.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Not necessarily the first.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Well, but what becomes of Mr. Justice Bewley? [Cheers.] I am not going to expose myself to censure by commenting on the conduct of Mr. Justice Bewley? That is not the subject I desire to raise. But what is the position of the Government with reference to the confidential communication they have had with a Judge of the Supreme Court who is going to postpone all judgments in order that he may see what is the Land Act that is about to be produced for Ireland by the Government? It is rather a strong thing—what may be called a temporary suspension of justice. But at all events, when a responsible Government has entered into such a transaction with the Judicature of the realm the least they can do is to terminate that period of arranged suspension. Therefore, I take for granted that a Land Act which is to deal with evicted tenants in Ireland and judicial rents must be, from the very circumstances of the case, the first dish which the Government will offer to Parliament next year. Well, we have some experience of Irish Land Acts. They are not exactly "non-contentious measures"—[Laughter]—which lend themselves to brief procedure; and therefore, at all events, agricultural distress in England must wait until the Irish Land Act and other intricate problems have been settled. All this stands between the hopes of the agricultural interest in England and the fulfilment of the pledges the Government have given that agriculture is to be raised to its former prosperity at once? [Ministerial Cries of "Oh!"] But that is what you led the farmers to believe. [Cheers.] That is the language you have used, and those are the hopes you have raised in the agricultural interest; and when they are told you have not made up your minds, and that you want months to consider what are the remedies for all those evils, you may depend upon it they will say—
  "That is not what you told us in July. We thought you know all about it. We did not know you wanted a Commission to teach you

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  what to do. We did not know you would come down to the House of Commons and make excuses for not bringing forward your remedies; that you had not made up your minds, and were not able to draw a Bill to carry out the remedies you promised."
  ["No."] But that is the language you have held in the country. [An hon. MEMBER: "Name? Who held the language?"] You did. Go into the counties of England and ask who held the language.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I did not hold it.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I dare say it was not held at King's Lynn. [Laughter.]
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Mine is an agricultural constituency.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I dare say. [Laughter.] No doubt the hon. Member was not returned so much upon any broad political principle as on his personal merits. I think if this Debate has answered no other purpose it will at least have opened the eyes of the farmers to the meaning of those promises which have been held forth by hon. Members opposite. Hon. Members opposite know that before long their constituents will know that they have been led to expect things which no Government could perform. Hon. Members opposite demanded from the late Government that which they knew the late Government could not perform, and now they are in our places they know that they themselves cannot perform their own promises. ["Hear, hear!"] The Government know that a great part of the agricultural distress is due to economical causes, for which no Government is more responsible than it is for the bad seasons which have been so great an element in agricultural distress. ["Hear, hear!"] This Debate has brought the matter to the test, and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite who has always put himself forward as the great advocate for and export in agricultural remedies for agricultural distress will make farmers understand how hollow are the pretences by which they were deceived. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY,who, on rising, was received with loud cheers, said,—There is no better debater than the right hon. Gentleman [cheers and counter cheers] when he is left not only to construct the reply but also to set forth the arguments against
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  which the reply is to be made [Cheers and laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman avails himself largely of those great imaginative gifts which enable him to put into the mouths of his opponents not what they have ever said, but what he chooses to think it convenient for Parliamentary or popular purposes to put into their mouths. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman had the courage to tell the House that every hon. Gentleman on this side has spent the last six weeks in assuring the farmers of this country that, if the Unionist Government were returned to power, agriculture would be restored to prosperity. ["Oh, oh!"] I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman was sufficiently occupied during those six weeks [cheers and laughter] in inventing fictions for himself [cheers and laughter] without gratuitously crediting his opponents with inventions for which they were never responsible. [Cheers and laughter.] As the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to say that everybody has made these statements, I should like to recall his attention to a speech which, from the occasion on which it was delivered and from the person who delivered it, should have some authority—namely, the speech of the present Prime Minister in the House of Lords on the very eve of the Election; and the criticism made upon it was that it made very scanty promises as to the effects which could be produced on the present state of English agriculture by any legislative action which this House could take. The language used by the Prime Minister on that occasion I myself have systematically used.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman was not standing for a county.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I am speaking on behalf of hon. Members who have stood for counties with a considerable measure of success. [Cheers.] I venture to say that the speeches delivered by Conservative candidates in the counties were as faithful a reflection of the general view of the Leader of the Unionist Party as—I will not say the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite were of the reflections and views of their Leaders—but as those speeches were the reflections of what ought to be the sober utterances of

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  any Leader. ["Hear, hear!"] I am not here to say that rash utterances, rash statements have not been made by hon. Members on this side of the House. I am not going to apportion praise and blame on this matter, but I boldly say that my hon. Friends have not made louder professions of their desire to see the agricultural interest raised than have hon. Members opposite, and the professions of the Unionist Party are much more likely to be followed by performance. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by a survey of what he and his Government have done for the farmer. That survey came to a rapid and untimely termination—it was finished almost in a sentence. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman said that he had made great reductions in the income-tax which farmers had to pay. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman raised the limit of exemption from £400 to £500, but, on the other hand, his Government put 2d. in the pound upon everybody above £500. [Cheers.] I confess that were I an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer claiming credit for benefits conferred upon the agricultural interest, I should not have alluded to the income-tax as a special boon to farmers. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman was very indignant with the President of the Local Government Board for having suggested that the Government might require time to prepare legislation which they intended to lay before Parliament. He said, "Tell us at once what you propose. You had all these years to consider it. Why are you not ready with your programme? "But it is one thing, as nobody knows better than the right hon. Gentleman, to be assured of the general principles upon which one means to carry out legislation, and another thing to prepare carefully with the aid of departmental advice and with the assistance of draughtsmen, measures which will stand the criticism of Parliament and will be calculated to carry out the objects the farmers have in view. ["Hear, hear!"] May I compare the action of the present Government and that of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was so distinguished an ornament? He also came into power in the month of August. He also repudiated an Autumn Session. He also deferred till
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  January or February calling Parliament together to discuss the measures which he and his Party desired to pass into Law. Were those measures, or the principal ones, so novel or strange in their character that they required six months of careful preparation? ["Hear, hear!"] Why, Sir, the main measure which the Government had in view was the Home Rule Bill. It had been brought into this House before; it had been discussed before in this House, the whole skill of the Government draftsmen had been expended upon it; and every clause of it might have been known. But so far from the fact that they had had six years to chew the cud over their intended measures being regarded by them as a reason for an Autumn Session, they deferred till the latest moment the privilege of laying their Bill before a grateful country. [Cheers and laughter.] Do not let us be told that the position of agriculture is pressing and that the position of Ireland was not pressing. All the speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman and his friends pointed to the fact that, in their opinion, without Home Rule the government of Ireland was impossible. Were you going to defer unnecessarily and gratuitously for six months the good government of Ireland, knowing that without Home Rule good government in Ireland could not be produced? Were you going to leave the legislative joys with which we are apt to be provided within these walls, while you sought a brief autumn holiday in Scotland or elsewhere? [Cheers and laughter.] No, Sir; we ask no more for this Government than has been accorded to every Government which has come into existence under conditions similar to those under which this Government won the Election just completed. The precedent of 1886, the precedent of 1892, alike confirm us in the idea that it would be putting a most unreasonable demand upon any Party and upon any Government to ask them at a moment to frame great measures, to bring them in, and to pass them through Parliament. That task is impossible, and it ought not to be demanded of any Government, and, if demanded, no Government could possibly fulfil the promises of reforms that might be made by them. The last thing I expected this evening was to intervene in an agricultural Debate, but apparently

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  the right hon. Gentleman opposite could not forego the opportunity of trying, even at this late hour, to convince the farmers of England that their true friends are to be found amongst the supporters of the Party behind him. But one phrase which the right hon. Gentleman uttered during, I think, the Debate on the Address last Session will not be easily forgotten, and the meaning of that utterance every farmer in the land is capable of understanding, He said that one factor in the social prosperity in England was the reduction of agricultural prices.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I never said that, nor anything like it. I said that I did not think that, as a general principle, the low prices or the cheapness of agricultural produce were an evil to the community. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think that if the right hon. Gentleman will refer to the authentic records he will find that in an unfortunate moment, he appealed, not to the agricultural community but to the urban community, which he thought was deeply interested in the low prices of agricultural items. [Cheers.] I tell him that the party which holds that view, and which finds the right hon. Gentleman gifted with the power of epigrammatically expressing that view, is not ever likely to be considered by the fanners of this country as the party upon whom they can rely. [Cheers.]
  MR. LOGANremarked that the Liberal Party never said that they possessed any scheme as a solution for agricultural depression. But, during the past three years, the party opposite had never wearied of pressing the late Government to bring forward a scheme which should be a panacea for the agricultural distress under which the country was suffering, and they would hardly have clamoured for that remedy unless they believed that such a remedy existed. Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House did not fully realise what was the greatest burden on agriculture in this country. The right hon. Gentleman who spoke on behalf of the Government, the President of the Board of Agriculture (Mr. Walter Long) said that when the proper time arrived he would be prepared with the proposed measures calculated to
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  remove agricultural distress, but he gathered from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks that the relief that he proposed Was to shift the burden of the rates, which were now nominally paid by the farmer, but were in reality paid by the landowner, from the shoulders of the farmer on to the shoulders of the general public. [Cheers.] He could only hope that the holders of house property in our towns and rural districts would be satisfied with such an arrangement, and he hoped that they would cheerfully pay that price which they would be called on to pay for the blessings of a Conservative or Unionist Government. ["Hear, hear!"] But he would go further, and would endeavour to show the farmers of this country in whose interest it was that the proposed alteration was suggested. He hoped that the farmers would remember, in the words of the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. H. Chaplin, Lincolnshire, Sleaford), that the effect on the owners was that if the rates were high they got less rent, and if they were low they got more rent, and the right hon. Gentleman maintained that it would not be difficult to show that ultimately the whole burden of the rates fell on the landowner and on nobody else. The greatest burden upon land was not the burden of rates but of rent. [Cheers.] The average rate per acre on the land of Great Britain to-day was not much more than 3s., whereas the average rental paid for agricultural land was 28s. per acre. [Cries of "No!"] According to the last income-tax return no less than £47,000,000 was paid by the farmers for the land, whereas the amount they were called upon to pay in rates did not exceed £5,000,000.
  MR. MORE: That is including land near towns.
  MR. LOGANsaid that was not so; the land was all agricultural. The Member for the West Derby division of Liverpool had said that he would see if it was not possible to relieve these burdens which pressed so heavily on agricultural land. It was very possible to do so, but he ventured to tell the farmers of this country that it was highly improbable that the present Government would do so. It was positively wicked to misdirect the attention of the farmer, and while ignoring the heavy burden of 28s. per acre rental,

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  which was weighing him down, and causing starvation to-day in thousands of agricultural labourers' homes, to call his attention to the light burden of the 3s. rate. They were told on all sides that to such a state was the condition of agriculture reduced that we were within measurable distance of a national calamity, and that, despite the fact that we had some of the very best land in the world, farmed by a race of men second to none, and surrounded by a dense and hungry population. It was not to be wondered at that foreigners living 10,000 or 12,000 miles away could undersell our own farmers when they remembered that land in the Argentine Republic could be obtained for about 2s. 6d. an acre. The farmer in this country would have to reduce his outgoings, and it was high time that some drastic remedy was applied. They had no reason whatever to anticipate any falling off in the competion from abroad, which would be keener in the future. After all it was not the foreigner who beat us, but our own kith and kin, for it was in English ships, provided by English enterprise, that the produce which competed with our own was brought to this country. The Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool was perfectly right, our men could not compete, but it was because the burdens on our land were too heavy. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite could propose a practical measure, a reduction in the rents, so that the farmers might be encouraged to stay upon the land. He held no brief for the farmers of this country, he looked at the matter from the agricultural labourers' point of view. Under the present system under which our land was farmed, all the best men were leaving our rural districts. Men would not stay upon the land to work for the miserable wages which farmers could pay. It was true that with that miserable wage the labourers were better off than they used to be, but that was because the purchasing power of money was now so much greater than formerly. But with education had come higher ideals of health and comfort, and nobler aspirations and hopes, and the men and women in rural districts were content no longer to live under the miserable conditions of old. He regarded
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  this question not only from the agricultural labourers' point of view, but also from the national point of view. The question of putting the land to its best use and getting from it the most it was capable of producing, vitally affected the interests of every man, woman and child in the community, and he looked forward hopefully to the day when the community would assert its right to participation in the management of the land of the country. He deplored the fact that they had received no guidance from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, who during the late General Election made the whole country ring with their claims to be considered the special friends of the farmer and labourer. Their promises to give immediate attention to agricultural matters would not be forgotten by the too-confiding villagers.
  MAJOR F. C. RASCHwished to reply to the attack made upon him by the hon. Member for the South Moulton Division, and to say that he was absolutely consistent in voting for an Amendment like this six months ago, and in voting against it now. The hon. Member was quite correct when he said that he (Major Rasch) moved the adjournment of the House in order to call attention to the depression of agriculture, and the hon. Member would have been equally correct if he had added that he had opposed that and other Motions on the same subject. He had brought facts bearing on the question of the state of agriculture to the notice of the Government on Thursday last, and as a consequence the Board of Agriculture had sent an inspector into Essex to inquire and report. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire seemed to have the subject of rent upon the brain. The hon. Member had made a speech of a precisely similar character in February last. He could assure the hon. Member that it was no longer a question of rent. He had himself let a farm the other day rent free and tithe free. The thing to strive for was to prevent land from becoming derelict and going out of cultivation. He congratulated hon. Members opposite on the enlightened interest which they had taken that night in the agricultural labourer, but he regretted that they did not show the same interest when they sat on the right of the Chair. It was true that when he

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  and his Friends were in opposition they voted for amendments like that of the hon. Member for East Norfolk; but why did they do so? Because they could get no encouragement whatever from the late Government, who turned a deaf ear when appealed to on behalf of the agriculturists. Some two years ago he asked the late Chancellor of the Exchequer what he proposed to do in connection with the distress in agricultural districts, and the right hon. Gentleman replied: "Wait until the Parish Councils are developed, see what they will do for you." Then, by his Budget in 1894, the right hon. Gentleman did his best to crush the interests connected with land. The late Minister for Agriculture was asked in the Cattle Show week to do something for farmers, and all he could say was: "You should study botany, and strive after super-excellence." Lord Kimberley said that the farmers were to expect nothing from the Liberal Government. In fact the agricultural community asked for bread and were given a stone. But now very different declarations were made. The present Secretary of State for the Colonies had announced in Lancashire that agriculture was to receive the immediate attention of the Government The President of the Board of Agriculture, himself an expert and practical farmer, had said precisely the same thing The Leader of the House also had stated that agriculture would receive the attention which it deserved. Having these assurances from the Government, how could they vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Norfolk? He should like to refer for a moment to the extraordinary speech of the Seconder of the Amendment on Friday night. The hon. Member appeared to be desirous of reintroducing pleuro-pneumonia into this country. It used to be said that the only thing the Radical Government did for agriculture was to reintroduce foot-and-mouth disease, which cost the country several millions of money; and now the Seconder of the Amendment appeared to wish to do much the same thing The hon. Gentleman must have considered that he was addressing an audience of his own constituents on the subject of anti-vaccination and contagious disease, for that was a subject of great interest to the borough he represented. He thought that he had now made out his
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  point, which was this, that he was equally consistent in voting for the Amendment six months ago, and in voting against it that night.
  MR. STRACHEYsaid, that what was done by the late Government with regard to the Income Tax was to put the assessment of the English farmers on the same basis as that of the Scotch and Irish farmers, and not only to raise the limit of exemption, as the first Lord of the Treasury seemed to suppose. Now, in regard to this question of agricultural distress, he had no wish unfairly or unduly to press on Her Majesty's Government that they should deal with it immediately. He was fully aware that it was a great and a difficult question, but the Government might have given the House some stronger assurance that they intended to legislate upon it. Though it might be impossible to deal with such a large subject this Session, yet those who represented agricultural constituencies had some reason to complain that the Government had not given a definite assurance in explicit terms, to the suffering agricultural classes, that the first Bill to be considered next Session should be one for the relief of agriculture. At least, if they could not give an Autumn Session to consider the matter, they might state that the first measure of importance next Session should be one dealing with an agricultural question, such as the great subject of local taxation, which now weighed as a great burden on the land. He ventured to hope, therefore, that before the Debate closed, the Government would declare, in plain terms, not merely that it was their intention to deal with the question some time or another during the present Parliament, but that next Session should be practically an Agricultural Session, and that the first measure of great importance introduced by them should be one affecting the agricultural interests of the country.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 105; Noes, 236.—(Division List No. 8.)
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid, that considerable responsibility was incurred by a private Member who presumed to move an Amendment to the Address,

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  but he thought he was justified by the importance and urgency of the question which he desired to bring before the House, in moving the Amendment of which he had given notice. During the recent Election the promises of better employment and of higher wages were made by Gentlemen opposite with a recklessness which had never been surpassed, and with a unanimity which suggested a common plan of campaign emanating from a central office. The Secretary for India, in a speech delivered at Ealing, advised the supporters of the Government not to put their expectations too high. But the date of that speech was significant—it was the 2nd of August. Delivered when all the elections were practically over, he could only regard it as a masterpiece of humour, the possession of which by the noble Lord they had hardly suspected. The bills and cheques which were drawn so lavishly by hon. Gentlemen opposite had already been presented for payment to responsible Members of the Crown, and they had been returned with the endorsement which was not altogether unknown in other relations, "Refer to Drawer." The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said the Government could only recognise promises made by persons who were authorised to speak on their behalf. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman opposite said "hear, hear." He scarcely thought that would be good enough for the constituencies. If the promises were not fulfilled the result would be visited upon hon. Members. However, he was quite willing to take up the challenge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and confine himself to declarations made by Gentlemen occupying high positions in the councils of the Government. The Secretary for the Colonies, describing the policy of his party, said:—
  "Legislation will improve trade, legislation will increase employment, and legislation will tend to sustain and even to increase wages."
  The right hon. Gentleman had said in the House of Commons that British industry was being destroyed, and that the ranks of the unemployed were being recruited, owing to the importation into this country of goods made in foreign prisons. The Secretary for the Colonies said this was a question of supreme political importance, and he proceeded to attack the then President of the
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  Board of Trade in a style which was almost truculent for so mild-mannered a man. The late President of the Board of Trade, replying to the right hon. Gentleman, said his officials could not distinguish between a brush made in a foreign prison and a brush made elsewhere. The Secretary for the Colonies said, in effect, that that was all nonsense. "Let the President of the Board of Trade resign," said the right hon. Gentleman:—
  "We will find him a policy, but we are not going to lend him our prescription while he takes the fees."
  The right hon. Gentleman and his immediate dependents now took the fees to the tune of £9,000. He therefore asked the right hon. Gentleman what was the prescription? Were the Government going to exclude from our shores goods made in foreign prisons? But they knew the Government were not going to take that course, for during the present Session no legislation was to be proposed, and British industry, if the words of the right hon. Gentleman were to be believed, was to continue to be destroyed. Again, the gravity of the unemployed problem and the extreme urgency of the question had been painted by the Prime Minister himself in the most lurid colours, in a speech delivered on May 22nd last at Bradford. In that speech Lord Salisbury declared that they could not say that their consciences as Statesmen and politicians were discharged if they did not attempt, at all events, to solve the problem with the utmost despatch. The speech produced a great effect at Bradford, as no doubt it was intended and calculated to do. The Unionists swept Bradford; they captured all its seats. The bill had been already presented to Lord Salisbury for payment. A memorial, signed by the heads of University Settlements in London—persons, as they themselves declared, engaged in the social service of the poor of London, and belonging to different political parties—was presented to the Prime Minister, expressing the pleasure with which they had observed his speech at Bradford, and hoping that the exigencies of party conflicts, of the ordinary Government routine, would not delay the attempt to solve the problem of the unemployed on the earliest possible occasion. What was the reply of Lord

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  Salisbury to that memorial? "His lordship will give careful consideration to the views expressed in the memorial." why, the only views expressed in the memorial were Lord Salisbury's own views uttered at Bradford on the eve of the General Election, by the utterance of which he had secured seats there and throughout the country. He would have thought that the pitifulness of the problem would have saved it from being made the butt of Lord Salisbury's habitual cynicisn. The late Prime Minister also dealt with the question. In his speech at the Albert Hall, London, on July 5th, Lord Rosebery said:—
  "The question of the enemployed is clamant in London, in Glasgow, and in all the great towns of tile United Kingdom; and we did not scruple to interrupt the business of Parliament to appoint a committee to inquire into it."
  And then Lord Rosebery proceeded to say:—
  "We should not have hesitated, had we remained in office, to have interrupted the business of the House of Commons again to ask the House of Commons to consider the recommendations of that Committee."
  He had quoted two Prime Ministers, both of whom had recognised, not only the importance, but the urgency of this question. He would now refer to the Committee on the Unemployed, which made an interim report expressly in order that immediate action might be taken. Their Report stated:—
  ''These particular points may affect the condition of matters, if next winter presents a renewal of the distress which prevailed this year, and on which the Committee have, therefore, felt it right to make recommendations which may be of immediate use."
  The first recommendation of the Committee was concerned with the present state of the law, the injustice of which was strongly impressed upon everybody last winter. At present, the receipt of the slightest public aid in the most exceptional circumstances disfranchised the recipient, even though he gave labour in exchange for the aid. From a return presented to the House, it appeared that during January and February in the present year, in certain selected unions, 14,832 men worked on a labour test, and were thereby rendered incapable of voting for 12 months. An utterly untenable distinction was made between the man who was forced by exceptional distress to have recourse to public relief,
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  and the holder of a political pension, who might not only vote, but might sit in the House of Commons.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is hardly speaking to the Amendment.
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid that, if he were permitted, he would show, by reference to the Report of the Committee, that this question of the Franchise was very pertinent to the Amendment.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON rose to a point of Order. He said that, at the sittings of the Committee, the question of the Franchise was only brought up at the last moment, and was never really thrashed out.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, Order! The hon. Member is only entitled to interrupt on a point of Order.
  MR. PICKERSGILL,continuing, said that this was not merely a political question; it had a close connection with the question of relief. That was the point of view from which the first recommendation of the Committee was made. The Report said:—
  "It is represented to your Committee that this (disfranchising) provision frequently prevents deserving men, who have been, through no fault of their own, temporarily thrown out of work, from seeking any relief, thus inflicting a great hardship upon them… In cases of exceptional distress, your Committee do not see why it should be difficult to discriminate between deserving men forced to claim aid, and the ordinary claimant for parish relief. Your Committee recommend that you would be wise to except the former class from disability in respect of the Franchise, local or Parliamentary."
  The second recommendation of the Committee was this:—
  "Your Committee desire to point out that there exist statutory powers under which Boards of Guardians may set poor persons to work for wages; but that such powers cannot be used until rules are made, by the Local Government Board. Your committee think that the Local Government Board should consider the applications for such powers, and make rules for the use of Guardians in relation thereto."
  When this question was last before the House, strong opinions were expressed on both sides of the House in favour of allowing Boards of Guardians a certain latitude in order to make social experiments. The present Vice President of the Council spoke very strongly and admirably in that sense; but the Local Government Board had no sympathy with these experiments. It threw every obstacle in the way of Boards

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  of Guardians wishing to try such experiments; and if these Boards were pertinacious, the Local Government Board finally vetoed their schemes. In the Appendix to the Report would be found a statement forwarded to the Committee by the Guardians of Milden-hall. The Guardians hired a piece of land to be cultivated by spade husbandry, and men were employed. The Local Government Board declined to sanction the arrangement because they said the Guardians had exceeded their power. Again, the Poplar Board of Guardians had been energetic in devising schemes for the relief of the unemployed. They worked out in detail a plan for the establishment of a farm colony for the unemployed which was submitted for approval to the Local Government Board. But the scheme was vetoed, because it was said that it did not satisfy the words of the Act, which required that the land should be near to the Unions. They also said that the land proposed to be hired was in excess of the statutory maximum. In fact the Local Government Board was unsympathetic in its attitude, and it was necessary that the House should take action to bring pressure to bear on the Department. The third recommendation applied exclusively to London. It embodied the proposals which, early in the year, he submitted to the last Parliament. The scheme provided for the central direction of works to be carried out by the Vestry instead of by the Guardians, and it provided for the expense being largely defrayed out of funds levied equally on the whole of the Metropolis. Though those recommendations did not solve the unemployed problem they tended to mitigate distress, and it was only fair to suppose that when Lord Salisbury used at Bradford the language he had quoted, he meant something. Now that he had come into power with an overwhelming majority at his back, the Prime Minister was bound to do some thing at once.
  MR. T. LOUGHseconded the amendment. Owing to the efforts of the Committee appointed to consider the question of distress arising from want of employment, reports had been received from 1,514 different localities throughout Great Britain. These had a population of 26½ millions. From 920 districts with a population of 10 millions, the Committee received answers saying that
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  there was no exceptional distress last winter. He rejoiced in that as much as any hon. Member opposite, but from 475 districts, with a population of no less than 12 millions, the Committee received a report that very severe distress arising from the bad weather had prevailed. From 178 different localities with a population of 4¼ millions, the reports were that there was very considerable distress, not only owing to the severe weather, but also owing to bad trade. He said that, with facts of this kind before the House, it was impossible for any man to say that the subject was not worth the attention of the Government. There was no Member there who represented a London constituency who did not constantly hear of the suffering of men whom they knew from want of employment. He might read an extract from a letter written by a man whom he knew and could trust. The letter was dated August 11th, and it stated that the writer—
  "was dismissed from his employment on the 8th of April. He had tried his utmost to get work, but all in vain. His wife was an invalid, and two little girls were depending upon him. On Saturday night last he was threatened with ejectment because he was unable to pay three weeks' rent, whereas he had hardly money for bread. I do not ask for charity, it is work I want, and then we shall soon get on square again."
  Those on the other side of the House were just as familiar with such appeals as he was, and all must admit that they had got a very serious evil to deal with. Towards this evil they must adopt one of two attitudes. They could let it severely alone, or they could try to grapple with it. It is quite impossible at this hour of the day to let this difficulty of the unemployed alone. He need not refer to the remarks of the Prime Minister. Every just and right feeling man would realise that something ought to be done to make an honest effort to deal with it. If they adopted the second alternative and try to grapple with it, the question arose, in what spirit should they grapple with it? It was said it was impossible to grapple with it unless they went down to the roots of their social system. He did not take that exaggerated view. They need not exaggerate. The only danger that they could fall into was the danger of neglecting the evil altogether. After listening to all that was said in the last

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  Parliament, he had come to the conclusion that it was not necessary to put the unemployed at more than 1in 15 of the population. It was quits worth while for the other 14, for their own sake and for their own happiness, to put the thing on no higher ground, to try to do something to meet this difficulty. They were asked what was the cause of want of employment? The cause was not far to seek. A great number of trades had sprung up in the country. Some were prosperous and some were in decay, and thus workmen were thrown out of employment, owing to the fluctuations which took place. The great thing that they ought to do was, when difficulties arose, to afford temporary aid so as to help the sufferers over their suffering. How could that temporary aid be given? He did not advocate any gigantic cure, but while they could not do anything drastic, a great, a fearful responsibility rested on them if they did not try to mitigate these temporary difficulties. Recommendations had been made by the Committee. They were entirely of a non-Party character. There were three recommendations, and two of them could be carried out without any legislation whatever, and the other by a very small Act. The Committee recognised that the principle of using the present local authorities was at the bottom of the question, and their first suggestion was that the local authorities should have power to employ the poor for wages. They could not do that unless rules were issued by the Local Government Board enabling them to do so, and he now asked the President of the Local Government Board to issue the necessary rules before the hard weather came in again. He looked with the greatest interest on the visit paid by the right hon. Gentleman to the East End of London a short time since. It was a good and kindly thing for him to go into that poor locality, and he only wished that the Heads of Departments acted more frequently in that way. Encouraged by the sympathy which the right hon. Gentleman had already, and not for the first time, displayed, he asked him to promise to issue these rules as soon as possible. The second suggestion of the Committee was that connected with the Franchise. He would not go into that beyond saying that the object of that recommendation seemed to be
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  misunderstood on the other side of the House. The only object the Committee had in view was to be practical. The First Lord of the Treasury had said that there might be no opportunity of voting during the winter. There might not, but, unfortunately, some men took such an honest pride in the power to exercise the Franchise that they would not accept relief. That was the basis on which the Committee founded their recommendation. Some men, perhaps too sensitive, would rather endure the sorest trials, than part with their Franchise even for a little time. Therefore, why should not this practical difficulty be swept away. This matter had a remarkable history. It was the Parliament of Canada that suggested to the House of Commons, in 1879 or 1880, that this Rule of Parliament, depriving people who received relief of the Franchise, should be departed from in Ireland, and that hint was adopted in Ireland by both political parties, at all events, for a time. Since then, in 1885, the principle had been adopted in Great Britain, so far as medical relief was concerned. The First Lord of the Treasury said that this was a contentious matter, but if the right hon. Gentleman insisted on that, why should not the other two recommendation be carried out. The third recommendation was one which would be found useful in London, because it would allow Boards of Guardians to combine with sanitary authorities in giving relief when distress arises. In the boroughs the Elections were fought more than anything else on this question of the unemployed. In Chelsea a placard was extensively posted which said, "if you want plenty of work, good wages, and freedom of contract, vote for Whitmore to-day." [Ministerial cheers.] Such Bills were not local to Chelsea, and it was in accordance with the plan on which Elections were fought everywhere. Were hon. Members opposite trifling with starving men? He did not blame them for fighting the Election on this question; it was to their honour to do it if they could do something for the working men, but to come into power on this pledge and then to do nothing would be a most dishonourable thing. He would rather be a Member of a defeated minority which spoke truthfully and cautiously on this difficult matter—[Ministerial laughter]—than of a large majority, which made these pledges and took the

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  first opportunity of repudiating them. [Opposition cheers].
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, the tone of the close of the hon. Member's speech differed from that of the opening; and he would rather refer to the earlier portion of it than to the later. All Members wherever they sat would agree with him, when he said it was their duty to do all that lay in their power to lighten and soften the lot of those who were suffering distress from want of employment. It was not only their duty, but it was one they would be anxious to perform; and, as far as the Government were concerned, there was no duty they would more earnestly seek to discharge. He could not congratulate the Mover of the Amendment upon the happy selection of the topics with which he commenced his remarks. He asked whether the Government were going to fulfil the promises they made, and would exclude at once, peremptorily if need be, the importation of prison-made brushes. When his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sheffield moved a Resolution on the subject the late Government refused to accept it, and tried to count out the House upon it. Beaten in both these attempts, they accepted it without daring to go to a Division. There they left it, and attempted nothing. Now that the hon. Gentleman challenged him, he had not the slightest objection to tell him what the Government had done already. The President of the Board of Trade had been in communication with the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who had communicated with foreign Governments, pressing upon them the views of the English Government, and doing everything that could legitimately be done to arrive at a common understanding on the point.
  MR. LOUGHasked if papers on the subject would be presented as soon as possible?
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, that if the hon. Member would give the President of the Board of Trade notice of the question it would be answered. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment was not much more happy in the terms of his Amendment than in his speech. The Amendment was not only unreasonable but inaccurate. The statement of the First Lord of the Treasury with regard to the unemployed ought to have shown the
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  hon. Member that his Amendment was inaccurate. He had stated that he was prepared to take steps to reappoint the Committee sitting on the question, whose labours and inquiries by their own avowal were absolutely incomplete. At the request of his right hon. Friend he had asked the Chairman of the Committee, a distinguished Member of the late Administration, whether any good purpose would be served by the immediate reappointment of the Committee, and whether he was willing to be again Chairman. The Government felt that they had already taken steps in this matter, and that they had given, pledges to deal with the subject, and yet the hon. Member opposite had placed upon the Paper an Amendment which indicated that the Government had not taken any steps whatever in the matter. The Government, on the contrary, had already; done all they possibly could towards dealing with the question. The Amendment was nothing more nor less than a Vote of Censure upon the Government. The Government had been in power barely for a month, and had only had a few days in which to consider the numerous very important questions which had been suddenly brought before them, and to master the details of the various Departments, and it was scarcely fair to call upon them at the present moment to announce their policy upon all these various questions at a moment's notice. It was quite true that the question of the unemployed was one of the most grave character, and demanded the most careful deliberation on the part of the Government before submitting proposals for dealing with it to Parliament. It was a question which appealed most deeply to the sympathy and to the warmest sentiments of hon. Members, because nothing could be more deplorable than the suffering caused to men, women, and children by want of employment, which was brought about over and over again through no fault of their own. If the hon. Gentleman thought that Her Majesty's Government were insensible to that suffering he did them a bitter wrong. [Cheers.] He himself recognised that there could be no higher aim to which Statesmanship could be devoted than to bring about if possible some material change which might diminish that suffering. ["Hear, hear!"] For

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  his own part he was ready to welcome any proposals for giving relief to these unfortunate and unhappy people if they could be carried out legitimately. The hon. Member had put a question with regard to the recommendations of the Committee which had recently been silting. There were three main recommendations of the Committee, but there was among them only one that did not require legislation to give it effect, and therefore that was the only one with which he need trouble himself at the present moment. That was a proposal which would have the effect of enabling Guardians to give relief in the form of employment for wages, and it was stated that this was impossible until regulations on the subject had been made by the Local Government Board. That statement, he believed, and he was advised, was not altogether accurate. It was not necessary that those regulations should be made beforehand. The powers which the Local Government Board had and would have to exercise were limiting and controlling powers, and were not empowering. The effect of these Acts, which had been obsolete for 50 years, might have been put into operation without the consent of the Local Government Board, although, no doubt, some controlling regulations in a particular case would have to be passed afterwards. He was, however, bound to add that this opened up a question of the gravest character. It would be an entire and complete departure from the principles by which the Poor Law and its principles had been guided for at least 50 years—[Radical cheers]; and so serious was this considered by the predecessors of the present Government that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolver-hampton (Sir H. Fowler), the late Secretary for India and, previously, President of the Local Government Board, stated that the question whether so grave a change in the policy of the Poor Law was desirable, and, if so, whether it should be made without legislative authority, were matters on which he could not express an opinion without the sanction of his colleagues. If that was the opinion of a gentleman who had enjoyed the advantage of being in the Government for some years, he thought he had not been treated fairly in being called upon to express an opinion after being a Member of the Government for
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  only one month. ["Hear, hear!"] With regard to the scheme which had been submitted to the Local Government Board and vetoed by them, that was a proposal by the Poplar Union to purchase 280 acres of land at a village in Essex, and it was vetoed by the Local Government Board, because they would have been exceeding their powers and going beyond the law if they had given their consent to the proposal. In order to show that the Government was not unreasonable, and desired to help those who needed relief, he would like to point out what was the kind of proposal that was made, and to ask the hon. Member if he thought it an altogether reasonable one. It was a proposal to purchase some 280 acres of land, the value of which was less than £11 an acre; from the best information he could obtain, to farm this land regardless of all expense would have entailed the labour of seven men and two boys. The guardians proposed to erect a building, the cost of which would have been £14,000, for 100 single men and 50 married couples. How these people would have been employed on the land he had never been able accurately to ascertain. Objections were raised to this proposal by the trustees of the Poplar parish and on behalf of the village and the neighbourhood where it was proposed to carry out this scheme. He should be perfectly ready to consider; any reasonable scheme, but he would; not have been unreasonable, even if it had been within his legal powers—which it was not—in rejecting such a scheme as this. Before it was possible to issue the regulations recommended by the Committee, they must know, he thought, the cases with which they had to deal. Those regulations would have to be made in each case as the scheme was proposed, and he could assure the Seconder of the Amendment that whenever a scheme of that description was placed before him it should have the most unbiassed and careful consideration on his part. With regard to removing the stigma of disfranchisement, as his right hon. Friend had already pointed out, that was not a question which they need consider on that occasion. It required legislation in the first place, and no cases, he understood, could arise before Parliament met again which legislation would in any way affect.

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  With reference to the quotation made by the Mover of the Amendment, from Lord Salisbury's speech at Bradford, which the hon. Member claimed was strongly in support of the views he advocated, he thought the hon. Member had misled himself and others by quoting one or two paragraphs entirely without the context. ["Hear, hear!"] What Lord Salisbury was doing on that occasion was to contrast the policy which he favoured himself with that which Her Majesty's Government were then pursuing. His words were:—
  "If you perpetually deal in large organic questions which cannot be settled; if you perpetually raise controversies by which class is Set against class and creed against creed, all those things on which the daily life and welfare and happiness of the people depend, must be neglected and fall into the background."
  ["Hear, hear!"] Having made that statement, Lord Salisbury went on to reinforce his argument by the words which the hon. Member had quoted. That speech was absolutely consistent with the attitude which the Government had assumed in the country, and with the attitude which they were holding towards the House of Commons that night. ["Hear, hear!"] In conclusion, he would promise the hon. Member who had seconded the Amendment—for whose kind references to himself he was very grateful—that any scheme that held out the smallest possibility of giving relief to the unemployed from the distress from which unhappily so many of them were suffering at present, would receive at all times his warmest and most sympathetic consideration, and if by any means it should be possible for him during his tenure of office to do anything in the way of real material help of their interests and requirements, no one would be more pleased or more thankful than himself. [Cheers.]
  CAPTAIN NORTON CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.) moved the Adjournment of the Debate, saying that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman had raised many themes admitting of controversy, and that it was now late to discuss them adequately.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that he did not think the Motion should be put. The House had passed a Resolution suspending the Twelve o'clock Rule, and he thought it would be an abuse to the Rules of the House if at that hour he were to accept
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  a Motion for the Adjournment of the Debate. ["Hear, hear"!]
  MR. KEARLEYreminded the Leader of the House that he had said that the power of prolonging the Debate beyond Twelve o'clock, would not be unduly taken advantage of.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that he was very unwilling to prolong the sitting unduly, but if the Debate were not disposed of that night, Supply could not be set up for to-morrow, and there would consequently be a serious loss of time.
  MR. DALZIELsaid hon. Members on both sides of the House would recognise the spirit of the appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman. At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman would doubtless acknowledge that the subject which had been brought before the House under the present Amendment was one of the most important questions that could possibly occupy the attention of Parliament at the present time. He would also admit, no doubt, that if there was one question which, more than another, occupied the attention of the constituencies, it was certainly that of the unemployed.
  MR. STUART MR. STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton) rose to a point of order. Was there any question before the House?
  MR. SPEAKER: Yes, the question of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green.
  MR. DALZIELthought his hon. Friend, with his Parliamentary experience, ought to have known what was the question before the House. He desired to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury whether he recognised that, apart from the present Amendment, there was another Amendment on the Paper dealing with the question of Chitral, which was an important matter and would raise a question of great Imperial importance, and which would—
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member must confine his remarks to the Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid, he would point out to the hon. Gentleman that there would be legitimate opportunities for discussing the question then before the House, and the question of Chitral, during the latest stage of the Session.
  MR. DALZIELthought they all knew what kind of discussion would be

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  possible, on the last day of the Session, on the Indian Budget. But, apart from that, he thought the Government would best consult the feeling of the House, and best show their interest in the unemployed, by consenting to the suggestion that had been made.
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  The House divided:—Ayes 7 9, Noes 211.—(Division List No. 9.)

  CHITRAL.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYhoped that, in view of the fact that important papers had not yet been presented, that the late Secretary for India had left the House, and that it was well the Debate on the Address should be finished to-night, the hon. Member (Sir William Wedderburn) who had an Amendment on the Paper relating to affairs in Chitral would postpone his Amendment till a more convenient season.
  SIR W. HARCOURTsaid that until they were in possession of the further communications on this subject it would be impossible to come to a decided opinion. In the absence of the further papers and of the late Secretary for India, who had left the House under the impression that questions relating to Chitral would not be raised to-night, he trusted that the suggestion of the Leader of the House would be agreed to.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid the First Lord of the Treasury had just made an important communication to the House. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the late Secretary of State for India had left the House. That pointed to the fact of the lateness of the Sitting. No one knew better than he did that the First Lord of the Treasury was always most anxious to study the general convenience of Members, but the hon. Member who was anxious to move this Motion was in this position: The Government had said important papers were going to be laid on the Table. No one was more entitled to speak on the question with greater experience than his hon. friend the Member for Banffshire. His hon. friend proposed to raise it on the present information. He was anxious to move it in regard to the present position of his mind. The Government, however, were anxious to improve his mind by the presentation of
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  other papers. He would, therefore, ask whether, in the event of the hon. Baronet giving way on his motion to-night, the Government were prepared to say, first, when the papers would be presented, and, secondly, whether they were prepared to give a day for the discussion of the subject. In order to give the First Lord an opportunity to reply, he moved the adjournment of the Debate.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: My noble Friend the Secretary for India informs me that he hopes all the papers will be laid on the Table, and circulated before the end of the week. Whether it would be proper to give a day in addition to the day on the Indian Budget to discuss the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite I can hardly say until I know what view they take of the papers, except they desire to move a vote of censure, in which case, of course, we shall give a day. But, in the absence of any such view, I cannot help thinking that the Indian Budget, which cannot now be long delayed, will afford a full opportunity for the discussion of this matter.
  SIR W. WEDDERBURNsaid he regretted that he could not meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentlemen. He felt it his duty to raise his voice, however feeble, on behalf of the people of India in this matter. Amid all the varying and powerful interests struggling for precedence in the House, he felt that ho should be wrong in abandoning this real chance of promoting the interests of India. [Cheers.]
  MR. DALZIELhoped that the Leader of the House would now recognise—[Ministrial Cries of "Oh!"]—the force of the Motion for adjournment. He must see that this was not a frivolous attempt to keep the House sitting or to raise a question of secondary importance. The hon. Gentleman in charge of the Chitral amendment said that he regarded the question as of supreme and vital importance. The hon. Member assured the House that he had a speech which would occupy an hour at least in delivery—[Laughter]—and the hon. Member for Flintshire was also prepared to speak for a considerable length of time. Therefore, he hoped the Government would at once do what they might have to do in any case at a later stage of the Debate—consent to the adjournment. [Opposition Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I move "That the question be now put."
  MR. SPEAKER: The question is, that the question be now put.
  MR.
  DALZIEL: I rise to a point of order.
  MR. SPEAKER: There can be no point of order.
  Question put, "That the question be now put."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 206; Noes, 73.—(Division List No. 10.)
  Question put accordingly.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 69 ; Noes, 212—(Division List No. 11).
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I beg to move "That the Main Question be now put." [Loud cheers.]
  MR. SPEAKERthen put the question that the House do agree with the Address in answer to the Queen's Speech.
  MR. T. M. HEALY,sitting with his hat on, spoke to a point of order, submitting that the question of the Closure should be put in the first instance before the main question was put.
  MR. SPEAKER: The practice I have followed is the usual practice. ["Hear, hear."]
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he desired to raise the point of order that the House must first divide upon the question of the Closure before it divided upon the main question.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that, of course, if the hon. Gentleman wished to raise a fresh point of order he would listen to him.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The original question upon which the Closure was moved was not a question dependent before the House. It was a question of adjournment. It was upon a question of adjournment that the Closure was moved, and that constitutes a distinction.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Closure was moved upon the adjournment. Thereupon that question was put to the House and was disposed of. After that, the right hon. Gentleman claimed, as he was entitled to do, that the question which was before the House before the Motion for adjournment was moved should be put to the House. That proceeding being entirely in order, I put it to the House. I may say that I should not in any event read the rule as the hon. and learned Member has read it, but even if
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  I did, I should feel some hesitation in acting, in any event, contrary to the course which has been followed as long as I have been a Member of the House, and the closure has been in operation. [Ministerial cheers.]
  The House divided:—Ayes, 217; Noes, 63.—(Division List No. 12).
  Resolved—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the Most Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
  To be presented by Privy Councillors.

  SUPPLY.
  Mr. HANBURYmoved—
  "That this House do this day (Tuesday) resolve itself into Committee to consider the Supplies to be granted to Her Majesty."
  MR. T. M. HEALYrose to speak, but—
  MR. SPEAKER,interposing, said that the Motion was merely formal, and could not be debated.
  Mr. T. M. HEALYasked whether they could not divide upon the Motion. [Cries of "Oh!"]
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that no doubt a Division could be taken, but he was not aware of any occasion when such a thing had been done. It had been ruled on more than one occasion that there could be no Debate.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 215; Noes, 50.—(Division List No. 13.)

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Mr. HANBURYmoved—
  "That this House will this day resolve itself into a Committee of Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 211; Noes, 51.—(Division List No. 14.)
  Resolved,—That this House will this day resolve itself into a Committee of Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.
  Whereupon, Mr. Speaker, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 19th August, adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at Twenty minutes after Two o'clock.

Preamble
THE Lord FOXFORD (E. Limerick) chosen Speaker in the absence of the Lord Chancellor and the Lords Commissioners.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYacquainted the House that Her Majesty had (by Commission) appointed the Earl of Limerick Speaker of the House in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Morley, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, the Earl of Lathom, the Earl de Montalt, the Viscount Oxenbridge, and the Lord Herschell.
The said Commission was read.

THE CHIEF ARMY COMMAND.

  LORD WOLSELEY'S APPOINTMENT.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Seeing my noble Friend the Secretary of State for War in his place, I take the opportunity of asking him whether it is true, as reported, that Field Marshal Lord Wolseley has been, appointed to the office of General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, and, if so, upon what conditions?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The MARQUESS of: The noble Lord will recollect that, just before the late Government left office, my predecessor, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, made a statement in another place to the effect that, on October 1, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge would relinquish the post which he has filled for so long with so much distinction and with such devotion to the interests of the Army. The then Secretary of State took the opportunity of explaining to the public certain changes which it was proposed to introduce concurrently with the relinquishment of office by His Royal Highness. My Lords, those changes were of a very important and far-reaching character.
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  They affect fundamentally the position of the Commander-in-Chief, and of the higher members of the Headquarter Staff; and I think your Lordships will scarcely be surprised that we should have desired to have ample time in which to consider those proposals before adopting them as our own or submitting alternative proposals. Those proposals are still under our consideration, and I am not able this evening to tell the noble Lord opposite precisely to what extent we intend to follow the lines laid down by my predecessor. But I am able to make two announcements which may, perhaps, be of interest. One of them is that His Royal Highness will relinquish the chief command of the Army, not on the 1st of October, as was originally proposed, but on the 1st of November. This later date will, we understand, be more convenient to His Royal Highness, inasmuch as it will enable him to undertake certain inspections which he has usually made during the autumn, season of the year. The other announcement answers the noble Lord's question. When His Royal Highness relinquishes the chief command of the Army he will be followed by Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley. All that I need add is that it has been clearly explained to Lord Wolseley that the conditions under which he will hold his appointment are still under consideration, and that Her Majesty's Government reserve to themselves an absolutely free hand in deciding what changes may be necessary in those conditions in the interests of the Army and of the public.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, from a communication I have received from him, will, I know, be exceedingly glad to hear that the post of Commander-in-Chief, though under some different name apparently, is still to be retained, because that is in accordance with a memorandum of his to the Commission presided over by the Duke of Devonshire. It must not be supposed, however, because the post of Commander-in-Chief is to be retained, that Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, who is, of course necessarily in ignorance, as we all are, of the exact conditions attached to the office—it must not be supposed that he in all respects agrees with the Report of the Hartington Commission, and, of course, he will hold himself quite at

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  liberty, when he is able to return to his Parliamentary duties, to make any criticisms in regard to the reorganisation of the War Office that he may think desirable.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS.
  Ordered, that Standing Orders No. 72 and 82 be
  suspended for the remainder of the Session.

  PRIVATE AND PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS.
  Ordered, that the Resolutions of the 4th day of July last for the suspension of Private and Provisional Order Confirmation Bills be held applicable to the next Session of Parliament in the case of Private Bills and opposed Provisional Order Confirmation Bills.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Standing Orders considered and amended as follows: Provided that the Amendments shall not be applicable to any Bill now before Parliament:
  Leave out Standing Order No. 12 a.
  Standing Order No. 134, leave out ("Local Board") and insert ("District Council.")
  Standing Order No. 139, leave out ("limits within") and insert ("lands in or upon");
  and to be printed as amended.—[No. 5.]

  LAND FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.
  LORD CASTLETOWNasked the Secretary of State for War if he would lay on the Table of the House all the Paper connected with the purchase of Kilworth and adjoining lands in Co. Cork for military purposes? In explanation of the matter, the noble Lord said that some two or three years ago attempts were being made in the neighbourhood of Fermoy and Kilworth, Co. Cork, to purchase land for manœuvring purposes He was much interested in the matter, having been a soldier, and having certain experience and also local knowledge of
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  the ground examined for the purpose. He was particularly anxious that the War Office should acquire the ground at as reasonable a rate as possible, consistently with the rights of the landlords and occupiers, but most important of all was that the best ground should be obtained. He saw the late Under Secretary, Lord Sandhurst, on the subject. He urged him not to allow the matter to be unduly hurried on, as he had reason to think that the War Office was not being very wisely counselled locally, and was in treaty for the most expensive ground, and what was considered by experts the worst ground for the purpose. The noble Lord promised to look into the matter, but nothing was done. On his return from India last May, he found to his dismay that the purchase was almost, if not actually, completed, and his object in moving now, was simply to draw attention to the facts. He was also desirous to find out the legal costs incurred, and to compare them with costs of a similar nature dealing with the compulsory purchase of cottages under the Labourers' Act.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE,in reply, stated that the purchase of the Kilworth site had been decided upon before he assumed his present office, and he had only been able to make a somewhat hurried perusal of the rather voluminous papers which relate to the subject. He did not think it would be desirable to lay all the papers on the Table, but, if his noble Friend would give him an idea privately what were the particular documents which he would like to have, he would do his best to produce them. The purchase of this particular site was, he found, first suggested by the General Officer Commanding in Cork District in 1891. He had manœuvred over the ground and formed a very high opinion of it on account of its suitableness for maoelig;uvres and also because of the facilities which it offered for rifle ranges. The ground was inspected by the Royal Engineers and also by the Medical Officers. It was reported that some parts of it were somewhat boggy, but that about 95 acres on the west side were well suited for camping ground. There was an excellent water supply and the elevation was good, and

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  there was room for a safe rifle range for three battalions, and three other safe sites for field firing. Lord Wolseley reported upon the site in 1892, after a personal inspection, to the effect that he considered it most suitable for manœuvring, not suitable for the training of a large force of cavalry, but very suitable for the efficient instruction of a small force. Lord Wolseley also dwelt on the excellence of the water supply and the roads, and he appeared to have recommended that the site should be acquired. With regard to the cost of the transaction, he was not able to tell his noble Friend anything as to the legal costs, but he found that the original estimate of the value of the property, made on the basis of voluntary sale, was somewhere about £21,000. The necessary steps were taken for acquiring the property under the Defence Act, but he had ascertained that the late Government were reluctant to sanction any course that involved the compulsory acquisition of the tenants' interest. It therefore became necessary for the Crown Solicitor and the Chief Engineer to meet the tenants and to make the best bargain with them of which the circumstances admitted. The result was that the tenants' interests were bought for a sum of £9,717. That sum included something on account of the growing crops which were upon the land, and no doubt that was a proper arrangement. He found that the owners had not yet been settled with for their interests. Their interests included a certain amount of compensation for timber, but the whole cost, for a property which included some 6,000 acres, was expected to reach a sum of between £ 23,000 and £ 24,000.
  LORD CASTLETOWN,while thanking Lord Lansdowne, said the point ho wished to lay stress upon was that alternative sites placed before the Government were not dealt with, and that if local knowledge and local expert guidance had been utilised in looking into the alternative lands, a better and cheaper site could have been found.
  THE MAEQUESS OF LANSDOWNEsaid he was advised that the alternative sites were not quite suitable for manœuvring purposes.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
  The following Bills (pursuant to the Resolutions of the 4th of July last respecting Provisional Order Confirmation Bills) were brought from the Commons; read 1a; referred to the Examiners; and to be read 2a on Thursday next—(The Lord Harris)
  BRINE PUMPING (COMPENSATION FOR SUBSIDENCE) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 10) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 14) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 15) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 16) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 17) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 18) BILL.
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read la, and (pursuant to the Resolutions of the 4th of July last respecting Provisional Order Confirmation Bills) read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.—(The Lord Harris.)
  House adjourned at Ten minutes before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.