Sitting of 7 July 1899

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  STANDING COMMITTEE ON LAW, &c.
  Ordered, that the Standing Committee on Law, &c., have leave to sit this day during the sitting of the House.—(Sir James Fergusson.)

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS [Lords].
  Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with.
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.—

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL [Lords].
  TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (NO. 1) BILL [Lords].
  Ordered, that the Bills be read a second time on Monday next.

PRIVATE BILLS [Lords].
Standing Orders not previously inquired into not complied with.
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are
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applicable thereto, have not been complied with, viz.—

PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [Lords].
  WORKINGTON CORPORATION BILL [Lords].
  Ordered, that the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
BELFAST WATER BILL.
  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL.

    LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAY BILL.
    SCUNTHORPE URBAN DISTRICT GAS AND WATER BILL.
    Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

GREAT YARMOUTH PIER BILL [Lords].
(Queen's consent signified); read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
ALL SAINTS' CHURCH (CARDIFF) BILL [Lords].
  BRIGHTON MARINE PALACE AND PIER BILL [Lords].
    GREAT GRIMSBY STREET TRAMWAYS BILL [Lords].
    As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
BURGH POLICE (SCOTLAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 12) BILL [Lords].
    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 13) BILL [Lords].
    Read a second time, and committed.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 20) BILL.
Reported, without Amendment [Provisonal Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP L.)
Sir WILLIAM HOULDSAVORTHreported from the Committee on Group L of

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Private Bills, that for the convenience of the Committee, they had adjourned until Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION BILL.
  Petition from Bradford, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  GROUND RENTS (TAXATION BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES).
  Petition from Bradford, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1845.
  Petition from Urquhart, for alteration of law: to lie upon the Table.
  REGULATION OF RAILWAYS BILL.
  Petitions in favour; from Selby; and, Normanton; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Everton, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
  SHIPPING CASUALTIES (1897–8).
  Copy presented, of Abstract of the Returns of Shipping Casualties which occurred on or near the Coasts, or in Rivers and Harbours, of the United Kingdom from the 1st July, 1897, to 30th June, 1898; and of the Returns of Shipping Casualties to British Vessels elsewhere than on or near the Coasts, or in Rivers and Harbours of the United Kingdom, and to Foreign Vessels on or near the Coasts, or in Rivers and Harbours of British Possessions Abroad, &c., with Charts and Appendices [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  MASTERS, MATES, ENGINEERS (SUSPENSION, &c., OF CERTIFICATES).
  Return presented relative thereto [ordered 19th May; Mr. Gibson Bowles]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 267.]
  ORDNANCE SURVEY.
  Copy presented of Report of the Progress of the Ordnance Survey to the 31st March, 1899 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  DOGS REGULATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1865.
  Account presented of the Receipts and Expenditure under the Act for the year 1898 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 268.]
  FINES, &c. (IRELAND).
  Copy presented of Abstract of Accounts of Fines accounted for by the Registrar of Petty Sessions Clerks for 1897 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 269.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) ACT, 1898.
  Copy presented of Regulations, under the Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order, 1898, as to issue of County Stock [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (INDIAN CURRENCY COMMITTEE, 1898).
  Copy presented of Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Indian Currency [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (CONTRACTS).
  Return ordered, "of all Contracts made in the United Kingdom for manufactured Articles by the several Government Departments, either with contractors outside the United Kingdom or with contractors or agents in the United Kingdom who obtain the Articles from Abroad (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 382, of Session 1897).—(Mr. Logan.)

  LAND REGISTRY.
  Return ordered, "of the work done in the Land Registry under the various Acts hereinafter mentioned, namely:—
  1. Under the Land Transfer Act, 1875 (Lord Cairns' Act):—

  (a) The number, value, and acreage (where known) of estates the titles to which were annually registered, on first registration, from the 1st day of January, 1895

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  to the 31st day of December, 1898, showing the number of estates registered with absolute, qualified, and possessory title, and leaseholds; and also the number of estates registered under The Small Holdings Act, 1892.

  (b) The total number of separate titles on the register on the 31st day of December, 1898, (i.)by first registration, (ii.) by sub-division of estates already registered, and (iii.) by transfer from the 1862 register.

  2. Under The Land Registry Act, 1862 (Lord Westbury's Act):—

  (a) The total number, value, and acreage (where known) of estates the titles to which were registered on first registration.

  (b) The total number of separate titles on the register on the 31st day of December, 1898 (i.) by first registration, and (ii.) by subdivision of estates already registered;

  (c) The total number of separate titles which had been removed from the register on the 31st day of December, 1898, otherwise than by transfer to the 1875 register.

  3. Under both the Acts of 1875 and 1862:—

  (a) The total number of separate titles on the register on the 31st day of December, 1898;

  (b) The total number of transactions annually registered from the 1st day of January, 1895, to the 31st day of December, 1898, showing the numbers of (i.) first registrations under the Act of 1875, (ii.) conveyances, transfers, and transmissions of land, (iii.) mortgages, charges, further charges, and transfers of mortgages and charges, (iv.) reconveyances of mortgages and cessation of charges, (v.) leases and surrenders of leases, (vi.) miscellaneous.

  4. Under the Mortgage Debenture Acts, 1865 and 1870, and the Improvement of Land Act, 1864:—
  A statement, so far as may be practicable, of the nature and amount
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  of the work done under these Acts from the 1st day of January, 1895, to the 31st day of December, 1898.
  5. Under the Land Charges Registration and Searches Act, 1888:—
  The number of registrations, official searches, and ordinary searches annually made from the 1st day of January, 1895, to the 31st day of December, 1898.
  6. Under the Middlesex Registry Act, 1708, and the Land Registry (Middlesex Deeds) Act, 1891.
  The number of registrations and searches annually made from the 1st day of January, 1895, to the 31st day of December, 1898.
  And showing the amount of fees received each year, and the amount of salaries and expenses each year in the Land Registry from the 1st day of April, 1895, to the 31st day of March, 1899, distinguishing with respect to the periods, since the Land Transfer Act, 1897, came into operation, for the purposes of Section 22 of that Act, the fees received and salaries and expenses paid under the Land Transfer Acts, and the other Acts above referred to (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 463, of Session 1895).—(Mr. H. D. Greene.)

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to:
EDUCATION OF CHILDREN BILL.
Without Amendment.
AIR AND CALDER NAVIGATION BILL.
  MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.

    LEITH HARBOUR AND DOCKS BILL.
    With Amendments.
    That they have agreed to:
    Amendments to—

COBHAM GAS BILL [Lords].

  STRETFORD GAS BILL [Lords].
  Without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make new provisions with

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  regard to the constitution and to change the name of the company of proprietors of the Rochdale Canal; to fix and regulate the capital and borrowing powers of the company; to amend the Acts relating to and confer further powers on the company; and for other purposes." [Rochdale Canal Bill [Lords].
  And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the London and South-Western Railway Company, to authorise them to execute further works to acquire additional lands, and to raise further money; and for other purposes." [London and South-Western Railway Bill [Lords].

ROCHDALE CANAL BILL [Lords].
  LONDON AND SOUTH-WESTERN RAILWAY BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. HALSEYreported from the Committee of Selection; that they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure: Mr. Evelyn Cecil, Mr. William Jones, Mr. Arthur Morton, Sir Albert Rollit, and Mr. Talbot; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Butcher, Sir George Fardell, Mr. Gedge, Mr. Mount, and Captain Norton.
Mr. HALSEYfurther reported from the Committee; that they had added to the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Improvement of Land Bill—Commander Bethell, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Charming, Dr. Clark, Mr. Colston, Mr. Wingfield-Digby, Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Gold, Mr. Seale-Hayne, Mr. Jeffreys, Mr. Heywood Johnstone, Colonel Kenyon-Slaney, Mr. Herbert Lewis, Mr. Walter Long, and Major Rasch.
Mr. HALSEYfurther reported from the Committee; that they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures:—Mr. Galloway and Mr. Gedge; and had appointed in substitution: Sir Edward Hill and Sir James Rankin.
Mr. HALSEYfurther reported from the Committee; that they had added to the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Bill:—Mr. Archdale, Mr. Attorney-General for-Ireland, Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. J. H. M. Campbell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Doogan, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. Flynn, Mr. Arnold-Forster, Mr. Molloy, Mr. Arthur Moore, Mr. William Moore, Mr. O'Neill, Mr. John Redmond, and Colonel Saunderson.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIR MEN'S PANEL).
Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNORreported from the Chairmen's Panel: that they had appointed Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in the place of Mr. John Edward Ellis, in respect of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Bill; and that they had appointed Sir James Fergusson to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Law, and Courts of Justice and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Improvement of Land Bill.
Report to lie upon the Table.

AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION (IRELAND) [SALARIES, &c.]
Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any salaries, remuneration and expenses that may become payable under any Act of the present Session for establishing a Department of Agriculture and other Industries and Technical Instruction in Ireland (Queen's Recommendation signified), upon Monday next.—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)

COTTAGE HOMES BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee, with Second Special Report and Minutes of Evidence.
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 271.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS.

    BELLEVILLE BOILER ACCIDENTS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will grant a return showing the number of fatal and other accidents resulting from the use of Belleville boilers in the Royal Navy.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. GOSCHEN,): The only serious accident known, beside that on board the "Terrible," when one stoker was killed and three suffered from burns, took place on board the "Argonaut" when she was about to leave the contractor's works on the Clyde. On this occasion, in consequence of a bolt being left out of place, a joint of the economizer gave out, and two contractor's men and three stokers were scalded.

    STORAGE OF CORDITE NEAR PORTSMOUTH.
    ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the intention of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to use the new magazines and store houses now in course of building on the land adjoining Priddy's Hard Magazine for the storage of cordite and other high explosives, and what weight of cordite it is proposed to store; whether this decision has been arrived at after careful inquiry and report by a Committee, and, if so, will the names of the Committee be given, and was their report a unanimous one. In view of the near proximity of the magazine to Portsmouth Dockyard, and its certain destruction if a large quantity of cordite should explode at Priddy's Hard, together with heavy loss of life and property in the neighbourhood, was the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, as also that of the Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard, asked as to the advisability or otherwise of storing such a high explosive as cordite in its immediate vicinity, and, if so, will the First Lord favour the House with their views, or lay the Committee's Report upon the Table; and in view of the disastrous explosion of the magazine at Toulon recently, and the at present unknown cause of the destruction of the "Maine" at Havana last year, will their Lordships suspend the erection of the cordite magazine for the present,
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    and consider the advisability of arranging with the War Office for the storage of cordite in one of the useless forts on Portsdown Hill, which could be readily approached by Porchester Creek.
    MR. GOSCHEN: It is intended to use the new magazines and storehouses in question for the storage of cordite and other explosives. It would be contrary to the interest of the public service to state what quantities of explosives will or may be stored there. In reply to questions 2 and 3, I need not assure the hon. Member or the House that the decision was arrived at after the most careful and exhaustive inquiry, and the Admiralty itself must assume the entire responsibility. It would be both contrary to precedent and inexpedient to publish the Reports of Committees or individuals who have been consulted on the subject. I should add that the question of the safety of cordite as compared with gunpowder has been fully considered by an important War Office Committee. The facts elicited and the experiments carried out show that cordite is safer to stow, handle, and keep than gunpowder. The quantity of the latter stored inside Portsmouth Harbour in magazines and hulks has been large; it is now much reduced, and will diminish every year. The abolition of the powder hulks, which will ensue on the extension of Priddy's Hard, and the improvements now being made in the magazines, will make the dockyard and environs even safer than at present. Rapid embarkation of explosives for mobilization necessitates that the sources of supply shall be conveniently situated. No action of the nature proposed in the last part of the question is in contemplation.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask if, with due regard to public policy, the right hon. Gentleman can state if the amount of cordite stored in this place would be sufficient, if exploded, to blow up the dockyard?
    MR. GOSCHEN: I do not think that is a question which could be ascertained, nor is it one on which it is desirable to have a public discussion. The Admiralty is responsible in this most important matter, and every attention will be given to it. I must ask the House to rely on the administration of the Admiralty.
    ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to give notice that I will call attention to this matter in Committee of Supply on the Admiralty Vote.

    CORK HARBOUR.
    MR. NUSSEY: On behalf of the hon. Member for West Hull I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what is the length of the pier in Cork Harbour to the drill ground of the training ship, what did it cost, and what is the acreage, rent, and tenure of the drill ground; and whether other land could have been obtained that could have been approached by the ordinary pier, and so render the new pier unnecessary.
    THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The length of the pier is 1,913 feet. The cost will probably amount to about £5,700. The area of the drill ground and recreation field is 8½ acres; it is held at a rental of £40 per annum for twenty-one years from 1896. No other suitable site could be obtained.

    SCOTTISH VOLUNTEERS—PROPOSED REVIEW.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Government will consider the expediency of holding a review of Scottish Volunteer Regiments in Edinburgh, or at some other suitable place in Scotland.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM,): There is no knowledge at the War Office of any general desire among the Scottish Volunteers to be reviewed, and there is no present intention of holding such a review.

    RIFLE RANGES.
    COLONEL WYNDHAM MURRAY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, with regard to the fact that during the years since the Lee-Metford rifle has been in issue to troops sixty-four ranges held by the War Department at home and abroad for Regular troops and Militia have been closed, and only forty suitable for the range of that rifle constructed or approved, will he state what steps the War Department are taking to make wind this deficiency; whether of those held by Yeomanry and
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    Volunteer corps 508 ranges have been closed and only 167 constructed or approved; and whether Volunteer corps are taking steps to combine to pay the cost of fresh ranges, as proposed by the Secretary of State for War.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The figures given in the question are correct, except that the number of ranges which it is intended to construct for Regular troops is forty-one and not forty. Volunteer corps are not taking steps to combine for the purchase of ranges, and they have not been invited to do so. The best sites for such ranges will have to be very carefully selected before negotiations with Volunteers can begin, and the scheme under which all this is to done has not yet received the sanction of Parliament.

    FEMALE CLERKS IN THE WAR OFFICE.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether in the reorganisation of the War Office by a committee of experts now in progress the Secretary of State will favourably consider the means of increasing the present female clerks' establishment at the War Office upon similar lines to those adopted by the Postmaster-General, so as to provide employment for the orphan daughters of officers who have fallen in action, or died from wounds received in action, or from the effects of foreign service, and whose families have been left in straitened circumstances.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The typewriting department of the War Office is now worked entirely by women clerks. The suggestion contained in the hon. Member's question will be considered.

    BRITISH SUBJECTS IN BATAVIA.
    LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether British subjects in Batavia are compelled to serve in the Dutch army for the defence of the island of Java; whether any nation has a right to impress British subjects for military or naval service of any description; and whether such service is in conformity with the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. BRODRICK,):

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    The question of the liability of British subjects to serve in the militia of the Dutch East India possessions has arisen on several occasions, and it has been decided that, in the absence of treaty stipulations to the contrary, they are liable, unless it can be shown that foreigners of any other nationality are relieved from that obligation. Within the limitations explained in the answer to the first paragraph of the question, any nation has a right to call upon resident foreigners for service. Such service by a British subject would not be, on his part, a violation of the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act.

    THE MURDER OF A BRITISH MISSIONARY IN CHINA.
    SIR JOHN LENG: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Wick Burghs, I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in consequence of the murder in China of the Rev. Mr. Fleming, a formal demand was made for the dismissal or recall of the Governor of Kweichau; and whether Her Majesty's Government still insist on that demand.
    MR. BRODRICK: In reply to a question on this subject three days ago I stated that as two of the murderers had been executed, the Yamên had been informed that an extension of time would be granted for the apprehension of the head man.

    RUSSIAN RAILWAYS IN PERSIA.
    SIR JOHN LENG: On behalf of the hon. Member for Wick Burghs I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government have any information that Russia meditates frustrating the development of British trade in Persia by the construction of a railway from Duschak, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, to Meshed, whither English goods at present travel viâ Seistan.
    MR. BRODRICK: The answer is in the negative.

    LUDLOW VACCINATION CASE.
    MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Thomas H. Rich, who was summoned before the Ludlow Bench of Magistrates
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    on 12th June under the Vaccination Acts, and pleaded in defence that the Public Vaccinator had not given notice of his visit in accordance with Article 1, Section 3, of the Vaccination Act of 1898, but that the said Public Vaccinator attempted to vaccinate the child by force against the wish of the mother; whether he will inform the Public Vaccinator of Craven Arms that he has exceeded his duty in attempting to vaccinate against the wish of the parent and without giving the twenty-four hours' statutory notice; and will he cause the fine and costs to be returned to the said Thomas H. Rich.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,): According to my information, the defendant was charged with having neglected to get his child vaccinated; he admitted the fact, and also admitted that he had received notice requiring vaccination from the Public Vaccinator. The Public Vaccinator emphatically denies that he attempted to vaccinate the child by force against the parent's wishes. Under these circumstances I see no reason for any action on my part such as is suggested in the question.

    METROPOLITAN STREET TRAFFIC— UNATTENDED VANS.
    GENERAL LAURIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the powers which the police possess and do use in reference to obstructions to traffic caused by vans being left standing unattended on the streets and whether they have any other power than that of summoning offenders, whilst the conviction and award of punishment for such offences at present rests entirely with the magistrates before whom the cases are brought.
    SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: Under Section 54 of 2 and 3 Vict. cap. 43 the Metropolitan Police have power to arrest without warrant persons obstructing the roadway in the manner therein prohibited; but it is only in exceptional cases that it tis found advisable to adopt this summary mode of procedure. The conviction of an offender and the penalty to be inflicted on him are matters for the court before whom the charge is made.
    GENERAL LAURIE: Can the police arrest the vans?
    SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: Anyone breaking the law can be arrested summarily.
    GENERAL LAURIE: But how about the unattended vans?
    [No answer was given.]

    LICENSING COMMISSION REPORT.
    MR. YOUNG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the Report of the Royal Commission on the Liquor Licensing Laws, which was laid upon the Table of the House on Tuesday, 4th instant, appeared in the London Daily News on Wednesday the 5th; as the Report has not yet been issued to Members of the House or the Commissioners, whether this is a breach of privilege or etiquette; and who is responsible for supplying this particular newspaper with a copy of the Report.
    SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: Yes, Sir, I am aware of the fact stated in the first paragraph Of the question. I do not know who supplied the information to the newspaper, but I do not understand that any breach of privilege was committed. I am informed that a copy of the Report was lying in the library, during the sitting of the House, on the 4th inst., open to the inspection of any Member.
    MR. FLYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the premature publication of Reports of this nature is quite common, and that they frequently are to be found in the London papers before Members see them?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question.

    SOUTH AMERICAN CATTLE TRADE.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he can state how many ships in the South American live stock trade have been black listed, and in how many cases the restrictions have been cancelled; and whether he can give the names of the vessels and the reasons why they have been released from the black list.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. LONG,): Since the 1st
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    January, 1896, orders prohibiting the conveyance of animals by vessels engaged in the South American trade have been passed in fourteen cases. In five cases, the "Specialist," "Wilhelmina," "Alfalfa," "J. W. Taylor," and Hindustan," the orders were cancelled during their currency, the further representations received from the owners as to the circumstances in which the losses occurred, and as to the future equipment of the vessels appearing to us to justify this course.

    TITHE RENT-CHARGE (RATES) BILL.
    MR. WARNER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he will state the amount of the sum deducted in each case from the amount payable to the counties of Staffordshire, Essex, and Bristol out of the Local Taxation Grant to provide the £87,000 taken from the grant under the Tithe Rent-charge (Rates) Bill.
    MR. LONG: The share of the counties and county borough named in a sum of £87,000 distributed in the proportion of what are known as the "discontinued grants" would amount to £1,815, £1,934 and £679 respectively.

    SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM BUILDINGS.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works if he will consider the advisability of making arrangements for the erection of a public clock in some prominent part of the exterior of the new museum buildings at South Kensington, especially in view of the fact that there is no such clock westward from Hyde Park Corner within the four mile radius, and the erection of one at South Kensington would be regarded as a public boon.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. A. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): The matter referred to by my hon. friend shall receive attention.

    SOUTHAM VACCINATION PROSECUTION.
    MR. LOGAN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been directed to the report of a vaccination prosecution before the Justices

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    sitting at Southam, Warwickshire, from which it appears that, although the public vaccinator had himself certified that the child which formed the subject of the prosecution was weak and suffering, from rickets, that officer insisted upon Ins right to vaccinate it, and expressed his intention of disregarding the instructions of the Local Government Board on that point; and if the Local Government Board propose to take any steps to secure respect for their instructions in the district in question.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD(Mr. CHAPIAN,): My attention has been directed to certain newspaper reports of the case referred to. The facts are as stated as regards the certificate given by tile Public vaccinator, but it was not a certificate of postponement of vaccination under the Vaccination Acts. Indeed, the public vaccinator is reported to have stated in court that he considered the child a fit subject for vaccination. He absolutely denies having expressed any intention of disregarding the instructions of the Local Government Board. He only claimed the right to use his discretion as to what constituted good health in relation to vaccination, and I see no reason to interfere with this discretion.

    POOR LAW TEACHERS.
    MR. WILLIAM JONES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether only 60 out of 172 teachers employed under the Local Government Board are fully trained if he can state whether the Education Department has refused to inspect the Poor Law schools: and, if so, for what reason; and whether he will endeavour to secure in the future the inspection of Poor Law schools by the Education Department.
    MR. CHAPLIN: According to the report of the Poor Law Schools Committee of the 172 teachers in metropolitan Poor Law schools 60 were fully trained and certificated under the Education Department. It should, however, be added that of the remaining 112 teachers 93 held various certificates from the Education Department which would qualify them to act as teachers under that Department. As regards the second and third paragraphs, I have stated to the House, in
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    reply to a question by the hon. Member for Shoreditch and in the discussion on the vote for the Local Government Board, that I had communicated with the Education Department as to the inspection of Poor Law Schools by inspectors of that Department, so far as the educational work in the schools is concerned. The Education Department, however, felt a difficulty in assenting to this arrangement, unless the inspection of the schools was transferred to them in its entirety, including not only the education given in the schoolroom, but also the boarding and other arrangements. In this I was unable to concur.

    LIVERPOOL POST OFFICE
    MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster- General, whether he is aware that police pensioners are about to be employed as hall porters, in the room of allowanced postmen, in the new post office at Liverpool; whether the Postmaster-General is aware that these easy positions, being reserved for postmen, enabled many postmen to hold out at work until sixty years of age; whether two ex-police-sergeants about to be appointed to these positions are in receipt of pensions of 35s. and 40s. per week respectively; and whether policemen who, receive two-thirds of their pay in pension after twenty-six years' service (making them about forty-eight years of age) are now to be added to soldier pensioners in claiming the easy places in the Post Office formerly held by postmen.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,): The answer to the first paragraph is "Yes," and to the second "No." The duties of doorkeepers and night patrols are more suited to police constables than to postmen, and it is in contemplation to extend to Liverpool the London system under which a force of police pensioners is employed on such duties. The change, which will effect a considerable reduction of expense, will be carried out gradually. No appointments have yet been made.

    MEDICAL TREATMENT OF POSTMEN.
    MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster-General, on what grounds two postmen for many years employed at the Maldon head office and two years

    177
    since transferred to a sub-office under Maldon, less than a mile from the head office, whose duties are partially performed in Maldon itself, have been removed from the list of men entitled to receive gratuitous medical treatment from the Departmental medical officer for Maldon.
    MR. HANBURY: The names of these two men were removed from the Medical Officer's Capitation List under a misapprehension, and instructions have been given for them to be restored to the list.

    DUNDALK POSTMASTERSHIP.
    MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster-General, will he state the name of the gentleman who has been promoted to the postmaster-ship of Dundalk and the name of the office he has been promoted from; whether he can say if the vacancy created by the removal has been filled up, and by whom; and how many applications were sent in for this vacancy.
    MR. HANBURY: Mr. Robert Swale has been promoted from the Postmaster-ship of Coleraine to that of Dundalk. The vacancy at Coleraine has not yet been filled up. It may be necessary to revise the salary for the incoming Postmaster of Coleraine, and candidates have not yet been invited to apply.

    CROLLY BRIDGE POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster-General, when the promised daily delivery of letters at Crolly Bridge, Bunbeg, county Donegal, will be commenced.
    MR. HANBURY: Authority has been given for affording a delivery of letters at Crolly Bridge every week day, and the arrangements will be brought into operation with the least possible delay.

    PORT NESS AND THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland is aware that a lifeboat is urgently needed at Port of Ness, Island of Lewis; and, having regard to the fact that the Secretary to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has announced that his Committee will be prepared to consider the
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    question of the establishment of a lifeboat station at Port of Ness as soon as the harbour works are complete, will steps be taken to finish the works at an early date.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The Secretary for Scotland had not heard of any application for the establishment of a lifeboat station at the Port of Ness. He would be glad to see the harbour finished, but cannot intervene further than he has done in the dispute that has been going on for some years between the trustees and the contractor.
    MR. WEIR: What steps have been taken to bring to an end the dispute between the trustees and the contractors?
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: We have done everything in our power to bring it to an end; of course, we cannot interfere directly.

    SCHOOL INSPECTION IN SCOTLAND.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, having regard to a statement on page 6 of the Education Report for the Northern Division of Scotland for 1898, made by one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, that he has only been able to get through the work of inspection by giving to it every one of his holidays, will he make arrangements so that this inspector gets his full annual leave of absence this year.
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: As I have already stated, the Department is prepared to consider any case in which inadequacy in the staff for the proper discharge of the work of inspection is thoroughly established, and will endeavour to arrange as far as possible that the annual leave of the inspectors be not interfered with; but no pledge of the nature suggested can be given with regard to any public official.
    MR. WEIR: Having regard to the fact that this inspector has sacrificed his holidays in the past, will the right hon. Gentleman see that he at least gets his full leave this year?
    [No answer was given.]
    MR. WEIR: I shall call attention to this on the Estimates.

    PORTMAHOMACK HARBOUR.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state what amount of local subscription in aid of the improvement of Portmahomack Harbour would be considered by the Secretary for Scotland as sufficient to warrant him in approaching the Treasury for a special grant in aid of the work.
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: Since the 12th May the hon. Member has given notice of four questions with reference to the grant of Government money for the improvement of the fishing harbour of Portmahomack, in the Dornoch Firth. The estimated cost of these improvements is £4,500, a sum above the limit of grants under the West Highlands and Islands Works Act. The parish is not a congested one, so the harbour cannot be aided from the funds at the disposal of the Congested Districts Board. A Standing Committee has recently been appointed to inquire into applications from local authorities for Government assistance in constructing harbours. The Treasury have ruled that cases should only be referred to this Committee—first, where the local authority will undertake and be in a position to ensure the permanent maintenance of the harbour; and, secondly, where two-thirds of the whole cost is provided from local or outside sources. When the Secretary for Scotland is satisfied that these two conditions are complied with in the case of Portmahomack Harbour, he will be happy to refer it to the Committee.

    SCOTTISH CONGESTED DISTRICTS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, having regard to the fact that on page 9 of the Report of the Congested Districts Board, it is stated that the Board have received applications for new holdings, or for the extension of existing holdings, from the island parts of the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross, and Shetland, will he state how many such applications have been received from each county; and whether it has been found possible, up to the present time, to accede to the request of any of the applicants.
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed by the Congested Districts Board that six applications have been received from Argyllshire, three from Ross-shire, twenty-nine from Inverness-shire and one from Shetland. So far the
    180
    Board have only been able to help in the case of applications from Inverness-shire.

    IRISH BANKRUPTCY PROCEDURE.
    MR. CAREW: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if his attention has been directed to the proposed Orders relating to the procedure in the Court of Bankruptcy, Ireland, published in the Dublin Gazette of 16th June, 1899; whether he is aware that the Official Liquidator (Ireland) Bill, which was similar to the latter part of Order No. 250, was withdrawn by the late Government in 1893, and that the said Order is an exact copy of one that appeared in the Dublin Gazette of 10th August, 1896, which the Lord Chancellor of Ireland declined to sign; what objections were received against the confirmation of that Order, and what were the grounds urged in these objections; and at whose request are the proposed changes now being made, and what grounds have been given for the proposed changes.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. In answer to the second paragraph, the Bill in question, after having been amended in Committee, was either withdrawn by the late Government or dropped. There appears to be some resemblance between one of the clauses in that Bill and the latter part of the Order referred to, inasmuch as under both the official assignees are eligible to be appointed official liquidators. The Dublin Gazette was not published on the 10th August, 1896, and no such Order appeared in any copies of the Gazette published in August of that year. The Gazette of the 16th June, 1899, contains the print of provisional Rules recommended by the Rule recommending authority (which includes all the Judges of the High Court), and before they are made final any public body can submit objections for consideration.

    ULSTER ASSIZES.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland why the winter assize for Ulster has been held in either Belfast or Derry for many years past; and will the City of Armagh again be passed over this year.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DUNBAR BARTON, )was understood to reply that he was not responsible in this matter.

    IRISH INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Nenagh magistrates recently committed to industrial schools the children of two widows, on the ground that they were destitute, and without visible means of support; will he state by whose orders the children were turned out of the schools, and were afterwards dropped out on the railway platform at Nenagh without anyone to look after them (their mothers having left), and without having a home to go to; were any steps taken beforehand to quash the magistrates' order as illegal, and is there any official machinery for superseding such orders without appeal or resort to legal tribunals; is he aware that the Nenagh justices then a second time committed the children to industrial schools, on the ground that they were found wandering, and not having any house or settled place of abode or proper guardianship or visible means of subsistence; was this commitment an act within the jurisdiction of the justices; if not, was it quashed by any competent tribunal; does the order remain on record as a valid commitment, and by what authority did the Castle officials once more command the managers of the schools of Birr and Galway to turn the children out; is he aware that a lad of eleven years was in consequence deposited for the second time on the platform at Nenagh, having neither a home nor friends to go to, and that the sisters of mercy in charge of the Birr Industrial School refused on the second occasion to turn out the little girls; will he state who is the official responsible for overruling a legal decision; on what powers is he proceeding; and do the Government propose to take any steps in the matter.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,): This question appears to refer to the cases of four children, three girls and a boy, who were committed to industrial schools by the magistrates at Nenagh Petty Sessions on the 25th February last, the ground of commital stated in each case being that the child was destitute
    182
    and an orphan. The orders of committal were not only contrary to fact, the mothers of the children being alive, but were bad in law, since they were not in accordance with the form prescribed by Statute. The magistrates were afforded an opportunity of amending the Orders, but the Chairman stated it was impossible to amend them so as to bring the cases within the Act of Parliament. In these circumstances I had no alternative but to direct the discharge of the children. This was done by me on the 10th of April. The boy left the school on the 26th of April; he was accompanied by one of the Christian Brothers to Limerick and there handed over to a person to be conveyed to Nenagh. On his arrival at Nenagh he went to his sister, who was in domestic service. On the 29th of April an application was made to the magistrates for his recommittal, as well as for the recommittal of the three girls who, I may observe, were still detained in the industrial school and were not, as a matter of fact, discharged from the school until the 5th of May. On the 6th of May the magistrates recommitted the four children on the ground that they had been found wandering and had no visible means of subsistence. The mothers of these children, who on the occasion of their first committal were described as orphans, disappeared when the order for their discharge was issued on the 10th of April. Having carefully reviewed all the facts of the cases, I was forced to the conclusion that the situation of the children in having on the second occasion been found wandering and without visible means of subsistence was the result of an arrangement deliberately designed to qualify the children for admission to an Industrial School, and did not arise from a natural course of events. I, therefore, again exercised the authority vested in me by the 33rd Section of the industrial Schools Act of 1868, by ordering the discharge of the children. Neither of the Orders was quashed. One was on the face of it bad and made without jurisdiction, and the other was obviously procured by the contrivance I have mentioned.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: What tribunal decided that these Orders were bad in law? On what ground does the right hon. Gentleman presume to exercise the authority of a court of justice?
    Mr. G. W. BALFOUR: The Industrial Schools Act gives the Chief Secretary absolute discretion to discharge children.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: But what tribunal decided that the Orders were bad in law? What tribunal has power except the Court of Queen's Bench?
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: That is not the question. The Chief Secretary has the power.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: That is not my point. The magistrates made the Orders, and the right hon. Gentleman has stated that they were bad in law. The right hon. Gentleman is not the law. The only court with power to review the Orders is the Court of Queen's Bench. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks the Orders are bad in law, why does he not direct his Attorney-General to quash them?
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The Chief Secretary is actually empowered to discharge the children. Of course he acts on the advice of his legal officers.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I ask what tribunal decided that the magistrates' order was bad. I did not ask the right hon. Gentleman whether or not he had power to discharge the children, but by what authority he decided that the decision of two magistrates was bad in law?
    MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has answered the question.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: No, Sir.
    MR. SPEAKER: He has said that no Court overruled the decision of the magistrates, but that he has acted under an Act of Parliament which empowered him to discharge the children.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I will call further attention to this matter. I do not question his discretion to discharge. What I have questioned is his right to describe the Orders as illegal. Is he a new Removable Court?

    MONAGHAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS.
    MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the sheriff's account for the County Monaghan
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    local government elections amounted in the gross to a sum of £1,351 12s. 1d., although certain candidates in several of the divisions received a very small number of votes; and whether, in view of this expenditure, he can now see his way to devise means by which such contests may be discouraged.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I believe the cost of the first elections in County Monaghan amounted to the sum stated. It must be borne in mind, however, that there were twenty county council elections and seventy district council elections to be arranged for, and that a considerable portion of the sum mentioned was applied in the purchase of ballot boxes and compartments which will be available for future elections. As regards the second paragraph, I have nothing to add to my reply to the hon. Member's previous question of the 8th June on the same subject.

    IRISH INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS CIRCULAR.
    MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has he received a copy of a resolution passed by the Monaghan County Council respectfully asking for the withdrawal of a recent circular affecting the usefulness of industrial schools in Ireland; and if he, giving heed to this and other representations to the same effect, can advise the Lord Lieutenant to withdraw the circular in question.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I have received a copy of the resolution referred to in the first paragraph. In answer to the second paragraph, I have nothing to add to the replies previously given by me on this subject.

    HOLIDAYS OF IRISH POOR LAW OFFICIALS.
    MR. YOUNG:: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board of Ireland propose to make arrangements, by regulation or otherwise, for securing to the Poor Law officials, other than dispensary doctors, similar annual holidays; and what is now the number of such annual holidays allowed to such doctors.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The regulations with respect to the duties, etc., of

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    Union officers are now being revised by the Local Government Board, and the question of annual holidays to Poor Law officials will receive consideration in connection therewith. Under Article 28 of the new Dispensary Regulations annual vacation not exceeding four weeks is allowed to dispensary medical officers. No similar fixed rule has been hitherto laid down with respect to other Poor Law officials.

    RIVER BARROW DRAINAGE.
    DR. MACDONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he has received a resolution from the Queen's County County Council requesting that a grant should be made from the Imperial Exchequer for the purpose of completing the drainage of the River Barrow; and if it is the intention of the Government to meet the wishes of the Queen's County County Council.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: A copy of the resolution referred to has been received. I am afraid I have nothing to add to my replies to previous questions on the subject of the Barrow drainage, or to the communications already addressed by me to local bodies on the same subject.

    IRISH LUNACY GRANT.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can allay the apprehension created in some districts in Ireland that there will be delay or non-payment of the equivalent for the 4s. grant for lunatics in consequence of the new arrangements under the Local Government Act.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: On the 16th June the Bank of Ireland was authorised to pay out of the Local Taxation Account the claims of all the asylums in Ireland in respect of the year ending 31st December, 1898, which had come in by that date audited and certified by the auditors. The claims of four asylums only were outstanding on the 16th June; two of these have since been received and paid; the remaining two will be paid when received.

    IRISH TITHE RENT-CHARGE.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when the Treasury
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    Memorandum on the Irish Tithe Rent-charge Bill will be circulated.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: This Memorandum is not yet quite ready, but there will be no delay in laying it on the Table.

    TRANSVAAL AFFAIRS.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury—with reference to what appears to be an official communiqué in The Times newspaper this morning with regard to the despatch of troops to South Africa—whether he has any statement to make to the House of Commons on the subject.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am not aware that the statement which appears in The Times is a communiqué, but I have to say, since the right hon. Gentleman asks me, that no contingency has yet arisen which, in the opinion of the Government, necessitates any material increase in the forces now stationed in South Africa. But, in existing circumstances, we think it is necessary to bring that force up to a proper standard of efficiency and mobility.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is not with regard to the bringing up of the forces already in South Africa to a certain state of efficiency that I wish to inquire. It is as to this paragraph in an apparently official statement—
    "The Commander-in-Chief has been engaged in completing the organisation and composition of the larger force which it will be necessary to despatch to South Africa in the event of the negotiations at present in progress with the Government of the Transvaal proving unsuccessful."
    It is with regard to that—a new declaration of Government policy—that I wish to ask.
    AIR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir, there is no declaration of policy in that paragraph. But I conceive that the War Office would be extraordinarily wanting in the most obvious duties if they were not prepared for any emergency, however undesirable and however unlikely, which could possibly arise.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: May I ask whether the officers stated in this communiqué to be going out to South Africa to organise the forces are

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    to go into the Cape Colony and into Natal to organise them; and, if so, is it with the consent of the Ministers of those colonies?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know.
    COMMANDER BETHELL: Can my right hon. friend inform the House in what circumstances these special officers are likely to be used, and against what enemies of the Queen?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir. My hon. and gallant friend is quite as much of a prophet as I am, and it would require the gift of prophecy to predict all these contingencies.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when it is proposed to resume consideration of the Scottish Votes in Committee of Supply.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot at present make any statement about Supply. I have promised, as regards next Friday to give an answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, but I can say no more at present.
MR. DILLON: May I ask with reference to the motion for devoting three additional days to Supply, whether the Government will give one of those days to the consideration of the Irish Votes.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have nothing to add to what I said yesterday with regard to Irish Supply. Three days have already been devoted to it, and I am not in a position to say at present that it will be possible to give more time to it. I shall have to see how the number of allotted days works out divided among the various competitors for time.
ADMIRAL FIELD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Shipbuilding and Admiralty Votes will be taken.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir.
MR. WEIR: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give three days to the Scotch Estimates, and whether he is aware that during the last
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two or three years many of the Scotch Votes have not been discussed at all.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should always regret that the hon. Member had not full opportunity of expressing his views.
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Can the right hon. Gentleman see his way to give more than one day to the discussion of the Home Office Vote. There were a great many subjects to be raised, one of them being vivisection.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe that there was a discussion last year on the subject to which the hon. Member refers, but he will agree that my difficulties are considerable. The hon. Gentleman next to him wants another day for Irish Supply; the hon. Gentleman himself wants another day for the Home Office Vote; my hon. and Gallant Friend wants a day for the Admiralty Vote; and the hon. Member for Ross wishes three days to be given to Scotch Votes.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: There was no discussion of vivisection last year on the Estimates. I raised the question on the Appropriation Bill, and, quite rightly, I was called to order by the Speaker three times in five minutes.

BOARD OF EDUCATION BILL [Lords].
Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Law, etc.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No. 270.)
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. (No. 270.)
Bill as amended in the Standing Committee, to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. (Bill 265.)

SUPPLY (ADDITIONAL DAYS).
Ordered that three additional days be allotted to the Business of Supply.—(Mr. Balfour.)

SUPPLY [18th ALLOTED DAY].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)

CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES, 1899–1900.

  CLASS III.
  1. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £39,232, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1900, for the Salaries of the Law Officers' Department; the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, Queen's Proctor, and Director of Public Prosecutions; the costs of prosecutions, of other legal proceedings, and of Parliamentary agency."
  MR. WEIR: I beg to move to reduce this vote by £455 for the purpose of calling attention to the very unsatisfactory manner in which the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General are paid. They are remunerated by a system of salaries and fees. The system is a bad one. I think they should be paid by salary entirely, and I hope that, in his reply to me, the hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to give me some assurance that steps are being taken in that direction. I wish also to call attention to the allowance for personal clerks. Since the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General are paid by salary and fees, they surely ought to be able to provide the sum necessary for paying their personal clerks. Certainly the taxpayers should not be called upon to pay it. I believe the Attorney-General gets a salary of £6,000 or £7,000, and, in addition, a nearly equal amount in fees. The Solicitor-General receives very nearly as much, and do think that, if these gentlemen had any modesty at all, they would be ashamed to charge this paltry sum for their personal clerks. I beg to move.
  Motion made and question proposed—
  "That Item A be reduced by £455, in respect of the Allowance for Personal Clerks."—(Mr. Weir.)
  MR. LOUGH: I do not know whether I shall support this
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  reduction or not; it depends entirely upon the answer of the Solicitor-General. I do think that some explanation should be given to the Committee in regard to the system under which the Law Officers of the Crown are paid. A new system of remunerating the Law Officers has recently been adopted by the present Government. There was a good deal of trouble for six or seven years in connection with this matter. The late Government established a method of payment which enabled the House of Commons to know exactly how much both these officers received, but this Government has adopted the unusual course of reverting to the old system of payment by salary, supplemented by fees for contentious business. We were promised three years ago, a Return in continuation of a Paper laid upon the Table showing the total emoluments of the Law Officers. I am told, however, that that Return has not been made, and I suggest that that is a breach of a distinct promise given to the Committee. There is only one further question I wish to raise, and that is in connection with the Railway Commission. We have sometimes criticised that body very severely. I believe that the salaries of the Commissioners are included in this, Vote. They have done some useful work, especially in regard to workmen's trains, and I should be glad if the hon. and learned Gentleman could give us some details of the work accomplished, and some information as to the number of days the Commission has sat.
  THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir R. B. FINLAY,): In reply to the hon. Member for Ross, and his complaint of the charge for personal clerks, I would remind the Committee that under the old system these clerks were paid entirely by fees, and when the change took place and the salaries of the Law Officers were made to cover all contentious business it became necessary, of course, to make a new arrangement for the payment of clerks. An understanding was accordingly come to that a certain allowance should be granted for them. There had been a want of continuity in the Law Officers' Department, and it was found necessary some years ago to establish a Department where these clerks on modest salaries might be able to keep up the continuity of the work. I do not think the

  191
  Committee will see anything to complain of in an arrangement of that kind. The other items in the Vote have reference to the cost of criminal prosecutions incurred in connection with cases taken up at the public expense, and I do not think I need dwell upon them. I am not prepared to give the number of sittings of the Railway Commissioners, but I may say I think the public have every reason to be satisfied with the way in which the work is done. With regard to the Return which the hon. Member for Islington says was promised by the Attorney-General, I do not remember the circumstances, but I will make inquiry, and I can assure him that any pledge given by my hon. and learned friend will most certainly be carried out.
  MR. LOUGH: I really think the reply of the hon. and learned Member is rather unsatisfactory. Unfortunately the Attorney-General is away, and he is not likely to be here when the Report of this Vote is taken. I do not think we should part with the Vote until we get an answer to my question. It is admitted that a change has been made in the system of remunerating the Law Officers, and we want to be able to compare the new system with the old system. We discussed this point three years ago, and we were promised a Return showing the exact amount received by the Law Officers. That Return we have not yet received. I should like to point out, further, that no explanation appears on the Votes in connection with the items lettered B, C, D, E, and F.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! This is a motion to reduce a particular item, and the Debate must be confined to that item.
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: I can only repeat that I will inquire exactly what took place, and if the Return was promised it certainly shall be prepared.
  MR. WEIR: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman state the exact amount he has received by way of fees, in addition to his salary of £6,000?
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: I am afraid I cannot answer that, but of course the figures will appear in the Return.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask leave to withdraw my motion, in view of the
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  promise that we shall have this information.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. LOUGH: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman give any further explanation as to items B, C, D, E, and F? They cover a sum of £50,000 or more.
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: These are the costs of criminal prosecutions in cases taken up at the public expense. The Committee will see that, to give fuller explanations in the Votes of these items, would really mean furnishing the bills of costs incurred in these criminal prosecutions and other proceedings. It would be an almost impossible task to do this.
  MR. WEIR: What about item C? Is there any special business warranting the increase in that?
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: It is an involuntary increase due to the nature of the business and the greater proportion of costs recovered. It is an increased expense which has resulted in a reduction in the amount of outstanding costs.
  MR. LOUGH: I think we ought to have further information given us in regard to the miscellaneous law charges. Why are the letters printed in the Votes if no explanation is to be given? Surely the object of the letter is to indicate that there is an explanation elsewhere.
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: I think the practice pursued on this occasion is that which is always pursued, and if we were to give all these minor details complaint would be made of expense uselessly incurred in printing them.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  2. £13,200, to complete the sum for Miscellaneous Legal Expenses.
  3. £206,527, to complete the sum for Supreme Court of Judicature.
  4. £16,742, to complete the sum for Land Registry.
  5. £29,714, to complete the sum for County Courts.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: What is being done to carry out the understanding which was come to last year with regard to the taking of steps for the reduction of fees?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,): Something has been done in that direction, although there has not been a general revision. Of course, there are two opinions as to whether it is desirable to make any considerable reduction. This complaint really arose in regard to the smaller cases, and while, on the one hand, the fees charged did seem unduly high, on the other it was a question it they did not have some effect in discouraging the grant of credit by tradesmen.
  DR. CLARK: I see there is an increase in the fees of £1,500. Is that due to any change in the scales?
  MR. HANBURY: No change has been made.
  DR. CLARK: There is a new charge of £2,000. What is the meaning of that? Are you appointing any more judges or other officers? This is an entirely new charge.
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: The Committee is aware that a great deal of new work has arisen in connection with the Work men's Compensation Act. These expenses are incurred in connection with that.
  DR. CLARK: What is the money spent for, or what is it to be spent upon?
  SIR R. B. FINLAY: This is an item in respect of the remuneration of arbitrators appointed under the Act.
  DR. CLARK: I think there should be some inquiry into the working of the county court system in England. In Scotland the cost is very much less, and there we do for 2s. 1d. about as much as two guineas is charged for in England. I think the cheaper Scotch system ought to be introduced into this country.
  Vote agreed to.
  6. £40,968, to complete the sum for Police, England and Wales.
  7. Motion made and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £415,161 be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1900, for the expenses of the Prisons in England, Wales and the Colonies."
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I rise to move the reduction of this Vote in respect of the imprisonment of debtors. I did so last year simply on the general lines that debtors were subjected to discipline which was not general, which, in fact, does not obtain in Scotland. I think it is very unfair that we should be called upon to pay a quota of the expense of maintaining 8,000 debtors in England, while England contributes nothing for any similar purpose in Scotland. This year there is much greater necessity for calling attention to this matter. Owing to an Act passed last session the treatment of debtors it English prisons has been greatly aggravated. Within the last couple of months a circular based on the Bill passed last year has been issued, and it has called forth strong comments from several county court judges. I wish to give the Committee the opinion of one or two of those judges. On 1st May the Birmingham County Court judge, Judge Whitehorn, after announcing that he had received a circular from the Home Office informing him of the changes which had been made in the treatment of debtor prisoners, said there were three main alterations of which it was only right public notice should be taken. The first was that, although hitherto debtors had been allowed to obtain their food and drink from outside the prison, under the new rules they would receive an allowance of food similar to that prescribed for offenders of the first division who did not maintain themselves. I would ask, does the increased sum of £8,000 now asked for the maintenance of prisoners represent the amount required for providing food for these debtors? Again, as the learned judge pointed out, they are to be required to work at their own trade or at some industry. They will receive the whole of their earnings, subject to a deduction for the cost of their maintenance and the use of implements furnished by the prison. That means that for the first

  195
  time in I do not know how many years since the introduction of reforms in our prison system debtors are to be put on compulsory work. Hitherto they have been confined in prison under the fiction, not that they owe money, but that they have refused to obey an order of the court. Now they nominally remain under the rule sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman as civil prisoners. There is to be some slight difference made between them and criminal prisoners.
  MR. DILLON: None.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: Theoretically there is to be a difference, but in all material respects their position is assimilated to that of criminal prisoners. The learned judge went on to say that the third chief change was, that whereas these prisoners formerly had a common room, for use in the daytime, they were, in the future, to be confined to their cells at all times except when at chapel, and at exercise. Was there ever such a retrograde movement in connection with the treatment of civil prisoners? Certainly, the debtor is still to be allowed to wear his own clothes, but it is only due to a vote given in the Committee upstairs that they are not to be put into prison clothes. Again, they are to be kept separate from the criminal prisoners, and that too, I think, was owing to something we did upstairs. In future they are to be allowed to receive only one visitor and write and receive one letter a week. I do not know what the rule in regard to that has hitherto been in England, but I do know what it was in Scotland before imprisonment for debt was abolished. There they were allowed to receive any reasonable number of visitors and to write any reasonable number of letters. Why should you prevent a man who is in prison in consequence of his financial difficulties from communicating with friends outside with a view to securing financial assistance? Why limit him to one letter a week? The County Court judge further went on to point out what would be the effect of these new rules upon his practice. Inasmuch as the punishment was made much more severe, and as the debtors were being brought nearer to the status of criminals, he thought that the commitment for forty days, which was deemed sufficient under the old system, would find its equivalent
  196
  in twenty days under the new system. Judge Edge, of the Clerkenwell County Court, has also expressed somewhat similar sentiments, and he added that he would require in the future to be satisfied more definitely as to a man's means of paying before he made a committal order. Probably that is not a perfectly accurate record of what the learned judge said, because, as a matter of theory, a judge has all along been expected to satisfy himself as to the debtor's means of paying before committing him. But the fact is, that these cases arc got through in a most hurried style, and that the evidence received is often of such a nature that it is altogether unworthy of the name of evidence. Still this judge has said that he will be more stringent in future in exacting proof of means. My contention is that this is a retrograde movement in the treatment of debtors, and that instead of it we ought to be progressing with a view to getting imprisonment for debt really abolished. The right hon. Gentleman will, no doubt, tell the Committee that debtors are to be subjected to compulsory work in consequence of the report of the Departmental Committee presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Leeds. I do not wish to contest the position taken up in that report, that if debtors are kept in prison it is better that they should have some employment. But if you are going to make the debtor a criminal, then I think that affords us the best argument that can be advanced for the total abolition of imprisonment for debt. Whoever heard of a rich bankrupt who would not pay his debts being sent to prison? All the 8,000 debtors kept in prison together probably among them do not owe as much as that gigantic debtor, Mr. Hooley, whom the public Prosecutor refused to have anything to do with. We had the same system working in Scotland, only not quite so bad. In England debtors are maintained at the cost of the State, and not as was the case in Scotland at the cost of the incarcerating creditor. Twenty years ago we abolished every vestige of imprisonment for debt in Scotland. Why should the State step in in the case of these small debtors to give the creditor the means of enforcing payment, which is not done in the case of the rich? What is the result of this system? Who are the debts eventually

  197
  collected from? Why, the screw is put not on the debtor, but on some of his or her poor relatives, who often have to pawn everything they can to get the person out of prison. I may be told that imprisonment for debt does not exist, but that it is imprisonment for contempt of court; but that seems to me to be an absurd theory. I am not an advocate of allowing anything in the shape of fraud to escape punishment, but under Scottish law the poor man who commits a fraud is just as liable to criminal proceedings as the rich man. What is the result under the English system? It may be that some pedlar manages to induce a poor man's wife to buy goods which are certainly not necessary, and the husband may know nothing about the debt until he is brought up before the County Court judge. Evidence is given as to his wages, and he is ordered to pay a certain amount, but he cannot do it, and he goes to prison. But does imprisonment purge that man's debt? Not at all, for he may go to prison again and again, and still be as deeply in debt as ever. It however, different with the rich man, for he never goes to prison at all. The rich man gets his discharge unless there is something very bad against him, if he can scrape together 10s. in the £. I know a case where a bankrupt put all the money he received into his wife's account. He then took all the debts upon his own shoulders and went through the Bankruptcy Court, and he got his discharge despite all the protests which his creditors could make against him. This system does not exist in any other civilised country but our own, and it is a barbarous system. I protest against this Vote, because under last year's Prisons Act the treatment of debtors has been made infinitely worse, because they have been reduced, if not quite to the status of criminals, to something very nearly approaching it. That is a retrograde movement on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and his advisers in these matters, and the question seems to me to call for a pronouncement of opinion on the part of this House, that the time has come when imprisonment for debt should be abolished. I beg to move the reduction of this Vote by £500.
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That a sum, not exceeding £410,161, be granted for the said Service."—(Sir Charles Cameron.)
  MR. DILLON: I am very glad that this question has been raised to-day, for I believe that the alteration made in the treatment of prisoners for debt was a retrograde movement. There can be no doubt that under the present regulations debtors are reduced to the condition and status of criminals. I remember the time when the debtors' prison was one of the pleasantest places possible to go in, providing you had agreeable friends. I have spent many pleasant hours in the Debtors' Prison, Dublin, where we had a tennis court, and where the prisoners were allowed to have their friends to spend a pleasant evening. Since the abolition of the old Debtors' Prison system you have lowered the status of the unfortunate debtor to that of the criminal. Whatever the pretext may be for imprisonment—whether it be contempt of court or treason—the offence of all these individuals who are imprisoned really is that they refuse to pay when the court thinks they are able to pay. The way the problem presents itself to my mind is that you ought not to imprison any man who is not guilty of a crime; and the question is, Is the refusal to pay a debt a crime? I hold that it is not. I believe a great public benefit will be done by directing the attention of the public to the fact that a large number of persons are condemned to imprisonment as debtors without any of the protection to which the ordinary citizen is surrounded when charged with a crime. A debtor, I hold, is not guilty of a crime according to modern ideas. In olden times I know he was, and was subjected to most cruel tyranny. I maintain that a man who refuses to pay when he is able to pay is not guilty of a crime. He may be guilty of a moral offence, but we do not punish men for moral offences. If a man is guilty of fraud he ought to be proceeded against for fraud, and ought to be treated as a criminal, anal be afforded the same protection as other criminals. The judges alluded to by the hon. Member have bad recourse to a remedy of their own, and they have cut down their sentences accordingly, in order to compensate for the increased severity of the prison rules. A great many judges, however, would take no notice of this, and would proceed to deal with debtors as before. I was much surprised to hear that the whole system had been swept away in Scotland. The system does prevail in Ireland, and it is used in a reckless way. Some

  199
  of the judges are in the habit of committing people for different periods of imprisonment for contempt of Court with reference to the non-payment of instalments and other similar offences. Men and women are lying in gaol in Ireland who have been there for many months without any proper trial, and who, under these new regulations, are treated as criminals, although they are first-class misdemeanants—although they have not, as a matter of fact, been guilty of any crime whatever. I am extremely glad that the hon. Member has brought this matter Before the attention of the House.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,)I am not prepared to defend the law of imprisonment for debt, but would remind the hon. Baronet opposite that the state of the law in England, at all events, is that a debtor who, being able to pay, is adjudged to pay and refuses, is sent to prison. It is under those circumstances, not under the very agreeable circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member for East Mayo, which remind one of a story by Dickens, that a debtor is sent to prison. At present it is the practice of the county courts that a man is sent to prison who is able to pay his debts, but refuses to pay them. I am not prepared now to argue in favour of the maintenance of that law; but if I were so inclined, I venture to say this is not the occasion to deal with it. So far as the Prison Commissioners are concerned, I am sure it is no advantage to them to get this class of prisoner into prison. The hon. Baronet is perfectly right when he says that I based this reform upon the recommendations of a Committee presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Leeds, and appointed by my right hon. friend and predecessor, whom I see opposite. That Committee recommended in the strongest terms that it was high time that a less difference should be made between ordinary prisoners and debtors than had been the custom; that various abuses had grown up, and that there was no reason why these men should not be compelled to work. It was regarded as an abuse that they should earn two or three shillings a day by refusing to pay their just debts, and all at the expense of the country. A
  200
  similar recommendation had also been made by former Prison Commissioners
  and other high authorities, and it was with a view to carrying it out that the first step was taken under the Bill of last year, by giving power to Prison Commissioners and Governors to stop the providing of meals from outside for these debtors. The second point refers to the obligation compelling them to work. I quite agree with the hon. Baronet that it is not a question of fraudulent debtors, but of debtors guilty of nothing but refusing to pay what they are ordered to pay. I have had not only the Report of the Committee, but frequent representations from Prison Visiting Committees in Birmingham and other centres, complaining of the grievous trouble there was in dealing with this class of prisoners; that the latitude allowed them was very subversive of discipline, and that it was a gross abuse of the law that tins should be done at the public expense. Therefore I proposed, in connection with the Bill, certain rules to be laid before the House, with the full knowledge of the Committee, and the Bill became an Act. It is not correct to assert that debtors are practically criminal prisoners. The only privilege taken away has been the privilege to provide their own meals and the privilege of not being compelled to work. If the hon. Gentlemen concerned in this matter will turn to page 50 of the Parliamentary Paper they will see how carefully the position of a debtor has been guarded. He is allowed to wear his own clothes, if sufficiently clean, and is not compelled to work at any penal kind of labour or any work allotted to a prisoner under a hard labour sentence. He can choose the character of his work, so far as possible, but it must be of an industrial character. I have already had evidence that these rules have given great satisfaction to many of these men. That is a distinct advance. The hon. Baronet imagines that these men are kept perpetually shut up. The rule is that debtors, when they can possibly work in association, do so, and if they work in their cells the cell doors are open. So far from there being any complaint the contrary has been the case, and I cannot understand how the new rules can be held to be a step backwards. I can quite understand that it might be well if, as in Scotland, imprisonment for debt were

  201
  abolished, but that does not concern this Vote. These men are committed to prison under the law, and I believe the Act of last session enables them to be better treated. It is in no way a hardship to them, and does not compel them to associate with criminal prisoners.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I intend to divide the Committee on this question. Every time is, I am told, not the proper time to bring it up, but if the right lion. Gentleman is open to consider the question of imprisonment for debt, and will give us an indication of his willingness to appoint a Select Committee, of course, not this year, to inquire into it, that will be a different matter. Otherwise, I shall have to take every opportunity I can find to call attention to the matter. May I take it that the right hon. Gentleman will hold out any hope of an inquiry?
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I am certainly not able in a matter not connected with my Department to give any such pledge.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: The right hon. Gentleman described a debtor under the new system as a prosperous and contented animal—as a man earning 30s. a week. Why, let him earn it by all means; encourage him to work. But the difference between the criminal and the civil prisoner always has been that labour was wholly optional in the case of the latter, though compulsory in the case of the former. The right hon. Gentleman says these men work in association, but the rule is that when they are not at work or
  at exercise they must lie in their cells. I do not know whether the cell doors are open or shut. He said nothing regarding the restriction of communication with the outside to one visit or letter a week. Why should a man be prevented from writing letters because he happens to be a debtor? We had a large Committee consisting of twenty Members which inquired into the whole system of imprisonment for debt in Scotland, and they were unanimously of opinion that it should be abolished. A number of these debtors are men who become securities, and though legally responsible for the debt they have incurred no moral fault. It might be for the convenience of the Committee if we had a Division on this question now, and then the consideration of the Vote can be resumed.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: I agree with what the hon. Baronet has said with regard to imprisonment for debt. I certainly understood—during the Committee on the Bill of last session—that the Home Secretary himself was rather inclined to the view that imprisonment for debt should be abolished altogether. I hope that he entertains that view and that he will do all he can to bring this question before the Government.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Questions that can only be dealt with by legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 75 Noes, 212. (Division List, No. 228.)

  AYES.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Doogan, P. C.

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Austin, M.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Evans, Samuel T.(Glamorgan)

  M'Ewan, William

  Billson, Alfred

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand

  Caldwell, James

  Fox, Dr. Joseph Francis

  Montagu, Sir S. (Whitechapel)

  Cameron, Robert (Durham)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Carvill, Patrick G. Hamilton

  Gourley, Sir Edward T.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Harwood, George

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness-sh.)

  Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

  O'Connor, J. (Wicklow, W.)

  Crombie, John William

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Pickard, Benjamin.

  Davitt, Michael

  Kitson, Sir James

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Dewar, Arthur

  Lambert, George

  Provand, Andrew Dryburgh

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Lawson Sir Wilfrid (Cumb'land

  Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

  Dillon, John

  Logan, John William

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lough, Thomas

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Samuel, J.(Stockton-on-Tees)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Wilson, Charles Henry (Hull)

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Tennant, Harold John

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)

  Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford)

  Thomas, D. A. (Merthyr)

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh.

  Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Wedderburn, Sir William

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Spicer, Albert

  Weir, James Galloway

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Steadman, William Charles

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Sir Charles Cameron and Mr. Lloyd Morgan.

  Strachey, Edward

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.

  NOES.

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Ellis, John Edward

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Arnold, Alfred

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edwd.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Arrol, Sir William

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir. J. (Manc'r

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. Henry

  Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Firbank, Joseph Thomas

  M'Killop, James

  Baillie, James E. B.(Inverness)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Malcolm, Ian

  Baird, John G. Alexander

  Fison, Frederick William

  Manners, Lord Edward W. J.

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Maple, Sir John Blundell

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Mellor, Colonel (Lancashire)

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  Mellor, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Yorks.)

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Flower, Ernest

  Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

  Milner, Sir Frederick George

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)

  Milton, Viscount

  Barton, Dunbar Plunket

  Garfit, William

  Monk, Charles James

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Gedge, Sydney

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir. M. H. (Br'st'l)

  Gibbons, J. Lloyd

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Gibbs, Hn A G H. (City of Lond.)

  Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

  Beckett, Ernest William

  Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Grahm. (Bute

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Giles Charles Tyrrell

  Murray, C. J. (Coventry)

  Bethell, Commander

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbt. John

  Myers, William Henry

  Birrell, Augustine

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Bond, Edward

  Graham, Henry Robert

  O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal)

  Bowles, Capt. H.F.(Middlesex)

  Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Palmer, George W. (Reading)

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Gretton, John

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Gull, Sir Cameron

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington)

  Brookfield, A. Montagu

  Gunter, Colonel

  Pender, Sir James

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glas.)

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  Percy, Earl

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Hall, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Halsey, Thomas Frederick

  Pilkington, R. (Lancs, Newton)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. R. Wm.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Chaloner, Captain R. G. W.

  Hardy, Laurence

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Priestley, Sir W. O. (Edin.)

  Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r)

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Seale-

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Helder, Augustus

  Purvis, Robert

  Chelsea, Viscount

  Hoare, Edw. Brodie (H'mpste'd

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Clough, Walter Owen

  Hobhouse, Henry

  Rentoul, James Alexander

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Holland, Hon. L. R. (Bow)

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir M. W.

  Colston, Chas. E. H. Athole

  Howard, Joseph

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. Thomson

  Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth)

  Howell, William Tudor

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel W.

  Cooke, C. W. R. (Hereford)

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  Round, James

  Corbett A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Jackson, Rt. Hn. William L.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Courtney, Rt. Hn. Leonard H.

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Russell, Gen. F. S. (Ch't'n'm)

  Cox, Irwin Edw, Bainbridge

  Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez Edw.

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Rutherford, John

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H.

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Kimber, Henry

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Cruddas, William Donaldson

  Knowles, Lees

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. E. J.

  Curzon, Viscount

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Seely, Charles Hilton

  Denny, Colonel

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir J. P.

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

  Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Lea, Sir T. (Londonderry)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lecky, Rt. Hon. Wm. Edw. H.

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Douglas-Pennant, Hon. E. S.

  Leighton, Stanley

  Spencer, Ernest

  Doxford, William Theodore

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Stanley, Edward J. (Somerset)

  Drage, Geoffrey

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Stanley, Henry M. (Lambeth)

  Duncombe, Hon. Hubert V.

  Long, Rt. Hn Walter (L'pool.)

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Elliot, Hon. H. Ralph Douglas

  Lowther, Rt. Hon. J. (Kent)

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  204

  205

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir J. M.

  Walton, John L. (Leeds, S.)

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Warde, Lieut.-Col. C. E (Kent)

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Sutherland, Sir Thomas

  Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E.

  Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton-un-L.)

  Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Younger, William

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Wilson J. W. (Worcestersh., N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wodehouse, Rt Hon E R(Bath)

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Wallace, Robert

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Question put and agreed to.

  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. LOUGH: The question I wish to bring before the right Gentleman is the treatment of the warders, and prison labour generally. I think the wardens iii the prisons have been singularly patient in regard to their grievances, but there have been constant expressions of opinion upon them in my constituency. I have communicated with the right hon. Gentleman on the matter, and I must say that he has taken, to a certain extent, a sympathetic attitude, and if he would only go a little further I would not put the Committee to the trouble of a Division. There are 2,700 warders of all grades employed in metropolitan prisons, and, therefore, it is a large class of civil servants. It cannot be said that they are too well treated. They commence as assistants at £60 a year, with an increment of £1 a year till they reach £68. The principal warders begin at £70 a year, which rises by annual increments of £1 to £78—which is 30s. a week. These men have had a great many new duties thrown upon them by the recommendations of the Prisons Committee, who, while they considered the case of the prisoners, left out of consideration the treatment of the officials. The chief complaint of these officials is that they have to work a great deal too long hours. It may be said that though these hours are long, the work is of a mere routine and easy character; but though physically the work may not be severe, the strain is constant. The shortest hours they are on duty are seventy-four or seventy-six hours per week, and they run up to ninety-eight hours per week. If that is true the right hon. Gentleman must agree that it requires some consideration. They have also to work on Sundays, and to put in overtime for which they are not paid. The most serious grievance they have got is night duty. Their night duty is the longest spell of duty that any servant of the State has to do at the present time. It lasts over thirty-six hours—
  206
  commencing at six o'clock in the evening and going on constantly till six o'clock in the following evening. It is true they are allowed to lie down at intervals, lint they are always liable to be called up, and very frequently they are called up. But even with that qualification, that is too long a spell of duty. I understand that in many prisons this might duty is enforced three times a week, although the ordinary course is five times in two weeks, but I think that twice a week at most is quite sufficient, and that is a reform to which I think the attention of the hon. Gentleman ought to be devoted. Another grievance of these men is that they are subject to a very severe system of fines. We have protested in this House against the system of fines in factories and warehouses, and I do not see why the State should not in this respect set the example. The scale of fines has been recently raised for all sorts of petty offences which I will not detain the Committee by quoting. But these men can be fined up to 5s., which makes a considerable hole in their weekly wages. I think this question ought to be considered by the right hon. Gentleman, and that the fines should be abolished, and that instead of fines a better system of discipline ought to be substituted. Then there is another question with regard to the clerks. They are very dissatisfied with the method of promotion, and there are few opportunities that are open to them in contrast with those they were led to expect when they joined the service. The only other point I wish to put is that there are two or three men in my constituency who think that because they have made reasonable complaints they have been harshly treated by the Home Office. There is an idea that they are made martyrs if they make any complaint. I will not move a reduction of the Vote if the right hon. Gentleman will give me a sympathetic answer. I will ask him three questions: (1) Whether he is willing that an inquiry should be made into these matters; (2) if the hours of

  207
  labour—and this is the principal point—are found to be as long as, or nearly as long as they are represented, whether some reasonable reform will be made; and thirdly, whether he will give an assurance that none of the warders who bring forward a matter in a reasonable way shall be subject to any disabilities, and if any case of that kind is brought to his notice whether he will put the matter right.
  MR. DAVITT: I would like to back up the appeal of my hon. friend to the Home Secretary on behalf of two classes of public servants, the prison clerks and the prison warders, and particularly the case of the prison warders. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have had close connection with prison warders for quite a number of years, and I must say that while their duty was to make my stay under their charge as unpleasant as possible, I always sympathised with the position which they hold. Really the prison warder, in the discharge of his duty to the public, has to undergo a kind of half penal servitude existence himself. He has to submit to semi-imprisonment in order to fulfil the duties he undertakes to discharge for the public. Then, again, a great responsibility is thrown upon him—more so than on any other class of public servant—considering the little remuneration he gets for the work. He has to be more vigilant than any other public servant during the whole time he is on duty, and as my hon. friend has pointed out, night duty is specially hard in his case. I think, taking all these facts into consideration, these men are not paid as they ought to be by the public funds. I cannot ask the right hon. Gentleman to borrow much that is worthy of imitation in the public life of America just now, because America seems to be following the bad example of England in many respects, but in the matter of payment for duties of this kind, in the matter of remunerating prison warders, America is far more generous than this country is. The same may be said in reference to the salaries paid to the prison warders in the Australian Colonies. In every one of these colonies to which I have been I have found that the pay and the conditions of service are much more favourable than they are in this country. I trust, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will take the case of prison warders and
  208
  prison clerks into his consideration, and will try and see that these men get a better wage for their duties.
  MAJOR - GENERAL GOLDSWORTHY: I only wish to add one word in support of the appeal of the prison officials. It is necessarily monotonous and irksome to be continuously associated with prison people, and I would suggest to the Home Secretary that he should take into consideration the desirability of giving the officials more recreation and more opportunities for promotion.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: There can be no question that the post of the warders is a very monotonous and irksome one, and at the same time considerable responsibility is attached to it. I am, therefore, not surprised that hon. Members should say that they are not adequately remunerated. I have taken some pains to look into the matter. The hon. Gentleman who asked me certain questions spoke of the duties which are imposed on the officials by the new Act of Parliament, and it is perfectly true that those duties have increased as regards the number of books that have to be kept, and other matters. The hon. Gentleman has also said that the hours are too long. Upon that subject I am quite prepared to admit that there is room for improvement in various directions. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that in 1891 a Committee, presided over by Lord De Ramsey, went into the question of the hours of prison warders, and the standard which was then fixed has more or less been the rule since. They recognised that ten hours a day were about the standard hours of work. I find that the hours work out on the average at about 8¾ per day, with certain excesses at Holloway, Wandsworth, and Pentonville. As regards night duty, I believe that night duty takes place in one prison two days a week, and in all the other prisons one day a week. But what is night duty? It is going on duty at eight; from eight to ten having to sit in the mess room, or wherever the official likes—though, of course, he is liable to be called upon—and then from ten to six he is at liberty to go to bed. Then there is the question of evening duty. There is no doubt that at Holloway, which is the great receiving prison for London, the

  209
  evening hours, which ought to be from six to eight, are very often extended up to nine and ten by reason of the frequent admissions. I admit that this is a state of things which ought to be remedied, and I will give my attention to it. I think, however, the present state of affairs can only be improved by some increase in the staff. I have for some time been considering the matter, and I am at the present moment in communication with the Treasury with that object in view. With regard to the clerks, I have no figures before me, and no particular item of which I can speak. I can, however, say that I have done my best to secure some promotions, and the position of clerks has been greatly improved.
  DR. CLARK: I am glad that something is going to be done for English warders and English prison officials, and if I move a reduction of this Vote, I move it because we have in Scotland a class of men of the same character who are very much worse paid. In England, chaplains are, on the whole, paid a fair salary. The salaries begin at £300, and are increased to £400. But in Scotland they begin at £200, and are only increased to £300. A Scotch chaplain has to undergo a very severe training, and he requires to spend seven or eight years' hard work before he can be ordained. A commencing salary of £200 a year, therefore, is too small, and you cannot expect to get a good class of men. If I appear to be moving the reduction of the English level down to the Scotch level, it is really for the purpose of raising the Scotch level to the English. But after all I move this reduction rather from the standpoint of the medical profession than from that of the clerical profession. I dare say the function of a clergyman is a very useful one, but the medical officer is absolutely necessary, and I think under the prison system even in England the profession is not overpaid. In England the salaries of medical officers start at £400 and are increased to £500. I do not say that that is too much, and I move my Amendment more for the purpose of levelling up than of levelling down. But in our Scotch prisons the same class of men begin at £200 a year.
  AN HON. MEMBER: On a point of order, is the hon. Gentleman really en-
  210
  titled to discuss the position of things in Scotch prisons?
  THE CHAIRMAN: He is entitled to move a reduction on the ground that the English officials are paid too much.
  DR. CLARK: I do not say that the English officials are paid too much, but that the Scotch officials are paid too little. You cannot get a decent class of men to enter your service if you pay them so miserable a sum. I think the position of our Scotch medical officers ought to be considered as well as the position of the English warders, and I therefore beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £100.
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That That a sum, not exceeding £415,061, be granted for the said Service.—(Dr. Clark.)
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: On behalf of my constituents, I protest against the action taken by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness. Because he thinks he has a better opportunity for raising a Scotch question upon this Vote than upon another, he raises it now when Scotch Members are elsewhere. I think, considering the large amount of time which is given to Scotch Members, we might be spared this occasion for the purposes of English Members.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I am very glad that my hon. friend has brought up this question, as this is very likely the only opportunity we shall have of discussing a matter of great importance to our country, and the Home Secretary will no doubt be glad enough to——
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! What I said was that the hon Member for Caithness was entitled to nerve a reduction of the Vote on the ground that the salaries paid to the public officials to whom he referred were too great, and that he could use an illustration to show that they were too great. I do not think a discussion of the Scotch question is in order.
  DR. CLARK: Under the circumstances, I do not wish to put the Committee to the trouble of a Division, but I can tell the

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  noble Lord that the only chance we have of getting anything is to plead poverty continually, as Ireland has done. We are taxed to the highest extent possible, and at the same time we are underpaid. I beg to withdraw my motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. FLOWER: The new rules for the government of convict and local prisons have too recently come into operation to enable us to discuss them at any great length; but my object this afternoon is to call the attention of the Home Secretary to the question of education in convict and local prisons. I think the matter was considered by a Departmental Committee in 1885, and the facts showed a great deficiency of education in prisons, and there was a general consensus of opinion that an improvement in the selection of the subjects of education, and in the education itself, was desirable. There is an appalling amount of ignorance prevailing among the prison population of this country, the number of those who can neither read nor write is enormously high, and the standard of education given is of the lowest character. This being so, it is a matter of great regret that under the Bill of last year not a great deal has been done with respect to this matter. I am not altogether an admirer of the American system, especially that adopted at Elmira; still it is, in regard to prison education, an example which it would be desirable to follow. I earnestly appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give his sanction to the proposals which the School Board are making with reference to the local prisons in London. Last year, under the School Board, some lectures were held in one prison with great advantage, and they only entailed a small amount of extra labour in the prison. I think the right hon. Gentleman might go a little further and allow an evening continuation school at the prison at Wormwood Scrubs. I do not say the persons who do not wish to attend should be compelled to do so, and I believe very few of the prisoners would refuse to attend if asked. At the same time the discipline of the prison would be very little disturbed by it. I think such a departure would be productive of very great good. There is one other subject
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  I would like to refer to, and that is the plank bed. Mr. Justice Mathew, in sentencing a prisoner at a recent assize, used some remarkable language with regard to the hardship and the inhumanity of the practice of the use of a plank bed. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will do the utmost in his power to limit the use of it. If that were done I am sure a good deal would be accomplished in the way of prison reform.
  MR. LOUGH: I merely desire to refer to the answer given to me by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has shown by that answer that there is a conflict, as to the facts of which I wish to get to the bottom. He said that the average hours were from seventy to ninety a week; but I think that must be for the whole of seven days. The right hon. Gentleman explained that the night duty was not nearly so onerous, that it extended from eight o'clock in the evening to six o'clock in the morning. But the warders have told me that they have to do that after a regular day's duty, which has terminated at six or seven o'clock in the evening. I shall be glad if the Home Secretary will inquire into these two matters of Sunday duty and night duty, and if the statement of the men is correct no doubt the matter will be put right. I would also ask whether it is correct that punishment has been inflicted upon any warder for making complaint on these matters in a proper way.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I cannot answer off-hand, but I will inquire, and if the hours are as the hon. Member suggest, the matter shall be put right. As to any warder being reprimanded for having made complaints, I am sure the Commissioners would not be influenced by such a circumstance. Upon the question of education, it is a well-known fact that it is largely the uneducated classes that compose the prison population. It is certainly very desirable to do what we can to improve the education of such prisoners, and under the new rules very considerable steps have been taken. Every prisoner under the age of forty, and not up to a certain standard, is entitled to four hours' instruction per week. The conditions in that respect are much in advance of what previously existed. With regard to the proposal of the London

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  School Board, referred to by the hon. Member behind me, that is sprite new to me, and I should have considerable hesitation about accepting it without a great deal of consideration. It is a subject I should refer to the Prison Commissioners for a report. It is perfectly true that the last report of the Prison Commissioners does point out how lamentably short of any reasonable standard the great bulk of our prisoners are, but they also state that in the case of prisoners under thirty years of age, there has been a considerable increase in the educational standard.
  MR. DAVITT: I am very glad to hear of the great progress which has been made in the way of providing education for illiterate prisoners, and I hope that further facilities will be provided in that direction. The right hon. Gentleman is going to take the case of prison warders into consideration. Will that include the salaries and duties of female as well as of male warders?
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: Of course.
  MR. DAVITT: I am glad to hear that, because I have heard that the women who have to perform this very disagreeable duty are not paid at a similar rate to that of the men.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I made no promise as to salaries, but only to inquire whether the hours are excessive.
  MR. DAVITT: I understood the right hon. Gentleman would take that as well as other matters into consideration, and as he generally brings a very fair mind to bear upon these questions I hope, with the facts which have been put before him, he will really consider whether or not male and female warders are underpaid for the discharge of this very troublesome duty. With reference to the support of what are called Imperial convicts in Australia and Tasmania, the amount stated in the Vote appears to be rather large for the maintenance of the few still remaining. I went to see some of them when I was out there, and they appeared to be mostly old men. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied from the reports he
  214
  gets that these convicts are really in existence? I assume he has some data which will satisfy him whether the number is decreasing.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: There is no doubt about the accuracy of the figures.
  MR. ASQUITH: Before the Committee pass this Vote, I think it is only right that some expression should be given to our gratification, both to the Home Office and to the Prison Commissioners, at the comparatively small area of criticism which their administration has offered during the last year. I say this, because of all branches of administration prison administration is, perhaps, the most difficult in its details, if not in its general principles. Undoubtedly, as it is conducted in these days, it is subject to a lunch greater amount of public attention than used to be the case. During the past year there have been introduced, with the general assent of all parties in the House, a number of changes in our prison system, all of which are in the direction of greater humanity and elasticity. It is gratifying to find from this Debate that the result of those changes has been not to increase but rather to curtail the area of legitimate criticism, and I do not think we should be doing justice to those who have charge of this very responsible part of administration if we did not offer them our congratulations.
  8. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £124,195, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1900, for the Expense of the Maintenance of Juvenile Offenders in Reformatory, Industrial, and Day Industrial Schools in Great Britain, and of the Inspectors of Reformatories."
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I move the reduction of this Vote by £500. This has been a mischievous item of expenditure. A Departmental Committee, of which I was chairman, appointed in 1894 to inquire into the subject of the industrial and reformatory schools in Scotland found that the children were educated not under

  215
  the Scotch code but under the English code, and that instead of being inspected by the Scotch inspectors of education they were inspected by English inspectors. The result is that the education of these children is kept back, and they are sent forth into the general community earmarked as children who have received their education in either a reformatory or industrial school. Last year the right hon. Gentleman promised to give this matter his consideration, but nothing has been done. The Committee to which I have referred recommended that these schools should be transferred from the jurisdiction of the Home Secretary to that of the Secretary for Scotland. It was also found that ninny of the children in these schools had previously passed the English fifth standard two or three times, while if the schools had been under the Scotch code they could have been advanced to the sixth or ex-sixth standard. No legislation is needed to put that particular matter right, but by a stroke of his pen the right hon. Gentleman could direct that the education should be given according to the Scotch code, and the inspection be by Scotch inspectors. The benefits of such changes are obvious. There is a still greater mischief arising out of that anomaly. It is not good for them that these boys and girls should be constantly reminded of having been reformatory school pupils. It is desirable that all such connection should be forgotten, and that the children should be allowed to mingle, without being ear-marked, among the general population. But when these children go forth, if they speak of any educational matter they at once betray their ignorance of the current arrangements in Scotch schools, and immediately they will be asked where they were educated. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give some satisfactory assurance that this simple and obvious defect will be grappled with, and the recommendations of the Departmental Committee in this respect carried out. No such anomaly prevails in Ireland, as there the management of reformatory and industrial schools is under an Irish Board, but that, however, is a different matter. I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £500.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £123,695, be granted for the said Service."—(Sir Charles Cameron.)
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: My hon. friend has referred to the Report of the Scotch Departmental Committee. May I, in support of his argument, call the attention of the House to the Report of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Committee of 1894? They recommended that the Scotch schools should be transferred to the Scotch Office, so that there is no difference of opinion among experts, or among those who are well able to judge, that this transfer should take place. It seems to be merely a matter of persuading the Scotch Education Department and the Home Secretary to move in the matter, and really to carry out what is certainly most desirable in the interests of the Scotch educational system.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I hardly understand what the hon. Baronet means by English education being given in Scotch industrial schools. They are all under the rule of a managing committee.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: They are inspected by English inspectors, who examine the children under the English code, and the education is absolutely different from that in other schools.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I cannot understand why the managers of the industrial schools could not secure the examination of their pupils under the Scotch code if they desired it. So far as that question is concerned I am at one with the hon. Baronet. My Department is in thorough agreement on the subject; we are perfectly willing that arrangements should be made for the Scottish Department to be responsible for their own schools. Last year there was a Bill drafted, but there was some difficulty with the Treasury, and it was not introduced. I should not have the slightest objection to seeing the Bill introduced and carried at the earliest possible moment, but I am afraid it cannot be this session.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: After that statement I do not wish to press my Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman cannot understand why this thing is done, but it is done, and that is a matter which does not require a Bill to deal with it. I am sorry the Scottish Education Department does not deal with the question.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: The Scottish Education Department has nothing to do with these schools; they are under the Home Office.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: Then surely the Home Office could get the Scotch schools to introduce Scotch standards, so as not to differentiate the children in reformatory and industrial schools by means of their education.
  Amendment by leave withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I want to raise the question of the whole system of management of these reformatory and industrial schools, including school ships. I cannot get any attention paid to the commonsense views which I have enunciated and which have been supported by the Departmental Committee. I have previously alluded to the Report of that Committee, but nothing has been done to carry out their recommendations. That Committee go further than I ever ventured to go, but I agree with their conclusions in the main. I am debarred from drawing the attention of the House to the present condition of things, owing to the fact that the last annual Report of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools inspector has not yet been laid before Parliament. We go on with the same happy-go-lucky system which has been in force for many years, and the Home Office pay no attention to remonstrances made by their own officers. As far as the land schools go, I am willing to take it that they are doing noble work, but they would do more good work if the Home Office would give that attention to the question which it really deserves. These are really State schools. We are called upon to vote £264,195 for this school system, of which only £23,500 comes from county councils and district councils. Yet the State practically makes no conditions that the material turned out should be utilised to bear fruit for the good of the State. If the system was properly worked the healthy and sound boys might be trained as recruits for the Army, which, as we all know, sorely needs them. But my chief objection has to do with the industrial and reformatory school ships. The system of train-
  218
  ing in those ships is the most expensive that could be devised, but not too expensive if the human material turned out was in proportion to the cost. The material turned out is not adequate to the expense, because the Home Office go on in a happy-go-lucky fashion and do not attend to the report of their own inspector. It should be provided that only healthy, strong, and sound boys should be put in our ships at all. These are State ships, and they should be able to turn out sound human material to supply a great deal of the waste which must of necessity go on in the Navy. Everybody complains of the lack of British seamen in the Mercantile Marine, and various remedies have been suggested. Some reformers desire to increase the number of our training ships, but they have made out no case for doing so. Our training ships are commanded by Naval officers, and I know some of them are almost broken-hearted because they cannot turn out better results. I am afraid my right hon. friend will again content himself with giving me a similar answer to that which he gave last year—namely, that this question will be considered, and that due attention will be given to my observations. No doubt he will tell us again that the ships do a great deal of good. I do not deny that, but my point is that they might do a great deal more good if they were worked on common-sense principles. I want the Home Office to stop the entry of all boys sent by committals from the magistrates, who are no judges as to whether boys will make good sailors or soldiers. Such boys ought to be committed to the land schools in the first instance. If the Land Schools Committee did all in their power to facilitate the transfer of healthy lads, sound in wind and limb, then our training ships would turn out double the numble of sailor boys, and I think everything that is possible should be done to encourage the transfer of these volunteers. At present these boys are sent to the ships at the age of ten and eleven, but, in my opinion, no boy should go to a ship until he is twelve years of age. If this suggestion were adopted, then the President of the Board of Trade would not need to talk about inducing shipowners to take sailor lads by reducing the light dues. If the Home Office would only look at this from a sailor's point of view, they would be doing a noble work for everybody, but they are

  219
  not now doing the best that can be done. The Home Office do not concern themselves at present to see that they get an adequate return for the money expended by them. These are practically State schools, because the voluntary contributions are next to nothing. The schools ought to be worked on systematic principles in accordance with the recommendations of the Departmental Committee, and they would do valuable national work if my suggestions were carried out. If these reforms were put into operation I should be saved the trouble of having to make these observations every year.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has declared that he cannot get any satisfaction from this side of the House, and he has also anticipated that I shall again be prepared to say that these ships are doing excellent work. I may say that I am prepared to say that. It is quite true, as the hon. and gallant Member has said, that these institutions are almost entirely State schools, and are supported by the taxpayers of this country. It is admitted that they are national training ships and that they are of national importance, and it is a most desirable thing to encourage what my hon. and gallant friend has put forward, and to see that the lads sent there are properly trained and turned out as willing volunteers for service. The hon. and gallant Member has said that his annual motion receives very little encouragement, but perhaps he will allow me to say that the figures are better still this year. I find that the number of boys sent from these schools during the years 1894–95–96 were, to the Army, 1,343; the Navy, 343; and the mercantile marine, 955. For the years 1895–96–97 the figures rose to 1,636 for the Army; 410 for the Navy; and 1,065 in the mercantile marine. The hon. and gallant Member may take those figures as substantially correct. As regards the industrial schools in 1896, out of 703 boys 382 were sent to sea; but in 1898 out of 827 boys 476 were sent to sea, and I do not think that is a bad proportion. I think from these figures the hon. and gallant Member will see that, at any rate, we are moving in the right direction.
  9. £21,942, to complete the sum for Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Resolutions to be reported.

  CLASS II.
  Motion made, and Question proposed"—"That a sum, not exceeding £96,868, be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1900, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department and Subordinate Offices."
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: The annual Debate on the Home Office Vote ought, of course, to be based on the year's work. Here, in July, 1899, all we have before us is the work of 1897, which was already before us in July, 1898, when we discussed the Vote, excepting, indeed, mere tables and special reports on phosphorus and lead, supplementary to the regular work of that Department. The lead report, in its preliminary form, was itself before the Home Secretary in July last year. We have not received the report of the principal lady Inspector, for which we asked in February, and which has undoubtedly long since been ready, and is always, I believe, given to the House as a whole. Why should the reports be kept back? Three reasons were given in February. Apparently the main reason for a delay greater than ever occurred before was the preparation of a Bill which we have not seen. But in 1895, when the Department had a most important Bill, the report of Mr. Oram, then Chief Inspector, was presented on May 4, and was delivered to Members—Part 1 on June 8th, and Part 2 on May 9th. We are now told that the Report for 1898 is to be "left till autumn, and published towards the end of the year"; and the analogy of sonic other lagging Department is quoted. There are some Departments which publish their annual reports as early as March. Are they to be put eight months later. Are we also in future to have the Mines Report delayed for six months, which is now circulated in May? Last year the trouble of preparing the tables was given as a reason for a delay, which was, however, much less than the delay this year, for we had advance copies of the Report just in time for the Vote.

  221
  The tables this year have already been given. We are without the ordinary Report of the work, and we do not know how the Department is doing its work. I said that three reasons were given in February for the delay—that of the Bill which I have answered by this case of 1895; that of the preparation of special Reports, of which the lead Report, I believe, was really ready before the session, and both of which have long since been out; and that of reorganisation of the Department. Is not that reorganisation already over? The Bill has been dropped, and nothing survives of the reasons for further delay. Falling back upon all we have upon the work of the Department, namely, the 1897 Report, we are there told that it is too soon to judge of the working of the Truck Act of 1896, and this forms an additional reason why we should have had before us the Report of 1898. I cannot avoid moving a reduction of the salary of the defender of a system under which the work of the Factory and Workshop Department cannot be judged, for the Committee and the House are left in the dark, except as regards the special Reports—Reports which have not been fully acted upon. For the special Report on lead I have only praise. Its result, it was admitted in July last, ought to be a great improvement in special rules, and legislation if necessary. But arbitration on special rules remains, against which I gave a notice at the beginning of the session, and which has been condemned by the present Home Secretary and by the two last Home Secretaries on the Opposition side. There are two private Members' Factories and Workshops Bills before the House. Both of them have clauses abolishing arbitration in special rules, and there are also many other points in the admirable Bill of my honourable friend the Member for Berwickshire, which I hope the Home Secretary will include in his. In the Debate last year the Home Secretary said that it was not easy to get special rules, because they must be framed in such a way as to be successful on arbitration; and he said he
  "had to do the best I could under rather difficult circumstances."
  In that Debate he expressed his agreement with all of us who urged that arbitration on special rules should be got rid of; or, at least, modified "by legisla-
  222
  tion." Does the Home Secretary's Bill, as drawn, abolish arbitration on special rules? We must insist that that Bill, when introduced next year, shall do so. It was on this point that we divided last year, for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire asked for an undertaking that in 1899 the Home Secretary would abolish arbitration on special rules—a pledge which in distinct terms he did not give. The session of 1899 has gone without our obtaining this, and now we ask for a definite pledge for next year. On the 10th April my hon. friend the Member for North Monmouthshire asked the Home Secretary whether the Factory and Workshop Bill to be introduced this session would contain provisions such as those suggested by Professors Thorpe and Oliver in their Report on lead in the potteries, for prohibiting the use of lead for glazing earthenware in those kinds of ware in which it has been proved unnecessary; for prescribing the use of fritted lead; for prohibiting the use of raw lead; and for prohibiting the employment of young persons and women as dippers, dippers' assistants, ware cleaners, and glost placers, where lead glaze is used. The reply was:
  "The Bill to amend the law which he has prepared will give power to the Secretary of State to deal, under certain conditions, with all these points."
  In the Debate last year the Home Secretary announced that the use of headless glaze was "within measurable distance." But experiment is now being made a ground for delay; and surely we should fix a period within which the recommendations of Drs. Thorpe and Oliver must be adopted; and this means legislation to get rid of arbitration on rules. The Home Secretary last year appeared to be somewhat opposed to direct legislation on lead, but said that a suggestion which fell from me, that he should be given greater power as to special rules was "well worthy of consideration." This means legislation to abolish arbitration. He has, however, not only not proposed this year the legislation on lead itself, which he seemed to promise my hon. friend the Member for North Monmouthshire on the 10th April, but not even legislation to abolish arbitration on special rules, and he has not issued the further special rules which he led us to expect. In the Debate last year, towards

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  its close, my hon. friend the hon. baronet the Member for Glasgow asked whether, "Supposing that the Report of the experts did not justify the Home Secretary in prohibiting altogether the use of dangerous substances in the potteries and match trade, would he undertake that the special rules applying to those two trades should be strengthened at an early date, and that he would resort to legislation if he saw no prospect of arriving at the result desired by special rules? "The Home Secretary answered in the affirmative, except that he could not definitely pledge himself as to legislation in this session. The pledge, however, was a strong one as given, and it led to the hon. Baronet, who had spoken for the Amendment, not voting against the Home Secretary's salary. Will the Home Secretary pledge himself in the same terms, but in words involving the early introduction of the Bill next year? The Home Secretary's last words last year were, "Of course I know that in both matters I must go further, and I am going to do so." How far has he done so? We cannot find in the cases of lead poisoning brought to us from the Potteries any improvement on the whole. The need for lead legislation is pressing, and if I had thought that there was the slightest chance of obtaining satisfactory legislation this year I should have continued to ask for its introduction; but when on the 19th June no date could be fixed for that introduction, I foresaw the certainty of failure, and declared that, sooner than have a mere shred of a Bill this year—a Bill making a dangerous relaxation of the law with regard to fish and jam, and not abolishing arbitration upon special rules, we had sooner wait for it to be next year, what it was promised in two speeches of Cabinet Ministers to be this year, namely, one of the chief measures of the session. On the 19th June, however, the Leader of the House said that the Home Secretary had done so much by way of administrative action in the dangerous trades—and I think he meant in the Potteries—that the need for a Bill was much lessened; that is a statement the accuracy of which I entirely deny. What has he done since the Debate of July last year, and the declarations that I have quoted? What of his own admission that under the present system he can only do the best he can "under rather difficult circumstances"? I will
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  only mention one point in the Lead Report. We are all in favour of the use of leadless glaze, but the potters have insisted on delay, and, therefore, we ought at once, if we follow the advice of Professor Thorpe and Dr. Oliver, to discourage the employment of women and girls in the dangerous branches. Raw lead is still being used in the potteries, in spite of the Report, and in spite of the Home Secretary's advice, in vast quantities; and we seem to be no nearer definite action than we were last year. With regard to the Phosphorus Report, which is also good, the same difficulty as to rules and arbitration has admittedly arisen. In the use of phosphorus we are behind other countries. The Report points out that international agreement may not be difficult to obtain in this case. Are any steps being taken to bring it about? In the Debate last year the Home Secretary said that with regard to phosphorus he was within measurable distance of trying special rules, leaving legislation to be considered in the future if found necessary. What has he done as regards phosphorus since the issue of the Report, and since the Debate last year? I hope that we shall not again be put off with mere dentistry, because we had that last year at full length. We need still more women inspectors. We need one, for example, in the Potteries, as was clearly shown last year, and where the inspection continues to be feeble. We need one in Birmingham and its neighbourhood for longer periods than at present, and I would quote upon that subject a letter from a leading trade unionist—
  "A flying visit of a day or two is worse than useless becaus it raises expectations which are never realised. If any good is to be done, we want someone here for at least two or three weeks. … Considering the enormous number of women workers in Birmingham and the district, a residence here for a few weeks of one of the lady inspectors is an absolute necessity."
  The same view was put before the Committee last year, and I believe the Home Secretary will be supported in any conflict he may have with the Treasury in order to strengthen this Department. When we do see the Factories and Workshops Bill early next year—I trust we shall be promised—may we hope that it will be a really considerable measure, and contain, not only the abolition of arbitration on special rules, but such necessary clauses on other subjects as, for example,

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  proposals with regard to sweated districts, to remedy the complete breakdown of Section 5 of this Act of 1895? Much, however, may be done, even under the existing law, with regard to outworkers, and, generally speaking, it is certain that the existing laws, through the insufficiency of inspection, are not adequately enforced. Cases are centinually quoted which inspection would remedy, and quoted even by Ministers. The Vice-President of the Council recently referred to "the champion boy, who is under six years of age, and works in a brickfield at brick-making." That brickfield is probably either a factory or a workshop, and the employment is illegal. As regards home work and sweated districts, the Bill of my hon. friend the Member for Berwickshire represents my minimum. May we trust that we shall have such provisions in that Government Bill promised by two Cabinet Ministers as one of the principal measures of the present year, and which we trust we may at least see next year? To delay the Bill beyond the early part of next session would be really inexcusable, but whatever may be the promises of the Government on that point—and I feel the Committee has a right to expect them—the delay in the annual Report is a matter which cannot be excused, and I shall therefore divide the Committee on the motion for the reduction. I move, Sir.
  Motion made, and question proposed—
  "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £100, in respect of the Salary of the Secretary of State."—(Sir Charles Dilke.)
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I rise merely for the purpose of saying, with respect to certain recommendations made by the Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, that I hope the Home Secretary will not give effect to such of them as apply to the manufacture and use of grindstones and to the cutting of files by hand without a further inquiry in the districts which they affect. The recommendations of the Departmental Committee have created great misapprehension in these districts, and have not commanded the confidence of either the employers or the working classes. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that this apprehension is quite unjustified, and that the recom-
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  mendations of the committee are perfectly right; it is nevertheless obvious that with this want of confidence existing any legislation based on these recommendations would not have that general and moral support from all classes concerned which can and can alone form the proper foundation for legislation of this kind. It is undoubtedly thought in the districts affected that all the evidence that ought to be taken had not been taken, and that certain of the recommendations, if carried out to the full extent, might go far to driving certain industries out of existence. In respect to the file-cutting industry, I would ask of the Home Secretary, in the interests of the working men no less than of the employers, that some kind of new inquiry should be held before any drastic proposal is applied to it. The question of the efficacy of the present procedure has been raised by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean. The weak point in the procedure by arbitration, undoubtedly, is that it gives power to legislate for large classes in this country to persons who might be totally irresponsible to the legislature. On the other hand, the procedure does contain as an essential part that which must be an essential part of any inquiry by which you arrive at legislative results—viz., that there must be some kind of local inquiry among the persons principally concerned. All I plead for in this case is that there should be a full and complete local inquiry. The inquiry in particular cases has not been so satisfactory and complete as to lead to a change in the conditions under which the trade has been carried on. I hope that the Home Secretary, in the course of giving effect to his administrative powers, without the aid of further legislation, will secure full and complete local inquiry.
  MR. L. R. HOLLAND: I wish to join in the expression of regret which fell from the hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean that the report of the Inspector-General has not yet been put before the House. Surely it must be prejudicial to a proper consideration of the Home Office Vote that we have no acquaintance with the operation and administration of the Factory Laws during the last year. I should think that there can be no insuperable reason why the Report should be

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  seven months overdue, and I trust the Home Secretary will see that the Report is in future in the hands of Members in the month of May. If I remember aright, the discussion of last year turned mainly on two questions—namely, the evils associated with the use of raw lead and white phosphorus in the match industry. It was the opinion of many Members of the House that the criticism and the proposals made by my hon. friend the Member for Berwickshire and other hon. Members were perhaps too drastic and too sweeping, but every proposal and every criticism made during last year's debate have been more than justified in every particular by the invaluable reports which have been issued by Dr. Oliver and Dr. Thorpe. I should think that the Committee and the country must be grateful to my right hon. friend the Home Secretary for having directed such a valuable, minute, and authoritative inquiry into the evils of poisoning from the use of lead and phosphorus, and the remedies which may be applied to them. The contention last year of hon. Members who followed my friend the hon. Member for Berwickshire was, that as regards the lead trade, the age limit was too low, and that the employment of all young persons should be prohibited in dangerous trades; that either the use of raw lead should be prohibited, or that the process should be subjected to more stringent regulations than are applied to it now. Well, the report supported these contentions. Doctors Oliver and Thorpe recommend that the employment of young persons in the raw lead process should be forbidden, and a total prohibition of the raw lead process. This last recommendation will require legislation, as I imagine it cannot be effected by special rules. I confess that I am not sure whether the time is quite ripe for such legislation. However that may be, I do urge the Home Office, meanwhile, to insist that, at any rate, the same special regulations which are applied to dangerous trades scheduled under the Act of 1878 shall be applied to the use of the raw lead process, so far as to absolutely prohibit the employment of young persons where the process is in operation. Surely no person under the age of eighteen should be exposed at the outset to have his whole life wrecked by the diseases engendered in the raw lead process. The
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  application of more stringent regulations in the use of raw lead might encourage a higher standard of efficiency, by making it the interest of employers to discard the more dangerous process, and so be free to employ young persons. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary in answer to the right hon. Baronet attribute a considerable reduction in cases of disease to the operation of the special rules. In the course of the discussion last year the Home Secretary said that the special rules would have to be applied to 600 firms, that 450 had accepted the rules, and that 150 appealed to arbitration. I want to know whether it is the case that those employers who held out for arbitration have got the best terms, and have obtained the largest concessions. If that be so surely it is only another illustration of the absurdity of the arbitration clauses in the Act of 1891, that in the same district and in the same trade employers should be subjected to rules of varying stringency, and that the Home Office should acquiesce in that decision. It is probable that it is just in those works where the special rules in their integrity are most needed that these concessions have been made. Personally I trust the Home Secretary will see his way to fulfil the hopes he held out last session, and introduce legislation to get rid of this obstacle to the application of the special rules which the Home Office think it right to apply. I confess that it is a fair matter of complaint that legislation has not been introduced this session. At the same time, I would rather wait for a really substantial measure of reform than that the House should hurry through a slight proposal. Meanwhile, in many instances it is not so much legislation—though some legislation there ought to be—as efficient Home Office administration which is required, as, for instance, in the yellow phosphorus industry. I know it is proposed to prohibit the use of yellow phosphorus, as is done in Denmark and Switzerland. But I doubt the expediency of doing so. The demand for a strike-on-any-place match is very deep seated in England. I do not think it is established that there is any composition which does not contain phosphorus to make a strike-anywhere match which has been a commercial success. The trade of Denmark and Switzerland is not an export trade; but our trade, especially in yellow phosphorus matches,

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  Is mainly export, and largely with the colonies, and the prohibition of yellow phosphorus in England, unless it be accompanied by international agreement, would be only to transfer the trade to Japan, Sweden, and Belgium. The inevitable deduction from the Report of Drs. Oliver and Thorpe is that the Home Office do not employ their existing powers in regard to this trade to full advantage. I do not know what impression that Report has made on the minds of hon Members, but I confess it has made a most unpleasant impression on me, both as to the standard of efficiency required and as to the efficiency of inspection. The medical inspection required under the special rules of 1893 is inadequate. But the appliances for ventilation and the lavatory arrangements are to be such as are satisfactory in the opinion of the Home Office. Yet we read in the Report that the works are old, that the arrangements for mechanical ventilation are far behind those on the Continent, that in most of the English factories the protection in dangerous processes is absolutely incomplete, and that, with one exception—in the case of an American company which has a manufactory in England—the ventilation and lavatory arrangements are not comparable to those abroad. It comes to this, that in matters in which the health and safety of those engaged in this industry are intimately concerned, we have to go for precept and example to foreign countries. We boast ourselves as being pioneers in ventilation and lavatory accommodation, and yet we find our standard is infinitely below that which prevails in foreign countries; and the worst feature of the situation is that the standard is accepted by the Home Office and their inspectors. That is a matter which deserves the serious attention of the House. My hon. friend the Member for Berwickshire, in an article which he wrote, mentioned that the special rules of 1894 had broken-down in the Potteries district. The Employers' Association contested the statement of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, but only on the ground that the breakdown was not due to any inherent shortcoming in the rules themselves, but to insufficient inspection; that it was manifestly impossible for one inspector adequately to overlook a district containing 10,000 women workers. Since that a new inspector has been appointed, and yet we cannot be sure that the inspection is
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  as efficient as we desire. The efficiency of the appliances on which the safety of the people employed is dependent, depends on the efficiency of the inspection. It is clear from the report that the standard of Home Office requirements in regard to the match industry has not been of a very high character. I know that the inspectors have got obstacles to contend with, and that frequently they are not properly supported by the magistrates when they bring breaches of the Factory Acts into court. But, making allowance for all that, it is clear that much of the inspection in the case of the Potteries and the match factories is not of the best. I cannot help regretting that the Home Secretary has not seen his way to invigorate the system of inspection by appointing a larger number of women inspectors, who would make reports to the chief district inspector. In the East End of London, for instance, where a large number of women and children are employed in the match industry, inspection would be more reliable if a woman inspector devoted her whole time to the work. In the Potteries districts, where 20,000 women and 12,000 children are at work, efficient inspection is of paramount importance. In view of the whole circumstances and conditions on which inspection is carried out, there could be no more fruitful subject of inquiry by a small Commission or a Select Committee, or even a Departmental Committee.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I desire to support the appeal made by the hon. Member for Bow to the Home Secretary, more especially in regard to the match industry. The extent of this industry is very great, inasmuch as matches to the value of £1,500,000 are yearly manufactured in this country. Of course, it will be stated that when we desire to make any improvement in the conditions under which these matches are made we have to consider the question of foreign competition. I am well aware of that. There are 450 match factories in Germany and Austria, and 60 in Norway and Sweden; and in one particular place in Sweden no fewer than 6,000 persons are engaged in this particular trade. Therefore the importance of an international agreement of some kind cannot be deprecated, and more especially because we are led to believe that this is a favourable moment to take action in the matter. I

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  am disposed to think that the suggestion which fell from the hon. Member for Bow has much in it, and that the rules which exist in this country, if stringently carried out under an increased staff of inspectors, would lead to a more desirable state of things than at present. It is acknowledged in every country that all the diseases from which workers suffer are due to the fumes of yellow phosphorus. But there is another form of disease—fatty degeneration of the kidneys—which is manifested in those who work at this trade in all countries, although it is not so apparent as other diseases. The soundness or otherwise of the general health of the workers has much to do with the matter. We know that where amorphous, or red phosphorus is used necrosis does not prevail, and that the condition of the young persons is frequently due to the lowness of wages. If the rules in regard to this trade could be made sufficiently stringent we should not have so many young persons employed. The principal disease amongst them is anæmia, and the one cure for that is large quantities of milk and a nourishing diet of flesh food. But that diet these young persons cannot provide themselves with out of their low wages. The next most fatal disease is phthisis, and that is brought about by bad ventilation. Better ventilation is what is demanded by inspectors in their reports. We know that a certain number of persons engaged in these trades can resist in a greater degree than others the approach of special diseases. It is found that those who have no taint of syphilis, phthisis, or anæmia can resist the deadly effects of the phosphorus fumes. Another point which ought to be taken into consideration is the very detrimental effect which these fumes have on women in a certain condition, and in Sweden there are very strict rules in regard to the employment of women in such condition. Manufacturers in every part of the world declare that they use special mixtures, which are not so deleterious as those of their neighbours. Re the special rules, they are so framed that by arbitration or private agreement, any manufacturer can drive a coach through them. As to the restrictions on the amount of yellow phosphorus which can be used, we know that in certain countries they have reduced it to 8 per cent., and in Holland it has been reduced to 5 per cent. I therefore suggest
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  to the right hon. the Home Secretary to make some rule in that direction. I come now to another point, namely, the great importance of alternative employment. It has been found in different factories that by giving, say, two weeks' employment in the dipping house—which is the worst part of the process—and then passing the workers on to other rooms for a few weeks, their health is preserved for a much longer period. As regards the prohibition of young persons of fourteen or fifteen years of age, it is almost impossible to control them, and therefore I suggest the desirability of prohibiting any person under eighteen years of age from being employed in this industry at all. It is well known that it is especially at this period—from twelve and thirteen years of age to seventeen and eighteen years of age—that the teeth are most likely to go. A young person may be taken into a factory whose teeth are in perfect condition, and within a year a large number of these teeth may be found to be unsound. Therefore it is the duty of the Home Office to protect these young persons from the risks peculiar to these poisonous fumes. But perhaps the most important question of all is that of ventilation. This is a matter over which the Home Office distinctly can, by means of its inspectors, exercise control, and it is known that the introduction of a certain arrangement for ventilation in the dipping room will, with almost certainty, act as a preventive as regards phossy jaw. There is another matter that the right hon. Gentleman might favourably consider, and that is the desirability of greater stringency in medical examination. There should be a medical examination for all persons desiring to enter these trades, in order that it may be seen whether they have any tendency to the diseases to which I have referred. Then, again, there should be a periodical—say a monthly—visitation of all persons engaged in these factories. In Connection with that I would suggest the appointment, not only of a surgeon, who ought to be a paid official of the Government, but also of a dentist, who should likewise be a paid official. If these two officers made periodical visits to the factories, I am persuaded that by the diseases in every case being taken in time, a large amount of suffering might be obviated. I have already referred to the carelessness of workers. It seems to me

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  that there is a tendency amongst all workpeople to shirk the operation of washing, simply in order that they may gain greater time for their meals or amusements, more especially when it comes to leaving the factory in the daytime. I venture to suggest that if an extra ten minutes were given for the express purpose of ablutions, there would not be so much difficulty in enforcing this rule. There should be, moreover, every facility for all engaged in this industry to obtain a constant supply of antiseptic mouthwash. Another point of importance is that instead of the operatives taking their meals anywhere and anyhow, they should be obliged to take them in some dining-room, which should be fairly and comfortably heated. I must say that of all the points which have been brought to the right hon. Gentleman's notice, none appears to me to be of greater importance than the appointment of a woman factory inspector. I remember being present at a meeting of the deputation which waited upon the right hon. Gentleman in connection with the work in the potteries, and this seemed to be most strongly brought out by all present; and the same holds good as regards the match trade. There is yet another point, and that is the desirability of the extension, in some measure, of the Workmen's Compensation Act. I contend that the workers in these trades have as much right to come under the Act as those who suffer from accidents, for all these diseases to which they are liable are, as a matter of fact, accidental, and distinctly peculiar to these particular trades. We know that many of these unfortunate young persons are obliged to undergo operation after operation. Several cases have been brought to my notice where persons have undergone an operation three or four times, and have had portions of their jaw removed. In some cases they have had a great number of teeth removed; in fact, they have undergone great agony, and in many cases have as good as lost a limb. Well, some rule ought to be framed which would give them the same compensation, where due care has not been taken by the employers, as in the case of workmen who sustain accidents. The next point which I would like to suggest is that there should be some substitution of less dangerous materials in the workshops; and if the Home Office were more stringent in this respect, it would have the result of
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  stimulating invention. If manufacturers found that they could not go on in their old way without sufficient consideration for those they employ, they would undoubtedly, considering the great advance which has been made in chemistry of recent years, discover some different material which would be equally suitable for their purpose, and at the same time less deleterious to the health of their employees. In referring for a few moments to another industry, namely, the jam-making industry, which is connected in some parts of the country with the fish industry, I regret to say that the manufacturers engaged in these trades have taken advantage of the leniency of the Government for the purpose of employing the same individual to work in both trades, and thereby over-ride the wishes of this House and at the same time the regulations of the Home Office. In London, the jam industry is not only a very large but a constantly-developing one, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in one particular case, to my own knowledge, in the south of London, a state of things exists which is deplorable. The persons who suffer most are the young daughters of the very poorest of the working classes in South London. I am given to understand, however, that we shall be afforded an opportunity of dealing with this question on Monday week, and therefore I will not trouble the right hon. Gentleman with any further reference to the subject at the present moment.
  CAPTAIN GREVILLE: In connection with this Vote, I should like to bring to the notice of the Committee, and of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in particular, the steady—I might even describe it as the alarming—increase in the cases of anthrax among the operatives engaged in the wool trade. In bringing these statistics before the notice of the House, I may say that they only refer to the years 1896, 1897, 1898, and the first half of the current year. I have taken these three and a half years by reason of the fact, which is doubtless within the memory of the right hon. Gentleman, that in 1897—it was under his supervision—a new and revised set of rules was brought in for the protection of the wool sorter. Now, in 1896 the number of cases was three, in 1897 it had increased to nine,

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  and in 1898 the number of reported cases to the Home Office had mounted up to sixteen. For the half-year ending the 30th June, 1899, the cases of disease reported number thirteen. Taking that as the proportion for the year it will at once be noticed that the cases reported have doubled in number. The disease is of an alarming character, because, in the majority of cases, it is fatal. I have not been able to obtain the exact number of fatal cases during this year, but we may take it as a rough average that certainly half the cases are of a fatal nature. I would, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman if he cannot see his way to revise the special rules brought forward in 1897, and in doing so I wish to cast no reflection on the right hon. Gentleman, because, to my personal knowledge, he devoted a great deal of time and consideration to them in consultation with representatives of the employers and of the operatives engaged in the work. I desire to see the rules, which, I understand, only apply to wool-sorters, extended to wool-combers, and, at the same time, made more stringent. This is a matter to which inquiry should be made, either by a Department Committee or in some other way, and as it is one which affects the main bulk of my constituents, I feel certain that the House will pardon the liberty I have taken in drawing attention to the subject.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I desire, within the limits of two or three sentences, to associate myself with the complaint which has been made by the right hon. Baronet opposite that no legislation dealing with the question of rules has been introduced by my right hon. friend the Home Secretary. It will be remembered that a year ago a Debate of very considerable importance took place upon this Vote, the principal feature of that Debate consisting in the fact that not only the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, but also his predecessor in office joined in expressing the opinion that the system of rules formulated in the Home Office was inferior, as a protection for the workers, to an Act passed by this House. The reasons were made clear. The first was that the Department in framing the rules did not and could not possibly have the benefit of the debates and discussions on both sides as representing employers and em-
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  ployed; and secondly, that any rule made by the Home Office is always subject to emasculation by the employers in the process of arbitration. The latter point was, to my mind, an extremely serious one. It seemed to me that it was pitiful—almost humiliating—to find two right hon. Gentlemen, both of them at one time or other Home Secretaries, uniting in this House in proclaiming their impotency to deal with important questions of this kind, because their rules were subject to emasculation at the hands of some of the worst class of employers. That having been the opinion expressed by my right hon. friend with his usual clearness and cogency, a hope was entertained not only by the right hon. Baronet and his friends, but by many who are interested in these questions on this side of the House, that legislation on this subject would be made one of the important features of this session. Well, what has happened? We have had legislation introduced into this House, and plenty of it, but we have not had legislation upon this particular question, and I desire to emphasise my disappointment, and, I venture to say, the disappointment of my constituents, that this question has not received attention at the hands of the Government. Now, just one word upon the matter of lead poisoning in the Potteries. There is no difference of opinion on the question which the hon. Member for East Bradford, upon whose speech I offer him my hearty congratulations, has introduced. In the district represented by the hon. Member and myself, the dangerous trade of sorting wools has been grappled with by a joint committee of all the large employers and employed, who agreed together in debates amongst themselves, and who afterwards came before the Home Office and Home Secretary with rules which they had formulated for the protection of the workers. I regret to find that the rules have not been as effective as it was expected they would be. There you have a case in which the rules were made, not in the secrecy of the Home Office, not merely with the knowledge and skill and experience of inspectors advising the Home Office, but with all the skill and experience of the workers and the employers and their representatives. Yet they have not turned out to be thoroughly effective in reducing the cases of fatal illness; but here we have

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  only sixteen cases in the course of 1898, and thirteen cases in the first half of the present year, while in the lead industry there are 160 cases, a reduced number which the Home Secretary appears to regard as in some degree satisfactory. If in the textile districts it is found desirable and necessary that a special effort should be made to deal with a dangerous trade, which, after all, only produces twenty-six serious cases, how much more necessary is it that more drastic measures should be taken for a trade which produces at the rate of 160 cases in six months, or 320 in a year! Reasoning from that analogy, I believe that the lead industry requires the most specific and careful attention of the Home Secretary, and it is in the hope that he will recognise that there is a very strong feeling on both sides of the House that I beg him to consider the advisability of next session introducing a Bill which shall deal comprehensively with so great and important a social question.
  MR. FLOWER: I only want, in a single sentence, to associate myself with the observations of my hon. friend and colleague the Member for East Bradford in regard to the increase in the cases of anthrax in the wool trade. But I should not like the right hon. Gentleman to suppose that the rules which he was good enough to sanction some few years ago have proved entirely inadequate to grapple with the very serious evil which they were intended to remedy. Although sixteen is a large number of cases, I believe the increase is due to the fact that of recent years the experts who have devoted themselves to medical researches into the question have been able to locate the very subtle disease of anthrax with greater accuracy than they could a few years ago. I would also like to suggest to the Home Secretary in that connection that the Yorkshire College of Preventive Medicine at Leeds is doing a very great and important work in endeavouring to locate this disease, and I trust that that body will always receive sympathetic treatment at the hands of the Government. There is another matter which I hope he will consider, and that is not merely with regard to the wool-sorting but also with regard to the wool-combing. My hon. friend the Member for the Shipley Division spoke of the harmony which pre-
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  vails between the Bradford Chamber of Commerce and the Bradford Trade Council with regard to the rules for the prevention of anthrax. I am glad that this has been so in the past, and I sincerely trust it will continue to be so in the future. If it is not so I trust my right hon. friend the Home Secretary will not wait until there is complete unanimity and agreement upon all the many points which are raised upon this matter, but that he will endeavour to extend the sphere of his rules not only to the process of wool-sorting but also to some of the processes of wool-combing.
  COLONEL BLUNDELL: I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary will give his attention to the question of the fees of medical witnesses who are brought to Quarter Sessions. They are at present very low, and I am afraid that the public service rather suffers in consequence.
  MR. TENNANT: This is the first occasion on which the House has had an opportunity of discussing questions which must be interesting to all who are concerned in labour matters.
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present; House counted, and, forty Members being found present—
  MR. TENNANT: At an earlier stage of this evening's proceedings the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield accused the Committee over which I had the honour to preside of not giving to both sides adequate opportunities for giving their opinions upon the matters we had to investigate. That accusation is unfounded. We invited the Trades Council, and inserted in the local papers a general invitation to witnesses to state their views either in writing or by oral evidence. This being the first opportunity for discussing these questions since July 1898, it is very little short of a scandal that this Vote should not have been the first Order on the Paper. It was shown in the previous Debate that the system of inspection of factories in this country had so far broken down as to demand either an inquiry or some system of reorganisation. Any casual observer of the Estimates for this year

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  will see that there is about to take place a reorganisation of the Factory Department. I congratulate the Government on the increase of staff they are about to make. That increase comprises one deputy chief inspector—I should like to ask when that appointment will be made, and upon whom the office is to be conferred—a medical inspector, whose appointment was announced last year; one assistant examiner, fifteen inspectors of the ordinary class of varying degrees, ten inspectors' assistants, and two lady inspectors.
  MR. DRAGE: May I ask the hon. Gentleman from what document he is quoting?
  MR. TENNANT: From the Estimates before the House. The Secretary of State said last year that he had already begun to find out that the special rules were not likely to be effective, and that it would be a matter for consideration whether it was possible by special rules to arrive at the end which all desired. From this and other statements, we are entitled to assume that the right hon. Gentleman wishes to abolish the system of arbitration with regard to the special rules in the pottery trade. Those special rules, admittedly feebler than were desirable, have had to go through the emasculating process of arbitration at the hands of the employers, and have emerged feebler than they went in. An important event during the past year has been the issue of the report of Doctors Oliver and Thorpe. We who have taken up a strong attitude upon these matters are justified in saying that every line of that report directly corroborates every position and argument we have urged. We diagnosed this disease for you, and recommended certain specifics upon that diagnosis. You thought fit to appoint your own experts, and they have recommended precisely the same nostrums. That being so, we have a right to demand to be told what steps you have taken to give effect to those recommendations. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman has issued the circular which has been referred to, asking the employers what they are going to do; but I cannot help thinking the Home Office has been almost too kind to these people. There are, in the Pottery district, a certain number of employers who act as a sort of
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  anchor or drag upon any reforming energy or zeal which may be shown among other employers. The course which has been pursued is not the way to treat people of that kind. How much good has been got from the spontaneous action of the employers? The Report states that the experts who conducted the inquiry were forced to the conclusion that very little of an effective character had been even attempted. These gentlemen have now had six years in which to consider what they are going to do, and, so far as I am aware, they have done nothing at all. If further proof were required of the attitude which these gentlemen are inclined to adopt, it could be found in the arbitration of last autumn, when the special rules were made even feebler than they originally were. To take only one point. In regard to washing conveniences, it was laid down in the special rules that the employers should provide one basin for every five persons, and that each basin should have a tap. The employers resolutely refused to concede that simple and homely method of preserving the health and lives of their employees, but said they would only have one tap for two basins. Employers who are capable of adopting an attitude of that kind are not employers whom you should deal with in this courteous and considerate fashion. I have alluded to this circular, but what has been the answer? The answer amounts to this: "We don't want to do anything in a hurry." Already the employers have had six years, and yet they say that that is not long enough, and they must have more time. I maintain that if a case is wanted against the cumbrous machinery of the law, in this trade alone, the pottery industry has given you as good a case as you could possibly desire. But I do not wish to base my case on this one topic. I will pass on, if I am not detaining the House, to another trade. I will give as an illustration the aërated water trade. The Committee upon this subject issued their Report in 1896. The special rules as they left the Home Office were excellent, but owing to the threat of arbitration, certain concessions were made, and those concessions, I am afraid, have resulted in the greatest harm to the people employed; for I find that, in one factory alone, during one year, there were five workers who had to have their eyes removed—either one or both eyes. In one

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  London hospital in one week there were three workers under treatment, who each had to have an eye taken out. There are many other instances mentioned in the statistics presented to Parliament, and I find that accidents of this kind in factories in the bottling of aërated waters have not diminished, but rather increased, and these accidents are mainly attributable to conditions which could not have existed had the rules insisted upon by this Committee been adopted and enforced. That is a very strong case against this system, for if the rules had remained in force as they were issued at first, at least a dozen—eight of whom I have mentioned—of these unfortunate workers would never have lost their eyes. Now those are two particular trades in which special rules have been instituted and enforced; but I would ask the Committee, what about those other trades which have no safeguards of this kind? What of the trades where bronzing and paper staining is carried on, and lithographic work? The evils of these trades are admitted, but, unfortunately, the workers there receive no protection. What of the trades in which naphtha is used, in dry cleaning and in india rubber processes? I could mention other trades, but those I have mentioned could be dealt with without any fresh legislation. Such industries as electric generating works, locomotive factories, and the use of inflammable paints on board ships would require an Act of Parliament to deal with; but the particular industries to which I have alluded could be dealt with at once. I really think that there is absolutely no excuse for leaving the lives of the people in those particular trades in jeopardy so long. We may assume that nothing has been done, because the Home Office desires to avoid the threats of these employers of labour being carried into effect. There is just one more instance in the accumulation of arguments against this system. So long ago as 1893 the Committee appointed by my right hon. friend the late Home Secretary made a Report to the effect that in their opinion many old factories were unfit for occupation, and that there should be some authority, on the same principle as is the case with dwelling-houses, to declare them unfit for occupation. Professors Thorpe and Oliver agree with those remarks, and they say that it will be impossible for any reform of the
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  standard we have set up to be carried out in factories unless some authority is created by which you will be able to close these old factories. How can you possibly expect that you will get reforms of this drastic nature carried out, when you find employers firmly refusing to assent to special rules in minor matters, such as the provision of one tap to each washing basin? So long as you have this bogey before you of the power of rejection by the employers so long will your hands be tied, and so long will it be impossible for you to carry out what is necessary. It is six years ago since the Committee made that Report, and is six years not long enough for the Home Office to make up its mind as to what is to be done? We do not doubt the good intentions of the Home Office, but have we not had almost enough of this delay? Possibly, the workers in the Potteries themselves are even more tired than we are of this constant reiteration of good intentions, and we demand that the Government should introduce something drastic and which will be really effective.
  MR. COGHILL: I represent a large number of manufacturers and employees in three large pottery districts, and I say that it is no use shutting your eyes to the real facts of the case, as appears to have been done by hon. Members opposite who have already spoken on this subject. We must have some regard in considering this question to foreign competition. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean has criticised the operation of the special rules, but my experience of them is that they have been very successful, and that they have given satisfaction to both employers and employed. At all events, I represent three large pottery towns upon this subject, and I do not think that many of the hon. Members who have spoken represent a single pottery district.
  MR. TENNANT: I have no pottery district within 100 miles of my constituency, and therefore, I have no axe to grind myself.
  MR. COGHILL: I hope the hon. Member opposite does not accuse me of having an axe to grind, although I do represent three pottery districts. Hon.

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  Members have complained of the want of more special rules, but I think everybody in the Potteries will be thankful if there are no more special rules. We want the special rules we have got now to have an opportunity of working, and the employers do not want the trade which they have got driven out of the market altogether. If you abolish these rules you will be sure to throw out of employment several thousand workmen. Reference has been made to the report of Drs. Oliver and Thorpe, but they are not practical men, and this is not a question of theory, but one of practical application. Drs. Oliver and Thorpe do not pretend to have a practical knowledge of the pottery trade. If the Committee will allow me to say so, I am bound to say that in my opinion the House of Commons is the very worst tribunal for discussing the subject of the china earthenware trade. With regard to the use of fritted lead, the real question is whether its use will get rid of all the evils which are complained of. On this point we have the testimony of a great Swedish manufacturer—Mr. Armstrong—who has declared that the use of fritted lead will remedy all the evils connected with the manufacture of earthenware and chinaware. One or two speakers have spoken upon the question of the employment of young persons, but I may say that the manufacturers are not unwilling to meet the views of the Home Office in this respect, for they are perfectly prepared to have a system of monthly examinations of all workers who come in contact with the lead. There are a large number of women and young persons employed, and if their labour is dispensed with the cost of production will be enormously increased and the trade will go to the Continent, and these women and children will be deprived of the means of obtaining their livelihood. With reference to the precautions to be taken, one of the greatest difficulties in regard to lead poisoning is to get the operatives to use the means already within their reach. They always want to get away from their work in a hurry, and they are very reluctant to spend the necessary time, and they do not take the trouble which they ought to do in the matter. Dr. Oliver called attention to this matter in his Report. Surely you cannot expect people to acquire a knowledge of the use of fritted lead all at once.
  MR. TENNANT: Fritted lead was recommended in 1892, over six years ago.
  MR. COGHILL: The manufacturers are prepared to adopt the system of fritted lead, and that will practically free the trade from all the evils which the employees suffer from. In the Potteries I am bound to say that we are surprised that we have so many friends in this House from pastoral districts. We have friends from all over the kingdom—from England, Scotland, and Wales; we have the hon. Member for Berwickshire, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean. Now I represent the views of three large Pottery towns, and I do not think that I have ever presented a single petition with regard to this question of lead poisoning from those towns, and I cannot recall having received a single letter of complaint with regard to this matter. I have gone about a good deal in my constituency, and I have had the honour of being returned to Parliament by these workmen, and although this is a burning question and a great grievance in the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean and the hon. Member for Berwickshire, it has not yet occurred to the workmen in these Pottery towns that they are oppressed. I wish to record this fact, that the operatives and the employers are upon the best possible terms throughout the country. The manufacturers are not all millionaires, and they try to do their best in very difficult circumstances, for competition is very keen and prices are very low. I think it is only right that I should mention these facts, and I hope there will be no repetition of these cruel aspersions against certain employers which, I am sorry to say, have been indulged in by some hon. Members opposite.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: While I resided in the Midlands, in the district in which I lived I saw frequent examples of the effect of lead poisoning, and I have always been very much impressed with what I saw with reference to these dangerous trades. In dealing with this question I think the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has had a very difficult and delicate task to

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  perform, and I recognise all the difficulties of his position. No doubt the hon. Member opposite has received representations from manufacturers in one direction, but he does not get representations to the same extent from the workpeople, because they are not, as a rule, the people who make the loudest noise. The work-people are very often influenced by the feeling in the trade, and they are very often not sufficiently well organised to raise anything like a serious agitation about their calling. Then, again, the people themselves are very often not aware of the dangers of their trade, and, therefore, I think it is the duty of the Government to exercise a sort of paternal care. What I regret more than anything about this matter, both as to lead poisoning and the evils of the phosphorus trade, is that the right hon. Gentleman has not been more speedy in his action. I think something might have been done since the report of Drs. Thorpe and Oliver was presented, especially in view of the remarkable developments in the phosphorus trade during the autumn of last year. This question of lead poisoning is one of great difficulty. It is a disease which does not appeal very strongly to the operatives, for it is a poison which is slow and insidious in its progress, and which enters the system unknowingly, so that the persons affected go on working day after day, and do not notice any difference in the state of their health until the symptoms are suddenly developed, and the people are then reduced to a state of comparative helplessness and sometimes impotence during the remainder of their mortal lives. These ale dangerous trades, and they ought to be looked after with the most scrupulous care by those in authority. In this report of Drs. Thorpe and Oliver there is a series of figures which tells us that out of 3,000 or 4,000 operatives there were in three years nearly 1,100 suffering from lead poisoning. That is a very large percentage, and it is a very serious commentary upon the dangers of the trade, and it is one which ought to stir the Government into action. This disease especially affects the young and promising lives of the country, for the elder people are not affected to the same degree. It is the young women and persons of tender years who are engaged in the dangerous processes who are affected the most, more especially the dipping process. Now, the
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  right hon. Gentleman belongs to a Party which is greatly interested in the extension of the Empire and the development of the English speaking people. I desire to remind him that while these large notions of Imperialistic development are going on the birth rate of this country is going down, and if this goes on we shall not be able to carry on these large schemes of Colonial enterprise. These young women—the future mothers of the working population—are so affected by this insidious poison that they cease to be prolific, and they transmit the effects of the disease which they have contracted to their unfortunate offspring. Therefore, the diseases caused by these trades not only affect this but also future generations. It is a national question which deserves national consideration. I think we have, at all events, to thank the right hon. Gentleman for one thing, for he is the cause of this very valuable Report presented to the House by Doctors Thorpe and Oliver. I think that Report ought to take away from his mind any lingering doubt as to the necessity for immediate action, for the Report goes into the whole question, gives a series of experiments, and comes to conclusions which are not by any means doubtful. The Report points out many facts with a plainness and directness which ought to carry conviction, and the more one looks over this Report, the more one is struck by the remarkable paragraph in which it is said that the day is practically at hand when lead glazes will cease to be used. I hope all difficulties will soon be overcome. I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman to go so far as to forbid lead glazes, but the Report says further that all the processes can be performed in a less dangerous and comparatively innocent form. According to these scientific experts, the time has come when we should insist upon fritted lead being used, and then we shall have a chance of avoiding all these horrors in the way of diseases which develop into blindness and paralysis, and which occur from lead. If this were done it would at least preserve the health of the working population, who would be able to carry on their work under conditions which would tend to the well-being of the country. I think the right hon. Gentleman should press those conclusions on the manufacturers, and I hope he will not allow many months to pass before he

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  insists upon the manufacturers adopting the less harmful processes. I also hope that the Government Departments will use their influence in this matter by purchasing all their materials from places where they are produced in a manner which will not be harmful to the producer, and where the processes employed are not injurious to the people engaged in the trade. I quite think that the right hon. Gentleman might at least take steps to instruct all these workpeople as to the very serious importance of cleanliness in this matter. The industrial population of these districts are apt to be careless about these points of detail, but if they were well disciplined the amount of cleanliness would be much greater, and if the inspectors insisted upon the means for cleanliness being supplied in no niggardly fashion in every factory, I think the people would be more inclined to use them. From personal experience, I can say that in many of these districts the standard of cleanliness and ventilation has gone up considerably, and in a recent visit which I paid to the Potteries I was very much struck with the many improvements made. I believe that the manufacturers themselves are now showing an inclination to abolish these evils, and it only requires a little firm pressure in order to remove them altogether. If these people are inspected by medical men periodically, the signs of lead poisoning can be easily detected very early in the disease. I took the trouble to look at some of these people when in the Potteries, and in some of them I distinctly saw traces of lead poisoning; now if I had been a medical inspector in the way I suggest, I should have had these persons taken out of that particular occupation and put to another which would be more conducive to health, and not have left them subject to this insidious disease. The medical inspection must be done frequently and thoroughly. If the right hon. Gentleman would adopt these suggestions—frequent and adequate medical inspection, and encouraging, so far as possible, in young persons habits of cleanliness in these industries—he would reduce the serious injury which is done to the population in the Potteries and other places where these dangerous industries are engaged in. I am disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman has not done more with regard to the distressing state of things exposed
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  last year in respect to the phosphorus match factories. I hope he will do something this year, having regard to the fact that there is a form of phosphorus which is harmless, and so do away with the use of the more deadly substance. The disease arising from the use of yellow phosphorus is even more preventable than lead poisoning, and I hope that in the course of the next few months the right hon. Gentleman will do something to do away with phossy jaw and other similar horrors. To do so is not so much a matter of Statecraft as a question of common humanity. The right hon. Gentleman ought to see to it and do something worthy of the age in which he lives for the lessening of human suffering and the prolongation of human life.
  MR. DRAGE: During the last twelve months, while expecting the introduction of a Bill, we have not pressed upon the Home Secretary very much the necessity for reform with regard to these matters, but there has been discussed the subject of reorganisation both of the women's and the men's departments so far as concerns inspection, and we have pressed upon the Home Secretary other work, such as the publication of the reports like that of Doctors Thorpe and Oliver on the conditions of labour abroad. So I think we must bear our own part of the responsibility of any delay that may have taken place in the publication of the reports of the inspectors at home. My hon. friend on my right, who showed so much technical knowledge of the state of this trade in the Potteries, said the employers in that district had agreed on the abolition of raw lead. That is very pleasant news to this House, and I hope the Home Secretary will take note of it, and that in the Bill we all look forward to next year the abolition of raw lead will take a prominent place. But if we are to place any reliance upon the reports of the specialists of this country and of Belgium and France and other Continental countries, the abolition of raw lead by itself will not be sufficient. There are many different kinds of fritted lead, and what we have to do is to get the right kind. I am informed that, roughly speaking, in the fritted lead used in Staffordshire the percentage of lead oxide ranged from 13 to 24 per cent. In the Government factories in France and other Continental countries the percentage is from 2 to 8. The Committee will

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  see at once, therefore, that the nature of the fritted lead is a very important factor in the situation. Further, lead-less glazes can be used for much ordinary white ware. The real truth is that lead-less glazes need a higher temperature—that is, a greater consumption of coal and more expense. In France ware is fired at a higher temperature, and a smaller percentage of lead is used. If lead is used at all it should he in the form of a double silicate of lead. This would abolish lead poisoning, because double silicate of lead is not soluble in the acids of the human body, such as the gastric juice, perspiration, and saliva. Now there are certain reforms upon which when we come to deal with this question we shall require the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite, for they will be opposed very strongly by the trade. One of those is the total exclusion of girls under the age of eighteen years from the dipping sheds, and I hope hon. Gentlemen will bear this in mind. At that tender age girls are absolutely reckless of danger. Between the ages of eighteen and thirty women by their constitutions are peculiarly susceptible to this desease, and girls of a younger age still more so. In France the employment of girls under 14 is prohibited, though this, I fear, is not strictly carried out. When the Home Secretary brings in his Bill I hope he will bear this recommendation in mind, because it will have to be carried out, and that regulations will be made with regard to this matter. There is another point of which no mention has been made, and which I venture to press upon the Home Secretary, and that is whether this House is prepared to go as far in the coming legislation as to prevent married women, under certain conditions, being employed at all. It is, of course, a subject very difficult to enter into, but I respectfully ask the Home Secretary to bear that in mind also. Above all, there should also be a complete and constant system of ventilation. This is a point of the utmost importance. In Belgium, at Ghent, where this matter has been particularly attended to, there have been, I am told, absolutely no eases of lead poisoning. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has alluded to cleanliness, and has referred to water and appliances for washing, but he has said nothing with regard to a most important point, and that is meal rooms. Although these seem,
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  to be provided, they are not properly ventilated and warmed, and the result is that the workpeople crowd into the only place where warmth is to be found—that is the work-room. In fact, the whole question of the construction of good factories and the demolition of bad factories requires more attention than it has hitherto received. Another matter which the Home Secretary must bear in mind is that of the registration and inspection, which must be systematic; and I may add that it is a disappointment to find that it has not yet been possible to detail a woman inspector for the Pottery district alone. A difficult point which the Government have to grapple with is the independence of the medical man. No one is likely to take a higher view of men in that profession than I am, but we must bear in mind that those who have to earn their living under these circumstances are very loth to undergo an inspection which must be systematic under new rules, and the employers in the district are also often averse to a change. The position of a doctor who depends for a livelihood on such a community is therefore no easy one. What I may suggest to the Home Secretary is that he may see his way to make medical men absolutely independent of private practice. Two years ago we passed an Act in this House for compensating workmen for accidents, and Ministers abroad are day by day and month by month having brought home to them the fact that those engaged in dangerous trades ought to be entitled to compensation for injury to health in the same way as others for injury to life and limb by accident. It has taken me a long time to come to that view, but year by year we are brought face to face with the solid fact that there are evils which call for remedy, and one sees no remedy but an extension of the Compensation Act. The Committee has heard at great length from the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley the report of the Doctors Thorpe and Oliver, and the reasons why we have not been able to arrive at the common action which some of us thought we might have taken last year. It is to be hoped, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will he able next year to find some means of remedying those evils. I hope that by the Bill of next year the unfortunate system of arbitration will be abolished once and for ever.

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  As it exists at present it involves a preference for backward employers over those who are more enlightened. In regard to the phosphorus trades I hope that at the Conference which is to be held next year in Paris in connection with the Exhibition, the representatives of Great Britain will succeed in arriving at some practical suggestion for international action such as I suggested last year. No "strike anywhere" match has yet been discovered which is satisfactory from a commercial point of view, and total prohibition of yellow phosphorus is impossible without international action. But, at any rate, if that fails we can learn something from Russia, who has succeeded to a great extent in expelling deleterious matches from her boundaries by placing an extra duty on them. I admit that this is not a form of action which is popular in this country, but if the worst comes to the worst it is a measure which we may find ourselves obliged to adopt. In the report of Dr. Oliver special practical suggestions are given, which may well be considered by manufacturers, such as the greater separation of departments, change of occupation for workers, and a substitution of machinery for obsolete methods. In a factory in the neighbourhood of Liverpool the introduction of new machinery has solved the whole question of the evils arising from the use of yellow phosphorus; and that is a fact which should not be lost sight of in any Bill which may be introduced. Further, the amount of yellow phosphorus to be used might be restricted as in Belgium. Better provision might be made for ventilation, as well as gargles, overalls, and proper vestiary accommodation. Better provision should also be made for inspection of teeth and general health. But there is also another question to be dealt with, and that is the inspection by the Home Office with regard to children. We have passed a Bill with regard to half-timers, and I did not attempt to press my views upon the House because I desired to see that measure become law; but it is no use for this House to pass the half-timers' Bill if we are not prepared to go further in this matter. The Inspectors' reports show that the Half-timers Bill may simply mean that the children will pass from controlled into uncontrolled trades, such as errand boys, newspaper boys, household drudges, etc. What is wanted is better provision for getting children to
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  school, better legislation and administration as to uncontrolled trades, better inspection by certifying surgeons, and, finally, a simplification and unification of the law as to the employment of children. At present there are the Education Acts, the Factory and Workshop Acts, the Coal Mines Acts, the Metalliferous Mines Acts, and the Act for the Regulation of Casual Employment in Streets and Public-houses. These Acts overlap, are inconsistent, and conflict. They refer to children of different ages, they differ as to the age up to which children are allowed to work full time, and they differ as to the standard of education necessary for exemption. The administration of the law with regard to inspection is at present a scandal to the country. The inspection of these children is placed under the Education Department, the Local Government Board, the Home Office, the local authorities, and I am informed that even the Board of Trade has something to do with the administration. I have not attempted to refer to the many other abuses as to the administration of such Acts as the Canal Boats Acts and the laws referring to Poor Law children which I have now for three years been pressing on the right. hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. I will only now express the hope that the whole question of the law for the protection of children will receive the consideration of the Cabinet, as it is a disgrace to this House and to the country.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The speech of the hon. Member for Stoke, and that which we have just listened to from the hon. Member for Derby, are widely divergent. The first is opposed to any change, whilst the other is sympathetically reminiscent of the Labour Commission, but both hon. Gentlemen were under the impression that foreign competition would have to be considered, but both agreed that the efficiency and administration of the Factory Acts would have to be reorganised. The hon. Member for Stoke said foreign competition lowered prices, and that the lowering of prices had reduced both masters and men to a condition under which they were very sensitive of any interference with their business. I always think I hear that blessed word "competition." It has been said, "O Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name!" So it is with

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  "foreign competition." I do not know of any evil, from the slave trade down to phossy jaw, that has not invoked foreign competition on its behalf. For my part, if I had to choose whether 4,700 men, women, and children are to be liable to these horrible diseases, or whether the trade should go to China or Japan, I would hold up both my hands against these trades being retained in this country. When the hon. Member for Stoke was talking about foreign competition in regard to matches and the pottery industries, the hon. Member for Derby said that foreign countries were far behind Great Britain in factory administration, but in the next sentence said that married women were prohibited altogether from engaging in these industries in Switzerland and Sweden, and he asked if these countries could do that what about Great Britain. When the hon. Member claims for Great Britain a monopoly of vigorous factory legislation and administration, I admit that they are relatively the best in the world. But I hold that they are not good enough, and that even in Great Britain and Ireland we have scandalous evasions of the Factory Acts, even by rich employers of labour. If proof of that is wanted go to the Shaw-field Chemical Works, owned by Lord Overtoun, the champion philanthropist, who praises God and weeps over the woes of the heathen, but keeps his workpeople under the most loathsome conditions. There are other instances in which powerful employers do evade the Factory Acts. The hon. Member for Derby said that a meal room was essential for the workpeople in certain employments, and showed that it could be provided in practice. I had the pleasure the other day of going down to inspect Cadbury and Co.'s great chocolate works, and I can frankly say that I never saw a factory so well appointed, or with meal rooms so well ventilated, although I had better couple that with the works of Messrs. Lever at Birkenhead, and other employers. If these firms can do that for healthy trades like the manufacture of soap and chocolate, I see on reason why it should not be done in the most dangerous trades, even if it is not so profitable. If we are within a pleasurable distance of losing our trade by factory legislation, as is said, in every industry where the Americans are our superiors, they are our superiors, not because of an evasion of the
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  Factory Acts, but by employing men at a higher late of wages than we pay them. It is not by evasion of the Factory Acts that the situation is to be saved. If so, let the Home Office and the House of Commons call at once an International Conference, at which there should be fixed a maximum number of hours' work, a minimum wage, and a minimum amount of sanitary and physical conditions laid down, below which no nation should be allowed to go in respect to employment in dangerous trades. The hon. Member for Stoke adduced the same old arguments which were adduced here sixty or seventy years ago in favour of slavery. He said that since he had been Member for Stoke he had had no complaints either from masters or men, and that they would prefer to have things as they are. All I can say is that if these men are morally and physically so degenerated at the present time that they prefer things as they are, then I would advise him to select a better constituency than the one he now represents. It is not creditable either to the masters or men that they should be content with the present condition of things after the Report of Dr. Oliver and Dr. Thorpe. I can remember when I was in the service of the Niger Company I had a favourite boy, one of the handsomest negroes I ever met. He had, at intervals, attacks of a disease rather peculiar to the lower regions of the Niger. When his work was done he would go down to a district where alluvial clay was mixed with the river sand, and he accentuated his disease by eating handfuls of the clay. I was very fond of the boy, and tried to prevent him killing himself; but he resented this, and wanted to be left alone. I do not say the Stoke employers or workmen have got down to the level of the negro, but they are within measurable distance of my boy on the banks of the Niger. It seems to me that this Report of Dr. Oliver and Dr. Thorpe is a moral stimulus in the right direction. The hon. Member for Stoke must remember that the slave trade was only done away with in the teeth of the slave-owners. He must know that in the Potteries beer is regarded as the best antidote to lead poisoning, and does he expect the publicans to say that beer is not the best antidote to ead poisoning? The men who are in the lowest position of life are always the last to move in the direction of improvement. Then the

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  hon. Member for Stoke said that Drs. Oliver and Thorpe, however qualified as physicians, were not practical potters. They may not be practical potters, but they can tell the physical effect of certain poisons on the human frame; and this Report is worth to me more than all the opinions of all the potters in the Potteries. I am glad that these gentlemen have not condescended to the paltry argument of the hon Member for Stoke, but have given their views straight on the conditions of affairs in the trade. Here is a rough test of the physical effects of the pottery trade upon those engaged in it. Last Saturday an excursion party of 2,000 or 3,000 men and women from the Black Country and the Pottery districts walked through the portals of the House of Parliament. With the exception of a contingent of Bushmen from near Timbuctoo, I never saw a body of smaller people than these excursionists from the Potteries. They had heads on them like sugar loaves, and shoulders like champagne bottles. A recruiting sergeant would not look at a single one of the men. On every face there was evidence of suffering and bad conditions before they were born, going to work too young, and while at work working under conditions disgraceful to employers and employed.
  MR. COGHILL: If the hon. Member for Battersea will come to Stoke-upon-Trent I will show him among the potters some of the finest men he has ever seen.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I have been both in the Pottery district and the Black Country oftener than the hon. Member seems to think, and I have told the people there what I now say across the floor of the House of Commons.
  MR. COGHILL: The conditions of labour in the Potteries and the Black Country are very different.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: We know that in one district they make chains and nails, and in the other they make pots and china; but as regards wages, hours, sanitary and factory conditions there is no difference between the two. The hon. Member says that the workmen want things to continue as they are. But time means money, and these workmen frequently give the time to their work which they ought to give to their meals, and to cleansing their persons.
  256
  The hon. Member will find that it is the industrial environment, the low wages, and the bad sanitary conditions that are responsible for the state of affairs disclosed in this Report. We find that 1,085 persons were suffering from lead poisoning out of a population of 4,703 working in lead, or just over 30 per cent. If that were the condition of our soldiers in India, in regard to another disease; if it were the condition of our garrisons at home, Parliament would be alarmed, and would pretty soon take action. And yet the hon. Member for Stoke says that that is a condition of things which ought to be left alone, and that that is the opinion of the people themselves. I do not believe it. Well, if that is so, the sooner this district is disfranchised the better. What has been the effect of leaving them alone? The effect is that the employers have done practically nothing during the last four or five years to introduce improvements. In many cases the factories are insanitary, and the premises dilapidated, and meal rooms are not introduced as they should be. Generally, the policy of leaving them alone has been to let things grow worse in the district. It is the duty of the Home Secretary to use every means in his power to bring public opinion to operate against such a state of things. Will the hon. Member for Stoke stand up in his place and say that fritted lead is universally used in the Pottery district? It is not so used, because in the Staffordshire district the good employers are dominated by the majority of bad employers; and what is wanted is that the good employers should be backed up by public opinion, by the Home Secretary, and by the Factory Inspectors, and then the good employers would dominate the bad. Then we are told it is difficult to get a substitute for raw lead. Is there an industry or trade in which similar excuses have not been used? Railway directors make the same excuse in regard to automatic couplings. There is not an industry where public opinion is not necessary to stimulate the best employers in the right direction. Then I come to the point about the employment of young persons in these dangerous trades. The opinion of every factory authority in every industrial country is against it; and I am sure it is the private personal opinion of the hon. Member for Stoke.

  257
  himself, because no one, especially if he is a married man—one of the advantages of getting married is that a man becomes wiser—would like to see a girl or boy of his own of fifteen or sixteen years of age a dipper's assistant, or engaged in drawing the ovens. These boys and girls are to be the fathers and mothers of the next few years, and they ought to be protected. It is the duty of Parliament to see that women should not be employed in these dangerous trades, not only for their own sakes but to prevent them from transmitting the loathsome and dangerous disease, proved by Dr. Oliver and Dr. Thorpe, and which, inn some districts, have rendered recruiting impossible, as the children do not grow up to be strong and healthy men. We are told that reforms should be introduced with care and caution, and that the manufacturers should not be pressed too much. I can only say that out of sixty-four prosecutions, sixty were against workpeople, and four against employers. That means that the inspector is not doing his duty up to the proper standard. When I read about the unsatisfactory condition of many of the works, I am driven to one conclusion, and one only, and that is, that the time has arrived when the Home Secretary should be scientifically disagreeable with the Pottery districts. The right hon. Gentleman is too sympathetic, too kind-hearted, too disinclined to apply the strong measures he ought to apply. My advice to him is to send down to Staffordshire some of the twenty - nine new officials and doctors he has appointed, and to give them the marching order to read Dr. Oliver's and Dr. Thorpe's Report between Euston and Stafford. Let him tell them to get to work at once, on the basis of that Report, and then, within the present law and sphere of administration, much can be done in the next twelve months to bring the bad employers up to the best possible standard. I must say also that the time has arrived when our magistrates the weakest link in factory legislation—should have brought before them in some special way the evils they are perpetuating by inflicting only nominal fines. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to get Drs. Oliver and Thorpe to summarise their Report, and then to circulate it to the magistrates through these Pottery districts. If that were done, and some stiff penalties were imposed, much good might be done. Four or five years ago I was snubbed
  258
  in the Grand Committee on Trade for saying that the special rules would very shortly be regarded as unworkable and arbitration on special rules ridiculous. I was glad to see that the hon. and learned Member the ex-Home Secretary now concurred in that view, and the speeches delivered in the course of the Debate indicate that the special rules must go, that arbitration must disappear, and that the factory inspectors, with regard to the enforcement of the law, should have the same power as an ordinary sanitary inspector in London has against a householder who is perpetuating a nuisance, or who has diphtheria or scarlet fever in his house. There should be prompt summary powers to stop these things, and if the Home Secretary is only inclined to do it, he has the means at his command already. Why is it that we have had no Factory Report within the last eighteen months? Is it that there is something in regard to these trades that we are not wanted to know? Is the Home Office under-staffed? I cannot understand why the Home Secretary should have suffered this delay, and I would suggest that he should employ more Female inspectors for dangerous trades, and reissue the circular urging on the factory inspectors to rise to the highest level of their duty and enforce all the Acts which come within their power. I suggest that the factory inspectors should be shifted from district to district, and that the medical should be placed above suspicion. Hitherto the factory inspectors have received the highest encomiums for their probity; but I am persuaded that a condition of things exists which demands a stricter enforcement of the factory laws. If more power is needed, it is the business of the Home Secretary to come to the House of Commons and ask for these greater powers. He will receive from all sides of the House support in legislation for the protection of the helpless and for the removal of evils which have too long prevailed in dangerous trades.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: There has been a long and interesting Debate, and a great amount of advice has been given to me as to what should be the contents of any measure it may be in my power to introduce on any future occasion. The hon. Member who has just sat down seems to have an idea that it is necessary to see that there is more activity on the part of inspectors of factories. There

  259
  could not possibly be a more erroneous idea than that there is a want of activity on the part of the inspectors, and I can assure the House that to carry out the immense amount of work imposed on them by the Act of 1885 and other Acts, and by the new developments which have taken place from time to time, is quite as much as the present staff can undertake. The reduction of the Vote has been moved because of the lateness of the Report of the chief inspector. I regret that the Report should be late, but it is almost impossible to ensure that so elaborate a Report should be ready by the month of May. It could not be secured altogether by an addition to the staff, because there must be a master hand, and the master hand has to work on the Report exactly at the very busiest time of the year. It is almost impossible to bring out a Report of such magnitude so that it may be in the hands of Members before the Home Office Vote is discussed. I only wish it could be done, because the more the Reports of the inspectors are studied the more fully will it be realised how much the Home Office are trying to do what they can to enforce the Acts, and how great the difficulties are. The main part of the Debate has turned upon the two very important Reports with reference to glazing and the matchmaking industry, and I have been asked what I propose to do in reference to them. I admitted last year—and I do not go back on what I said—that in reference to both these industries I am convinced that new special rules will be necessary. I have proceeded upon lines which appear to me the most reasonable and fair—namely, to send the Reports to the various manufacturers concerned, who, after all, ought to be consulted and considered, and to ask them what they can do to meet the suggestions of Drs. Thorpe and Oliver. I submit that the best way for a Minister to secure the good administration of the law is to carry with him, as far as he possibly can, the goodwill of those with whom he has to deal. I have received answers from the manufacturers, which have been alluded to by one or two speakers, and I am about to have another conference with them in a few days, and I have every hope that we shall together be able to frame special rules, which will very much improve the conditions of this trade. As far as the Home Office is concerned, we shall not be indisposed to do
  260
  the best we can to support the views of the experts in this matter. The very great difficulties of the phosphorus business have been referred to, and I do not see how, without adequate consideration of the Report and reference to the manufacturers, special rules could be devised. A good deal was known of the facts last year, but only in a tentative way. The Reports have, however, added a great deal to our knowledge, and this circumstance ought to induce many manufacturers to enter into a new and more satisfactory arrangement. The question of arbitration and special rules is a difficult one, because it is not easy to secure the passing of special rules which would be fair to the various industries, and which ought to be adopted by the working men. I hope, however, that I shall be able to propose legislation which will materially alter the present state of the law. A Bill was prepared many months ago by those responsible for the administration of the Factory Acts, dealing with special rules; but the fates have been against me. I wish, however, to disabuse the minds of hon. Members of the misapprehension that the Government had no idea of introducing legislation on the subject this session. In the course of the present year I have been able to enter into successful negotiations with manufacturers, especially in the white lead industry, to secure special rules which I hope will be satisfactory to that trade, and which may have the effect of inducing others to accept similar conditions. It is impossible for me to give a definite promise to introduce a factory Bill next year, but it will be a matter of great disappointment to me if I find myself unable to deal with the particular question to which I have referred at an early period next session. Something has been said about the Reports as to fritted lead and phosphorus. Everybody will admit that, surrounded as we are with difficulties, yet special rules could be developed out of these Reports, which would be likely for the time being to effect very considerable results. I am asked to agree to an inquiry in reference to the file-cutting and grinding trade, but I do not for a moment propose to deal with these industries without communicating with those interested on both sides of the question. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley spoke of the difficulties of arbitration, and said that those who held out longest

  261
  might get the best terms in the sense of having less restrictions imposed upon them under arbitration. If we take the last arbitration, as an instance, that is the case to a certain extent, but it is open to those who previously agreed to the rules to come under the arbitration terms. I am not defending this system of special rules, because in any legislation which I propose, though I do not suppose I shall go so far as to propose that the Secretary of State himself should be able to propose rules which shall be laid upon the Table of this House, I entirely agree that this principle of arbitration should be materially altered if not entirely done away with. My desire is that the power to make rules should be much more with the Secretary of State than at present, subject to a fair opportunity being given to those who are concerned of being heard before an impartial authority. I do not wish to be understood to have promised that there should be some special provision in my proposed Bill dealing in so many words with such questions as the employment of young persons, the use of raw lead, phosphorus, and so forth. What I do say is that I intend to take specific powers to make rules in regard to these matters, because it is very doubtful whether such rules can be made under the present law. I hope to make these proposals early next session, and I trust that they will not be found unsatisfactory. I admit that the key to the position is effective inspection. I cannot altogether agree that the inspection of the Home Office has been as inefficient as the hon. Member for Bromley and Bow suggests. I have not shrunk from making a very considerable increase of the staff in order to meet the difficulties which exist. I am asked to appoint a Departmental Committee to inquire into this question, but I have had a Departmental Committee sitting for some time, and they have presented a very exhaustive Report on the conditions which now attach to the inspection of factories, the relations of men inspectors to women, and the work women do. There is an addition at the present moment of one woman inspector, two or three junior inspectors, and a medical inspector. I hope very soon to appoint a deputy chief inspector. I have not yet made that appointment, because it is part of the general organisation, which we have not had time to carry out satisfactorily. The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Brad-
  262
  ford has spoken of anthrax in the wool-sorting, and has said provision ought to be made for making that trade less dangerous. I am sorry to hear what has been said about the increase of anthrax in that trade. But I am in a position to say that the diseases arise from subsequent processes, such as wool-combing. As to the controversy with the hon. Member for Stoke, I must say that I do not find unwillingness on the part of the employers to enter into arrangements with the Home Office. I have done my best not to flaunt special rules in a hurry before manufacturers, but to bring evidence and suggestions before them as to what can be done. Under the present state of the law that is the most practical way. Complaint has been made that the Home Office does not act more quickly. Everyone desires to ameliorate the conditions of workpeople in these dangerous trades, but the circumstances have to be considered, and the legal difficulties are great. A great deal has been done during the past few years by action which is far short of compulsion, or the imposition of such rules. There are many instances in which the Home Office has, by the action of its inspectors, by advice and repeated conference and suggestions, done a great deal to improve the conditions of the dangerous trades. While I do not go back from the position that it is desirable that legislation should be introduced for several objects, and especially for doing away with arbitration, I do not hesitate to assert that much could be done in a quiet way.
  MR. ASQUITH: I wish to associate myself with the well-deserved tribute which the right hon. Gentleman has paid to the zeal and efficiency of the factory inspectors. If our system of inspection does not attain all the results which it is intended to accomplish, that is due, not to any want of efficiency on the part of the inspector, but partly to the defects of the law and partly to the insufficiency of the staff. I am glad to hear that additions to the staff are contemplated, and I should have been glad to hear that, with respect to the districts where the trades peculiarly dangerous to women and children are carried on, female inspectors were to be stationed in the districts for a considerable time, so that by personal contact with employers and employed we might not only see that

  263
  the law was enforced, but be able to make valuable suggestions for the amendment of the law. With regard to the late presentation of the Report, I cannot, although I have every desire to do so, recognise the explanation which the right hon. Gentleman has given as in any w ay satisfactory. When the House of Commons has on one occasion only in the year the opportunity of reviewing not the law, but the administration of the law by this great Department of State, surely it is a reproach to those responsible for the administration of that law that the representatives of the people should have to discuss it without having in their hands the statistics and facts, and the reports of the inspectors on those facts. I recognise to the full the zeal and efficiency of the staff, but whatever steps are necessary, whether by an increase in the staff or by other means, in order to secure that the presentation of the Report should be made a reasonable time before the Vote for the Home Office comes on, ought to be, and must be taken. I do not hesitate to say that such steps are necessary both in the interests of administrative efficiency and of the effective control of the House of Commons over one of the great Departments of State. As regards the dangerous trades in regard to which a great part of discussion has taken place, I am glad to find that the right hon. Gentleman recognises the urgency of effective action. The right hon. Gentleman, however, recognised that urgency as frankly and as fully in the Debate twelve months ago, and I must say, without going into the controversial questions raised by the hon. Member for Stoke, that having carefully considered this matter for a number of years, I do not consider it safe for the Department to rely on the spontaneous and voluntary action of the employers in this matter. Here as elsewhere, both as regards legislation and administration, the difficulty we have to deal with is not to persuade the humane and reasonable employer to resort to such means as his own conscience and common - sense suggest. The real difficulty is, that in every trade there are a certain number of employers who, partly from insufficient means, want of enterprise, or perhaps sluggishness of conscience, fall below the average standard of their own class. These are the people who constitute the real difficulty, and we shall never be able
  264
  to deal with them without clear legislation and stringent administration. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that our experience in this matter shows that in the present state of the law we cannot rely on special rules. The conclusion to which I have come from listening to this Debate and from the right hon. Gentleman's own speech is that if ever there were a case in which the necessity for legislation was clearly established it is this case. I think it is established on two quite distinct grounds. First of all, take those matters—I agree a considerable number—contained in the Report of Professor Thorpe and Dr. Oliver, which are dealt with by special rules. When these special rules are framed, the Home Office is brought up against the stone wall of arbitration, with the result, to use an illustration from the chess board, that a kind of stalemate is established. Some of the employers acquiesce in the special rules, but others dispute them, and one single employer who holds out, out of a hundred or a thousand employers, is able by means of the dilatory progress of arbitration to get substantial modifications of the provisions laid down by the Home Office for the safe conduct of the trade, not only for himself, but also for his fellow employers who did not ask to have the rules modified. That is a very unsatisfactory state of things. The hon. Member for Derby said that I was the author of the system of arbitration. I disclaim, as I am entitled to do, whatever credit or discredit attaches to the invention of that system. It was invented by the Act of 1891, before I had anything to do with these matters, and it was to me, while I was concerned with the administration of the law, as I am sure it now is to my right hon. friend opposite, a constant stumbling block. As regards those matters which cannot be dealt with by special rule, the hands of the Home Office are fettered and the efficiency of the administration of the law is impaired, as long as this power of resorting to arbitration is placed at the disposal of any employer. I was very glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that in his proposals for legislation he intended to deal with this matter, but I listened with a little alarm to his allusion to what he called an impartial tribunal. Arbitration is, I suppose, an impartial tribunal, but I would much rather that the right hon. Gentleman would keep the power himself. It would be

  265
  much better—I speak quite deliberately and after having given the matter a great deal of consideration—if Parliament would give power to the Secretary of State for the time being to make special rules, subject to such Parliamentary supervision and control as are involved in the laying of those rules on the Table of this House, and enacting that they should not come into force if the House of Commons really objected to them. I agree that the House ought to have full opportunity of discussing these rules, and that we should not be restricted to a capricious hour after twelve o'clock. I am quite prepared not only to admit, but to insist, that if such arbitrary and autocratic power is to be vested in the Secretary of State, the House of Commons should have the fullest opportunity of hearing all the arguments, and of considering, revising, and, if it pleased, rejecting such rules. I am satisfied there will never be a satisfactory solution of this question until an arrangement of this kind is substituted for arbitration. But even then, there are some matters which can be dealt with by special rules, and others which cannot. Take, for instance, the main recommendation of that excellent Report which has been referred to, that in future raw lead should not be allowed to be employed. I do not think at present that can be enforced by a special rule, and it would be a dangerous experiment for the Home Secretary to try. Here we have got a clear case for coming to Parliament for the necessary power to carry out that recommendation. At present it is a matter entirely beyond the purview and scope of a special rule, and it is one of the clearest cases for urgent and prompt legislation possible to imagine. I do not doubt for a moment the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that if he had his own way legislation would be introduced, but we cannot isolate a particular Minister from his colleagues, or consider the policy of one Department; we must take the policy of the Government as a whole. When I think of some of the hours and days and
  266
  months occupied during the session in putting upon the Statute Book an Act which will not be exercised in one constituency in a hundred, for advancing money to wealthy working men; when I remember the time occupied with this and other nugatory work——
  THE CHAIRMAN: It would be very dangerous if we got into a discussion on the Workmen's Dwellings Bill.
  MR. ASQUITH: I appreciate the risk, and I will only say as a general argument that there have been projects of legislation placed before the House of Commons which cannot compare in point of social urgency with this admitted necessity to preserve the lives and health of our working population. We know that in this matter we have the fullest sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman, and I can only express a sincere hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to impress his colleagues with the views he himself entertains. As regards the general administration of the Factory Laws, I heard with very great satisfaction what the right hon. Gentleman said as to his proposals for the general reorganisation and improvement of the staff. I am quite satisfied that with laws of this kind increasing yearly in complexity and also in social and industrial urgency, the administrative arrangements, which were perfectly adequate five years ago, have now fallen very much below the level we ought to seek to attain. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in any proposals he makes to enlarge the scope and to increase the sufficiency of the staff by which the urgent work of administration is carried on, he will have not only the sympathy but the active support of all sections of the House. I think this has been on the whole a very satisfactory and illuminating discussion. Certainly the impression it leaves on my mind is that until by increased legislative power the good intentions of the Home Office, which always exist, are able to carry themselves into effective action, I will not say

  267
  the money voted to-night will be wasted, but I will say that it will not be put to such a beneficent purpose as it might. My right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean has moved the reduction of the salary of the Secretary of State. I do not know whether he intends to press that motion to a Division, but if he does, for my part, although I sympathise with a great deal, if not all, of what he said, I cannot support him in the Lobby. I am satisfied that the Debate has served the purpose for which it was intended, and I can only hope that the assurances, indefinite though they be, which have been given by the right hon. Gentleman will be carried into effect.
  MR. TENNANT: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will consider the advisability of having his Bill read a first time this session, in order that we might discuss it in the autumn, and that he might have the views of both employers and employed throughout the country on it.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I am afraid I cannot accede to the request of the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I would wish to call the attention of the Home Secretary to one fact. He was under the impression that I had been too severe in my criticism of the employers.
  SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: No.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: In using the language I did, I was more than justified. The right hon. Gentleman said he frequently found employers anxious to assist him, but the report of Messrs. Oliver and Thorpe states that all the evidence they were able to collect forced them to the conclusion that very little of an effective character had been even attempted by the employers. That is the description given by the right hon. Gentleman's own officers; and in the language I made use of, I was only confirming what their experience was in the Pottery districts.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 35; Noes, 115. (Division List, No. 229.)

  AYES.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hazen, Walter

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Hedderwick, Thomas C. H.

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Caldwell, James

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  Steadman, William Charles

  Crilly, Daniel

  Lawson, Sir W.(Cumberland)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Tennant, Harold John

  Davitt, Michael

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Weir, James Galloway

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. John Burns.

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

  Shaw, Thomas(Hawick B.)

  NOES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Bir.

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Bethell, Commander

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Bond, Edward

  Charrington, Spencer

  Balcarres, Lord

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Chelsea, Viscount

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Butcher, John George

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Carlile, William Walter

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Barton, Dunbar Plunket

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen B.

  Cecil, Lord H. (Greenwich)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Cox, Irwin Edwd. Bainbridge

  Helder, Augustus

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Henderson, Alexander

  Pilkington, R. (Lancs, Newton)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Holland, Hon. Lionel R. (Bow)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Denny, Colonel

  Howell, William Tudor

  Purvis, Robert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Jolliffe, Hon. H. George

  Rentoul, James Alexander

  Douglas-Pennant, Hon. E. S.

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col William

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Drage, Geoffrey

  Keswick, William

  Ridley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W.

  Drucker, A.

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Duncombe, Hon. Hubert V.

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel W.

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Mncr.

  Lea, Sir Thomas (Londonderry)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Ryder, John Herbert Dudley

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn-(Swan.

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Seely, Charles Hilton

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Fry, Lewis

  Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Liverpool

  Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lorne, Marquess of

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Gedge, Sydney

  Lowles, John

  Sturt, Hon. Humphrey Napier

  Gibbons, J. Lloyd

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf. Univ.

  Giles, Charles Tyrrell

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Godson, Sir A. Frederick

  M'Arthur, charles (Liverpool)

  Ward, Hon. R A. (Crewe)

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Warde, Lieut.-Col. C. E. (Kent)

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Milton, Viscount

  Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E.

  Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Monk, Chas. James

  Wentworth, B. C. Vernon-

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  More, Robert J. (Shropshire)

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath

  Gretton, John

  Morgan, Hn. F. (Monmouthsh)

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Greville, Hon Ronald

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord George

  Morton, Arthur H. A (Deptford

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robt. Wm.

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Hanson, Sir Reginald

  Pease, Herbert P.(Darlington)

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Hardy, Laurence

  Pender, Sir James

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

  Percy, Earl

  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS: If I did not fear being called to order by you, Sir, I should be glad to avail myself of this Vote to urge on the Home Secretary the necessity for Burial Law reform. I have to make a complaint very different from the complaints to which we have listened to to-night. Complaints have been made of the Home Secretary for not doing things he ought to have done. My complaint is that he is doing things which had better be left undone. I think we are entitled to ask the Home Secretary not to administer the existing law with unnecessary rigour. The point to which I wish to call his attention is the requirement of consecrated in addition to unconsecrated ground in the case of cemeteries under the Burial Acts. I am quite aware that in regard to new cemeteries the Home Office is entitled to insist that there shall be consecrated and unconsecrated parts, but the law is not so clear with regard to additions to cemeteries. Some time ago the late Home Secretary was engaged in
  270
  a lengthy controversy with the Corporation of Hull. He required a large amount of additional ground to be consecrated. The Corporation refused, and ultimately the Home Secretary ceased to put pressure on the Corporation and abandoned his contention. Since then the Basingstoke decision has been obtained, which I admit enables the Home Office to insist that additional ground should be consecrated, and at the present moment the Home Office is pressing Colne, in Lancashire, to consecrate the proposed addition to the cemetery which the Burial Authority considers is absolutely unnecessary. The facts are that the existing unconsecrated ground is quite full, and that therefore unconsecrated ground is needed. But the existing consecrated ground is not full, and may last for some considerable time longer. Yet, notwithstanding that, the Home Office is insisting that the new ground shall be divided into consecrated and unconsecrated parts. That is not only absurd, but very embarrassing to the Burial Authorities, who have a difficulty in deciding how much shall be consecrated and how much un-

  271
  consecrated. They do not know what the facts of the case may be in years to come, when additional consecrated ground may be required; and I submit that the Home Office might very reasonably allow this question to rest until the necessity for new consecrated ground actually arises. This is one of those cases of which it cannot be said that delay is dangerous. No conceivable harm can result if the Home Office lets the matter rest, whereas hasty action may cause much that may hereafter be regretted. I think the Home Office in matters of
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  this kind might be a little more accommodating.
  It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
  House adjourned at five minutes after Twelve of the clock till Monday next.

  ERRATA
  (VOL. LXXIV.)
  Page 219, lines 40–44, read "I find that of all the boys discharged from Reformatory and Industrial schools during the years 1894–95–96, there were known in 1897 to be in the Army, 1,343; the Navy, 344; and the Mercantile Marine, 959."
  Page 219, line 45, after "rose," insert "in 1898."
  Page 219, line 50, read "school ships in 1896, out of 703 boys discharged, 382."