Sitting of 8 March 1897

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEmoved—
  "That any Petition of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, praying to be heard against Clauses 37 and 38 of the Bill, and so much of the Preamble as relates thereto, presented five clear days before the meeting of the Committee, be referred to the Committee, and that the Petitioners may be heard by themselves, their Counsel, and Agents on their Petition against the Bill."
  The right hon. Baronet said he first wished to make a little explanation on a side issue, arising out of some remarks made by the hon. Member for Islington, who, having sympathy with the Motion, complained of a distinction being drawn between the clerks in the employment of the company and their railway servants. On the part of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants there was no desire to draw any such distinction; the suggestion for the distinction came from the company. The Amalgamated Society contained a good many clerks, and some stationmasters among its members. In this Bill the society objected to Clauses 37 and 38, and upon these clauses they desired to be heard before the Committee. Clause 37 was the Savings Bank clause, and to that clause they had objections, which he had already stated to the House, and which, therefore, he would now only touch upon briefly. The workmen did not desire to invest their savings with the company, because they objected to their employers being in a position to obtain knowledge of their pecuniary condition and they pointed out that it might have a bearing on rate of wages or on strikes under certain circumstances. Personally, he did not approve of these Savings Bank clauses in Railway Bills, and thought them outside the scope of such Bills and the purposes for which railway companies existed; but as he regarded this Bill as less objectionable than the Lancashire and
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  Yorkshire Bill, to which he had given notice of a similar Motion, and upon which he believed he had the stronger case, he did not propose, as far as he personally could affect the challenge, to take a division on both Bills. The objections to this Bill had been somewhat modified by the fact that on Clause 38 the company had agreed to make it plain, and had given an undertaking that it should not be compulsory on the servants of the company to join. The Great Northern Company had circulated a statement of their view, in which were one or two statements to which he would have to take exception. They said that the promoters had received no objection from their servants to either of the clauses. That might be so, so far as the knowledge of the company extended; but it was not the case in fact. The servants of the company, from different important stations, had held a meeting, and he had met them. They expressed the strongest objection to the clauses, and if they had not done so to the company itself it was probably because of the somewhat delicate relations between the servants of a great company and their employees, and the reluctance of the men to come forward with objections to the course proposed. Though the argument had more force as against the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bill, it had a general application to both Bills, that the representative Society of Railway Servants ought to be heard before the Committee to whom these Bills were referred. The men held a very strong opinion on the proposals in the clauses, and there were points of detail on which they desired to be heard. The House had agreed to an Amendment of the Standing Orders, by which the Miners' Federation, and other bodies, had been given the right to be heard on Mining Bills or Bills of a description on which their interests were affected. This was a principle that ought to be extended, not only as regarded this Bill, but in regard to all Bills of a similar character; and the Chairman of Committees would do well to allow the representation of this particular body on the present occasion, and to propose an Amendment of the Standing Orders, by which such representation before Committees should be made general in future.
  MR. T. LOUGHseconded the Motion. It seemed to him an eminently reasonable proposal. In the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants there was a great organisation, which represented the opinions of a great body of men; and he could not conceive, any railway company having any objection to the expression of the opinion of the men on a matter in which they were so much interested. They had a precedent lately in the conduct of the North-Eastern Railway Company, which, when it got into difficulties with its own servants, raised no objection to receiving and hearing representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, and he certainly thought there were some provisions in these special clauses which fully justified the Motion his right hon. Friend had made. For instance, one of the clauses said, "Every such deposit shall be charged on the net profits of the company." It ought not to be a charge on the profits merely, but ought also to be charged against any property the company might have. Seeing that they had got cash or money from these men, they ought to be responsible in anything they had got to make it good. It gave another illustration of the desirability of hearing the representatives of the men on this point; it was a reasonable and moderate Motion, and he hoped the House would accept it without a Division.
  SIR GEORGE RUSSELLsaid he might point out to the House how much in the judgment of those who were competent to know, the influence of the Committees upstairs was destroyed by these constant attempts inside the House to fetter the free-will of a Committee to deal with questions after hearing the evidence. He might point out from his own personal knowledge how by this constantly growing and mischievous tendency railway enterprise was strangled and Measures for the interest of the public and the workmen themselves were deterred from being prosecuted because of the dangers to which, through this novel mode of procedure, Railway Bills were subjected. He would, however, confine himself to the specific merits of the proposal now before the House. He should say the main question, which should decide Members would be whether or not these railway savings
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  banks were or were not advantageous to the railway employees at large. He thought he should be able to satisfy the House that they were. He spoke with some interest on this question, because the first railway savings bank was instituted in 1860, with the approval and sanction of that House, by his predecessor in the chair of the South-Eastern Railway Company, Sir Edward Watkin, who first applied it in the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, of which he was Chairman, and who subsequently introduced it in the South-Eastern Railway, of which he afterwards became Chairman. They were now in force in ten leading railway companies, to the great advantage of the men, and the Great Northern Railway Company now sought, most wisely, as he ventured to think, to introduce one into their company. What were the advantages which the men derived? First and foremost, they got in his company, through the savings bank, 4 per cent. interest on all deposits, with a security as good as Consols. Where elsewhere could they obtain that? They might put in as a deposit any sum from a penny upwards. In their schools at Ashford they had nearly 500 children who put the pence which now came into the pockets of their parents through free education as deposits into the savings bank, and, having early imbibed this habit of thrift, it was invariably found that they continued as depositors when, as grown-up men, they had entered the service of the company. Indeed, it was not an infrequent instance in his company that they had three generations at the same moment contributors by deposits to the savings bank—the grandson in the Ashford School, and his father and grandfather still in the service of the company. There was also the enormous advantage that they could make their deposit straight, on pay-day, to the station-master or whoever else the, paymaster might be, so that their savings bank stood between the men and the public house. [A laugh.] Hon. Members laughed, but he said that was an enormous advantage, and he could actually furnish illustrations of widows and orphans who had subsequently come and thanked the company for that which they had done in providing means for them which they knew would otherwise inevitably have gone to the public house. In

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  the next place, these deposits could be withdrawn at seven days' notice, and in the case of urgency and illness or in other pressing need could be withdrawn immediately. The right hon. Baronet said there was something inquisitorial in the companies' servants being the receivers of these deposits, so that the men's savings were known. He would put this fact before the House, on his honour in stating it, that, excepting the officer who received the money and the auditors to the bank, the amount of the deposit, or the fact even that a man was a depositor, was absolutely and totally unknown to the chief officers and directors, and he would pledge his honour that in every case where a man came before them with an application, either for an increase of salary or for the receipt of a pension on leaving the service, the fact whether he was or was not a depositor was totally and absolutely unknown to the directors, who dealt with the case solely and exclusively upon the ground of length of service and the number of those who might be dependent upon the applicant for support. The charge, therefore, as to anything inquisitorial or as to a man's private affairs being known to his superiors, was totally without foundation. When the leaders of the Railway Servants' Amalgamated Society were acting in the interests of the men they had his sympathy, but when they were acting, not in the interests of the men, but with the view, perhaps, of getting power for themselves, because they felt the advantages given by the company weakened that power, then his sympathy was not with them but with the men whose interests they were seeking to injure. He hoped he had been able to satisfy the House that if they valued the interests of the men they would, by an overwhelming majority, reject the Resolution which had been moved by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid the hon. Gentleman had given the House an eloquent disquisition on the virtue of philanthropy and thrift, but he had not applied his speech to the Amendment before the House. Hon. Members on his side were not denying the virtue of either personal or collective thrift. What they said was that the men interested in both
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  should have an opportunity of going before a Committee of the House of Commons and proving, first, their bonâfides as a thrift agency, and, secondly, giving their view of this question from the railway workman's point of view; and that could only be done by an association speaking on behalf of the men collectively. The hon. Member said that private enterprise had frequently been strangled and damaged by Instructions of this kind being in front of railway legislation. He ventured to say that this Instruction was only one of many that railway legislation would have to confront in this and similar questions if railway directors were going to extend the benefits of railway enterprise. The hon. Member said this particular form of savings bank was welcomed by the men from Ashford. He would confine himself to Ashford because he once worked there for nine months and knew the railway men. The pathetic figure about three generations of workmen having invested in the South Eastern Railway Savings Bank hardly squared with the facts as to what really existed at Ashford, and what the men desired. An ordinary penny savings bank at Ashford, such as the National Penny Bank, would give the people, without the slightest suspicion of compulsion or intimidation, just as good an investment as that provided by the railway company, and they would be able to withdraw their deposits at 24 hours' instead of seven days' notice. He objected to these banks in connection with railway companies. They interfered with private enterprise in the best sense of the word. It was competition by compulsion with private banks and the Post Office which prevented workmen from giving to building socities, trades unions, and friendly societies what the railway companies claimed a lien upon them for, and the fact that the employees invested the money in the savings bank operated to reduce wages when trade was bad, and prevented a rise of wages when trade was good. There were 30,000 depositors in fourteen railway savings banks who had £2,200,000 to their account. They were not platelayers, shunters, or goods guards, but mainly skilled artisans, clerks, station masters, and others. The fact that the average deposit was £75 indicated the high wage of the depositor.

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  It was said that these railway banks encouraged thrift. He did not believe it. But why should the men be restricted to one form of investment? Many workmen were desirous of saving money to buy a house, a small piece of land for an allotment, or to lend to relatives in business but the compunction exercised upon them by the fear of losing their employment, or not getting their proper share of promotion if they did not join the savings bank impelled them to invest, whereas if they had absolute freedom they would not do so. The hon. Member let the cat out of the bag when he said that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants wanted to destroy the railway banks because it would destroy their power and lessen their influence. The obvious retort was that the railway companies wanted to compulsorily direct the savings of their workmen to keep them from their friendly societies and trades unions. He hoped the House of Commons would do justice to the men and provide that they should not be constrained to invest in railway savings banks, but be left free to make their investments as their opinion dictated. It was said that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was not a large or influential body. It had 44,000 men employed in the railway service, and 1,000 or 1,500 on the Great Northern Railway. But it was not fair to judge this Instruction from the point of view of one trade union. There were five trade unions in the railway service, with a membership of betwen 60,000 and 70,000 men, who had a right to a locus standi before the Committee equally with the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. There were seven or eight other trades unions with another 50,000 members, who had also a right to be heard before the Committee. Beyond these there were five millions of members of friendly societies, and at their conference on 21st March 1894, they unanimously voted against this system of savings banks and compulsory accident, benefit, and pension funds. When were the companies going to cease extending their operations? They originally came to Parliament to acquire and run a business for the carriage of goods, minerals, passengers, and stock. But now they ran
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  hotels, refreshment rooms, private privilege cabs, savings banks, and other things.
  MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that the Question before the House was whether the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants should be heard before the Committee.
  MR. BURNSbowed to Mr. Speaker's ruling, and concluded by hoping the railway servants and members of friendly societies would be allowed to put their case before the Committee. He believed the Committee would be impressd by the facts and figures they would put before them, and he trusted the House would unanimously throw out for the last time this attempt to introduce another chloroforming agent to seduce workmen from their friendly societies, trades unions, and savings banks which they wanted, but did not desire from their employers.
  MR. F. W. FISONsaid that no compulsion would be introduced if the clause were inserted in the Bill. It was precisely because the humbler class of railway servants were unable to enjoy the benefits of existing societies that the Great Northern Railway proposed to found savings banks, and because the superannuation fund was scarcely suited for them. He contended in reply to what had been said by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, that railway servants had shown a great desire to join these banks in connection with the companies. As to the employers knowing the amount of the men's savings, no deduction could be made from the deposit, which was absolutely the property of the depositor, and the railway company could not lay a finger upon it. The interests of the men were looked after by the Registrar of Friendly Societies. The clauses under discussion were submitted to and approved by him, and it was necessary to obtain his approval of the rules or any alteration or Amendment made in them. ["Hear, hear!"] As to the second clause before the House, the Superannuation Fund was purely optional. The joint lines to which it applied constituted a very large proportion of the mileage of the Great Northern Company, there being 524 miles of them. Without this clause the railway servants who belonged to the Superannuation Fund of the parent company would,

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  when promoted to better posts on the joint lines, suffer an injustice. In two years the general Superannuation Fund had received something like 1,400 applications, a considerable number of them from the joint lines. The Superannuation Fund was enacted in 1872, and brought into force in 1875. There was ample protection for the men in the Savings Banks, and this Bill only gave the men on the joint lines an option of joining—there was no compulsion to join the Fund. The Amalgamated Society only represented some of the railway servants—["hear, hear!"]—in varying proportions according to the different districts and lines. The Great Northern Company recognised that every servant had a perfect right to belong to this society if he wished, and also had a perfect right to abstain front it. He thought it was the officials of the society, and not the men themselves, who objected to these schemes. There were a vast number of men not represented on this society who desired to join the Superannuation Fund and Savings Banks.
  CAPTAIN NORTONsaid he represented a large number, not of railway men, but of the working classes generally, and, from his experience of them during the last ten years, he ventured to assert that they were one and all averse from any system which tampered with their wages or savings. They looked on attempts such as these as a desire on the part of capital to take advantage of labour, and to gain another weapon by which to operate against the working man when the interests of capital and labour clashed. There might be no direct compulsion, but the compulsion, though indirect, was equally potent. Working men, as a rule, preferred to invest their money in Friendly Societies, controlled by their own class; they did not demand these Savings Banks controlled by their employers. They were told that the applications were voluntary, but he should like to know whether they were obtained through officials of the company. He believed the reason why hon. Members did not want the Amalgamated Society to be heard was because the society represented a large number of railway employees who were dead against schemes of this kind. They were led to suppose that the railway companies were doing this in the interest
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  of their employees; but the whole tendency of the present age was for the employer to protect himself, just as did the employees.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,)said the right hon. Gentleman had appealed directly to him, otherwise he should not have addressed the House. It was obvious that the question they were discussing was not the advisability of establishing Savings—["hear, hear!"]—Banks, or their merits or demerits. The only question before the House was whether a certain society which claimed to represent the railway servants of a particular company should be entitled to appear before the Committee with regard to certain clauses in this Bill. If the interests of those railway servants were injuriously affected, he thought the House would be anxious that they should be represented before the Committee in accordance with the usual practice in regard to those whose interests were injuriously affected. He did not himself see, however, how they were injuriously affected. There was no necessity for the men to join these Savings Banks, and it was open to them to abstain from doing so. In the second place, the Standing Order of the House laid down that certain persons or societies, if they sufficiently represented the agriculture, trade, mining, or commerce of any district to which a Bill related, should under certain circumstances have a locus standi. It was clear that, under that Standing Order, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants did not come in, and if they were to admit them he thought they must either amend their Standing Order or introduce a new Standing Order in order to provide for their admission. For these two reasons he must oppose the Instruction.
  MR. B. PICKARDasked how the miners could be heard under the Standing Order.
  MR. SYDNEY GEDGEsaid he was anxious to give a right vote on this question. He entirely agreed with his right hon. Friend that everyone who had a grievance should be heard, but in saying that he did not think these men had any grievance was, he thought, rather to prejudge the question. He thought any large class of men who imagined that they had a grievance

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  should have an opportunity of stating their case. In the present instance it would occasion no delay. They were told, and it was not contradicted, that this society represented four thousand, or some substantial number, of the servants of the railway company. No harm would be done by allowing them to be heard before the Committee; but if they were not allowed to be heard, having, as they thought, a real grievance, they would be dissatisfied, and think that they had been deprived by the House of a remedy to which they were entitled.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid that the Chairman of Committees, who had put the case very fairly before the House, had referred to Standing Order 133B. That Standing Order declared that where a Chamber of Commerce or a Shipping, Mining, or Miners' Association, sufficiently representing agriculture, land, mining., or commerce in any district to which a Private Bill related, petitioned that their interests would be injuriously affected by the provisions of the Bill, it was competent for the Committee on the Bill to hear them. That asserted a principle in regard to certain interests that they should have a locus standi before Private Bills Committees, which they were not allowed by the general rule. The question was whether the Standing Order should be confined to the particular interests mentioned. The Chairman of Committees had thrown out a suggestion that the Standing Order might be amended. But it would take sonic time to alter a Standing Order, owing to the slowness of the procedure of the House, and if the House was prepared to alter the Standing Order so as to admit classes like those now under consideration, surely they ought to do it in this particular case by a vote of the House. He thought that by so doing the House would be acting in accordance with the spirit of the Standing Order, for there was no reason for a distinction being made between a Miners' Association and a Society of Railway Servants. The Chairman of Committees had said that he could not see that the railway servants were injuriously affected by the provisions of the Bill. At all events, the railway servants claimed the right to be heard; and what injury could possibly accrue
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  to the railway company by those men being heard before the Committee? Most of the interests, allowed a locus standi by the Standing Order, represented not labour but capital. Out of the bodies mentioned, only one, the Miners' Association, could be said to represent labour. The House ought not to admit the large number of Associations that represented the capitalist classes, while they admitted only one body representing the labouring classes. He did not desire to injuriously affect in any way the great railway interest of the country, who carried on their business so much to the advantage of all classes of the community. But surely it must be to the interest of this railway company to allow their servants to be heard before the Committee. He had heard of the case of a single land-holder opposing a Bill. Here was a large class of men who fancied, rightly or wrongly, that they had a grievance, and why should not the House allow them to be heard, seeing that it could be in accordance with the principle of the Standing Order. The Motion would only give the railway servants a locus standi. It would not decide anything in their favour as opposed to the railway company. It merely conformed to the general principle of our legislation, whether public or private, that all persons having an interest should be heard.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid he could not follow the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in his reference to the Standing Order. If the course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman were pursued, it would set an entirely new precedent. The Standing Order referred to Chambers of Commerce, shipping, mining or Miners' Associations. Those were general terms. They could not be held to include a society which, according to the hon. Member for Battersea, represented one-tenth, and according to the hon. Member for Islington, one-fifth of the railway servants.
  MR. BURNSsaid that the right hon. Member was wrong on both points. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants hail 44,000 members, and there were six other societies which, with the Amalgamated Society, represented between 70,000 and 80,000 railway servants.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid the hon. Gentleman had put his case far better than he could have put it himself. He was leading gradually up to the point which the hon. Gentleman had put so clearly and distinctly before the House. He had said that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants represented one-tenth of railway servants. The hon. Member for Islington said that it represented one-fifth. In connection with the Bill before the House, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants represented 4,000 out of 25,000 servants employed by the company. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was, as the hon. Member for Battersea had pointed out, only one out of seven such societies. If the House were to follow the suggestion of the Leader of the opposition and allow one society out of seven to be mentioned in the Standing Order, that would be an innovation for which there was no precedent.
  MR. EDWARD STRACHEYsaid that the railway directors were the only hon. Members of the House who objected to the principle of the Motion, which was that a society representing so many thousands of men had a right to come before a. Private Bill Committee of this House, and he challenged any hon. Member not a railway director to defend the action taken up by the railway directors. The railway directors seemed to think that the interests of the workmen would be very well looked after by the railway directors. The hon. Member for Doncaster had said that if they admitted one of these societies they would have to admit all of them. He could understand that objection coming from a railway director, but not from any other hon. Member. The real case was this, that hon. Gentlemen, railway directors on the other side of the House, objected to what they considered was an interference between the railway companies and their employees. The railway dirctors were trying to influence this House in a direction that led to the paying of larger dividends to their shareholders. He would vote on one principle and one principle only, namely, that it was perfectly right that a large society of working men, such as the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, should have
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  a locus standi to appear before a Private Bill Committee of the House, in regard to a Bill affecting their interests.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEYsaid that the. Debate had raised two distinct issues. The first was the general principle whether these societies should be allowed a locus standi before a Committee? That was arguable, but it was not the Motion before the House. The Motion was a, distinct assertion that one particular society should be heard, not on the general merits of the Bill, but in opposition to two clauses which were the most beneficial clauses that could be put into any such Bill. These two clauses were to enable savings banks to be started, the depositors being given the best security which the railway company could offer—their claims were to rank immediately after the debts of the company. He had been engaged for many years in endeavouring to promote schemes of thrift, and to induce employers to do their duty in that respect to the workmen; and he could not conceive anything more calculated to promote the well-being of the workpeople than these clauses, which, be it noted, did not make the scheme compulsory; if the trade union which objected to the clauses had objected to such clauses not being included in the Bill, he should have thought it a reasonable proposition. Here was an enormous corporation wishing to do its duty to its workmen, and those who professed to represent labour opposed the proposition. It was true that the trade unions, to their honour, had made similar provisions for encouraging thrift; but, would even the hon. Member for Battersea say that too much was done in this direction? It was said that the real object of the clauses was to injure the trade union. But if a large employer could, by promoting the well being of his people, make them so contented and satisfied that the trade union had not so much to do, that was not an evil, but a great good. Was it creditable that such a proposal should be to the detriment of the workman? The man with something in the bank was in a better position to make terms with his employer than the man with not a shilling in the world. The House ought to consider whether these clauses did not tend to industrial peace.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is a question which may have to be discussed before the Committee. It is not the question before the House now.
  MR. BARTLEYsaid that he himself was very interested in railway workmen, of whom he had a great number in his own constituency. He did not know what their views were, but he could not conceive them objecting to these clauses. He did not speak as a director, he had never been one, nor as a shareholder; but simply as one who had worked to promote thrift all his life.
  MR. CHARLES HARRISONsaid that the Instruction related to Clauses 37 and 38 of the Bill. The 37th Clause established a Savings Bank. The 38th Clause set up a Provident and Superannuation Fund, not for the first time, but upon the lines of the Great Northern Act 1872. That Act, nearly a quarter of a century old, laid down principles which were good enough in those days, but which should not be extended at the present date. The Great Northern Act of 1872 fixed the fund as extending only to old and disabled servants of the company. The present Bill extends it to servants of another company—another class, and a large class is therefore admitted to the fund. Now, a superannuation scheme depends upon being based on sound acturial calculations, upon the rates to be contributed, the conditions of retirement, and solvency; but this old legislation of 1872 was so extraordinary in its provisions that the Motion now before the House should be accepted so as to give a locus standi to those whose wages which under a scheme framed under the power of that Act might be compulsorily stopped might have the opportunity of amending the Bill before the Committee upstairs. Under the Act of 1872, the company may make a contribution up to the amount of the wage-earners' contribution, not exceeding 2½ per cent. the amount contributed by wage-earners to the fund, provided a general meeting of shareholders so assented. The voting of the money on the part of the company was purely voluntary. There was no compulsion on the shareholders to vote any contribution. One year they might do so, another year, in which a strike
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  might have taken place, they might arbitrarily refuse to vote any sum whatsoever, and thereby seriously affect the solvency of the fund. On the other hand, the men's contribution might, under the scheme framed under the powers of the Act of 1872, be made compulsory, and their wages might, under such a scheme, be stopped up to 2½ per cent. of the amount. In substance, therefore, the funds would be the contributions of the wage-earners. It would be made up essentially of contributors' money. Now the Committee of Directors and Chief Officer of the company were, by the Act of 1872 empowered to settle a scheme to deal with this fund of wage-earners, and power by the Act of 1872 is given to them to insert therein provisions to settle what class, what length of service, what amount of contribution is to be obligatory on the wage-earners, under what circumstances the wage-earning contributor to the fund is to cease to be entitled to participate, and what proportion (if any) of the sums contributed is to be payable in the event of death before allowance is granted.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is entering into details which are not justified by the question before the House.
  MR. HARRISONsaid that he was pointing out that the powers of this particular Act authorised the scheme drawn up by the directors and engineer to make its provisions compulsory on the men, whilst by Statute it was voluntary on the shareholders. They were so extraordinary in many respects that it was essential that the wage-earning contributors should have a locus standi upstairs in settling the terms on which their funds were to be dealt with. A superannuation fund was a very complicated and difficult thing to manage. The Royal Civil Service Commissioners reported:—
  "That experience has proved it is most difficult, if not impossible, in such a case to prescribe beforehand any scheme of contribution which shall be so adjusted as to supply the requisite amount without surplus or deficiency."
  And, although they had the public revenue to fall back upon, the Commissioners considered it expedient to establish a superannuation fund. In this case, owing to the shareholders subscriptions being voluntary, it would be impossible

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  to rely on its income or actuarily base any calculations as to what contributions would make the fund a solvent fund. The company's officials were to undertake this duty. The powers of the Act of 1892 allowed of a scheme being framed which might, if so settled, confiscate a wage-earner's deferred or stopped pay which he had contributed to the fund, if he left the service in consequence of reductions or alterations in the establishment—if he retired before he had earned a superannuation—if he were discharged even without cause. In the case of the Tyne Improvement Act 1890 the right hon. Member for Bodmin, then Chairman of Committees, insisted that in that case, at all events, that the scheme established by that public body, and not a commercial body trading for profit, should contain provisions to allow the wage-earning contributor under all circumstances to take away on leaving the service his own contribution, with simple interest at 2½ per cent. thereon; and would not permit any scheme to be framed which did not secure the return to the wage-earner of his own contribution, which in equity belonged to him as much as if he laid deposited them in a savings' bank in his own name, instead of leaving them in the company's hands, as a banker, for the purpose of accumulation. For these reasons he supported the Motion.
  MR. W. FIELDsaid that there were 60,000 men in the men's organisation; it was an organisation which had proved very powerful in stopping strikes; and it certainly was not an organisation which should be stifled by the House of Commons. Railway directors always opposed any attempt to preserve the liberty of the subject. He would point out to the Chairman of Committees that, if his ruling was obeyed by the House, it followed that, in future all the trade unions and trade organisations would be denied the right of hearing in the private Committees of this House in eases where their liberties and also their earnings were at stake.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 145; Noes, 188.—(Division List, No. 75.)

  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY BILL.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEmoved:—
  "That any Petition of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants praying to be heard against Clauses 25 and 26 of the Bill, and so much of the Preamble as relates thereto, presented five clear days before the meeting of the Committee be referred to the Committee; and that the Petitioners may be heard by themselves, their Counsel and Agents on their Petition against the Bill."
  The company alleged in their statement that the Pension Fund was not compulsory upon any servant of the company, and that was so stated in the Bill itself. He was personally intimately acquainted with the facts of one of these funds, where the same provision was supposed to exist that contribution was not compulsory; but members of the fund concerned—he was not speaking of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Company, for he did not know how that might be—but members of the fund had assured him that though it was not supposed to be compulsory, in fact it was so. The company also stated that the railway servants had not claimed the right, to be represented by petition before the Committee; but the fact was, they had not the right, and to obtain the right was the object of the present Motion; and, should the Motion be carried, they would present their petition to-morrow, which was the last day for doing so. The company also said that the question of the right of such bodies to be heard on petition had been considered by the House, and a Standing Order had been passed upon it. This was the Standing Order to which allusion had been made by the Leader of the Opposition; that Standing Order was amended last Session to allow the Miners' Federation, and other bodies, to be heard on petition. He confessed he thought it was right that the House should take one step at a time. That Amendment was in the nature of an experiment; but surely the time had come for an extension of that experiment, and this was an occasion when that extension could very properly be made. In any case, this was an opposed Bill, and the granting of this Motion would not make the difference

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  between an opposed and an unopposed Bill; the addition of one more petition would not add to the cost of the Bill to any great extent. It was the case with regard to some of these pension funds that, though a man left the service under circumstances that entitled him to a good character, he was not entitled to take out the money he had paid into the fund. This was a statement literally accurate as regards some of these funds; and there was at the time a railway man within the walls of the House who had been so treated, after contributing to the fund for many years. One of the points upon which a locus standi was urgently desired arose on the clause on page 27 of the Bill. It was provided that five officials of the company—the chairman, the general manager, the secretary, the chief engineer, and the chief mechanical engineer of the company—should prepare a scheme, and the clause was in words previously used in other Acts of this description. This committee of five would determine the circumstances under which any person who had been a contributor should cease to be entitled to participate in the benefit thereof, and what portion, if any, of his payments he should be entitled to receive. It was important that the representatives of the servants of the company should be heard on a clause of this kind. Such a clause in similar words in previous Acts had been interpreted to mean that a man leaving the society should not withdraw any part of the money invested. There was strong ground for allowing the men to be heard on the constitution of a committee to make such rules. On Section 26 there arose a question such as had not arisen in previous Bills. The Registrar General of Friendly Societies had made a Report in the strongest possible terms on this clause. His Report was not before the House, but it must come before the Committee. Such Report, however, coming before a Committee on an opposed Bill, where the opposition was upon other grounds, was not usually very fully dealt with, the Committee looking rather to other grounds of opposition than to these Departmental Reports. By the kindness of the promoters of the Bill he had been
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  allowed to see this Report. In language unusually strong for such a document, the Chief Registrar condemned the clause; and it was only right that such a Report should be supported by evidence before the Committee. His main objection to the clause was, that it empowered the company to use money compulsorily contributed for purposes other than that for which it had been deducted from the men's wages. On page 31 would be found a repeal of Section 53 of a previous Act obtained by the Company. Upon this the Chief Registrar said that this section had been adopted by both Houses of Parliament, after very great care had been given to the matter. It was the action of the late Chairman of Committees that led to very careful consideration being given to the matter. The company had offered the omission words in the clause, but still the effect would be to virtually repeal the section in the other Act. These were the grounds upon which the society strongly urged that they might be allowed to be heard; and therefore he made the Motion.
  MR. LOUGHseconded the Motion, which anyone who would look at the clauses of the Bill must admit was a most reasonable Motion. His right hon. Friend had drawn attention to the clause which constituted the committee to have control of the fund, and it would be seen that the men had no representation at all. Yet the Bill invested that committee with powers of a far-reaching character. This committee was to decide if contributions should be compulsory or not, who should be excluded from participation in the benefits of the fund, whether a man should recover any of his payments into the fund on leaving, or whether his representative should recover the balance on the death of a contributor. These were surely matters upon which the men should be heard.
  MR. THOMAS FIELDENsaid, in reference to the speech from the right hon. Baronet that he really could not see what injury it was proposed to inflict on railway servants by the Bill. They were to be allowed to invest money at 4 per cent., and he failed to see where the injury came in. Personally he should

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  be pleased to invest at such a rate. He was afraid the right hon. Baronet had got his information from Mr. Harford, who did not represent more than one-tenth of the railway servants.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that was not so. He had been asked by the Amalgamated Society to oppose these Bills, and he had carefully looked into the matter.
  MR. FIELDENsaid he would not detain the House, but they had heard some extraordinary statements, which he certainly could not accept.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTremarked that the Chairman of Committees on the last Bill said he could not see how the railway servants could be injuriously affected by it, and he made that his strong ground, for opposing the Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman also said that the previous Bill did not operate compulsorily upon the servants of the company. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the Bill now before the House. First of all this scheme was to be framed by a committee of five persons—the chairman, the general manager, the secretary, the chief engineer, and the chief mechanical engineer of the company. Such committee by a majority could determine what class of servants of the company should be entitled to contribute: therefore the fund was not open to all, but only to such classes as the majority of this committee decided should have the benefit of it. ["Hear, hear!"] Besides determining who were to participate in the benefits of the fund, and what length of service was to entitle a participation, the committee were also to decide "to what extent such contributions shall be obligatory upon them."
  MR. W. J. GALLOWAYpointed out that the promoters of the Bill had agreed to withdraw this clause, together with a further section, which stated "it shall not be compulsory on any servants of the company 18 years of age and upwards to become a member of the fund," and which, it was thought, might have made it appear compulsory for those under 18 to do so.
  SIR W. HARCOURTobserved that no intimation of such a withdrawal had reached those representing the men until
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  that moment. ["Hear, hear!"] The committee had also the power of saying what, if anything, should disqualify any servant of the company from becoming a contributor to the fund for the purpose of participating in its benefits. That was a power given to the committee to act against any individual, and it was to prevent operations of such an invidious character that the Amalgamated Society existed. ["Hear, hear!"] Again they were to say "under what circumstances any person having been a contributor to the fund shall cease to be entitled to the benefits thereof." That was to say, a man might have gone on for years contributing to the fund and, contrary to the principles of any decent insurance office nowadays, there was no surrender value to be given to him; while, if he gave offence to his employers, this committee had power to declare that, though he had contributed for years, he might receive nothing. Was it fair the men should be left in this situation? [Cheers.] Another section gave the committee power to say "what proportion, if any, of the sums contributed by any person or by the company to the fund shall be payable to his representative in the event of his dying before he becomes entitled to a pension or retiring allowance or gratuity." That was to say they had absolute uncontrolled discretion if a man died, from any cause, before he became entitled to a pension to determine whether any or what amount should be given to his family or representatives. Surely this was eminently a scheme as to which the men were entitled to be heard. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. GALLOWAYsaid he was not a director of the company, but he had taken great interest in the Bill. From the speech he had just delivered the Leader of the Opposition appeared to have misunderstood the whole purpose for which the railway company had promoted the Bill. He should like to put the exact facts before the House. This great railway company was debarred by statute from giving any allowance to its old servants who had served it well in the past but were unable to work any longer, and it asked the House to confer that power upon it. In his opinion that was a most generous proposal, yet hon. Members opposite said it was a scheme by which

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  the company were going to tyrannise over their men, and do them endless harm. The right hon. Gentleman said the committee of five gentlemen appointed under the scheme would have power to do certain things which would be disadvantageous to the men. They would have no power to do anything of the kind. ["Hear, hear!"] All they would have power to do would be to draw up a scheme, which would then be submitted to the men, who could themselves decide whether they liked it or not. ["Hear, hear!"] The men were to be fully and adequately represented on the committee, a concession, he ventured to think, greater than any other railway company had ever given in connection with a Bill of this kind. ["Hear, hear!"] To assert that the committee could do anything unjust to the men was, therefore, to assert that which the Bill did not permit. As to the portions of the Bill which he had stated were withdrawn, he might say that the company had never desired from the beginning that the scheme should be compulsory, although it was offered to every class. If the right hon. Gentleman I bought the Bill did not carry out that intention, he submitted that the proper way to secure Amendment would be in Committee. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: We think the persons interested should be there when the Amendments are made.
  MR. GALLOWAYobserved that the right hon. Gentleman had objected to the committee having power to say under what circumstances any person having been a contributor to the fund should cease to participate in the benefits, end had said that they might by this clause punish a man who had displeased his employers. That was not the intention of the clause at all, and the whole scheme, as he had said, would be submitted to the men for approval. This particular clause had been inserted so that there might be some provision for dealing with the case of men who had been convicted of felony or any gross misconduct of that kind, and convicted, not by the company themselves, but by a Court of Law. As to the provision giving the committee the power to decide what proportion, if any, of the sums contributed by any person to the fund should be payable in the
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  event of death before he became entitled to a pension, he urged that that was a most generous arrangement on the part of the company. They said that in the event of a man ceasing to be employed in their service, whether because he was dismissed for misconduct or because he wished to cease his contributions, or because he had removed, he should have returned to him the whole of his subscriptions, plus 4 per cent. on his money during the time he had subscribed. A more generous proposal could not be made.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: That is not in the Bill.
  MR. GALLOWAYsaid that the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to realise that this was a scheme which the committee was to draw up and submit to the men, who could take it or leave it as they liked. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean had stated that the Registrar of Friendly Societies had made a strong Report against this Bill. No doubt the Report referred to had been made, and the contention which the Registrar advanced deserved serious consideration. But it was obvious to anybody who had had experience of friendly societies and knew the difficulties of starting a lodge, that the benefits which this fund offered were infinitely superior to anything which a friendly society could offer. ["Hear, hear!" and "No!"] He had inquired the feeling of lodges—he was a member of many lodges—and he knew of no lodge which could afford, except by much higher contributions than were proposed in this Bill, to give the same benefits as would be given by the present proposal. He ventured to think the suggestion of the Chief Registrar that if the company only wanted to help their servants they could establish a friendly society, would inflict serious injury, because, in the first place, the men themselves had no desire to establish a friendly society, as it would entail considerable time, and be of doubtful result, and, in the second place, no friendly society could offer the same benefits as a society to which a company added largely by generous donations While the officials of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants might possibly be against this Bill, their opinion

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  was not shared by the men, who took a very different view. The hon. Member here read the following extracts from a letter which he stated he had received from a man who had been employed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company for 20 years as a signalman:—
  "On reading your speech in this morning's Manchester Courier, re the Druids, etc., I was pleased to see you were going to support the Bill re Old Age Pensions, which my Company, the L. anal Y. Railway Co., are promoting on behalf of their servants. I have been in their employ above 20 years, as a signalman, and of course, as you know, we are a class of servants that have not got any big wages, £1 6s. per week was the highest paid in this district till the last two years; now £1 8s. is the top price, so that it has not given us any opportunity to provide for old age. I hope add trust all Members of the Unionist Party will support the Bill, as I have not heard one word from any members of the staff of any department against it, but just the reverse. I am a member of the Amalgamate Society of Railway Servants, but this matter has not been brought before the members in any shape to ask their opinion. Therefore I say Mr. Harford has no right to oppose the Bill till it has been submitted to the members of the Society."
  ["Hear, hear!"] In view of the fact that the men had generally approved of the scheme, and that it wits not a compulsory proposal, he thought the House would be taking upon itself a very serious responsibility if it accepted the Instruction. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. GEORGE HARWOODsaid that many proposals might be made with the best possible intentions, but yet might contain elements prejudicial to those they were meant to serve. The first question for the House to consider was whether these particular conditions should be allowed to go unquestioned before the Committee. Was it right to deny the men the opportunity of putting their objections before the Committee? The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Instruction must have convinced the House that there was a fair ground for a case being stated before the Committee. The only other question to consider was who should have the right to state the case of the men. It might be said that the Amalgamated Society did not represent the majority of railway servants, but was there anyone else better qualified to do so? In the absence of any evidence of a locus standi being given to anyone else, he should vote in favour of its being given to that Society. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSsaid that his first objection to the course proposed was that this clause to which, objection was taken was entirely a voluntary clause. The scheme was to be prepared by a Committee and submitted for approval or rejection to the servants of the company. He did not see, therefore, how the men could be injuriously affected. It was obvious that if the company wished to make the scheme a success, as he presumed they did, they would offer the very best terms they could to the men. It was also indisputable that, the scheme could not be altered by the Committee when it was once submitted and approved. It could only be altered by the managing committee, on which there would be representatives of the men. His second objection was that in this matter it was sought to go behind the Standing Orders of the House. If it were the deliberate policy of the House—and he expressed no opinion upon that policy—that trade unions should be represented in Committees upstairs to oppose Bills by which they thought their members might be injuriously affected, that policy ought to be stated openly and fairly and frankly, either by a fresh Standing Order or by an Amendment of the present Standing Order. If the course now proposed were adopted, whilst a certain number of associations were compelled, under the Standing Orders, to go before the locus standi court and show that they represented the court and show that they represent the interest they claimed to represent, and that that interest was affected by the Bill, in this case this particular society would be singled out and given a locus without having to go through the mill like other societies.["Hear, hear!"] It was most important to note that it appeared from the letter just read that the officials of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants had never consulted their members on the subject. The House, by assenting to this Instruction, would be giving a locus standi to the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to oppose a Bill of which many members of the Society were in favour. In these circumstances he should vote against the Instruction.
  MR. J. BURNSmaintained that the Chairman of Committees had no right to say that the Amalgamated Society of

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  Railway Servants had been given no authority to intervene in this matter. 44,000 men had been discussing this Bill and similar Bills in their branches and newspapers, and had specifically authorised their representatives to oppose the particular plan under consideration. The Chairman of Committees said that it would be invidious to give a single society a locus standi, and to deny it to others. The way out of that difficulty was to allow other societies who had a bonâfide interest in the Motion to be represented. He thought that the Standing Order, which conferred the right of being heard on Miners and Mining Associations and on Chambers of Agriculture and Commerce, ought to be generously interpreted to include the men who were interested in the subject matter of this Bill, directly and indirectly, and who numbered 100,000. What the men objected to was the proposal that five officials, representing the company, should be empowered to draft the scheme. The men were not to be consulted in the drafting of the scheme, and he ventured to say that the scheme was to be imposed upon the men because they were not free agents in the matter. Even if the scheme drawn up by the officials should be approved by the men and put into operation for 12 months, any scratch meeting of the shareholders, a certain number being present, would be able to turn the scheme upside down, and break up their Pension Fund. These were not the conditions under which the Odd-fellows, the Foresters, and Hearts of Oak did business. They were not subject to the capricious whims of directors. He traversed the statements of the hon. Member who had spoken for the railway company. To withdraw Sub-section A would not be consistent and compatible with other Sub-sections. He declined to accept the hon. Member's statement with regard to the generosity of this railway company. To the Insurance Fund of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway the members contributed £11,000 in the half-year, while the company contributed only £750. This lack of generosity in respect of accident insurance did not encourage a belief that the company would be very generous in assisting the Pension Fund. He would refer to the
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  Return of the London and North Western Railway Company in these matters, and give a few figures—
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that the hon. Member appeared to him about to discuss details which it would be more appropriate for a Committee upstairs to consider.
  MR. BURNSsaid that the fact that these details could not be discussed in that House showed how necessary it was that the representatives of the railway servants should be heard before the Committee. Under the circumstances of the case, the railway company could not provide anything like the same pensions as were provided by the Oddfellows, the Foresters, and Hearts of Oak. If these societies were allowed, he believed that they would prove upstairs that this proposed Pension Fund was an insidious attempt to impair railway thrift and to damage good friendly societies.
  MR. ROBERT ASCROFTbelieved that the railway company was acting with entirely good motives. He also believed that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants were acting in the interests of the members. If a hearing were given to the representatives of the men, their only object would be to amend two clauses of the Bill, so that any scheme proposed by the railway company might be brought up to date, and rendered satisfactory to the Registrar of Friendly Societies. It had been said that the scheme would not be settled by Parliament or by a Committee, but would be settled entirely by the directors and responsible managers. In those circumstances he could not see that there would be anything wrong or unfair in allowing the men's representatives to appear before the Committee. There were cases in which it was absolutely necessary for that House to depart from usual custom, and, in his opinion, this was one of them.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSONasserted that this question had been thrashed out in every branch of the Amalgamated Railway Servants Association, and that all the branches were absolutely opposed to this arrangement. The Bill would give the managers and officials of the railway company power to draft the scheme. If the company were itself providing the funds there would be very little objection to

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  the plan. But they were asking the men to provide the money, whilst they claimed the right to pay it out as they might think proper. [Cries of "No!"] The company was afraid of hearing the opinion of the railway servants upon this question. If they were not afraid they would not object to the representatives of the men being heard before the Committee. Every section of the community that would be affected by proposed legislation had a right to be heard before such legislation was added to the Statute Book. He should, therefore, vote for the Instruction.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 176; Noes, 212.—(Division List, No. 76.)

QUESTIONS.

  SUCK DRAINAGE AWARD.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Secretary the Treasury whether he will state the number of decrees granted by the County Court Judge of Roscommon under the Suck Drainage Award; the amount of the decrees in each case, and the rent of each holding on which these decrees were given, and the observations of the County Court Judge in giving his decision on these cases; ill how many cases the decrees have been realised, and the amount and costs paid without the intervention of the Sheriff; and the number of cases where the sheriff has executed the writ of fi fa., together with his costs?
  THE SECRETARY To THE TREASURY (MR. R. W. HANBURY,): The number of decrees is 382. To state the amount and rent in each case would be obviously impossible within the ordinary limits of an answer to a Question on the Paper. I understand that the County Court Judge made some remarks about some inaccuracies in the documents and about the absence of the process server who should prove service. The decrees settled without the Sheriffs intervention have been 239 under £2, with costs 6s. 9d. each and 7 over £2, with costs 13s each. 136 decrees have been lodged with the
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  Sheriff. Of these, 87 under £2 have been realised, with costs 8s. 3d. each, 9 over £2, with costs 14s. 6d each, and 3 over £10, with costs £1. 4s. 6d. each.
  MR. D. KILBRIDE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the number of decrees granted by the County Court judge of Galway under the Suck Drainage Award; the amount of the decrees in each case and the rent of each holding on which these decrees were given, and the observations of the County Court Judge in giving his decision on these cases; in how many cases the decrees have been realised and the amount and costs paid without the intervention of the Sheriff; and the number of cases where the Sheriff has executed the writ of fi fa., together with his costs?
  MR. HANBURY: The number of decrees is 499. Here again, to state the amount and rent in each case would be obviously impossible within the ordinary limits of an answer to a Question on the Paper. I understand that the Recorder made no observations at any of the Sessions. The decrees settled without the Sheriffs intervention have been 173 under £2, with costs 6s. 9d. each, and 16 over £2, with costs 13s. each. 310 decrees have been lodged with the Sheriff. Of these, 151 under £2 have been realised, with costs 8s. 3d. each, and 7 over £2, with costs 14s. 6d. each.
  MR. KILBRIDE: Am I to understand from the reply that about half the number of decrees have been realised?
  MR. HANBURY: Yes; 158 out of 310.

  PRINTING AND STATIONERY CONTRACTS.
  MR. W. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Departmental Committee, which was appointed last Session to advise the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office regarding the issuing of printing and stationery contracts, in accordance with the findings of the Select Committee, has made its report to the Treasury, and whether its publication as a Parliamentary Paper will be sanctioned?
  MR. HANBURY: Yes, Sir. The Committee of which my hon. Friend the

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  Member for East Donegal was Chairman sent in its Report last September, and the Report shall be presented to Parliament as the hon. Member suggests.

  GAMBLING IN "OPTIONS AND FUTURES."
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any intention of proposing legislative measures for prohibiting or restricting gambling in option or future contracts representing fictitious agricultural produce and metals; whether he is aware of what is being done in this direction by other countries; whether Her Majesty's Government have asked the Hungarian Government for a copy of the Official Report of the International Agricultural Congress, held at Budapest last September, and whether he would lay upon the Table the section of the Canada Criminal Code of 1892, which came into operation in March 1893, prohibiting gambling in prices?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,): No, Sir, I do not propose to introduce legislation on the subject referred to by the hon. Member. If there is any particular country of whose action in the matter the hon. Member desire, to be informed, I will endeavour to ascertain the information for him. A copy of the official Report of tile International Congress held at Budapest figs been asked for, and we are informed that it is in the press. If the hon. Member will Move for the sections of the Canada Code to which he refers, there will be no objection to them laying on the Table.

  PRIVATE ASYLUMS.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government will consider the advisability of the suppression of private asylums, and make other and more suitable provision for paying patients?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,): No, Sir, I am not aware of any sufficient reason for disturbing the arrangement made only six years ago by Parliament with regard to licensed houses.

  MADAGASCAR.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to a statement, published by the London Missionary Society, concerning the terrible straits to which the Protestant natives of Madagascar are reduced since the conquest of the Island by the French Republic; that at least 20 Protestant places of worship have been taken possession of by the Roman Catholics with the sanction of French officers; and that Protestants are threatened and ill-treated on the ground that British missionaries are their friends; and, whether the British Government will endeavour to secure the liberty and property of the Protestants according to the assurances given to Lord Salisbury at the time of the French expedition to Madagascar?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. G. CURZON,): I have seen the statements as to the Protestant natives of Madagascar, and can assure the hon. Member that the position of British missions and of British subjects generally in Madagascar is receiving the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government, who are about to address representations to the French Government on the subject. ["Hear, hear!"]

  TELEPHONE SERVICE.
  MR. A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he has received an answer from the Town Council Tunbridge Wells respecting the letter from the National Telephone Company on the alleged insufficiency of the local telephone service, stating that, not withstanding the changes Made, there is still a lack of secresy so that subscribers' conversations can be overheard; that the Corporation declares the service inadequate; that there are only four call offices in the borough—three of these not properly equipped; that the rentals are unduly high; and that altogether there are less than 80 subscribers, being fewer than there were in 1895; whether he is aware that, in the event

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  of a licence being given under the Treasury Minute of 23rd May 1892, a local company could be formed which would be prepared to establish and work an exchange at a much lower rate, and that 140 residents have already promised to join as subscribers; and whether, in the interests of the town, he will grant such a licence?
  MR. HANBURY: Yes, Sir. An answer has been received, and I am aware of the representations which have been made; but the Government are not prepared to entertain the application for a licence to a local company at Tunbridge Wells. As far as can be seen at present, the National Company are using their best endeavours to render their service efficient, and should they fail to render it efficient, the Postmaster General will carefully consider what steps it may be desirable for him to take.
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Arising out of that, may I ask whether the Postmaster General will institute an Inquiry into the alleged inefficiency of the service at Tunbridge Wells?
  MR. HANBURY: I gather that the Postmaster General will be willing to make inquiries whether the service is efficient or not.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the charges made by the telephone company, as well as the inefficiency of service?
  MR. HANBURY: Yes; I consider that part of the general Question.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is now in a position to state the general policy of the Government on the question of telephones, and their management and administration in this country?
  MR. A. D. PROVAND: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I wish to ask him a Question, of which I have given him private notice, namely: As notice of his intention to make a statement regarding the Government policy on the Telephone question was recently made, will he consent to postpone doing so until Thursday next, to allow representations to be placed before him on this subject by the Telephone Committee
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  of the Glasgow Municipal Corporation, which meets to-morrow for the purpose of preparing them, and which are necessary on account of statements recently made in Glasgow to the Statute (Labour) Committee of the Corporation by the hon. Member for North-East Manchester, formerly Postmaster General?
  MR. HANBURY: I do not think the Corporation of Glasgow will be in any way prejudiced by my answer. In reply to the hon. Member, I have no change of policy to announce. Her Majesty's Government do not propose to take any steps to acquire, either by compulsion or agreement, the business of the National Telephone Company, which, as the hon. Member is aware, is conducted under a temporary licence front the Government. But the Postmaster General will carefully inquire into any complaints which he may receive from any locality of the inefficiency or inadequacy of the service which the company is supplying, and should he consider that such complaints are well founded, and that the inefficiency or inadequacy of the service is due to the fault or neglect of the company, he will carefully consider, on the merits of each case, what steps it may be desirable to take to remedy the defect.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: Do I understand that in 1911 the Government policy is, in taking over the whole telephone service of this country, that they will not recognise any claim for "going value" or "unearned increment" made or to be made by the National Telephone Company?
  MR. HANBURY: My hon. Friend will understand by the answer I gave the other day that the Government stand by the answer given in Mr. Arnold Morley's letter, supposing this purchase is not made before the licence expires. The Government can give no guarantee what will happen or what the successors of the present Government may do. At all events, we are not prepared to purchase.
  MR. JAMES McKILLOP: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the frequent and strong complaints made from the industrial districts of East Stirlingshire and

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  the Coatbridge Districts of Lanarkshire with reference to the inefficient service of the National Telephone Company; and what steps are being taken to remedy a state of things so detrimental to the trade and requirements of these districts?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General has not had his attention called to any inefficiency in the service of the National Telephone Company in the districts referred to by the hon Member.

  LIBERATOR GROUP OF COMPANIES.
  MR. RICHARD MARTIN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the assets of the Liberator Building Society, the House and Lands Investment Trust, and the Lands Allotment Company were transferred in July 1895, to the United Realisation Company by order of the Bankruptcy Court; whether the fees payable thereon to, and claimed by, the Board of Trade have been ascertained; and, if so, what is the amount thereof; if not, if he can state any reason for the exceptional delay, and whether the fees include the expenses of the special manager appointed and of the staff employed by him?
  MR. RITCHIE: The scheme under which the assets of the Companies mentioned were sold to the United Realisation Company was sanctioned by the Court on 22nd June 1895, but, owing, to objections raised by that Company, the transfer of the various properties has not yet been completed. The final settlement, of the fees due to the Board of Trade has been a matter of considerable difficulty, owing to the complicated nature of the transactions. It is now awaiting the completion of certain accounts by the United Realisation Company. The fees chargeable will be exclusive of the expenses of the Special manager and his staff.

  MANCHESTER REGIMENT (2ND VOLUNTEER BATTALION).
  MR. J. W. MACLURE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War when it is intended to appoint the new Adjutant for the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the, Manchester Regiment?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): The appointment will be made as soon as a suitable candidate can be found. No officer in the territorial regiment is available at this moment.

  LAND COMMISSION (FAIR RENTS).
  MR. EDWARD CARSON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Land Commission in Ireland have purported to fix fair rents in a number of cases without specifying the details required by the schedule enacted in the Act of last year; and, if so, in how many cases this has occurred; whether Her Majesty's Court of Appeal has decided that such details are necessary, and that the omission of them invalidates the orders; what course the Land Commission intend to take with reference to cases in which such omission has occurred; and whether there is any power of awarding costs against the Land Commission in appeals taken to rectify such omissions; if not, how the costs are borne?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I am afraid I must ask my hon. and learned Friend to defer this Question until to-morrow.
  MR. D. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if lie will explain the cause of the delay in giving decisions in the land cases which were heard at Lisnaskea. County Fermanagh, on the 2nd of January last; why the Sub-Commissioners have not as yet inspected the holdings of those tenants whose cases were heard at Clones, County Monaghan, on the 5th and 6th of February; how many cases in the counties of Fermanagh and Monaghan in winch the originating notices to have fair rents fixed were served before the 1st of last November have not as yet been listed for hearing; and when will there be another sitting of the Sub-Commissioners to hear these cases; and whether it is intended to appoint additional Sub-Commissioners so as to prevent an accumulation of arrears of

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  business and to dispose speedily of cases in which notices to have fair rents fixed have been served?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is necessary to make local inquiries in reference to the first and second paragraphs of the Question, and I would ask the hon. Member to postpone it until Thursday next.

  MONEY ORDERS (FRIENDLY SOCIETIES).
  MR. F. A. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether consideration has been given to the complaints of the Friendly Societies, that they are seriously prejudiced by the raising of the charge of money orders under 11 from 2d. to 3d.; that the number of orders under £1 for contributions of members and for sick pay is enormous in the year, and the loss from the extra 1d. in the Hearts of Oak Society alone is estimated at £11,000 a year; and, whether the Postmaster General will, in view of the discouragement to thrift caused by the charge, reduce the rate for sums under£1 to 2d.
  MR. HANBURY: I must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I Leave on the 23rd ultimo to the hon. Members for South Somerset and the Leominster Division of Herefordshire. But I may add that the hon. Member is mistaken in supposing that the loss from the extra 1d. in the Hearts of Oak Society alone is estimated at £11,000 a year. As a matter of fact the difference between 2d. and 3d. on all orders for £1 and under issued by the Post Office does not reach that sum, and the Hearts of Oak Society only takes out a proportion of the orders.

  VOLUNTEER OFFICER (COURT OF INQUIRY).
  COLONEL DENNY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if an officer in the Volunteer force has a right to call for a Court of Inquiry, in the event of his services being dispensed with, or being requested to resign his commission?
  MR. BRODRICK: A Court of Inquiry may be convened by the Officer
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  Commanding any body of troops to take and report evidence when an investigation of facts appears to him desirable. Such a court has no judicial power, and can express no opinion on the conduct of any officer or soldier. No officer of any section of Her Majesty's forces has the right to demand a Court of Inquiry.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE (BOOT CONTRACT).
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the last issue of contract boots to the members of the Metropolitan Police Force is to be in April next and the first weekly issue of boot money in October, thus calling upon each man to advance the value of a pair of boots to the authorities.
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: The dates are correctly stated in the Question, but the inference which the hon. Member draws from them is wrong. The April issue of boots with those already in the men's possession will in all probability last beyond the time when the men will have received by weekly allowance the cost of a new pair: and they will not be called upon to procure a new pair until one of those pair has been condemned. The dates I should add are those which were mentioned to the men when the choice between the two systems was given them.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: Am I to gather from the answer that the men will practically be defrauded of a pair of boots? [Laughter.]
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: Quite the contrary, Sir.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: If the boots are made to last longer than they have hitherto lasted, are not the men thereby defrauded out of a certain amount of shoe leather? [Laughter.]
  [No answer was given.]

  CONTRABAND TOBACCO.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state the amount of contraband tobacco confiscated by the Customs during last year, and how it was disposed of?
  MR. HANBURY: The quantity of contraband tobacco in various forms

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  confiscated by the Customs during the year ending the 31st December 1896 was 6,987 lbs. This quantity being collected in the Queen's warehouse in London served to increase the stock of seized tobacco already accumulated there, and front this stock the undermentioned quantities were distributed during the year in question.

  lbs.

  Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum

  1,117

  Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum

  920

  Kew Gardens

  3,360

  Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

  336

  Delivered to the War Department for the use of troops ordered on Foreign service

  2,612

  Total

  8,345

  INSANE (SUICIDE RETURN).
  MR. WILLIAM CORBETI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give a Return for the year 1896 of the insane who committed suicide (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 298, of Session 1896)?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: I am not aware that any useful purpose would be served by continuing the Return which was granted the hon. Member last year; and as it proved a very troublesome one to prepare, I am afraid I must decline to agree to it. The number of persons generally who committed suicide will, of course, appear in the Judicial Statistics in the ordinary way.

  QUEEN'S REIGN (COLONIAL TROOPS).
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can state the arrangements that have been made for the reception and quartering of the Colonial troops visiting England in connection with the celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee; will an effort be made to concentrate, as far as practicable, the various Colonial contingents; and would it be possible to set apart the whole of one of the London barracks for their accommodation?
  MR. BRODRICK: The arrangements for the reception of the contingents of Colonial troops are under consideration. The details cannot yet be stated.

  ARMY PENSIONER (PATRICK HANLEY).
  MR. O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of Patrick Hanley, of Derrymoglan, County Roscommon, who was in the 88th Regiment for nearly five years, served in the Indian Mutiny, being present in many engagements, including Cawnpore, Lucknow, and Calpee, and received four wounds, two from bullets, a sabre wound and also a wound on the left leg which, owing to some mistake, was not recorded, although it was the most severe and painful one; is he aware that Patrick Hanley was discharged as unfit for further service, and granted the sum of 8d. per day for life, and that he is now over 60 years of age and no longer able to work; and whether, under the circumstances, the War Office will consider the desirability of increasing this old soldier's pension?
  MR. BRODRICK: The case of Patrick Hanley will be referred to the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital for their consideration.

  COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION.
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts,): I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, if he will inform the House who are the members of that Committee?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST),: The members of the Committee of Council are the Lord President of the Council, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Secretary of State for the Colonies—[Laughter]—the Secretary of State for War, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty—[renewed laughter]—and the Vice President. [Much laughter.]
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS: May I ask whether this Committee ever meets?
  SIR J. GORST: I cannot answer that Question without notice—[laughter]—and I doubt even with notice if I should be allowed to disclose the proceedings of a Committee of the Privy Council. [Renewed laughter.]

  INDIAN FAMINE.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is in a position to inform the House, having regard to the large sums of public money now being expended in India in relief works, if the Government of India are carrying forward irrigation works of importance in the parts of India now affected by famine for the mitigation or prevention of subsequent scarcity of food in those districts in the future?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): In addition to the minor irrigation works which have been recently undertaken in relief of famine, the Government of India are engaged in the construction of very considerable irrigation projects, averaging a capital expenditure of three-quarters of a crore of rupees per annum up to the year 1900. These projects will largely afford protection in the future to the parts now affected by famine, besides; affording similar relief in portions of India which have not been affected on this occasion.

  CRETE
  MR. JAMES BRYCE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state if it is a part of the scheme for the autonomy of Crete that the Governor shall be a Christian, shall be appointed by or with the consent of the Powers, and shall not be removable by the Sultan?
  MR. CURZON: It is impossible for us to pledge the other Powers to any course until their decision has been arrived at. The questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman are very important, but they have not yet been determined.
  MR. BRYCEasked whether the Under Secretary could indicate when
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  he would be able to make a statement on the subject?
  MR. CURZON: No, Sir; I am afraid I cannot.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the case that the reinforcement of Candanos and other Turkish garrisons in Crete was prevented, while the proposal, assented to by all the other Great Powers, to prohibit the importation of arms and volunteers for the insurgent forces was rejected by Her Majesty's Government, and what steps have been taken to effect the rescue of the troops and the loyal population whose lives are consequently in jeopardy?
  MR. CURZON: In neither case is, there any foundation for the statements advanced in the Question as to the action of Her Majesty's Government. On the contrary, the Admirals have acted in perfect accord throughout, and concerted efforts, the nature of which I have already communicated to the House, are being made to rescue the blockaded Mussulmans at Candanos.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: Do I understand my right hon. Friend to say that there is no truth in the paragraph which refers to the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to assent to the Austrian proposals in August last?
  MR. CURZON: I have said that neither statement in the first part of the Question is true.
  MR. JOHN DILLON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a Question—of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether there is any truth in the statement to-day's paper that a joint force has been landed with orders to proceed Candanos, and to use force if there is resistance on the part of the insurgents?
  MR. CURZON: That is not the Question of which the hon. Gentleman gave me private notice. I have a long Question front him here of a very different character. [Laughter and cheers]
  MR. DILLON: I gave the right hon. Gentleman private notice of two Questions, and possibly he may be able to answer this Question now as arising out of his answer? [Cries of "No!"]
  MR. CURZON: I will answer the whole Question later on, if the hon. Gentleman will permit me.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Is it not a fact that it is established by the Blue-book that the Powers prevented the dispatch to Crete of four battalions out of five sent by the Turkish Government?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member will not be in order in asking what is established by the Blue-book.
  MR. T. W. LEGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is able to give any further information respecting the Mussulmans besieged in Candanos?
  MR. CURZON: From reports which have been received from Her Majesty's Consul at Canea, and Rear-Admiral Harris, it appears that on the 4th instant Her Majesty's ship Rodney, with Her Majesty's Consul on board, left for Selino Castelli with orders to do all that as possible to relieve Candanos, which is situated three hours' journey inland. The Captain of Her Majesty's ship Scout, reported on the 6th instant, that Candanos was in no immediate danger, though the Mussulmans were closely blockaded. This is the latest information that we have received.
  MR. J. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the contemplated arrangement for utilising as police in Crete Turkish soldiery, any, and what precautions will be taken to secure the inhabitants from murder, outrage, and rapine by the proposed Turkish constabulary; whether any inquiry will be made as to the antecedents of the men to be told off on constabulary duty, and whether men who were implicated in the atrocities in Armenia and Constantinople, or were engaged in active service on behalf of the Sultan in the recent disturbances in Crete, will be employed on police duty in Crete; and whether an assurance will be given that inquiry will be made into the antecedents and character of Turkish soldiery undertaking police duties in Crete?
  MR. CURZON: It may be taken for granted that in any future police arrangements which made be made, every precaution will be taken to provide
  200
  for the security of the inhabitants, and that in recruiting for the Gendarmerie, the fittest men will be selected. We have not heard of the landing of 500 men, nor, of course, can I specify in advance what steps may require to be taken for the relief of the beleaguered Mussulmans at Candanos.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is intended that this Turkish constabulary shall be under the command of Christian officers?
  MR. CURZON: I can give no detailed information at the present stage of the Question.
  MR. MACNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to say that an investigation will be made into the character of the men—[cries of "Oh!"]—constituting the Cretan-Turkish police, having regard to the fact that that police was engaged in murdering their officers while he was engaged in praising them in the House of Commons?
  MR. CURZON: The hon. Member is now putting in a slightly different form the Question standing on the Paper which I have already answered. [Cheers.]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will state to the House the terms of the original Note addressed by the Powers to Turkey, and also of the supplementary Note relating to the removal of the Turkish troops from Crete presented on Friday last to the Porte; and whether the Notes addressed to Turkey have been presented in the form of an ultimatum and a fixed term assigned, as in the case of Greece, for the compulsory assent of the Porte to these terms. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): Although it is rather late in the day, I am glad to say that I have at last been able to lay on the Table of the House the two Notes, the Note to Greece and the Note to the Porte, and I have satisfied myself that there are at this moment in the Vote Office as many copies as Gentlemen are likely to ask for. With regard to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's Question, I have to say that neither the Note to Greece nor the Note to Turkey was in the form of an ultimatum; but there is undoubtedly, as he has pointed out, a

  201
  difference in the form of the two Notes, which is justified by the fact that Greece was notoriously acting in defiance of, or against the wishes of, the Powers of Europe, while Turkey was purely on the defensive and has shown no desire, so far as we know, to resist in any way the policy which the six Great Powers have agreed upon. ["Hear, hear."]
  MR. J. C. FLYNN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the Notes to which he has referred were not issued simultaneously?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I don't know.
  MR. DILLON: I wish to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs what instructions have been given to the mixed forces landed at Selino. Are they to attack the insurgents in case they meet with opposition?
  MR. CURZON: That, again, is not the Question of which the hon. Gentleman has given me private notice; and I must decline, therefore, to answer.[Cheers.]
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I hope I may be excused, under the circumstances, for asking my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary a Question of which I have not given him notice—it is, whether any replies have been received to the Collective Notes from the Ottoman or the Greek Governments?
  MR. CURZON: We have not yet heard.

  COMMON JURORS (IRELAND).
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a Copy of a Resolution adopted by the Bawnboy Board of Guardians at their Meeting on 22nd February, advocating payment of expenses to all common jurors in Ireland, and what action is intended to be taken thereon?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Representations to the effect stated have been received from one or two Boards of Guardians. The Question, obviously, is one which could only be considered in relation to Great Britain and Ireland, and must be dealt with in a general Measure applicable to the Three Kingdoms, if dealt with at all.

  WORKMISTRESSES (IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS).
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether ha can state the number of workmistresses employed in Irish National Schools for the year ending 31st December 1896, how much their remuneration amounted to, and the average per teacher?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It has not been found possible in the short space of time since this Question was placed on the Paper to ascertain the number of workmistresses employed during the year ended 31st December 1896, but the Commissioners state that the close of the September quarter of last year the number was 880. The salary of workmistresses (who are not employed for the full school day) was raised in 1886 from £8 to its present rate of £12 a year, and the result fees earned vary from £1 to £2 10s. a year.

  CAVAN AND LEITRIM LIGHT RAILWAY.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any steps are being taken by the Post Office authorities to facilitate an early delivery of letters in Ballyconnell, Bawnboy, and Swanlinbar, by the employment of the Cavan and Leitrim Railway train service?
  MR. HANBURY: The Post Office is not taking any steps in the matter referred to, for, as stated in the answers given to the hon. Member on the 22nd of June 1896 and 1st of February last, the trains running on the Cavan and Leitrim Railway would not afford so convenient a service to Ballyconnell, Bawnboy, etc., as that afforded by car, and the cost of establishing trains specially for the mails would be altogether beyond what the circumstances would warrant.

  POST OFFICE (MOATE-FARRELL, CO. LONGFORD).
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, can he now state whether a sub-post office will be established at Moate-Farrell, County

  203
  Longford, in response to a petition recently presented from the inhabitants of Clonbroney?
  MR. HANBURY: I am happy to say that the result of the inquiry formerly promised has been favourable, and that a sub-post office will shortly be established at Moate-Farrell.

  DANISH TRAWLERS (SCOTTISH WATERS).
  MR. J. E. GORDON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Naval Police have recently reported the presence of Danish trawlers in the protected waters of the Moray Firth; and what steps the Government propose to take in order to uphold the Law and preserve the intention of Parliament?
  CAPTAIN PIRIE: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a Danish trawler has been constantly fishing for the last few weeks in the Moray Firth; and whether, having regard to the strong feelings aroused amongst those interested, owing to a foreign trawler being able to fish in waters from which British trawlers are excluded, the Government propose to take any steps to prevent the continuance of such a system in the future?
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a Danish trawler, Dania, has been seen by H.M.S. Jackal trawling in the Moray Firth within forbidden limits, and that she is about to land her catch at Aberdeen; whether the Government have power to prevent the landing of fish thus caught; and what progress has been made in the negotiations for the revision of the North Sea Convention, so that such trawling may in future be prevented?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire): I will answer the Questions of the hon. Members for the North Division of Aberdeen, Banffshire, and Elgin and Nairn together. On the 28th ultimo the Fishery Board received a report from the Commander of H.M.S. Jackal to the effect "that the Danish trawler E. 46 Dania was this forenoon discovered seven miles E.N.E. off Tarbetness with her port otter trawl down." In consequence of this and other
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  reports, the Secretary for Scotland has given instructions to the Fishery Board to prevent, under the powers of Section 8 of the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act of 1889, the landing or sale in Scotland of fish from the Dania caught within the area prohibited by their bye-laws. As regards the negotiations for the revision of the North Sea Convention referred to by the hon. Member for Banffshire, I have nothing to add to what has already been stated in this House by the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and myself.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked whether there was any power of prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing outside the territorial waters?
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid there was no power of preventing fishing, but if the hon. Member would refer to the section of the Act to which he had referred he would see that there were certain powers to prevent the landing of fish so caught in Scotland.
  CAPTAIN PIRIEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Dania was proceeding to Hull, and whether there were any powers to prevent the landing of such fish there?
  The LORD ADVOCATEsaid the Act to which he referred related only to Scotland. He knew nothing more about the movements of the Dania than what he had stated.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the Postmaster General has received a Resolution unanimously passed on the 8th February at a special meeting of the Commissioners of the borough of Enniskillen, protesting against the delay in the morning mail service, and urging upon the Post Office authorities and the Treasury, as an imperative necessity to meet the requirements of business, that the mails now detained at Dundalk from 7.20 a.m. till 9 a.m. should be dispatched at once by mail train for Cloneen, Bundoran, and Omagh, distributing the letters en route at the different stations; and whether the Postmaster General, having regard to the inconvenience and commercial loss entailed by this delay,

  205
  will take steps in accordance with the terms of the Resolution?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General has received a copy of the Resolution referred to. The mails for Enniskillen now reach Dundalk at 8.1 a.m.—not at 7.20 a.m.—and are sent forward by the 8.57 a.m. train. As stated in reply to another hon. Member a few days ago, the question of improving the service I will receive attention in connection with the revision of the day mail services now in hand, and the Postmaster General will place before the Great Northern Railway Company the strong desire for improvement which exists, in the hope that the Railway Company may be able to effect the desired improvement which the Post Office would not be justified in carrying out by putting on a special train at public cost. If such an arrangement should be made by the Company, Clones, which it is presumed is intended by Cloneen, is on the way to Enniskillen, and would, of course, participate in any improvement of the service to Enniskillen, but Bundoran, which is a long distance beyond Enniskillen, would, it is feared, be in any case excluded from the advantages. As regards Omagh, the mails do not go viâ Enniskillen but viâ Portadown, and suffer no detention at Dnndalk.

  WRECK (INDIAN TROOPSHIP "WARREN HASTINGS").
  CAPTAIN CHALONER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether any Report has been received at the War Office of the circumstances attending the wreck of the Warren Hastings on the island of Réunion; and whether the Report can be made public?
  MR. BRODRICK: Reports have been received from the officers commanding the wings of the King's Royal Rifles and the York and Lancaster Regiment and other details on board the Warren Hastings, and also from the officer commanding the ship. It appears that the ship got out of her course and struck the rocks soon after 2 o'clock on a pitch-dark night. The troops, numbering over 1,000, were mustered at once, and the captain of the ship reports that but for the perfect discipline observed and the prompt obedience to every order given, many lives must necessarily have
  206
  been lost. I propose to lay the Reports on the Table, and I think the House will feel that the individual acts of heroism in saving life recorded in them, and the perfect order maintained during the landing of the women and children in darkness with the ship at an angle of 50 deg. and momentarily expected to capsize, are worthy to be recorded in the annals of these regiments and of the British Army. [Cheers.]

  LABOURERS' DWELLINGS (CO. LONGFORD).
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether Messrs. Kelly and Agnew, representing the Local Government Board, inspected labourers' dwellings in the Castlefin and Cloughard Electoral Divisions in County Donegal the year before last; (2) whether a scheme was made for building a number of cottages to replace those condemned as unfit for habitation in each of those divisions; and (3) what is the cause of the delay in erecting them?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. A scheme was made for the erection of 13 cottages in the Union, four of which were to be in Cloughard Electoral Division. None were proposed to be built in Castlefin Division, but having regard to the proximity of the sites of the four cottages mentioned to Castlefin Division, that Division and Cloughard Division were combined into one area of charge for the expenses of the scheme so far as it related to those four cottages. I do not understand that there has been any exceptional cause for delay beyond pressure of work on the Inspector, and the fact that the loans originally applied for were found to be insufficient and fresh applications had to be made to the Treasury. All the requisite preliminaries are now practically completed, and the Inspector will advertise for tenders for the erection of the cottages at an early date.

  SHANNON SALMON FISHERY.
  MR. JAMES ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries have been applied to by the Conservators of the

  207
  River Shannon to request Her Majesty's Government to place a gunboat on protection duty at the mouth of the River Shannon, as it has been discovered that a French fishing fleet are shooting their mackerel nets within the limit, and in such a manner as to prevent the run of salmon, to the great detriment of the national fishery; and whether he will recommend the Lord Lieutenant to favourably consider such request?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: An application of the nature referred to in the Question was made to the Inspectors of Fisheries, who replied that in the absence of a bye-law prohibiting mackerel fishing there was no ground on which the Inspectors could support the application. It is a fact that French fishing boats annually visit the South West Coast of Ireland and fish for two or three months, but the Inspectors have no evidence before them to show that these vessels fish within territorial limits.
  CAPTAIN DONELANasked whether it was the fact that these French fishing boats had not the right to come within a distance of three miles of the shore?
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he believed that was so; what he had stated was that the Inspector had no evidence that they did come within that distance of the shore.

  SUPREME COURT (REVISION OF RULES).
  MR. L. ATHERLEY-JONES: I beg to ask the Attorney General whether the revision of the Rules of the Supreme Court is now complete; when the Rules are likely to be issued; and whether the whole of the Revised Rules will be issued at one time or by instalments?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,): I am informed that the revision is not complete, and it is not possible to say when it will be complete, as there are still many points to be considered. But the Rules will probably be issued in sections, and some important alterations will be made.

  VOLUNTARY (NECESSITOUS) SCHOOLS.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Education Department or the Treasury have any
  208
  list or statistics of the Voluntary Schools which are considered to be "necessitous schools," with the amounts estimated to be required to relieve the necessity of such schools; and whether the amount of the aid grant of £616,000, proposed to be paid by Parliament under the Voluntary Schools Bill, has been based on, or fixed in accordance with, any such list or statistics; and, if so, whether the Government will lay such lists or statistics upon the Table of the House?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The Department have no statistics in such a form as can be laid upon the Table of the House, but the Department has satisfied itself, by careful inquiry, that the amount asked for is not greater than is required to meet the necessities of Voluntary Schools.

THOMPSON'S DIVORCE BILL [H.L.]

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve the Marriage of Agnes Weir Thompson, the wife of Abraham Thompson, of Belfast, in the County of Antrim, Solicitor, with the said Abraham Thompson, and to enable her to marry again; and for other purposes."—[Thompson's Divorce Bill] [H.L.].
  Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Alfred Billson, esquire, for the Borough of Halifax.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  [The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS, Mr. J. W. LOWTHER, in the Chair.]
  [PROGRESS, 4TH MARCH.—FIFTH DAY.]
  Clause 1,—

  "(1) For aiding Voluntary Schools there shall be annually paid out of moneys provided by Parliament an aid grant not exceeding in the aggregate 5s. per scholar for the whole number of scholars in those schools.

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  "(2) The all grant shall be distributed by the Education Department to such Voluntary Schools and in such manner and amounts as the Department think best for the purpose of helping necessitous schools and increasing their efficiency, due regard being had to the maintenance of voluntary subscriptions.

  "(3) If associations of schools are constituted in such manner in such areas and with such governing bodies representative of the managers as are approved by the Education Department, there shall be allotted to each association while so approved,

  "(a) a share of the aid grant to be computed according to the number of scholars in the schools of the association at the rate of 5s. per scholar, or, if the Department fix different rates for town and country schools respectively (which they are hereby empowered to do) then at those rates; and

  "(b) a corresponding share of any sum which may be available out of the aid grant after distribution has been made to unassociated schools.

  "(4) The share so allotted to each such association shall be distributed as aforesaid by the Education Department after consulting the governing body of the association, and in accordance with any scheme prepared by that body which the Department for the time being approve.

  "(5) The Education Department may exclude a school from any share of the aid grant which it might otherwise receive, if, in the opinion of the Department, it unreasonably refuses or fails to join such an association, but the refusal or failure shall not be deemed unreasonable if the majority of the schools in the association belong to a religious denomination to which the school in question does not itself belong.

  "(6) The Education Department may require as a condition of the school receiving a share of the aid grant, that the accounts and receipts and expenditure of the school shall be annually audited in accordance with the regulations of the Department.

  "(7) The decision of the Education Department upon any question relating to the distribution or allotment of the aid grant, including the question whether an association is or is not in conformity with this Act, and whether a school is a town or a country school, shall be final."

  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon)moved, in Sub-section (2) to leave out the words "as the Department think best," and to insert the words "in accordance with a scheme to be formulated by the Department and laid before Parliament in manner hereinafter provided." The Education Act of 1870 afforded a striking contrast to the method adopted by the Government for the distribution of the grant under this Bill. Under that Act all schools were placed on an equal basis; there was no distinction drawn between schools in town and
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  country, prosperous and unprosperous, sectarian or undenominational, all had an equal claim on the Exchequer, and if they passed the required examination that claim was satisfied. The next point was that there were expressed conditions upon which Voluntary Schools could claim this grant. Those conditions were explicitly set forth, and there could be no dispute about them. The definition of a necessitous school in the Act was also clear and explicit. It said that when a school existed in an area the rateable value of which could not produce a certain amount in proportion to the number of children in the school, a certain aid grant was to be given to it. It was, therefore, impossible that there could be any favouritism between schools on the part of the Department. The Department could not pick and choose in the distribution of the money. It was to give the money to schools in certain districts which were clearly defined by Act of Parliament. But that was not all. In addition to all those conditions which circumscribed the discretion of the Department in the distribution of the money, the Act said further that a Minute must be prepared by the Department, and that that Minute must be laid upon the Table of the House for the space of one month. So much for the Act of 1870, which was passed by a Liberal Government. Then came the Education Act of 1876, which was passed by a Conservative Government. Under the 19th Section of that Act there was a further grant made to necessitous schools. In that Act again there was a clear definition of a necessitous school—which was a school in a district with a population of 300 or 400—and no discretion was left to the Department to pick and choose. The Act of 1870 dealt with a grant of £10,000 or £15,000; the Act of 1876 only granted a few thousand pounds; but the present Bill dealt with a, grant of £600,000. How was it proposed to deal with the, money? No Minute or regulation was to be laid before Parliament. The distribution of the money was left absolutely to the Education Department, in consultation with the school associations. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury—if the right hon. Gentleman did him the honour of replying to his Amendment—whether he could point to a single precedent of a proposal of this

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  kind having been incorporated by any Government in a Bill? There had been an increasing tendency in Acts passed of late to leave the real practical work of legislation to be done by the Departments. Last year, for instance, a large sum of money was given for the relief of rates in agricultural districts. The bulk of the work in the way of regulations was left to the Local Government Board. But this Bill went beyond the Agricultural Rates Act. The regulations of the Local Government Board under that Act were to be laid on the Table for ten days and discussed. But under this Bill there were to be no regulations laid on the Table. The House simply voted the money, and said to the Department, "Spend it as you please." What might happen? There were £600,000 to be distributed among the necessitous schools; and there was to be a distinction between town and country. Yet there were absolutely no regulations by which the Department was to be guided in its discrimination. There was nothing to prevent four-fifths of the money being distributed among the towns, and only one-fifth in the country districts. Before any such scheme was put into operation the opinion of the House of Commons ought to be invited upon it. What the Bill amounted to was the establishment of a bureaucracy. He begged to move—
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,)said that there was no repugnancy between the 2nd Sub-section, and the 3rd and 4th.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Does not Subsection (a) of Sub-section (3) limit the discretion of the Department?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid that Sub-section (2) referred to the distribution of the grant to individual schools. Subsection (a) of Sub-section (3) referred to the allotment to the associations.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: But the Education Department is bound to pay over the lump sum to the associations?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: No. The payment will be direct to the school. The hon. and learned Gentleman, continuing, said it was impossible for the House of Commons to act, in the manner suggested by the Amendment, as a satisfactory Court of Appeal in the distribution of the grant. It was not a matter of general regulation but of individual
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  discrimination as between schools. Sometimes 5s. per child would be too little, and sometimes it would be too much. How could the House engage in an inquiry with reference to the necessities of a particular school? Any question of general principle as raised by Section 97 of the Act of 1870 the House could deal with; but human ingenuity could not devise a tribunal more unfitted to decide between the claims of school and school than the House of Commons. He hoped the Committee would have no hesitation in rejecting an Amendment which was utterly unpractical and inconsistent with the whole scheme of the Bill.
  MR. H. H. ASQUITHregretted that the Government had not accepted the Amendment, at least in some modified form, because a principle of the greatest importance was raised. In the sub-section under discussion the general distribution of the funds was dealt with. By this sub-section it was to rest with the Education Department to determine to what schools, in what manner, and in what amount the fund was to be distributed. Sub-section (3) provided for the allotment to particular associations, and Sub-section (4) provided for the actual payment of the grant by the Department. At every one of these stages, it was the contention of the Opposition, the matter ought to be submitted to the jurisdiction and determination of the House. [Cheers.] He had an Amendment down on the subsection dealing with the allotment to associations, to give to the House of Commons a final voice as to the constitution of those bodies, and as to their government in the exercise of their large and novel functions. ["Hear, hear!"] The preliminary step, with which the Committee was now dealing, was also of very great importance, and he demurred to the suggestion that this was purely a matter of detail. One of the main grounds for the Amendment was a desire to elicit from the Education Department, in the form of a scheme to be laid on the Table of the House, a statement of the general considerations or rules which they intended to apply, first of all in determining the all-important question of what classes of schools among the Voluntary Schools were to be treated as "necessitous;" and, next, in determining by what scale the grant was to be reckoned. The Amendment was not put forward in a spirit

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  hostile to the scheme of the Bill, but on grounds which eight to be generally accepted—the first being constitutional principle, and the Other being administrative convenience. As the law stood, not a penny of public money was voted for educational purposes as to the expenditure of which the House had not by Act of Parliament an absolutely complete control. There was, first, the Parliamentary grant prescribed by the Act of 1870, and its developments. Not only were the conditions under which that grant was given fixed, but the amount in which it was given and every condition applicable to it were prescribed by a code laid on the Table of the House every year. Section 97 of the Act of 1870 expressly provided that no addition to or subtraction front these conditions should be valid without the House having an opportunity of expressing its views. [Cheers.] As to the fee-grant given under the Act of 1891, was that left to the discretion of the Department? Many hon. Members opposite would have preferred to see a greater degree of elasticity allowed; but Parliament, on the face of the Act, prescribed what should be the figure of the grant, and there was no possibility or power on the part of the Education Department to vary that amount from year to year or as between school and school. It was quite true that there was a provision in the Act—which he did not think had been applied in many cases—under which the Education Department were empowered, in certain very special circumstances, to vary the amount of the grant, but it was expressly provided that the Education Department should report annually all eases in which they had sanctioned the imposition or augmentation of fees under this particular section. That was the state of the case at present, and now, for the first time, this Bill proposed to leave the distribution of this very considerable sum to the absolute and uncontrolled discretion of a Government Department. The Government Department was to be at large as regarded the class of schools to whom the money was to be given, as regarded the scale of amounts in which the money was to be distributed, and, what was still more important, as regarded the constitution and allocation of these voluntary associations, which were intended to be
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  the means and instruments of the Department in the actual distribution of the money. He asked hon. Gentlemen opposite whether they could produce any Parliamentary precedent in any part of their legislation in any Department in which an uncontrolled and practically irresponsible power had been given over money to be voted annually by Parliament from the taxes, either to any Government power or, still more, to any voluntary association constituted altogether outside Parliamentary authority. It might said that Parliament did retain an indirect and, at the same time, effective control in the fact that, when the Education Estimates came on for discussion, it was open to hon. Gentlemen to move to reduce the salary of the Vice President of the Council. Assuming for the sake of argument that the salary of the Vice President was still to be the natural Parliamentary opportunity for raising questions as to the administration of the Department, it was too much to expect that, at the fag end of the Session, perhaps in a single night, those who had objection to, or wished to criticise, the distribution of this fund among the diocesan associations of the country should be shut up within the narrow limits of that particular opportunity, and that that should be represented to them as if it were anything more than an illusory and shadowy Parliamentary control. ["Hear, hear!"] What they wanted, in this as in all other cases of a grant of public money, was that that House should have an absolute control from first to last. The Duke of Devonshire, speaking as late as February 12th last, at a more or less private meeting of the Liberal Unionist Association, made this observation:—
  There was nothing, therefore, in what I said on that occasion which would in the slightest degree prevent either the Government of which I am a member or myself from supporting a proposal made to Parliament to sanction a special aid grant to certain schools, whether Voluntary or Board Schools, which might require such aid, such aid to be granted on conditions to be prescribed by Parliament itself, and not to be left to the discretion of the Department."
  They were seeking to give effect not only to the views of the Duke of Devonshire, but to the only legitimate method of Parliamentary control, when they said that the schemes for the distribution of

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  this aid grant should be laid on the Table of the House. He would point out, further, that they were acting not only in accordance with previous legislation as regarded elementary education, but with the vast body of legislation in other Departments which was strictly relevant to the subject. What was done in the case of the Endowed Schools Act, where they were dealing with a strictly local fund? So jealous was Parliament in that case that, apart from the Commissioners constituted by the Act and the Education Department, which was placed over the Commissioners with an ultimate voice as to the manner in which those endowments should be allocated, an express provision was made that the schemes should be laid on the Table of the House, and that not until a sufficient time had elapsed for Parliamentary criticism and approval should those schemes come into operation and become law. Again, in another case of a very similar character—that of the City of London Parochial Charities in 1883—exactly the same procedure was followed, and again this was a case of a fund in which there was only a local interest. Finally, there was the case of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, which dealt with funds jointly produced by rates levied in the counties and by contributions from the Imperial Exchequer. Primarily the proposals for the allocation of that fund were left to the discretion of the joint committees; above the joint committees were put the Charity Commissioners, and above the Charity Commissioners there was the Education Department. If, when the matter had reached that stage, any objections were taken, Parliament required that the schemes should be laid on the Table of that House, and the vast majority, if not the whole, of those schemes had in fact been laid on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament. He asked the Government how, in view of that absolute unbroken stream of Parliamentary precedents, both where they were dealing with Imperial grants and even where they were dealing with local educational endowments, they were going to justify their action in now, for the first time, setting aside the principle which had hitherto been embodied in legislative proposals of this kind and which had been recognised by both Parties in the State? This was a prin-
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  ciple to which they attached the highest constitutional importance, and, unless the Government had made up their mind that every Amendment of every sort or kind was to be rigorously and arbitrarily excluded from the Bill, he could not understand why they should not accept the present Amendment. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,)said the right hon. Gentleman opposite had recommended this Amendment on the ground that it was in accordance with precedent. He gathered the Amendment was that every year, before allocating the money, the schemes under which it was to be allocated to the various schools were to be laid before the House of Commons.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: If there is any change.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid the right hon. Gentleman opposite recommended the Amendment on the ground that it was strictly analogous to the principle laid down by Parliament in the case of the Endowed Schools Act. Anybody who had had a lengthened experience of that House knew that nothing could give more labour and trouble to the House than this perpetual survey of the schemes of the Endowed Schools Commissioners. That trouble had to be undertaken, not merely because previous legislation had pressed it upon them and without new legislation they could not free themselves of it, but because it was manifest that, where they were dealing with private funds, which they transferred from one body to another body, from one set of people who, perhaps, represented the original beneficiaries of the charity to another set of people who did not represent the beneficiaries of the charity, it was absolutely necessary that those schemes should be brought before a tribunal which should have the right to pronounce upon them. But when, with regard to any scheme, that process was gone through it was gone through once for all; it never had to be repeated; the schemes never had to be surveyed again.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Except when a scheme is changed.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: You cannot change a scheme.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Oh, yes.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Not a charity scheme.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: It is done under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that might be so, and he dared say he was entirely wrong; but he did not remember any case in which, after Parliament had assented to a scheme, and which had been brought into full operation, it was again put through the mill and again brought before Parliament. At all events, whether there was the power in existing legislation of revarying these schemes and whether that power was used or not, it was certain that the schemes were brought forward with the intention of their being permanent. Now, let the Committee consider the plan seriously put before it in relation to administrative effectiveness and due economy of Parliamentary time. He believed there were some 14,000 Voluntary Schools in the country. He did not know how many of them would receive a share of the aid grant, but no doubt a very large number would. Each of them, he supposed, would, according to the analogy of the Charity Commission, be presented to Parliament in order that Parliament might pronounce upon it.
  MR. ASQUITHexplained that the right hon. Gentleman was under a misapprehension. What they wanted was that the scheme should be put upon the Paper, so that the House should be enabled to judge of the principles upon which the Department acted in laying down what were and what were not necessitous schools.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYreplied that if general principles were all that was asked for, those principles were already sufficiently laid down in the Bill. It had been admitted by both sides that to formulate what a necessitous Voluntary School is amounted to an impossibility. It was impossible to define the degree of necessity or to lay down in a formulated manner the exact grounds and causes from which that necessity might arise. But to think that the Education Department or any other department would have any difficulty in determining, in what proportion the money should be divided between schools A, B, and C, or in coming to a conclusion
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  as to whether schools A, B, and C were really necessitous and really required the aid grant, he did not for a moment believe. The Bill would not be improved by the Amendment. He respectfully submitted that the Amendment, so far from improving the Bill, would only occupy the time of the House by useless and unnecessary discussion, and would not afford any useful guidance to the Department.
  MR. W. S. ROBSONsaid that of course 15,000 schemes could not possibly be laid on the Table and advantageously discussed, but the number of schemes was limited, not by the number of schools, as the First Lord of the Treasury appeared to think, but by the number of associations. Neither the right hon. Gentleman nor the Solicitor General had said one single word to meet the argument in support of the Amendment. What was the real gist of the objection taken to the Bill as it stood? It was that it introduced a grave constitutional change by conferring upon a Department what were in effect legislative powers. They were perfectly familiar with the great discretion imposed upon public Departments, but whenever it was given, the principle upon which the discretion was to be exercised was carefully laid down. In fact the whole growth of constitutional government depended upon the application of that very principle, namely, control by the Legislature over the Executive. The Solicitor General made a somewhat curious excuse for conferring this particular power upon the Executive. He said the Executive could not possibly deal with 15,000 individual cases. That was quite true, and the draftsman of the Bill foresaw that. He had made the associations deal with individual schools, and that was a very significant circumstance. The Education Department, in fact, according to the argument, could not check or control the distribution of this money, and so sectarian bodies were to have delegated to them that which was in substance a legislative function. That was even more serious than legislative delegation to departments; it was legislative delegation to purely sectarian associations. If they were going to give powers so wide as this to a Department, then the constitutional result of that must be that the Department must go down with the Ministry. That

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  was where this Bill, and similar Bills—such as the Rating Bill and the Light Railways Bill—were leading us. This was the Tory method of devolution. They would not have Home Rule, and so they had invented a new method of devolution, which would lead to the introduction of the American system into English politics. Great changes generally came about as the result of small changes not properly considered at the time they were introduced.
  MR. ROBERT PURVIShoped the Committee would reject the Amendment. This matter was one of business. A business man in his relations with his subordinates or clerks did not tie them down in regard to every act, he did not dictate to them every act, but he judged of their acts by the results. And so Parliament might be considered in the same relation to the Education Department. The Department was its subordinate, and Parliament would not dictate every act to the Department, but would judge by the results. This Amendment rested upon the proposition, half concealed and half revealed, that Parliament was to dictate every act to the Department. The proposition might with equal force be used as an argument against the existence of the Department altogether. In the second place the Amendment was opposed to the general policy of the Bill. The localities were to come to a decision with regard to the distribution of this money, and then to send up to the Department, but this Amendment turned the machinery so that matters should work downwards, from Parliament through the Department to the localities. If the Amendment were adopted what would happen in the case of the schools that would not associate? Surely it was for the locality to decide whether a school which stood aloof was entitled to the 5s. grant. The distribution of the money must be determined by particular needs and could not be formulated in a general scheme, indeed, a scheme to be adequate for its purpose must be an encyclopædia embracing, a field as wide and varied as human needs. As it was for the localities to decide, so it would be for the Department always to accept the proposal of the localities, unless they were opposed to fairness, sound policy, and common sense. It seemed to him that if the Amendment were adopted
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  the whole policy of the Bill would be turned upside down.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERwas surprised the. First Lord of the Treasury had any difficulty in comprehending the remarkably lucid speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fife. [The FIRST LORD of the TREASURY: "I quite understood it!"] Then the right hon. Gentleman took care in replying to affect not to understand it. ["Hear, hear!"] The argument as to 15,000 schemes was all very good for a Parliamentary Debate, but there was no practical life in it. ["Hear, hear!"] What the Amendment was intended to say was that the Education Department, in dealing with this new grant, should, in the first instance, lay down the general principles by which the Department would be guided in administering the fund, that those general principles should either form part of the Code, or in some shape or form be laid before Parliament, and Parliament should have an opportunity of challenging any one of those principles or conferring upon the scheme, as a whole, its legislative approval. There was no question of enormous detail in that. The hon. Member for Peterborough had not had much experience, or he would have known that the rule of Parliament was to trust nobody but itself in the distribution and appropriation of public money. A Department were the servants and not the masters of Parliament, and it was for Parliament to say when it voted public money how and to what purpose that public money should be voted. The First Lord of the Treasury had not touched what was the real crux of the situation—namely, that every shilling of money voted up to the present for educational purposes had been voted in accordance with Code and with schemes which, in every case, had been laid before Parliament. Why were the Government departing upon this occasion from the uniform practice of Parliament? He remembered that when, during the passing of the Parish Councils Act, he pleaded very strongly for some discretion being reposed in the Local Government Board, hon. Gentlemen opposite were very fond of saying, "Ah, well; but there may be a change in the Minister, and, although we may be content to trust the head of the Local Government Board to-day, we should not be content to trust him to-

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  morrow." But suppose there was a change in the Education Department. He know that the whole of this scheme was based on the eternity of the present Administration—[a laugh]—but it was quite possible that there, would be another head of the Education Department, and that schemes might be proposed which would prejudicially affect the interests of Voluntary Schools. Were hon. Gentlemen going to sacrifice for a mere Party victory now what they might hereafter regard as a most valuable protection to themselves? He had found that no Party attached greater value to safeguards which protect, minorities than the Conservative Party when it was, in a minority; but he did not wish to put this matter upon a Party basis. He wished to continue, the uniform control of the House of Commons in such matters; to preserve the continuity of the Education Acts from first to last. If the Leader of the House would not listen to precedents established by Mr. Forster, Lord Sandon, and others, perhaps he would be guided by what he himself had done. In the, Education Bill of last year there was the provision that
  "any regulations made by the Education Department for the purpose of this Act shall not come into force until they have laid fur one month on the Table of the House."
  [Cheers.] In the face of that provision in last year's Bill, the right hon. Gentleman had told the House of Commons that what was suggested would be a. waste of House of Commons' time. He trusted that hon. Gentlemen opposite, as Members of the House of Commons—not as members of the Conservative Party—would uphold the jurisdiction of the House of Commons in this matter. [Cheers.]
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNEsaid it was impossible to see how the Amendment would work. In addition to that the Amendment was fairly open to the charge the Leader of the House brought against it—namely, that it might necessitate investigation by the Department, of schemes in respect of 15,000 schools. But, there was yet another objection to the present proposal. This Amendment must, be taken with, the consequential one appearing on page 21 of the Amendment Paper, and the effect of
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  the two Amendments taken together was that no money would be payable to any Voluntary School until after a scheme was drawn, and had lain for 30 days on the Table of the House. The Bill had been brought in in order to remedy a very urgent necessity—["hear, hear!"]—to meet difficulties which were imminent, which were on the point of crushing the Voluntary Schools in all parts of the country, and he was afraid that the drawing up of schemes would be a very lengthy process. If the Amendment were adopted everything would have to be hung up until Parliament met next year, and then 30 days must elapse before the country could get any advantage out of the Bill. He thought that this was an absolute an I complete reason why no support should be given to the Amendment. They wanted the money as soon as possible—[ironical cheers]—and very naturally. ["Hear, hear."] The whole, policy and object of the Bill was to give as quickly as possible whatever money might be granted. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman had referred to him, and it was perfectly true that he had no love for the proposal to devote this large sum of money to be administered by a Government Department at their own sweet will. He had no great confidence in the Education Department. [Opposition laughter.] It was not a, Party question. ["Hear, hear!"] He did not want to say one word against the permanent officials in that Department. [Laughter.] They had always treated him personally with the greatest courtesy. They were most industrious public servants, but, at the same time, the conduct of the Education Department had not been everything that some of them desired. He did not defend a large sum of money being administered by the Education or any other Department. He was not, however, prepared to vote for the Amendment.
  MR. J. M. PAULTONsaid if the Government were going to apply general principles in the administration of the Act he hoped they would be explained, and laid before the Committee. Not a single penny could be distributed by the Department except by the scheme prepared by the governing body of the association. Surely, if it

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  was possible for the governing body to pass such a scheme, it was possible for the Department to place before the House the parts of which it approves or disapproves.
  MR. ERNEST GRAYsaid he was regardless of Party in the matter of administration. When a Minister got to active work he administered the Department in accordance with the traditions of the Department, and he threw Party feelings on one side. A great part of the speeches of Gentlemen opposite had been devoted to what the associations were going to do, and one Gentleman said that the first duty would be to fight the local School Boards with this money. But this money would not go into the hands of the associations. The money was to go direct from the Education Department to the managers of the schools. As to the suggestion that all the schemes should be submitted to the House of Commons, that would be a terrible outlook for the House.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid the hon. Member who had just sat down had practically admitted that the proposal of the Government had completely broken down. The noble Lord the Member for Rochester, who was the champion of the Voluntary Schools, had contended that if Parliament were to keep a tight grip upon this money it would be impossible that the amount could be obtained in time. There was, however, a precedent to be found in the Rating Bill of last year, which was not in as forward a stage this time last year as this Bill now was, and yet the money under it was obtained in time to relieve the landlords and the farmers. But of course if the noble Lord meant that the money could not be provided for the year 1896–7, there might be a great deal in his argument. Subsection (4) of the clause provided that the share so allotted to each such association should be distributed by the Education Department after consultation with the governing body of the association, and in accordance with any scheme prepared by that body which the Department might approve. If the association could devise a scheme for the distribution of the money surely the Education Department would be much better prepared to do so. There was another point that
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  he should wish to refer to, and it was one to which the attention of the Committee had not hitherto been drawn. It was clear from the language of the Bill that the Government did not desire that Parliament should have the control of this money, because by Sub-section (7) it was provided that:—
  "The decision of the Education Department upon any question relating to the distribution or allotment of the aid grant, including the question whether an association is or is not in conformity with this Act, and whether a school is a town or a country school, shall be final."
  Therefore under the terms of the Subsection it would be impossible to bring the conduct, or the principle on which they acted, of the Education Department before that House at all—one of the great difficulties which hon. Members had had to encounter in moving Amendments of this character was that they really did not know the exact meaning which the Government attached to the term "necessitous" in relation to Voluntary Schools. No scheme for the distribution of this money had been laid before that House, and therefore hon. Members were bound to ask among what classes of schools this money was to be distributed. Did the Government intend to distribute this money among those schools that were necessitous because they were badly managed and were inefficient? For instance, one school that was well managed might have smaller funds than one that was necessitous and behindhand because it was badly managed. In the opinion of many hon. Members badly managed and inefficient schools should not be allowed to share in the distribution of this money. A school, moreover, might become necessitous in consequence of there being no local competition, and the subscriptions falling off, for that reason. In these circumstances he thought that the House ought to reserve to themselves the full control over the distribution of this money. Before he sat down he desired to refer to an Amendment which stood upon the Paper in his name, to the hon. Member's Amendment, which, if in order, he should in due course ask the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair to put to the Committee, namely to insert the words "the Commons House of," before the word "Parliament."
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS: The Amendment would not be in order.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that in that case he should not propose it. For his own part, while agreeing with the principle of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carnarvon, he should have much preferred the sanction of that House, unfettered by that of the other House of Parliament, being required to the scheme to be formulated by the Education Department; but of course, as the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair had ruled his Amendment out of order, he should bow to that ruling and should not move it. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONwho rose amid cries of "divide," said that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury cried "divide," but in his opinion this Amendment was a most important one, and went to the very root of the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] The fact was that that House were about to hand over this £600,000 to the Education Department without knowing the principle upon which it was to be distributed. He had no desire to fetter the discretion of that Department, but he thought that the House was entitled to know upon what lines the money was to be distributed. Surely the Government were in a position to give hon. Members some general idea of the principle of the scheme which they had in view, under which this large sum was to be distributed. Such a scheme ought to be laid before that House before this Bill became law. In supporting this Amendment hon. Members were not dealing with the individual schools, but with the associations acting with the sanction of the Education Department, from whose decision with regard to the scheme for the distribution of the money there was to be no appeal. Ought not the Department to lay down certain propositions with regard to management, efficiency, staffing, and teaching in schools? Were they to pay no regard to the amount of the subscriptions? These among other matters were essential to be determined. This Amendment was not moved in any spirit of hostility to the Bill. It was moved with the object of placing the Bill on a
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  more substantial and satisfactory footing. ["Hear, hear!"] Last year they had before them a Bill dealing with a smaller sum of money, in which a certain amount of local control over expenditure was proposed. This year they had a Bill dealing with a larger SUM of money and there was no control at all provided for. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman last year thought it necessary that a scheme for the expenditure of the money should be laid before the House, in order that they might know the grounds on which they were voting the money; but this year he had omitted that proposal, and the Committee were entitled to ask his reason for omitting it. ["Hear, hear!"] There were plenty of precedents for such a safeguard. The right hon. Gentleman had said that this was an experiment. If that was so it was all the more reason why it should be placed on a satisfactory basis. He thought the First Lord of the Treasury ought to abandon the position he had taken up, and say why, when he thought it essential to put such a safeguard in the Bill of last year, he now omitted it. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. F. A. CHANNINGsaid that the speeches of the noble Lord the Member for Rochester and of the Member for West Ham seemed to him conclusive in favour of some Amendment of this sort. If the money was to be obtained promptly for necessitous Voluntary Schools, it would be better for the noble Lord and the hon. Member to support some such Amendment as this. Without it the Bill was absolutely without meaning. ["Hear, hear!"] The procedure of the Bill contemplated that this money would be withheld until associations were formed, and until the Department had had an opportunity of considering the constitution of these associations, and that then various schemes might be drawn up by the associations for the approval of the Department, dividing the schools within the purview of the associations into necessitous schools, and schools not requiring a share of the grant. It was perfectly obvious that that process would take a considerable time, and he would put it to any practical man to say whether the proposal of his hon. Friend or some such proposal, would not bring this money within the reach of the schools more

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  promptly than the scheme held forth in the Bill? ["Hear, hear!"] The Committee had a right to know the principle on which the question of whether a school was necessitous or not was to be determined. He had recently been in the United States, and had inquired into the principle upon which they acted there. In the State of Massachusetts—
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSreminded the hon. Member that the only question before the Committee was that a scheme should be submitted to Parliament.
  MR. CHANNING,continuing, said that his hon. Friend was asking by this Amendment for an essentially reasonable and practical safeguard, and one which had over and over again been adopted in legislation of this kind. The distribution of this money could only be effected by some definite and plain machinery, and the machinery foreshadowed in the Bill was in the last degree illusory and vague. The whole thing was left to the Department and the associations. The First Lord of the Treasury, in his introductory speech, said that the scheme of the association would in all probability usually guide the Department in the apportionment of the grant to individual schools. The Committee, therefore, had from the right hon. Gentleman the clearest indication that this money would be distributed by the association, and, therefore, they had a right to demand that the schemes in which the money would be distributed would be brought before Parliament. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 212; Noes, 79.—(Division List, No. 77.)
  Question put accordingly, "That the words as the Department think best,' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 221; Noes, 73.—(Division List, No. 78.)
  On the return of the CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS, after the usual interval,
  MR. STRACHEY(who had given notice of his intention to move, in Subsection (2), after the word "best" to insert the words "after consulting the school attendance authority for the district"), addressing the Chairman of Ways and Means, said: On a point of order, may I ask, Sir, on what ground you have ruled the Amendment standing in my name out of order?
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS: On the ground that it imposes certain duties upon an authority which has been constituted for wholly different duties, and those duties are sought to be imposed by this Amendment without any preliminary Resolution of the House.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONmoved, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words "the purpose of helping necessitous," and to insert the word "those." If this Amendment were accepted, the hon. Member said, it would practically leave greater discretion to the Department in dealing with and distributing this grant, and would make it clear that the chief object in voting this large sum of money to Voluntary Schools was to increase their efficiency. They would indicate their view that their definition, to a large extent, of "necessitous" was combined with the question of efficiency, and that any money they voted for Voluntary Schools was to go, not to mere necessity, which, in many cases, was self-created, and therefore did not deserve consideration, but to be used entirely in promoting increased efficiency. The word "necessitous" was one which nobody seemed to be able to define, and which the hon. Member for West Ham had just assured them he was at a loss to find a definition for. Unless, therefore, they had some further definition of the term the Bill would go forth to the public as one in which none of those interested in education would have any light or leading at all in regard to this matter. They had not even had any attempted definition of the word "necessitous," except by the hon. and learned Member for Stroud, who had rushed in where the First Lord of the Treasury feared to tread. That hon. Member's definition of a necessitous

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  school was, to his mind, a ridiculously crude one, because he said a necessitous school was one in which the expenditure exceeded the income. That was only one of very many elements in regard to the question of necessity, and, in many cases, was one of the last considerations which would have to be taken into account in defining necessity. The First Lord of the Treasury practically threw over this definition of his supporter, and admitted that he was not in a position to define what was a necessitous school. In regard to all the questions that had been raised they wished to know from the Government whether, for instance, a school, of which the clergyman was the sole manager, could claim the special aid grant without the Department insisting upon more efficient management. More information was needed as to what the Government meant by "necessitous" schools. He contended that public money would be largely used in many cases, not to relieve educational necessity, but denominational necessity, and would not be used, as they thought, it should be, simply for increased efficiency, but to keep alive schools which, from an educational point of view, had much better become extinct. They also wanted information on the important point what was meant by necessitous schools, especially as between denomination and denomination. Nearly every Roman Catholic School in the country was in every sense of the term a "necessitous" school. Subscriptions to keep them going were raised with difficulty, and these schools boasted with great justice that they had never transferred one of their schools to a School Board. If the Vice President took the same number of Roman Catholic schools as of Church of England schools he would probably see that the former were, on the whole, more necessitous than the latter, and it was a question whether the same amount per head would be voted to the Church of England association as to the Roman Catholic association. Some of the Church Schools would not require any grant; the others in the association would get from 5s. up to £1 per head, while the Roman Catholic, the practically necessitous schools, would at the outside receive only 5s. or 6s. per head. The real point in favour of the Amendment was that, if passed, it would give discretion to the Education Department to allot the grant
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  in the way they thought best for educational efficiency, and if there was put in a word such as "necessity" which no one could define, it would greatly hamper the action of the Education Department, lead to a large amount of money being wasted by its being given to so-called necessitous schools, which could never be efficient, leaving less for poor but efficient schools whose efficiency would be largely improved by the additional grant. On that ground chiefly, and because he wanted some further definition of necessitous schools, he moved his Amendment. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,)said hon. Members opposite were raising the same questions on every Amendment. The hon. Member who had just spoken had several times raised questions which were discussed on the last Amendment. That there should be some control as to subscriptions was a matter they were going to discuss. As had been pointed out, the question of the associations did not arise on the Amendment. The hon. Member had again asked the Government to define "necessitous" schools. The hon. Member knew that an answer had been given. It was an answer that in his own humble judgment was satisfactory. No definition could possibly define the varying conditions or include all the difficulties of a school which might be properly called "necessitous," and to include specific cases which they would all agree would be necessitous, would be the worst thing they could do, because not even the united skill of the Bench opposite assisted by Gentlemen below the Gangway, could define all the cases of necessity that should be included.
  MR. BUXTONsaid the Government proposed by the Bill to give a special aid grant to necessitous schools, and the onus was on them to define what necessitous meant.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid it was not difficult to say what was a necessitous school. The difficulty was to give a definition which would include all necessitous schools. If the restrictive words in the Bill were cut out by the Amendment, non-necessitous schools would have a right to claim help. The real fact was that the words in the Bill were necessary to guide the Education Department in the exercise of their discretion. The hon.

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  Member had certainly overlooked two cases which rendered the words absolutely necessary. Take a school where the teachers were good but underpaid, and schools which were thoroughly good but carried on at a loss. These were both cases of necessitous schools, and no one could deny that there might be many other cases which the Education Department might regard as necessitous. The hon. Member had asked the question as to what was a necessitous school 15 or 16 times. The only method that could be adopted was to indicate a necessitous school as a school which might be helped, and put upon the Education Department the responsible obligation of fulfilling the duty of helping it. For these reasons the Government regarded the words proposed to be cut out as necessary in the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. HENRY BROADHURSTsaid the Attorney General complained that the same question was asked again and again; their complaint was that it had never been answered. This Bill, as drawn up, gave no definition whatever of what was a necessitous school. Moreover, it did not give any guarantee that the public funds should not be devoted to schools that were not necessitous. There were many schools that might be necessitous entirely through mismanagement or incompetency, and those schools ought not to have the same consideration as schools that were necessitous from sheer poverty. How were they going to prevent other schools that were not necessitous from receiving equal help from the public funds as the necessitous schools received? The Attorney General utterly failed to give them an explanation, and they might, therefore, fairly conclude that the question they put was unanswerable, and could not be explained. The Attorney General wanted to relegate to a lot of inexperienced country rectors, vicars, farmers and squires a point of law which he admitted that he himself was perfectly incapable of explaining. Surely it was reasonable to appeal to him to give them his assistance. They were honestly desirous of understanding this matter, and they had the right to come to the paid Law Officer of the Crown to help them to give advice to their constituents on a point of such importance. They had the advantage of the presence
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  of the Solicitor General also, and he suggested that the Attorney General and the Solicitor General should consult together for half an hour to see whether they could not frame some definition; or, failing that, to see whether they could not make up their minds to advise their friends to re-draft the Bill. He should support his hon. Friend if he went to a division.
  MR. HARRY FOSTERsaid the House must have been intensely amused at the pathetic appeal of the hon. Gentleman to the Law Officers, but he was afraid that advice was asked for in the spirit of those who had already made up their minds. He had listened carefully to the explanation of the Attorney General, and he had made the explanation of the word "necessitous" perfectly clear to the Committee. As he understood it, the difficulty of putting a definition on the word "necessitous" into the Act was, that any number of cases might arise in which a school ought to be helped out of this fund, but would not be helped if the definition were inserted in the Act. Hon. Gentlemen seemed to think that the Education Department should have an absolute discretion to do what it liked with the public money. As he understood the Bill, the Education Department would have a fixed sum given to it, and, subject to distinguishing between town and country schools, it would be bound by every scheme put before it by an association when once it had approved of that scheme. No scheme of any local association would be approved by a responsible Minister unless that scheme provided for the efficiency of the school; and if the responsible Minister exercised his discretion wrongly it would be open to that House to raise the question. If the Amendment were carried it would mean that the necessity for helping the needy schools would be removed. These words were words of limitation, in that they limited the distribution of this money to necessitous schools; the only complaint was, that necessitous schools were not defined; but he had no doubt those words would be liberally construed by the Education Department and the local associations, whereas, if the words were taken out, there would be nothing to guide the Department.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWENcomplained that they had never had anything but evasive answers in regard to this matter.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEYsaid he thought the Government were well advised in not attempting to define the word "necessitous." In his opinion it was impossible to do it. As there were an infinite variety of schools, and as each school would have to be considered on its merits, all Voluntary Schools would, practically speaking, claim to be necessitous. If a school was not necessitous in the pecuniary sense it would be necessitous in the sense that it desired to extend the scope of its operations, and it would therefore claim to be necessitous within the meaning of the Bill. The circumstances of the schools were so varied that it would be impossible to define those that were necessitous, and the better and more simple plan would be to administer the grant all round to all Voluntary Schools.
  MR. A. H. DYKE ACLANDsaid he found himself in full accord with the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. The hon. Member had pointed out what he had ventured to express on other Amendments, namely, that they might define the words "necessitous schools" or leave them undefined as much as they pleased, but they would find in the practical working of the scheme that in 90 per cent. of the schools amongst which the grant would be administered, they would not be able to distinguish between the necessitous and the non-necessitous schools. What would happen was that as in the vast number of cases, there was no absolute distinction between necessitous and non-necessitous schools; between rich and poor schools, the word "necessitous" would in the long run be regarded as a phrase of no meaning. It seemed to him, therefore, that it would be far better to leave out the words "necessitous schools" and say that the money was to be distributed as the Department thought best for increasing the efficiency of the schools. According to a report in The Guardian of February 24, of the proceedings in the lower House of the Convocation of York, which met to consider this Bill, when the sub-section the Committee were now debating was reached, Mr. Mapeland Wood said that in his opinion
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  the sub-section rigidly restricted the Department to helping necessitous schools, and moved the substitution of "those" for "necessitous." The Dean of Manchester then said, "I second that. 'Necessitous' is full of mischief." And the Convocation of York, unlike the House of Commons, agreed to that Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think that if there is to be obstruction, it should be artistic obstruction. [Opposition cries of "Oh!" and Ministerial cheers.] I have made an observation which has given some offence to the other side; but I remember that about a week ago, when we were considering the first line of the first Clause of the Bill, an Amendment was moved to insert the word "necessitous" before the words "Voluntary Schools." [Cheers.] That was argued at enormous length[cheers]—by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had none of these difficulties about defining necessitous schools then. [Cheers.] In the very first line of the Bill they thought it better to introduce the word "necessitous" so governing the whole sub-section.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that there was no question of obstruction here at all. [Cries of "Oh!" and laughter.] The Government had all along declared that the object was to relieve necessitous schools; and naturally, in considering the clause under which the money was granted, the Opposition moved to insert the word "necessitous," in order to confine the grant to necessitous schools. That was no reason why, on the second sub-section the Government should not be asked to define "necessitous." [Ministerial cries of "You want to leave it out!"] The Government were asked to leave it out for Parliamentary reasons which were perfectly well known. [Ironical Ministerial cheers and laughter.] It was in order to give hon. Gentlemen opposite an opportunity of fulfilling the task to which they had shown themselves indifferent. What, in the name of goodness, was the use of bringing in a Bill to help "necessitous schools" if no one could define the phrase? The Attorney General had said that he would not answer the question because it had been answered 15 times.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: I said the question had been answered over and over again by instances of necessitous

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  schools being given. But I said, at the same time, that no exhaustive definition could be given.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that the Attorney General had given two instances—one of a school where the teachers were underpaid, and the other where the school was carried on at a loss. As to the first, the Government had refused an Amendment securing the better payment of teachers; and as to the second, he would read Canon Nunn's letter to the Guardian in last December:—
  "When we come to deal with deficiency of income—and this, of course, only arises in Voluntary Schools—such deficiency is caused either, first, by lack of school fees, or (2) by want of sufficient subscriptions, or (3) by poor Government grants, arising from bad teaching or inefficient management."
  As to the want of fees, the Government had been asked to restrict the aid to schools where no fees were charged, and they had refused. As to deficient subscriptions, the Government had been asked over and over again whether they were going to call those schools necessitous in which subscriptions had been abandoned altogether; and they had refused to answer. And as to the poor Government grants, was it to be said that a school was necessitous and had established its claim to further aid from Parliament because the teaching was bad and the management inefficient? The Attorney General, the Solicitor General, and the First Lord of the Treasury had all refused to define a necessitous school. There was one other occupant of the Treasury Bench who knew, or should know—the Vice President of the Council. If the right hon. Gentleman would not give the Committee his own opinion, let him expound that of the Committee of Council.
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts,)rose to speak, when
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYclaimed to move "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 265; Noes, 111.—(Division List, No. 79.)
  Question put accordingly, "That the words 'for the purpose of helping necessitous' stand part of the clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 280; Noes, 116.—(Division List, No. 80.)
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I beg to move. "That the Quespart of the clause' be now put." [Oppo-to the word "due," in line 12, stand part of the Clause' be now put." [Opposition cries of "Oh, oh!" and Ministerial cheers.]
  Question put, "That the Question, That the words of the clause down to the word "due," in line 12, stand part of the clause' be now put."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 275; Noes, 119.—(Division List, No. 81.)
  Question put accordingly, "That the words of the clause down to the word 'due' in line 12, stand part of the clause."
  *The Committee divided:—Ayes, 294; Noes, 115.
  MR. GEORGE LAMBERT, moved in Sub-section (2) after the word "efficiency," to insert the words:—
  "Provided that no school shall be so helped the voluntary subscriptions in support of which fall short of the average of the past three years."
  He observed that on a former occasion the Leader of the House stated that what the Voluntary Schools wanted was money. He trusted, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would accept this Amendment in order to insure that the subscriptions to Voluntary Schools should be kept up. At present the Bill contained no provision requiring that the subscriptions should be maintained at their existing level. There was, in fact, only a pious opinion expressed that the aid grant should not be used in relief of subscribers. There were two classes of subscribers in country districts, the clergyman and the squire, who did not as a rule care so much about education—["Oh, oh!"]—but who in subscribing liked to patronise their parishioners, and

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  to be able to say, "This is my school, and I shall do what I like with it." ["Oh, oh," and derisive laughter.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite disbelieved that, he would refer them to an article contributed to the North American Review by the Vice President of the Council, dealing with the educational enthusiasm of the territorial aristocracy. ["Hear, hear!"] Another class of subscribers to Voluntary Schools were those who did so in order to avoid School Boards and save the School Board Rate. If the Amendment was not accepted, there was a risk that this amount of money to be voted would go into the pockets of the voluntary subscribers instead of being devoted to educational purposes. In the case of a necessitous school in a country district with subscriptions to the amount of 5s. per head, and a non-necessitous school with a subscription list of 10s. per head, the last-named might receive no grant from the Vote, but the school with the 5s. list, supposed to be necessitous, would receive a grant. Those subscribers who subscribed 10s. per child were, therefore, subscribing for the benefit of schools in localities other than their own. They knew how difficult it was for voluntary subscriptions to be maintained for schools in the immediate locality of the subscriber. How much more difficult would it be therefore, unless a proviso of this kind were inserted, to get subscribers to support schools in which they had no interest. Under the Associations Clause there would be no guarantee that those voluntary subscribers would not be relieved of their subscriptions; all they would fear would be the disfavour of their bishops. In 1870 the subscriptions averaged 6s. 11¾d. per child in average attendance. In 1877 they were increased to 8s. 8¾d. because grants were only given in proportion to the amount of subscriptions to the schools. In 1876 the 17s. 6d. limit was established, and there was no need for voluntary subscribers to subscribe so largely, and they did not do it. The subscriptions had gradually dwindled till in 1894 they sunk to 6s. 6¼d. per child. This fact clearly showed that the voluntary subscribers would not subscribe to their schools unless absolutely compelled to do so. ["No, no!"]
  MR. BARTLEY: What is the gross amount?
  MR. LAMBERTsaid he was giving the amount taken from the Education Department returns. If the gross amount of subscriptions were more than they were twenty years ago, they were not so much per child in average attendance, and therefore the subscribers did not cope with the growing necessities of education. [Ministerial cheers.] Then, if they were unable to cope with the growing necessities of education, why did they come to Parliament and ask it to vote an additional sum of money without a shadow of local control for schools that were called voluntary I It seemed to him perfectly ridiculous. If these were Voluntary Schools, let subscriptions be forthcoming or let them be State Schools, or denominational schools, at any rate erase the word "voluntary." The cost of education in 1877 was 33s. 9d. per head, in 1894 it was 38s. 1d., an increase of 4s. 4d. per head. And how had Government grants increased? In 1877 Government grants and fees were 25s. a head, but in 1894 the amount had increased to 30s. 4d., an increase of 5s. 4d., while voluntary subscriptions had decreased by 2s. 2½d conclusively proving that if the Government grant was high and Parliament voted liberal sums for maintenance, then subscriptions fell off. He had been very interested in seeing how churchmen, as represented by hon. Gentlemen opposite, had endeavoured to evade their responsibilites in this matter. In 1888 the present Archbishop of Canterbury, then Bishop of London, proposed an Amendment to the Education Commission Report, in which he said—
  "We cannot recommend that in any case grants from the Department should exceed the amount contributed on the spot and that as a condition of management subscribers should provide a substantial share of the cost."
  In 1895 the late Archbishop of Canterbury said, "We do not want to reduce our subscriptions." That was precisely the text of this Amendment that voluntary subscriptions should not be reduced. "No one," said the late Archbishop,
  "thinks that we are not willing to have a certain proportion of subscriptions insisted upon as a condition of this grant."

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  Here then was the Archbishop in 1888 declaring that no grant from the Department should exceed the amount provided on the spot. The Report of the Commission said a substantial share of the burden of the costs should be borne by the localiiy, and two years ago the late Archbishop said a certain proportion of subscriptions should be insisted upon, and yet now all the Government did was to provide that "due regard shall be had to voluntary subscriptions." They did not go so far as the bishops did to insure that subscriptions should be kept up to their present level. What was the House called upon to vote? The amount was said to be £616,000, but, inasmuch as the 17s. 6d. limit was to be abolished and the schools were to be free from rating, there would be considerably more than £616,000 from the public funds. He hoped the late Vice President, who occupied office in the years 1889–92, would support this Amendment; for he said on February 2 that he thought
  'it should be a sine quâ non that in all cases where assistance was given there should be some guarantee on the part of the locality that subsisting subscriptions should be maintained."
  What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say, speaking at Bristol, on November 14 last year?
  "If it was in his power to relieve the supporters of Voluntary Schools in Bristol from every penny of their future subscriptions towards the maintenance of schools, he would not do it; for he was convinced that if schools ceased to be voluntarily supported, they should cease to be denominational and, in a word, to exist."
  It was to be hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would persuade his colleagues to accept this Amendment to insure that voluntary subscriptions should be maintained at their present level, thus securing the continuity of Voluntary Schools, and also that the Grant proposed to be allotted should be devoted, not to the relief of subscribers, but entirely to educational purposes. He moved the Amendment standing in his name.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: There are two questions connected with this Amendment which might be raised, but which I will not discuss.
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  First, the broad question which has been raised outside as to whether the State has the right to require voluntary subscriptions at all in dealing with the national necessities of elementary education; and the other is the practical difficulty that would be raised if this Amendment were accepted in determining the amount of voluntary subscriptions in any three years. In truth, I think the hon. Gentleman will see, if he considers the matter, that on the immediate merits of his Amendment his contention can hardly be sustained. Take this simple case. You have a country parish in which there is, let us say, one wealthy landowner who has liberally subscribed to the support of the Voluntary School in the parish. He dies, and his property passes into the hands of trustees, who for one reason or another think themselves precluded from continuing the policy hitherto carried out by the owner of the property. How can it be maintained that a school under such circumstances, by the mere fact of a change of ownership in the parish, should change deprived from deriving any benefit under this Bill? ["Hear, hear!"] There are hundreds of other cases of a similar kind. There are cases, for example, in the suburbs of our big towns in which the villa population is gradually being expelled and driven further afield by a working class population far less able than their predecessors to support Voluntary Schools. [Cheers.] I might go on multiplying cases of that sort. How is it possible to contend that either in the case of a country parish, which I have described, or a suburban district, which I have also described, you are compulsorily to fine districts suffering from this change of fortune because, through no fault of their own, through no illiberality on the part of any person concerned, the value of the subscriptions is less than what it was in the three preceding years? [Cheers.] I think the statement of these two concrete instances which. I have given to the Committee is sufficient to show the hon. Gentleman that his Amendment could not be accepted. ["Hear, hear!"] I will go further. The cases I have cited to the Committee are cases in which changes have occurred. Take the case in which no change has taken place and in which,

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  in my judgment, a relief to voluntary subscribers is legitimate. Take the case of a poor clergyman who is enthusiastic for education in his parish and who spends out of his scanty emoluments an amount altogether disproportionate to anything that can properly be demanded of him in support of the Voluntary Schools. Though I am as strong as the hon. Gentleman in thinking that this money should not, broadly speaking, go to voluntary subscribers, I think that is a case in which voluntary subscribers may ask legitimately for some relief from the State. [Cheers.] I believe other cases can be found in our big towns of a similar character. It, perhaps, more concerns Roman Catholics than it does either Anglicans or any Nonconformist sect, but certainly there are very poor districts in our big towns in which the whole burden of the Voluntary Schools falls upon the pennies of the very poor. [Cheers.] In that case also, as in the one I have just cited, I think some relief to voluntary subscriptions may not illegitimately be demanded from this subvention of the State, and for these reasons I think the Committee would act most imprudently if they endeavoured by any hard and fast line to stereotype in every single case the total amount of voluntary subscriptions each year to be given in any particular district. Having said so much, I must, before I sit down, say I trust the Committee will not suppose I am of opinion that the system of Voluntary Schools can be kept up in this country unless the voluntary subscribers are prepared, broadly speaking and ill the main, to maintain or even to increase the aid they now give to Voluntary Schools—["hear, hear!"]—and my hope and belief is that there will be no falling off generally of voluntary subscriptions. Of course, if the voluntary subscribers take the view which is attributed to them by some persons in this House, if they are animated by purely selfish considerations, if their view simply is that the State is giving money which they are willing to see used to save their own pockets, then I say the system of Voluntary Schools will be in serious danger. ["Hear, hear!"] I anticipate no such results from this Bill. [Cheers.] The hon. Gentleman, following upon speakers who have preceded him in the previous Amendment, has expressed a fear lest in certain cases people should
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  voluntarily leave off their subscriptions in order to obtain a share of the aid grant. In my opinion self-induced poverty of that kind has no title to assistance. [Cheers.] The well-to-do man who says, "Here is the State coming to my assistance; let me save the £5, or £10, or £20 (or whatever it is) I have hitherto given my Voluntary School," deserves no consideration, and I trust he will receive no consideration under the Bill. [Cheers.] I draw some encouragement from the fact that when the State gave the 10s. grant to all schools—Voluntary and Board Schools—in the kingdom, that event which did greatly ease the position of a large number of Voluntary Schools in the country districts was, taking the country as a whole, followed by no diminution in voluntary subscriptions, and I think it is a most remarkable and encouraging fact that, in spite of agricultural depression, in spite of the enormous difficulties which both the clergy and laity in the country districts have had to face in recent years in the support of local charities, the voluntary subscriptions to the schools in these country districts have not only not materially fallen off, but have, I believe, in the main increased. [Cheers.] I urge the acceptance of the words in the Bill, which will have the double effect of promoting relaxation in the strain of voluntary subscriptions where relaxation is legitimate, and prevent it from occurring as a general fact all over the country. They are words which I think are absolutely necessary to give necessary elasticity, but they do not constitute an encouragement to the subscribers of Voluntary Schools to relax those philanthropic efforts on the continuance of which the existence of Voluntary Schools must in the long run depend. [Cheers.]
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I am sure, from the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman has addressed himself to this question, that he feels it is one of the serious questions of the Bill. He cannot conceal from himself that there is a widespread belief that one of the results of the Bill will be to relieve Voluntary Schools from this necessity of voluntary subscriptions. [Ministerial cries of "No!"] That that belief exists no one can deny, and that it is one of the great apprehensions

  243
  in regard to the Bill no one can question. The right hon. Gentleman himself has expressed an opinion that we were glad to hear—that, in his judgment, it is absolutely necessary to the existence of Voluntary Schools that subscriptions should be maintained. But he must also be aware that that opinion is not shared by what I may call the denominational party generally. He stated that there was an opinion among many people that voluntary subscriptions ought not to be demanded as a condition of additional grants. It is denied by a large proportion of the supporters of voluntary subscriptions that they should be maintained. We have seen the correspondence of the Bishops on the subject, in which it is challenged that any voluntary subscription should be demanded at all. In removing the 17s. 6d. limit you are unquestionably removing one of the great securities to voluntary subscriptions. The fear of many outside, and, I believe, inside, the House is, that this Bill does not give adequate security for the maintenance of voluntary subscriptions which the right hon. Gentleman says he desires to maintain or which he thinks are essential to the Voluntary Schools. With reference to the opinion that voluntary subscriptions should not be maintained as a condition of further grants to Voluntary Schools, all I can say is, that anyone who denies that must be prepared to overthrow altogether the settlement of 1870, because that settlement was absolutely founded on this clear principle—that the exemption from popular control and representation was conceded to Voluntary Schools solely on the ground of adequate voluntary subscription. That is the principle on which the whole of our legislation has gone hitherto, and, although in 1876, when a relaxation was made, still that principle was maintained as a fundamental principle upon which Voluntary Schools were entitled to receive public money without the public control which of course exists in reference to the Board Schools. I venture to say the Bill does not give any adequate or real assurance that voluntary subscriptions will be properly maintained. The whole speech of the right hon. Gentleman—though he said he desired that voluntary subscriptions should be maintained—was a cata-
  244
  logue of cases in which they ought not to be maintained, and those cases might be multiplied to any extent. The example of the impecunious parson of whom we have heard will be followed by the impecunious landlord. And how are you to ascertain whether or not a man who has subscribed is not able to subscribe any longer? Are you going to examine his mortgages and ascertain the number of his children? Unless you are going to lay down a rule such as the 17s. 6d. limit, how it is to be decided what is an adequate subscription or not in every parish in the country? Hitherto some rule has been maintained, to a certain degree, in regard to the adequacy of the subscription; but you are going to get rid of that rule, and in its place you are substituting nothing that gives any assurance whatever. From parish after parish where diminution of subscriptions takes place you will have representations that they have not the means to continue them. How is the Education Department to deal with that? ["Hear, hear!"] How can they deal with the minute parishes that are scattered over the country? These discussions have run very much open the condition of the large towns, and naturally all the elements of education are to be found there, but really the difficulties in all these cases lie not so much in the large towns as in the small parishes scattered throughout the country. ["Hear, hear!"] Those who have enlarged on this subject solely from the point of view of the large towns can never have lived in country parishes, and must be utterly unacquainted with the difficulties that arise there. Unless you attempt in some way or other to give some instruction that shall influence and guide the decision of the Education Department you will have no means of arriving at any reasonable conclusion on this subject. We really are here on the very pith and marrow of the question. If you are dealing with the Voluntary Schools you are dealing with the question of subscriptions, and while you are dealing with the question of subscriptions I venture to think that we ought very carefully to endeavour to secure some greater assurance for maintaining that vital principle of Voluntary Schools than that which is now to be found in the Bill. [Cheers.]
  MR. ABEL THOMASsupported the Amendment. He imagined these words had some meaning, and he supposed they were intended to mean that due regard should be had to the maintenance of voluntary subscriptions. Various arguments had been advanced against the Amendment, but it seemed to him that some such Amendment as was now suggested was absolutely necessary. If it was urged that no regard should be had to the maintenance of voluntary subscriptions at all, what was the use of retaining words of this kind?
  The hon. Member was speaking at Midnight, when the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

MILITARY WORKS (MONEY) BILL.
Committee deferred till To-morrow.
PUBLIC HEALTH (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [5th February] further adjourned till Thursday.
LAW OF EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL CASES) BILL.
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ALDERSHOT AND FARNBOROUGH) BILL.
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
BERRIEW SCHOOL BILL.
Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
MILITARY LANDS ACT (1892) AMENDMENT BILL.
Committee deferred till Thursday.
SUPPLY.
Committee deferred till Wednesday.
WAYS AND MEANS.
Committee deferred till Wednesday.
ASSISTANT COUNTY SURVEYORS (IRELAND) BILL.
Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUA- TION ACT (1896) AMENDMENT BILL.
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT (1894) AMENDMENT BILL.
Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
JURIES DETENTION BILL.
Committee deferred till To-morrow.
ARCHDEACONRY OF LONDON (ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS) BILL.
Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [24th February] further adjourned till Monday next.
LICENSING EXEMPTION (HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT) BILL.
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.

EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (IRE- LAND) ACT, 1885 (LIMERICK, KILLA- LOE, AND KILFENORA DIOCESAN SCHOOL).
MR. LECKYmoved:—
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to withhold Her Consent from paragraph 5 of Scheme No. 90, Supplemental, framed by the Educational Endowments Commissioners relating to the Endowment heretofore belonging to the Limerick, Killaloe, and Kilfenora Diocesan School, which provides for sale by public auction of the premises known as the Roxborough Road School, held by the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg, and to disapprove of any part of the said Supplemental Scheme, which will operate to have the said premises sold without giving to the said Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg a right of pre-emption of the said premises or payment of compensation for his expenditure thereon and disturbance therein."
He said that the Motion was not of great compass, and he hoped to be able to state the simple facts without giving much offence to hon. Gentlemen opposite. The diocesan school to which the Motion referred dated back from Queen Elizabeth's time. In the 12th year of Her Majesty's reign, a Measure was passed with a curious preamble lamenting "the rude and barbarous state of the great majority of the people of Ireland"—[Ironical Nationalist cheers and laughter]—and "the many and heinous offences which they, through utter ignorance, daily and hourly commit." [Ironical Nationalist cheers and laughter.] To remedy this state of things it was provided that in every diocese there should be a free Protestant English-speaking school, to be placed in the principal town of the diocese, unless a school existed there previously. This, like so many other Irish Acts, was not very perfectly observed, but it continued more or less operative until the disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869. The original Diocesan School of Limerick fell into complete ruin, and was rebuilt on another site in 1837 by funds which were raised by the Grand Jury of the County and City of Limerick. [Nationalist cheers.] It was placed in the parish
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of St. Lawrence, of which parish Canon Gregg was now rector. When the diocesan character of these schools was done away with on the disestablishment of the Church, they passed into the hands of the Education Commissioners. Canon Gregg entered into negotiations with. Mr. Hall, the occupier of the schools, who had compounded and commuted under the Church Act, and on his death in 1874 he obtained possession from the widow. He did this after consultation with the Secretary of the Educational Commissioners, and in February 1875 the Commissioners formally sanctioned his occupancy of the building during the next two years. The school was used as the parish parochial school of the parish of St. Lawrence. The tenancy of Canon Gregg was at first of a provisional character, pending the settlement of some dispute about terms between him and the Commissioners, but since 1880 he had been a regular yearly tenant at a small rent. The school when he took it was in a state of extreme dilapidation, but in his hands it has become a considerable institution. When the Commissioners of Endowed Charities looked into the matter in 1879 they found that there were 99 scholars on the roll, 64 of whom were boarders, and that the whole establishment was supported by voluntary subscriptions, which amounted to no less than £700 a year. Lord Randolph Churchill visited the school at that time and pronounced its state to be admirable. ["Hear, hear!"] When the Educational Endowments Act was passed in 1885 the Educational Commissioners resolved to sell this as well as some other properties which they had in Limerick. The question then arose what was to be done with Canon Gregg and his school? There had been a college called Mungrets College in the possession of the Jesuit body in Limerick, and the course taken in that case was that the Jesuit body received the right of pre-emption at a valuation ascertained by the Commissioners. Canon Gregg supported by the Diocesan Council

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of Limerick, petitioned that the same course should be adopted in his case. The two Judicial Commissioners at this time were Lord Justice Fitzgibbon and Lord Justice Naish. They were both inclined to give Canon Gregg the pre-emption he asked, and in a letter to him dated December 12, 1885, they pronounced themselves "favourably inclined towards such a project," but Unable as yet to arrive at a final conclusion. Lord Justice Naish about this time died, and Judge O'Brien who succeeded him objected to the preemption. In consequence of his dissent the Judicial Commissioners came to the conclusion that Canon Gregg should not have pre-emption, but that he should be compensated to the extent of £450—£400 for permanent improvements and £50 for goodwill. The scheme was sent to the Privy Council, who reverted to the former plan, and instead of a money compensation, decided to grant Canon Gregg the pre-emption which he desired. The matter was again referred to the Education Commissioners, and they employed their own valuer, and consulted other valuers as well, and the result of the transaction was that the school was valued at £831. The matter came no less than three times before the Irish Privy Council, and three times the Council recommended that Canon Gregg should receive pre-emption at the valuation thus established by the Commissioners, and nearly everybody believed at that time that on that basis the scheme would become law. On May 20, 1895, in the last days of an expiring Parliament, and an expiring Ministry, the matter was brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, and he urged that the pre-emption clause should be struck out. He did not, however, propose that the compensation clause should be inserted, and the fact that the pre-emption scheme was brought forward as an alternative to a compensation scheme was never brought under the cognisance of the House, and was not even mentioned in the Debate. The Irish Government at
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that time was represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, and, considering the relation of Parties at that time, it is not surprising that he should have supported the hon. Member for Louth, but it was a surprising circumstance that the right hon. Gentleman representing the Irish Government never informed the House that the Judicial Commissioners had recommended that Canon Gregg should receive compensation for his improvements. The matter was represented merely in this way, that the Judicial Commissioners were right and the Privy Council wrong, and that by simply striking out the preemption clause they came back to the position which the Judicial Commissioners had taken. Under such circumstances, and through such representations, at one o'clock in the morning, and by a majority of five, the pre-emption clause was struck out, the effect being that Canon Gregg was not only deprived of the pre-emption, which the Privy Conned had proposed to give him, but also of the money compensation which the Judicial Commissioners thought he ought to have. A more shabby proceeding he never heard. The right hon. Member for Montrose dwelt on the superiority of the judgment of the Judicial Commissioners in this matter. What these Commissioners really thought of the transaction is sufficiently shown in their own protest against its extreme injustice. They
"pointed out that the effect of striking out the pre-emption clause, without reinstating the original compensation clause, would be to deprive the Rev. Canon Gregg both of the right of pre-emption directed by His Excellency in Council, and also of the compensation to which the Judicial Commissioners originally, and still, thought him to be justly entitled, in substitution for which the clause for pre-emption was inserted. They thought that if the right for pre-emption should be taken away, the right of compensation for which the pre-emption had been substituted ought to be restored; and they suggested that it was probable that if attention had been called to it at the time, the Resolution of the House of Commons would have been so expressed." This, in their opinion, "would be the just and expedient course to pursue."

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In spite, however, of this protest, the Privy Council, considering, perhaps, that they were bound by the Resolution of the House of Commons, sent back the scheme exactly in the form in which it was passed through the House of Commons in May, 1895—[Mr. T. M. HEALY: "No, no!"]—that was to say, without any clause of pre-emption and without any clause giving compensation. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "No!"] Probably the House would think there was something behind this matter, for it was almost inconceivable that an act of such flagrant injustice could have been done. The root of the opposition arose in the animosity of a very eminent and powerful person, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Bishop O'Dwyer, to these schools. He had no wish to speak disrespectfully of Bishop O'Dwyer, who had shown in very difficult circumstances both courage and uprightness. No one, however, would dispute that he was a pursuit of singularly masterful character, and both the Chief Secretary and some hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House had had occasion to learn that he was apt to express very strong opinions in very unmeasured language. [Laughter.] For a long time Bishop O'Dwyer had been attacking Canon Gregg and his school with extraordinary perseverance, and, he was afraid he must add, with not a little of that vindictiveness which might be sometimes traced in celestial minds. [Renewed laughter.] It was said that the school was a proselytising one. Of this he believed that there was not one scintilla of evidence, and Lord Justice Fitzgibbon had acquitted Canon Gregg of this charge. It was, however, true there were in the school many children of mixed marriages. They were placed there by their legal guardians, and brought up as Protestants at their wish. This was the sum total of the offence, and the chief cause of the opposition to the school. It was said that the manner in which Canon Gregg obtained possession of the
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school after the death of Mr. Hall was irregular. All he would say in reply was that whatever was then done was done with the full knowledege and cognisance of the Educational Commissioners, who were the legal landlords. It was said that the compensation in this compensation scheme was put too high, and the valuation in the pre-emption scheme too low. It may be answered that these sums were arrived at by qualified valuers, and fully sanctioned by the Judicial Commismissioners, who were the proper authorities to deal with them. On these grounds he believed absolutely nothing could be said against Canon Gregg. The House was not asked to determine between the rival schemes of pre-emption or compensation. All that they asked was that it should redress a gross and palpable injustice. He submitted that it was beyond all reasonable doubt that Canon Greg should either obtain the right of pre-emption which three Privy Councils had proposed to give him, or else that he should receive that pecuniary compensation which, after a careful investigation, the Commissioners had pronounced to be unquestionably his due. It was on these grounds that he confidently asked the House, as a matter of common honesty, to give Canon Gregg one or other of these two things.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he understood that he spoke there tonight by the favour of the hon. Member for West Belfast, who had been kind enough to challenge his right to speak.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid he was informed that it was a mere matter of professional etiquette, and not a matter of order, and therefore he did not raise the point.
MR. SPEAKER: Certainly this is no question of Order, as was pointed out by Mr. Speaker in the case of Mr. Ross in 1893.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he begged to inform the hon. Member for West Belfast that as a matter of fact he had never at any time received a fee, or acted as

253
counsel in this case. The Bishop of Limerick had been good enough to send him a brief, but, having acted in the matter in Parliament, he had returned it, which was more than could be said under similar circumstances of the hon. Member's colleagues, who had made themselves the loudest advocates in the case of the Erasmus Smith Endowments. The hon. Member for Trinity College had twitted the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose with having, in 1895, made a speech in which he had had the courage to advise the House what line it ought to take in a similar matter, but he should like to know whether that hon. Gentleman would now get up and advise the House what course it ought to take in reference to this matter. The hon. Member for Trinity College had no doubt made a very reasonable statement, but he would undertake to blow that statement out of the water. He was only sorry that a man who was so fair and so liberal as the hon. Member for Trinity College should represent so unfair and so illiberal a constituency. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The hon. Member was challenged by parsons on his election with probably the most illiberal fusilade ever directed against any candidate—["Question!"]—and to-night he was making amends for his speech in favour of amnesty for the Irish political prisoners. The hon. Member was doing penanance, in a. white sheet—[laughter]—before a constituency of parsons—["Oh, oh," and"Question!"]—who had called upon him to redress the wrongs of their Canon Gregg. ["Oh, oh!" and cries of "Question!" and "Divide!"] What were the wrongs of the Rev. Canon Gregg? They had heard in that House many denunciations of Irish tenants. The Irish tenants, at all events, were not squatters. Their possessions had been handed down to them from father to son—[laughter on the Ministerial side, and A VOICE: "Champagne!"]—and any rights they possessed had been won at great sacrifice. The hon. Gentleman had
254
said that Canon Gregg was entitled to compensation for his wrongs, because, under Lord Randolph Churchill's Act of 1885, he was at length compelled to see the school house, of which he had fraudulently obtained possession, put up to public auction. It would be found in the Minutes of the Evidence, taken before the Endowed Schools Commissioners, that Lord Randolph Churchill asked Canon Gregg how he got into possession of these premises, and a letter was read addressed to Canon Greg by a Mr. Hackett, the Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Schools. The letter was as follows:—
"Dublin, 4 November, 1874.
"My dear Friend,
"From what I can ascertain from a reliable source, I think if you got into possession of the premises, giving Mrs. Hall something to satisfy her, so as to put you in possession, and in that position you had to deal with the Commissioners, all would be right; and I fancy the parties in question would not object. Such is my position you will understand it from myself, not for a moment associating anyone with me in giving this advice. Still I write advisedly."
Mrs. Hall was the widow of Dr. Hall, the former schoolmaster, Lord Randolph Churchill asked Canon Gregg,
'By what process were you enabled to enter into possession of these premises?"
Answer,
"They came into my possession quite unexpectedly. Dr. Hall, the diocesan Schoolmaster, having compounded, was anxious to get away. Under the Church Act there could be no further payment to the school, which had ceased to be a diocesan school. Dr. Hall looked about to see what be could get for his interest, and applied to the Commissioners, but there was some difficulty there."
How did Dr. Hall then get possession of the school? He would read how from Cannon Gregg's own circular.
"Dr. Hall applied in 1865 to the Commissioners of Education to give him possession of the school house, which the secretary told him to get possession the best way he could. This he effected by paying 30s. to the parties then resident in the building, and then getting his bed in through a sitting room window."
[Laughter.] He hoped hon. Members opposite were proud of their protégé, who

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based a title to compensation on such proceedings. Thus Dr. Hall got his bed into the house by bribing the caretaker with 30s. He left his wife in the premises, and Canon Gregg gave Dr. Hall £30, and from 1874 to 1880—six years—he never paid one shilling or sixpence in rent. [Cheers and counter cheers.] Who had built these premises which now formed a battle ground for the House of Commons, and in which hon. Members took so much interest, that they were willing to stop out of their beds—a thing which they would not do for the Armenians? Canon Gregg's own account was that the premises were built at a cost of £1,913, and the ratepayers of the City and County of Limerick found the money, 95 per cent. of them being Roman Catholics. The money had all come out of the pockets of the occupiers; not one sixpence had been contributed by the landlords. What was the House asked to do? The hon. Member for Trinity College stated that he was in error in regard to the scheme which he was opposing. He had held no brief in this case, and he did not know the facts as some hon. Members opposite did, who had received briefs from the Rev. Mr. Gregg, and who would be heard no doubt in the Debate after the ruling of the Speaker. But he would take the statement of the rev. gentleman himself. The hon. Member for Trinity College had stated that the Rev. Mr. Gregg was getting no compensation whatever. What was his own statement?
"By the provisions of the supplemental scheme it is proposed that the Commissioners of Education shall put up for public auction all their estate and interest in the land, building, and premises described in the schedule annexed to the scheme, and the Rev. Mr. Gregg shall be entitled to absolute credit out of or against the purchase money to the sum of £400."
MR. EDWARD CARSON: That is the original scheme; that was struck out by the Privy Council.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he could only give the facts as they were stated in the statement of the rev. gen-
256
tleman himself. He did not know about this case beyond what he had read in the Blue-books, and in the statement of the rev. gentleman. What, then, was the meaning of the statement he had read?
"To that part of the proposal contained in the supplemental scheme relating to the sale by public auction of the estate and interest in the Commissioners of Education, land, building, and premises, I object.… I also object to the sum proposed to be allowed for goodwill and disturbance as insufficient."
MR. CARSON: The supplemental scheme in respect of which my hon. Friend has made his Motion is on the Table, and contains no such proposal for compensation as that to which the hon. Member refers.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he had not enjoyed the advantage of seeing the supplemental scheme which was laid on the Table. It was very difficult to get documents which were laid on the Table. He tried to get some information on the point, but every time he attempted he was told that some one else had the document. The Rev. Canon Gregg objected to the compensation on the ground that it was insufficient, and he claimed for a sum of £56 16s. 6d. expended upon sanitary alterations absolutely required. [Cries of "No, No!" and interruptions.] This rev. gentleman, according to his own account, objected to the amount of the allowance, and he had issued a statement to Members of the House.
[MR. JOHNSTON, crossing the floor of the House, handed a paper to the hon. and learned Gentleman].
MR. T. M. HEALYthanked the hon. Member, and quoting from the Scheme, said he could not see where was the injustice to the Rev. Canon Gregg. His tenancy was undisturbed, it was allowed to continue, the sale of the premises must take place subject to his tenancy—the tenancy of a gentleman who in six years had paid no rent. The rev. gentleman made a claim for compensation for improvements, but whoever heard of a tenant holding premises under a covenant to keep them

257
in repair getting compensation for having kept them in repair? If the Government, in relation to this Scheme, took the part of bigotry and supported the claim of this ecclesiastical squatter, if they took a line different to that which had been taken in regard to tenants in Ireland who had made their own improvements with their own hard work on their little holdings and were told that length of enjoyment was compensation, if this reverend descendant of the man who got in through the window was to have the right of pre-emption or compensation for disturbance, a man who never had a title or tenure, because he happened to be a proselytising clergyman, while they dealt so hardly with regard to the immemorial tenant of the soil who had been in possession, and his forefathers before him, so long as Ireland had been an agricultural country, what was to be said of their impartiality? That was the position of the Government, and remember they were doing that in the case of this man who was a town tenant at the best, while in the case of town tenants, as in the case of Kingstown, when men had claimed something like leasehold enfranchisement, they were turned out at the end of the lease without a sixpence of compensation. He should like to know what the Lord of Hatfield would think of this treatment. If men were to be turned out at the end of their leases with all their improvements confiscated, which were to pass into the landlord's possession, what was to be said of the man who never had a lease, who never had a tenure, but who was a mere squatter, who, for seven years had never paid a penny of his rent? Yet this House of Commons was now asked to reverse a decision of another House of Commons, just as one Royal Commission was appointed to reverse the decision of another, and then they declared the Government was a continuity! Yes, a continuity of fraud and imposture. The Irish Members were told of the great advantage they enjoyed in being
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allowed to come to that House and state their grievances before fair-minded Englishmen; and the fair minded Englishmen were driven there by the beaters of their Party, knowing or caring not one pin's point about the merits of the question, except that there was a Protestant clergyman at one end and a Catholic Bishop at the other. He only hoped the Bishop of Limerick and every other bishop would take that Debate to heart. The Bishop of Limerick gave support to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor and relative in the days when his Government wanted that support sorely. The Times was willing to applaud him for his courage, and now, to-night, his reward for this sustainment of what they were pleased to call the policy of law and order, was that the Government which was going to kill Home Rule by kindness had not the courage to do what the Member for Montrose did, at all events, and say—
An HON. MEMBER (from the Government Benches) : Where is the hon. Member for Montrose?
An IRISH MEMBER: In bed, where you ought to be. (Laughter.)
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that, at any rate, the Member for Montrose gave the House of Commons the benefit of his advice, which the Government refused. He would call the attention of the House to the way this matter came before them. When, on 21st May, 1895, the House annulled the former scheme, the late Government, about a fortnight afterwards, were defeated. But officials of the Irish Office of that day, instead of sending across that scheme to the Lord Lieutenant, although strongly pressed by urgent telegrams to send across the decision of the House of Commons in order that the Lord Lieutenant might make up his scheme and sign it, refused to respond to the telegrams from Dublin Castle, and it was kept on this side of the water until the late Lord Crewe went out and Lord Cadogan, he believed

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his name was—[Ministerial cries of "Oh!"]—they had so many grandees in Ireland that it was impossible to remember all their names. Although the intention of the House of Commons was plain, as anyone who read the Resolution of the House would see, what happened? It was delayed, that the Tory Lord Lieutenant might pass judgment upon it. There was anxiety to know what the Lord Lieutenant would do. The Chief Secretary was asked by the Bishop the cause of the delay. Here was the reply, dated 18th February, 1896:—
"It became essential for His Excellency to be definitely informed whether the right of preemption was intended as a substitute for compensation. If so, then it was obvious that the ordinary scheme for the amount of pre-emption right might work grave injustice."
The Privy Council did, apparently, according to the statement, restore the scheme to the form in which it was left, by Parliament in May of 1895. What was the body that did this? It was a body of Privy Councillors, the majority of whom were Protestants. Having heard the arguments of the reverend gentleman and his counsel, and after having stated that he delayed the Lord Lieutenant's sanction to the scheme in order that it might be laid before the Privy Council (and the Privy Council had reiterated the decision of the House of Commons and endorsed it), the right hon. Gentleman was, he understood, about to declare that he, would leave the House to its own free will—in other words, to its Protestant opinion. After 17 years' experience of that House, he held the opinion that it was absolutely impossible for any Catholic ever to get justice from that House. [Cries of "Oh!"] He was further of the opinion that it was absolutely impossible for any Catholic in Ireland as against a Protestant to get justice. Their liberality was all pretence, and their fair-mindedness a sham. He hoped the true inwardness of this apparently small matter would come home to those who had governed thought and
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opinion in Ireland, and that they would come to the conclusion that he had come to—that, without either force or violence in Ireland, or something approaching to it in that House, there was no more chance of justice for an Irishman than there was for a man who was being robbed to secure justice front a brigand.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,)said that on occasions similar to this it was the practice of the Government to refrain from directing the way the House ought to vote, and from that practice they should not attempt to depart on the present occasion. The hon. Member for Louth, having a knowledge of the course the Government was likely to take, had twitted them on what he called their want of courage, and compared them to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, who, when Chief Secretary, had taken a decided line on this subject. He should have more respect for the courage of the right hon. Gentleman had he been present to explain how it was that, having voted in favour of the hon. Member for Louth on the former occasion, he would not vote for the Resolution of the hon. Member for Dublin University on the present occasion. Speaking for himself personally, he should be glad to be able to remain silent on the present occasion, especially in view of the somewhat angry correspondence which he had had in connection with the Roxborough Road School with one of those interested in the question. But silence would probably expose him to some misinterpretation, and, moreover, he thought the House had a right to expect that he should endeavour to throw some light on the confusion and obscurity with which the successive decisions of conflicting authorities had invested the question. He had noticed in the course of the tenure of his office that it not unfrequently happened in Ireland that questions which were of the least importance excited the angriest feelings

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and gave the greatest amount of trouble. The entire capital value of the endowment disputed in the present instance was not more than between £800 and £900. But in connection with the claims of a single individual in regard to this property the whole machinery of the Judicial Commissioners, the Privy Council and Parliament had been engaged twice over. The Privy Council had in connection with this question differed twice from the Judicial Commissioners. It had differed once from itself. Parliament had once differed from the, Privy Council, and now, if the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University was accepted, Parliament would for the second time have differed from the Privy Council. The question now presented to the House was one of the more difficult it was possible to imagine. He would not trouble the House with the recital of all that had taken place in regard to the endowment front the beginning. The statement of his hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University was substantially correct. But he would take up the tale at the moment when the Judicial Commissioners had framed a scheme in connection with the endowment. The Judicial Commissioners had come to the conclusion in the first instance, that the Rev. Mr. Gregg was entitled to compensation for expenditure of £400 for permanent improvements in the building, and to £50 for disturbance. That scheme was sent up to the Privy Council, who cut out the clause relating to compensation, but inserted a clause giving to Canon Gregg the right of pre-emption at a fair value of the ground and building. The scheme was remitted to the Commissioners to decide what the value was, and they fixed it at £831. The amended scheme was again presented to the Privy Council, who again remitted it to the Judicial Commissioners that they might further examine into the true value of the ground and building. This inquiry resulted in the reaffirmation of the former valuation; and in that form the scheme came up to the
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House of Commons. At the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Louth that part of the scheme which related to the right of pre-emption was thrown out by a majority of five. Shortly after that the Government went out of office, and their successors, the present Government, in consequence of a minute written by one of the Judicial Commissioners, referred it back to the Commissioners before being finally approved by the Lord Lieutenant.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Was that a public or a private minute?
MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that he could not say, but the substance of it was the same as the Report of the Judicial Commissioners on the scheme as it came from the House of Commons. That Report stated that, in framing the original scheme, the Commissioners did not think it right to give an absolute right of pre-emption to Canon Gregg. On the other hand, they did not think it just that he should be disturbed in his possession without compensation in respect of some part of his expenditure. The effect of now striking out the preemption clause, they said, without reinstating the compensation clause in substitution for the pre-emption clause so introduced, would be to deprive Canon Gregg both of the pre-emption directed by his Excellency in Council, and also of the compensation to which the Judicial Commissioners thought, and still think, him to be justly entitled. Upon receipt of these observations the Irish Government considered that it was impossible to leave matters as they stood. Accordingly the Judicial Commissioners were invited to prepare a fresh scheme, that being in accordance with the only precedent, on the subject. The Judicial Commissioners did prepare a fresh scheme, in which they reinstated this provision as to compensation. This supplementary scheme was brought before the Privy Council, who decided that, under no circumstances, was Canon Gregg entitled to compensation in respect of his tenancy of the school. They felt bound to ask the Judicial Commissioners

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to draw up a new scheme, and he thought the House would admit that, in view of the very strong expression of opinion by two Judges of the eminence of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon and Mr. Justice O'Brien, one a Protestant and the other a Roman Catholic, it would be taking a serious responsibility on itself at the present time in rejecting the Motion of the hon. Member for Dublin University. At the same time he thought there was a great deal to be said on the other side, and he would state why the House was placed in a position of peculiar difficulty in connection with this question. In the first place, the Privy Council must be regarded as in a certain sense a Court of Appeal, and the Privy Council had decided for the second time that Canon Gregg was not entitled to any compensation. They were now placed, in respect of these two decisions, in this position. The Judicial Commissioners, on the one hand, had declared—at least the practical effect of their declaration was—that an injustice would be done unless Canon Gregg either received compensation or was given the right of pre-emption. The Privy Council, on the other hand, had decided that Canon Gregg was not entitled to any right of compensation. Therefore, it appeared, on the one side they had the Judicial Commissioners declaring that one of two alternatives must be adopted; on the other side, they had the Privy Council declaring that one of those alternatives was unjust, and on the other side they had the Judicial Commissioners themselves condemning the other alternative as unjust. The House would therefore see what a great difficulty they were in. But he would call attention to the position in which they would stand, supposing the Resolution were accepted. If it was accepted the scheme, as it stood, would be destroyed altogether. The suggestion was, that the Commissioners should be invited to draw up a scheme and give a right of pre-emption, but he saw little or no probability that, under the circumstances, they would consent once more to take any further part in this extraordinary merry-go-round. But he felt it would be a misfortune if this scheme were entirely to fall to the ground. It might be said the result of that would be to leave Canon Gregg where he was, in possession of the school.
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Yes; but Canon Gregg was only a yearly tenant, a precarious tenure. The House would see this was a most extraordinary position. It appeared to him that whatever course the Government adopted objections might be urged which would be fatal to that course; there would be a deadlock in any case, and under those circumstances he left it to the House to take their own course. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"]
MR. T. HARRINGTONsaid it seemed to him the right hon. Gentleman's misunderstanding was due to the fact that he had not studied the scheme. So far from this scheme preventing Canon Gregg having the right of compensation or the right of pre-emption, it gave him both alternatives. The property was to be sold subject to the tenancy of Canon Gregg. That gave Canon Gregg the right to go into the market—
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. KENNY),: Giving power of sale to anybody is not pre-emption.
MR. HARRINGTONsaid that as occupying tenant Canon Gregg was able to offer a higher price than anybody else. What more did Canon Gregg want? Then supposing the premises were bought over his head, that he did not exercise his right to purchase, whoever bought had to compensate him for his tenancy. It was amusing that the Chief Secretary should have looked upon this question as a question difficult of solution, when it was clearly devised by the Judicial Commissioners that this man should have the choice of being a purchaser and continue in possession, or, if not a purchaser, to get due compensation for disturbance. Under these circumstances he did not see why any appeal should be made to the House to go back on its decision on a former occasion, and to bring itself into collision with the Privy Council.
MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLsaid he felt bound to make a few observations, for he feared that the insinuations and beguiling graces of the hon. Member for Dublin University might induce the other side of the House to set up a very bad precedent in this case. He wished to know whether there was to be any finality with regard to the proceedings before the Privy Council. The case had been heard in December last

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before a full attendance of the Judicial Committee, and on which occasion the Reverend Mr. Gregg was represented by eminent counsel. The conclusion that was then arrived at was, that the Reverend Mr. Gregg was entitled to no compensation, and that the idea of his being entitled to pre-emption was wholly unreasonable. The decision of the tribunal spoke for itself, because it entirely ignored the Reverend Mr. Gregg's claim, and directed the property to be sold to the highest bidder by public auction. Of course, the rev. gentleman could attend the sale by auction, like anyone else, and might bid for the property. The sale, of course, was to be subject to the existing tenancy of the rev. gentleman, whatever that might be. That tenancy appeared to be one from year to year, without any limitation as to its duration. The hon. Member for Trinity College had complained that reference had been made to what occurred a century and a-half ago; but the hon. Gentleman himself had alluded to what had taken place in reference to this property in the time of Elizabeth. It appeared from the facts of the case that the schools were built in 1837 at the expense of the ratepayers of Limerick, and that subsequently the property was occupied by the Reverend Mr. Hall, after whose death it was sold by his widow, who had no earthly title to it, to the Reverend Mr. Gregg for £20. Mr. Gregg had no merits. [Ministerial laughter.] He got in as a trespasser because Mrs. Hall had no title, and he continued in possession from 1874 to 1880 without paying a shilling of rent. He then made a contract with the Commissioners to pay £20 a year, as a yearly tenant, and keep the premises in repair, but he broke his contract and allowed the premises to fall into dilapidation. Mr. Gregg had laid his case before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and they were unanimous in their opinion that he had no merits and no claim for compensation, but that he might go on as a tenant, and that the premises would probably be sold, subject to his tenancy. The only Resolution that could be passed in the House of Commons, as he submitted, was to strike out that clause altogether, and then where would the scheme
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be? The House had no power to insert a clause for compensation. In the circumstances he respectfully asked the House to be guided by the wise and moderate suggestion of the Chief Secretary, and not to stultify itself, and not to cast ridicule on the Judicial Committee by agreeing to a Motion which, he confessed, having regard to his philosophical and historical nature, he was surprised the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University did not leave to someone else. ["Hear, hear!"]
MR. FLYNNsaid that this affair was an outrageous attempt at jobbery. This claim of Canon Gregg to compensation was most audacious. The nominal rent of the premises was £30 a year, but the Commissioners of National Education had been spending that money for the last 10 years in keeping the place in repair. The reverend gentleman was only a tenant from year to year, and was bound by the terms of his tenancy to keep the premises in proper repair; but in 1892 the architect of the Board of Education visited the house and pronounced it to be dilapidated and in a filthy state. The Irish Members had difficulty enough in getting anything like fair play for honest agricultural tenants who made improvements; but hon. Members opposite readily supported baseless claims in cases where there, was a sectarian element. It was intolerable that the House should be kept sitting to an advanced hour in order to entertain unjustifiable claims of this kind.
MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTONrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
Debate resumed.
MR. VESEY KNOXdescribed the Rev. Mr. Gregg's claim as a ridiculous one, and pointed out that the rev. gentleman was bound himself to do the repairs for which he was now claiming during a period of 20 years, when he was allowed by indulgent landlords to remain in occupation of the premises on extremely favourable terms. The item of £400 was made up of such items as £20 in cash to Mrs. Hall for possession; postage of order, 7d.; car hire and man,

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5s.; washing out the house, 9s. Even religious bigotry apparently could make hon. Members opposite vote in support of a scandalous job like this. Then there was a poor rate claim in 1895, whitewashing in 1874, 3d. spent in nails 15 years ago, painting a gate in 1875, an ironmonger's bill, 3s. 4d., in 1875, and charges for the insurance of the premises. In the name of honesty would hon. Members vote that this money should be paid to this gentleman out of the endowments for education in the county of Limerick? Among the items of the account were such as these:—Evergreens, presumably for Christmas decoration; glazing, which meant, he supposed, the repair of broken windows; repairing gate, 30s., in 1879; glazing again in 1882; 12 loads of gravel in 1882. It was an account made up almost entirely of the smallest kind of repairs, for which, if a tenant came into the Land Court for compensation as for permanent improvements he would be justly laughed out of Court. Of course strange things were done in Ireland out of religious bigotry, and there were in Ireland exaggerated ideas on the rights of property. He remembered reading in the hon. Gentleman's book how a Lord Lieutenant of the last century remarked that probably Ireland was the only country in the world where a professorship of Greek in fee could be granted, and perhaps it was upon that principle of dealing with an educational endowment the hon. Member was asking the House to act. It was difficult to get Members to vote against their own Party and their own religion, but here were the details of claim before them, here were the facts. This Gentleman was bound by his agreement to keep the house in good repair, and at the determination of the tenancy—
MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. and learned Member that the covenant had been read several times. ["Hear, hear!"]
MR. KNOXsaid he would not read it again, he was only trying to press home his point that what the House was being asked to do would be a scandalous misapplication of the funds of an educational endowment. This rev. Gentleman was bound to keep up these premises in good repair, and here was a Report on the state of the premises by an architect of a representative body of the Church of England—
MR. SPEAKER, interrupting the hon. and learned Member, said this also had been read to the House, not the whole of it, fortunately, but parts of it. ["Hear, hear!" and cries of "Divide!"]
MR. KNOXsaid this had not been read. [Cries of "Order!" "Divide!" and "Adjourn!"] This Report had not been read, and he would proceed to read it. The Report of the architect to the Representative Church body of Ireland stated:—"I find the House is in a very dilapidated condition—"
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I beg to move, "That the Question be now put." [Ministerial cheers.]
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided:—Ayes, 142; Noes, 48.—(Division List, No. 83.)
Question put accordingly.
The House divided:—Ayes, 134; Noes, 51.—(Division List, No. 84.)
Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to withhold her consent from paragraph 5, of Scheme No. 90, Supplemental, framed by the Educational Endowments Commissioners, relating to the Endowment heretofore belonging to the Limerick, Killaloe and Kilfenora Diocesan School, which provides for sale by public auction of the premises known as the Roxborough Road School, held by the Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg, and to disapprove of arty part of the said Supplementary Scheme which will operate to have the said premises sold without giving to the said Rev. James Fitzgerald Gregg a right of pre-emption of the said premises or payment of compensation for his expenditure thereon and disturbance therein.
To be presented by Privy Councillors.
And it being after One of the Clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
House adjourned at Twenty-five minutes after Two o'clock.

INFANT LIFE PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the law for the better protection of infant life was presented by the Earl of Denbigh; Read 1a; and to be printed.—(No. 25.)

DANISH TRAWLERS IN SCOTCH WATERS.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYasked the Secretary of State for Scotland a Question if which he had given him private notice, namely, whether the reports in the Scottish newspapers that Danish trawlers had been fishing in Moray Firth for three weeks past, and that they had been seen and permitted to continue fishing by Her Majesty's ship Jackal were correct, and that they were landing their fish for sale at British ports?
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD BALFOUR): In reply to the noble Marquess, I have to state that at the end of last month the Fishery Board did receive a Report from the Commander of Her Majesty's ship Jackal, to the effect that the Danish trawler Dania had been discovered seven miles east-north-cast of Tarbett Ness, with her port trawl down in the water. In consequence of that Report and of other similar reports, which, however, were not quite so definite, I have given instructions to the Fishery Board for Scotland to prevent, under the powers of Section 8 of the Herring Fisheries (Scotland) Act of 1889, the landing or sale in Scotland of fish from the Dania caught within the area prohibited by the bye-laws. We have not had reports of any other trawler except the Dania. The noble Marquess's Question deals with British ports, but, of course, he is aware that I have no jurisdiction over, and no power myself to obtain information from, any port which is not a Scottish port.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY: I am informed the Dania is landing her fish at
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the port of Hull, so as to evade the jurisdiction the noble Lord exercises. Can the noble Lord do nothing in that case?
LORD BALFOUR: On that point I have no information, but I shall be glad to make inquiry.

PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE (WOMEN) BILL [H.L.]
VISCOUNT TEMPLETOWN: My Lords, On rising to move the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Franchise (Women) Bill, I desire to say that I was asked by the Parliamentary Committee for Women's Suffrage to introduce a Bill in your Lordships' House which would be a reasonable and moderato Measure and such as would remove any existing injustice. The Committee have intrusted their cause to me in regard to the scope of the Measure, and I received a copy of a Resolution from them signed by the Chairman of the meeting, Sir Richard Temple, by which the Committee pledges itself—
"That if in the interests of the Measure, to facilitate its passage through the legislature, it be found necessary to modify the provisions of the Bill, that such modification will receive their most careful consideration."
If the arguments used to-day in favour of this Bill convince your Lordships that an injustice exists in properly-qualified women being excluded from the Franchise, and that their inclusion in it would add security to property and benefit the State, and your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading, I can only say that any reasonable Amendments which may be moved in Committee on the Bill will be considered from a co-operative and not a hostile point of view. I particularly wish to emphasise this, because in such consultations I have been fortunate enough to have with Members of your Lordships' House and others, it seems to me that the overwhelming proportion of criticisms levelled at the Women's Suffrage Bill are, where applicable, such as should be answered during the Committee stage of the Bill. I venture to hope, therefore, that, undeterred by any doubt as to making this Bill in Committee such as it should be when it passes this House, your Lordships will to-day consider only the question of principle involved in the Bill, and if satisfied that

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an injustice exists and ought to be removed, to remember, as Mr. Gladstone is reported to have said on one occasion, when passing a Bill through the Legislature, that "justice delayed is justice denied." Now, my Lords, there are many justifications for passing a Bill enfranchising properly-qualified women, but I will only refer to those that seem the most important, premising only that it appears that the right of such women—and such women only—to vote is admittedly a natural right, and it is not their entry into the Franchise but their exclusion from it that has to be justified; that it is not for me to prove that right, but for the opponents of Women's Suffrage to produce overwhelming proof, if they can, to show why it is right and expedient to withhold the vote from them. The principle of giving women votes was affirmed in another place without a Division in 1886, and lately, by a very large majority, while those who supported Women's Suffrage consisted of a majority of every political denomination. I need not point out that this question has been discussed for 30 years, and it has during that period received the explicit support of Leaders of thought in all Parties; and particularly from Leaders of this House and the House of Commons. It has been the subject of strong and favourable resolutions passed most unanimously or by overwhelming majorities of various political organisations throughout the country—for instance, the Annual Conference of Conservative and Constitutional Associations at Birmingham in 1891; the Birmingham Liberal Association General Council of 2,000; the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, England and Scotland; the National Liberal Federation; the Welsh Division of National Union Conservative and Constitutional Associations; Conference of Conservative Party of North Devon; the Lancashire and Cheshire Division of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations; the Northern Union of Conservative Associations; and the Scottish Branch Primrose League Grand Habitation. Mr. Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons on 27 April 1892, said:—
"We support the Bill for practical reasons. I think those who wished to be enfranchised have used the only methods they could use in
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the matter—they have expressed their desire to obtain the vote on platforms, and by public meetings, petitions, and votes and resolutions."
Petitions have been presented, over 700 of them with thousands of signatures, and, indeed, I may say that every constitutional method of proving Women's Suffrage is demanded by the women of this country has been exhausted, up to the point that the one thing in this respect still needed is adequate consideration of the question at your Lordships' hands. The injustice which women complain of existing is thus stated by them:—
"That whereas women have to pay taxes in the same way that men equally situated do, they have no representation, and this is against a fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that taxation and representation should go together, and that those who have to contribute towards taxation should have a voice in choosing those who are to make the laws, and Parliament cannot sufficiently reflect the wishes of the people while so many desirable voters are excluded."
As an example of the injustice that women complain of, I would ask your Lordships' attention, and more particularly of those who are interested in agricultural questions, to the figures quoted by Sir Albert Rollit during the Debate in the House of Commons in 1892:—
"In relation to the great question of the land, the House, perhaps, hardly realises how many cultivators are in the unfortunate position of having lost their husbands, and are yet carrying on their farms, employing numbers of labourers who have votes, while they, though more qualified in every respect, have none, simply and only because they are women! Few know how many women are farmers and graziers—some 20,000—and few, perhaps, realise that the agricultural interest loses through this cause something like 140,000 votes."
Then, my Lords, what was Mr. Gladstone's view in 1870 as a matter of injustice? Mr. Gladstone, on the Women's Disabilities Bill speech in the House of Commons, 1870, said:—
"I admit, at any rate, as far as I am able to judge, there is more presumptive ground for change in the law than some of the opponents of the Measure are disposed to own.… I cannot help thinking that, for some reason or other, there are various important particulars in which women obtain much less than justice under social arrangements.… I may be told that there is no direct connection between this and the Parliamentary Franchise, and I admit it, but at the same time I am by no means sure that these inequalities may not have an indirect connection with a state of

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law in which the balance is generally cast too much against women, and too much in favour of men. There is one instance which has been quoted, and I am not sure there is not something in it—I mean the case of farms.… I believe to some extent in the competition for that particular employment women suffer in a very definite manner in consequence of their want of qualification to vote."
I do not wish to imply even that these are Mr. Gladstone's last words, but I have never known of any attempt on his part to try and dispute the fact he stated that "there are various important particulars with reference to women's disabilities in which they obtain much less justice than men. "Here I may ask this. Is it not an injustice to a woman that, while she may hold property and must discharge its liabilities, she may not represent it even by a, vote at the elections, and is therefore unable to safeguard it in any way; that she is, in fact, placed in the position of the men of whom Mr. Gladstone is reported to have said, "They have no votes, and may be safely neglected." I have so far pleaded snore particularly for the franchise for properly-qualified women on the ground of justice to them, and on the ground of increasing their influence in defending their own property; but I venture to think that as strong a claim can be made on behalf of the State for the enfranchisement of duly-qualified women. At present the State is deprived of the vote of those who specially represent the opinions of women on questions on which women are experts. Surely this is not, right, and, if properly-qualified women are enfranchised, the Constitution will be pro tanto stronger and more stable. What are the questions on which educated and capable women are experts, often indeed greater experts than men? There is the education question, hospitals, the management of schools, the employment of women, the Poor law, housing of the poor, the question of asylums, prisons, sanitation of the homes of the poor and workshops, various questions in relation to industry and trade, factories, the safeguarding of children, and what is known as the Social Question, besides other matters. Thus, my Lords, I believe that, once you give responsible women the vote, they will use it to try and make the Legislature stamp out by proper regulations the disease which, with its unlimited ramifications, is threatening to destroy the health,
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if only it goes on unchecked long enough, of the men, women, and children, of this country, and not only that but to destroy the constitution of the generations yet to come. Then, is it wise, my Lords, to exclude on the ground of State interests the women owners of property included in this Bill? When, in 1874, the Representation of the People Bill was before the House of Commons, and an Amendment enfranchising women was under consideration, the late Lord Iddesleigh, then Sir Stafford Northcote, spoke on June 12th, as follows:—
"The point upon which we lay stress is that upon which the late Lord Beaconsfield laid stress, and upon which so much stress has been laid to-night, namely, that by excluding women you are excluding a large portion of the property owners of this country from representation and from their share in the legislation."
Before concluding my arguments in favour of the principle of this Bill and dealing with some of the objections, I will quote two extracts from speeches made by the Marquess of Salisbury. At a meeting convened by the Primrose League at Edinburgh, in November 1886, Lord Salisbury said:—
"I earnestly hope that the day is not far distant when women also will bear their share in voting for Members of Parliament—[cheers]—and in determining the policy of the country. I can conceive no argument by which they are excluded. It is obvious that they are abundantly as well fitted as many who now possess the suffrage, by knowledge, by training, and by character, and that their influence is likely to weigh in a direction which, in an age so material as ours, is exceedingly valuable, namely, in the direction of morality and religion."
Again, at Covent Garden, on the, 29th April 1896, speaking on a new influence in politics:—
"It has largely brought into action the influence of many men who otherwise would not have devoted their efforts to the support of the country, it has knit together classes who were apart before, and whom it was the interest of agitators to keep apart—[cheers]—and it has brought into action for the support of the fundamental institutions of society those who are the most deeply interested in them—namely, the women of England. [Cheers.] I am one of those—I speak only for myself individually—who are of opinion that women have not the voice they ought to have in the selection of the representatives of the English people."
I will now briefly refer to some of the objections raised against Women's Franchise. Amongst them we find it stated

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that, if votes were given to women, the vote would be followed by their having seats in Parliament. It was in the Debate in 1892 that Mr. Arthur Balfour disposed of this objection. He said:—
"The argument which appeals most, I am convinced, to those who oppose tins Bill, is the conviction—the ill-founded conviction think—that it must necessarily carry with it as what they call a logical consequence, the result that women must have a seat in this House, in the Cabinet, and should in all respects, so far as public, offices are concerned, he placed on an equality with men. I do not believe a word of that argument. I can quite agree that it is very difficult to stop in such a course—to fix an arbitrary point and say then you will stop—if the arguments for going further are precisely those that made you travel thus far. The point, therefore, to consider is, can the arguments that are brought forward in favour of this Bill be also brought forward in favour of women having a seat in this House? No, Sir, they cannot."
And again:—
"If you want to prevent further progress you ought to stop at a point where defence is possible; but at the present point logical defence is not possible."
I believe, my Lords, I am correct in saying that there is a distinct and legally-recognised difference between the right to vote and the right to sit in a deliberative Assembly; the disqualification for the latter has been decided to exist, according to Sir Albert Rollit, as to women, and it has long subsisted in the case of the clergy and the Civil Service. Another objection put forward is that women do not want the franchise. Where is the record of any public meeting in this country against Women's Suffrage? Where are the petitions, signed by the women it is proposed to enfranchise by this Bill, against Women's Suffrage? Women have worked to return Members to Parliament favourable to Women's Suffrage. Where are the women who have worked to keep out of Parliament men favourable; to Women's Suffrage? My Lords, I ask you to compare these two facts; on the one hand large numbers of meetings and petitions, and plenty of work in favour of Women's Suffrage by women, against whom no word can be said; and on the other hand, what? Why, nil. So much for that objection. I lately read that a right hon. Gentleman in another place urged as an objection that as giving the franchise at all meant giving it to every
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woman, and as there are 1,200,000 more women than men (I believe the last census gave it at 900,000. But what is a trifling error of 300,000?), women with votes would have the predominance. I differ entirely with the right hon. Gentle-man. How can you justify the argument that a Bill which only enfranchises a limited number of properly-qualified women, is a sufficient cause for enfranchising all women without any qualification? Then there is no ground for supposing that all the women any Bill would enfranchise are going to vote; and again, it is against experience and reason that all the women would vote against all the men; and if these two objections to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman are admitted, and I cannot see how it can be otherwise, his contention falls to the ground. In conclusion, my Lords, I would say that I have tried to place before you, I am afraid but very indifferently, the consensus of opinion on this question of some of the most eminent and trusted leaders of thought of different political opinions, because I think your Lordships will rightly attach much more importance to their views than to mine, however similar mine may be. I belong to no Women's Suffrage Society, but plead for tins Bill on behalf of those whom it would enfranchise. I ask your Lordships not to allow any arguments which may be put forward, however eloquently, to try and induce you to vote against this Bill, to obscure the main points of my contention, viz., that it is right that the property winch has so long been disfranchised should now have representation. If you feel, my Lords, that properly needs no further safeguarding, refuse a Second Reading to this Bill; but if, on the other hand, you disapprove of attacks on property, be it that of the rich man or rich woman, or poor man or poor woman, then, my Lords, I would ask you to pass this Bill; and while you will remove the sense of injustice which now rankles in the minds of thousands of capable women, who are eager to support the Crown and Constitution of this Kingdom, you will at the same time remove from our legislation the discredit that attaches to it in excluding from voting on the great questions of the State those who are admittedly the most moral and religious portion of the community.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Duke of DEVONSHIRE): In the unavoidable absence of the Prime Minister, he has asked me to state to your Lordships the advice which he would have given to the House had he been able to be present. It is perfectly well known that there exists many Members of the present Government as to the merits of this question a certain amount of difference of opinion, and that it has been agreed that it should be regarded as an open question; but I think there is no difference of opinion in the minds of the Government that it would be an undesirable course, and in some respects perhaps even an unexampled course, for this House to undertake what is, or purports to be, a reform of the House of Commons. I think that such a course would not strengthen your Lordships' hands if, as is probable, on some future occasion it may be necessary for you to take into consideration and review proposals made for the further reform of the other House of Parliament. It is generally, I think, acknowledged that the proper function of this House is to review and to weigh calmly and deliberately the legislative proposals which come to you from the other House, if necessary to suggest or introduce amendments, and upon some occasions to afford to the country, and even to Parliament itself, an, opportunity of reconsidering what may appear to be crude and immature suggestions. I do not think that any useful action which your Lordships can take in this direction would be assisted in the future if your Lordships were to adopt the precedent of pressing upon the consideration of the other House legislative Measures of the character contained in this Bill. I hope I shall not be supposed to intend to speak with any disrespect whatever of the other House of Parliament, but I think in the opinion of many persons the reputation of the House of Commons for sobriety of judgment was not enhanced when, on a Wednesday afternoon, after a very short Debate, the principle of this Measure was recently affirmed. ["Hear, hear!"] For myself I regret that it was left to the Leader of the Opposition to point out the levity with which such a Measure as this was proposed, and its principle sanctioned after a Debate which must to
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most persons appear absolutely inadequate in comparison with the great importance of the subject. ["Hear, hear!"] I regret it was also left to the Leader of the Opposition to point out that proposals such as these, if they can properly be made at all Or adopted, ought to be made, if not upon the authority of the Government, at least upon the authority of some responsible Leader of the Party. But I think your Lordships would be exposed to a much graver and better founded charge of levity in this matter if you were, at the invitation of my noble Friend, to abandon the position which alone, in my opinion, you can occupy with dignity and credit—that of a Legislative whose function it is to review and weigh Measures sent to you from the other House of Parliament—and were yourselves to initiate legislation of a character so grave and important as this. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not think that anyone can doubt that this Measure does not involve constitutional changes of an extremely grave and important character, and it is fraught with possible and even probable consequences which it is almost impossible at present to foresee. ["Hear, hear!"] Small as may be the immediate effect which would be brought about either by the Measure which was proposed in the other House or the different Measure which is now before you, we cannot entertain any feeling of certainty that we have reached the limits of electoral reform, and that we may not have some day to deal with the question of manhood suffrage; and I confess that I find it very difficult to discover any reason why, if the principle of manhood suffrage should ever be adopted in this country, as it has been in European countries, and if you assent to the principle contained in this Bill, it would be possible to stop short of adult female suffrage also. [Cheers.] I do not think I need give other reasons as showing the inexpediency of considering the subject on the present occasion, but I might also point out that the Bill which has been passed in the other House, and which may come ultimately in the course of the present Session before your Lordships, contains, in one important respect, a different provision from that contained in this Bill. It does not seem to me desirable that your Lordships should

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hamper yourselves for the consideration of that Measure by adopting the principle of the Bill proposed by my noble Friend. Having said this much, I do not think I ought to conceal, and I have no desire to disguise the fact, that personally I entertain a very strong and clear opinion on this subject, and that if I were called upon to give a vote on the principle of the Measure I should give it unhesitatingly in the negative. [Cheers.] That, however, is not the ground for the course which I am about to ask your Lordships to take. The position of the Government in the matter is, that it is not one upon which the House of Lords ought to be called, at the present time, to express an opinion. That being our opinion, I think that it is better to abstain from any argument either for or against the Bill. That would be to a certain extent an admission that we consider this Bill a proper subject for discussion in your Lordships' House, and that is precisely the position we are not prepared to take up. Therefore, I will conclude by moving the previous question, and ask your Lordships, by assenting to that Motion, to decline to consider the question at present or to enter upon an academical discussion on the question until it is presented to you in the only manner in which it can properly and constitutionally be presented to you, in the shape of a legislative proposal coming to this House from the House of Commons. I beg to move the previous question. ["Hear, hear!"]
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I have heard with much satisfaction the statement made by the noble Duke, and I cannot add anything to his arguments. I think it must be clear that, generally speaking, the last thing we ought to agree to is that a Bill enlarging the franchise should originate in this House in a case where the adoption of the principle contained in that Bill really involves a change almost, I was going to say, the most revolutionary that could be adopted in regard to the franchise in this country. I have no desire any more than the noble Duke to conceal the fact that if I had to give a vote upon the principle which I believe to be involved in any Measure of this kind I should unhesitatingly vote against it, and should give the most uncompromising opposition to any proposal to give the franchise to women.
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["Hear, hear!"] That, however, is not, the subject under discussion. I shall follow the example of the noble Duke and shall not offer any argument upon the subject. The position I wish to occupy in reference to this question is precisely that occupied by the noble Duke; indeed, as far as it is possible for anyone in Opposition to be in the same position as a Member of the Government. I am in that position, because the same difference of opinion on this subject exists among the Party with whom I have to act as exists among the supporters of the Government. In these circumstances I wish most strongly to urge upon the House the desirability of not proceeding with this Bill at present, nor of entering into any discussion upon the subject with which it deals. ["Hear, hear!"]
Previous question put, whether the said question shall now be put; Resolved in the negative.

ARMY HEAD-DRESS.
THE EARL of STRAFFORDasked the noble Marquess the Secretary for War whether any decision had been arrived at with respect to the new head-dress for the Army.
THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR WAR (The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE): The question of the noble Earl appears to proceed upon the assumption that it has been decided to introduce a new head-dress for the Army. No such decision has been arrived at. Proposals were made to me affecting the head-dress of a portion of the auxiliary forces, and I thought it desirable to refer the whole question as to military head-dress to a Committee. That Committee has not yet reported, but it is expected to report at an early date. Until the Report has been received it is quite impossible to arrive at any decision upon the subject. ["Hear, hear!"]
House adjourned at Five minutes past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, a Quarter past Ten o'clock.