Sitting of 20 May 1895

Preamble
The House met at Three of the Clock.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
The following Bills were read 2°, and committed:—
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  WESTMINSTER (PARLIAMENT STREET, &c.) IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of this Bill,
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE,)said, the Bill proposed to renew certain powers granted by a previous private Act to a local Company to acquire land in Parliament Street, Westminster, for the purpose of erecting buildings upon it. The question was one of very considerable public interest. The Government, having considered it, had come to the conclusion that it was desirable to take the land themselves for
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  their own purpose. As he did not wish to take the House by surprise, he begged to move that the Debate be adjourned till Thursday, when he should be prepared to make a full statement of the position of the Government upon the question.
  Bill read 2°.

  SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  On the Order for the adjourned Debate on the Second Reading of this Bill,
  MR. JAMES ROWLANDSraised the question how far the rights of the public would be affected by the Bill. It was, he said, well known there had been for some time very great dissatisfaction at the treatment by the South Eastern Company of its clients, and he wished to get an expression of opinion and promise from the promoters that no opportunity would he taken advantage of to place the travelling public in a worse position. Of course, the Company might say that they only took the opportunities afforded them by existing general statutes, but they had just ascertained that the Company, in connection with another Company, had altered their tariff so far——
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLrising to Order, submitted that the hon. Gentleman was travelling into matters outside the scope of the Bill.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the hon. Member was entitled to raise the question of rates in so far as it related to the undertaking which the Company by the Bill proposed to take over.
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLsaid, the hon. Member was under a complete misapprehension, as under the Bill the Company could charge no other rates than those they were now empowered to charge.
  MR. ROWLANDSsaid, that if anything improper was alleged against the Company, the other side would get more advantage by exercising their right of reply than by trying to close his mouth. He had no other interest than to endeavour to safeguard the rights of the public, and everyone was aware—he was bound to use some illustration—that the public Press sometime ago teemed with letters in regard to

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  the treatment by this particular Company and another Company of their third-class passengers. He asked for an assurance from the promoters of this Bill that they would not exact their entire "pound of flesh" from the travelling public. He would refrain from blocking the progress of the Bill on the understanding that an assurance of that kind were given.
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLfeared that he should not be in order were he to digress as the hon. Member had done.
  MR. J. ROWLANDSdenied that he had digressed.
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLsaid, that the Bill could have no effect upon the question of fares. The fares which could be charged were statutory fares, and nothing would be altered by the proposed transference to the South Eastern Company. The sole and exclusive object of the Company was to save the unnecessary expense of a separate Board of Management. The President of the Board of Trade was the guardian angel of the interests of the public in railway matters, and he could be trusted to take care that those interests were not prejudiced by a Bill of this kind. Nothing that this Bill proposed to do would affect or could affect the question to which the hon. Member had drawn attention. He trusted therefore that the Second Reading of the Bill would not be opposed further.
  *MR. CYRIL DODDhoped that in matters of this kind the President of the Board of Trade would act as the guardian angel, not only of the Railway Companies but also of the public. The representatives of the public in that House desired that the President of the Board of Trade and the officials of his Department should consider Bills of this kind, so as to be in a position to direct the attention of the Committee upstairs to any unfair provisions which they might contain. It was the more necessary that the Board of Trade should discharge that duty, as it was very difficult to discuss adequately Bills of this kind in that House.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,)said, that it was correct to say that this Bill would not affect the legal aspect of the question of fares on the line which was to be transferred to the
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  South Eastern Company. But what the hon. Member for Finsbury desired was an understanding that the South Eastern Company would not raise the actual fares now charged on the line to be transferred, and he thought the hon. Member was entitled to an assurance that the South Eastern Company would not make use of this Bill to charge maximum fares. If that undertaking were given his hon. Friend would probably be satisfied.
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLdeclared that the Company had not the slightest intention or desire to raise the fares, nor did this Bill afford them means of doing so. The sole object of the Company was to secure economy by getting rid of a useless second Board of Management.
  MR. ALPHEUS C. MORTONobserved that the South Eastern Railway wanted looking after more than any other railway in the Kingdom. It was not enough to say that everything was to be as it had been, for there was a good deal that ought to be altered in connection with the South Eastern. He trusted the Committee upstairs, before returning the Bill to the House, would take care that everything that ought to be done in the interests of the public was done. Concessions ought not to be granted to Railway Companies for the benefit of directors and shareholders. They ought only to be granted for the benefit of the public and the country. He hoped that everything that was necessary would be done by the Board of Trade to protect the interests of passengers and others on the lines to which this Bill applied.
  Bill read 2°.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
  The following Bills were presented and read 1°:—
  COMMONS REGULATION (HALIFAX) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  To confirm a Provisional Order of the Board of Agriculture relating to the regulation of High Road Well Moor, in the borough of Halifax. [Bill 255.]
  COMMONS REGULATION (BEXHILL) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  To confirm a Provisional Order of the Board of Agriculture relating to the regulation of Bexhill Down, in the county of Sussex. [Bill 256.]
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (NO. 3) BILL.
  To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade, under The General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Blackness. [Bill 257.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (NO. 5) BILL.
  To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Local Government Board for Ireland, under The Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, relating to the rural sanitary district of Mountmellick. [Bill 258.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (NO. 6) BILL.
  To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Local Government Board for Ireland, under The Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, relating to the urban sanitary district of Kilkenny. [Bill 259.]
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) (ENDOWED SCHOOLS ACTS).
  Copy presented,—of Report to the Committee of Council on Education of the proceedings of the Charity Commissioners under the Endowed Schools Acts, 1869 to 1889, for the year 1894 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS ACT, 1883.
  Copy presented,—of Twelfth Report of the Comptroller General for the year 1894 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  OPIUM (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Copy presented,—of Supplement to the Report of the Royal Commission on Opium, Note by the Maharajah Bahadur of Durbhanga, K.C.I.E. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
  Copy presented,—of Thirteenth Annual Report for the year 1894 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  HABITUAL OFFENDERS, &c. (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented,—of Report of the Departmental Committee on Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, Beggars, and Inebriates in Scotland [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TREATY SERIES (No. 9, 1895).
  Copy presented,—of Convention between Great Britain and China respecting the Junction of the Chinese and Burmese Telegraph Lines. Signed at Tien-tsin, 6th September 1894 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS IN COUNTIES (SCOTLAND).
  Return ordered,—
  "Showing with respect to each County or Division of a County in Scotland the number of Parliamentary Electors on the Register, distinguishing them according to their qualifications, and in the case of ownership and occupation voters setting forth separately those resident in the constituency and those non-resident therein, in the following form:—

  Counties or Division of Counties.

  Number of Electors entered on the Register for 1895.

  (6) Remarks

  (1) Owners or Life Renters

  (2) Tenants or Occupiers

  (3) Lodgers.

  (4) Electors not included in preceding columns.

  (5) Total of Registered Electors.

  Resident in the constituency.

  Resident outside the geographical boundary of the constituency

  Resident in a Parliamentary burgh within the geographical boundary of the constituency.

  Total.

  Resident in the constituency.

  Resident outside the geographical boundary of the constituency

  Resident in a Parliamentary burgh within the geographical boundary of the constituency.

  Total.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS IN BURGHS (SCOTLAND).
  Return ordered,—
  "Showing with respect to each Parliamentary Burgh, Division of a Burgh, or District of Burghs, in Scotland, the number of Parliamentary Electors on the Register, distinguishing them according to their qualifications, and in the case of tenants or occupiers setting forth separately those resident in the constituency and those non-resident therein, in the following form:—

  Parliamentary Burghs or Groups of Burghs.

  Number of Electors entered on the Register for 1895.

  (6) Remarks.

  (1) Owners.

  (2) Tenants or Occupiers.

  (3) Lodgers.

  (4) Electors not included in the preceding Columns.

  (5) Total of Registered Electors.

  Resident in the Constituency.

  Non-resident.

  Total.

  CITY CHURCH FUND.
  Address for—
  "Return of the sums of money paid over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by the Trustees of the Central Governing Body of the City Parochial Charities in respect of the surplus income of the City Church Fund, as provided by Clause 52 of the Central Scheme; together with particulars of the application of such sums required by the City Parochial Charities Act, 1883, Section 14 (a)."—(Mr. Alban Gibbs.)

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (VACATING OF SEATS).
  First Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Proceedings and an Appendix, brought up and read.
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 272.]
  Minutes of Proceedings, with an Appendix, to be printed.—[No. 272.]

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WESTON-SUPER-MARE) BILL.— [H.L.]
  Read 1°, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.—[Bill 260.]
  GREENOCK HARBOUR BILL.— [H.L.]
  Read 1°, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
QUESTIONS.

  FACTORY INSPECTION AT HULL.
  MR. CHARLES WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will have inquiries made into the action of the Factories' Inspector at Hull, who has lately caused prosecutions for slight breaches of the Acts?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. H. H. ASQUITH,): I have made inquiry with regard to the prosecutions referred to, and I find that in every case

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  the Inspector acted properly in undertaking them. I cannot regard it as a slight offence that employers who are allowed two hours' overtime should exceed that limit, or that firms who have been allowed to substitute another day for Saturday as the half-holiday should deprive the workpeople altogether of the weekly half-holiday. In one case a boy had been employed for 7½ hours without a break for food. I entirely approve of the action of the Inspector, who would have failed in his duty if he had allowed the provisions of the Factory Act to be disregarded.

  PRESS TELEGRAMS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he will appoint a Select Committee to inquire why there is a loss on sixpenny telegrams throughout the country, and to inquire into other matters connected with the expenditure and deficit in the telegraph department, especially with regard to press telegrams?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. ARNOLD MORLEY,): No, Sir; I cannot agree to the appointment of a Select Committee as the hon. Member suggests, except on the terms which I stated in this House on the 4th and on the 29th ultimo. I beg to refer the hon. Member to the answers I then gave. I have, so far, received no such assurance as I asked for on those occasions.

  PARISH COUNCILS IN ANGLESEY.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can inform the House what is the number of civil parishes in Anglesey which have separate parish councils; what is the total number of parish councils which have been formed in. Anglesey; and how many parishes have been united in order to form parish councils?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (MR. G. J. SHAW LEFEVRE,): I find that the total number of parish councils in Anglesey is 52, and that each of them has been formed for a separate parish.

  ANIMALS DIVISION, BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he will explain why, although since the retirement of Professor Brown from the directorship of the Veterinary Department in 1893 no fresh director has been appointed, the Department has been re-named the Animals Department; whether he will state who is the director or principal of the Animals Department, and whether he is a member of the veterinary profession; and whether he is aware that a strong feeling exists in the veterinary profession against the recent alterations in the organisation and methods of the Veterinary Department; and will he state what steps, if any, he proposes to take in the matter?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HERBERT GARDNER,): On the re-arrangement of business which took place on the retirement of Professor Brown in 1893 the term "Animals Division" was applied to the officers engaged on duties which are connected with the animal industry, but which do not require the possession of veterinary knowledge for their proper performance. The term "veterinary" would have been inappropriate to the division thus constituted, and a separate status, was, moreover, assigned to our veterinary staff. The principal of the Division is Major John Trenchard Tennant, who is not a veterinary surgeon, but who has had nearly 20 years' experience of the business upon which he is engaged, and to whose ability and work in the past agriculturists are very greatly indebted I am aware that many members of the veterinary profession would have preferred that no changes in our organisation should have been made, but I am satisfied that these changes were necessary in the interest of the public service, and I do not propose, nor indeed is it in my power, to make any other arrangements.

  NORTH SEA FISHERIES.
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade—(1) if he can explain why no communication has been made to any of the Foreign

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  Powers interested in the North Sea Fisheries, a period of nearly two years having elapsed since the recommendations of a Select Committee of this House; (2) whether he has now received any communication from Lowestoft forwarding him resolutions unanimously passed at a meeting of those engaged in the trawling industry and, longshoremen of that port, taking strong objection to Part I. of the Fisheries Acts Amendment Bill; (3) whether he has also received a communication from the Gipping Angling Preservation Society expressing strong approval of Part II. of the said Bill; and (4) whether he is now in a position to state what opportunity he is prepared to afford the House of discussing the principles of the Bill?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,): As I explained, in answer to a former question, the negotiation of international conventions is a difficult and delicate matter, and one which does not always issue in success. In this particular case much consideration would be needed before the steps referred to in the question tending to enlarge the territorial three-mile limit could be taken, and the matter is still before Her Majesty's Government. I have received such a communication as mentioned in the second paragraph of the question, but must observe that some of those Gentlemen who were at the meeting, including the gentleman in whose office it was held, were present at a previous meeting which unanimously approved of the proposals which are embodied in the Bill. I am not at present able to say what opportunities for discussing the Bill can be given.
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: May I ask the right hon Gentleman whether he proposes to continue the course of putting this Bill down after midnight when there is no chance of discussing it?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes, Sir; I must take the best course I can.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when will an examination for County Inspectors' clerks (Royal Irish Constabulary) be held, and what is the cause of delay?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JOHN MORLEY,): The Inspector General informs me that appointments of members of the force to the position of County Inspectors' clerks are made from the list of assistant clerks without examination. For the position of assistant clerk, however, an examination is, as a rule, necessary, but, as a number of members of the force, who have already passed a Civil Service Examination, have volunteered for this post, no further examination is, at present, contemplated.

  EDUCATION EXAMINATIONS IN IRELAND.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) what are the respective percentages of answering at a results examination which entitle a pupil to a satisfactory pass and to a mere pass in the several subjects of the programme; and (2), whether, in order to secure uniformity of examination in the several districts, the Commissioners of National Education would cause the instructions to their inspectors to be published as is done in England?
  MR. J. MORLEY: (1) The general understanding amongst the Inspectors is that wherever a percentage can be taken as a basis of the calculation, the value of the answering of a pupil at the results examination to entitle him to a satisfactory pass should be over 60 per cent.; and to entitle him to a mere pass it should be over 40 per cent. (2) The Commissioners have, however, under consideration, the propriety of issuing, at an early date, a code of regulations as to the interpretation of the results programme, and of the mode of examination to be pursued in certain cases, for the general guidance of Inspectors and teachers.

  COLONIAL LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign. Affairs, whether he has observed that under the rule respecting the use of the prefix "Honourable" by Colonial Members of Parliament and

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  Ministers when absent from their respective Colonies, the non-official Members of the Legislative Council appointed by the Governor of Natal and other Colonies of minor importance would be accorded a distinction denied to some of the most distinguished servants of the Crown, such as the Members of the Council of the Viceroy or Governor-General of India; and whether he can state the number of persons entitled, under the rule referred to, to be styled "Honourable" throughout the Empire, and also the number of officials and Members of Council disqualified by it?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The rule on this question refers, as I have already twice informed the hon. Gentleman, solely to the Members of the Executive or Legislative Councils of the self-governing Colonies. I have no information as to whether the Members of the Indian Council desire that it should be extended to them. The number of persons entitled would, therefore, be the number of Executive Councillors and Legislative Councillors for the time being in Colonies possessing responsible government, besides the ex-Executive Councillors to whom the privilege of retaining the title for life has been granted. The number of persons to whom the privilege has not been extended—there is no disqualification in the matter—would be the members of the other Colonial, Executive and Legislative Councils for the time being. I must be allowed to point out to the hon. Gentleman that the Colonies of "minor importance" to which he alludes include Canada, the Cape, New South Wales, New Zealand, and others, as well as Natal.

  CARRICK-ON-SHANNON UN ION.
  MR. W. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware of the amount of the loans borrowed and expended by the Guardians of Carrick-on-Shannon Union, under the Seed Supply (Ireland) Act, 1895; (2) whether he can state the amounts expended respectively under the Seed Supply (Ireland) Acts of 1880 and
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  of 1891, stating the quantity of seed distributed in the years 1880–91, and 1895, also the amount allowed the clerk for his services during 1880 and 1891; (3) whether the clerk of the union was allowed a sum of over £50 out of the surplus of the loan for his duty in connection with the seed distribution at the weekly meeting held on 9th May last; (4) whether due notice of this meeting was given to such members; and (5) whether he can specify the duty performed by the clerk and his assistants?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: In reply to the first question, I have to say that the amount of the seed loan applied for this year in the Carrick-on-Shannon Union was £1,205, and the amount expended was £1,178. The answer to the second question is that the amount expended in the Union under the Act of 1880 was £7,222, and under the Act of 1891, £2,123. The quantity of seed distributed in 1880 was 500 tons; in 1891, 282 tons; and in 1895, 180 tons. The sum allowed to the clerk for his services under the Acts in 1880 was £75, and in 1891, £50. In reply to the third and fourth questions, I have to state that a sum of £50 has been voted to the Clerk for his services this year, but no notice of the intention to advance this sum was given, and the matter is to be reconsidered after notice. The answer to the fifth question is that the duties of the clerk and his assistants have been to carry out the instructions of the Local Government Board, to fill up the several forms, and to personally carry out the work of distribution for 13 days to more than 1,000 persons. The work to be done by the clerk in this matter is not yet at an end.

  O'HARA ESTATE, COUNTY GALWAY.
  MR. DAVID SHEEHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that an agreement to purchase was entered into on 1st November 1891 between James Coy and the trustees of the O'Hara Estate, Derryhoyle, Craughwell, County Galway, and that the interest on the amount of the purchase has been regularly paid since; and could he explain the grounds of the delay in the sale being confirmed and completed?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I am informed that the proceedings in this case are in the Land Judge's Court, that they have been pending since September 1893, that the requisitions on title issued on the 18th January last, and that they have not since been answered.

  A PROHIBITED MEETING.
  MR. JOHN DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Sunday 28th April, at Corduff, near Carrickmacross, bodies of people, returning to their homes from a peaceful meeting, were stopped on the high road by the police; and that one body of people when stopped by the police proceeded to cross the fields in order to reach another road; whether they were pursued by the police and roughly handled; and, whether some band instruments were taken from the people by the police and the instruments injured; and, if so, whether the action of the police was in accordance with the law?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I am informed by the District Inspector of Police that the promoters of the meeting referred to had previously been warned that no assemblage would be permitted within a certain radius. An attempt, however, was made by the crowd, accompanied by a band, to hold the meeting inside this radius, and at this point one of the drummers pushed his way through the police, who quietly stopped him, took the instrument from him, and at once handed it over to the other bandsmen. The drum was in no way injured. The District Inspector assures me that the people were not at any time pursued, nor was anyone roughly handled, as at no time did the police come into collision with the people.
  MR. DILLON: The right hon. Gentleman says "within a certain radius." A certain radius of what?
  MR. J. MORLEY: Within a certain radius of an evicted farm. My hon. Friend is aware that I have laid down that a meeting should not be held within a given distance of an evicted farm. That rule has worked very well, and the people have not complained of it.
  MR. DILLON: It is very important for the people, in order to understand this matter, to know whether a rule
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  applies to an evicted farm on which a new tenant is living, or whether it applies also to an empty evicted farm; because I understand that in this case it was an empty evicted farm.
  MR. J. MORLEY: If my information is right, on this occasion the meeting was held to denounce two given individuals, not, it is true, for holding, but for allowing their cattle to trespass on a farm near their holding. That would be an object of individual intimidation if my information is correct.

  DRAPERS' COMPANY FARMS IN IRELAND.
  MR. JOHN DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, in November 1890, an award was made between the Drapers' Company and certain of their tenants, one of the conditions of the award being that if the sales of their farms should be delayed through the fault of the Company the tenants should not be called upon to pay any rent to the Company pending such delay; and that this condition has been violated in the case of John Wright, who has been served with an ejectment by the Company for the sum of £46 16s. 8d.; and whether he will inquire whether the delay in carrying out the sale of John Wright's farm is caused by the Land Commission or by the Drapers' Company?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I am informed that the application for an advance to purchase the holding referred to was refused by the Land Commission on the grounds that there was no means of access to the holding except through another holding upon which Wright resided, and in respect of which no agreement for purchase has been lodged. It would appear, therefore, that the delay has been caused by the tenant, who could get over the difficulty by entering into an agreement for the purchase of both holdings.

  BELGIAN IMPORT DUTIES.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take against the proposed increase of the Belgian duties

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  upon biscuits, hosiery, hardware, watches, cotton tissues, carpets, woollen shawls, and scarves, waxed cloth, and kindred specialities of British trade and labour, as detailed in the May number of The Board of Trade Journal, and which increases are declared to have been not only approved but even added to by the Central Section of the Second Chamber in Brussels?
  MR BRYCE: I have conferred with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on the subject, and in our opinion it would not be to the advantage of British trade that any official representation should be addressed to the Belgian Government at this moment. The proposed changes are now before the Belgian Chambers, with whom the decision with regard to them rests.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: Then am I to understand that nothing whatever is to be done when a foreign Government makes a tariff against British goods? [Cries of "Order."] I ask the President of the Board of Trade is nothing whatever to be done?
  MR. BRYCE: The hon. Member will not be correct in understanding that nothing is to be done or is being done. I have answered the question on the Paper.

  REFUSAL TO TRANSFER A LICENCE IN BANFFSHIRE.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether he is aware that the local licensing authority unanimously refused the transfer of the licence of the only public-house in the village; of Findochty, in Banffshire, in compliance with the almost unanimously expressed request of the householders and inhabitants; and that the transfer was then granted in appeal by the Banff Quarter Sessions by a majority of 26 votes to 18; and whether, if the case is as above stated, he can suggest any method by which the inhabitants of Findochty can obtain redress in the matter?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN,): I have received a telegram from the Sheriff of Banff saying that he is sending a report on the subject by-to-day's post, and I shall reply to the hon. Member to-morrow.

  PARISH COUNCIL OF LOCHALSH, ROSS-SHIRE.
  MR. J. G. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether he is aware that at the recent parish council election in the Lochalsh ward of Lochalsh parish, Ross-shire, the Rev. Angus Galbraith and Duncan M'Lennan were elected parish councillors on the nomination of Donald Cameron and Farquhar Macrae, and that Donald Cameron was also elected a parish councillor; and that Donald Cameron and Farquhar Macrae, although their names appeared on the roll of voters, had their names returned to the parochial board, since the parish council election, as being in arrear with their rates, and therefore not entitled to be entered on the roll of voters or to nominate or be a candidate; whether he will declare, in consequence of these irregularities, the election of the above councillors null and void, and either declare the three other candidates elected or order a new election; and whether he will take steps to protect the bonâ fide electors in future, and prevent such irregularities in making up the roll of voters in the parish of Lochalsh.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: I am informed that the persons referred to paid their rates immediately after the collector made up his books on the 20th of June, and were therefore not returned to the Assessors as defaulters. I have no power to declare the election null and void. The only competent way of raising the question was by petition in the usual way.

  WOODFORD PETTY SESSIONS.
  MR. SHEEHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at the petty sessions held at Woodford on Monday the 13th inst. Colonel Longbourne R. M., presiding, a bailiff on the Clanricarde estate occupied a seat on the Bench; and whether, in view of the fact that his attention has been frequently called to the relations that exist between Colonel Longbourne and Lord Clanricarde's servants, he will state whether it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor to take any action with regard to the conduct of this Magistrate?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: Colonel Longbourne informs me that it is not the fact that a bailiff on the Clanricarde

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  estate occupied a seat on the Bench at Woodford Petty Sessions on the 13th instant, and that no relations of any sort exist between him and Lord Clanricarde's servants.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
  MR. WALTER HAZELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Board have declined to grant Orders in the Metropolis under the Electric Lighting Acts unless the power of purchase in favour of the Local Authority be reserved at the end of 42 years from the 22nd August 1889, and upon the terms of Subsection 2 of the Act of 1888; whether, in view of the fact that this section provided for the Companies working the electric light for 42 years from the date of the Order, it is intended to require a company to sell its undertaking before it has had 42 years of working life; and, if so, whether, as the period of 42 years reckoned from 1888 is already reduced by nearly seven years, and is daily diminishing, he will consider the desirability of giving terms more favourable to the Companies in consideration of their Order lasting for a shorter period than the 42 years provided by the Act?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes, Sir; that is so, but Section 2 of the Electric Lighting Act, 1888, provides that the Local Authority may purchase the undertaking after the expiration of a period of 42 years, or such shorter period as is specified in the Provisional Order. The Board of Trade have held that it is in the interest of London that the power of purchase by the Local Authority or Authorities shall, as far as possible, operate at the same date over the whole of the Metropolis. To this policy the Board of Trade adhere. The time does not seem to have arrived when it becomes necessary to consider whether any relaxation in terms on which such undertakings may be purchased may require to be made in order to render it worth the while of Companies to enter upon new enterprises.

  ARMY FOOD SUPPLY.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the contract for supplying meat to the troops in the
  1588
  Home District has recently been given to a person who has been more than once fined for supplying inferior meat in another district; whether the General Officer commanding another district has objected to this person supplying the troops in the district under his command; whether the General Officer commanding the Home District has any voice in the appointment of the contractor; and whether, in other districts, the General Officer has a voice in such appointments?
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): There is no contractor for the meat supply of the Home District. The supply is divided among not less than 11 contractors. Except for a few large stations, the General Officer commanding accepts such tenders as he thinks fit. In the few exceptions he submits the tenders, with his recommendation, to the War Office for decision. After full consideration a contract for supplying meat to a part of the Home District has been given to a certain contractor, to whom, it is presumed, the hon. Member's question refers, but security has been taken for the due performance of his contract.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: Has that person been fined before?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not think he has been fined before, but one or two complaints of greater or less importance were made against him; and on the whole he has supplied other districts with perfect satisfaction on many occasions.
  MR. R. W. HANBURY: I suppose such a matter comes first of all before the Director of Contracts, and does not come before the right hon. Gentleman until there is a difficulty or difference of opinion.
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It would come before the Financial Secretary to the War Office.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the contract for the supply of meat for the troops in the Home District has recently been let by tender; and whether the lowest tender has been accepted?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Contracts have recently been made for the meat supply of all stations in the

  1589
  Home district except London, which is still under consideration. In each case the lowest tender has been accepted.

  WESTPORT UNION.
  DR. ROBERT AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in view of the fact that Section 93 of the Act 1 and 2 Vict., chapter 56, provides that any guardian who is concerned as contractor for workhouse supplies renders himself liable to forfeit £100, and that Section 22 of the Act 6 and 7 Vict., chapter 92, provides that any person who has been convicted under the first-mentioned section shall not be capable of being elected or of acting as a guardian—(1) whether it is the duty of a Local Government Board Inspector, when made aware of the facts of the case, to institute proceedings against any person who violates the above Acts; (2) whether Mr. Lynch, Local Government Board Inspector, is aware that Mr. Moran, the defeated candidate at the late poor law election for the Westport Union, offended against the law in supplying bread to the Union during his term of office as guardian of the poor; and, if so, why does he not prosecute Moran; and (3) is he aware that the late Dr. Brodie and Mr. Robinson, Local Government Board Inspectors, issued writs and recovered the usual fine (£100) for similar offences as those with which Moran is charged, in two cases?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I am informed that it is the duty of the Local Government Board, but not of their Inspector, if satisfied that the law has been violated, to institute proceedings as mentioned in the first paragraph. The Board state that there was no corroboration of the charge made against Moran, and that there was not, in their opinion, sufficient evidence in support of it to justify them in instituting proceedings against him. With reference to the third paragraph, I am told that the proceedings mentioned were taken by the Poor Law Commissioners and the Local Government Board respectively, and that in both cases the evidence was considered sufficient to justify the taking of the proceedings.
  MR. W. O. BRIEN: May I ask, was it not the duty of the
  1590
  inspector to report to the Local Government Board that he had been offered proofs that this man was fraudulently carrying on business?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I think he is now no longer a guardian.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: Is it not the fact that at this moment the question is pending whether or not this man is to be a Poor Law Guardian? Is there no prospect of bringing him to justice if, as I have satisfied myself, the charges are true and can be proved?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have just said that I was going to look into the matter a little further.
  DR. ROBERT AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution of the Westport Board of Guardians, passed at their meeting on the 9th instant in which they say that, owing to the failure of potato crop and the want of remunerative works, the outdoor relief rate has become so high that they have resolved to discontinue it; and what steps he proposes to take in order to enable the Board to carry on the work of the union.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: My attention has been drawn to the resolution referred to. The question of affording employment on relief works to increased numbers in this union is now under consideration.

  LIMERICK AND FOYNES MAILS.
  MR. T. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the loss of time involved in the present arrangement for the conveyance of night mails between Limerick and Foynes by road instead of by rail, as the day mails are now carried; and, whether these mails for a large district of North Kerry and West Limerick, bringing also in many of the places so served the only mails in the day, could be expedited by three hours without any material increase of cost, to the great advantage of those localities, if conveyed by rail; and, if so, whether he will take steps to effect the necessary changes for the purpose.
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: I have not received any complaints on the subject, and I can hardly admit that the

  1591
  existing service by road is inconvenient, seeing that the mails reach Foynes by 6.0 a.m. and are not despatched from that place until 6.30 p.m. The Waterford and Limerick Railway Company have, however, come forward with a proposal to convey the Mails, and I am in communication with them, with the view of ascertaining whether any satisfactory arrangement can be come to. There is a considerable loss on the existing service, and I should not feel justified in sanctioning any new arrangement which involved a material increase of expense.

  POST OFFICE SERVANTS AND POLITICAL ELECTIONS.
  MR. D. NAOROJI: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether Post Office servants are debarred from taking an acting part in political elections, such, for instance, as speaking in support of candidates, and standing on their local political committees or councils?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: The case is as the hon. Member's question implies. The words of the rule are as follows:—
  1. That no Postmaster or other servant of the Department shall serve on a Committee having for its object to promote or prevent the return of a particular Candidate to Parliament. 2. That he shall not support or oppose any particular Candidate or party either by public speaking or writing.
  I hold it to be of the highest importance that Postmasters and all other Post Office servants should maintain a certain reserve in political matters, and not put themselves prominently forward on one side or the other; that they should, in fact, carefully avoid doing anything that may lend colour to the suggestion that in the discharge of their official duties they are influenced by political or party motives. In practice, the rule I have quoted applies not to the Post Office alone but to the whole of the Civil Service of the Crown.
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONasked whether the rule applied to the sub-postmasters?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: Yes, Sir; a sub-postmaster is in the service of the Post Office.
  MR. J. H. DALZIELasked whether the rule would
  1592
  prevent a postman asking a question privately with regard to the service?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: Oh no, Sir! It would not affect a question of that kind.

  LAUNDRIES AND THE FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS ACT.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is the intention of the Government to propose or accept an Amendment by which laundries attached to convents will be exempted from the operation of the Factories and Workshops Act?
  MR. ASQUITH: The question as to the best mode of adapting the provision of this clause to religious and charitable institutions, in connection with which laundry work is carried on for profit, is under consideration, and the decision of the Government will be announced in due time before the clause is reached in the Standing Committee.

  SANITARY INSPECTORS IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state the names of the counties in Scotland where the sanitary inspector or sanitary inspectors engage in private practice or hold any other appointment?
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: Sanitary inspectors are engaged in private business or hold other public appointments in the following counties:—Aberdeenshire, Fife (Dumfermline district), Nairn, Peebles, Selkirk, Orkney, and Zetland.

  GREENCASTLE HARBOUR, COUNTY DONEGAL.
  MR. J. MAINS: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the harbour inside the pier at Greencastle, County Donegal, which was built at considerable expense out of public money, has been for many years silted up with the sand to a depth of seven feet at the pier head, so that it is now impossible for small fishing boats to go alongside the pier except at high water and in good tides; is he aware that this is the only safe pier between

  1593
  Portrush and Ramelton for fishermen; and whether, in view of the fact that the Board of Works' Engineer recently inspected the harbour in consequence of representations from the locality, and reported the harbour as useless, and recommended that it should be restored to its original state, the Board of Works will give the necessary order to have it dredged so that it can be used by the fishermen in this most important fishery district?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I am informed that the bed of Greencastle Harbour has silted up during late years to the extent of three feet in depth near the pier head. There are several very fair small harbours between Portrush and Ramelton, but I have no doubt that the deepening of the harbour at Greencastle would be of much benefit to the fishermen. The Government have addressed a communication to the Secretary to the Grand Jury informing them of the work required to be done and the estimated cost. Should the Grand Jury not move in the matter at the coming Assizes it is the intention of Government to recommend the Treasury to authorise the Board of Works to proceed with the work.

  LASCAR SEAMEN.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the number of Lascar sailors and firemen employed as the crew of the Peninsular and Oriental steamship Himalaya; whether he can state how many of those men live in the forecastles allotted to their use; how many of such forecastles are certified for the accommodation of men in accordance with the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act; and whether he can also state if the section of the Act has been complied with which provides that at the entrance to each forecastle there shall be carved or painted in a prominent place on the beams or otherwise the certified number which each forecastle shall accommodate?
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed that the Peninsular and Oriental steamship Himalaya carries 154 Lascars, namely, 53 deck hands and 101 firemen and trimmers. These men are all berthed in the poop, which is certified for the
  1594
  accommodation of 123 seamen, in accordance with the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act. They were engaged in India under the provisions of the Indian Act, which requires less accommodation for seamen than the British Act. In certifying for tonnage in cases of this kind, the Board of Trade surveyors disallow the deduction made from the gross tonnage in respect of crew space, the result of which is that the vessel has to pay more for light and harbour dues. The number for which the poop is certified is carved in a prominent place on the beam just within the entrance to the poop.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSONasked whether all the ships in the Port of London carrying Lascar crews were complying with the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act.
  MR. BRYCEreplied that he could not say without notice.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSONasked whether there was a sufficient number of Board of Trade surveyors to see that the Act was complied with upon all ships at the different ports of the United Kingdom, and, if not, whether he would see that more inspectors were appointed?
  MR. BRYCE: We have no reason to think the number of surveyors is insufficient.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSONgave notice that at the end of Questions he would move the adjournment of the House to call attention to the subject.

  MOUNT BELLEN WORKHOUSE.
  MR. J. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether his attention has been called to certain irregularities disclosed at a recent sworn inquiry held at Mount Bellen Workhouse respecting the alleged adulteration of necessaries supplied to the inmates of the Union hospital; (2) if the Local Government Board have taken any steps to remedy the state of things disclosed in the report of the Ladies' Visiting Committee, who declare the clothing of the women dirty and insufficient, and the blankets very old and thin; (3) if the Local Government Board will ascertain what has become of a supply of 100 blankets provided by the Guardians for the use of the inmates of the workhouse,

  1595
  and how many are now in store; (4) whether he is aware that the wife of the workhouse master acts as matron and his daughter as schoolmistress, and that four other grown-up members of the Master's family occupy apartments in the workhouse; and (5) will he direct full and careful inquiry to be instituted into the management of this workhouse in the interests of the inmates?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: An inquiry of the nature indicated in the first paragraph was recently held by the Local Government Board, and the Guardians have taken steps to prevent a recurrence of the irregularities complained of. (2) The Ladies' Visiting Committee made a report to the Guardians, as stated in the second paragraph, although they at the same time observed that the workhouse was clean. The Guardians having made no order on this report, the Local Government Board directed their attention to the matter, and the Guardians have since obtained a supply of new blankets and clothing materials. (3) The Board will inquire as to what has become of the 100 blankets referred to. It appears there are now over 200 pairs in store. (4) The facts are as stated in the fourth paragraph. The Guardians have expressed the opinion that no inconvenience would be caused by the Masters' family remaining in the workhouse. It is hoped that, as a result of the recent inquiry, the workhouse will be better managed in future. If further cause for complaint should arise the matter will be promptly inquired into.

  ALLOTMENTS AT EGG BUCKLAND.
  MR. H. C. F. LUTTRELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the need for allotments at Egg Buckland, he will again consider the application of the Egg Buckland Parish Council for land at or near Fort Austin, suitable to be let by that Council to inhabitants of the parish?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Adjutant General will in the course of a few days make a visit of inspection to the station, and will ascertain whether it would be possible on military grounds to make any concession to the applicants.

  POLICE PROTECTION IN SOUTH LEITRIM.
  MR. JASPER TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that since police protection has been granted to a man named M'Cordick, in the parish of Drumreilly, South Leitrim, the constabulary have turned his house into a temporary barrack, and employed him to run messages; and whether he can state for what further period the police intend to continue making payments to this man for these purposes?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: It is a fact that the man named in the question is receiving special protection, and that his son is occasionally employed by the police in the conveyance of provisions. I am inquiring whether some other arrangement is not practicable.

  CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' SCHOOLS.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the Irish Government have agreed to the rules drawn up by the Commissioners of Education in Ireland regarding the Christian Brothers' Schools?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The correspondence between the Commissioners and myself is still proceeding. I have not yet been able to agree, so far, to the terms proposed. I understand there is a meeting of the Commissioners to-day to consider the terms of a further reply. The hon. Member need be under no apprehension that I shall fail to lay the Papers before the House before any decision is finally carried out.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: As I understand it, the Lord Lieutenant has declined to sanction the rules passed by the Commissioners, and the right hon. Gentleman has conveyed an intimation to that effect. Has the right hon. Gentleman submitted any other proposal to the Commissioners for their acceptance, or what are they meeting about?
  MR. J. MORLEY: Without the slightest desire to conceal anything from the House until the whole of the negotiations are complete, this is a very inconvenient way of presenting to the House and the country the course of things. I did not say the Lord Lieutenant had

  1597
  refused to sanction the rules. The rules were submitted to us for the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant. We showed some reason to the Board why those rules were unacceptable. We made a proposal of our own, and that is under their consideration. It would be convenient if the question were left alone until the whole of the correspondence is in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant.
  MR. W. REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether it is a fact that the rules he declares are unacceptable to himself and the Lord Lieutenant, received the sanction of the great majority of the Commissioners, including the Protestant and Roman Catholic Archbishops of Dublin?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I think that would be anticipating the full and proper account of what is taking place, so I hope the hon. Member will excuse my not going further into the matter.
  MR. W. REDMONDsaid, that as this was a matter in which the public were concerned, he would put a question on the Paper when the Chief Secretary thought it convenient.

  NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES BOUNTIES.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information as to the bounties granted by the French Government to French fishing boats in Newfoundland; and whether he will furnish a Return showing the exact amount of those bounties and the conditions under which they are given?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris will be asked to furnish a tabular statement such as is desired.

  SHIPPING BOUNTIES.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House if the Italian law granting bounties on merchant shipping for a period of 10 years from 1885 has been renewed, or whether he can afford any information as to the intention of
  1598
  the Italian Government to renew the same; whether the French Government have renewed the law giving similar bounties; and whether he will grant a Return showing the bounties now given by the various European Governments towards the construction and running of ships, in continuation of the Return (Commercial, No. 14) laid before Parliament in 1889?
  SIR E. GREY: The date of the Italian Law is December 6, 1885. Its duration is 10 years, and it has not therefore yet expired. No information has been received as to the renewal of it. The French Law was renewed with amendments for a period of 10 years from January 30, 1893. Information on the subject will be found in The Board of Trade Journal of March and of May, 1893. Her Majesty's representatives will be asked to bring the Return of 1889 up to date.

  WAR OFFICE REFORM.
  MR. C. J. DARLING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is the intention of the Government to propose any measure for the reform of the War Office?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The hon. and learned Member can hardly expect me to give an explicit answer to his question. The subject is a large one, and if any important alteration were at any time contemplated, I should of course take a more suitable method of communicating it to the House than is afforded by an answer to a casual question. I may add, that if by "measure '' the hon. and learned Member means "legislative measure," none would be necessary for the purpose indicated, which is a purely executive proceeding.
  MR. DARLINGstated that by "measure" he meant the carrying out of the recommendations of the Hartington Commission, of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member. He desired to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to carry out those recommendations.
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We have had a great many discussions on the matter, in none of which, if I remember rightly, the hon. and learned Member has ever taken part, and from which he has been, happily for himself,

  1599
  absent. My views on the matter have been stated over and over again, and I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

  EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENT CLERKS.
  MR. E. H. BAILEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the half-holiday is granted to clerks in the Exchequer and Audit Department on every Saturday throughout the year; whether this priviledge is granted to clerks who have entered that office since the issue of the Order in Council of 21st March 1890; whether the practice has existed for many years without detriment to the service; and whether there is anything to prevent the head of any department from allowing a similar privilege to clerks in his own office?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir JOHN HIBBERT,): I have explained in reply to previous questions that a discretion rests with heads of departments in giving effect to the leave regulations of the Order in Council. I am informed that the Comptroller and Auditor-General allows his staff to leave at 2 p.m. every Saturday, subject to the condition that they commence their attendance an hour earlier on those days.

  EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. T. COCHRANE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether he has anything to announce with regard to the relations between the Scottish Education Department and the Science and Art Department; and whether he is aware that there is a strong feeling in Scotland that this matter should be promptly dealt with.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: The relations between the Scotch Education Department and the other Departments that are concerned with special branches of educational administration in Scotland, have been the subject of careful consideration. The negotiations with the Agricultural Department have resulted in a proposal which has now been submitted for the consideration of the
  1600
  Treasury. The Science and Art Department have not seen their way as yet to immediate action in the matter; but I am in further communication with them, and I hope that an analogous arrangement to that with the Agricultural Department may be found practicable.

  BRITISH-INDIAN SUBJECTS IN THE TRANSVAAL.
  MR. H. O. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay upon the Table of the House all correspondence respecting the recent arbitration in the Transvaal as to the rights of British-Indians, and of British subjects generally; whether Her Majesty's Government was a party to the submission of the rights of British subjects to arbitration; and if he can state what is the nature of the sanitary regulations for the infraction of which British subjects in the Transvaal have been punished?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The question at issue, namely, the rights and position of British-Indian subjects in the South African Republic, is too complicated to enable me to explain it within the limits of an ordinary answer, and I will therefore lay Papers referring to the question.

  GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a short Statement, or Return, showing the capital expenditure on Government buildings for the accommodation of Viceroys, Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, Chief Commissioners, and Agents of the Governor-General in India during the last ten years, giving the amount spent in each province separately, with a brief note of the reasons for incurring the expenditure?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. HENRY FOWLER,): The detailed information asked for by the hon. Member is not available either in the Public Works or Finance Departments of the India Office. It could only be supplied after reference to India.

  POSTCARDS.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether it is permissible to adorn the front (or stamped) side of an envelope with a design or sketch, but forbidden to write, print, or otherwise impress anything beyond the address (and the sender's name and address) on the front of a post card; can he state the reason for the distinction to the House; and whether he will consider the possibility of abolishing it?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: Post cards are issued that the public may be able to send a certain class of communications, for which they must otherwise pay full letter rate, at a postage of one halfpenny; and the rule which forbids anything but the address and the sender's name and address to be written or printed on the front part of a post card is, I consider, reasonable and necessary.

  OPIUM COMMISSION.
  MR. ALFRED WEBB: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Holmfirth Division of York (Mr. HENRY J. WILSON), I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether a Supplement to the Report of the Royal Commission on Opium, containing the Memorandum of the Maharaja of Durbhanga, will be in the hands of Members before the Debate takes place on Friday next?
  MR. HENRY FOWLER: The Memorandum will be presented to-day, and I understand that it will be distributed to hon. Members on Wednesday next.

  TRANSFERENCE OF A POST OFFICE MESSENGER.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether he is aware of the circumstances under which John Gilchriest, late post messenger from Granard to Finnea, was obliged to leave the Postal Service, namely, that he was transferred to Athlone, a distance of 30 miles from his home and family, and on his arrival there was asked by the Postmistress what was his religion; and that, on declaring he was a Roman Catholic, he received no instructions as to his route, or his time of departure or return; and whether he will order a full
  1602
  inquiry into this case, and recommend that compensation be given to this man for his term of faithful service in the Post Office employment?
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEY: Time has not admitted of my inquiry into the allegations contained in the hon. Member's question, but I am having inquiry made, and the result shall be communicated to him.

  VENEZUELAN ATTACK ON BRITISH POLICE.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the Venezuelan Government has yet afforded Her Majesty's Government any explanations, asked for nearly three months ago, of the action of Venezuelan armed forces last January in marching into British territory, hauling down the British flag, making prisoners of British police officers, and forcibly conducting them out of British into Venezuelan territory; and, if so, can he now state the purport of the explanations, and what course the Government intends to pursue?
  SIR E. GREY: The explanations which were promised have not yet been received.

  BOILER FLUIDS.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether, in determining on the boiler fluids for the cleansing of the boilers in Her Majesty's vessels, selection is made only after full competitive trial of any "thirds" submitted by responsible persons with certificates of successful use in vessels of the mercantile marine, or whether it is the fact that no such trials arc made and no public competition invited?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Sir UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH,): No boiler fluids are used for the cleansing of the boilers in Her Majesty's vessels.

  OUTRAGES AT HAMILTON, LANARKSHIRE.
  MR. C. DIAMOND: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he has had before him the papers in connection with the case of a young man

  1603
  named Coughlin, who was killed on the 17th March last at Hamilton, Lanarkshire; whether he is aware that it was shown during the Inquiry that certain Orangemen in the locality, who were apprehended for the outrage, had previously threatened the young man and his friends; whether any prosecution is contemplated, seeing that other outrages of a similar character have taken place, and that in no case has anyone been punished; and whether any special steps will be taken to detect the authors of these crimes?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR,): I have received communications from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lanark and others, in regard to this very painful case, and I have now the Papers before I me. Seven men, including two uncles of the deceased, were arrested, the case was duly investigated by the Procurator Fiscal, very full precognitions having been taken. Crown Counsel, after considering these, called in the assistance of an eminent medical expert. The deceased had walked home and gone to bed, after the last of two, and, according to some witnesses, three separate affrays in which he had been involved that evening. The medical evidence was to the effect that death was caused by a small punctured wound on the left side of the head, which could not have been caused by a kick, but must have required a sharp pointed instrument. No evidence could be obtained that any of the accused had used, or possessed, any weapon such as could have produced the wound in question, and in these circumstances it was felt that there was no chance of obtaining a conviction. I am informed that no other outrages of a similar character have taken place in this district. There was no evidence of previous threats, except the statement that one of the men arrested had, in a quarrel with the deceased some time before, used some threatening language of a vague character, to which no importance appears to have been attached by anyone at the time. None of the men arrested were Orangemen, or connected in any way with an Orange Association. Nothing has been discovered, either in the course of the investigation, or since, to indicate that the occurrence was due to political or party feeling.

  IRISH FAIRS AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the National Board refuse to recognise the fact that a large fair is being held outside a school as a reasonable cause for closing a school for the day, even when the children could not, without great difficulty, make their way to the school?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Commissioners require in every case where schools are closed for a longer period than the prescribed limit of 40 school days, exclusive of Saturdays and holidays, that the cause of closing for the excess days shall be shown to be of a reasonable and necessary character. The holding of a fair in the locality of a National School does not in all instances render it necessary to deprive the children, or at least a large proportion of them, of the benefit of school instruction on the fair days; but should the circumstances be such as to render it reasonable and proper that the school should be closed, the Commissioners would not refuse to recognise the fact, and would not withdraw payment for such days.

  SITE OF HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he can explain on what terms the site formerly occupied by Her Majesty's Theatre is held from the Crown; whether there is any provision for forfeiture on failure to fulfil the building covenants; and whether it is proposed to allow the site to remain any longer vacant.
  SIR JOHN HIBBERT: The site is held under an agreement for a lease, but the lease will not be granted until the new buildings are erected. The agreement is forfeitable on certain conditions, but, as I stated on the 29th ult., it is not considered necessary to take any immediate steps on behalf of the Crown, whose interests are not prejudiced by the delay.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he will endeavour to meet the strong feeling in

  1605
  Ireland in favour of the granting of time for the further stages of the Bill to repeal the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act; and whether he will undertake that if Government time is given to any Bill not introduced by the Government, this Bill will be considered to have the first claim?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I regret to say that the Government have no time at their disposal, and, therefore, are unable to give as favourable an answer to the hon. Gentleman's question as they could wish.
  MR. KNOX: May I ask whether we are to understand that the Government have no time at their disposal for anything else?
  MR. J. MORLEY: That is certainly hypothetical, and we cannot, I am afraid, give any undertaking on the subject.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman, if he should find a day to spare, undertake to give that day for the consideration of the repeal of the Crimes Act, and not for the Irish Sunday Closing Bill?
  MR. J. MORLEY: We had better wait until we find a clear day.

  ROSS-SHIRE POTATO CROP.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether he has yet caused inquiry to be made into the alleged distress arising from the want of seed potatoes in the Lochbroom district of Ross-shire; and, if so, will he state what steps he proposes to take to deal with the matter?
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: Yes, I have received a special Report on the matter from the General Superintendent of the Local Government Board, which fully confirms the statement I made in reply to questions in this House. He relates in detail that there was not any failure of the potato crop, or any exceptional distress in the Lochbroom district.

  POTATO DISEASE.
  MR. HEYWOOD JOHNSTONE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when the Report of experiments in the prevention of potato disease, conducted by the Irish Land Commission (Agricultural Department) during the season 1894, will be laid upon the Table?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: Particulars of the demonstrations conducted by the Commissioners in 1894 in the spraying of the potato crop will be furnished in their Annual Report for the year ended 31st March last, which will shortly be laid before Parliament.

  USOGA AND UNYORO.
  Mr. R. A. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether it is the case, as stated by Colonel Colvile in his Dispatch from Kampala of 5th December 1893, that the State of Usoga owes allegiance to Uganda, and that the State of Unyoro is tributary to Uganda; and, if so, whether, in view of the further statements contained in the said Dispatch, that Kabarega the King of Unyoro, had invaded Usoga, and that the capital of Kabarega, is the only remaining great Slave Trade centre in that part of Africa, the Government will extend the Protectorate they have declared over Uganda to Usoga and Unyoro?
  SIR E. GREY: I see no reason to question the correctness of Colonel Colvile's statement, but it does not seem necessary as far as the present relations between Uganda and Unyoro are concerned to alter the limits of the Protectorate.

  IRON AND STEEL TRADE.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he has observed the large increase in the production, in Belgium last year, of steel ingots, rails, and plates, as also in the production of Bessemer pig iron, a state of affairs which exists also in Germany; and if, having regard to the depression prevailing in the British iron and steel trade in the last three years, he will forthwith appoint a small Committee of competent experts to inquire into the causes of this contrast, and the best means of promptly remedying them?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes, Sir, but I see no reason for appointing a Special Committee to investigate the causes of fluctuation of comparative production in a particular industry such as that of iron and steel, especially when that industry

  1607
  in this country is so efficiently represented by bodies such as the Iron and Steel Institute and various Chambers of Commerce, with whom the Board of Trade are in frequent and friendly communication.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the iron and steel industry was the second largest in the country, and that an enormous number of men connected with it were out of employment?
  MR. BRYCEsaid that he was fully aware of the immense magnitude of the iron and steel industry, and for that very reason he thought that they might rely upon the Iron and Steel Institute to communicate on any matter of importance affecting their interests.

  CHANNEL MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. E. H. BAYLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he can state the reason for the arrangement that the Channel steamer Victoria, owned by the South Eastern Railway Company, is placed under the French flag?
  MR. BRYCE: I have communicated with the South Eastern Railway Company, and am informed by them that they do not own any Channel steamer bearing the name Victoria. The London Chatham and Dover Railway Company possess a steamer so named, and, as I explained to the hon. Member for South Birmingham on the 19th February last, and to the hon. Member for East Worcestershire on the 25th February, it is the case that the day service of mails between London and Paris is carried by vessels belonging to that Company, who, being paid by the French Government, are under contract to fly the French flag. The contract in question will expire in 1896, and I understand that the new contract will be given to the Northern of France Railway Company.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESasked whether this vessel was British owned, and yet carried a foreign flag?
  MR. BRYCEsaid that the vessel was owned by the London Chatham and Dover Railway Company, but as it carried the French mails it flew the French flag.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERasked whether the vessel was liable to be used against us in time of war?
  MR. BRYCEsaid that he was not aware, but asked the hon. Member to put down his question upon the Paper.

  DERELICTS.
  MR. J. C. MACDONA: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the White Star and Cunard Lines of Atlantic steamers have within the last month joined together to charter a tug to steam for a fortnight off the West Coast of Ireland, in search of derelicts, as an experiment; whether the Admiralty followed suit and also sent out a tug for the same purpose; whether the Liverpool Steam Tug Company also joined in this search for derelicts, and ultimately succeeded in finding the large derelict Birgette in the Atlantic and safely towed her into Queenstown Harbour; and, whether this great success will encourage the Admiralty to renewed efforts in this direction and induce it to send out a tug or tugs again until all dangerous derelicts in the track of oceangoing ships are destroyed or brought into port?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: No information as to the action of the White Star and Cunard lines of steamers in searching for derelicts has been received at the Admiralty. In the case of the Birgette, the Admiralty became aware that this derelict—one of the rare cases of a derelict ship remaining long afloat—was approaching the concentrated trade route at the entrance of the Channel. One of Her Majesty's ships was, therefore, sent to search for her. The search was continued for 13 days, but was unsuccessful. She was eventually picked up by a private tug and towed into Queenstown. It has been the practice of the Admiralty to send one of Her Majesty's ships, when available, to search for derelicts in such cases as that of the Birgette, and it is not proposed to depart from this practice in the future.
  MR. MACDONAasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would give instructions to the Admiralty to obtain information as to what had been done by the White Star and Cunard lines in the matter.
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: What has been done by the White Star and Cunard Lines is no business of the Admiralty.

  MILITARY MANœUVRES IN THE NEW FOREST.
  MR. J. T. BRUNNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is proposed to take 15,000 men into the New Forest this autumn to manœuvre there for three weeks; if so, whether any special precautions will be taken to prevent such an occupation of the forest from endangering the old woods and impairing the natural beauty of the forest, which Parliament has declared to be especially worthy of preservation for the national enjoyment, and also to protect the forest from the dangers which will arise this year owing to the existence of large quantities of heather, killed by the long frost, and thus left in a highly inflammable condition; whether the operations of the forces will seriously interfere with the roam of the commoners' cattle, and thus injure the large class of small stock farmers for which the district is noted; and whether, in view of the fact that there are in other parts, e.g., in Essex, wide tracts of country going out of cultivation, where a nominal payment in respect of the manœuvres would be a boon to the distressed agriculturists, he will reconsider the intention to hold manœuvres in the New Forest?
  MAJOR RASCHasked whether there were not in Essex thousands of derelict acres available for the operations?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is proposed to take a force this year to the New Forest for manœuvres, which will last a short time. Every precaution will be taken to prevent damage to the forest and to protect the interests of the commoners. The preparations are far advanced, and the substitution of another locality would be very inconvenient. The locality referred to by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite is not, I believe, viewed with favour by the authorities for this purpose. I see no reason to reconsider the proposal I am further informed by a very high authority that the inhabitants of the New Forest would view with something like consternation any proposal to check the proceedings.

  EXTRADITION ACT.
  MR. JAMES WILLIAM LOWTHER: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General when it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce the Bill to amend the Extradition Act, so as to enable a prisoner to be tried upon an extradition warrant elsewhere than at Bow Street Police Court?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT REID,): This Bill was introduced on Tuesday last into the House of Lords.

  LOANS TO LANDOWNERS.
  MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, seeing that, owing to the depreciation in the value of agricultural land, and the extra charges entailed by the new Death Duties, the large majority of landowners are unable to pay the heavy rates of interest charged to borrowers under the various Land Improvement Acts, the Government will advance money at the lowest possible rate of interest to landowners for the erection of farm buildings and of cottages, for drainage, and for such other improvements as are requisite for the proper cultivation of the soil?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): This is a very large question, and I could not pronounce upon it without having a regular plan laid before me for the purpose. But, according to the information I have, in consequence of the great abundance of money at the present time, there never was a period at which money could be obtained on mortgage of land at so low a rate of interest.

  BRITISH HONDURAS.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any decision has been arrived at by Her Majesty's Government respecting the proposed withdrawal of the troops in July next from British Honduras, in view of the critical condition of the Colony, and the serious peril to which the white inhabitants are alleged to be exposed in the event of such withdrawal

  1611
  taking place; whether it has been reported from the Colony that the constabulary, though re-organised, remain disaffected, and that the Native population openly threaten an attack upon the whites as soon as the troops have gone; and whether, seeing that no telegraphic communication exists with the outer world, Her Majesty's Government will cause further inquiry to be made before finally deciding to withdraw the troops in question?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The Colonial Government and Legislature have made provisions for the establishment of a new civil police force for duty in Belize and the southern districts of the colony of British Honduras, the existing semi-military constabulary force being retained for service in the northern frontier districts; and it is hoped and believed that thus adequate provision will have been made for the proper care of the colony by the time fixed for the withdrawal of the troops.

  ELECTRICAL COMMUNICATION WITH LIGHT STATIONS.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the recommendations of the Commissioners, embodied in their recent report on the electrical communication with light stations, have been approved; whether the same will be carried out without unnecessary delay, as regards the Farmby Light-vessel, the Maplin Pile Lighthouse, the Smalls Rock Lighthouse, the Little Ross and Bidston Shore Lighthouses; and whether arrangements will be made to display the storm warning signals at the 25 lighthouses, as recommended, at the small cost of £1 each?
  MR. BRYCE: In addition to the works recommended in the recent (Third) Report of the Royal Commission, there are still some works, recommended in their First Report, which have not yet been carried out. A sum of £11,000 has been placed at the disposal of the Board of Trade for the purpose of effecting electrical communication with light-vessels, &c., during the present financial year, and the Board are at present considering on which of the works recommended that amount, which is not sufficient for all—should be expended.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last part of the question.
  MR. BRYCE: That depends on the amount of money in hand.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: May I ask whether the sum is on the Estimates for the current, or for the past year?
  MR. BRYCE: The current year.

  FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he would make two distinct Bills of this Bill, inasmuch as the first part of the Bill was opposed, while the second was not opposed?
  MR. BRYCEsaid, the objection to the first part of the Bill came from a very limited district indeed, and he took it that the enormous preponderance of opinion in the fishing industry was in favour of the first part.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman could say when he intended to take the Bill?
  MR. BRYCEsaid, that, of course, as there was some opposition to a part of the Bill it could not be taken after 12 o'clock. The right hon. Gentleman was understood to say further that he could not then state when the Bill would be taken.
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: Is this a Bill which ought to pass its Second Reading without discussion?
  MR. BRYCE: I think I have expressed my feeling quite enough on this matter.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEY: With reference to the 15th Order of the Day, the Intoxicating Liquor Traffic (Local Control) Bill, I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he intends to take the Second Reading before Whitsuntide, or after, or at any time?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The Bill will certainly be taken, but it will not be taken before Whitsuntide.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: Will the Naval Works Bill be again taken in

  1613
  Committee? It is a Bill of great importance, and it is non-contentious.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, Sir; I hope a very short time will dispose of that Bill. I believe there is only one question still remaining for the Committee, and I hope to get the Bill passed through Committee before Whitsuntide.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Is it the intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take any steps to so accelerate the passage of the Welsh Bill as to insure that the Irish Land Bill will come on at a period of the Session when it is likely to get a fair consideration?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, Sir; I hope the Irish Land Bill will come on at a period of the Session at which it will receive the sanction of this House.
  MR. BARTLEY: Before the Local Veto Bill?
  [No answer was given.]
  DR. MACGREGOR: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has any further statement to make with regard to Scotch business?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I propose to put down the adjourned debate on the Scotch Standing Committee for Thursday, and on that occasion I will make a statement with reference to Scotch business.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Will that be with the object of referring the Crofters Bill to that Standing Committee?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I shall make a statement on that subject when the Motion is made for the appointment of the Committee.
  DR. MACGREGOR: I regret to say that that is not good enough for me.
  [The hon. Member then left his seat, and, bowing twice to the Speaker from the floor of the Chamber, left the House amidst ironical cheers.]
  MR. G. J. GOSCHEN: I understood that Committee on the Finance Bill was to be the first Order for Thursday.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: That is so; but I will adjourn the Finance Bill in order that sufficient time may be given for the discussion of the Scotch Standing Committee. [Cries of "What time?"] I do not anticipate that there will be a long
  1614
  discussion upon the Motion for the appointment of that Committee. I will make an arrangement and will endeavour to ascertain what will be convenient.

  NEW WRIT.
  For the Borough of Croydon v. The Honourable Sidney Herbert, Chiltern Hundreds.—Mr. Akers-Douglas.)

  THE EMPLOYMENT OF LASCARS.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the unsatisfactory condition of employment of Lascar seamen on board British ships, and the infringement of the Merchant Shipping Act by shipping companies in failing to provide the said Lascar seamen with the proper special accommodation provided by the Statute.
  *MR. SPEAKER: I have looked at the Notice of Motion which the hon. Gentleman has handed to me. I do not think it is one which comes within the terms of Standing Order 17. That Standing Order provides that the Motion must relate to a definite matter of urgent public importance. Of course the employment of sailors and their treatment are matters of great public importance, but whether, in the shape in which they are referred to in this Motion, they are urgent within the meaning of the Standing Order, may be a matter of doubt. I am clearly of opinion, however, that this is not a definite matter, which it is essential it should be, in order to bring the Motion within the rules. It would involve inquiry by the House into the conditions of employment of Lascar seamen on board British ships in general; it would mean inquiry into their treatment in a vast number of cases, and it would be impossible for the House on such a Motion to discuss the details of alleged infringements of the Merchant Shipping Act by shipping companies in failing to provide Lascar seamen with the proper special accommodation provided by the Statute. These are matters entirely of detail, and I think the Standing Order intended that the matter to be discussed should be

  1615
  a definite matter, and that it was not intended to include such matters as this. Therefore I deem it to be my duty not to submit the Motion to the House.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I should like to ask your ruling in regard to the latter portion of the Motion—eamely, whether the infringement of an Act of Parliament is not a definite matter of urgent public importance.
  *MR. SPEAKER: That would depend upon the particular case put before me. What is put before me here is the general infringement of an Act of Parliament by shipping companies in general.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I will call attention to the matter on the Vote on Account.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL.
  Considered in Committee:—
  MR. MELLOR in the Chair.
  (In the Committee.)
  Progress (14th May) Clause 2:—

  ECCLESIASTICAL CORPORATIONS AND BISHOPS.
  "(1.) On the date of Disestablishment every cathedral and ecclesiastical corporation in Wales or Monmouthshire, whether sole or aggregate, shall be dissolved. (2.) After the date of Disestablishment no Bishop of the Church in Wales shall be summoned to, or be qualified to sit, in the House of Lords as such. Provided that every person who is at the passing of this Act a Bishop, Dean, or Archdeacon of the Church in Wales, shall during his life enjoy the same title and precedence as if this Act had not passed. (3.) Writs of Summons shall be issued to Bishops not disqualified by this enactment for itting in the House of Lords as if the Bishops so qualified had vacated their seats."
  Mr. R. W. HANBURY Mr. R. W. HANBURY (Preston) Moved in line 18, before "after" to insert "on and."
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,)assented to the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. CYRIL DODD MR. CYRIL DODD (Essex, Maldon) Moved,
  In line 20, after "such," to insert "and no bishop, priest, or deacon of the Church in Wales shall by reason of his ecclesiastical position, or of his being a bishop or priest or deacon, be disqualified from or liable to any penalty for sitting or voting in the House of Commons: Provided always, that he holds no benefice or ecclesiastical preferment in England."
  At the present time, he pointed out, the clergy could not sit or vote in that House whilst the ministers of Nonconformist bodies could do so. The Act of Parliament which governed the matter was passed in 1801, in consequence of the discussions which took place with regard to the case of Mr. Horn Tooke, a clergyman of the Church of England, who was elected for the borough of Old Sarum. Some doubt had arisen as to whether clergymen of the Church of England were disqualified from sitting and voting in the House of Commons; and that Act enacted that no person having been ordained to the office of priest or deacon should be capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons. The result would be that when Disestablishment took place, all the clergymen of the Church in Wales who had been ordained ministers of the Church of England would undoubtedly be debarred by that Statute from sitting and voting in the House of Commons. The Act further provided that there should be a fine of £400 for every day on which such clergymen should sit or vote in the House. They had been told that the object of the Bill was to produce equality between the Church and other religious bodies in Wales, and his Amendment was framed with the view of carrying out that object. In the discussion on the Act of 1801 a large number of precedents were discussed, and the weight of evidence certainly was that the clergy of the Church of England were, apart from the Statute, considered as disqualified from sitting in the House. One of the reasons assigned was that the clergy were represented in Convocation and that, therefore, they needed no representation in this House. It was proposed by a later section of the Bill to remove the clergy of the Church in Wales from Convocation, and therefore that reason disappeared. It was rather

  1617
  a theoretical than a practical reason, because Convocation had no power, unless the Crown allowed it, to transact business. Another reason for excluding clergymen from the House of Commons was because they were amply represented by the Bishops in the Upper House. That, again, was not a very practical reason, because the Bishops were in no sense chosen by the clergy, and in no sense represented the clergy. The third reason was an historical one. The writ by which the Bishops were summoned to the House of Lords contained a clause which was inoperative, summoning Proctors and Deans and Archdeacons. They did not attend, and if they did, the House of Lords would be very much astonished at their appearance. Whether there was or was not at any time a good reason for the exclusion of the clergy from this House, that reason would be entirely lost when Disestablishment took place. It was impossible to say that religious equality was promoted whilst a disability was left weighing on the clergy of the Church of Wales which did not weigh on other religious bodies in that country. In most of the colonies the clergy of the Episcopal Church were permitted to sit and vote in the House of Representatives. In the Colony of Tasmania an Archdeacon was at one time Premier, and was afterwards elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was an able man and did not confine his energies entirely to his archidiaconal functions, but kept for the benefit of his neighbours a pack of hounds. It seemed to him that if they were to deprive the Church of some of the advantages which it obtained from being established they must take care that they did not leave it under any kind of disabilities. The Home Secretary had stated that if there were any disabilities which would weigh upon the Church in Wales in consequence of the passing of this Bill which were not shared by other religious bodies, if they were pointed out to him it would be his endeavour to remedy them, and that at any rate he would give careful consideration to the points which were brought before him. He had added a proviso to his Amendment because it might happen that a clergyman of the Church of Wales might at the same time hold some benefice in England, and so
  1618
  long as the Church was established it would seem that the clergy of the Church could not be elected to this House. With regard to the general argument, it was impossible that they could approve of the clergyman of the disestablished Church being under any disability which he did not share with his Nonconformist brethren. It was for the electors to say whether they would or would not elect a clergyman to represent them. And there would be no reason when Disestablishment took place, to prevent the Church, if it thought fit, making regulations that all clergymen should be disqualified to sit in the House of Commons. But that was a matter of internal regulation, and the House had no choice but to say, when it reduced the Welsh clergy to the level of ordinary citizens, that at the same time they should have the rights of ordinary citizens. For his part he should be glad to see the clergy in the House; it would be far better that they should be entitled to sit and vote than that the House should get their views at second hand, as it did now. In conclusion, he would remind the Home Secretary of his declaration that he would carefully consider any point in regard to which the clergy were placed under a disability, and would ask him to give his support to his Amendment.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, he could not help regretting that his hon. Friend should have introduced this question at this stage of the Bill, where to him, it did not appear very logically to arise. His hon. Friend had quoted his declaration to which he meant to adhere, and so far as he could to carry it out—that he would not consent on behalf of the Government to the continuance of any disability in the case of clergy of the Disestablished Church, which were not shared by other religious communities. He agreed with his hon. Friend that the disqualification for sitting in this House fell within the category to which he had referred; and so far as he was concerned he should be glad to consent to its removal. He did not think, however, his hon. Friend's words were well chosen for the purpose. The effect of his proviso would be that any clergyman who held a preferment in Monmouthshire would not come within the scope of the Amendment at all.

  1619
  According to the wording of the Amendment, Monmouth would be excluded from the scope of the clause. He should suggest that his hon. Friend should withdraw the Amendment, and accept some such words as these:—
  "And no person shall, by reason only of being a bishop, priest, or deacon of the Church in Wales be disqualified or liable to any penalty for sitting or voting in the House of Commons."
  The Amendment having been by leave withdrawn,
  MR. DODDmoved the form of words suggested by the Home Secretary.
  MR. R. W. HANBURYpointed out that, if this concession was made, it would have to go a great deal farther. There was another large body of episcopal clergy, namely, the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, who were excluded from sitting in the House of Commons; and if the clergy of the Disestablished Church in Wales were to be exempted from the present disability, so, logically, must the whole body of the Roman Catholic clergy of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was perfectly willing to see both classes of clergy admitted.
  MR. ASQUITH: I quite agree; so am I. The only point is that one class is within the scope of this Bill and the other is not. It is the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 which disables Roman Catholic priests from sitting in this House of Parliament, and the clause would have to be repealed before you could remove the disqualification, for which there is no foundation whatever. You cannot do it by means of a clause in this Bill.
  MR. J. C. MACDONAsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper in a similar sense, but he was glad to support that of his hon. Friend opposite. By putting his Amendment down, he wished to draw attention to the fact that clergymen and criminals were the only two classes excluded from aseat in that House.
  *SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, that as one who was the son and grandson of clergymen, and as having many near connections who were in Holy Orders, he felt most strongly that it was not for the benefit of the clergy themselves, nor to the advantage of the
  1620
  Church, nor for the good of religion, that gentlemen in Holy Orders should mix in the strife of political life. He was quite aware the proposal did not extend the privilege to those who held benefices, but a gentleman might hold a benefice and yet have the intention of becoming a candidate for a seat in this House at an early date. During the interval there would be a conflict in his mind between his duties as a clergyman and his prospects and hopes as a politician. During such time of suspense an election might be near. One knew it was a season involving much thought, much care, much close attention. He was quite sure that during that season the duties of the cure would be neglected and mischief would arise to the cause of religion. And suppose a clergyman did enter the House under this provision: a Member of this House must necessarily become a Party man, having Party associations, and he was quite sure the benefit of his services would be greatly injured by those associations. The law was not now as it was in the time of Home Tooke. The Act 33 and 34 Vict., enabled a gentleman who felt his obligations to be onerous to seek and obtain relief from those obligations. There were now at least two Members of the House, one of them on the Treasury Bench, who had taken advantage of that law, and he maintained that if clergymen desired to enter this House they ought to do so through the portals provided by Parliament. He had another reason which might be of some weight, and that was the obligations imposed by the Pluralities Act. He did not see how a clergyman, who had once placed himself under the obligations of the Pluralities Act, could consistently occupy a seat in the House of Commons. And he had a further argument still, though he did not know what weight might be attached to it—he referred to the vows and obligations solemnly undertaken by clergymen at the time of Ordination. Only last week the Standing Committee on Law had passed a Bill, strengthening the penalities imposed upon clergymen who broke their Ordination vows. He maintained that a gentleman who came under those vows was not free to enter into the struggles and strifes of Parties in this House.
  SIR JOHN GORSTasked the Home Secretary whether he thought the words proposed made it quite clear upon whom the provision would operate. Nobody was disqualified now by reason of being a bishop, deacon, or priest of the Church. What disqualified was the fact of having been ordained. Suppose, after this Act was passed, a man took a preferment in the Disestablished Church in Wales—would that at once have the effect of qualifying for a seat in this House? He was disqualified before because he had been ordained. Was the mere fact of holding a minor preferment in the Church in Wales to qualify him, and would he be enabled to sit permanently, or only so long as he held such preferment in the Church in Wales?
  MR. ASQUITHreplied that the removal of the disability applied—and was only intended to apply—to those clergymen who hold benefices in the Disestablished Church in Wales, and so long as they do so.
  *SIR M. HICKS-BEACHthought it might be well to defer the consideration of this question until the 14th Clause, which referred in a sub-section to the question of Convocation, should have been reached. On the general question he could not agree with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Wigan. The hon. Baronet, he thought, looked at the question too much from the point of view of the Church. From that point of view there might be a great deal to be said against the election of a Bishop or clergyman to the House of Commons. But it ought to be left to the Church body after Disestablishment to deal with that question. It could be provided by that body that no persons holding ecclesiastical offices in Wales should hold them together with a seat in Parliament. But as far as Parliament itself was concerned he was of opinion that they ought to remove this special legal disability as they were now disestablishing the Church in Wales. Therefore, when the proper time should come for dealing with this question he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not withdraw from the position which he had taken up.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that he assented gladly to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. What he wished to avoid was the possibility of their having two
  1622
  Debates on this question at different times. If it were the general view of the Committee that this was an inappropriate place for the discussion of this Amendment he would ask his hon. Friend to withdraw it.
  SIR RICHARD PAGETthought it a very singular proposal that the incumbent of a living should be allowed to take a seat in that House and go straight from political strife in Parliament to the performance of his religious duties. Political partisanship must conflict with an incumbent's duties as a clergyman, and would lead to difficulties with members of his congregation. It had been suggested that the Church body after Disestablishment might itself make rules applicable to the case, and might, if it chose, prevent any incumbent of a disestablished benefice coming to that House. He did not, however, understand how that could be done. If a law were passed permitting a man to hold a living and a seat in Parliament at the same time, surely the Disestablished Church in Wales would not be competent to establish a rule in direct opposition to what that House would have declared to be legal. If the disability to sit in that House were removed by Parliament the change must stand, and there might arise a race of political parsons who would not be in touch with the sentiments of their flocks. In his opinion the change would be for the worse both in the interests of the Church and of the people.
  MR. ELLIOTT LEESthought they ought to understand clearly what the effect of the proposal before them would be. Any young clergyman who might think that it would improve his professional prospects to have a seat in that House would be able to take a benefice in Wales in order to qualify himself for Parliament, and after his election, as soon as he saw a chance of preferment in the Church of England, he could return to that Church. Would not that be the effect of the Amendment? If so, they would, by passing it, be adding insult to injury in their treatment of the Church in Wales. By making that Church a stepping-stone to higher things for ambitious young clergymen they would not be treating her at all fairly. The Amendment would alter the status of clergymen in

  1623
  Wales, and seeing that it was supported by hon. Members opposite he was very suspicious of it: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that he had recommended the withdrawal of the Amendment on the understanding that the discussion would not be continued. Since then, however, two speeches had been delivered by hon. Members opposite. If the Debate were to go on they must divide, for in that case he could not consent to its resumption a future time.
  MR. DODDsaid, that he recognised that it would be more economical to discuss the question in connection with the subject of Convocation, and asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. HANBURYmoved, Clause 2, page 1, line 20, to leave out "at the passing of this Act," and insert "on the date of Disestablishment." As he under stood the clause, Bishops appointed in the interval between the passing of the Act and the date of Disestablishment would not be allowed to retain subsequently either their titles or their precedence. These Bishops, however, would be Bishops appointed by the Crown, and it would be rather a strong step to deprive them of the titles and precedence enjoyed by their predecessors. The Crown would not under this Bill abandon its rights to confer titles of honour in the interval before the date of Disestablishment. Surely it could not be the intention of the right hon. Gentleman that Bishops appointed by the Crown before Disestablishment had actually taken place should not be allowed to retain their title and precedence. It must be admitted that their position ought to vary very much from the position of those appointed after Disestablishment had taken place. Take the case of a Bishop, not dying, but retiring in the interval between the passing of the Act and Disestablishment. Why should not his successor retain his title and precedence? At any rate, in his first point he believed he was right, and he would like to know what the right hon. Gentleman had to say about it.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that this provision was taken from the Irish Church
  1624
  Act. It was a saving clause. The words in the Irish Church Act were—
  ''Provided that every present Archbishop, Bishop, Dean, or Archdeacon shall, during his life, enjoy the same title or precedence as if this Act had not passed."
  All the interests with which they were now dealing were what he might call vested interests—titles created under the existing state of things, and they had a claim to consideration which could not be urged on behalf of those interests created after the passing of the Act. These words were only put in for the purpose of securing to the holders of these offices their social precedence. New Bishops appointed in the interval between the passing of the Act and the date of Disestablishment would be appointed by the Crown it was true, but not on the advice of a Minister of the Crown. They would be appointed on the petition of the Archbishop. It was clearly a question of what was most convenient, and he thought the Government had done wisely in following the precedent of the Irish Act.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid, there were first those who now held these offices; then the dignitaries appointed between the passing of the Act and the date of Disestablishment; and finally, those appointed after the date of Disestablishment by the Church body. In the interval the right hon. Gentleman had to invoke the aid of the Crown to make these appointments, though it was true that they were not to be made on the advice of a Minister, but on the advice of a very high Church officer. Still, the offices were to be created by the Crown itself, and it would be more respectful to the Crown that the holders should be allowed to retain their title and precedence for life. He could not see how it would do any harm to anyone.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. R. C. JEBB MR. R. C. JEBB (Cambridge University) moved in line 21, after "Dean" to insert "Canon." He said, that Clause 2 provided that—
  "every person who is at the passing of this Act a Bishop, Dean, or Archdeacon of the Church in Wales shall, during his life, enjoy the same title and precedence as if this Act had not passed."

  1625
  There appeared to be no reason why this provision should be confined to the cases of Bishop, Dean, and Archdeacon. Why, for example, should the same provision not apply to Canons? It would not be disputed that "Canon" was a recognised ecclesiastical title. But perhaps it would be said that the social precedence enjoyed by a Canon, as such, was less definite than that which belonged to a Bishop, Dean, or Archdeacon; that the intention of the words in the Bill was merely to preserve the social status of the persons mentioned; and that, therefore, it was not thought necessary to include Canons. The answer was simple. A Canon, undoubtedly, enjoyed precedence in the cathedral to which his canonry was attached. But, perhaps, they would be told that Clause 2 proposed to dissolve the cathedral corporations, and that when this had happened there would be an end to the most clearly-marked kind of precedence which a Canon, as such, possessed. In refutation of that view, he would appeal to an authority which the Government would not decline to accept—it was that of the Home Secretary himself. For it was recently pointed out by him that the existence of a cathedral chapter did not depend on the legal incident of incorporation; a proposition which the right hon. Gentleman illustrated by the case of the Roman Catholic cathedrals in this country. If, then, cathedral chapters could exist without incorporation, the passing of this Bill, if it should pass, would not necessarily make it impossible that a Canon should have a perfectly definite claim and precedence in the Church of Wales. That being so, such precedence ought to be expressly recognised in the Bill. The words of this sub-section were practically the same as those of Section 13 of the Irish Church Act. But the Irish Church Act left the cathedrals to the Representative Body of the Irish Church; whereas this Bill transferred them to the Welsh Commissioners. Churchmen had all the stronger reason for requiring that the Bill should not ignore the existence of an ancient ecclesiastical title and dignity, which had hitherto been bound up with the corporate life of cathedrals—an office which, by its history and traditions, attested the immemorial and inalienable rights of
  1626
  the Church in those cathedrals which were reared by Churchmen, and which the piety and liberality of Churchmen had maintained through long generations. The principle involved in this Amendment was one which covered more than the particular case to which the Amendment itself was directed. He maintained that this Bill ought to preserve the title and precedence of everyone who holds any ecclesiastical dignity or office in the Church of Wales. But he was content to have invited the attention of the Committee to the particular defect in the clause, which, as it stood, was a prominent one, a typical one, and one which appeared to him clearly and entirely indefensible. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman might see his way to accept the Amendment.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, he had listened with great interest to what had fallen from his hon. Friend, and he could assure him that the intention of the clause was merely to deal with what he might call the legal interests attaching to certain offices in the Church, and not in any sense to deal with any ecclesiastical scale of precedence—which, he took it, was a matter of internal regulation. They stopped at the point of Archdeacon because that was the point at which this kind of social precedence was generally supposed to stop. He did not, however, wish to have any controversy in a matter of this kind, and, therefore, he would say at once that he would accept the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight, which stood lower on the paper, to insert the words "or holder of any ecclesiastical office in." That would cover every case of title attaching to any office.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid, he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for meeting his hon. Friend so far. Still, he believed, a Canon had a definite precedence now. He was not certain that he did not come before an archdeacon. There could be no objection to inserting the word "Canon" between "Dean" and "Archdeacon."
  MR. ASQUITH: Agreed.
  Amendment agreed to.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTER SIR RICHARD WEBSTER moved the insertion of the words, "or holder of any ecclesiastical office in."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. BARTLEY MR. BARTLEY moved to omit the word "title," because the Bill secured it in the present holder of an office, but he would withdraw the Amendment if the Government would accept the next Amendment—a proviso to secure that the successors of the present dignitaries should be entitled to assume the same designations. It ought to be clearly stated that the new organisation would have the power to give these titles.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, the sub-section was a saving clause to preserve to the holders of existing offices the titles they now enjoy. It would be for the Church Body in the future to attach to offices such designations as they thought fit. When they came to the powers of the new Church Body, if there was any ambiguity, it could be removed; but that would be the proper time to deal with the matter.
  *MR. TOMLINSONsaid, that all he wished by his proviso was to make it quite clear.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that in his opinion it was quite clear already; but, if it were not, when they came to deal with the powers of the new Church Body it should be made so.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR J. GORST SIR J. GORST moved the omission of the following sub-section:—
  "(3) Writs of Summons shall be issued to Bishops not disqualified by this enactment from sitting in the House of Lords, as if the Bishops so disqualified had vacated their seats."
  He said that this sub-section did not deal with the Church in Wales, and it affected those who were not members of the Church in Wales. If the Welsh sees were destroyed, the law would decide what was to happen with reference to the rights of Bishops in the House of Lords. The Act 41 & 43 Viet., c. 68, passed in 1898, giving power to the Crown to form certain Bishoprics, when certain forms were gone through, provided that a writ was to issue for filling a vacancy in the Bishoprics in the House of Lords if a vacancy was caused by the voidance of any see other than certain sees that were mentioned. This sub-section seemed to him to be a sort of an attempt to make the Bishops the recipients of the spoil of the Welsh
  1628
  Church, and that was not a proceeding which ought to be formulated by the Bill. He had not heard of any desire on the part of the English Bishops to profit by the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. He had no reason to suppose that there was any desire on the part of the English Bishops that more of them should be taken away from the dioceses to sit in the House of Lords. If that was to be one of the results of passing the Bill, the misfortune of Disestablishment would be that it would inflict injury on the Church of England. Had the Home Secretary received any representation from the Welsh Bishops that they desired that their places should be taken by English Bishops? If the Home Secretary had not received any such representation from the Welsh or the English Bishops, he had better leave the results of the destruction of the four Welsh sees to the operation of the law, whatever it might be.
  MR. HANBURYasked as a point of order whether this sub-section was in order, whether it came within the title of the Bill, as the sub-section would affect not the Church in Wales but the Church in England.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, that, as the sub-section was in the Bill when it was read a second time, it was in order, and if it did not come within the title of the Bill that could be altered. A clause already in the Bill was in a different category from an amendment going beyond the scope of the Bill.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, the sub-section was inserted because it was believed that without it the representation of the Church in the House of Lords would be diminished, and it was that objection might be taken to such diminution; but the provision was not one to which the Government attached any importance. The omission of the sub-section was to be moved by an hon. Member on the Ministerial side of the House, who did not look at the subject from the same point of view as the right hon. and learned Gentleman; and if it was the general feeling that the sub-section was unnecessary, he should be happy to part with it.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, it was an extraordinary thing that the right hon. Gentleman should talk in this off-hand manner on a subject which

  1629
  appeared in the original draft of the Bill. He should have supposed that this matter was clearly outside the title of the Bill; but, whether it was or not, the Government had deliberately put the sub-section into the Bill, and now they proposed to throw it overboard without a word of justification.
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, he was entirely against the withdrawal of the subsection on the assumption that the right hon. Gentleman had been advised that it was unnecessary to maintain the present number of Bishoprics in the House of Lords. Inasmuch as the right hon. Gentleman said it was his intention and wish that there should be no cutting down of the numbers, the Government ought to make it clear that there would be no reduction. As long as it was the law of the land that there should be 36 spiritual Peers in the House of Lords, it ought to be provided that the number should be maintained.
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid, the question really was that four English Bishops would under the present law be called up into the House of Lords in consequence of putting an end to the existence of the Church in Wales. If the Government agreed that the number of Bishops in the House of Lords should not be diminished, it was essential they should put words into this Bill providing that the sub-section should operate as an avoidance under this Statute of the Welsh Sees, in which case there would, under the present Statute, be succession. But if they did not insert the words proposed, the result would be to reduce by four the representation of the Church in the House of Lords. Whether that representation was desirable or not was a large question, upon which he would say nothing at that moment, but it was a question which should not be decided by omitting the sub-section the Government had deliberately put into the Bill. He thought the Home Secretary would admit that it was scarcely fair now to allow this subsection to be struck out. The Committee had debated the subject whether the four Welsh Bishops should sit in the House of Lords during their life,
  1630
  although the Church in Wales was Disestablished, and it was said:—
  "No, you ought not to have them sitting in the House of Lords, because by the provisions of the Bill there will be four other Bishops called up who will, so far as the representation of the Church is concerned, supply the places of those excluded by the earlier sub-section."
  It was on the understanding that that was the proposal of the Government in the Bill that the House consented to exclude the four Welsh Bishops. The effect of the change of front on the part of the Government would be that they provided that four Welsh Bishops should not continue to sit, and they were leaving out the sub-section which would secure the presence of four English Bishops in their places.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsuggested that instead of Sub-section 3 this should be inserted:—
  "At the date of Disestablishment the Sees of the Church in Wales shall be deemed to be avoided."
  If the Home Secretary accepted that he would be satisfied.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that as the right hon. Gentleman proposed to omit this sub-section, and some of the supporters of the Government also, he repeated, that the Government would not stand in their way. The construction put on the Act that had been referred to as not a sound or correct one, and if the clause had stood with this sub-section the Welsh benefices would not have been avoided. It was for the purpose of leaving the representation of the Church of England in the House of Lords exactly as it was that the sub-section was inserted. The right hon. Member for Cambridge University doubted if his construction of the Act was correct, that the Church of England did not desire what was proposed, and that it was rather injurious that a young Bishop recently appointed should be drawn from his spiritual work to take part in the carnal interests of party politics in the House of Lords; but if there was any alteration it would be rather an advantage than otherwise that the Church of England should be represented by four Welsh Bishops, because, to that extent her spiritual forces would not be depleted, and she would retain

  1631
  representation for political purposes. He did not know if many Churchmen shared that view. [Opposition cries of "No!"] Then he supposed the right hon. Gentleman represented no one but himself, and certainly not what was called the Church Party on the other side of the House. If that was so, although he should view the decision of the House either way with equanimity, he thought that, having made this proposal, the decision of the Committee should be taken upon it.
  *SIR.M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, he understood the omission of the sub-section was moved because it was considered unnecessary, and the Home Secretary accepted the Motion as if he did not think it would make any difference to the Bill whether the sub-section was in it or not. They were about to strike out the sub-section under that impression, when the learned Members for the Isle of Wight and Plymouth explained that it would make much difference—indeed, that if the words were omitted the result would be that absolutely contrary to the intentions of the Government, the Church in England as well as the Church in Wales would be affected by the removal of the four Bishops from the House of Lords. They now understood that her Majesty's Government did attach importance to these words. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that four Bishops now sitting in the House of Lords would cease to sit there, and that therefore the representation of the Church in that assembly would be reduced by that number. He did not think that it was the wish of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Univerity of Cambridge that that should be the case, and he was quite sure that that was not the wish of the vast majority of Churchmen in that House. He hoped that Her Majesty's Government would adhere to their original proposal, by which he thought they were bound, because throughout the Debate the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of himself and his colleagues, had repudiated the idea that they desired in any way to interfere with the position of the Church in England.
  The Committee divided: Ayes 297; Noes161.—(Division List, No. 86.)
  SIR R. WEBSTER SIR R. WEBSTER moved on Clause 2, page 2, line 2, to leave out "enactment," and to insert "Act."
  Amendment agreed to.
  On the Motion that the clause as amended stand part of the Bill,
  MR. HARRY FOSTERsaid, he felt it was his duty to ask the Committee to reject the clause, by which every Corporation in Wales would be dissolved. The effect of it would be to destroy the present local organisation of the Church in Wales, whilst the Bishops would be deprived of their seats in the House of Lords. He would, therefore, move the ejection of the clause.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 3:—

  TRANSFER AND DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY.
  "On the date of Disestablishment there shall, save as by this Act provided, be transferred to the Welsh Commissioners hereinafter mention:—(a)All property vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or Queen Anne's Bounty which is ascertained as hereinafter mentioned to be Welsh ecclesiastical property; and (b) all property not so vested which, at the passing of this Act, belongs to or is appropriated to the use of any ecclesiastical office or cathedral corporation in or connected with the Church in Wales or the holder of any such office; subject, in the case of all such property, to all charges and incumbrances affecting the property, and, in the case of all such property, except tithe rent-charge, to the existing interests of all persons who at the passing of this Act hold such offices as aforesaid, and in the case of tithe rent-charge to the obligation to make such provision as is hereinafter mentioned in lieu of their existing interests."
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs) moved in line 6, to leave out the words, "Welsh Commissioners" and insert "Council." He appealed to the Home Secretary to assent to this Amendment. The Church Fund, he explained, was divided into two parts, the national and parochial funds; the national fund would be administered absolutely by the Commissioners, and the parochial fund by the County Councils, in accordance with schemes which they made, with the approval of the the Commissioners. Over both these funds, therefore, the Commissioners

  1633
  would have the most absolute power. As far as the national fund was concerned they could initiate schemes, and there would be no appeal except to the Privy Council and the House of Lords; and as far as the parochial fund was concerned, the Commissioners would have a veto upon the schemes of the elected representatives of the people. He would not venture to make any criticism on the Commissioners, though it was rather remarkable that there was only one who was a Welshman, and not one who was a Nonconformist; but the Committee should bear in mind that they were appointed for all time. If the County Councils prepared any schemes for the expenditure of money which the Commissioners did not approve of, they had the most absolute power to reject, modify, or amend in every possible way, such schemes. Supposing that these Commissioners were gentlemen in whom the Welsh people had the utmost confidence, if a vacancy occurred, the next appointment might not meet with their approval. Assuming for a moment that this was a Liberal Commission, if vacancies occurred when the Tory Government was in power, it might be converted into a Tory Commission; or if, as hon. Members on the other side anticipated, the Welsh people in future would be converted to Conservative principles, the Commissioners might be Liberal while the Welsh people were Conservative. He wished the Committee to realise that the Commissioners would be appointed to administer funds which, according to the main principle of the Bill, belonged to the Welsh people. He did not think that it was a desirable state of things that a purely local fund should be administered by a number of gentlemen who might be utterly out of sympathy with the people to whom the property belonged. These Commissioners would not be subject to the control of Parliament, and their action could not be called in question, as they would be in the position of a judicial body. He thought the fund should be administered in accordance with the views of the majority of the people; he did not, however, propose by this Amendment to dispense with the existence of Commissioners altogether. Wherever the functions of the Commissioners were judicial in their character,
  1634
  there he did not propose to eliminate the word "Commissioners" from the Bill. But so far as the administration of the liberated fund was concerned, he held that it should be in the hands of an elected body responsible to the Welsh County Councils. It was not the case that the Amendment would involve a fundamental alteration of the machinery of the Bill. The Home Secretary himself proposed, by the 9th Clause, that the administration of two-thirds of the National Fund should be entrusted to a joint committee of County Councils in Wales and Monmouthshire. The Commissioners might, if they thought fit, call that body into existence. All he proposed was that instead of leaving it to the discretion of the Commissioners, Parliament should at the outset call such a body into existence, and intrust to it the management of the whole of these funds. The 81st Section of the Local Government Act provided that County Councils might from time to time join in appointing a joint committee for any purpose in respect of which they were jointly interested. What he suggested was, that that clause, with the machinery provided in it, should be brought into operation for the purpose of exercising supreme control over the management of this fund.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, he regretted that it was not possible for the Government to accept the Amendment. The hon. Member had not stated what was the council to which he referred.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid, he proposed that the council should be the joint committee provided for in the 81st Section of the Local Government Act.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, there was nothing in this or any subsequent Amendment which would indicate that. Nor had the hon. Member explained, to his satisfaction at any rate, how much of the functions of the Commissioners should be transferred to this body; and how much retained by them. But, after all, that did not go to the root of the matter. The view of the Government was, that it was absolutely essential to the carrying out of their scheme that they should have a body—he was not speaking now of the names of the particular member's or even of the precise composition of the Commission—with the

  1635
  general attributes and functions of the Commissioners proposed by the Bill to carry out this great operation of Disestablishment and Disendowment. He did not hesitate to say that nine-tenths of the functions were either administrative or judicial, and for both purposes it was essential that they should have a body who were, it was true, responsible to Parliament, but who were removed beyond the point at which there could be any suspicion of their being moved by sectional or party interests or considerations in the matters with which they had to deal. If they were to carry out this work, arousing as it did the keenest susceptibilities, and doing a certain amount of necessary violence which they all respected, involving the arrangement of the most complicated questions of detail, both in finance and in administration; if that work was to be carried with a chance of success—if, in other words, it was to be carried out so that those who carried it on might believe that they had the confidence, not of one section of the community, but of the whole community, in their sense of justice and their desire to maintain an absolutely even balance between the different interests, it was, in his judgment, absolutely necessary to have a body who were not dependent upon election and did not hold their office by popular choice. The Government had created such a body. If any of the gentlemen now nominated by Parliament disappeared it was quite true that the choice of his successor would lie with the Ministry of the day. But like every other act of Ministerial discretion, that choice would be subject to the review of the House of Commons; and if a Minister were ill-advised enough to exercise that function in the interests of Party, and not in the interests of impartial administration, the House of Commons and the Representatives of Wales might be trusted to call him to task. The Government had provided, as far as they could, such security as the circumstances of the case allowed, that this great semi-judicial, semi-administrative work would be carried on in a serene atmosphere by competent and impartial persons. What were the functions which these men had to perform? The hon. Member had already referred to the difficult task of
  1636
  discriminating between private benefactions and public endowments. They had the burden of repairing and maintaining the cathedrals. Under Clause 9 they had to approve schemes made by County Councils themselves. Did the hon. Member really think he could get an adequate safeguard against possible abuses on the part of individual County Councils, by having as the only tribunal to which to appeal a body composed of County Councils themselves. He must point out that Parliament had not parted with its control in this matter, for all the schemes had to be laid on the Tables of both Houses; and it would be a proper Parliamentary proceeding to discuss them, and, if necessary, to express disapproval of them. Under Clause 16 they had vested the tithe rent-charge in the Commissioners; and they would be intrusted with the duty of collecting it. They had purposely interposed the Commissioners between the County Council and the recipients of the tithe rentcharge, in order that there might be no possibility of collision or friction between them, in order that the clergyman might get his money directly from the Commissioners without having to resort to the County Council for payment; and in order, on the other hand, that the County Council might know that if they did not collect punctually and exact to the full they would have to make up the deficiency out of their own funds. In a matter of that kind the body proposed by the hon. Member would be a wholly inadequate safeguard. This had been a matter of very serious and grave consideration to the Government, and they had come to the conclusion that it was absolutely essential for all purposes named in this Bill that there should be these Commissioners, and he should regard the acceptance of this Amendment—the omission of the word "Commissioners" from the clause—as fatal to the further progress of the Bill.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had put it as if what was proposed under the 9th Clause were an appeal from the County Council to itself. But he would point out that the whole of the County Councils of Wales would join in appoint in the joint Committee. The appeal would therefore be practically to the whole nation.

  1637
  Then, with regard to the control of Parliament, he pointed out that if the Commissioners rejected one of the schemes submitted to them by the County Council, that scheme would not be submitted to Parliament at all, and Parliament could exercise no jurisdiction. Unless the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to suggest some kind of remedy for that state of things he must say that, whatever the consequences, he was prepared to support his Amendment by vote in the Lobby. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman, whom he understood to be a Home Ruler all round, went to the very root of Home Rule. If he were not prepared to entrust an authority elected from the whole of the County Councils in Wales with the administration of a fund of £200,000, how could he entrust bigger questions to a Welsh Parliament?
  *SIR G. OSBORNE MORGANthought that on principle there was a great deal to be said for his hon. Friend's Amendment. But he was not going to wreck the Bill for the sake of that Amendment. The Home Secretary had told the Committee that he regarded the clause as it stood as essential to the Bill, and the carrying of the Amendment as fatal. And he could understand that the effect of accepting the Amendment would be to turn the measure inside out. The Commissioners had, no doubt, been approached and had accepted office, arid to make the change proposed now would be fatal to the Bill. He did not care whether hon. Gentlemen opposite jeered at him or not; he repeated that he was not going to wreck the Bill for the sake of this Amendment. [Ironical Opposition cheers.] He was very much obliged to hon. Gentleman opposite for showing their hands. "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly." [Laughter] Hon. Gentlemen had openly stated that they were going to fasten on the Amendment so far as it proposed to leave out the word "Commissioners." But when once they got that word out of the Bill his hon. Friend would look in vain for any further support from them. He did not know what his hon. Friend was going to do. He hoped he might be satisfied with making his protest. But if the Amendment were pressed to a Division, he hoped his
  1638
  fellow-country men below the Gangway would join with him in voting against it, not on the ground that they disapproved of its principle, but because it would destroy what he had always declared to be a wise, just, and statesmanlike measure.
  *SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, he read in a certain newspaper a short time ago, one of those unauthorised accounts of meetings of the Welsh Party which sometimes appeared in that journal. The right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was in the chair, and it was stated that the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs was considered, and that the meeting was unanimous in deciding to support it.
  *SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN: The right hon. Baronet knows more of what occurred at the meeting referred to than I do. I stated at that meeting what I stated to-day—that I would not wreck the Bill for the sake of this Amendment.
  *SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: But the right hon. Gentleman does not deny the fact of that meeting having come to that unanimous conclusion. This was a Bill introduced on account of the views of the 31 Welsh Members, who, he supposed, attended that meeting. Now here was an amendment which had been discussed by those hon. Gentleman and unanimously approved by them. No sooner was it proposed, after very inadequate discussion, than the Home Secretary put his foot down, and said: "The Bill will be wrecked if it is carried." For himself, and he was speaking on behalf of a good many others, he should view the wrecking of this Bill with no alarm, and, so far from considering that this property ought to be transferred to the Commissioners proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, he thought it should be left in the hands of the Church body. Therefore, on that ground, if there were no others, he should certainly support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, to leave out the word "Commissioners." There was, however, another reason for this Amendment, which he did not think the right hon. Gentleman himself had sufficiently considered from the point of view of those who accepted the principle of Disendowment and wished to make

  1639
  over the surplus funds of the Church to some public body or other. It seemed to him that the right lion. Gentleman had been far too slavish in following the precedent of the Irish Church Act. There is nothing in the Irish Church Act imposing upon the Commissioners appointed under that Act any duty whatever with regard to application of the surplus funds, and that was the point with which the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carnarvon specially dealt. What were the functions of the Commissioners under this Act? They were of three kinds. In the first place, they were judicial. Everybody would agree that judicial functions could not be carried out properly by any such body as a Committee of the County Councils of Wales. But what were the judicial functions of the Commissioners under this Bill? He could only find out three. In the first place, the Commissioners were to consider and decide what were private Endowments. In the second place, they were to settle the claims of individuals as to the payments to be made to them, which he thought would principally occur in the clause dealing with advowsons. There would hardly be any claims of any other kind, as each incumbent was left in exactly the same position as at present in respect of his life interest. And, thirdly, the Commissioners were to decide upon the circumstances of a few border parishes, partly English and partly Welsh. Now, with regard to each and every one of the judicial functions proposed to be exercised by the Commissioners under this Bill, there might be an appeal from the decision of the Commissioners to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It would be perfectly possible to leave the whole matter to the Courts of Justice, either by allowing the Judicial Committee in the first instance to decide upon all these points, or by allowing some existing Court to decide them in the first instance, with an appeal to the Judicial Committee as now. Then there were the administrative functions of the Commissioners. These were precisely laid down in so many words in the Bill, and they might equally well be carried out by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, from whom the right hon Gentleman had obtained the information on which this Bill was
  1640
  based, and who were thoroughly conversant with the whole matter. He ventured to say that, as there were certain administrative functions imposed upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by this Bill, so it would be perfectly possible that every other administrative function within the Bill should also be carried out by that body. What he was anxious to place before the Committee on this important point was that there was absolutely no necessity whatever, under the circumstances of this Bill, for the creation of this new and expensive machinery of a Commission which could not cost less than £7,000 a year, whereas the net Church funds were no more than £157,000 a year. It was, he contended, sheer waste of money to create any Commission of the kind proposed for either the judicial or administrative work to be performed. Proceeding to the main contention of the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs as to who was to decide how the surplus funds of the Church, after Disestablishment, were to be applied, the proposed Commission would not, in his opinion, be so good a tribunal to decide that as a Committee representing all the county councils of Wales. This was not a matter dealing with the Disendowment of the Church; the Church would have been already disendowed before the question could arise. What would then have to be decided would be simply how the funds were best to be devoted to the purposes of Wales. Surely a body representing Welshmen should know best what their constituents required, and how these funds might be devoted to the best advantage of their countrymen. Did not the right hon. Gentleman think so himself? Was it not an entirely new proposal that public funds of this kind should be allocated according to the will of a permanent Commission, and not according to the will of the representatives of the people? But there was a further matter. As the Committee were aware, he and his Friends had frequently urged that the mode in which the Bill proposed to use these funds was the most wasteful thing that could possibly be devised. The glebes were to be frittered away among the parishes; the tithe rent-charges were to be given to the county councils; and it

  1641
  would be absolutely impossible, under the machinery now existing in the Bill, for the Commissioners whom the right hon. Gentleman proposed to appoint to devote any sensible portion of those parochial funds to the needs of higher or technical education to which the right hon. Gentleman proposed that at least two-thirds of the central fund should be devoted. Therefore, whether they looked at the constitutional way of dealing with what the right hon. Gentleman called public funds, or whether they looked at the way in which these funds, if they were to be taken away from the Church, might best be utilised, he considered the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, infinitely better than the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and in that view he would support the Amendment.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman had travelled over ground oil which he would not now endeavour to follow him. Of course, the object of the right hon. Gentlemen was not the same as that of the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would not, in his opinion, be a satisfactory tribunal to appeal to in the first instance; neither did he think that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would be regarded by public opinion in Wales as a satisfactory body for the present purpose. The question of asking the county councils in Wales to determine how these funds should be allocated involved a number of subsidiary questions, and, while he agreed that if they were dealing with a county fund, which was to be devoted to the purposes of the county at large, there could be no better tribunal than the County Council, still, when they were dealing with the interests of different parishes he thought it desirable that they should have an outside and impartial authority to determine whether a particular scheme was in accordance with the interests of the particular locality. This was the reason why he interposed the Commissioners. He did not think it was at all probable that schemes would be rejected en bloc by the Commissioners, but he would be quite prepared, on Clause 9, to consider that point, and to see whether it would not be possible to provide machinery which would prevent such a contingency. He
  1642
  thought this would meet the objection of his hon. Friend. He thought that his hon. Friend would see that it would be an unwise course to press an Amendment on this point now, seeing that he would have an opportunity of raising the question when they came to consider the subsequent clauses of the Bill.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid, that all he wanted was that there should be a central authority for the purposes of Clause 9, and he understood from the Home Secretary that he was prepared to consider the matter favourably upon that clause. If, however, his right hon. Friend meant to indicate that he would on no account accept anything in the nature of an elective committee of the County Council, even when they came to deal with these schemes, then he must persist in his Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMANwas proceeding to put the Amendment, when
  MR. HERBERT LEWISsaid, he would venture to make a further earnest appeal to the Home Secretary. A council such as suggested might be easily formed in Wales, and he asked whether the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider the request before the Committee came to the ninth clause, and whether he would give some hope that Welsh schemes, when sent up to the House of Commons, would not, as heretofore, be rejected by the House of Lords. He earnestly asked the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the whole question.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that he hoped he had made his meaning clear. The Government could not accept this Amendment on any terms. It would absolutely turn the Bill upside down and inside out, and in his opinion would be fatal to the Bill. When they came to Clause 9 the question might then be discussed, and, so far as the Government were concerned, they would be perfectly open to any argument brought forward, although it was to be clearly understood that so far as his own opinion went—subject to anything that might then be said—the arrangement proposed by the Bill was the best under the circumstances. He believed it would be found to be the only arrangement that would give satisfaction. Therefore he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: After the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman, I do not propose at this stage to press my Amendment.
  On the CHAIRMAN putting the question that the Amendment be withdrawn, there were loud Opposition cries of "No," and a division was challenged.
  The Committee divided:—Noes,188; Ayes, 198.—(Division List, No. 87.)
  *MR. W. E. M. TOMLINSON*MR. W. E. M. TOMLINSON (Preston) Moved, in lines 8 and 9, to leave out "or Queen Anne's Bounty." He desired to raise the question whether funds derived from Queen Anne's Bounty ought to be included in the property to be taken from the Church. He did not know whether all Members of the Committee were well acquainted with the history of Queen Anne's Bounty, the methods by which it was constituted, and the mode of its application. The funds which formed the original substance of Queen Anne's Bounty were derived from firstfruits and tenths. Before the time of Henry VIII. these firstfruits and tenths were to a large extent handed over to the Pope of Rome. But in one diocese, that of Norwich, they were appropriated to the maintenance of the See, and in the archdeaconry of Richmond, in Yorkshire, they were applied to the purposes of the archdeaconry. By the 26th of Henry "VIII., c. 3, firstfruits and tenths were appropriated to the personal use of the Sovereign, so that they then assumed the character of a special tax levied upon Church property for the support of the Crown. There being considerable doubt as to the amounts which it would be fair to levy in different parishes, a commission was constituted which framed what was called the liber regis, with a view to the settlement of the amounts to be paid by parishes and the assessments of livings fairly according to income. This showed that Henry VIII. treated these funds as in the nature of a tax on the livings in the Church. He excluded all benefices under eight marks a year from any payment. It was also part of the arrangement that a certain taxation then granted by the Convocations of Canterbury and York should be released. It
  1644
  was clear, therefore, that these first-fruits and tenths were treated by Henry VIII. first as a tax on the incomes of the clergy, and secondly as a quid pro quo in respect of the abandonment of the taxation derived from the Convocations of Canterbury and York. By 2 and 3 Phil, and Mary, c. 4, the distinction of firstfruits and tenths was altered, and Cardinal Pole was made the recipient for certain purposes; but under Elizabeth the Act of Henry VIII. was revived, exemption from payment being, however, granted in the case of benefices under 10 marks. This showed that the payments were regarded as the personal revenue of the Sovereign. In the early days of Queen Anne's reign this source of revenue was treated as a special tax, and together with certain duties on beer and other articles was granted to the Queen for her life only for the support of her household and the dignity of the Crown. Up to this time moneys derived from this source had been used by the sovereigns of this country as a sort of pension fund. But in 1703, by a further Statute, Queen Anne's Bounty was formed. The Queen seemed to have come to the conclusion that it was an unfair thing to levy a specia ltax upon the incomes of the clergy, and wrong to appropriate part of those incomes to the purposes of the Sovereign. So Queen Anne's Bounty was formed, and the firstfruits and tenths were vested in the governors. Power was given to the governors not only to receive the firstfruits and tenths, but to apply them to the augmentation of poor livings. Permission was also given to private individuals to grant funds to the governors for the same purpose, a power which from the first had been exercised from time to time. So that Queen Anne's Bounty fund consisted of the firstfruits and tenths and certain private donations. Surely the Church ought not to be dispossessed of funds like these in order that they might I be applied to such uses as baths and washhouses. The original fund, let it be remembered, was formed by contributions from the income of benefices, and the payments were allocated by Queen Anne to the augmentation of poor livings. Since that time the fund has been increased in another way. Parliament, recognising the duty and

  1645
  desirability of providing for the increasing religious needs of an expanding population, had made various grants from time to time to the Church and to various Nonconforming bodies. In one year £100,000 was given in this way to Queen Anne's Bounty for the benefit of the Church, and £200,000 for other religious denominations. By the year 1825 considerable sums, in the form of Parliamentary grants, had been voted for application in the same manner as the other funds of the Bounty were to be applied. Now, how had all these funds actually been applied? Generally speaking, grants from Queen Anne's Bounty had been made to meet grants from private benefactions. If, for example, it was desired to augment the income of a poor living and a private benefactor was willing to give, say, £200 for the purpose, a similar sum was supplied from the joint funds of the Bounty. Enormous benefits had accrued to the Church from the careful and consistent application of these funds. The value of poor livings, both in remote country districts and in populous places, had been added to, and clergymen had been put into positions of greater independence and their power to do good work had been increased. The funds of Queen Anne's Bounty had been distributed with exclusive reference to the needs of localities. The result had been that Wales, being ecclesiastically-speaking poor, had benefited very considerably from the fund. Whatever arguments might be used with regard to the old endowments of the Church, not one of them could apply to Queen Anne's Bounty. It consisted first of all of the savings of the clergy from what was practically a remission of a special and unequal taxation; secondly, of gifts from private individuals; and, thirdly, of Parliamentary grants made from year to year. He asserted that there was no instance in which, when Parliament had given a sum to be applied to a particular purpose, and that sum had been so applied, a subsequent Parliament had endeavoured to revoke the gift. But that was what it was to do by this Bill. Parliament was asked to go back on what a previous Parliament had done, and to appropriate the gift it had made for one purpose to another. Without saying that the whole
  1646
  case of Queen Anne's Bounty could be exhausted in this Amendment, he thought it was proper to make an initial protest against the appropriation of these funds, and that was what he was doing. Whatever else was taken away from the Church, these funds ought to be left to her, inasmuch as they had been given to her expressly since the date fixed upon in the Bill.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman had opened up a somewhat alarming prospect when he told the House that this was only the initial stage in a series of Amendments he was going to introduce on the question of Queen Anne's Bounty. He hoped, at least, that the historical part of his argument might be regarded as exhausted. He did not deny that in some respects the position of Queen Anne's Bounty was a peculiar one, and he thought the matter was well worth consideration when they came to the next clause, whether some re-construction of the language was not necessary. All that was provided in this clause was that there should be transferred to the Commissioners all property vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or in Queen Anne's Bounty, which was ascertained "as hereinafter mentioned to be Welsh ecclesiastical property." If there was no property vested in Queen Anne's Bounty which ought to be treated as Welsh ecclesiastical property, then, when they came to discuss Clause 4, the hon. Gentleman would be in a position to make good his contention. All that was provided in this clause was that such property vested in Queen Anne's Bounty, if there were any, should pass to the Commissioners. He did not think anybody would quarrel with that position. After the pledges which the hon. Gentleman had given as to the future, he would not go into the details with which he had dealt. When, the time came he would be able to show that there were in the hands of Queen Anne's Bounty some funds which ought to be described as Welsh ecclesiastical property. It was quite true that much that Queen Anne's Bounty had received was now represented by churches; but the Church would keep the whole benefit of that, because the churches were to be handed over to the Church under the Bill. To whatever extent there might be in the

  1647
  hands of Queen Anne's Bounty funds not derived from modern benefactions, but from ancient or National Endowments—to whatever extent there might be in their hands funds appropriated by them to Welsh purposes alone, they ought to come within the scope of this Bill. He did not approach the question whether there were any such funds or not; but if there were they would constitute Welsh ecclesiastical property, and ought to pass to the Commissioners.
  *MR A. S. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENobserved that the right hon. Gentleman had said that, granting the principles of the Bill, they ought to admit that the funds in the hands of Queen Anne's Bounty were a class of endowments which ought to be handed over to the Commissioners. He contended that the position and character of the funds which Queen Anne's Bounty held, differed very much from the position and character of the endowments of the Church. First the Bill only proposed to deal with the corpus of the Church's property. But Queen Anne's Bounty was not corpus, but income saved. Then the principle held by the right hon. Gentleman was that all ancient gifts made before 1703 were national property, on the ground that previous to that date there was a doubt as to whether the gifts made to the Church were intended for the Church as it was now known If that principle was applied in this case, it must be observed that the donors of gifts, since 1703, at all events, whether private individuals or Parliaments, knew the character of the Church to which they were giving their money. It was precisely the same Church as they knew it! at the present time. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston raised the question whether there really was in the hands of Queen Anne's Bounty any Welsh ecclesiastical property or not, and whether so much money had not already been spent in Wales as to exceed all that had been received from Wales, so far, that there was, in fact, a large debt from Wales to Queen Anne's Bounty. The right Gentleman said he would deal with that question on Clause 4, but if they could prove now that Queen Anne's, Bounty at the present moment held no funds that could be shown to be Welsh ecclesiastical property, what was the
  1648
  good of inserting the words at all in this Clause? The Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty had received from Wales a total of £145,655, and they had spent in Wales £223,518, so that they had spent in Wales £78,000 more than they had received. These figures were taken from an official return which had been carefully prepared in the Queen Anne's Bounty Office. The figures clearly showed that there was no natural property belonging to Wales vested in the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. Therefore, this was a good Amendment, and he could not understand why the Government should not accept it.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNEsaid, that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman involved a matter of much importance, seeing that the funds included in Queen Anne's Bounty were of considerable magnitude, and that they had been devoted in the most solemn manner to the use of the Church. He hoped, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would give it his careful consideration. The funds in question having been exacted by the Church of Rome, had been seized by the Crown in the reign of Henry VIII; but they had been re-devoted to the Church, doubtless by reason of conscientious scruples, by Queen Anne, in 1703. That, most likely, was the reason why the right hon. Gentleman had fixed upon that date as the limit from which private benefactions were to be retained by the Church. Why should the gift of a private individual be respected more than the action of the Crown? He thought if anything could be more sacred than the gift of a private individual, it would be a definite act of sovereignty buttressed and supported by Act of Parliament. That had been reckoned the most secure of all title to property, namely a Parliamentary guarantee. In what respect would the action of the Crown at the time of the Reformation differ from the action of the Crown at the time of the introduction of Queen Anne's Bounty? In both cases the guarantee was the same; it was Church property in both cases; in both cases it was a grant made to continue for the religious use of the Church—but the Government laid their hands on the property, which had continued to be devoted to the original use

  1649
  for which it was granted, whilst they forebore to lay their hands upon that which had been diverted from its original purpose and put to private use. If the Government insisted on taking the Queen Anne's Bounty, they ought to go further and see into the titles by which a great number of estates had descended to various families in this country, and where they could be proved to have been Church property, they ought to take them away for the purpose of academies of Art and other secular objects. He thought it would have a very bad effect on public bodies like the Commissioners of Queen Anne's Bounty if money were taken away from them in the manner it was proposed by the Government that this should be. Queen Anne's Bounty was originally established in order to assist in maintaining poor livings, and if the Government were now to lay hands upon it, he did not think the ecclesiastical authorities would be inclined to enter upon such good and pious undertakings in the future. Queen Anne's Bounty ought, he contended, to be treated separately from other Church property dealt with by this Bill, and ought to be reserved to the Church. It appeared, as a matter of fact, that the grants to Queen Anne's Bounty had been larger to it than from it. That was to say, the funds from which the money came were raised in England, so that, had the money been spent in the part of the kingdom in which it was raised, it ought to have been spent in England. If the whole value of the Queen Anne's Bounty now raised in Wales were capitalised, those sums of money would not be equal to the sums of money due to England as against Wales, because of the method in which Queen Anne's Bounty had hitherto been dealt with. If the right hon. Gentleman had said that the Welsh Church was not entitled to this property at all, and had proposed to readjust it and to pay back to England what had been spent in Wales, although derived more from English sources than from Welsh, there would have been something in his contention. But from the Queen Anne's Bounty there had always been devoted to Wales a much larger sum that was raised in Wales; and would this have been done except on the condition that it was to be devoted to religious purposes? It was done on the
  1650
  assumption that this very great gift of England to Wales would be devoted to religious purposes. But now the Government stepped in and seized the money which had been so devoted, and taken from England, and said that it was not to be used for religious but for secular purposes. That was breaking faith with England and the Queen Anne's Bounty; for, on the faith of the existing state of things, this large sum of money had been devoted to purely religious purposes in Wales. Under these circumstances, he thought his hon. Friend had done good service in raising this Amendment. He hoped the Government would be content with the amount of funds they had laid their hands on in other respects, and which now belonged to the Church of England in Wales, and that they would consent to omit the Queen Anne's Bounty from the Bill, and leave it to the Representative Body.
  SIR RICHARD TEMPLEremarked, that the Home Secretary seemed to propose to deal with this as with the last Amendment which proved dangerously embarrassing to the Government—that was, he wished to put off the evil day. But they preferred to argue the question here, feeling sure that if they allowed it to remain to be discussed on a subsequent clause, they would be placed at a great disadvantage. Various reasons might be adduced for omitting these words, which group themselves under three main heads. The first argument was that the Queen Anne's Bounty was the private property of the Church. His hon. Friend had clearly shown that the Bounty fell on the Church's side of the line, and that it was as much a benefaction and donation to the Church since 1703, as any other of the donations which were to be respected and held sacred. The very name showed that it was a bounty from the Sovereign; it was a bounty given with the consent and under the sanction, authority, and confirmation of Parliament. It was historically certain this was the property of the Crown, which the Crown graciously placed at the disposal of Parliament for the benefit of the Church. Could there be a better form of donation than that? It was as sacred as the private property or any other donations which were to be saved. His hon. friend the member for Preston

  1651
  had shown that considerable additions had been made to the Bounty from other sources, thus strengthening the claim for it to be treated as private property. These words ought to be omitted, because Queen Anne's Bounty was a royal private benefaction which belonged to the Church and which ought to be placed in the same category as private donations. A second argument was, that perhaps there was no present property in the Queen Anne's Bounty fund now disposable for Wales. It had been shown, that whatever property had accrued up to date and was now accruing, had been more than spent, and really belonged to England. That was to say, whatever had accrued or was accruing of the Queen Anne's Bounty at the disposal of the English authority, had been spent by that authority on various religious purposes in Wales. There was a third argument supposing there was no property now, that all that had accrued and was accruing had been spent or more than spent and did not properly exist in the hands of any authority that disposed of the Queen's Anne's Bounty. What about the future? It had been argued by the Government that it was portion of the tithe. It was not, but at all events it was a source of incoming income in the future. There would thus be funds at the disposal of the Church or the Welsh Commissioners, therefore there was a real corpus to be disposed of by this Clause 3, under the words of Queen Anne's Bounty. Though it could not be much in the present, it would exist and accrue in the future. There was, therefore, a disposable property available, that property did devolve to the Church, and under his argument it ought to be held sacred. If property accrued in future, it belonged to the Church in England as well as to the Church in Wales, and it was hypothecated for a debt in England. If that was the case, what a serious responsibility the Government would take upon themselves by appropriating this fund. According to the proposal which was made, that debt would be entirely swept away; the assets available for its payment were to be appropriated to a secular purpose, and not only was the Church in Wales to be robbed, but it was to be left without any means of repaying her obligation. There was therefore a duplex spoliation. There
  1652
  had been many motions for omitting particular words, but no motion he ventured to say had been supported by such powerful arguments as this, and he submitted that the Government were bound to answer them. The three arguments he had adduced were sledgehammer arguments which ought to be answered, because, in the elegant phraseology of the Home Secretary himself, they turned this portion of the clause inside out and upside down.
  *SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, in the year 1868 the question of the management and policy of the Queen Anne's Bounty was referred to a Select Committee on which he had the honour to serve. That Committee carefully considered the rules and regulations of the Bounty. From his experience on that Committee and in the provinces, he felt that to take away the money given to the Church through the Queen Anne's Bounty would be a lamentable and guilty breach of faith. Many distinguished witnesses gave evidence before the Committee, and amongst them Bishop Wilberforce, who stated that Queen Anne's Bounty was in the habit of granting benefactions with a view to drawing grants from donors, that the practice of making grants without benefactions had almost ceased, and that their policy had been very beneficial to the Church. The fact that the action of the Queen Anne's Bounty had been to draw out benefactions on a large and liberal scale, during many vears, was shown by this evidence. The proposal of the Government, if carried out, would be an act of gross injustice. He did not understand the action of the Government with reference to money as distinguished from land. Was the total amount to be taken away? So far as he could understand, the benefits granted to certain livings by the Queen Anne's Bounty would perish with the livings, a condition of affairs which would be the cause of acute suffering. The amount now sunk in buildings appeared to be small. He found, from the report of the Committee, that from 1804 to 1842 the amount contributed to buildings was less than £12,000. That was, therefore, a comparatively insignificant amount, and he wished to press for an answer on this point, as the Bill was most ambiguous.

  1653
  The last report of the Governors of the Queen Anne's Bounty showed that in 1894 the benefactions in money were £31,839; in houses and land, £3,412; and in tithe rent-charge, £178. He thought the Committee was entitled to know whether the whole of those amounts was to be confiscated. In Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other districts, the Church derived great advantages from these benefactions, and he certainly felt bound to tender his word of emphatic protest against the confiscatory action of the Government.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, he should like to know exactly how this money was gathered now for the individual clergy and brought into Queen's Anne's Bounty form; how far it was calculated upon the present value, and how far upon value in the time of Henry VIII. It was a matter full of interest and difficulty, and this discussion proved how inextricable was the financial position of the Church in England from the Church in Wales. They could not divide them. It had been asserted, and it was hardly denied by the Home Secretary, that there was no such thing as property belonging to Queen Anne's Bounty in Wales. There were no assets at all. The Home Secretary had asked them to postpone the matter till another clause was reached, but they must deal with a matter of principle when it first came before them. He understood that the year 1703, or thereabouts, was taken as the year from which all benefactions should be considered private, but why should they take the Queen Anne's Bounty as a private benefaction? The mere giving by the State of money to a religious society did not make that property public, but even if it did, the Queen Anne's Bounty was not derived from the State. That apparently was the ground upon which the Government proposed to take money which belonged to Queen Anne's Bounty. He did not admit that Queen Anne's Bounty was a State grant; but granting for the sake of argument that it was and that, therefore, the money which had gathered around it was public and not private property. Then what about the Bounty grants—the grants out of the taxes to Nonconformist bodies for 150 years? If the grant of money by the State to religious bodies made the
  1654
  property that had grown out of those rants public property, was the property of Nonconformist bodies who had received State grants to be regarded as public property? But Queen Anne's Bounty Board had been supported by the money paid by the Church, and not a single farthing of it had been obtained from the State. The Home Secretary argued that portion of the Bounty was a Welsh Ecclesiastical Endowment. He did not argue it on that ground. He contended that the Bounty was a private endowment, and that, therefore, it ought not to be included in the Bill. He did riot dispute that portion of the money connected with the Board was Welsh ecclesiastical property; but he did say decidedly that it was not public property. He could support that contention by a reference to the very proposals of the Government. The Government said in the Bill:—
  " We give you every shilling of this Bounty that is invested in parsonages and in lands."
  Surely, if any part of the Bounty were public property, the lands and parsonages also must be public property, and yet the Government proposed to exclude them. If the argument of the Government was a good one, it was illogical of them to stop short at the point at which they proposed to stop. If the Bounty were public property, as the Government contended, the Government should take it all; but if it were private property, as he contended it was, they should not take one penny of it at all.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid, that as he had put down on the Paper a series of Amendments in respect to Queen Anne's Bounty he hoped the Committee would permit him at this stage to make a few observations on the subject. He quite agreed with the observation of the Home Secretary that in all probability this question must be discussed in greater detail when some later clauses of the Bill were reached; but at the same time it was absolutely necessary that the supporters of Queen Anne's Bounty should on that occasion state their case on broad grounds and ask the opinion of the House thereon. He confessed that the reasons which were advanced by the Home Secretary for the insertion of the words "Queen Anne's Bounty" at this place seemed to him, if he might

  1655
  say so without disrespect to the right hon. Gentleman to be very flimsy. He fully agreed with what had fallen from some of the previous speakers that any insertion of those words in the Bill ought to have been preceded by an inquiry in order to ascertain the real condition of the country. The only argument of the Home Secretary was, that the insertion of the words would do no harm, because only the Welsh ecclesiastical property of the Bounty would pass, and if it were found that it had no ecclesiastical property the Bounty would not come within the purview of the Bill. Surely that was not the way the question should be met by the Government? Before any funds were subjected to the control of this Bill the Government ought to be satisfied there was Welsh ecclesiastical property, properly so called, that ought to come within the purview of the Bill. Therefore the reason given for the insertion of the words by the Home Secretary was wholly insufficient. Then came the question of figures. He would state at once that their figures had been supplied to them by Mr. Aston, a gentleman who for 30 years at least had been intimately connected with Queen Anno's Bounty, and who would be admitted, by any hon. Gentleman opposite who knew him, to be a most honourable and trustworthy official. More than that, they had communicated the whole of the figures at their disposal to the Home Secretary, and the right hon. Gentleman knew that if any further particulars in regard to the Bounty were asked for they would be forthcoming. There was a great deal of misunderstanding in regard to the origin of Queen Anne's Bounty. Hon. Members opposite seemed to suggest that because at one time or another first fruits and tenths belonged to the Pope and then belonged to the king, that that stamped them at once with the character of national property. But from what source did first fruits and tenths come? The scheme of the Bill was to treat, first, tithes as national property, and, secondly, glebes as national property. As for churches and parsonages, when they had discussed later Amendments it would be found that the money concerned in parsonages was a small amount, and so far as churches were concerned they might be put out
  1656
  of account at once. The first fruits and tenths were taken to be portion of the income derived from tithes and glebes. The Government took the whole of the corpus—the tithes and the glebe—and yet they said they were entitled to have something more—the accumulation in years gone by of the proceeds of the income out of that very corpus. The Government had no right to include Queen Anne's Bounty in this Bill. As had been pointed out, the glebes which had been purchased by the aid of Queen Anne's Bounty had not been purchased, by any means, by Queen Anne's Bounty alone. What had happened? Queen Anne's Bounty made a grant upon condition that a corresponding amount was given by a private benefactor. The position of Queen Anne's Bounty had attracted to the Church of England, and for this purpose he was drawing no distinction between England and Wales—benefactions that never would have existed otherwise; and they would insist, when they came to deal with the question—what is a private benefaction?—that the devotion of the first fruits and tenths to the Church, upon every principle which had been shadowed forth by the Government as betokening a private benefaction, was in the same position as a private benefaction. He supposed the Government were not going to depart from their main argument, that all this property was Welsh property. But he was informed that saving and excepting certain instances in which money had been invested in Welsh Debenture Stock, Queen Anne's Bounty had no estates in Wales at all. He would, at a later stage, move Amendments with the view of ascertaining whether anything now existed in the hands of Queen Anne's Bounty which could be properly treated as money belonging to the Welsh Church, but if the figures which the supporters of the Amendment brought forward were even approximately true, the Government ought never have included Queen Anne's Bounty in the Bill. The total outside amount which could be said to be received from Wales from all sources, including glebe lands, which had been sold and repurchased, was £284,000, and there had been spent out of the General Funds of Queen Anne's Bounty £411,000. There was, therefore, in favour of the Church

  1657
  of England a balance of £127,000—moneys which had never come from Welsh first fruits or Welsh tenths, but which had been contributed by Queen Anne's Bounty out of the richness of some parts of the Church of England to the poverty of Wales—the poorest benefices being those which benefited by Queen Anne's Bounty. They were not bringing forward a small or unimportant question, but a matter of simple abstract justice. Was the property of Queen Anne's Bounty Welsh property? The money which the governors of that bounty held had not been derived from Wales, but represented a balance solely due to the first fruits and tenths from property outside Wales. Yet under the scheme of the Bill they were handing over the very corpus out of which, so far aw Wales was concerned, these first fruits and tenths had been derived. On what possible principle of justice could it be suggested that they were to take the glebe and at the same time to ask that there should be handed over the accumulation of the money in the hands of the Queen Anne's Bounty, when it could be shown that the Bounty had paid away much larger sums than they had received? He would ask the Government on what information or statistics they had included Queen Anne's Bounty in the clause? He maintained that its insertion was not justified by any facts which were before the Government, and they would press the Amendment, because they believed that whatever might be done hereafter in the way of redressing or remedying the grievance by subsequent Amendments, no case had been made out for including within the purview of that property which was to pass to the Welsh Commissioners property which, on no evidence worthy of the name, could be said to be derived from Wales or to belong to the Welsh Church.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL,)said, every hon. Member opposite who had spoken had assumed that Queen Anne's Bounty, whether in reference to England or Wales, was not public property, but was in some sense or other the private property of the Church. The Government have regarded it as public property, inasmuch as it had had a public origin;
  1658
  and therefore, from their point of view, it was property that could properly be dealt with on general principles. The answer was primâ facie that they believed there was Welsh ecclesiastical property in Queen Anne's Bounty, and that it would be brought to light when there was a balancing of the accounts. They were, therefore, justified in dealing with it as if it existed. The officials of Queen Anne's Bounty had placed their figures at the disposal of the Government, but that had been done only recently, and in a very informal way; certainly not in such an authoritative way that they could be laid before Parliament. There had been a courteous readiness to supply the information required, but still the information was not yet complete. The striking of a balance still remained to a large extent the subject of consideration, possibly of dispute and disagreement in time to come; and the Government fell back upon the position taken up by his right hon. Friend—that if it should prove on examination of figures there was no Welsh ecclesiastical property within the meaning and scope of the Bill to be dealt with there would be no grievance because there would be no dealing. If, no the other hand, it should prove there was Welsh ecclesiastical property held in the name of Queen Anne's Bounty to be dealt with they would feel justified in dealing with it as with any other form of ecclesiastical property.
  *MR. TOMLINSONpointed out that the bulk of the contributions from Queen Anne's Bounty to parsonages had been made by way of loan for the purpose of the erection of parsonages and was repayable by instalments.
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEasked if they were to take what the Under Secretary for the Home Department had said as a pledge that the Government would accept in substance the Amendment if the result of the investigation of the figures should turn out to be as his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight had represented it would be. They understood that only recently the Government had received figures which would represent the position of Queen Anne's Bounty with respect to Wales, but that they had not had time to verify them. He understood that carried with it the statement that

  1659
  if the figures were correct, and if the figures had been before the Government at the time of the drafting of the Bill the reference to Queen Anne's Bounty would have been left out altogether. Upon the Notice Paper of Amendments there were Amendments in the name of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight to Clause 4, which related to this specific matter. Were they to take it that the Government had, through the hon. Gentleman, given the definite promise that if they, say within a week, discovered that the statements of his hon. and learned Friend with regard to the figures were correct, they would at some future stage of the Bill strike the words out altogether, and so effect the double purpose of leaving out all references to Queen Anne's Bounty, and, at the same time clear the Notice Paper of Amendments which must be necessary if the words were left in the section. Possibly if they had a clear pledge from the Government that these words would be left out under the circumstances he had mentioned, they might be able more easily to deal with the present Amendment.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid he could give no such pledge, and it would be most embarrassing and very unadvisable if he gave a pledge with reference to a state of facts that had not been disclosed. The only pledge which his hon. Friend indicated the Government were prepared to give was that if it turned out, on examition of the figures, there was not in the hands of the officials of Queen Anne's Bounty any property which could be fairly described as Welsh Ecclesiastical property, then undoubtedly Queen Anne's Bounty passed out of the case. It must not be understood he assented in the least degree to the proposition which he saw was to be made on Clause 4 by the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight, that they were to take an account of what had happened from 1703 down to the present day, and that if they found that during that period a larger sum had been expended out of the fund of Queen Anne's Bounty in Wales than had been received by it from Wales, the conclusion followed there was no Welsh Ecclesiastical property in the hands of the officials of the Fund, A considerable part of the money had been expended in improving the parsonages
  1660
  and other property of the Church in Wales, even according to the figures supplied by the Governers of Queen Anne's Bounty. That property was going to be handed over to the Church for permanent and exclusive possession, and it was impossible, therefore, to credit Queen Anne's Bounty with the very same sum and take it into account in striking the balance.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think there had been some sinister arrangement in presenting the figures with respect to Queen Anne's Bounty. [Mr. ASQUITH dissented.] The management of Queen's Anne's Bounty was practically a public department, and the figures were perfectly accessible to the right hon. Gentleman. The amount spent on Parsonages was, practically speaking, a very small figure, and certainly would not disturb the very large balance which would be shown to exist as having been contributed to the Church in Wales out of English firstfruits and tenths. It was perfectly obvious that this question must be discussed again on subsequent Amendments, and, being satisfied with the protest which had been made, he should not advise his hon. friends to Divide, though he could uot quite understand their action if they did. The right hon. Gentleman had received fair notice, and if he liked to shorten the discussion he could do so by instructing his officials to test the accuracy of the case which had been stated.
  *MR. TOMLINSONsaid that, as this was not the most convenient point in the Bill on which to take a Division, he would ask leave to withdraw. [Ministerial cries of "No"]
  MR. BARTLEYsaid that the question went to the root of common honesty and morality. On no possible grounds could this money be called public property, and to take it from the Church was simple robbery and spoliation. Although the Church was to be disestablished, the ten Commandments had no yet been abolished, and therefore he should certainly Divide the House.
  The Committee divided:—Noes, 165 Ayes, 183.—(Division List, No. 88.)
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN moved an Amendment providing that all property "situated in Wales and Monmouthshire"

  1661
  not vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or Queen Anne's Bounty, belonging to or appropriated to the use of any ecclesiastical office or cathedral corporation connected with the Church in Wales, shall be transferred to the Welsh Commissioners on the date of Disestablishment. The object of the Amendment was to deal with the case of the Welsh parishes which possessed some real property situated in England—glebe, tithe rent-charge, or a charge on land geographically in England. In dealing with this he would ask the Home Secretary to look at Clause 6. There were many cases in which one parish possessed an ecclesiastical endowment of land in another parish. By "parish council" was it meant the parish council to which the land now belonged, or the parish council of the parish in which the land was now situated? Supposing a Welsh parish possessed glebe or other real property situated in England, was the Welsh parish to have the glebe, or was the parish council of the English parish to have it? In other words, was the English parish council to profit by the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church in Wales? And, if so, why? He thought there was every reason for excluding from the operation of the Bill and of this clause, real property belonging to the Welsh Church which happened to be situated in England. For that reason he begged to move the Amendment in his name.
  Mr. ASQUITHthought that the hon. Member had been rather premature in moving this Amendment, which, if moved at all, would come under Clause 4. The answer to his question was that the parish council intended was the parish council which derived the benefit, and not the parish council of the parish in which the property was situated. The hon. Gentleman had not given the Committee any instance of a property locally situated in England which would come under the operation of the clause, and his allusion was to a purely hypothetical case. If, however, there were such cases, it was reasonable and right that property which now belonged to the Welsh Church should, when that Church was disestablished and disendowed, pass to the Welsh Commissioners. Did the hon. Member mean to contend that a particular piece
  1662
  of property, because locally situated outside Wales, should be excluded from this Bill? To whom, then, was it to go?
  *MR. GEIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: To remain in the Church. The effect of the Amendment would be that it would not go to the Church representative body. According to the contention of the hon. Member, a clergyman in Wales, notwithstanding the Disestablishment of the Church, might continue to be endowed—permanently endowed—so far as little bits of property situated in England were concerned. It was impossible thus to lop off portions of the property belonging to the Church of Wales simply because of their particular geographical position. The hon. Member had mentioned no ground of principle on which to distinguish between the two kinds of property of the Church except merely geographical position. The Bill proceeded upon a principle which was perfectly consistent—that whatever property was now vested in and enjoyed by the Church in Wales should pass, from the date of Disestablishment, to the Welsh Commissioners, to be applied by them according to the provisions laid down in the measure.
  *SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, it appeared to him that the whole principle of the Bill was the accident of geographical position. However, he thought the contention of the hon. Member for the Tunbridge Division was fair and right. The Government were not content with despoiling the Church in Wales of property possessed by that Church which was locally situated in England, but also proposed, as he read the Bill, to despoil the Church in England of property belonging to her which happened to be situated in Wales.
  MR. ASQUITH: Not at all.
  *SR M. HICKS-BEACH: If the right hon. Gentleman turned to Clause 21 he would see that under that clause it was provided that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were
  "to ascertain and by Order declare what property, not being vested in them at the passing of this Act, consists of … property situate in Wales or Monmouthshire, and is at the passing of this Act applied or applicable to an ecclesiastical purpose in England, but not in Wales or Monmouthshire, and all such property shall, as from the date of the Order, vest in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.''

  1663
  That was to be done directly after the passing of the Act. If the right hon. Gentleman next turned to Clause 4 he would see that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were forthwith, after the passing of the Act, to ascertain and by Order declare what property vested in them under the provisions hereinafter contained, namely, under Clause 21, was Welsh ecclesiastical property; and then by Clause 3 they were to hand over all property vested in them to the new Welsh Commissioners. He maintained that under Clauses 3, 4, and 21, taken together, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were required, as the Bill now stood, to take Church property situated in Wales, but now applied to ecclesiastical purposes in England, and utilise it as part of the Church property in Wales. The Bill was not content with taking from the Church in Wales property locally situated in England, but also proposed to take from the Church in England property locally situated in Wales which belonged to English benefices.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, the Bill had no such intention as had been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. At the proper time, when he came to deal with Clauses 4 and 21, he should be prepared to maintain that even bearings between the Churches of the two countries would be preserved. If it could then be shown that this would not be carried into effect by the present drafting of the Bill, he should be prepared to accept an Amendment in that direction. So far as the clause then under consideration was concerned, all that the Government did was to lay down the principle that whatever property was now appropriated to or enjoyed by the Welsh Church should come within the scope of the Bill and be transferred to the Welsh Commissioners and dealt with by them.
  MR. GEORGE WYNDHAMsaid, that no one during the course of the Debate had attempted to maintain that there was a Church of Wales. All had admitted that there was only one Church in the kingdom, and that the only basis for this measure at all was that the property drawn from Wales excited a good deal of sentimental disquiet in that country.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 186; Noes, 200.—(Division List No. 89.)
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON moved, in line 11, after "vested," to insert "except churchyards and consecrated burial grounds." He said, that the obvious argument for excepting churchyards was the argument that every benefaction, every endowment which had been made by private individuals, should be kept for the Church. Everyone knew that churchyards had not only a very special interest for Church people, but that they were contiguous to the Churches. There was a feeling among all parishioners that they ought to be kept separate and apart from any common uses. The argument which the Home Secretary had used was this: We have already encroached upon your churchyards to a certain extent; therefore now we will take them altogether. In other words—we have already done you wrong, and now we will take advantage of the wrong we have done. That might be a good argument before going into the Division Lobby, but would not be considered a fair argument by the people of this country. From immemorial times these churchyards had been in the possession of the Church, and yet the Government now proposed to take them from the Church, and to transfer them to the control of a secular body. This was an outrage upon the sentiments of the people. The churchyard was peculiarly part and parcel of the Church, and all the feelings which made them unwilling to place churches and cathedrals in the hands of a secular body extended to the churchyards. He thought he was right in saying that under the Irish Church Act, churchyards were exempted from the control of the Church Commissioners. The Government had founded their Bill to a great extent upon the Irish Act, and under that Act the churchyards remained under the Control of the Church body.
  MR. ASQUITHhoped that the hon. Gentleman would not think him wanting in respect if he did not enter into this question at this particular point. They were dealing in this clause merely with the formal vesting of the property of the Church in the Commissioners. There was very little of the property which would vest in them under the Bill, which they would not have to hand over to other authorities under subsequent clauses of the

  1665
  Bill. The most convenient point to raise this question would be when they came to Clause 6, which proposed to vest burial grounds in the Parish Councils.
  MR. KENYONpointed out that a very large proportion of the churchyards in Wales had been added to in recent years by the private benefaction of landowners, and he wished to know whether they would be exempt from the operation of the clause.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, that the hon. Gentleman's question illustrated very well what he had said a moment ago—namely, that it would be much more convenient to discuss this question when they came to Clause 6, which dealt with the vesting of churchyards. He would, however, refer the hon. Gentleman to Clause 5 which, he thought, answered the question. That clause provided that any property transferred to the Commissioners which consisted of property given by any private person out of his own resources, since 1703, should be deemed to be a private benefaction.
  MR. KENYON: Does that apply to churchyards?
  MR. ASQUITH: Yes, any form of property.
  *SIR M. HICKS-BEACHwas not surprised that his hon. Friend had raised this question at the first possible opportunity, for there was nothing more unfair than the way in which the Government proposed to deal with churchyards, especially those given in recent years by private donors. He quite agreed, however, that it would be more convenient to postpone the discussion of the question until Clause 6 was reached, and he was glad to hear not merely that the Government would survive so long, but that the Committee would be permitted to have a full discussion on that clause.
  *SIR F. S. POWELLdesired to call attention to the contrast between the Bill as it now stood and the Irish Church Act. Under the latter Act, in certain cases, burial grounds were made over to the guardians, but it also provided for the maintenance of good order in them, the proper conduct of services, the preservation of rights of way, and other matters. He mentioned the point now, in order that when they came to Clause 6
  1666
  corresponding in sentiment to the words contained in the Irish Church Act.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. J. C. MACDONA MR. J. C. MACDONA moved in line 11, after "vested," to insert "which is ascertained to have been given to the Church by Parliamentary grant and." He said the Bill afforded an instance not of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but of robbing both Peter and Paul and St. David too. It did not say anything about how the Nonconformists were to be robbed. It did not take away any of their Endowments, because it was said they were given by pious persons for pious purposes. In like manner it appeared to him that the great bulk of the Church property, and particularly that in Wales, had been given by pious ancestors for pious work, and not by the State, and therefore the State had no right to take it away. It was absurd to say that the property of the Church was National, and ought to be diverted from its original purposes and appropriated by the Nation. Parliament had as much right to take away the property of other denominations or of individuals as to take away that of the Church. The only property Parliament ought to be able to take from the Church was that which was proved to have been given by Act of Parliament. Between 1809 and 1850, the whole Church of England had received from Parliament £1,100,000, and in addition to that it had received £500,000 for Church building grants, making a total of £1,600,000. The Welsh share of this total was about £100,000, or about £40 a year. This was all that Parliament had any right or title to touch; and much good might it do those who took part in such robbery. Of course, Parliament could legally do anything it wished; it could take away the emoluments of the Home Secretary. Although what was now proposed might be done legally, it could not be a moral transaction, and it would certainly be unkind and cruel.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid, it was quite true that Parliament could, if it pleased, take away the emoluments of the Home Secretary, but he did not quite see the

  1667
  relevancy of the observation. The hon. Member well knew that the adoption of his Amendment would strike a blow at the very principle of the Bill. The contention of the Government was that, as the ancient revenues of the Church were National property, in the same sense was public property that had been given to it in modern times. There was no legal, and he believed no moral, distinction between the two sources of endowment.
  *MR. TOMLINSONsaid, the Home Secretary talked of legal and moral distinctions, but they believed that the taking of any property from the Church was an immoral act, and as long as the Bill was in Committee they would protest against every part of it on that ground. They did not admit the morality of any part of the Bill. There was no more immoral part of the Bill than that taking away the funds derived from Queen Anne's Bounty. He did not see the morality of taking away that which had been granted by Parliament. His hon. Friend had raised the question in this form in order to put before the Committee the immorality of taking away that which was given by our ancestors long ago, on the absurd and ridiculous pretext that, if they had known that the Church would cease to embrace all the people, they would have preferred baths and washhouses as an object of their bounty, to the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.
  MR. BARTLEYsaid, it must be within their knowledge that grants had been made by Parliament to certain denominations as well as to the Church. Clause 5 would not cover those grants, because it spoke of property given by a private person out of his own resources. They understood that money voted by Parliament to the Church would have to be refunded, whereas it would not be taken away from the Nonconformist bodies which had received similar grants. It was a convenient doctrine—they had it during the Home Rule Bill. He asked whether money voted by Parliament at the beginning of the century, not only to the Church of England, but other bodies, would be covered by Clause 5: and if the Church of England was to refund the money whether the Nonconformist bodies—
  THE CHAIRMAN: I have ruled, more than once, that that has nothing to do with the Bill. This is a Bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of Wales.
  MR. BARTLEY: I am quite aware of that, Sir. Money granted by Parliament was not a private benefaction, and he wanted to know whether it would be handed over. This clause transferred every kind of property of the Church, whether it resulted from public or private benefaction.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it was difficult to know when they would be able to deal with this, as Clause 5 did not deal with Parliamentary grants.
  MR. ASQUITH: It is open to the right hon. Gentleman to move an Amendment to Clause 5 to include Parliamentary grants among private benefactions.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURhoped his hon. Friend would bear that in mind when the time came. He agreed with the Home Secretary that the Amendment, if carried, would strike at the whole root of the Bill. If they were not going to disestablish the Church in Wales except where money granted by Parliament was concerned, disestablishment would have little effect on the prosperity of the Church. But a large number of persons had been persuaded by Liberationist orators that the Church in Wales ought to be disendowed on the very ground that her money was derived from Parliamentary grants. The theory had been that the endowments of the Church in Wales and England were the result of Parliamentary liberality. Therefore his hon. Friend was perfectly justified in appealing to hon. Members opposite to go into the Lobby to show that these arguments, which they had not been ashamed to use on many occasions—on platforms and in the Press—had no foundation in fact.
  MR. E. HENEAGEargued that Clause 5 was strictly limited to private benefactions. Therefore he did not see how Parliamentary grants could be dealt with upon that clause. If an Amendment could not be moved to Clause 5, he thought they were bound to deal with the question now.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 183; Noes, 192. (Division List, No. 90.)
  SIR R. TEMPLE (on behalf of Mr. HANHURY)SIR R. TEMPLE (on behalf of Mr. HANHURY) moved, in line 12 to leave out "or is appropriated to the use of" in the expression—
  "All property not so vested which at the passing of this Art belongs to or is appropriated to the use of."
  It was not, he said, quite clear what was meant by the words, and they might be oaf able of consequences which would prove extremely inconvenient.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Baronet, is he moving the Amendment on behalf of the hon. Member for Preston?
  SIR R. TEMPLE: Yes.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I understand the hon. Member for Preston has taken it off the paper.
  SIR R. TEMPLE: Then, Sir, I beg to move it myself. The hon. Baronet explained that if the Amendment had been withdrawn, it still appeared in the printed papers, so that he had good reason for his action, and at any rate he thought he should be in order in moving the Amendment on his own behalf in order that some explanation might be elicited from the Home Secretary as to the meaning to be attached to the particular expression.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid that that which "belongs to" meant that which is the property of, and that "which is appropriated to the use of" meant that which is held by someone else in trust for.
  *MR. TOMLINSONsaid he should have been glad if the right hon. Gentleman could have given them an instance, because it appeared to him to be possible to put a much wider construction on words of this kind. He believed the words might even include the library of the Dean of Bangor, and he submitted that the expression was far too wide.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he could give the right hon. Gentleman an instance of the difficulty which might arise. It was a very common practice when the colours of any regiment had
  1670
  passed out of use to hang them up in a cathedral church. This would not be the property of any ecclesiastical office or cathedral corporation, and were they to be told that under this Bill the glorious colours of the old regiments hung up in the Churches of Wales were to be used to form an Academy of Arts.
  *MR. THOMAS BUCKNILLcalled the Home Secretary's attention to a speech he had delivered in 1894, when he said that the return of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for 1889 showed a net receipt by them for Wales of £28,700, and a total of payments by them to Wales of £67,600; in other words, there was a balance overpaid out of the English revenues of £40,000. It was quite clear from the language of this sub-section that this £40,000 was property which was appropriated as specified, and it would come under the sub-section.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsubmitted that the Home Secretary's explanation was not satisfactory. He would ask him to be good enough to give them an instance which would really fit in with those words.
  MR. ASQUITHsaid that his speech which had been mentioned by the hon. Member for the Epsom Division of Surrey, referred to grants made by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners out of property vested in land. They were dealing now expressly with property not vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, therefore the surplus payments made by the Commissioners to Wales could not possibly be included in the sub-section. With regard to the point of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight, as to the words "is appropriated to the use of," he would point out that precisely similar words appeared in the Irish Church Act—in fact they had been appropriated by the draughtsman of the Bill—and they had never given rise to the slightest trouble or difficulty in the operation of that Act.
  *MR. BUCKNILLstill thought the Home Secretary was wrong. The first section of the Bill referred to property which was ascertained to be Welsh ecclesiastical property. This £40,000 was not Welsh ecclesiastical property. It was English money from English revenues, which was paid by the Ecclesitical Commissioners to Wales over and above the amount that was paid by Wales to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
  MR. ASQUITH: I would point out that, so far as this money is not Welsh ecclesiastical property, Clause 4 prevents the possibility of its being brought within Clause 3.
  SIR JOHN DORINGTONalso thought the words were so wide in meaning that they would in some instances cover the property of private individuals which was used for Church purposes. For instance, he knew of a room, now used for the purposes of a parish, in connection with the Vicarage of the parish, which was not the property of the parish, but the property of a private owner. It stood within the churchyard, and was used exclusively for Church purposes. Would not that room be covered by the words "appropriated to the use of" the Church, notwithstanding that it is the property of someone else? He therefore thought the words covered too large a space, so to speak, and at least needed some modification.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 182; Noes, 169.—(Division List, No. 91.)

  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill,
  DR. CLARKasked what time on Thursday this Bill would be taken?
  THE PATRONAGE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. THOMAS ELLIS,): I cannot say at the moment, but the Leader of the House will make a statement to-morrow.
  Order put down for Thursday.

  INTOXICATING LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL CONTROL) BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of this Bill being called, Mr. J. MORLEY named Monday next.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEYwho was interrupted by loud Ministerial cries of "Order," asked whether the Bill would really be taken on Monday next, and, if not, whether the Order would be put down for some day when the Bill was really to be taken?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: This Bill is put off in the usual manner—[Opposition cheers and ironical laughter]——not at all in a manner peculiar to this Bill.]"Hear, hear!"] As the Leader of the House has said, it is the intention of the Government to bring forward this Bill, and to give the House an opportunity of pronouncing an opinion upon it.

  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL (COSTS).
  Resolution reported,—
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any costs incurred in Ireland, on an appeal, or case stated under the provisions of any Act of the present Session, for the creation of a Court of Criminal Appeal and Revision of Sentences."
  Resolution agreed to.

  WAYS AND MEANS (17TH MAY).
  Resolution reported,—
  "That, towards making good the supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1896, the sum of £7,855,268 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  Resolution agreed to—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mellor, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir John Hibbert.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  To apply a sum out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1896, presented accordingly, and read the First Time; to be read Second Time upon Thursday.

  PEERS' DISABILITIES REMOVAL BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of this Bill,
  MR. BRODRICKsaid, that as the subject was under the consideration of a Committee of the House, he moved that the Order be discharged and the Bill withdrawn.
  Order for Second Reading discharged and Bill withdrawn.

  REGISTER OF BURGH VOTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Committee report progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  EDUCATION ENDOWMENTS (IRELAND). —LIMERICK DIOCESAN SCHOOL.
  MR. T. M. HEALY MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.) rose to call attention to the case of the Limerick Diocesan Schools, and to move:—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to withhold her consent from so much of Paragraph 6 of Scheme 90, framed by the Educational Endowments (Ireland) Commissioners, relating to the Limerick Diocesan Schools Endowments, which provides for the conveyance and release by the Commissioners of all their estate and interest in the lands, buildings, and premises described in the First Schedule thereto. Part IV., subject is therein to the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg on the notice and payments therein set forth by him to the Commissioners in that behalf to be given and made; and to disapprove of that part if said Scheme which makes the default by the said Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg in giving said
  1674
  notice or making said payments within certain times therein set forth, a condition precedent to the Commissioners putting up for sale by public auction and selling to the best advantage all their estate and interest in the said premises subject as aforesaid, and conveying same to the purchaser thereof; and to disapprove of any part of the said Scheme which, if retained therein, will operate to compel or allow the Commissioners to take any course with regard lo the said premises other than to put up for sale and sell to the best advantage all their estate and interest therein, and convey same subject as aforesaid to the purchaser thereof."
  He began by congratulating the Tory party on the serried aspect of their benches. Whenever a motion of this kind was put down in relation to Scotland, nearly the whole House cleared out and a few Scotch Members were permitted to monopolise the business; but the moment a matter regarding Ireland was put down, every English gentleman who knew nothing whatever about the subject was prepared to give a conscientious vote upon it. The facts relating to this motion might be put in a small compass, and he would say nothing about it, had it not been found in official documents. They owed to the late Lord R. Churchill the passing of the Endowments Act, 1885, and such reforms as had been carried out affecting the old endowed Schools of their country. In 1833 and 1837 the three schools for the diocese of Limerick had fallen into ruin, and the Protestants of Ireland, being small in numbers, but having complete control in the country, built the schools out of their own pockets. There was an application to the rates for the purpose, and at an expenditure of £l,672 15s. 4d. the School was erected. Of that £1,672 upwards of £1,640—one might say the whole of it with the exception of about £30—was paid for by the citizens of Limerick out of their rates. Now there were 3,000 Protestants in Limerick, and 33,000 Catholics, so that it might be said that the Protestants compelled the Catholics to build the School for them, and they built it. Then Lord Randolph Churchill's enquiry came on, and it transpired that after the

  1675
  passing of the Church Act of 1869, the reverend Gentleman, Dr. Hall, the master who then apparently was in charge of the School, went through the operation of commuting and compounding, for a life interest, and he left the city of Limerick. In 1874, the School was obtained by the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg by deed apparently, in consideration of the sum of £20, notwithstanding that the School had cost the ratepayers of the city £1,640. He obtained it on a tenancy from year to year at a rent of £20 per annum. But this gentleman refused to pay anybody any rent; and he set the Commissioners at defiance, and when Lord Randolph Churchill's Inquiry came on, the noble Lord put a number of pungent questions, which seemed to show that the school was, or had been, used for proselytising purposes. [Cries of "No, no!'' from the Opposition Benches.] Was that a challenge? [Cries of "Yes!"] Then he would only refer the hon. Gentleman who cried "No, no!" to the statements given in the course of Lord Randolph Churchill's cross-examination—questions 1148 to 11627. If the noble Lord was mistaken in his view, he (Mr. Healy) could only follow humbly in the mistake of the noble Lord. Well, matters went on until this Act of Parliament was passed, and in 1891–2 Lord Justice Fitzgibbon and Mr. Justice O'Brien inquired into the funds and endowments of the school, and Mr. Justice O'Brien described as discreditable the course by which Dr. Gregg had obtained the school. He himself should not have used that language if he had not the authority of that learned and eminent Judge for doing so. The Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg appealed to the Privy Council of Ireland, a whip was made, the Tory Party rallied and mustered at the call of their friends, and 10 gentlemen of Protestant persuasion and two of Catholic persuasion came together, and the august assembly perpetrated this job. The job was this, that the scheme of Lord Justice FitzGibbon,
  1676
  a Conservative Judge, and that of Mr. Justice O'Brien, who certainly was not a Home Rule Judge, should be amended in this regard, that instead of allowing the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg to continue in his tenancy at £20 a year, forsooth, the whole school and its premises of an acre and a-half in extent was to be sold together, not for the money it cost the ratepayers, £1,600, but for the sum of £800 or thereby. Now the Tory Party were rather opposed to leasehold enfranchisement, but leasehold enfranchisement suggested the idea that the person to be enfranchised must at any rate have a tenure in the place. He must have either a freehold or a lease for years. But the proposal of the Privy Council of Dublin was that a gentleman who was only a tenant from year to year was to have a present for half what it cost the ratepayers, of an acre and a-half of land. He should like to see the Tory Party affirming a proposition of that kind. What he proposed was this, that the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg should not be presented with this property on those terms. The Tory Party were hardly in favour of fixity of tenure. The money for these premises had been found out of the rates. They belonged to the ratepayers, and what he said was that the premises should be put up to public competition, and that the man who bids highest for them should get them. In fact, he was the champion of freedom of contract, and he asked the House to say that no cause had been shown why the decision of the two judges who had inquired into the matter should be overruled at a scratch meeting of the Privy Council, whipped up by the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg, and the ratepayers deprived of their property by means of jobbery of this kind. He therefore asked the House to affirm his Resolution. Mr. Gregg had only 300 Protestant parishioners out of the 33,000 inhabitants of Limerick. The question was whether a job of this kind was to be perpetrated by the Privy Council against the wishes of the people who had paid

  1677
  for the school. He begged to move the Motion standing in his name.
  MR. DIAMONDseconded the Motion.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLagreed with the hon. Member for North Louth in all that he had said in praise of the Endowed School Commission and the late Lord R. Churchill in connection with it. The findings of that commission had only been challenged twice. That spoke volumes for the character of the work which it had done. The next question to be decided was this, whether Mr. Gregg was to have the right to the pre-emption of these premises on the payment of the sum of £834 according to the decision of the Privy Council or whether the premises and the land were to be put up for public auction. The House ought to know the history of these schools in order to be able to form a just opinion. The diocesan schools were founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but the school now under consideration was actually built in 1837. The hon. and learned Member had stated that it was built out of the rates of the city of Limerick.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: And out of a presentment by the Grand Jury of the county.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that it was wholly built out of a presentment made by the Grand Jury of the county of Limerick. The City of Limerick never paid a sixpence, towards the erection of this school, and he did not think the hon. Member had a right to say that the Protestant minority in Limerick was so contemptible as a rate-paying community.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: £1,640 was presented by the grand jury for the county and the county of the City of Limerick.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he did not say it was wholly presented by the county, but, whether they took the county or the city, the Protestant rate-paying community was by no means so contemptible a proportion of the population as the hon. Member inferred. A very considerable moiety of what was paid would come out of the pockets of the Protestant population. This school ceased to exist as a diocesan school on the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Dr. Hall, to whom the hon. Member had referred, died on the premises, and a
  1678
  difficulty a rose from the fact that his widow remained on the premises. The Education Commissioners could not get her out, and by the payment to the widow Canon Gregg secured possession of the premises. The hon. Member inferred that Dr. Gregg obtained possession of the premises in an underhand way, and it was only fair to say that Lord Justice FitzGibbon entirely acquitted Canon Gregg of any such conduct. The, case came before the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and an order was signed which gave Canon Gregg the right of pre-emption. It was quite true that that order was withdrawn, and the Commissioners made another order that the premises should be put up to public auction. He was not going to discuss the constitution of the Privy Council. It was the body to whom persons aggrieved by the order had a right to appeal, and Canon Gregg appealed. The Committee of the Privy-Council considered this matter, and came to the conclusion that the scheme should be sent back to the Commissioners with a declaration that the right of preemption in fee simple should be given to Cannon Gregg at a price to be ascertained by valuation, and if the premises were not so sold that they should be put up to public auction. The finding of the Privy Council went to the Commission and the Commission accordingly gave Canon Gregg the right of pre-emption. But they did not fixed the price. The valuer of the Endowed Schools Commission went down and valued the premises at £834. Not content with that the Government sent down the Chief Officer of the Government Court of Valuation Dublin, and he practically came to the same finding; and the Privy Council acted upon the concurrent valuations. Thus it was beyond question that they did not make a present of the premises. Then it was said that ever since Canon Gregg had got possession of the school it had been devoted to Protestant proselytism. Of the children who attended the school 75 per cent. were the children of Protestants and 25 per cent. were the children of mixed marriages; and Canon Gregg had never allowed any child to attend without the full permission of the legal guardian. Therefore the charge of proselytism could not arise. Personally he agreed that

  1679
  many of these old Endownments had required overhauling, and he rejoiced that many were being usefully employed than before. In the county of Limerick the Commissioners had handed over the whole of one Endownment to the Roman Catholic party, and he did not object to that, recognising the claim of the majority of the population and rejoicing in the fact that the Endownment could be more efficiently utilised in that way. Here was the last Endownment which it was proposed to leave to the Protestants, who as ratepayers had contributed their share to the endownment of the school; and this was a contemptible attempt to grab the last Endownment and to take it away from those who were using it for the advantage of the Protestant population, but without exclusion or any proselytising aims. The Catholics would have been well advised to leave this Endownment in the hands of the Protestants. He knew Canon Gregg, and was perfectly certain that he was incapable of taking possession of these premises in an unjustifiable manner and that he had not used the school for proselytising purposes. It was quite true the hon. Member who moved this Motion had supported him on a former occasion, but that was when an attempt was made to change the constitution of a governing body so as to give one party an unfair share in the management. That case was not on all fours with, this and the hon. Member could on account of that case ask his support for this Motion which he hoped the House would reject. The various Protestant denominations in Limerick were strongly opposed to interference with the scheme. It received the favourable consideration of the Education Commissioners in 1885. The first scheme was in favour of the premises being purchased by the present occupying tenant, Dr. Gregg, and the proposal that he should be allowed to purchase had been sanctioned by the Irish Privy Council, and he objected to the hon. Member for Louth saying the Irish Privy Council had been whipped up to perpetuate a job. What was the job? It was that the man who took the school at a time when it was simply tumbling down, who had kept it in repair all this time, and had paid the rent, and whose proceedings had been approved by the Education Commissioners, should now be put out of the
  1680
  premises. The primary cause of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Louth was Dr. O'Dwyer, Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick. That Bishop was opposed to allowing the Protestants to purchase the school. He had said that he regretted that this school, the last of the three Protestant schools in Limerick, should be allowed to remain "as a standing insult to Catholics," simply because it was a Protestant school. There was no foundation for the charge of proselytising, and it had been wholly disproved. There had been many cases in which the children of mixed marriages had been admitted into the school when their legal guardian had brought them to the school for the purposes of education; but so far from proselytising taking place, it was rather the other way, it was on the part of the Catholics. Bishop O'Dwyer said he would give money out of his own pocket to buy out the schools. Although there could be no doubt that £131 was the proper value of these premises, two independent valuers had valued them at £850. He did not quarrel with the Catholic Bishop of Limerick. He was entitled to his own opinion, but was that House to help him? If the premises were put up to auction, the bidding would run up so high by the Bishop that Dr. Gregg would be unable to keep up with it. Hon. Members professed to be in favour f religious equality. But why should the result of many years' deliberation be upset at the last moment? Lord Justice Neish, after carefully considering the matter, consented to the scheme, and Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, who had been most seriously attacked, had stated that there was not the least foundation for the charge of proselytism. He submitted that it would be most disastrous if, by assenting to the Motion, the House destroyed the last Protestant school in Limerick.
  MR. W. E. MACARTNEYpointed out that no allegation had been made by the hon. Member for Louth against the fitness of the education imparted at the school. For twenty years Canon. Gregg had carried on the education of a large number of poor children. The Commission upon which Lord R. Churchill sat bore testimony to the worth of the education given, and

  1681
  everyone since, who had investigated the education carried on, as well as reports presented to Parliament, had testified to the character of the education given. Was there anything in the condition of the school that violated the principle of the Act of 1885. The hon. Member for Louth had not made any assertion of the kind. The hon. Member for Louth said that Canon Gregg never paid any rent and declined to enter into possession. In October, 1894, he had previously addressed a letter to the Commission asking them if they would make him tenant and offering to pay a certain rent. They were unable to make him legal tenant owing to the position in which the occupation of the premises had left them. The moment that Canon Gregg got into possession he made a further offer to the Commission. They were still unable to make any legal settlement with him, but they knew he was in possession. He carried on the education of his pupils there with their full knowledge, and as soon as they were able to give him any locus standi or quasi legal position they did so. In all the transactions between Canon Gregg and the Commissioners it was stated that he never did anything discreditable. What evidence was there that Canon Gregg did anything underhanded or that was not absolutely open before the world? What would have happened if Canon Gregg had not taken the steps he did? The Grand Jury of the City of Limerick and the Grand Jury of the County had made presentments for the purposes of the school, but beyond this they took no steps in the matter. The old educational establishment would have been left derelict, and the intentions of Parliament to benefit the City of Limerick would have been frustrated, but for the action of Canon Gregg. He must say, looking to the moral side of the question and to the action of Canon Gregg, that it would be unjust of that House now to attempt to disturb the settlement arrived at after four long and very full investigations. He must touch one side of the question which really explained the attack on this scheme. Bishop O'Dwyer, like, he suppose, all prelates of the Roman Catholic Church—and he did not blame him for this—had a strong opinion on
  1682
  the question of the issue of mixed marriages, and he stated in his evidence before the Endowed School Commissioners that this school was an eye-sore to him because children of mixed marriages were received there to be educated. Bishop O'Dwyer stated that he had been unable to submit a clear case of proselytism of Catholic children belonging to Catholic parents; but added that Canon Gregg was fishing in troubled waters, meaning the question of the issue of mixed marriages. While he admitted that the Bishop was entitled to take great interest in these marriages, and might suppose it to be his duty and right to do all he could to secure that the children of these mixed marriages should be brought up in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, the Bishop could not, on the other hand, dispute the right of Canon Gregg or any other clergyman of the Irish Church or any other Protestant denomination in Ireland to take an equal interest in the subject, and he had utterly failed to show that anything took place in Canon Gregg's school of an underhand nature, or that he ever received a child born of a mixed marriage in any other than a legal manner. What was proved before the Commission was that Roman Catholic parents in mixed marriages were in the habit of leaving children to be educated as Protestants. The whole issue was this; Were they on account of the strong opinion which Bishop O'Dwyer had on this question, to interfere with a scheme which had been three times before the Privy Council, which had received the sanction of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, to interfere also with the beneficial education of 80 or 90 children in Limerick, and deprive the minority there, whose rights ought to be listened to and protected in that House, of the charity destined for their special benefit.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYobserved that a very few remarks from him would suffice to place the point before the House in the light it presented itself at least to him. This was a case in which the two Commissioners specially qualified to do so, came to a certain conclusion. There had been an appeal to the Privy Council, and now there was another appeal from the Privy Council to that

  1683
  House. That was the appeal they had then to decide. He should have thought that hon. Members opposite would have been anxious to show that they were able in this matter, at all events, to discharge from their minds all those elements of prejudice and passion which, unfortunately, played a frequent part in Irish discussions affecting education, in order to show the peculiar capacity and fitness of the House to decide troubled Irish issues. The present issue was not as to what the view of the Catholic Church in Ireland was about mixed marriages, nor as to whether this reverend Gentleman was conducting a good school or not. The case having come before the House in the way he had described, what they had to consider was simply whether the two Commissioners were more likely to be right; or the Privy Council. It would be very unbecoming in him to make remarks disparaging to the Privy Council in Ireland, but, at the same time, from his observations of the operation of that body in its executive functions, it did not seem to him to be a body to whom Parliament ought to confide questions of this delicacy. There, being a confusion, which all publicists had deprecated for the last 150 years, in Western Europe between executive and judicial functions, in the attribution of these duties to the Privy Council he himself was not inclined to allow their decision to overrule the finding of two such men as Lord Justice Fitzgibbon and Mr. Justice O'Brien. It was no use holding the Commission up to the admiration of the House, and then asking the House to overrule their deliberate opinion. He hoped, therefore, that the House would agree with the Motion.
  MR. DAVID PLUNKETsaid, the Chief Secretary had rested his case in support of the Motion on the ground that there had been an appeal from persons fully qualified, to a tribunal which, whatever else might be said in its favour, was not specially qualified for the decision of such delicate questions as these Irish education questions always were. But why was the tribunal unfitted to hear this appeal? Because they were the judges of the land. And who were the persons from whom the appeal was to be taken? Two judges of the land.
  1684
  He had never heard such a foolish excuse—if he might be permitted to say so—as that advanced by the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: What I say is that those two judges, Lord Justice Fitzgibbon and Mr. Justice O'Brien, were doing special work which they were called upon to do; and that they had decided this case, into which they had special opportunities for inquiry.
  MR. D. PLUNKETsaid, that every word of the evidence was also heard before the Privy Council; and therefore, the second reason of the right hon. Gentleman was feebler than the first. He would point out further, that when this case was first tried by Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, in company with Mr. Nash, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, it was decided to give the pre-emption to Canon Gregg. When Lord Justice Fitzgibbon afterwards found himself in company with Mr. Justice O'Brien, he stated he still retained his original view, and only yielded because he could not get his colleague to assent to the course that had first been decided upon, and when the matter came before the Privy Council they decided to uphold the original view of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, from which Lord Justice Fitzgibbon had never departed. There was, therefore, no good reason for the course the Government proposed to adopt. The real reason for the Motion was to stamp out the best remaining Protestant school in Limerick.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 92; Noes, 87.—(Division List No. 92.)

  WINES IMPORTED.
  Return ordered—
  "of Statistics giving, degree by degree, the strength of Wines Imported into this Country during the year 1894 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 96, of Session 1894)."—(Sir Frederick Seager Hunt)
  And it being after One of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at Twenty-five minutes after One o'clock.

LAND TRANSFER BILL [H.L.]
Message from the Commons for leave for the Lord Chancellor to attend to be examined as a witness before the Select Committee of that House.
Leave given for his Lordship to attend if he think fit.
And his Lordship (in his place) consenting thereto,
A message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

EDUCATION
Petition in favour of State aid towards maintenance of voluntary schools, of the Local Board for Sheffield, read, and ordered to lie on the Table
Moved: "That the said Petition be printed."—(The Lord Norton.)
Agreed to, and ordered accordingly.— [No. 118.]

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
The following Bills were read 3a (according to Order), passed, and sent to the Commons:—

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (ACTON) BILL.— [H.L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (BRISTOL) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HORNSEY) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (LEEDS) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LIVERPOOL) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LOWESTOFT) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (MANCHESTER) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (PWLLHELI) BILL.—[H. L.]
The following were read 2a (according to Order):—

GAS AND WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL.— [H.L.]
WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LLANGOLLEN) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONGBENTON) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WILMINGTON) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (TOTTENHAM) BILL.—[H. L.]
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (CROYDON) BILL.—[H. L.]
EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL.—[H. L.]

PREFERENTIAL RAILWAY RATES.
*THE EARL OF JERSEY—in moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the operation of the proviso to Subsection (2) of Clause 27 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, namely,
"Provided that no railway company shall make, nor shall the Court of the Commissioners sanction, any difference in the tolls, rates, or charges made for, or any difference in the treatment of, home and foreign merchandise, in respect of the same or similar services;"
—said, as their Lordships were aware, the meaning of this proviso had been the subject of litigation before the Railway Commissioners, who had decided that it had not been carried out in a reasonable manner by the London and South Western Railway Company. He would not attempt to argue as to the exact meaning which Parliament intended to convey by the words, "of the same or similar services." It must be said that Acts of Parliament sometimes insufficiently expressed the meaning of Parliament, perhaps because Parliament itself did not exactly know what it meant; but everyone would see that the proviso was not at least intended to allow railway companies to give preference in favour of foreign goods, and yet the Railway Commissioners found that this preference had been given by the London and South Western Railway Company. After

1531
making certain allowances for the difference in cost of working, the Commissioners decided that the charges in regard to foreign hops, hay, and fresh meat, were not fair compared with the charges for similar English goods. The rate for foreign hops, carried 76 miles, was 10s., and for English hops, carried only 45 miles, 15s. The charges for carrying meat for about the same distance was, for foreign meat, 12s. 6d.; and for English meat, 25s. 4d. Other items were dismissed by the Railway Commissioners on account of the very small nature of the home consignments. The railway company tried to justify the differences by two considerations with a foreign leaning. He did not think he could do better than read the judgments of the two Commissioners on that matter. These were the words of Mr. Justice Collins:—
"On the other hand the respondents in their answer unquestionably sought to justify the difference in charges by two considerations, which were vehemently repudiated by their counsel at the hearing, namely, that the charge of 6s. was an apportioned amount of a through rate entitling them to exact a smaller proportional charge in view of the longer distance traversed; and secondly, the charge was necessarily no higher in order to enable them to compete successfully with the ocean route, and all the ingenuity of Sir Richard Webster failed to convince me that the author of the answer did not rely largely on these contentions."
The noble Lord opposite, Lord Cobham, also said that:—
"Mr. Balfour Brown was not far wrong when he said that the respondents' line of defence was an afterthought, and that they had a difficult task before them of justifying by one set of considerations a rate that had been governed by another."
The ingenuity of the counsel suggested other reasons for these charges, which, however, did not convince the Commissioners of their justice. But what he (the Earl of Jersey) had to point out was, that the railway company defended this rate on the ground that it was a portion of a through rate from ports outside the United Kingdom. Sir Charles Scotter, on the part of the railway company, allowed that the shipping traffic to Southampton was carried on in competition with direct steamers to London from various ports, so that their Lordships would see that foreign produce did receive better treatment in order to attract it. How then was it likely that an English producer could be in a position to place his goods on the London
1532
market, in fair competition with foreign goods, if those foreign goods were to be carried through England and past his door at a much lower rate than his own? The railway company in this case gave to the foreigner the advantage of quicker trains and facilities at a less cost. Much had been said about the fact that the Southampton case was virtually a contest between two rival docks. It was to be regretted that the rivalry between the London and Southampton Docks was brought into the question, yet he wished to express the warm thanks which were due from English producers to the Committee of the London Docks for having given them the opportunity of proving the injustice of the charges which the railway company had been bringing on them. The cost of those inquiries was by no means light, owing to the constant habit of railway companies of appealing on small points. He had been told that this inquiry cost something like £2,000. No single trader could undertake so heavy an expenditure. It was absolutely prohibitive, and therefore, if it had not been for the Committee of the London Docks the question would not have been brought to a conclusion so early. After the decision of the Railway Commissioners he did not think it could be said that preference had not been given to foreign goods, or that the law had been tested and found efficient. On the contrary, the law had been found deficient for the purpose for which it had been passed, which was that at least no preference should be given to foreign goods. It was a pity, as everyone would allow, that our home producers did not pay a little more attention to the manner of collecting and packing their goods, and of conveying them to market. His noble Friend the Earl of Winchilsea, was trying to direct the attention of agriculturists to the importance of combining together for the transference of their goods to the railway stations. But while allowing that agriculturists should make the best use of all the means in their power, in order to get rid of some, at least, of the excuses for preferential rates advanced by the railway company, no one could justify as fair such charges as those which he had alluded to. How, he asked, could the charge of 5s. for the cartage of home goods and only 3s. 4d. for foreign goods be justified? He would now quote some

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charges which had not been proved in a Court of Law. He had been informed that in the case of the London Chatham and Dover Railway the charges for carrying eggs from Calais to London was 29s. 3d. The charge for the seagoing portion of the journey was 26s., which left only 3s. 3d. for the railway journey between Dover and London. English eggs, carried the same distance, were charged 22s. 7d. That showed a preference of 19s. 3d. in favour of foreign eggs. The rate for eggs from Canterbury, 66¼ miles from London, was 20s. 10d. Evidence had been given before the Royal Commission on Agriculture as to the feeling amongst agriculturists on the point; but he would quote the report of one of the Assistant Commissioners, Mr. Pringle:—
"But there were many complaints made against the preferential rate allowed on foreign produce upon English railways. These rates were considered to be unfair to the home grower, and the whole question was submitted as one requiring prompt and decisive treatment. It was stated that there was collusion between shipping and railway companies, and the suggestion was made that the shipping freights and the railway charges on goods consigned to English markets should be quoted separately and not as one. Were this done, the general belief was that our railway companies would be seen to carry foreign produce at lower rates per mile than those charged against the English farmer."
Agriculturists felt very strongly they had not had, and were not having, fairplay meted out to them. No one, of course, wished to injure the railways—that would be a policy not only unjust but most suicidal; but, at the same time, it did seem very hard that great public companies should give preference to foreign goods as opposed to home produce. It might be argued that this was a fresh case and it was only just to wait a bit. The answer to that was that only fortuitous circumstances in the last case enabled the charges to be considered at all by the Railway Commissioners, and that to delay was to prolong the injustice. It was now clearly shown that one railway company at least had misunderstood the meaning of the proviso, and even now, though the Railway Commissioners had decided, in one sense, that these preferences ought not to be allowed, there was not a settlement of the question. It was only the old rates that had been condemned. No
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new rates had been placed in their stead, and when the time came for those new rates to be considered, further law costs might have to be incurred. It was time, he thought, to put an end to any misunderstanding in regard to the meaning of the proviso. If a Committee were appointed an opportunity would be afforded traders and agriculturists to come forward and state the treatment they received from various companies. It might be found that the impression of injustice was wrongly founded, and in that case the inquiry would serve a good purpose. But if, on the other hand, it was found that preferential rates were given in a great many cases and by several railway companies, surely it was only right that Parliament should have an opportunity of considering how to place home produce on the same footing as foreign, and to free home produce from the disadvantages which were now placed upon it. A Committee like that which he suggested would be able to hear all complaints and find out if they were well-founded; and, if they were well-founded, to propose that there should be such an alteration of the law as would enable the mind of Parliament, which he felt sure was also the mind of the country, to be carried out, and that was that as regarded the carrying of goods, whether they were English or foreign, there should be no difference, and certainly no difference in favour of the foreigner. He begged to propose his Motion.
LORD BELPERsaid, he had had an opportunity of paying some attention to this question, both from the fact that he sat on the Railway Rates Committee in the Session for 1892, and that he had other means of studying the question of railway rates. He was sure their Lordships would sympathise with the object Lord Jersey had in view, namely, the finding of some relief for the unfortunate agriculturist in the severe competition which he had to meet on all hands, a competition which it appeared was equally difficult to meet, whatever branch of farming a man took up. But however great their sympathy with the English agriculturist might be, there were considerations perhaps of even greater importance which must be borne in mind before they came to a decision. He concluded their Lordships would hardly be prepared to accept a Motion,

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even for an inquiry by a Committee, except it were proved, by one or two instances, that when Parliament passed this proviso they were under some misapprehension, that they did not intend that the result of the proviso should be what it had turned out to be, as far as could be judged by the one case which had been tried. In the second place, if that were not so, they would require some information that during the last seven years there had been a change in public opinion, and that it was desirable there should be some change in the law. He was not surprised the noble Lord in bringing forward this Motion did not go into any very elaborate detail as to what the intentions of Parliament were when this proviso was passed seven years ago, but he thought if their Lordships studied Hansard they would find that Parliament did know what it was about, and that their intentions had been fairly carried out in the decision given. On the Second Reading of the Bill the noble Marquess, who was then Prime Minister, in answer to Lord Jersey said—
"I do not mean to say that we forbid all preferential rates, because there is a certain kind of preferential rate that must be admitted, such a rate for example as is given in favour of a man who imports a great deal as against the man who imports very little, a preference generally admitted in all trades."
Lord Stanley of Preston, who was in charge of the Bill, stated in Committee:—
"He thought it was now tacitly admitted by all bodies of traders, that persons dealing in large quantities and at regular intervals with the railway companies ought to be allowed certain advantages over those who did not deal in such large quantities or so regularly. Where a railway company had traffic to carry in large quantities, and at regular periods, and under convenient conditions for its reception and carriage, there was an element which ought fairly to be brought before the Commission, and which in the majority of cases might form good ground why a preferential rate should be allowed."
It would have been difficult before any decision had been given for anyone to have expressed more clearly what was the general result of the law as they knew at present it had been. Lord Jersey, in quoting the decision which had just been given by the Railway Commissioners, said the Railway Commissioners had condemned the practice of the Railway Company in giving these low rates from Southampton; but he (Lord Belper) thought their Lordships
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who had read the case would know that on the main point the Railway Company was practically successful, and that those who brough the action, that was to say the Mansion House Committee, behind whom were London Dock Companies, were really unsuccessful on the particular point on which they laid most stress. But it was not only those in charge of the Bill who expressed an opinion as to what they thought was fair with regard to preferential rates. Lord Camperdown said:—
"That the noble Lord in charge of the Bill said that the Railway Companies ought to be allowed to have a difference of rates where the quantities carried differed materially. Nobody disputed this point."
It was plain that many of their Lordships, whatever might have been their view with regard to trying to do something to prevent competition from foreign traffic, were not prepared to go so far as to say that foreigners if they imported goods and carried them in large quantities, should not be allowed the same advantages as Englishmen, who carried goods from one station to another. It was true this special proviso was not in the Bill that was discussed in Committee; it was inserted in Grand Committee in the other House, and he believed at the instance of Mr. Chamberberlain. But whether that was so on not it was accepted by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who said:—
"The object was to secure equal treatment under equal circumstances."
The Bill came back to the House of Lords with those words inserted, and Lord Jersey expressed himself satisfied wit the words in another part of the Bill, and withdrew the Amendment he had down to strike out the words inserted in Grand Committee. He did not think the other part of the Bill covered the ground in the way the noble Lord evidently thought it did. At all events, Lord Jersey asked for information, and Lord Onslow, in reply, said:—
"He thought it obvious that, whether the consignors were foreigners or home traders, that it would be manifestly unfair to impose the same rates upon both parties, whether they sent a large or small quantity of goods, or whether the goods were sent at regular or irregular intervals.''
It was evident there was no misconception as to what the object of the clause was. He put it to them whether it was

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desirable, after the very short experience they had had of the working of the clause, they should make an important alteration of the law. The whole railway system of charging had been built up on a principle which had allowed a lower rate being given in the case where traders were sending large quantities, and were sending them at regular intervals. That principle had been admitted not in this Bill only, but in every Act of Parliament which had fixed the maximum charges of railway companies. In the Committee which he had the honour of sitting at, it was specially laid down, and was advocated as strongly by traders as it was by the railway companies, that lower maximum charges should be given to train loads and truck loads than were given for similar goods when carried in smaller quantities, and he understood there were Acts of Parliament which actually laid it down that the maximum charges for goods carried from the docks should be materially lower than the same goods carried from the same place if they belonged to the ordinary trader. If that were the case, he doubted whether Parliament would be inclined, by means of a Committee, to inquire into a section of an Act of Parliament, to go into the whole system which had been deliberately authorised by Parliament for so many years. If that course were taken, it would entail far larger changes than the mere wording of one section of an Act. The noble Earl did not, however, contend for this. His object was to handicap the foreign importers as against the English producer.
*THE EARL OF JERSEY: Will the noble Earl quote any words of mine in which I have said or hinted such a thing?
LORD BELPERsaid that he had no wish to attribute to the noble Earl opinions which he did not hold. His impression of the noble Earl's object was simply drawn from his speeches delivered when the Act of 1888 was before Parliament. At any rate, it was the contention of many of the noble Earl's supporters that, if possible, imported goods must not be allowed to enjoy all the advantages enjoyed by goods produced in this country. If that view was held by anybody, he would point out that it would not be satisfied by any alteration of this clause. The only effect
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of such alteration would be to compel the goods to be brought into the country some other way. No more instructive case could be cited than that just decided by the Railway Commissioners. Though nominally brought by the Mansion House Committee, the action was really brought by the London Docks Company; and the object was to divert traffic from Southampton to the London Docks. If the action had been entirely favourable to the applicants, the sole result would have been to ensure that the same goods would have come into the country, but by way of London direct, instead of by way of Southampton. The inevitable result of these proposals was to drive cargoes to the ports which were nearest to the large centres of population. Instead of being a protection to the English farmer against foreign agricultural products, they were really protection for certain dock companies against other dock companies and the railways. If there were any means of dealing with the unfortunate competition which the British agriculturist had to contend with, he was sure that the House would do anything in its power to help. But he hoped that the House would do nothing which might lead the agriculturalist to expect appreciable advantages fram an Inquiry which was riot likely to afford any. He hoped that the Government would not grant the Committee for which the noble Earl had asked.
*LORD PLAYFAIRsaid he had listened to the noble earl who moved for this committee with great attention, because he was anxious to find what he expected the Committee to inquire into. It could scarcely be expected that the Committee should inquire into the legal operation of a proviso to a subsection of an Act of Parliament when a deliberate judgment had lately been given as to the interpretation of that proviso. He supposed that the noble Earl thought the proviso was practically for the purpose of giving equal rates to foreign and British goods going along the railways. That was the impression left by the noble Earl's speeches in 1888, and it was the obvious inference from the fact that when the Amendments to the Bill came from the other House the noble Earl moved to omit the words "in respect of the same or similar services." In 1888 the House discussed this matter in the fullest manner possible. No one contested the

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principle underlying the Act of 1854, as well as that of 1888, that, all conditions being similar, foreign goods should not have preferential rates as against British goods. But it was quite a different thing, as the Marquis of Salisbury (then at the head of the Government) said on March 13th 1888—
"that under no circumstances shall one set of merchandise have preferential treatment over another because one set is foreign merchandise and another British."
There were excuses advanced by the railway companies to the Commissioners in the case to which the noble Earl had referred. They were—that the foreign goods came over in bulk and were regular in delivery, and that they were so well packed that they could be handled with ease, and that they could therefore be carried with more profit at a low rate than the goods offered at stations along the line, in small and separate quantities by producers who were not in combination. In the recent trial, "The Mansion-house Traffic Association v. the London and South-Western Railway," the contention actually was made that the proviso excluded all such excuses, and meant that foreign and British rates must always be equal. In giving judgment upon this case Mr. Justice Collins said:—
"If this were the real interpretation of the proviso it would involve the most momentous consequences. But I need not enlarge upon the consequences, which are certainly startling. The question is, did the Legislature in the year 1888, by a proviso to a subsection of a Railway and Canal Traffic Act, introduce such a revolution? Nothing short of the clearest language could persuade me that the Legislature ever had any such intention, and I am of opinion that full effect can be given to the proviso without adopting the contention of the applicants."
The learned Judge went on to say:—
"I think the object of the section was to level differences, not to create arbitrary inequalities between the treatment of the home and foreign merchandise."
To his lay mind the judgment of Mr. Justice Collins was a very able one, and went into all the conditions of the case. It was followed by clear and decisive opinions from the other Commissioners. Viscount Cobham pointed out very clearly what effect would surely follow if the contrary interpretation were true. He said:—
"The policy of the Legislature, as interpreted by the Railway Commission since its first institution, had been to multiply routes for the access
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of merchandise to our great centres rather than to restrict them, but if the respondents elected, under pressure, to give up their Southampton Dock traffic one important route for the supply of food stuffs, absolutely indispensable to the people of this country, would be closed. Consequences such as these must be regarded as of farreaching importance so far as they involve protection to any class or interest; they constitute a reversal of a long-established national policy. I cannot persuade myself that so momentous a decision would be embodied in a proviso of apparently limited application and in language that admits of doubt."
After these judgments, which laid down authoritatively the meaning of the proviso, unless it was reversed on appeal, there was no uncertainty as to the operation of the law. What then, did the noble Earl propose that his Select Committee should inquire into? Was it to be a fishing or inquisitorial Inquiry, in different districts, as to whether railway companies were disobeying the law by the rates which they were charging? And was that method to be substituted for the practice of taking cases to the Court of Railway Commissioners, which Parliament had appointed as adequate to deal with these questions? He agreed with the noble Earl that there might be many cases where unfair preferential rates had been charged, and where those rates had not been brought before the Commission because the farmers were too poor. That was the only work that he saw the Committee could do, but would that accord with the dignity of their Lordships' House? Lord Stanley of Preston, in 1888, pointed out this danger. He said:—
''He hoped that cases of inequalities of rates would not be discussed upon the Floor of this House. Such cases depended upon questions of facts which could not be investigated in that House, but which would rightly come before the Railway Commissioners, the machinery of whose court it was proposed by this Bill to improve."
The Government could not favour the formation of a Select Committee which could only have this outcome. There was no uncertainty as to the meaning of the proviso now, and there was no doubt of the efficacy of the undue preference clause when it was put into operation. In the very case which he had quoted, the Commissioners ordered that lower rates should be put on hay, hops, and meat, the produce of the British farmer. Frequent cases of relief had been given in undue differential rates, independently of the merchandise being British or

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foreign. No doubt there were instances, and probably many instances, of unwise or unfair differential rates, and the Act might be put into operation to correct them. Though the Government did not see the need of a Select Committee, they recognised that this was not a Party question, and they thought it should be determined by the general opinion in their Lordships' House. They all sympathised with the feelings of British farmers who saw heavily-laden trains of foreign produce flying past their farms, carried at rates perhaps less than one-half of those charged for their own produce when they send it to the market. A Select Committee might be useful if it could show the British farmers how by combination, regularity of delivery of large quantities at a time, and good packing, it would pay the railway companies to carry British goods at equal rates to those charged for foreign produce coming in bulk. The farmers in the United States had to a considerable extent solved this difficult question of differential rates. By admirable combination in common dairies, in common slaughterhouses, in grain elevators for the collection, sorting, and handling of grain, much economy in the cost of traffic had been attained. In time, our farmers might benefit by such combinations. A Committee making inquiries into the nature and application of such economies might doubtless be useful. But that was not the sort of Committee indicated by his noble Friend opposite. It would be a pity, however, where all their sympathies were on the same side, that the acceptance or rejection of a Committee should be the subject of a Party vote. He had risen early in the Debate in the hope that the general sense of the House might be expressed in the discussion.
*LORD BALFOURwished to say a few words with reference to some of the points which had been raised. No one could deny the immense importance and width of some of the issues which had been raised by the noble Lords who preceded him; but he did not think it was quite a convenient course to Debate the very large question of preferential rates between the home and foreign grower on a notice of this kind. It seemed to him that the issue presented by the notice was a much narrower one. He cordially reciprocated the expressions of sympathy
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as to the feelings which many of our agriculturists must entertain on this subject. He could assure the noble Lord that when he said that in some way or other the agriculturists had not received fair play, he spoke to an especially sympathetic audience. It was very difficult for anyone to get rid of the prejudice which was raised by an appeal of that kind. Instances had been given which showed that the agriculturists of this country had not had fair play in regard to their competition with foreign produce. But that was not the question before the House. It was a Motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the operation of a particular proviso of a Sub-section in the Act of 1888. The point which he wished to emphasise in regard to this matter was, that there had only been one case under that proviso. This case had only recently been decided by the Court of First Instance. Whether or not there was to be an appeal from the decision of the legal member of that tribunal, the time at least for giving notice of appeal had not expired; and, therefore, it seemed to him that it would be extremely unwise if the House should grant the request for a Committee. The noble Lord said that the cost of going to the Railway Commission was very great. Unfortunately it was; but he thought that there was another procedure under the Act which was too little known, and which, at any rate in some of those cases, might be brought more into operation. He referred to the procedure under Clause 31 of the Act known as the "Conciliation Clause." It had been a procedure which had commended itself to those who had used it, and it was certainly worthy of attention. Apart from those considerations, however, he would go further and say that so far as he had been able to gather what was the intention of the Legislature, what was the fair spirit of the Act, he ventured to put before the House the view that the Railway Commissioners in their decision had given effect to the intentions of the proviso. The real effect of the proviso was that there was to be no preference for any class of goods on account of their origin; any preference which could be justified was to be justified according to the circumstances of the traffic. No notice was to

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be taken of the source from which the particular goods in question came. The noble Lord gave an instance of difference of rate in the case of some eggs which came from the continent to this country. According to the facts and figures quoted by the noble Lord, he thought that there was strong presumptive evidence in that case to show that there was undue preference, provided that the figures on examination proved to be correct. He was bound to say, however, that from his own experience with regard to tables of figures which were brought before him and his colleagues at a certain inquiry, there was throughout the length of that inquiry scarcely a single table put in on behalf of the Railway Companies or the traders, which was not largely discounted after it had been examined by the representatives of the opposite interest. He doubted, therefore, where the average Member of their Lordships' House, with little experience in this matter, would be able to understand what difference might legitimately be made as between one package of goods and another of the same kind in respect of the quantity and volume of the traffic, the system on which it was packed, and the consequent difficulty or ease of handling it. He hoped that the request for the Select Committee would not be pressed. Whether the larger and more important inquiry should be taken or not was a question which their Lordships could not discuss until they saw the terms of reference. He doubted, however, whether a Committee of the House would be the best tribunal even for that question. He should have thought that the facilities at the command of a Government Department like the Board of Trade, could have been employed to put together information got from foreign countries by our agents rather than by bringing witnesses from those countries here to give evidence.
LORD PLAYFAIR: I did not propose a Select Committee, but I could have understood a Select Committee being appointed for such a purpose.
*LORD BALFOURsaid, he gathered more than that from the suggestion of the noble Lord; but he accepted the explanation. Even, however, if they were going to collect that information, it could be better done through the agency of a Department than by a Select
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Committee. He should prefer, however, not to discuss a hypothetical question. He would rather wait to see whether the suggestion was adopted, and whether the terms of reference were put on the paper. On the wide and large question of how we were to treat goods which come into this country, it seemed to him that the Railway Commissioners had correctly apprehended what was the intention of Parliament. The noble Lord quoted some sentences from the judgment of Mr. Justice Collins; but there was a passage in a judgment of one of the lay Commissioners on the merits of the question which seemed to him to set forth the correct principles which ought to be laid down. The words would be found in the judgment of Sir Frederick Peel:—
"The proviso seems to me to require, in reference to home and foreign articles that compete with each other in the market, that, in respect of the same or similar services there shall not only he no difference of rates involving an undue or unreasonable preference, but no difference of any kind. It means, I think, that given the same or similar services, considerations which in other cases might justify an inequality of rate are here not to be regarded."
That he understood to be the wish of Parliament; and the only safe ground their Lordships could take up was that on which the Court avowedly proceeded, and which was declared by the judgment of the Commissioners. In other words, that they were not to mind either the interests of the consumer or producer as interests of the consumer or producer, and they were not to take notice of the origin of the goods, whether they were home or foreign, but were to treat all alike, given the similarity of services in both cases. If the noble Lord could suggest that there was any ground for saying that the Court had misinterpreted the intention of Parliament, then, in his opinion, he would not have much difficulty in getting his Committee. The noble Lord had, however, failed to make out his case on that point, and consequently he could not support his Motion.
*THE EARL OF WINCHILSEA AND NOTTINGHAMstill thought the Motion of his noble Friend timely and opportune. The speech of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Belper) showed that he had not appreciated the speech addressed to the House by his noble

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Friend, because the object of the Motion was not to induce their Lordships' House to take any steps which would place the foreigner in a position of inferiority to the home producer. What his noble Friend contended for was, that the proviso which was placed in the Act, and which was originally introduced by his noble Friend himself, had failed, even when legally interpreted and explained. The Committee proposed was not to try to reverse the decision lately pronounced by the Railway Commissioners; but would have for its object to ascertain whether agriculturists were right in supposing that all over the country there were thousands of rates in which the express intention of Parliament was being systematically evaded, even when viewed by the light of the decision lately arrived at by the Commissioners. He had addressed about 200 meetings during the past two years, and he could safely assert that at no meeting had any subject been received with so much enthusiasm as the reform of railway rates. There was an urgent demand by the agriculturists and traders of this country for a review of the matter, in order to see whether the declared intention of Parliament to place foreign and English goods on precisely the same footing was being honestly and fairly carried out. The Motion was strictly limited in its application. It did not propose to take the House over the subject of the increased rates imposed in 1893, or to go into other matters connected with rates generally; but simply to inquire into the proviso, and to see whether that proviso had been deprived of its efficacy by the words which it had been necessary to accept in the Lower House. That brought them to the question of what was meant by "similar" services. Unquestionably, by the Act of 1888, Parliament intended to do away with preferential rates in favour of foreigners; and the whole question now was whether it had done so, or not. The contention of himself and his Friends was that it had not. The Railway Companies, on the other hand, contended that it had. Such an inquiry as his noble Friend proposed would at least set the matter at rest. If he and his Friends were wrong, it would be well that they should be informed of it; if they were right, then,
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undoubtedly, further legislation ought to follow. His noble Friend was loyally prepared to accept the law as laid down by the Railway Commissioners, and only desired to inquire into the thousands of rates which he had indicated, and which, in individual cases, could not be brought before the Commissioners on account of the expense involved. But it had been contended that, in view of the decision so lately pronounced in the Southampton case, to which reference had been made, the Motion of the noble Earl was not well timed. Such, in fact, was the argument of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Playfair), and of his noble Friend below him (Lord Balfour of Burleigh). He could have understood the objection if his noble Friend had proposed to review that decision, but, as a matter of fact, he accepted it, and even made it the basis for the proposed inquiry. The railway companies might with more reason, he thought, put in a plea for delay on other grounds, and then he would be prepared to make large admissions. They might contend, for example, that one case only had been tried; and that in that one case, admittedly the worst case which the traders could select, the decision of the Commissioners had not, except as it affected three articles, been unfavourable to the company. They might also argue that, although the rates in question were such as to show overwhelming prima facie evidence of preference to foreign goods, the Company had been able to justify many of them, on the ground that foreign produce was delivered so well packed, so regularly, and in such large quantities, as to make it more profitable to carry than English produce, even at three times the rate. He was willing to make the Companies a present of these admissions, which justice demanded should be made, but still he was convinced that, even in the case under review, enough remained behind amply to justify the Motion of his noble Friend. Not only was the defendant Company actually convicted of preferential treatment in the case of three of the articles complained of, namely, hops, hay, and meat, but a whole flood of light was thrown upon a question which contained the kernel of the whole controversy, and that was, what are the

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grounds on which railway companies really act when they charge three times as much for conveying English produce as they do for foreign? Now it was proved that the London and South Western Railway in their preliminary answer to the charges preferred by the Mansion House Association had relied on two arguments—the one illegal, the other irrelevant. One was that the rates charged were part of a through rate; the other was that they were necessary in order to enable the Railway Company to compete with the sea-borne carriage to London. Both those arguments were dropped like red hot coals by Sir Richard Webster as soon as he opened the case for the Railway Company. Still, Mr. Justice Collins stated that all the ingenuity of Sir Richard Webster had failed to convince him that the Railway Company were not really relying on that argument when they framed their reply. That was the point. Could any one doubt that the real argument present to the minds of the Railway Company not only when they framed their reply, but when they imposed the rates originally, was the very argument that Parliament had said that they must not bring forward—that they granted those rates in fact entirely because they were part of a through rate, and were necessary in order to enable the Company to compete with sea-borne carriage? This brought the House to a consideration of the proper use of the word "similar." He quite agreed that foreigners, if they sent their goods better packed and in better bulk, ought not to be placed in a worse position than Englishmen, and he would say at once that he and his Friends would be satisfied if, for similar services, they could get similar rates. There could be no question that a great part of the discrepancy in the rates that they smarted under was really brought about by the fact that they had not learnt the great lesson of combination by sending their goods to centres where they could be properly packed and properly consigned to the Railway Companies. He challenged any representative of the Railway Companies in that House who might follow him in that debate, to say whether, if an association or society could deliver agricultural produce in regular quantities, properly packed, and at
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regular times, whether they would grant the same rates as they now granted to foreigners for the same commodities. If the Railway Companies would not do that, then, behind their refusal to do so, lay the very thing they wanted to get at. If, on the other hand, they would do so, the sooner that was known the better for the Companies, and for the home producers and traders. It did not, however, do for the Railway Companies to lay too great a stress on the word "similar." He would give only one illustration of his meaning. Till lately, the foreign rate for the conveyance of meat from Liverpool was 25s., the English rate being 50s. This discrepancy was so glaring that the Railway Companies said—
"We will take your meat at 25s. if you will send it in similar quantities—namely, 20 tons at a time."
These figures were very significant. Twenty tons were not a trainload, but were more than a truckload. Why was that figure selected? Because it was just above the highest figure to which the Company knew that the English producer could attain. The home producer could thus be relegated to the higher rate of 50s., because he failed to comply with this absurd and impossible condition, while the Company could still plead that by making the offer, it had technically complied with the letter of the proviso. He contended that that was not fair and honest treatment on the part of the railway company, and that it was not carrying out the spirit of that legislation which was intended to place English producers on the same terms as foreigners. Provided that a full truck were consigned, it could make no difference to a railway company whether one truck or five trucks were consigned at one time; certainly none which would justify it in charging double the rate per ton in the one case which it charged in the other. As a matter of fact it was proved in the Southampton case that even the conditions as to "full truck loads" were frequently relaxed in favour of foreign produce. The condition of agriculture at the present moment did not admit of delay. There was a great tide of indignation rising in the country in consequence of the belief that the foreign producer was treated on a different basis from the English producer by the

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railway companies; and although there might be many deductions to be made on behalf of the company, yet when all deductions were made there was a large margin of complaint which justified the Motion of his noble Friend. If the railway companies were ordinary traders the House would not venture to interfere from a Parliamentary point of view with their right to charge what rates they pleased; but the railway companies were a monopoly—a monopoly which was granted in the faith that, being allowed to take the land compulsorily, they were to be the cheap carriers of agricultural produce to the market. On that account alone he thought they were entitled to protest, against that form of protection which, after all, was the most monstrous form of all, the protection of the foreign producer against the home producer. He trusted, therefore, that the House would accede to the Motion of his noble Friend.
*THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I sympathise most entirely with the feelings that have actuated both my noble Friends behind me. There is no grievance which the British farmer feels so keenly as that under which he believes he suffers—namely, that there are preference rates between foreign and native produce; and I entirely agree with my noble Friends that it is the duty of Parliament to watch carefully the operation of the law, and if the operation of the law is not satisfactory that it is the duty of Parliament to propose measures for its amendment. But I confess that I am a little perplexed as to the subject matter of the Committee for which my noble Friend proposes to move. He proposes to ask us to enquire into the operation of a particular proviso. Now, the operation of a proviso means its legal operation. Have or have not the provisions which Parliament has passed in order to impose certain duties upon railway companies been carried out or not as Parliament desired? That can only be ascertained by knowing the results of the appeals to the Courts of Law. You may say that Courts of Law are expensive. It is a painful truth, but you cannot get out of the use of them. You may have Select Committees, and you may have Acts of Parliament founded on the reports of Select Committees, and you may repeat the process again and again, but the only thing that can be done
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is to lay down something that the Courts of Law shall enforce. To that point you must always come in the end. What has happened in the Courts of Law? Have they failed to enforce the intentions of Parliament? Have they discovered that the intentions of Parliament were expressed in language which does not represent the views which we really entertain? It seems to me that on this point we are in ignorance. It has been said that only one case has been heard, but that very much exaggerates the matter. Only half a case has been heard; it is still open to appeal, and I am told that there will be an appeal. It is quite possible, therefore, that the result of the appeal may be something totally different to that which appears in the judgment that is now before the House. The law has not yet definitely spoken. We do not yet know precisely what interpretation the Courts of Law will put upon the language which we have placed in the Act. I am very anxious for the success of the cause my noble Friends have in hand, and am desirous that it shall have every support from Parliament and public opinion; but I think they would rather hinder than promote success if they insist on beginning an inquiry before there is anything to inquire about. My noble Friend behind me referred a good deal to the wishes and the intentions of the Railway Companies. No doubt the Railway Companies will try to get all the advantages they can, and probably the advantages they desire will not be consistent with those interests of agriculture which Parliament is bound to protect. But we cannot operate on the intentions of the companies; we can only operate on the law. We have to decide what the law is to be, and it seems to be premature to inquire whether the law we have laid down is sufficient or not until we have heard what the Judges determine to be the operation and the effect of that legislation. I would suggest to my noble Friend that the best course to pursue under these circumstances will be to adjourn the Debate until the appeal to which reference has been made has been decided.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): I wish to express my general concurrence in what the noble

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Marquess has just said. I entirely agree with him as to the immense importance of the question itself, and the absolute duty of Parliament to take every possible step to see that our agriculturists have fair play in this matter. The noble Marquess will doubtless remember the discussions in Parliament on this subject, and he will recognise that the question is one of extreme difficulty. Notwithstanding the intentions of Parliament, it is always found to be an exceedingly difficult thing to draw up an Act which will exactly carry out the wishes which Parliament may have. I need not repeat what the noble Marquess has said, because his arguments are unanswerable, as to the fact that the moment has not arrived for making an examination into the matter. As the noble Marquess has shown, it is extremely undesirable that we should at this moment enter upon such an inquiry. It would rather prejudice the question than promote it. I merely wish to say, on the part of the Government, that we are impressed with the importance of the question and with the fact that it is the duty of Parliament to take every means to see there is fair play between the home and the foreign producer, because it cannot be, on any ground, fair or just that preferential rates should be given to any class of producers, and much less that we should select our own producer at home as the victim of that preference against themselves. Surely no one can dispute that proposition. The only question now is, as to the best way of carrying our wishes into effect; and I join with the noble Marquess in asking the noble Earl not to persevere with his Motion at the present moment.
*THE EARL OF JERSEYsaid, that he would agree to the suggestion to adjourn the question for the present.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he hoped it would be understood that, while he sympathised with the object of the noble Earl, he reserved to himself the right to discuss what was the particular thing to be done when the Debate was again brought forward.
*THE EARL OF JERSEYsaid, he must thank the Earl of Winchilsea for his admirable speech, and thought it would be regarded as extremely satisfactory by agriculturists throughout the country.
Debate adjourned.

SEA FISHERIES REGULATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
On Motion for the Third Reading of this Bill, several Amendments stood on the Paper in the name of the Lord Privy Seal. The clause, as amended on Report, was a follows:—

RESTRICTION AS TO BEAM TRAWLING AND OTTER TRAWLING.
(1.) The Fishery Board may, by bylaw or bylaws, direct that the methods of fishing known as beam trawling and otter trawling, shall not be used in any area or areas under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty, within thirteen mlies of the Scottish coast, to be defined in such bylaw, and may from time to time make, alter, and revoke bylaws for the purposes of this section. Provided that the powers conferred in this section shall not be exercised in respect to any areas under Her Majesty's jurisdiction lying opposite to any part of the coast of Ireland, or the west coast of England within 18 miles thereof. No bylaw under this section shall be confirmed by the Secretary for Scotland until he shall have directed a local inquiry to be held in the district adjoining the part of the sea to be included in the bylaw; at which inquiry all persons interested shall be heard. (2) Any person who uses any such method of fishing in contravention of any such bylaw, shall be liable on conviction, under the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Acts, to a fine not exceeding One hundred pounds, and failing immediate payment of the fine to imprisonment for a period not exceeding sixty days, without prejudice to diligence by poinding or arrestment, if no imprisonment has followed on the conviction; and every net set, or attempted to be set, in contravention of any such bylaw, may be seized and destroyed or otherwise disposed of by any superintendent of the herring fishery or other officers employed in the execution of the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Acts. Provided always that, if no conviction shall follow, any net so seized shall be forthwith returned, and due compensation made for any loss or damage occasioned thereto by such seizure. (3) Sub-section two of section seven of the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act, 1889, is hereby repealed, and the provisions of the foregoing sub-section shall be and are hereby substituted therefor. (4) Failing payment by a certain date, named in the conviction, of the fine imposed upon the person or persons convicted decree therefor may be pronounced against the owner or owners of the offending vessel or boat, and upon such decree being pronounced the person or persons convicted shall be relieved therefrom and from all penalties attaching thereto.
*THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord TWEEDMOUTH),in moving the omission of the words italicised "under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty," said he moved the Amendment in fulfilment of the pledge he gave on the Report stage. The intention of the Amendment was to leave out words inserted by the noble

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Marquess opposite, which would have the effect of destroying the whole clause with regard to trawling altogether. The Government thought it necessary that some further restriction should be adopted with respect to trawling in Scottish waters, and for three reasons—first, because, however doubtful the destruction done to fish generally by trawling, it was undoubtedly possible that in limited areas, especially in waters near the shore, great damage could be done, and these areas rendered for the time useless; secondly, because great damage was also done to the gear of the line and net fishermen, especially in inshore waters; and, thirdly, because a very excited state of feeling existed between 44–45ths of the fishermen of Scotland and the remaining 1–45th, who were trawlers—a state of feeling which the Government thought they ought to attempt to allay by giving power to the Scottish Fishery Board to allocate particular fishing-grounds to these particular classes of fishermen. He discussed the objection to the proposal that the restriction on the trawlers, prohibiting them from fishing in about ten miles of Scottish waters, would have a prejudical effect; and contended that that was not the case, and that the proposed regulation would not interfere with the catch of fish at all. It would, no doubt, cause them to burn more coal by going farther from the shore, but that was all. He pointed out that, according to the last report of the Scotch Fishery Board, 71 per cent. of the fish caught were herrings, and of herrings trawlers caught nothing at all. As to the argument that it would be very hard indeed to see foreign trawlers trawling in waters which were closed to British trawlers, he believed the contingency was one which was not likely to arise. If foreign trawlers fished in these grounds they would be such a distance from their own ports that they would require far more coal than would be necessary if they fished nearer home; and this was a matter which would operate with them. The object of the third Amendment was to impose an obligation on the Secretary for Scotland in cases where foreign trawlers made a practice of trawling in these prohibited areas to suspend the bylaw prohibiting trawling in such areas, which would give a fair method of compromise on the knotty questions with regard to this clause. He commended
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the Amendments to their Lordships' favourable consideration.
*THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I wish I could approach the noble Lord opposite in a spirit of entire conciliation upon this matter, but I feel he has carefully abstained from giving anything but the shell and the kernel of the Amendment is absent. I asssure him that the trawlers who are affected do not look upon the matter with that indifference he imagines. I have received a good many telegrams to-day from trawlers, and have also received letters from persons who are in a state of great apprehension lest his proposal should pass into law. (What we say is—that you must not prohibit the trawling of a British vessel in any place where a foreign vessel is able to go. That is a broad principle.) If the noble Lord could approach foreign Governments, and, either by formal or informal agreement, obtain from them their consent that a certain stretch of water shall be reserved for other sorts of fishing, and that trawling fishing shall be illegal therein, the noble Lord would have done perfect justice between his own countrymen and foreigners, and we should have no cause of complaint. All the noble Lord can tell us is, that he does not think it likely that a foreigner can come in. We do not know whether that is the case or not; we shall not know till we can try. But he has taken no security to prevent the foreigner coming in. All he does is to say: If afterwards it can be proved to the Secretary of State for Scotland that the foreign trawlers are fishing in these waters, that they are used as a fishing-ground by foreign vessels or boats, then in that case the Secretary for Scotland shall withdraw the Order and restore the open sea to the neutral condition in which it formerly was. It is obvious that that method is as cumbrous a mode for relief for an injured British trawler as you could possibly imagine. In the first instance, it must be discovered that the foreigner is using it as a fishing-ground—not merely that he has fished there once, but is using it as a fishing-ground. Who is to give evidence? There is no British trawler allowed; they cannot be there. The line fishermen are not likely to give evidence; they will shut their eyes very hard. The only persons that can possibly give evidence are one or two tugs which, I believe, will be at the

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disposal of the Fishery Board, and who, it is supposed, may be in the neighbourhood at the time. Then comes the question of fact, and nothing is more difficult to determine than a disputed question of fact which takes place at sea. I remember once hearing the late Lord Hannen, replying to a toast that had reference to the Court over which he presided, and he said:—
"It is hard to do justice as between man and man; it is still harder to do justice as between man and woman; but it is next to impossible to do justice as between ship and ship."
That is the fact. Facts when they come into a maritime case assume such an extraordinary travesty! You find from the evidence, which is no doubt honestly given on both sides, that every circumstance affects the case so favourably to each side in turn, that even such obvious questions as whether the wind blew from the east or from the west at the same moment, are decided differently by the evidence recorded. Therefore, the Secretary of State, when he gets the information, will have to fight through all this difficulty of evidence. The facts will be very doubtful; they will only reach him on the evidence of the tug, which, I suppose, will have conveyed its knowledge to the Fishery Board, which, at the next quarterly meeting will resolve that the matter shall be laid before the Secretary for Scotland; and the Secretary for Scotland will be left to determine whether the evidence given by the captain of the tug is to be relied upon or not. It will depend entirely on the distance from shore—it may be a distance from shore at which the beach is not visible—and if the land be not visible there is practically no method of determining whether the distance has been exceeded or not. There will be every ground for the Secretary for Scotland thinking the question is impossible to determine whether there has or has not been habitual fishery on the part of the foreigner. At each elbow, when he is deciding this question, there will be political advisers who will not have an absolutely impartial result in view. The representative of the line fishermen of, say Forfarshire, will have one opinion, and the representative of Teignmouth and North Shields will have another; and I think it is possible that the Secretary for Scotland, unless he be a man of such exalted virtue as we are accustomed to now, will be tempted
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more to decide by the question whether the letters U and G are opposite the names of these representatives than by the question of the evidence that is laid before him. [A noble LORD: "What do U and G mean?"] Has the noble Lord never read that interesting work, "Vacher's Companion," in which he will see an account of predilections of supporters and opponents? This proposal is exceedingly circuitous, very clumsy, and gives every opportunity for not carrying the law into effect. In fact, it is a statutory indication of how not to do it. It would be much simpler to take the course recommended by Lord Huntly and, I think, by Lord Camperdown, that an understanding with foreign Powers on the subject shall, in the first instance, be arrived at. If you can obtain that understanding then, without trusting at all to the discretion of the Secretary for Scotland, or the doubtful and contested evidence on which he will have to rely, or the question whether a certain number of acts of fishing constitute a use of the ground for fishing—without relying on any of these doubtful grounds, you will then have a clear indication of the mode of doing that which you ought to do above all other things, and that is, to provide precisely equal treatment to the foreigner and to your own countrymen in respect to these rights of fishing in the open sea. I cannot assent, as far as I am concerned, to the adoption of a law which, I am convinced, will be perpetually evaded, which will give no real security as to the equal treatment of Englishmen and foreigners, and which will introduce precedents that can be stretched much further, and will be very injurious to our countrymen in the open sea.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I hope the House will not be led away by the reasoning of the noble Marquess, and suppose that this is a question as between Scotchmen, Englishmen, and foreigners. I maintain it is nothing of the kind, but a question really between Englishmen and Scotchmen engaged in two particular branches of the fishing industry. The noble Marquess espouses the cause of the trawlers, and takes no account of the larger interest which the line and herring fishermen have in this matter, placing this before you as a question whether we are going to do something that will be advantageous to the foreigners. If it

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rested simply there, the argument of the noble Marquess would have much force. But it does not. The point is, are you going, on account of the objections the noble Marquess makes to the particular provision here for the protection of an important class of our fishermen, to leave that important class without protection? Because that is what you are about to do. That is to say, for the sake of the trawlers you are about to expose a very large and, I am told, a much more important interest of British fishermen exposed to great damage and loss, and are going to protect trawlers in the exercise of their interest in certain waters at the expense of another large fishing interest. The object of the Amendment of my noble Friend is to try to make it impossible for the foreigner to be able to exercise trawling in waters in which British trawlers cannot exercise it, and at the same time to give some protection to line fishermen and net fishermen. I may mention that the whole of Moray Firth, which is nearly a third of the Scottish water on the east coast to be considered in this matter, is now subject to this prohibition; and, I regret that in this case there is not an option given to the Secretary for Scotland to suspend the prohibition if it were found that foreign trawlers fished within those waters. The noble Marquess opposite had said: "Why not get the consent of foreign Powers?" I cannot help thinking that the noble Marquess with his long experience of these transactions with foreign Powers knew the immense difficulty—the almost insuperable difficulty—of obtaining their consent to provisions of this kind, and it is for that reason, and, no doubt, for that reason only, that he asked the House to adopt this provision. For my part, holding as I do the Office of Foreign Secretary, if I saw any reasonable prospect of obtaining the consent of the foreign Powers, I would agree that it would be the most satisfactory and the most complete mode of dealing with the matter; but I do not believe there is any reasonable prospect of obtaining that consent. Then, as to the evidence to be brought before the Secretary of Scotland. The noble Marquess treated the matter as if we were going to a court of law. But this is not a case of going to law. The case is not to be argued as in a court of law, and as
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between two ships to which the noble Marquess referred. If we were going to a court of law, I should, perhaps, sympathise with the objection of the noble Marquess, for our experience in that respect is not encouraging. But in this case we go to the Department of the Secretary for Scotland. As regards the impartiality of the Secretary for Scotland, as between a "U" and a "G," however strong may be my belief in the enduring vigour of the present Administration, I can imagine a day when it is possible we may have a "U" before the name of the Secretary for Scotland in Parliamentary directories, and for my part I should have perfect confidence that a Secretary for Scotland from the Party opposite would administer this Act impartially and fairly as between the different classes, whatever their politics might be. I do not think, therefore, that that is a serious objection. Then as to the evidence, if it should be proved that the waters were used by a single foreign trawler, the prohibition against native trawlers would be removed. But even supposing one case of foreign trawling escaped notice, there would be no serious damage done. If there was any serious damage, depend upon it you would hear of it. The herring fishermen have a great interest at stake, and they would be sure to report if there was any foreign trawlers in the waters; so that upon the whole it does not appear that the clause would be found unworkable. Therefore I think my noble Friend is justified in pressing his Amendment on the House.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLhoped the House would adhere to the principle embodied in the Amendment of the noble Marquess accepted the other night, which was that they should neither prohibit themselves, nor allow the Secretary for Scotland to prohibit English or Scotch fishermen from using trawling grounds open to foreigners. That was the principle for which they contended. He had never heard a more illogical speech than the speech of his noble Friend who had just sat down. The noble Earl, in the opening part of his speech, seemed to think that it was a mere pretence to contend that this was a question between native trawlers and foreign trawlers. "It is no such thing,' said the noble Earl; "it is simply a question between one class of fishermen

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and another." But later on his noble Friend confesed that it was difficult to get foreign nations to agree to a limitation of fishing areas. But why did foreign nations object to the limitation of those areas? Because they wanted their people to fish there. What other objection could they have? Why had his noble Friend found it difficult to get foreign powers to exclude their trawlers from those waters? Simply because their trawlers found it profitable to fish there. That was the reason why the difficulty in regard to foreign powers arose, and yet his noble Friend pretended to deny that it was a question between home trawlers and foreign trawlers. But he objected to any extension of power in the hands of officials over British subjects. If Parliament objected to trawling over a certain area well and good; but why should they give power to the Secretary for Scotland to modify an Act of Parliament in accordance with the desires of local bodies of fishermen, and not with a view to the general interest of the country? It was quite true, as the noble Earl had said, that trawling, as compared with herring-fishing, was but a small fraction of the Scotch fisheries. But herring-fishing had nothing whatever to do with this matter. It was a totally different subject. The interference by trawlers with the herring nets was a very small matter. On the other hand, he wished the House had seen some of the papers circulated by the trawlers of Aberdeen and other places, with their admirable array of statistics, showing the growing importance of the trawling industry as compared with line fishing, and the injury done that industry by those prohibitions; and compared those statistics with the loose and disconnected statement of the noble Lord opposite. There could be no question of the much greater argumentative value of the case put forward by the trawlers than of the case put forward by the Lord Privy Seal. For his part he would go farther than the noble Marquess, who seemed to say that British trawling should not be prohibited on waters open to foreign trawlers. His view was that they should restrict all prohibitive laws of this kind to some definite extent such as the three miles of the present territorial limit. His noble Friend the Lord Chancellor stated, on the last occasion the Bill was before the House, that that limit was an
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accident—that it arose from the distance of a gun-shot years ago. He did not know exactly the range of powerful artillery in those days, but he should say it was ten miles——
*THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Thirteen miles.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that if territorial waters were extended by international agreement to 10 or 13 miles, it would be too large a line to draw for the purpose of laws of this kind. But he agreed that as trawling and line fishing could not be conducted together on the same spot in narrow waters where they would come into collision, it was only perfectly fair that there should be some protection for line fishermen. The noble Earl had used the words "protection for line fishermen." "Protection" had a technical meaning. Was this protection to be an artificial protection on behalf of a body of men who had other men competing with them in their industry. If that were so it meant that hon. Members opposite were going in for protection. It was the protection of a particular form of industry in favour of certain men to the exclusion of others who were better adapted to work the industry—such as the protection that might have been given to workers of handlooms as against machinery; and he, therefore, hoped the House would sustain the Amendment of the noble Marquess.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the noble Duke has shown how well justified is the statement that the interests of the trawlers is placed above the interests of every other class of fishermen by those who are opposing the Amendment of my noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal. The noble Duke has said that this is a question of the protection of line fishermen as against trawlers. I do not regard it in the slightest degree as a question of protection in the sense in which he applied that word. The object of the measure is to secure proper conditions for the regulation of each class of fishermen, so that neither class may interfere with or destroy the fishing of the other. If the trawlers are allowed to conduct operations in the water from which it is proposed to exclude them, the fishing of the herring fishermen will be destroyed. On the other hand, by controlling and limiting the operation of the trawlers,

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as proposed, the herring fishermen will be uninjured, and at the same time fair and legitimate scope will be allowed for trawling. That is the object of the Bill. It is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable object, and I do not know that there would be any difficulty in carrying it out. If you consider the fact that line and herring fishermen form a far greater proportion of the fishing industry than trawlers, is it not reasonable that you should have regard to their interests? Is it fair to leave the line and herring fishermen without any protection whatever against the trawlers, when the trawlers might destroy them; while on the other hand, under the conditions we propose, the trawlers could fish just as efficiently without doing the other fishermen any harm. Of course, the question of the foreign trawlers is the real difficulty. But I believe it is put forward as part of the game by the Scotch trawlers. I do not think myself that there is any substance in it. The fact that foreign trawlers have come into those waters has not been satisfactorily proved, and I do not think there is any reason to fear that they will come in the future to any substantial extent. I can understand this being made a question of principle, by the opponents of the Amendment of my noble Friend. But I cannot understand why that question of principle should not have been fought out long ago. Why was not the noble Duke here to fight for this question of principle when the subject was first brought before the House?
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: I was ill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That was unfortunate, and I am sorry to hear it. But could no one be found to voice his objection on his behalf? Until the noble Marquess moved his Amendment this objection in regard to foreign trawling was never heard of. Now when a Scotch Fishery Bill is introduced by the other side this question of foreign trawling is raised for the first time, and as a question of principle which there can be no yielding. But what is the proposal now before us? If the view of the noble Marquess and the noble Duke as to foreign trawling turns out to be correct, the prohibition against British trawling will be removed. Is it not worth while to make a little sacrifice rather than abandon the line and
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the herring fishery without any protection from trawlers whatever? I won't say the proposal of the Bill is perfect, yet I think it does afford an adequate and satisfactory solution of the question. The noble Marquess said the Secretary for Scotland would be guided as to the decisions he came to by the politicians on either side of him.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think I said there would be a politician at each elbow.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There may be a politician at each elbow, but I don't think the Secretary for Scotland, to whatever Party he belongs, will, on a simple question of this kind, allow himself to be affected by representations of politicians, because Parliament has committed to him the determination of a simple fact: is it shown that foreign trawlers come and trawl? I submit that the Bill is an adequate solution of the difficulty.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, he could not accept as correct the statement of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that this is a question simply between line fishermen and trawlers. [The Earl of KIMBERLEY: "Line and net fishermen."] Between line and net fishermen and trawlers. He was in favour of extending the three-mile limit, but when that question was raised in Committee it was asked:—
"How can we permit, or leave it open to, foreign trawlers to do that which we say British trawlers are not to do?"
That was a great and real difficulty. If he inclined to either side, his inclination was towards the line fishermen, but he quite admitted the reality of the difficulty. In the proviso under discussion it was said—
"It is made to appear to the Secretary that any area is used as a fishing ground."
The noble Marquess had already commented upon those words. He very much questioned whether the mere report of a fishing by a single vessel could be considered as using a fishing ground. It appeared to him it was very much open to question whether a single action, or even several actions, would be considered to constitute a case. But there was an alternative, standing in the name

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of Lord Huntly, which, if their Lordships did not accept the proposition of Lord Tweedmouth, he, in the absence of Lord Huntly, would ask them to adopt. Lord Tweedmouth proposed that the bylaw was to cease to be in force if it were made to appear to the Secretary that any such area was used as a fishing ground by foreign vessels. He would propose to do that exactly in the reverse way, that was to say, that the by-law should not come into force until some agreement or understanding should be arrived at with foreign powers in the matter. He had pretty good authority for that, the authority of Lord Tweedmouth himself. That was the exact course the noble Lord recommended in his Committee of two years ago. The Committee reported—
"That the present territorial limit of three miles is insufficient, and that for fishery purposes alone this limit should be extended, provided such extension can be effected upon an international basis, and with due regard to the rights and interests of all nations. Your Committee would earnestly recommend that a proposition on these lines should be submitted to an International Conference of the Powers which border on the North Sea."
There was considerable discussion before it was agreed to close the Moray Firth. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said he did not think it had been satisfactorily proved that foreign vessels had used that trawling ground. He could give him the names of two that had been in it. But one could not be blind to the fact that if they increased the area which was closed to trawlers they increased the inducements to foreign vessels to come and trawl there. That was a matter of common sense.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIREsaid, that when this matter had been under discussion on previous occasions it had been generally treated as one affecting mainly the fishermen on the east coast of Scotland, and also, to a certain extent, the fishermen on the east coast of England. However, since the last time the Bill was discussed he had received a representation from the chairman of the Joint Fishery Boards of Lancashire strongly protesting against the restriction proposed to be imposed upon their fishing by the original words of the Bill.
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The chairman wrote to him that the proposal—
"in Section 10 of the Sea Fishery (Scotland) Bill to exclude trawlers from fishing within 18 miles of the Scottish coast line will act very injuriously upon the interests of a considerable section of Lancashire fishermen. They have already suffered by the closing of the Firth of Clyde, and this additional restriction of fishing ground would involve further loss both to fishermen and consumers in Lancashire. It may be desirable to extend the territorial limit of sea fishery operations, but in the opinion of the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee this step can only be effectively accomplished by international arrangement."
His correspondent was not aware, at the time he wrote, of the Amendments introduced on the Motion of the noble Marquess opposite. He could not say whether those who represented Lancashire fishermen were justified in the view which they took of the injury which would be inflicted upon them, and he merely quoted the letter for the purpose of again calling their Lordships' attention to the fact that this was a Bill which did not affect the interests of Scottish fishermen only, but also the interests of English fishermen. When the Bill was in Committee he asked the noble Lord who represented the Board of Trade what was the view taken by the Board of Trade upon the subject as affecting the interests of English fishermen. The noble Lord was not able to give him any answer on that occasion he was not present when the Bill was last discussed, but he had been present that night. Perhaps he would favour the House with the views which the Board of Trade took upon the matter. The Committee on which the Lord Privy Seal sat two years ago considered the question as affecting British fishermen generally. The Report, which was drafted by the noble Lord himself recommended a totally different mode of procedure from that contained in the Bill. Why had that procedure been departed from, and why was this treated as an exclusively Scotch matter?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that by the second Amendment, which stood in his name, it was sought to make it clear that these provisions were intended to extend solely to Scottish waters.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that English fishermen fished in Scottish waters.
*LORDTWEEDMOUTHsupposed that the noble Duke was a sufficiently good Scotchman to want to endeavour to keep the waters near the coast of Scotland for Scotchmen in the first place. Lord Camperdown referred to a Report of a Committee over which he (Lord Tweedmouth) presided. The noble Lord said the proposal of that Committee was that the territorial waters should be extended by international convention. That was perfectly true, but it was not with a view to this question at all, but with a view to the prohibition of the capture and sale of undersized fish. The very trawlers who were opposing the Bill were promoting a Bill in the House of Commons at this very moment.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: If the noble Lord will look at his own Report he will find that he is mistaken.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that trawling did not come into the Report at all. In regard to fishing matters generally, it was proposed in the Report to extend the territorial limits by a Convention among the nations bordering on the North Sea. That was for the purpose of prohibiting the sale and capture of undersized fish. The very same people who were raising this opposition to the Bill were promoting a Bill in the House of Commons for the prevention of the sale and capture of undersized fish; and they were differentiating in that Bill, without any idea of international agreement, between British and foreign fishermen, just as this Bill proposed to do, with greater safeguards. Of course, the Government were at the mercy of the noble Marquess.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Not at all. I wish you were. [Laughter.]
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that they were at the mercy of the noble Marquess in the House of Lords; but he must protest againt the method by which the Bill had been treated by the House. At every stage the whole object of the House had been to cut it down, without regard to the fact that its provisions were framed on Bills passed by the Government of the noble Marquess. It seemed to him that the treatment which the Bill had received was simply due to the fact that it came from a Liberal Government.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLasked what Bills passed by the late Government the
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noble Lord referred to. The provisions of the English Fisheries Act were very materially different.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that the provisions in the English Act of 1888 with regard to the District Committees were absolutely reproduced in this Bill as originally introduced, and the provisions with regard to the restriction of trawling were in the same way taken exactly from the Act of 1889.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, that the noble Lord's Committee on Sea Fisheries was appointed specially in respect of the grievances and complaints of the Scotch fishermen. [Lord TWEEDMOUTH: "Not at all."] The Report of the Committee referred to "the best method of governing effectively the various classes of fishermen." Trawlers were surely included in that expression.
The House divided:—Contents, 57; Not-Contents, 25.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHproposed an Amendment to provide that the powers conferred by the section should not apply to any waters "lying opposite to any part of the coasts of England, Ireland, or the Isle of Man, within thirteen miles thereof." He said that the Amendment was an extension of that moved by the noble Marquess in Committee for protection of the coast of Ireland and the west coast of England. It would prevent any clashing of jurisdictions between the authorities in Scotland and those of any other part of the United Kingdom.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that he had no intention of resisting the Amendment, but was it certain that any portion of the coast of the Isle of Man was affected?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that there were portions of the coast of the Isle of Man within 13 miles of the coast of Scotland.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that in his Amendment he had purposely left out any reference to the east coast of England. Was that to be included in this Amendment?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that a small portion of the coast of Northumberland might lead to clashing of jurisdictions.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLasked whether the Amendment was to secure to English and Irish fishermen a freedom of trawling in waters prohibited to Scotch fishermen?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that the Amendment only prevented the Scotch Fishery Board from prohibiting any area within certain limits of the coasts of England, Ireland, or the Isle of Man. The prohibitions, as far as they applied, would relate to all fishermen, and not to Scotch fishermen only.
*THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he was in favour of free fishing, but the fact was that Scotsmen and Scottish capital were prohibited from fishing in a particular manner all round the coast of Scotland while a careful clause was inserted to protect English and Irish capital and fishermen. His complaint was, that the Bill placed Scotland at a great disadvantage compared with the other two countries; but as far as the Amendment went he agreed with it.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, the noble Duke was hypercritical, because the effect of the last Amendment was to remove all the difference between Scotland and England. There was, in consequence of Lord Salisbury's Amendment, no power on the part of the Scotch Fishery Board to propose a prohibition outside the three-mile limit.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Has the English Board got it?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTH: No.
Amendment agreed to.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, he took the Division on the first Amendment as conclusive with regard to the third Amendment also, and he did not propose to move it. The Amendment on the Paper was—
"Clause 13, line 14, at the end of sub-section (1) insert 'Provided also, that if it is made to appear to the Secretary for Scotland that any area denned by a by-law under this section, or any part of such area, is used as a fishing ground by foreign vessels or boats, and that such foreign vessels or boats use any method of fishing of which the use is forbidden by the by-law, he shall order that in that area, or part, the by-law, as respects the said method of fishing, shall cease to be in force, and the same shall cease to be in force accordingly as from the date specified in the order.'"
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYdid not know what the noble Lord's views were with respect to the Marquess of Huntly's Amendment. It was against the view of the noble Duke, and he himself was not particularly fond of it. The Foreign Secretary had told the House that there were no hopes of making such agreements, but the noble Lord might find Foreign Powers more reasonable than he expected, and it possibly might be of advantage to accept the Amendment. Its phraseology, however, would have to be altered.
[The following was the Marquess of Huntly's Amendment—
"Clause 10, page 8, line 14, add 'Provided also that such by-law or by-laws shall not come into force until either the convention or arrangement with regard to sea fisheries, concluded in 1882, between Her Majesty and certain Foreign States, and which has since come into force and been embodied in the Sea Fisheries Act, 1883, shall be so extended as to prohibit the subjects of such Foreign States from engaging in beam and other trawling in the waters which by such by-law or by-laws shall be closed to British subjects, or until some similar agreement or undertaking shall be arrived at with Foreign Powers.'"]
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYdid not think there would be any objection to insert the Amendment; it might be useful.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsuggested an adjournment until the following day in order to re-draft the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLORthought the House could not insert these words, because it would not do to ask for the consent of any Foreign Power as to any matters within the jurisdiction of Her Majesty.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYproposed to make the Amendment read in order to provide that the Convention or arrangement with regard to sea fisheries with Foreign States should be so extended as to include the sea within 13 miles of the English coast.
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, his feeling was, that it did not much matter what the House did with reference to this clause. He should prefer to see the Bill sent to another place in order to see what could be done there with the clause.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: With all its imperfections on its head?
*LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, the clause was absolutely nugatory and mere wastepaper.
Debate adjourned.

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1850) AMENDMENT BILL.
Bill passed through Committee, and reported without Amendments.
House adjourned at Five minutes after Seven o'clock