Sitting of 2 April 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  LAND REGISTRY (NEW BUILDINGS) BILL (STANDING ORDER COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of
  926
  Petitions for Private Bills pursuant to the Order of the House of the 29th day of March, That, in the case of the following Bill, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.:—
  Land Registry (New Buildings) Bill.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid 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 applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—

  Government Stock and other Securities Investment Company Bill [Lords].

  Newport (Monmouthshire) Gas Bill [Lords].

  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  MR. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.:—

  Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill.

  Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill.

  Local Government Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill.

  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time to-morrow.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE).
  MR. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, viz.:—

  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill.

  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time to-morrow.

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  MR. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—

  Bray Urban District Council.

  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

  CHESHIRE LINES COMMITTEE BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]

  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
  NORTH WARWICKSHIRE WATER BILL.
  SPALDING URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (WATER) BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.

  GREAT YARMOUTH PORT AND HAVEN BILL.
  As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.

  READING CORPORATION (TRAMWAYS) BILL.
  SOUTHPORT WATER BILL.
  WIDNES AND RUNCORN BRIDGE BILL.
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

  DONEGAL RAILWAY BILL [Lords].
  DUNDEE HARBOUR BILL [Lords].
  LANCASHIRE INEBRIATES ACTS BOARD BILL [Lords].
  MENSTONE WATER (TRANSFER) BILL [Lords].
  OTLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER BILL [Lords].
  Read a second time, and committed.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2).
  Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Dewsbury, Llandudno, Macclesfield, Manchester, Newton-in-Maker-
  928
  field, Wigan, ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
  "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Dewsbury, Llandudno, Macclesfield, Manchester, Newton-in-Makerfield, Wigan," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 164.]
  BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL.
  Ordered, that the Minutes of Evidence taken on the Bradford Water and Improvement Bill, in Session 1881, the Pudsey Gas Bill, in Session 1887, and the Bradford Tramways and Improvement Bill, in Session 1899, be referred to the Select Committee on Police and Sanitary Regulations Bills.—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 120.]

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 121.]

  HARBOUR, &c, BILLS.
  Copy ordered, "of the Report of the Board of Trade on the North Eastern Railway Bill [Lords]."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 122.]

  EXETER CORPORATION BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—
  Military Lands Provisional Order Bill, without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Commissioners of the burgh of Motherwell to provide an additional water supply to the burgh; and to make and maintain new and additional waterworks; and for other purposes." Motherwell Water Bill [Lords].

  MOTHERWELL WATER BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
PETITIONS.
  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Dingwall; Chirnside; Nairn; and Edinburgh; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Chiswick; and Northfleet; to lie upon the Table.
  MIDWIVES BILL.
  Petition from Leicester, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE (EXTENSION TO WOMEN) BILL.
  Petition from Edinburgh, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Swindon, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Gateshead; J. Wallace Hood, junior, and others; Keighley; Glasgow; North Road; Chester le Street; Wrexham; Lincoln; Tynemouth; Pendleton; Exeter; Bacup; Newcastle-on-Tyne; and Folkestone; to lie upon the Table.
  STREET NOISES BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
  Petitions in favour from Lincoln; Llanhilleth; Wrexham; and Edinburgh; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented of Forty-seventh Report of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES (ELECTORS, ETC.) (UNITED KINGDOM).
  Return presented, relative thereto (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 78, of Session, 1899) [Address, 31st January; Sir Charles Dilke]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 116.]
  EAST INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN ENGLAND).
  Copy presented, of Return of all Loans raised in England, chargeable on the Revenues of India, outstanding at the commencement of the half-year ending on the 31st March. 1900, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 117.]
  CIVIL SERVICES, 1900–1901 (SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES).
  Copy presented, of Appendix to the Estimate for Civil Services, Class 6, Vote 1, containing a list of Superannuation and Retired Allowances payable on the 30th November, 1899 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 118.]
  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (NAVY VOTES).
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 24th March 1900, under the appropriation Act, 1899, authorising the temporary application of Surpluses on certain Navy Votes for the year 1899–1900, to meet excesses on certain other Navy Votes for the same year [pursuant to Resolution of the House of 4th March 1879]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 119.]
  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 AND 1896 (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Return in pursuance of the Acts as regards Ireland for the year 1899 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE (ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND).
  Return ordered, "showing, for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1900, (1) the amount contributed by England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively to the Revenue collected by Imperial officers; (2) the expenditure on English, Scotch, and Irish services met out of such Revenue; and (3) the balances of Revenue contributed by England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively which are available for Imperial expenditure (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 317, of Session 1899)."—(Mr. Lough.)
QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—BOER PRISONERS—PLACE OF CUSTODY.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Mr. Schreiner has made representations to Her Majesty's Government with a view to prevent the Boer prisoners of war being sent to St. Helena; if so, what reply has the Government made; is this removal to a distant island necessary for the safe custody of these prisoners; and, if not, why are they to be sent to the island; and will Mr. Schreiner's letter and the reply of Her Majesty's Government be laid upon the Table of the House.
  MR. FLAVINhad the following question on the Paper: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Mr. Schreiner, Prime Minister of Cape Colony, has issued a protest to the Imperial Government against the deportation of Boer prisoners to St. Helena; and whether any reply to such protest has been given; and, if so, would he state the substance of the reply.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): It is the fact that Mr. Schreiner expressed objection to the removal of the
  932
  prisoners to St. Helena, and that objection was communicated to Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government, having given the fullest consideration to the whole subject, do not see their way to alter their policy of sending a certain number of these prisoners to St. Helena.
  MR. FLYNN: Was this removal necessary for the safe custody of the prisoners?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was dictated in part by military considerations.

  PROCLAMATIONS AGAINST LOOTING.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he has any information to the effect that the farms around Ladysmith have been much damaged by the Boer forces during the investment; that the farmhouse of the Mayor of Ladysmith between Lombard's Kop and Pepworth Hill has been completely gutted, the furniture removed, and the walls of the buildings and their fittings destroyed, and that on the route taken by the British troops between Kimberley and Bloemfontein farmhouses have been sacked and burned or seriously damaged, and the furniture generally destroyed; and, if so, will general commanding officers be instructed to take all possible steps to prevent looting and destruction of property by the British forces.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The hon. Member's question confuses two charges—one against the enemy's forces, accusing them of destroying property in the neighbourhood of Ladysmith; a second against British troops, accusing them of destroying property between Kimberley and Bloemfontein. No information has reached us from Lord Roberts in respect of either allegation. But the hon. Member must be aware that stringent orders have been issued by Lord Roberts to British troops warning them of the consequences of any such acts. I do not know of any similar order having been issued by the enemy's generals. Nor can I guess the hon. Member's object in confusing the two charges, unless it was to exhibit this gratifying contrast.
  MR. FLYNN: I had no intention of confusing the issues at all. I think proclamations should be issued by both sides.

  ARMY DOCTORS AT THE FRONT.
  MR WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he will state the highest and lowest remuneration to he paid to Army doctors engaged in the war in South Africa, out of the £15,000 provided in the Supplementary Estimates for pay of Army Medical Service, and the highest and lowest remuneration to he paid to civilian medical practitioners engaged in the war in South Africa, out of the £50,000 provided in the Supplementary Estimates for pay of civilian medical practitioners; and will he also state how many civilian medical practitioners offered their services gratuitously; and, if so, were any accepted.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The highest rate of pay and allowances drawn by officers of the Army Medical Staff' in. South Africa is £1,752 per annum, and the lowest rate £336 17s. 6d. The remuneration of all civil medical practitioners in South Africa, except consulting surgeons, is £428 17s. 6d. a year; consulting surgeons are paid at the rate of £5,000 a year. Considerably over 3,000 applications have been received from doctors for employment in South Africa, but no record has been kept to show how many offered their services gratuitously. The gratuitous services of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and of the late Dr. Grigg were offered and accepted.

  CENSORSHIP.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the censorship now established in British South Africa includes in its operation letters or other documents passing in the mails; and, in that case, under what authority, statutory or otherwise, is it exercised.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The censorship is established under the authority of Her Majesty's Government, and, as my hon. friend the Financial Secretary pointed out in a reply to a question put on 8th March,* it is not desirable to make known particulars with regard to the manner in which the censorship is exercised.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: May I take it, then, that although a reply was given to me on March 8th as to the authority under
  *See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxx., page 371.
  934
  which the censorship of telegrams is exercised, we are not to have a similar reply in respect of the authority under which the censorship of mails is exercised?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not construe the previous reply precisely as the hon. Gentleman does. In the Telegraphic Convention of St. Petersburg, 1875, undoubtedly there are articles which contemplate the censorship of mails during war. I have made a cursory perusal of the Convention of Washington, which is of a much later date, and I can find no such articles. But in any case such articles would only be inserted in anticipation of such action as any Government must take in time of war or rebellion; and anyone who is aggrieved must seek redress in the usual manner.

  MARTIAL LAW.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War over what area in British South Africa has martial law been proclaimed, and what was the date of such proclamation.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): With regard to the proclamation of martial law in the Capo Colony up to the 12th March, I have to refer the hon. Member to my answer of that date to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire.* Since then on 22nd March Gordonia has been placed under martial law. With regard to Natal martial law was proclaimed over the northern part of the colony on 15th October, and over the whole colony on 23rd October. Martial law was also proclaimed in the Mangwe, Tuli, Matobo, Bulalima, and Mawaboni districts of Southern Rhodesia on 25th November.

  SOUTH WALES BORDERERS—INSUBORDINATE VOLUNTEERS.
  MR. M'KENNA: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of John Garland and Tom Phelps, No. 7,553 and No. 9,563 respectively, Active Service Company South Wales Borderers, who recently volunteered at Newport, Monmouthshire, for service in South Africa; whether he is aware that after enlistment both these Volunteers were discharged for the sole offence of being absent one day without
  *See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxx., page 569.

  935
  leave; and whether, seeing that other Volunteers who committed the same offence have been allowed to proceed to the front after punishment according to the regulations, he can hold out any prospect that these Volunteers will be allowed to proceed to the front in accordance with their desire.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am afraid that the hon. Member has considerably understated the offence committed by these men. They were absent from the inspecting officer's parade on the 10th February, and were duly warned that a repetition of the offence would lead to discharge. They were, however, again absent from inspection on the 12th, having broken out of barracks when prisoners at large. When they returned after thirty-six hours absence they had evidently been drinking heavily. After an interval, when they were considered sufficiently sober, they were ordered to be discharged.

  ARMY COMMISSIONS—PROMOTIONS FROM THE RANKS.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether in the existing dearth of trained officers he will consider the advisability of granting commissions to some of the young men now serving as non-commissioned officers and privates in Her Majesty's service, many of them now at the front in South Africa, who, prior to enlistment, passed the qualifying examination for the Army, but were not sufficiently high upon the list to enable them to gain admission at a time when the competition was abnormally severe.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Fifty commissions have been placed at the disposal of Lord Roberts to be given to all classes of troops under his command irrespective of rank or corps. In addition he has been asked to nominate a few deserving non-commissioned officers for promotion for good service. These will be exclusive of any who may hereafter be recommended for distinguished service in the field. And, further, eighteen non-commissioned officers who were noted as candidates for promotion have recently been selected for commissions, and will be gazetted as soon as they are reported medically fit.

  SIR GEORGE WHTTE AND THE WAR OFFICE.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of
  936
  State for War whether he is aware that Sir George White has stated that efforts were made by the War Office to supersede him, and that those efforts were prevented by Sir Redvers Buller; and, if so, what action is proposed by the War Office.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No, Sir.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I shall repeat this question when Sir George White arrives in this country.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member may repeat the question, but I should like to take this opportunity of stating that, while I am always ready to give information on questions of fact, I am not prepared to discuss by way of question and answer in this House what is merely a mischievous repetition of unfounded rumours.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL, rising at a later stage, said: Perhaps the House will bear with me in making a personal explanation. The Under Secretary for War has said that I was using the power of questioning in order to put in mischievous suggestions, and the cheers with which hon. Gentlemen opposite received the statement proves how grave is the accusation against one in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. As this is a personal explanation, may I give the House the evidence on which I based my question?
  MR. SPEAKER: No, that is not in the nature of a personal explanation.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman was in order in making an imputation against me which is wholly unwarranted?
  MR. SPEAKER: I understood the Under Secretary to say that in his opinion these questions were mischievous. I do not think the hon. Gentleman said that they were asked from a mischievous motive.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I submit with great respect that the hon. Gentleman said they had a mischievous tendency.
  MR. SPEAKER: And it would be in order to say that.
  MR. WYNDHAM: What I said was that these rumours were unfounded, and

  937
  that their repetition was mischievous. So it is. I made no charge against the hon. Member; it was merely a statement of opinion in which I was perfectly warranted.

  LORD METHUEN'S POSITION.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War with what command is Lord Methuen at present entrusted, and what is the nature of his duties, civil or military.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Lord Methuen is at present in command of the troops in the neighbourhood of Kimberley.

  TUGELA ENGAGEMENT—COLONEL LONG, R.A.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether Colonel Long, R.A., who was severely wounded in the battle which resulted in the reverse at Tugela, has sufficiently recovered be able to give an account of the circumstances under which the British guns were captured by the Boer forces; and whether, having regard to the circumstance that Sir Redvers Buller, in his despatch or communication with reference to the capture of these guns, states that Colonel Long was too ill at the time to give any explanation, Colonel Long's explanation will be duly published to enable a judgment to be formed of the whole transaction.
  MR. WYNDHAM: We have no official knowledge of Colonel Long's present condition, but from private sources we are glad to learn that he is making satisfactory progress towards recovery. It rests within the discretion of the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa to report upon the proceedings of any officer under him.

  ARMY CONTRACTS—SHIRTS.
  MR. DONAL SULLIVAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for Londonderry, I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether any orders for shirts, and, if so, to what amount, have been placed with the wholesale houses in Londonderry.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS,): The only shirts ordered by the War Office are flannel. Orders for these have been
  938
  given to firms who have factories Londonderry; these shirts, however, not appear to be made there.

  ARMY CONTRACTS—QUALIFICATIONS OF DIRECTORS' STAFF.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the members of the staff of the Director of Army Contracts have received any training of a business, technical, or commercial character; whether complaints have been received from contractors as to the visits of detective officers from the War Office to the premises of firms supplying stores to the Army; and what are the rules of the Department regulating the visits of these gentlemen to clothing, shoe, and saddlery factories.
  MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The staff of the Director of Contracts have received adequate training in the business with which they have to deal, which is that of knowing when the enormous variety and quantity of stores required for the Army can be satisfactorily, quickly, and economically obtained. The inspection of the stores is conducted by skilled officers and men on behalf of the Department receiving the stores, and not by the contract branch. No complaints have been received in regard to the visits of officers from the contract branch referred to in paragraph 2. These visits are made under the orders of the Director of Contracts, to ascertain by personal inspection, either the progress that is being made in the execution of a current contract, or the capacity of a firm to undertake orders. Inquiries into labour questions also entail personal visits.

  MISCONDUCT OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS.
  MR. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Messrs. Samuels, Army contractors, of Ludgate Hill, supply military stores to several Volunteer regiments; whether he will take steps to communicate to the commanding officers of such regiments the fact that Messrs. Samuels have been struck off the War Office list of contractors for supplying defective stores for the use of troops in South Africa; and whether he will give directions that no further orders for military stores should be given to the firm in question.
  MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The War Office has recently been informed that Messrs. Samuels supply stores to several Volunteer regiments, but has not been informed of the names of such regiments. Means will be taken to acquaint Volunteer commanding officers of the decision of the Secretary of State in respect to this firm.

  DEPUTY JUDGE ADVOCATE.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War at what date Lord Basil Blackwood, who appears in the Army List for March as holding the post of Deputy Judge Advocate to Her Majesty's Forces in South Africa, received this appointment, and whether the Government were aware when they made the appointment that he was a barrister of less than three years standing.
  MR. WYNDHAM: He was appointed on the 15th February on the recommendation of Sir F. Jeune.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: Can the hon. Gentleman answer the last few words of the question?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Gentleman seems to be confusing the Deputy Judge Advocate with the Deputy Judge Advocate General.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Does the Judge Advocate General appoint Deputy Judge Advocate General?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I believe so.

  CONVEYANCE OF HORSES BY RAIL.
  MR. BUTCHER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the regulations of the War Office require that horses for the use of the Regular Army and the Yeomanry shall be carried by rail in open cattle-trucks instead of in horse-boxes, and shall be so carried without rugs or clothing; whether he is aware that, during the recent severe weather, the adoption of this regulation has caused serious injury to horses, especially clipped horses, involving considerable pecuniary loss, and whether reports have been received from remount officers condemning the regulation above referred to as cruel and uneconomical; and whether the officials of the department who have the charge of transport will be
  940
  given a discretion in proper cases to provide clothing, and to allow the horses to be carried in horse-boxes instead of in cattle trucks.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The regulations provide for the conveyance of horses in cattle-trucks, which during severe weather are to be covered with tarpaulin sheets. Last December, however, instructions were given to cover the trucks with tarpaulin sheets in all cases, and the issue of horse blankets has been ordered for all horses travelling by rail during inclement weather. Since these orders have been issued there have been no complaints from remount officers, but discretion is left them to use horse-boxes in special cases if necessary. It is usually not possible to use horse-boxes when large numbers of horses have to be transported at once, because the necessary rolling stock cannot be collected.

  NEW FORGING PRESS AT WOOLWICH.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether tenders have been invited for the construction at Woolwich of a 3,000 ton forging press; whether a press of this size and power is far larger than is necessary for the production of forgings of the size to which the War Office have repeatedly promised the private trade that the production of the Royal Ordnance Factories should be limited; and whether any and what change of policy in that respect is contemplated; and, if not, for what purpose is the 3,000-ton forging press required.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Tenders have been invited for a 3,000-ton forging press for erection in the ordnance factories at Woolwich to take the place of the present steam hammer, which is worn out. The press is larger than is necessary for the production of forgings of the size hitherto made in these factories. It is, however, intended to restrict the use of the press in ordinary time to the production of forgings of the size hitherto made; but it is considered necessary to have a reserve of power available in case of emergency.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will the authorities consult experts on forging subjects, such as The Times?
  [No answer was given.]

  RIFLE RANGES IN ESSEX.
  MR. GRAY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, seeing that the rifle range at Ilford is likely to be closed at no distant date, and that there are Crown lands in Essex on which suitable rifle ranges might be constructed without great cost, he will make inquiries into the subject with a view to providing additional facilities for Volunteer corps and rifle clubs recruited in West Ham and neighbouring districts.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The question is under consideration.

  THE BLAKELY GUN.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will consider the desirability of taking stops to repeal the Act of Parliament of 8th April, 1859, Vic. 22, c. 13, so far as it relates to the invention of Lord Armstrong for guns constructed on the principle invented and patented by the late Captain Blakely, R.A., whose invention for guns was refused by the War Office, and subsequently adopted by the Department without any recognition or reward to the true and original inventor.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the hon. Member has already been informed that his views of Captain Blakely's services are founded on a misapprehension. That being so, it is impossible to repeal the statute.
  MR. WEIR: I shall call attention to this matter on the Estimates.

  JAMESON RAID—RHODES-HAWKSLEY CORRESPONDENCE.
  MR. CARSON: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General whether the attention of the Public Prosecutor has been directed to the abstraction and receipt of certain letters from the office of Mr. Hawksley, solicitor; whether the information in his possession shows that such abstraction and receipt constitute criminal offences; and whether the Public Prosecutor intends to take any steps with a view to the prosecution of the parties implicated.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,): No communication has been made to the Director of Public Prosecutions, nor has
  942
  he any information beyond the statements which have appeared in the press. They are not sufficient to enable anyone to express an opinion whether a criminal offence has been committed. The case is not one in which the Director of Public Prosecutions would at present be justified in taking any action.

  CORDITE—DANGER FROM SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION—EXPLOSION ON THE "REVENGE."
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the statement that a fire was recently discovered in the magazine of one of Her Majesty's ships, which could not be ascribed to anything except the spontaneous combustion of cordite, presumably of inferior quality; and whether, if the facts of the occurrence of the fire be as stated, an official inquiry has been held, and with what result; and if the fire, as stated, was found on inquiry to be due to the spontaneous combustion of inferior cordite, whether any steps are being taken to guard against similar accidents through cordite hurriedly manufactured to meet the present demand.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. GOSCHEN,): The occurrence referred to is presumably what happened in the magazine of the "Revenge," when one cartridge spontaneously ignited and set fire to two others in the same box. The other boxes of cartridges in the magazine were not affected. With regard to this occurrence I made a statement in the House, in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne, on February 8,* that an inquiry had been held, and that the whole of the evidence had been referred to the Ordnance Committee for further investigation. The cause of the explosion has not yet been ascertained with any certainty. With regard to the second part of the question, there is no foundation whatever for the imputation that the explosion was in any way due to hurried manufacture to meet the present demand. The cordite which ignited was made in 1894, and there was no new cordite on board the "Revenge." The position of the Navy as regards the supply of cordite has not been such as to
  * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxviii., page 917.

  943
  require the placing of any special or hurried orders. The orders for 1899–1900 were placed in due course in June last year, and those for 1900–1901 will be placed almost immediately.

  FLOGGING IN NAVAL PRISONS.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state whether the rules of Her Majesty's prisons apply to naval prisons; and who is the confirming authority in the case of sentences of flogging in naval prisons under the new Prisons Act.
  MR. GOSCHEN: The rules of Her Majesty's prisons are applied by Admiralty regulations to naval prisons, so far as the special circumstances of the naval service admit. In cases of punishment by flogging in naval prisons under the new Act, the Visitors adjudicate. No superior confirming authority is provided for. These rules are applied to prisons abroad as well as at home, and reference to a superior authority would lead to inconvenience with prisons on foreign stations.

  DELAGOA BAY—CONTRABAND OF WAR, ETC.
  COLONEL MILWARD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the information in his possession shows that the Portuguese officials at Delagoa Bay, as representing a neutral but friendly and allied Power, have done their utmost to prevent the passage of intending combatants and contraband of war through Portuguese territory.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. BRODRICK,): Her Majesty's Government have no reason to believe that the Portuguese Government have in any degree failed to do their duty in preventing contraband of war from being landed at Lorenzo Marques.

  TURKISH LOAN CONVERSION CONVENTIONS.
  MR. PIERPOINT (Warrington): I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a convention for the conversion of the residue of the Four per Cent. Turkish
  944
  Guaranteed Loan of 1855 was signed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Costaki Pasha in August, 1898; and, if so, whether application is to be made to Parliament during this session for ratification of the convention, he will explain what is the cause of the delay.
  MR. BRODRICK: The negotiations on the subject are incomplete and are at present suspended. I regret that no statement can be made at present respecting them.

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA—GOLDFIELDS DISTRICT PETITION.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it was with the knowledge and sanction of the Colonial Office that the Governor of Western Australia, on sailing for England, left the petition to the Queen from the residents of the goldfields districts for the consideration of local Ministers; and, whether the usual course is to transmit such petitions direct to Her Majesty.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no official information in regard to the petition referred to. The proper and constitutional course in regard to all petitions from the self-governing colonies is for the Governor to submit them to his Ministers and forward them to the Secretary of State with their remarks.

  INDIAN CURRENCY.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state what amount of gold in India and England respectively has the Indian Government acquired in connection with the proposed changes in its currency system; by what methods this gold has been drawn into the Indian Government's treasuries, here and in India; and to what extent, if any, has the issue and circulation of currency notes been increased as resulting from, or in dependence on, the gold in these treasuries; if he can inform the House at what date the Indian mints recommenced coining to replenish the active circulation of rupees, to what extent this increase in silver currency has proceeded up to date, and whether the mints or the currency department paid out gold to any appreciable extent in exchange for fifteen

  945
  rupees or currency notes; and what the amount or rate of profit derived from the issue of new token rupees is, and whether such profit will be credited to the currency department or to the general revenues.
  THE SECRETARY FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): (1) The Government of India holds at present about £7,900,000 of gold in India, and £1,500,000 in England. (2) The methods by which it was attracted are as follows: In India Government offered to receive gold in exchange for currency notes or rupees at the rate of one sovereign for fifteen rupees; in England the Secretary of State in Council sold telegraphic orders for rupees on the treasuries in India at the rate of one rupee for 16 5/32d. (3) The receipts of gold in the treasuries began to assume large dimensions about February, 1899, at the end of which month the outstanding currency notes amounted to 264 lakhs, while at the end of March, 1899, they were 2,820 lakhs; by the last return they amounted at the end of February, 1900, to 2,727 lakhs. (4) The coinage of rupees was resumed on the 25th of January last. (5) The addition to the coinage so far is believed to have been about 140 lakhs of rupees. (6) Gold has been paid out to the amount of about £244,000. (7) The rate of profit in coining rupees from fresh silver when silver is at its present price is about fifty-two per cent. (8) The Government of India have not reported their views as to the mode of showing such profit in the accounts.

  CUSTOMS DUTIES ON SPIRIT—METHOD OF LEVYING.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total amount of customs duties paid according to the last Annual Report of the Commissioners of Customs on the following nine articles, namely, chloral, hydrate, chloroform, colodion, acetic, butyric, and sulphuric ethers: iodide, bromide, and chloride of ethyl; at what amount does he estimate the increased customs duties proposed under the Finance Bill of this session to be levied on these nine articles; and whether, in view of the fact that the revenue to be realised is so small, that the proportions by which the duties hitherto levied on these articles is proposed to be
  946
  increased vary from 5 to 28 per cent., and that no corresponding increase of duty is proposed in the cases of transparent soap and confectionery in the manufacture of which spirit is used, he will reconsider the question of disturbing existing duties on the nine articles specified.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): The customs duties paid on the articles mentioned in the hon. Member's question amounted in the year 1898–99 to £2,349, and the increase in the duties is estimated to produce about £150. In the manufacture of these articles spirit, on which increased duty has to be paid, is used, and I do not think it would be fair to the British manufacturer who has to pay these increased rates to admit the like articles of foreign manufacture without any proportionate increase of duty. No increase has been proposed in the duties on confectionery made with spirit and transparent soap, as the proportionate increase would be too small to be expressed in any current coin.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: On what principle has the variation been made?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: On the proportion of the increase on spirits to the existing duty throughout.

  ISLINGTON BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  MR LOUGH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Islington Board of Guardians have refused to accept a report from their clerk as to the conduct of certain officials; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): I understand that the facts are as stated. The Local Government Board, however, have no definite particulars as to the allegations contained in the report referred to, but inquiry is being made on the subject.

  MONTGOMERYSHIRE WORKHOUSES.
  COLONEL PRYCE-JONES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, in view of the fact that there are four workhouses in the county of Montgomery

  947
  maintained at the public expense, and one of them is capable of housing all the inmates, whether he will make inquiries, and, if found practicable, take steps to reduce their number, thereby effecting a large annual saving to the ratepayers of that county.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Local Government Board have directed inquiries to be made on the subject.

  GREEN PARK—SEAT ACCOMMODATION.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he could see his way to provide seats on the grass and under the trees in the Green Park for the use of those who frequent the park who are for the most part unable to pay for chairs.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): There are 118 free garden seats on or facing the walks in the Green Park, and the supply seems to me sufficient. There are many objections to placing seats in secluded places under the trees, but I will consider whether more of the seats near or on the walks can be reversed so as to face the park.

  TRAWLING IN PROHIBITED SCOTTISH WATERS.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that the captain of a British trawler has been sentenced by the High Court of Viborg to eighteen months penal servitude and a fine of £180 for fishing in prohibited waters, resisting the authority of the State, and causing through carelessness the upsetting of a fishing boat; and, having regard to the light penalties inflicted on the masters of trawlers who make a practice of trawling in prohibited waters around the coasts of Scotland, will the Fishery Board for Scotland consider the desirability of making a bye-law for the imposition of heavier penalties and punishments than those now in force.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): My attention has not been specially called to the case referred to by the hon. Member in the first paragraph of his question, and I am consequently unable to say whether
  948
  the facts there stated are accurate. As regards the second paragraph, Parliament alone can enact penalties and the Law Courts impose them. The Fishery Board have nothing to do with them.

  SCOTTISH LUNACY BOARD MEETINGS.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state the number of board meetings held by the Lunacy Board for Scotland in 1897, 1898, and 1899, respectively; the number of board meetings attended by the chairman in each of these years; and the number of board meetings attended by each of the other unpaid commissioners during the same period.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: In 1897 twenty meetings were held by the General Lunacy Board. The chairmanship was changed during the currency of this year. The two unpaid members attended at fifteen meetings respectively. In 1898 twenty-six meetings were held, the chairman being present at twenty-five, and the other unpaid members at sixteen and nineteen meetings respectively. In 1899 twenty-seven meetings were held, the chairman being present at twenty-three, and the other unpaid members at twenty-three and twenty-four meetings respectively. I must add that while these are the numbers of the formal meetings of the Board, they do not nearly represent the amount of work done by the chairman and other unpaid members in connection with lunacy administration.

  DEPORTATION OF IRISH PAUPERS.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the clerk of the Blackburn Board of Guardians made an application before the magistrates for an order for the removal from the Blackburn Workhouse of an inmate named Edward Murray to his birthplace at Kilmena, County Mayo, he having been born in Ireland in 1815, and having lived in England continuously since the year 1837; and whether, considering that legislation has been promised dealing with the question of deportation of paupers into Ireland, the Local Government Board will refuse to sanction the transfer of Edward Murray into Ireland at the expense of the Irish rates.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The hon. Gentleman will remember that I answered a question as to this case on Friday last. With regard to the second paragraph the Local Government Board have no power to interfere with the discretion of the guardians.

  FAIR RENTS IN COUNTY KERRY.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he can state the number of applications lodged by tenants in North Kerry to have fair rents fixed in Listowel and Tralee, respectively; whether he is aware that the cases of tenants whose applications were made three years ago are still unheard; and whether representations will be made to the Land Commission with a view of remedying the existing congested condition of tenants' applications to fix fair rents by more frequent sittings of the Sub-Land Commissioners.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): There are eighty-six cases from the Union of Tralee, and 112 from the Union of Listowel that have not yet been listed for hearing. None of the applications to fix fair rents from those districts have been outstanding for as long a period as three years. A list which will include cases from North Kerry will be issued as soon as the list containing cases from the southern portion of the county and at present in course of disposal has been completed.
  MR. FLAVIN: Is it not the case that originating notices have been served in that district for a period of over two years, and yet have not been heard?
  MR. ATKINSON: I presume the Land Commission make the best arrangements they can.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that a tenant named Denis O'Sullivan, residing at Cahirciveen, County Kerry, a tenant under Trinity College, Dublin, holding about twenty-nine acres of poor land at a rental of £7 12s. 6d. per year, and a valuation of £5 5s., gave evidence in his application to have a fair rent fixed that it cost him in addition to the rent a further sum of £14 7s. in hand feeding the cattle for the past year. And also that he let for graz-
  950
  ing purposes about ten acres of his holding at a loss of about 8s. for the year; whether he is also aware that the tenant served his notice to have a fair rent fixed in April, 1898, and since that date also asked the agent of Trinity College to have the rent fixed out of court by Land Commission valuer, which request the agent of Trinity College refused. And, also, Denis O'Sullivan and other tenants on Trinity College property accepted the valuation of the landlord's valuer, Mr. Rea, in 1882; and whether the Sub-Land Commission, when delivering judgment in this case, will fix the judicial rent so as to take effect the gale day next after the service of the originating notice.
  I also beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that, at the recent Land Commission Court held at Cahirciveen, the valuer examined by Trinity College against the tenants was a local landlord named Captain James J. Magill, and that in many of the tenants' cases then listed for hearing the first judicial rent was 100 per cent. over the valuation: but that, notwithstanding this, the landlords' valuer, Captain Magill, swore that the rent for a second judicial tenancy should be in the majority of cases much higher than that fixed in the first judicial term; and whether he will ask the Land Commission to reconsider their decision in this court.
  MR. ATKINSON: The first question refers to a case which is at present pending before the Sub-Commission for decision. The Land Commissioners, under the circumstances, decline, and, in my opinion, properly so, to call upon the Sub-Commission for information as to the various matters mentioned in the question. The same remark applies to the next question on the Paper.
  MR. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the valuer in this case has actually sworn in open court that the second judicial rents should be higher than the first?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  UNITED IRISH LEAGUE MEETINGS AT DONERAILE.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state by whose orders and on what grounds, on the occasions of the meetings of the United Irish League,

  951
  held once a week in Doneraile, County Cork, of which Rev. J. M. Callaghan is president, a policeman stations himself at the entrance to the place of meeting and takes note of each individual entering.
  MR. ATKINSON (for Mr. G. W. BALFOUR): This question is apparently based on a newspaper report dated the 27th instant. The statement in the question is absolutely devoid of foundation.
  MR. FLYNN: It is founded on the rev. gentleman's own complaint.
  MR. ATKINSON: Then he is entirely in error.

  IRISH CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Kerry County Council unanimously passed a resolution asking that a representative from Kerry be placed on the Congested Districts Board; and whether, owing to the poor and congested condition of a large portion of Kerry, some means can be found by which a Kerry representative will be added to the Board.
  MR. ATKINSON (for Mr. G. W. BALFOUR): I have already answered two similar questions on this subject to the effect that the number of members of the Board is fixed by statute, and that there is no vacancy at present on the Board.
  MR. FLAVIN: Have vacancies been created and filled for any other county in Ireland which is not so much congested as Kerry is?
  [No answer was given.]

  IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ORDERS.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that the Killarney Rural District Council have passed a resolution unanimously asking that a Bill should be introduced into Parliament to repeal Section 5 of the Act of 62 and 63 Vic, c. 31, validating the Orders of the Local Government, dated the 15th May, 1899, and the 17th July, 1899; and whether the Government will consider the advisability of acceding to the request of the members of the Killarney Rural District Council by introducing such a Bill.
  MR. ATKINSON: The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. I have already stated that it is under consideration whether it may not be advisable in the course of the present session' to give the Local Government Board, by legislation, power to vary areas of charge fixed by previous Orders.
  MR. FLAVIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how soon legislation will be introduced?
  MR. ATKINSON: I cannot add anything to what I have already stated.

  SCARIFF WATER SUPPLY.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Local Government Board has received a petition from the inhabitants of Scariff in connection with the water supply scheme for that district; and what is being done in the matter.
  MR. ATKINSON (for Mr. G. W. Balfour): The petition referred to has been received. The Local Government Board will issue orders for a local inquiry into the matter in pursuance of Section 15 of the Public Health Act of 1896.

  IRISH FORESHORE RIGHTS—LORD MIDLETON AND THE BALLINACURRA FORESHORE.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Maurice Healy), I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade on what grounds the Board of Trade, when alienating foreshore, make a distinction as regards first communicating with the harbour authority between foreshore under water and foreshore which is not under water; will he explain why it is that, seeing that foreshore which is available for conversion into piers and quays is the most valuable, the Board of Trade let it pass into private hands without consulting the harbour authority; and, also, why, in selling the Ballinacurra foreshore to Lord Midleton, the Board of Trade did not make it a condition that Lord Midleton should grant to the Cork Harbour Board the lease which he had agreed to grant in 1884, and the granting of which the Board of Trade then prevented by refusing their consent.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. RITCHIE,):

  953
  The Board of Trade, when considering an application for a grant of foreshore below high-water mark, communicate with the harbour authority in order to ascertain their views as to the effect on navigation of the works proposed to be erected on such foreshore. In cases of accreted land above tidal influence, no such question can arise. After the Board had agreed to grant a conveyance of the land in question to Lord Midleton, in order to avoid litigation as to title, they received a letter from the Harbour Commissioners asking that the land might be granted to them. The Board endeavoured to induce Lord Midleton to agree to grant to the Harbour Commissioners a long lease of the land, but they had no power to insist on such a condition. The Board are not aware whether the land sold is identical with that which the Harbour Commissioners desired to lease from Lord Midleton in 1884.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I ask is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Cork Harbour Commissioners wrote to the Board of Trade in January, 1899, requesting that this foreshore might be vested in them for public purposes, and that it was not until the following August that the Board of Trade wrote in reply stating that a similar application had been received from Lord Midleton?
  MR. RITCHIE: Yes, but it does not in any way qualify the answer I have given. I understand that before the application had been received from the Cork Harbour Commissioners an arrangement had practically been come to with Lord Midleton.
  MR. FLYNN: Then why was it not communicated to the Cork Harbour Commissioners for a period of eight months?
  MR. RITCHIE: The Board of Trade could not have acceded to the application of the Cork Harbour Commissioners without running the risk of serious litigation. They could not give them the title to land which was claimed by Lord Midleton as having been in possession of his family for 200 years.
  MR. FLYNN: Will the correspondence between Lord Midleton and the Board of Trade be made available to Members of the House?
  MR. RITCHIE: I think there is no necessity for anything of the kind.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to Lord Midleton the desirability of carrying out this improvement?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  R.I.C.—DISTRICT INSPECTOR TAYLOR.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that District Inspector Taylor, of Kenmare, visits and stays with Mr. Warden, of Derryguin, frequently; and that he also drives with Mr. Warden to and from the Sneem petty sessions court; and whether Mr. Taylor, who is a police officer, is acting according to the police regulations in associating himself so publicly with Mr. Warden, a local landlord, seeing that Mr. Taylor appears in cases where Mr. Warden adjudicates at the petty sessions court.
  MR. ATKINSON: I was not previously aware that the facts are as represented in this question. I need hardly say that the constabulary regulations do not prohibit an officer of the force from visiting, associating or driving with a magistrate of his district under the circumstances stated. The Inspector General reports that the district inspector is an excellent officer, and that he performs his duties with great zeal, efficiency, and independence of all parties.
  MR. FLAVIN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that District Inspector Taylor also prosecutes in cases where Warden's tenants were the defendants, and Mr. Warden also adjudicates in those cases?
  [No answer was given.]

  EDUCATION, &c, SCHEMES—ORDEKS IN COUNCIL.
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will propose the adoption by the House of Commons of an Order similar to that adopted by the other House of Parliament,* to the effect that where by statute any scheme, before it can be sanctioned by Order in Council, is ordered to lie
  *See page 621 of this Volume.

  955
  upon the Table for a prescribed number of days, it shall be laid upon the Table in a printed form, and not otherwise; and thereupon shall forthwith be circulated to the Members of this House.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is quite right in his statement with regard to the practice in another place. I see no reason why that practice, which is obviously a convenient one, should not be adopted here and I will communicate with the authorities of the House on the subject.

  SEA FISHERIES BILL.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER,: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Second Reading of the Sea Fisheries Bill will be taken before Easter; and whether, in view of its importance to the fishing industry, a full opportunity will be given for its discus-upon the motion for the Second Reading.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We do not propose to take this Bill before Easter. I cannot give any pledge at the present moment as to when or where it will be placed on the Orders of the Day.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR HENRY FOWLER: Will the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House now fulfil his promise to state what is the actual business to be taken before the House adjourns for the Easter recess, and on what days it will be taken?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The enumeration of the Bills and the times at which I hope to deal with them are as follows:—The Bills the stages of which are practically completed are the Finance Bill, Army (Annual) Bill, and Electoral Disabilities (Military Service) Bill. The Second Readings that have to be taken are the Ecclesiastical Assessments (Scotland) Bill, the Railways (Prevention of Accidents) Bill, and the Agricultural Holdings Bill. We shall, I hope, also finish the small remains of the debate relating to municipal trading; and I should like to get the Police Reservists (Allowances) Bill and the Naval Reserve (Mobilisation) Bill. As to these I do not think hon. Members will wish to say much. As regards the actual distribution of the programme, I do not pro-
  956
  pose to interfere with the rights of private Members on Tuesday, except so far as it may be necessary for the Finance Bill. I was under the impression that we should have to take a new clause in Committee of Ways and Means, but I now hope that that necessity may be avoided. My idea will be to take the Railways Bill first on Thursday, and the Agricultural Holdings Bill first on Monday. The Finance Bill will be taken on Friday, which will not be a day to be counted. The debate on municipal trading must be disposed of before the holidays, but I do not wish to see the House sitting on Tuesday for that purpose, and if Members will meet the plan half-way and enable the Government to get the Municipal Trading Resolution after the Railways Bill on Thursday, I should like to move first on Friday that the House at the end of the sitting on Monday do adjourn for the holidays. In that case the House would gain half a day, and for the purposes of many Members a whole day's additional holiday. As regarded the Education Code, I am not sure whether it would not be more convenient to postpone the discussion till after Easter, but I cannot make a definite statement on that subject until to-morrow, when I have to answer a question addressed to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Dartford Division of Kent. The House will see, therefore, that as at present advised I suggest that for Tuesday the business shall be the Finance Bill, if the stage is necessary, otherwise private Members' business; Wednesday, private Members' business: Thursday—(1) Railways (Prevention of Accidents) Bill, (2) Municipal Trading Resolution; Friday—(1) Motion for the Holidays, (2) Finance Bill, Third Reading. Monday, the Agricultural Holidays Bill, and possibly the one or two non-contentious Bills I have named.
  MR. BUCHANAN: As the Agricultural Holdings Bill applies to Scotland as well as to England, and as the debate is hardly likely to be concluded in one sitting, will not the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his proposal to take it on Monday?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The question is rather an unfair one. I want to give the House as long a holiday as I can, and the hon. Member's complaint would have

  957
  no foundation if I put the holidays off till Thursday.
  MR. BRYCE: I suppose we may take it that the Australian Federation Bill will not be taken before the holidays?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It will not.
  MR. GRAY: Assuming that the debate on it is not taken before Easter, I take it that although the Code will come in force, the House will have an opportunity of discussing it apart from the Education Estimates.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the discussion on the new Education Code does not take place on Thursday, I shall give a pledge that the new Code shall not come into operation until the House has had an opportunity of discussing it. That opportunity will be given, apart altogether from the Education Estimates, at a very early date after Easter.
  MR. FLOWER: How, in view of the fact that the time for the discussion of the Code runs out on the 14th instant, does the Leader of the House propose to deal with the new Code? Does he propose to withdraw it entirely from the Table of the House, which I presume is the only course open to him?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the hon. Member is under a misapprehension as to the exact legal position. Anyhow, as soon as the month during which the Code lays on the Table comes to an end, the Education Department has the right to put the Code into force, but the right of Parliament to deal with the Code does not lapse with the month, and at any time during the year the House may give any verdict which it likes upon the propriety of the Code. It is quite true, therefore, that unless this is discussed before the holidays there will be a certain period—a very short period—in which technically the Education Department will have the right to put the Code in force without the House having had an opportunity of discussing it, but I propose to get over that difficulty by giving a pledge to the House that the Education Department will not put the Code in force during that period.
  MR. FLOWER: But a certain number of managers have arranged——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! There is no question before the House.
  MR. BROADHURST: May I appeal to the Leader of the House to postpone the debate on municipal trading till after Easter? There is a good deal to be said upon it, and we only had an hour and a half to discuss it last Thursday, and I do not think it is unreasonable to ask for more time.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May we take it that the Charitable Loans (Ireland) Bill will not be taken before Easter?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: May I again appeal to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Agriculcultural Holdings Bill. I should be the last to wish to curtail the holidays of the House, but many Members want to take part in the debate on this Bill. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention, if the debate is not finished on Monday, to move the closure——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: I do not wish to put the question in an irregular form, but does the right hon. Gentleman intend to terminate discussion on Monday under any circumstances?
  MR. SPEAKER: That is a matter for the House.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: Then, does the right hon. Gentleman hope that the discussion will be concluded that night?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hope certainly is that the Bill will be finished, and I say it must be before we separate for the holidays.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT (1897) EXTENSION BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Trade, &c.
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 123.]
  Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 123.]
  Bill, as amended (by the Standing Committee), to be taken into consider-

  959
  ation upon Monday, 30th April, and to be printed. [Bill 165.]

  FINANCE BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): On Thursday last, in Committee on the Finance Bill, the hon. Member for North Islington drew attention to the very anomalous state of the law with regard to the exemption from duty of estates of soldiers and sailors. As he pointed out, the estates of private soldiers, sailors, and marines are absolutely exempted from estate duty, whatever the amount of them may be. What is the obvious result of this? At the present moment a number of men of considerable means are serving as privates in our forces in South Africa, and the heirs of any of them who lose their lives in the campaign will be entirely exempt from the payment of estate duty. As the law stands there is no such exemption for the estates of officers and non-commissioned officers. A man who has been promoted on account of good conduct to the place of a non-commissioned officer, or who has for the same reason obtained a commission, loses under the existing law the privilege of exemption. My hon. friend held that this was extremely unfair, and suggested that exemption should be extended to meet these cases. The question was debated for a considerable time in Committee on Thursday, and I think it was felt that the proposal then made went somewhat too far. The hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield pointed out that there might be cases in which the widow or the children of an officer might be possessed of large means of their own, although the officer himself possessed very small means, and yet by his death they would under the clause of the hon. Member for Islington have obtained an exemption to which, I think, nobody can feel that they are properly entitled. I have endeavoured to see if it were possible to deal with the matter by some addition to the present system under which gratuities and pensions are granted; but on examination and consultation with the Secretary for War I found that it would be practically impossible, for various reasons which I need not detain the House by detailing.
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  This matter is on an entirely different footing, and even in the point of time alone it would have been absolutely impossible to fit any provisions dealing with this subject into the existing system. I therefore propose the clause which stands on the paper—that on the recommendation of the Admiralty or the War Office the Treasury shall be permitted to remit so much of the death duties as the circumstances may seem to justify, provided that in no case shall the remission exceed the sum of £150, which would be the amount of death duty on a sum of £5,000, and that it shall only apply to property going to the widow or the children of the deceased officer. I hope that in its present form the clause will receive the approval of the House. I am sure we are all desirous to do everything that is fair to the relatives of officers who die in their country's service.
  New Clause—

  "(1) Where any person dies from wounds inflicted or disease contracted, within twelve months before death, while on active service against an enemy, whether on sea or land, and was, when the wounds were inflicted or the disease contracted, either subject to the Naval Discipline Act or subject to military law, whether as an officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier under Part Five of the Army Act, the Treasury may, if they think fit, on the recommendation of the Secretary of State or of the Admiralty as the case requires, remit, up to an amount not exceeding one hundred and fifty pounds in any one case, the whole or any part of the death duties (within the meaning of sub-section three of section thirteen of the Finance Act, 1894) leviable in respect of property passing upon the death of the deceased to his widow or children.

  "(2) This section shall take effect in the case of any person dying since the eleventh day of October, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

  brought up, and read the first time.
  Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
  MR. BROADHURST: This clause is of enormous importance, and under the altered circumstances, with the limitation imposed, it becomes rather difficult to vote against it.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: May I intervene in order to explain what I omitted to do just now, that I have had two cases of great hardship before me during the last two months—one affecting

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  the widow of an officer, and the other the relations of a non-commissioned officer.
  MR. BROADHURST: I quite agree that the right hon. Gentleman has fully redeemed the pledges he gave last Thursday, but I would press him while he is making this concession to go further, and say if he cannot promise some equal advantage to the widows and orphans of private soldiers and sailors. That was a point I submitted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Thursday last. I think a private soldier has a right to demand it. I pointed out that this was a now proposal of legislation, and capable of great extension. When the right hon. Gentleman was President of the Board of Trade he had brought under his notice several cases where valuable lives were lost in the endeavour to save others, both in the lifeboat and fishing services. Such cases, I think, are entitled to this concession, and should have it in addition to the amounts which, in one or two cases, the right hon. Gentleman awarded at my instance. All these matters must be taken into consideration. There are many dangerous trades‗miners, sailors, and others are constantly engaged in dangerous work in which enormous numbers of lives are lost, and such cases ought to come within this clause. That is a point we are entitled to urge, but I shall not vote against this new clause, although it does not go so far as I could have wished.
  MR. BARTLEYsaid he agreed with the point which had been made as to persons who lost their lives when endeavouring to save those of others, and could have wished that the general class of case might have been included in the clause. There was, however, great difficulty in safeguarding all these matters at one time, and the new clause therefore ought to be taken as an instalment of what was to come. He thought the clause would meet the various cases fairly well, and the House might leave the details of the working to the Treasury. He thought the clause would be received with great contentment by the community, and that it would do away with the grievance now felt.
  MR. MADDISONsaid the clause now proposed was a
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  very great improvement upon those discussed on the last occasion, but it had one weak spot, which was that whilst the officers received this consideration the rank and file did not. As a compromise the clause, no doubt, was a very fair one.
  MR. GRANT LAWSONwished to know whether it was clearly understood that the word "remit" also meant "refund." It was a matter of some importance, as the right hon. Gentleman would see.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: A drafting Amendment will put that right.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONcharacterised the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman as a compromise which, although it did not cover all that was desired, went some way in that direction. No one desired to object to anything in the nature of allowances being given, but grave objection was taken to the fact of such a thing being fixed on the death duties. The clause proposed, however, specifically fixed a limit of £150, and he therefore did not oppose it, and he hoped the House would come to a unanimous conclusion upon it.
  MR. GALLOWAYurged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the Treasury a descretionary power to include property passing to mothers. There were many such cases in which there might be great hardship if this were not done.
  CAPTAIN PRETYMANpointed out that the somewhat acrimonious character of the previous debate on this question arose from a misunderstanding between hon. Members. On the one side it was thought there was a want of sympathy with the officers, and on the other that there was no sympathy to the private soldiers. The new clause had dispelled that misunderstanding, and for his part he accepted it most heartily, and congratulated hon. Members opposite on having come to the same conclusion.
  MR. BUTCHERthought the clause put down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer avoided many of the objections which had been raised to the clauses previously proposed. The

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  existing exemption in favour of estates of "common soldiers, seamen, and marines" did not meet the case of the non-commissioned officer, who would get no exemption at all. The clause now proposed would remove this defect, and he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for having brought such a proposal before the House.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERdesired to express his concurrence in the way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had settled this difficult question, but also to ask one question upon a point which was merely a matter of drafting. He wished to know whether the word "children" would include "grandchildren." It might happen that "children" had predeceased their father, leaving only grandchildren surviving, and in that case would the word "children" embrace grandchildren?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,): The use of the word "issue" would meet that difficulty.
  MR. WILLIAM MOOREthought the words of the clause ought to cover those who were drowned whilst on active service. If a man, for instance, was proceeding across a bridge or assisting to bridge a river and got pushed into the water and was drowned, the clause ought equally to apply to him.
  Question put and agreed to.
  MR. GEDGEpointed out that the clause as worded would not cover cases where death took place from accident. He moved the insertion of the words "or by accident."
  Amendment proposed‗
  "In line 2, after the word 'contracted,' to insert the words 'or by accident.'"‗(Mr. Gedge.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he had no objection to insert after the word "inflicted" the words "accident occurring."
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause amended, by inserting, in line 1, after the word "inflicted," the words "accident occurring," and by inserting, in line 4, after the word "inflicted," the words "the accident occurred."‗(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MR. GRANT LAWSONsaid the proposed exemption would not apply in cases where the duty had already been paid. If money once got into the Treasury it could not be got out again. He suggested that words should be inserted which would enable those coming within the scope of the clause to get duty refunded where it had been paid.
  Clause amended by inserting in line 8, after the word "remit" the words "or in the case of duty paid, repay."‗(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MR. GALLOWAYproposed the insertion of the word "mother." He believed the right hon. Gentleman would make the clause extend to grandchildren, and the case of a mother might be more deserving than that of grandchildren. He understood the whole question was one of discretion, and not an absolute instruction. There were cases in which a mother might have been entirely dependent on a son.
  Amendment proposed‗
  "In line 12, after the word 'his' to insert the word 'mother.'"‗(Mr. Galloway.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'mother' be there inserted."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I hope the hon. Member will not press this Amendment. A mother is not the only person who may have been dependent. A father, a grandfather, or a sister may also be dependent. I do not think we can go beyond the widow.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsuggested that his hon. friend and the Attorney General might be reconciled by substituting for "children" the words "lineal descendants or ascendants." There was a very strong case for the father and mother, in spite of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. Surely it was very hard that a mother, a father, or grandchildren should not be relieved in the same way as the others.
  MR. BROADHURSTreminded the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Gentleman opposite that they came to a friendly understanding last week, when the relief was limited to the widow and children. If they once began to move from the point then agreed upon there would be considerable difficulty.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid the words suggested by the hon. Member for King's Lynn were distinctly limited. They would meet the case of a father or mother, and of a grandfather and grandmother, and also of children and grandchildren, and stop at brother and sisters, cousins, and so on.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment made‗
  "In line 13, by leaving out the word 'children,' and inserting the words 'lineal descendants, instead thereof."‗(Mr. Attorney General.)
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESmoved the insertion of the words "or ascendants." The clause included children and grandchildren. They had got them all in the descending line, but surely they should have them in the ascending line. There would not be many of them. It would have the smallest possible effect on the revenue. He trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would agree to this.
  Amendment proposed‗
  "After the words last inserted, to insert the words 'or ascendants.'"‗(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  SIR. M. HICKS BEACHhoped that hon. Members would not agree to this Amendment. He thought this particular benefit ought to be confined to the widow and lineal descendants.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment made‗
  "In line 13, by inserting, after the words last inserted, the words 'if the value of the property for estate duty so passing does not exceed £5,000.'"‗(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  Clause, as amended, added.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERONdrew attention to the pro-
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  posal to increase the duty on chloral hydrate, chloroform, collodion, acetic, butyric, and sulphuric ethers, and iodide, bromide, and chloride of ethyl. The increased duty was estimated to produce only an additional £150, and it certainly appeared to be mere pedantry in a War Budget to increase duties on nine articles for the purpose of raising that insignificant sum. Moreover, the duties were increased in a most arbitrary fashion, the increases ranging from 5 per cent. to 28 per cent. He therefore moved to omit from Clause 5 the words enacting these increases of duty.
  Amendment proposed to the Bill‗
  "In page 3, to leave out from line 31 to the end of line 4, in page 4, both inclusive."‗(Sir Charles Cameron.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I quite agree that this is a very small matter as regards the revenue, but whenever the duty on spirits‗with which we are dealing in this clause‗has been increased, these higher duties have been charged on articles into the composition of which spirit enters. It has been the invariable rule in such cases to increase the duty in proportion to the amount of spirits used and the amount by which the duty on spirits is increased. I do not think I should he justified in agreeing to the Amendment, which, although the amount of revenue involved is small, so far as I can judge, is a departure from the regular system. If I agreed to this suggestion the result would be that in regard to these articles foreign manufacturers would be placed at an advantage as compared with British manufacturers. I do not think that would be fair, and I cannot agree to the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. GEDGEmoved to omit the first sub-section. The history of the clause which this sub-section proposed to omit was exceedingly curious. When the Finance Act of 1894 was before Parliament, the present First Lord of the Treasury on the Second Reading made a very vigorous speech, in which, amongst other objections, he brought forward a

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  very great hardship which the clause referred to was afterwards inserted to prevent. The case in question was that of a man who had insured his life or saved some small amount for the benefit of his family, but who afterwards married a wealthy woman. By reason of his having a life interest, enjoyed perhaps for a very short time, in her fortune, when he died the two estates for the purpose of the duty were aggregated, and by reason of the small property he had provided being aggregated with the larger fortune, his children had to pay a much higher rate of duty, even though they had never had any benefit from his marriage. The Government of the day very carefully considered the matter, and the then Attorney General brought in a clause to meet the case. That was the very clause this sub-section proposed to exclude. Although he had not at all expected the Chancellor of the Exchequer would move to repeal that Finance Act, he had thought after the objections which were again and again urged against it by the then Opposition, the right hon. Gentleman would, at all events where hardships had been shown to exist, do something to remove those hardships. One or two little things had been done in that direction, but here was a case exactly the opposite: a clause put in to meet an admitted hardship was now to be taken out for no reason whatever. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to let it be said that the Government when in power adopted a course entirely different from that pursued in opposition.
  Amendment proposed‗
  "In page 5, line 37, to leave out from the beginning of Clause 12 to the word 'interest,' in line 41, inclusive."‗(Mr. Gedge.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I deny altogether that I have taken up one line while in opposition upon this question and another while in office. This is not my clause, but, in the first place, it is the result of considerable debate in this House; and secondly, it is the result of a very careful inquiry by a competent Committee. I do not think I could take any other course than that of adopting the recommendation of that Committee.
  CAPTAIN PRETYMANsaid he fully endorsed what the right hon. Gentleman had stated, although it tended to tighten the Act in some small particulars. They had to recognise the fact that this clause was brought forward in the interests of the taxpayers, and it was a matter of give and take. In the existing proviso in Clause 4 there were certainly some exemptions which were not defensible. They had been referred to in Committee, and he did not think it was necessary to repeat them. There were certain hardships which required correcting, and the object which the Committee had in view was to relieve the taxpayer by removing those hardships. With regard to the specific case of the widow who married again, alluded to by the hon. Member for Walsall, it was one which was very difficult to follow, but he did not think the hardship was a severe one, and the instance given was certainly not a common one. Cases had frequently arisen where the youngest child had to pay, instead of 3 or 4 per cent., as much as 8 per cent., because a different property altogether passed to a different person. That hardship had been repeatedly brought before this House, and had been taken into consideration by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was in removing that great hardship that a very small hardship might have been created in the case to which the hon. Member for Walsall had referred.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that undoubtedly this clause screwed up the Finance Act. As regarded aggregation, there used to be no stronger advocate of it than the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Attorney General. It was always felt that hitherto aggregation had been unsatisfactory, and a Committee was appointed to consider the matter. He was very much surprised that the only logical way of dealing with this matter was now going to be rejected in favour of this extraordinary and complicated clause. In reference to this subject he thought that upon a previous occasion they had obtained a concession from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, but now it was going to be taken away from them by a member of their own household. He was afraid that it was the hon. Member for Woodbridge who whispered these hard cases in the ear of the Chan-

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  cellor of the Exchequer, and then the right hon. Gentleman immediately drafted a clause to get rid of these hard eases. We ought to deal with this matter upon settled principles, and not with a view of meeting hard cases. This Act, having gained £40,000 by screwing up, then proposed to give back, not to the same taxpayers, but to somebody else, another £40,000 through the ordinary proviso at the end of the clause. That seemed to him to be a most complicated proviso, because the same property would have to pay two different rates of death duties, and that would add a very extraordinary complication to the Act. The object should be to make the Act less complicated, and ease it down rather than screw it up. He had strong objections to this clause, and he was afraid that if a division was taken he should have to oppose it. He felt a strong objection to this clause on the ground of proprieties of taxation and the difficulties it would introduce into the administration. A Finance Act should be dealt with on settled principles, and not by the introduction of complicated proposals to meet particular cases. The proviso introduced was a most complicated one, and he was sure it would work in a most extraordinary way.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.

  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. URE: This Bill is a recognition given for the first time by a responsible Government of an injustice inflicted on a certain class of landowners in Scotland. The recognition is somewhat tardy, but we nevertheless hail it with satisfaction. Speaking for myself, if the Bill would remedy the injustice it recognises I should not be inclined to offer it any opposition. But it will do nothing of the kind, and makes no such attempt. If the Bill were passed
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  to-day the injustice would reappear to-morrow, with perhaps a different complexion, but in an exaggerated form. Before proceeding to a division to-night we must make up our minds whether it is right and fair that the ownership of land in Scotland should be linked to an obligation to support the ecclesiastical edifices of one denomination of professing Christians or not, because this Bill gives a legislative imprimatur to the obligation. If it is right then all landowners ought to bear the burden; if it is wrong all of them ought to escape the burden. But merely to shuffle the cards and to attempt, as this Bill does, a readjustment of the burden by lightening it upon one man, relieving a second, and overloading a third, is merely to court disaster, and to leave the last state of the luckless landowner worse than the first. To make good my position it is right that I should invite the attention of the House to the existing state of the law on the subject. By a series of statutes, dating back upwards of three centuries, the old Scotch Parliament laid upon the shoulders of the parishioners the duty of providing church, manse, and burial ground for the parish. There was a fine spirit of equity pervading these old laws. The burden was laid on the shoulders of the parishioners because it was supposed they would derive the advantage. According to the ecclesiastical law of Scotland the parishioners were entitled to go to the parish church to hear the Word preached, to have the sacraments administered and to claim the spiritual superintendence of the clergyman. The old laws did not inquire whether the parishioner would attend the church or not; that was a matter of perfect indifference, dissent being a negligible quantity in those days. It was assumed he would attend if he were capable of attending and if he were an examinable person‗a person over the age of twelve years is the law, provided that Church accommodation should be given to him in the parish. The obligation of the heritor to provide an ecclesiastical edifice in the parish in which he was a landowner was linked closely with his right to share in all the advantages. There was connected with his ownership a right to share in the area of the parish church, and he was entitled to have a share in the allocation of the seats in the church edifice. So closely was this right connected with his obligation, that when

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  a landowner died, the right to share in the area of the parish church passed to his heir, and if he sold his land, so closely did the old laws recognise the burden and the obligation on the one hand, and the right on the other, that without any mention being made the right passed to the purchaser. These old laws said nothing about the method by which this obligation should be allocated among the different landowners in the parish. In those days there was no valuation of the land in Scotland, except perhaps a valuation made about 1280, and the old laws contemplated that the burden should be borne proportionately to the rental of the land. In the days of Cromwell, of whom we have heard much recently, a valuation was made for taxation purposes of all the land in all the parishes of Scotland, and this valuation was adopted as the basis for ecclesiastical assessment. It was known then as it is known to-day as the valued rent, and the man whose land was valued in the days of the Protector is known now as then as a valued rent heritor. It cannot be denied that the absolute value of the land in Scotland to-day is different from its absolute value in the days of the Protector, but then, so long as the conditions of a parish remained entirely unchanged, a valuation made even in the middle of the seventeenth century affords a perfectly fair basis of assessment, because the different heritages in the parish were valued at the same time, and on the same principle, and the ratio remained constant. But where the conditions of a parish have changed, where the landowners have increased enormously in number, where great industrial commercial communities have settled down, where great public bodies have become landowners, and where great railway companies and mining enterprises exist it is quite obvious that to retain the valuation made in the days of the Protector would inflict an injustice on the respective owners of land, because that basis of taxation would mean that recent landowners and the industrial enterprises which had sprung up in recent years would escape altogether. Accordingly, whenever the conditions of a parish had changed, when it no longer retained its pastoral or agricultural character, and where assessment on the basis of the old valuation would lead to injustice, that assessment was to be abandoned in favour of the actual
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  rent of the land. So Lord Chancellor Eldon and Lord Thurlow laid down in a case about which we hear a great deal—namely, the Peterhead case. It is said that the judgment in that case inflicted an injury which has rendered necessary all these tinkering proposals about ecclesiastical assessment, and that it introduced a novel and startling change into the old law of Scotland. The Peterhead case did nothing of the kind. It is of venerable antiquity. The judgment was given on 24th June, 1802, and it is a little difficult to believe the legislative zeal of hon. Gentlemen opposite has been stimulated into activity by a supposed wrong inflicted in the early years of the century. The cause is, in this instance, too far removed from the effect. The House of Lords in the Peterhead case did nothing more than give full and free play to the old statutes of which I have been speaking. What Lord Chancellor Eldon said was that, wherever it would work injustice to adopt the old valuation as a basis of assessment, wherever large industrial communities had sprung up, and wherever the number of landowners had largely increased, the actual or real rent must be taken as the basis, and that things must be regarded as they were, and not as they existed in the days of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. That seems to me a perfectly correct principle, and I do not think that it can be disputed that it did any more than give full effect to the spirit of the old statutes. That being the existing state of the law in Scotland, all landowners in every parish being liable to ecclesiastical assessment in proportion to their rental, and having a right to share in the advantages of the ecclesiastical edifice, what is the change this Bill proposes? In the first place it proposes to put into the hands of two-thirds of the valued rent heritors power to assess the remaining third, and to insist that for the future the old valuation shall be adopted as a basis of assessment. The conditions may have totally changed, may have changed to such an extent that great injustice will result from adopting the old valuation made in the days of the Protector, and that in order to have complete justice it is necessary that the landowners should be assessed in accordance with the actual rental of the land. Yet although this injustice will result, the Bill provides

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  that two-thirds of the valued rent heritors shall have power to assess the remaining third, that the minority shall have an additional burden imposed on them, that in future all the remaining heritors shall escape the burden altogether, and that it shall be borne exclusively by the valued rent heritors. What is the reason for a proposal such as this? It is not in order to give free vent to the ecclesiastical generosity of the valued rent heritors. No Act of Parliament is required for that. If they are going to pay out of their own pockets for their own churches, manses, and burial grounds there is no law in Scotland or anywhere else to prevent them. But really the case for which this Bill is meant to provide is one where the majority of the valued rent heritors are supposed to sit in the parish church and to receive the ministrations of the parish clergyman. And their sense of justice revolts at the idea of taking other people's money for their churches, manses, and burying grounds when these other people, out of their own pockets, provide the ecclesiastical advantages which they themselves enjoy. That would be a good and laudable object; but it needs no Act of Parliament to put it in force. Nor is that the proposal in the Bill. The proposal of the Bill is not that these gentlemen should pay out of their own pockets for their own ecclesiastical advantages. The proposal is that they would be entitled, against the will of the majority, to force the minority to bear an additional burden in order that the majority should live quiet lives in their parishes, and not be disturbed by heart-burnings and bickerings. Now, can the most experienced Member of this House quote any precedent in support of a proposal by which Parliament places it in the power of a majority of the ratepayers to inflict such an injustice on the minority? Can a precedent be appealed to by which Parliament has relinquished its functions to rate or tax the parish and leave it to the wish, or it may be the whim or caprice of a majority, to impose that taxation upon a minority which may probably object altogether, on conscientious grounds, to take any share of the ecclesiastical assessments—a minority moreover of which nine-tenths are probably paying out of their own pockets for the support of the churches in which they themselves worship, and the manses in which
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  the clergy live who administer the sacraments to them? There is no sort of precedent for a proposal like that. Why, Sir, should Parliament be asked to sanction a proposal by which the great industrial, mining, and railway corporations and the great municipalities will be relieved altogether of a burden in order that an increased burden may be laid on a third of the valued renters. If the assessment is right every one of them should pay the assessment; if it is wrong it should be taken off the shoulders of every one. The Bill goes on to provide another class of exemptions. It proposes to exempt from ecclesiastical assessment the churches, manses, and burying grounds of dissenters. Well, so far as the churches and burying grounds are concerned, the promoters of this Bill come, not one day, but a quarter of a century behind the fair. The thing has been done, rightly or wrongly, in the year 1874. By the 37 and 38 Vic. c. 20, Parliament has exempted the churches and burying grounds of dissenters from paying any of these rates. But then why should the manses escape? Why, the occupants of the manses are not asking for any relief. The occupants of the manses are the very men who are best able to appreciate the value of the services of their ecclesiastical brethren of the Established Church, and they are the very men with whom motives of brotherly love and charity are supposed to operate most powerfully. They do not ask for relief, and why do you offer them this; relief? On what principle do you exempt the manses of the dissenters, and still leave the burden on the villas and cottages of the dissenters? Is there any great principle in taxing the one which does not apply to the other? The Bill goes on to give exemption to another class—the small feuars or gentlemen whose rent-roll does not exceed £50. These are to be exempted altogether if only the sum which they would otherwise be compelled to pay is met out of private charity. I venture to ask, if private charity is to be invoked for the purpose of relieving ratepayers from a legitimate impost, why should we draw the line at £50? Why should the opulent churchmen of the Established Church of Scotland be restrained in their freewill offerings? I am afraid that their ability to contribute is underrated as well as their willingness. I know them

  975
  well. They are of as proud and independent a spirit and as liberal as the dissenters; and if you only place before them fairly the question whether they want outsiders, who have nothing to do with their Church, to help them to pay for their churches, manses, and burying grounds, I have not the slightest doubt of the answer which they would give. They would scorn to take the money, if the question were fairly placed before them; and if you only tell them you want them to do for themselves what the dissenters do for themselves. I think that you would find that they are both able and willing to pay for their churches, manses, and burying grounds out of their own pockets. Why is this line drawn at the £50 rental, and the smaller feuars to be relieved out of private charity? I rather suspect that it is because the small feuars are, for the most part, dissenters, and active dissenters; that they all have votes; that nearly all go to the poll; that they are very active at public meetings; that they write letters to the newspapers; that they heckle your candidates; that they make themselves noisy and troublesome; and that this proposal is put forward in order to throw a sop to the small feuars, and to burke a general assault upon a system which you well know to be defenceless. That is the real reason why the small feuar is to be relieved out of private charity. When this Bill was introduced last session there was a memorandum prefixed which said that the small feuars were to be relieved because of the friction, irritation and difficulty of collecting the assessment from them. If the difficulty of collecting an assessment affords a good reason for relief, there are good many more of Her Majesty's subjects besides small feuars in Scotland, who will come to this House clamorous for relief; and it says nothing for the frankness or candour of such a proposal as this, that its promoters rely on such an argument. The real cause of the mischief is that the condition of our parishes in Scotland has wholly changed since those old days when every parishioner was a landowner, and every landowner attended the parish church, and all ecclesiastical assessments were based on the comfortable theory that all landowners were Established Churchmen, and all Established Churchmen were landowners. In our days the population
  976
  has enormously increased, the distribution of the population has changed; great industrial undertakings have sprung up, great mining enterprises have been established, great railways have been built, and great municipalities have arisen. The opinions and the social customs of the people have changed, and in particular the religious habits, so that what was eminently suitable for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is wholly unsuitable for modern arrangements. It would be only by a wonderful stretch of the imagination that anybody could now say that the parishioners are co-extensive with the landowners, and that the landowners of the parish are co-extensive with the attendants in the Established Church. But even the enormous increase in the number of Dissenters and small feuars does not, to my mind, afford the most striking illustration of the distance we have travelled since the statute of 1572, and of the difference between the old ecclesiastical arrangements and those of the present day. The most crying injustice of all is that inflicted upon the great railway companies: the great municipalities and the great industrial undertakings that have been planted in different parishes. All these undertakings, be it remembered, which own land in the parishes, are compelled to pay for ecclesiastical advantages, which, from the very nature of the case, they are utterly debarred from enjoying. Take the University of Glasgow. It is a heritor in many of the country parishes, and I would like to know what share of church seat room, in parishes where it holds land, is allocated to the University, and what advantages it derives from the ministrations of the parish clergyman. Yet when a church has to be repaired, or a manse erected, the University of Glasgow, being on the list of heritors, must pay a share, probably a handsome share, of the cost. Again, take the Corporation of Glasgow. In that long chain of parishes, through which pass the pipes that convey the waters of Loch Katrine to the city, the corporation is included as one of the principal heritors. If you perambulated every one of these parishes, you would not find a trace of the Corporation of Glasgow. The husbandman tills his ground and reaps his crops on the surface to-day, as he did in the days of Oliver Cromwell;

  977
  but if you go down many feet beneath the surface, there is a longitudinal space where repose the Loch Katrine water-pipes; and it is because of that space and these pipes that the Corporation of Glasgow figures as the principal heritor in most of these parishes. I should like to know what advantage the Corporation of Glasgow derives from the ministrations of the parish ministers of Aberfoyle, and Killearn, or Strathblane; and what share in these parish churches is allocated to the community of the second city in the Empire? We all know that they derive no advantage whatever; and yet, when in any of these parishes an ecclesiastical edifice requires to be erected, or to be repaired, the Corporation of Glasgow is come down upon, and is compelled to pay most handsomely for the churches which it cannot enter, and for the manses the occupants of which it can never listen to. Hitherto I have spoken only of the burden of obligation; but I wish to say a word about the rights. Every parishioner has a right to a share in the area of the parish church. Do you propose to deprive them of that right by this Bill, or to leave their rights at the mercy of two-thirds of the valued rent-owners; or to the rather precarious mercy of the private donor—the man who is prepared to give private charity for the purpose of relieving the small feuar? Are you going to put it in the power of two-thirds of the heritors and private givers to the funds of the Church of Scotland to deprive this gentleman of his right to relief? I know very well that there is a power in the Bill that, in the discussion upon plans for a new church or a new manse, the gentleman who is to be relieved of his assessment is to bear no part or lot. He is to be excluded entirely from offering an opinion on these plans. But this provision is futile. The whole discussion will be over, and the plans will be settled long before the kirk session has collected the money necessary to relieve the small owner. This is all a bagatelle. The real question is, what are you going to do with the rights? What do the Government propose to do with regard to the rights of small feuars, whom it is proposed to relieve under this Bill of their burdens and obligations? If the proposal is this, that they are to be deprived of their rights at the wish, the whim, the caprice of a majority of their own fellow
  978
  ratepayers, then this gives additional emphasis to our objection to the proposals contained in the Bill, by which Parliament is invited to relinquish its own rights and its own privileges, and allow the assessment to be imposed not by Parliament, but by the wish of a small and interested number of people in the parish. I wonder whether, for once in a while, one may be able to appeal to Members for England, Wales, and Ireland, and ask them to leave us to settle this question without their intervention at all. If there ever was a case in which such a Bill might be legitimately left I think this is that case. This Bill relates peculiarly and distinctly to Scotland. It is a Bill which is characteristically connected with our ecclesiastical system of Scotland, and with regard to which any other nationality can really have very little interest, and probably very little knowledge. I know if my appeal was successful what the result would be. The result would inevitably be that this poor, shiftless measure would absolutely vanish from existence, and some day there would be found either this Government or some other ready and willing to take its courage in both its hands and snap for ever the link which connects land-ownership in Scotland with the burden of bearing ecclesiastical assessments, and trust to the independence of spirit, the pride, and, I would add, the abundant generosity of the friends and adherents of the Established Church to pay for the churches that they themselves worship in, for the manses whose occupants preach to them the Word, and for the burying grounds in which some day they will rest.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I rise to second the Amendment which has been so ably and lucidly submitted by my hon. friend. He has relieved me from the necessity of attempting to describe what ecclesiastical assessments are, and I would only add to what he said that, being intermittent, coming at irregular intervals, and being assessments to which a number of those called upon to pay them strenuously object, many of them on strong conscientious grounds, they give rise to very considerable friction and very considerable irritation. There is hardly a parish in which there are not many objectors who refuse to pay, and who allow their goods to be

  979
  seized; constantly there are scandals, and certainly they do nothing to strengthen the establishment. The ostensible object of this Bill is to get rid of these scenes. The ostensible pretence is that it is to get rid of a grievance. A grievance certainly exists, but so far as this Bill is concerned it may be described as a pill to cure an earthquake. One grievance which it does not pretend to redress is levying assessments on the manses occupied by ministers of dissenting churches. The Bill is illusory. It proposes to give a greater advantage in that direction. It proposes to relieve churches and burying grounds of rates, but, as has been pointed out, that has been done long ago, and it is really a pretence of doing so that is made in this Bill. The fact that dissenting churches and burying grounds have been relieved from assessments by 37 and 38 Victoria was brought before the attention of the House by the hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs in the debate we had on the Bill last year, and I cannot conceive how those in charge of the Bill did not avail themselves of the knowledge put before them in drafting this Bill. As to the proposal to relieve ministers of dissenting denominations, my hon. friend has pointed out that no case has over been made on their behalf. No scandal, so far as I remember, has ever arisen on the manse rate. In some cases, ministers, especially those belonging to the United Presbyterian Church, have refused to pay, and when they have refused to pay the matter has never been pressed. The money has been found in some other way, and no cause of complaint consequently has arisen. But the grievance occurs, as my hon. friend has said, chiefly among the poorer heritors, because among the poorer heritors will be found a larger number of dissenters. The Bill does absolutely nothing to carry out its ostensible object. It provides for the kirk session giving relief from assessment to heritors under £50 rental if the kirk session contributes the deficiency. As the law stands at the present moment there is nothing to prevent similar relief being obtained. In innumerable cases at the present moment, rather than face the disagreeables incidental to the collection of the assessments, members of the Church of Scotland put their hands in their pockets and subscribe everything necessary, and no assessment is levied. This Bill
  980
  has absolutely no machinery to encourage or to enforce any contribution, and as the Bill now stands, practically, if assessments were levied for ecclesiastical purposes, everything would go on as at present. The amount to be raised would be decided, and the assessment would be levied unless the kirk session handed over an amount equivalent to what would be the loss by loosing the ratepayers under £50. No change whatever would be made in the proceedings that would take place under the existing law. Another feature of the Bill is that it makes no provision for any lesser reduction. It does not say that the kirk session is to hand over an amount equivalent to that required to dispense with rates under £20, as in the Bill of the hon. Member last year. The deduction should be made equivalent to the amount which the voluntary contribution would cover. It says nothing of the sort. It says only for the amount handed over sufficient to admit of the reduction on rentals under £50 the deduction should be made. The Bill so far as this object is concerned is an absolute sham. It is to the extent of two-thirds illusory, as has been shown, so far as it provides for the exemption of dissenting churches; and so far as it provides for those under £50 rentals, it is an absolute sham. Not the smallest guarantee is taken before commencing operations that any money shall be subscribed. The machinery goes on as at present unless the money is voluntarily subscribed. Matters will stand precisely as they have stood for many years. Many attempts have been made to grapple with this Church rates question. My esteemed friend Mr. McLaren, who for many years represented Edinburgh in this House, brought in a Bill in which he proposed to make the payment of these church rates voluntary, as in the case of England. That was a radical method of dealing with the matter. The objection was that it relieved the landlord of a burden and made him a present of money which belonged to the State. That objection was put forward only by the extreme voluntaries. Later on, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen brought in another Bill, and he proposed that the relief afforded should be a reality. He made a guarantee by the kirk session of the necessary money a condition precedent for the operation of the Bill. That would have assured us that the relief

  981
  would be a reality, and that the money would be in hand for the relief of the ratepayers before the work was commenced. Everyone would know how he was to stand. The present Bill makes promises of abatement, but there is not the smallest certainty that the abatement will ever be given. When the expense is incurred, no one knows anything of the extent to which it would be contributed, or whether there would be any money in the hands of the kirk session to enable them to avail themselves of this Hill. The Bill, therefore, effects nothing whatever on this grievance which would not be equally attained by voluntary action without the aid of this Bill at all. So far as this Bill contains any principle, the principle is a thoroughly retrograde one. If there was no provision for the maintenance of the fabrics of the Church at the public expense I do not think any party in this House would dream of imposing a rate for that purpose. Under this Bill, as my Hon. friend has pointed out, new taxation is imposed on various people. Under Clause 1, as he explained, it is patent that two-thirds of the heritors coerce the minority into acquiescing in the rate, and it will impose a new burden on their shoulders. He did not exhaust that part of the case. He did not point out that it was not two-thirds in number, but two-thirds in value, and that they might vote personally or by proxy, and that any law to the contrary notwithstanding. Under the law as recognised and administered for more than half a century properties have been bought, sold, and held subject to certain well understood charges on these various properties. The Bill proposes to shift these burdens from one shoulder to another at the discretion it may be of a single heritor, and that man voting by proxy. I agree with my hon. and learned friend that the proposal to allow the incidence of taxation to be regulated in that arbitrary way is most retrograde and vicious. Is it going to be in the interest of the Church? In the debate last year the Lord Advocate used these words:—
  "The first proposal in the Bill was limited only to cases in which the assessment had been in use to he imposed on the valued rent. It had been discussed on the one side as if this was universal, hut that was not so. In that case it allowed a majority of the valued rent heritors to resolve whether the assessment should continue. He would remind the House that in many parishes in Scotland—in fact, over the
  982
  whole of Scotland—where the heritors were friendly to the Church they had very often, sooner than put the real rent heritors to the annoyance of assessment, voluntarily dealt with that assessment as on valued rent, and did not insist that the assessment should be altered to real rent. When they came to the details of the Bill in Committee he thought it would be for the consideration of his friend in charge of the Bill whether it would not be better to put in some such Amendment as would provide for practical unanimity of the heritors to determine that the assessment should be levied on valued rent instead of by a bare majority."*
  The right hon. Gentleman has raised the half to two-thirds, and made that two-thirds of value and not of individuals. Under Clause 3, which exempts church manses and burial grounds, a certain amount of mow taxation is imposed. You have in the Bill as it stands, relief to dissenting churches. The injustice of assessing dissenting churches for the maintenance of the fabrics of the Established Church is evident and manifest; but the injustice of taxing persons who belong to other denominations—the Free Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Roman Catholic Church—for the maintenance of these ecclesiastical buildings is precisely of the same nature and precisely as great. Why should you exempt the dissenting churches, say, in a parish where two-thirds of the population are dissenters, and then proceed to levy two-thirds of those exemptions on the dissenters as individuals? There is no principle in that. The only principle is, if possible, to get rid of the objecting ratepayers, who insist upon being sold up, and whose case calls public attention to the grievance. There are two objects only attained by the Bill. The one is that you allow a majority of the valued heritors to coerce, it may be, a majority in number, and you relieve the dissenting churches from this rate. The ostensible object is to relieve the small heritors. That part of the Bill is an absolute sham. The Bill provides that the machinery shall go on as at present. The plans must be considered and the assessment allocated and levied on the total rental within the parish subject to the deductions on £50 rentals. That is the last step in the machinery of the Bill, and there is no guarantee that the step will ever be taken, and unless it is taken there is no obligation on the kirk session
  * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxx., page 639.

  983
  to raise the money, and if it is not raised, or the whole sum is not raised, the Bill becomes a dead letter. The clause makes no provision for remission of any lesser sum than that on £50. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman selects £50. He might as well have chosen £100, or even the more modest sum of £20, and the sham might have been more apparent than it is. There is another provision in the Bill which, to my mind, is absolutely impracticable. It is to the effect that no heritor, who by reason of any exemption or deduction is relieved altogether from assessment, shall be entitled to take part in the discussion or vote at any meeting on the plans. How is that to come into operation? The exemption is the last stage of the proceedings. The discussion of the money required is the first step, and that appears to me to be a part of the machinery which will be absolutely unworkable. Last year's Bill was perfectly frank in saying that a man exempted from payment should not vote on the question. My hon. friend has called upon the Lord Advocate to say whether he has that intention in the present Bill. It seems to me it would be the case in parishes where valued rent is retained under Clause 1 of the Bill. A person who under Clause 3 of the Bill loses his power would in the absence of any specific direction retain his right. If that be the case it would make the anomaly greater than ever. That is one point in which the Bill this year is in any respect different from that of last. Otherwise the principles, so far as there are principles, are vicious; its drafting is as bad as could well be imagined, and altogther the Bill is such a thorough sham that I have great pleasure in seconding the motion of my hon. friend.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Ure.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. GORDON: The hon. Member who has just addressed the House has been strong in the use of the word "sham." The thanks of Members on this side of the House and of the majority of the people of Scotland are undoubtedly due to the Govern-
  984
  ment for having taken up a matter of this kind as a Government Bill. The subject is small when viewed from Westminster, but it is one which has caused serious irritation from time to time in various localities where those assessments have been levied on the small feuars. The proof of the irritation has been proved in this House by the repeated efforts made on the Government benches and by private Members to urge Parliament to accept measures which would satisfactorily solve the question. There are two interests undoubtedly involved in this Bill, but I cannot for the life of me see why the hon. Members opposite should throw their opposition against the Bill when the Government are simply making an effort to relieve the small ratepayers whose contributions to this fund are infinitesimal, and very often the cost of collection, is out of proportion to the sum received. I hold in my hand particulars of one case, in Perthshire, where the law has recently operated. The number of proprietors was 312; under £50 they were 198, but these 198 small heritors only contributed among them the sum of £99 odd. If anyone will consider the trouble of collecting £99 odd from 198 heritors he will see at once the improvement that this Bill will introduce in the ecclesiastical and social condition, of Scotland. The total assessment required was only £532, and that involved a rate of about 5½d. in the £. The other interest involved in this Bill is undoubtedly that which rouses the opposition of many hon. Members opposite, namely, the interests of the Church of Scotland. But the Church in this case is not asking for anything. The Church is simply asking Parliament to permit her to relieve ratepayers of those charges now levied in favour of herself and to permit, with legal sanction, the removal of a difficulty which is frequently solved by private compromise, but which, as hon. Members know, is liable to be obstructed by cranks, or obstructives. The Government, I trust, will push this to a conclusion. It has been stated that the Government has had no popular pressure for the introduction of this Bill. I would beg to remind my right hon. friend that the unusual strength of the present Cabinet leads the country to expect steady progress with Government measures without popular pressure. Last year I was surprised on a quiet Wednesday afternoon, when I had

  985
  charge of a somewhat similar Bill, to find the whole of the Oposition—for once united—employing their official Whips to try to defeat a measure which certainly was for the benefit of the ratepayers, who have used their influence at election and at other times (and many of them are supporters of Members on the other side) to ask the House of Commons to solve this difficulty. The hon. Member for the Mansfield Division, as we all remember, met us in former days like the old Roman general with Veni, vidi, but we have failed to hear the vici follow. Surely the time has come, I am sure it has come in Scotland, when men, whether they have grown old in the service of the country, or whether they are young and unused to such narrow and parochial views of Church life, are sick of this Disestablishment question standing in the way of Church reform. The truth is that life is now larger and wider than the hon. and learned Member for Linlithgow supposes. He said this Bill was an attempt to burke the larger question. I challenge the hon. Member or any of his friends by his side to start a Disestablishment meeting in Scotland, and I defy him to get a good platform of liberal-minded Scotchmen to support the movement. Scotland is looking for a solution, no doubt, of ecclesiastical questions. Scotland is shrewd enough to know that the old Church of Scotland is based on a Constitution, and has privileges superior to any other ecclesiastical body in Europe. While I am glad to know that Church Union is in the air in Scotland, thus acknowledging the fact that our old distinctive peculiarities, which alone divided the Christianity of Scotchmen, are fading away even in those circles where once they were perhaps too highly prized, and possibly in another generation, or sooner in these liberalising days, we shall find the Disestablishment societies of England and Scotland are matters of past history, and that Presbyterian Scotland will be completely united.
  MR. BIRRELL: A more contemptible, small, and indeed ridiculous measure has seldom engaged the House of Commons on an occasion of this kind. The whole scope and object of this Bill is to reduce, if you can, by a small means a certain amount of unpopularity which has always attached to paying for anything, and as there are a
  986
  number of small heritors—people who hold little bits of land—who do not like to contribute to the Established Church of their country, it is thought good electioneering to remove from them a grievance, instead of taking the bull by the horns and making Church rates voluntary throughout the whole of Scotland. That is obviously the reasonable thing to do. As the thing stands at present, the burden of maintaining the churches and manses of Scotland is thrown upon the land. Well, that is an excellent social obligation which many on this side of the House have no cavil with. The whole burden being thrown upon the land, the land itself is cut up into small bits. The Bill says that because it is cut up into small bits is the reason why the large heritors should pay and why the smaller should not pay, but that is a thing which nobody can understand. We have lost in this House since the subject was last under discussion the late Lord Advocate, Mr. J. B. Balfour, now President of the Court of Session. In the interesting speech he made on this subject he used the following remarks‗
  "He would assume that this was the kind of rate which was rightly imposed on land, and on that assumption the aim in the allocation of every rate on land with which he was acquainted was to make the harden of the rate proportionate to the extent or value of the land held by the person assessed. The large owner should pay proportionately to his amount, and the small owner to his. It was not a rate upon some personal quality of the owner, but upon the land."
  The reason why you want to make the small owner no longer obliged to pay this is because the payment is unpopular, but you ride off on an explanation about the trouble of collection. You have got in Scotland an Established Church which represents the religious feelings of the great bulk of the inhabitants, and which certainly is not in any way disagreeable to many of us. You find that the small owners do not like paying, and you come forward in a spirit of relief and say you will relieve them from that obligation. You say that is a large, wide, and liberal measure dealing with the question, and you invoke the name of the Member for the Mansfield Division in your support. If you are going to maintain the Established Church in Scotland, maintain the principle on which in all these years pas

  987
  it has rested, namely, that the obligation of paying for churches and manses should be cast upon the land. The whole argument addressed to the House last year by Mr. J. B. Balfour really was not touched. Nobody replied to it. You are seeking to upset the historical principle of maintaining the churches in Scotland, simply because you find as electioneerers it does you harm, and because a certain number of the smaller heritors in Scotland, do not want to pay. You may pass this Bill if your majority enables you to do it, but one thing you will never be able to do, is to persuade anybody that it is a large, liberal, or just way of dealing with this question.
  MR. ELLIOT: I cannot agree that this is an electioneering measure, when it proposes to redress a grievance. If it can be proved that the Church will be strengthened, that the church buildings will be maintained, and that now churches will be raided under the new provisions with less trouble to the minority of the people in a parish, I would say that so far that is all very decidedly in favour of the Bill. I should like the House for one moment to consider that this Bill is only another step forward in the direction in which Scotland has been moving for a long time past. It used to be the case that churches were largely built in England and Scotland out of public moneys. In England, as we all know, until quite modern times, there was a system of church rates. Many years ago these building grants fell entirely into abeyance, and in 1868 the Church Bates Bill was passed. Since then the Church of England has built and looked after the parish churches, and it is found, and this is the most remarkable part of the story, that in proportion as you decrease the amount given to the Church from the public funds, the voluntary contributions become greater and greater. It is really very astounding when you cast your eye over the amount given in England voluntarily to the building and repair of churches. I would suggest that if any great change is to be made in Scotland it would be wise to move in the direction we have hitherto moved in England—that is, as far as possible to rely frankly on the voluntary contributions, and deal with these difficulties in the way they are dealt with in England and Ireland. We have had little account taken
  988
  to-night of the amount to which these; assessments come. In 1880 or 1881 there was a Return moved for by Lord Balfour of Burleigh for a period of ten years ending with 1879. The total amount, roughly, was £400,000, or about £40,000 a year. That is the amount which has to be raised in order to maintain the fabrics, etc. It is a slur on the character of the Established Church to suppose that it cannot maintain its own church roofs and windows, and that the people are unwilling when the occasion conies to put their hands in their pockets and pay for these matters. I have never seen any objection in any church, Established or Disestablished, to the sending round of the hat. We are in Scotland a thoroughly religious people, and there is no difficulty in raising sums. I come now to say a word or two on the proposals of the Bill. I look at it as a reform of the law to remove or attempt to remove a grievance. The hon. Member opposite referred to the fact that the Corporation of Glasgow had to pay the assessment, and argued that there was something unjust and improper in their having to contribute to maintain the church of the parish. I cannot for myself see that there is the slightest injustice in that. If money is made out of the parish I see no hardship when you come to the assessment of the parish in raising money in that way. To carry out the principles of the hon. and learned Member, you might excuse spinsters and bachelors from paying the school rate of the parish because they do not get the benefit of the rate they pay. I say that to regard with regret the fact that these corporations and railways have lands in the local parishes is to make a great mistake as to where the grievance lies. Let us look at the precise redress of this particular grievance. If you propose to alter the practice of the law of rating, surely what you have to do is to make the rate fall equally and justly upon everybody, but this Bill proposes deliberately to prefer the inequitable system of assessment to the equitable and modern system. We talk about valued rent and real rent, real rent being the actual just rental which, as a matter of fact, is paid for the land, and when you come to railway companies, and so forth, I say that it is unreasonable when there is a common purpose in which the parish ought to be assessed, that

  989
  these undertakings should escape scot-free. Sub-section 2 of Clause 3 is certainly a most remarkable section. The grievance which, I think, ought to be redressed‗if it is a grievance‗is that the poor people are assessed. If that is a grievance against the Established Church, I should be very glad to get rid of it. The Government say that, inasmuch as it is a grievance and trouble to the poorer ratepayers to have to contribute this assessment, let us say that nobody who appears on the valuation roll at less than £50 should be troubled to pay the rate. I would rather follow the basis of the Church Rates Bill and say it should be voluntary, and I would make it voluntary payment to every extent. I should say, "Relieve the ratepayers frankly, and not say that those whose properties are valued under £50 need not pay unless they choose to do so." The proposal in this Bill is a very roundabout way of keeping up the appearance of equal dealing all round. Surely the Government have not been advised properly in this matter. The heritors ought to know what their assessments were likely to be, and what they were to be assessed for. As far as I understand the proposal‗and my hon. and learned friend will correct me if I am wrong‗it appears to me that if I am to be assessed, my liability to pay or not to pay will depend very largely upon whether a church bazaar has been a success or a failure. I believe there is a great deal to be said for the relief of the small ratepayers. Let us put down the real rent, with the provision that the ratepayers shall not be bound to contribute, but shall only contribute voluntarily, exactly as is the case with the English ratepayers in the matter of Church rates. I do not like to part with the subject altogether without saying a few words of friendly farewell. I have regretted for many years that this subject, if taken up at all, was not taken up on a grand principle. I feel to some extent rather guilty in regard to these small ratepayers, because it is about sixteen years since I proposed one of the earlier Bills, on the ground that you did not deal equally and fairly with all the ratepayers of Scotland. Perhaps, however, it is unwise to oppose a measure which does some small amount of good because it does not do a great deal more good,
  990
  and because the principle has not been adopted which I would prefer now as I did then. Therefore, I am not disposed to throw back this subject for another fifteen or sixteen years. I can only say I regret that the Government, in attempting to redress the grievance, has not faced it on a sounder principle, from which better results might have been obtained.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): When this debate comes to be considered in Scotland, I do not think the friends of the Church can complain of the weight of the arguments against the Bill. I cannot follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow, who moved the rejection of the Bill, and occupied a large portion of his speech by an interesting historical retrospect, which doubtless brought very sound history to the knowledge of many Members of the House. But really I do not intend to follow him on that ground. I have not a word to say against what he said in the historical sense, except to remind him in passing that when he spoke of the decision in the Peterhead case in 1802 it was quite obvious that he took the case which has been practically the cause of all the friction we have had in this matter. But the Court of Session in that day decided the other way, and the decision was reversed in the House of Lords. I do not intend to say anything about the Peterhead case, because I am quite certain that the House and the people of Scotland are not concerned in the antiquarian disputes of lawyers, but in the practical grievance that exists at the present time This Bill was never ambitious in aim, and never claimed any great things. What it did was that it claims to be, like the Bill of the hon. Gentleman behind me last year, a genuine attempt to remove the cause of friction that existed in the past, and which, so far as I know, never did good to anybody. Is it a fact that that friction did exist? I need not deny that, because the first remarks in the speech of the hon. Baronet who seconded the rejection of the Bill bore testimony to the occurrence of that friction. When I come to the Bill itself, and to the remarks the hon. Member for Linlithgow made in moving the rejection, frankly I admit that one part of the speech answered the other. The Bill, as everyone knows

  991
  who has read it, is divided into two portions. The hon. Member's argument against the first portion of the Bill is, "Here is a duty payable by law: Why take that away? Is it not a horrible thing to prevent a person paying what by law he ought to pay?" And yet when he came to the second part of the Bill he condemned that, "because," said he, "you are trying to relieve the small cure, and you are really doing that because you know the whole thing is a system which is utterly without defence." I do not know how the hon. Member reconciles the two statements, because really his argument upon the first part of the Bill entirely answers his argument upon the second; and vice versa, his argument on the second part completely answers his argument on the first. I may notice in passing that he conveniently omitted to mention, as far as the first part of the Bill is concerned, that it is strictly limited to those cases where the assessments have been on the valued rent, and that it is no more than allowing the legal perpetration of the system which has very largely obtained in Scotland owing to the good sense and generosity of those concerned. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow, on the other hand, really treated this as a Committee point. He quoted the observations which I made last year, in which, speaking on the Bill of my hon. friend, behind me, which provided that a bare majority might come to the conclusion, I urged him to amend his Bill so as to allow of practical unanimity being necessary. We take two-thirds of the value. I frankly admit that that is a Committee point, and one we should be perfectly willing to discuss in Committee, my general view on the subject being the same as last year, namely, that any measure which has any coercive effects ought to have something tantamount to practical unanimity behind it. Perhaps I ought to notice one other observation which fell from the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill when talking of this "indefensible system." He drew a moving picture of the change which had taken place in Scotch life and Scotch society, and he told us that in the old days heritors and parishioners were one and the same thing‗that landowners and parishioners were the same. I never knew of such a state of society, and I have yet to read the history
  992
  in which it is recorded. The hon. Member then went on to say that what more than anything else made him appreciate the injustice of the present system of Church assessments was the position of civic institutions and municipalities, and he specially instanced the case of the Glasgow Corporation, who, as he well knows, by a case which the Glasgow Corporation was unfortunate enough to lose not long ago, and in which both he and I took part, had to pay the assessment of the parish kirk session. He asked what good the Corporation got from the administration of the parish kirk session. Does not the hon. Member see that the logical outcome of that argument is that no corporation or public authority ought to be taxed at all? Does the Corporation of Glasgow give birth to any children who have to be educated, or does it have persons vaccinated, or does it matter to it whether the Registration Act is carried out or not? And so we might go through all the rates which are levied. With regard to the second part of the Bill, the hon. Baronet was very prodigal with the word "sham." He said‗
  "This scheme is a sham, because you do not get the exemption unless an adequate sum is contributed by the kirk session, and there is no guarantee that the kirk session will contribute that money."
  There, again, if that is a correct argument, all I can say in reply is that enabling legislation is always a sham, because‗‗
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent me. What I said was that the powers proposed were a sham, because everything which could be done under the Bill‗everything which the Bill would enable the Church to do by voluntary subscription‗could already be done without any Bill.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: My answer to that, with all respect, is that such is not the case. I do not think I am misrepresenting the hon. Baronet, but certainly one portion of his argument was that this was no real relief, because there was no adequate security that the kirk session in any particular case would find the money. If that is a strict argument, I say that all enabling legislation is a sham, because when you pass

  993
  enabling, as opposed to mandatory legislation, you have no absolute guarantee that the particular conditions will be carried out. Let me say just a word upon the actual provisions of the Bill. We have had some criticisms of the measure from my hon. friend the Member for Durham. Of course, I should treat the hon. Member very gently, because he is in the unfortunate position of a man with a nostrum of his own, and such people have always very tender feelings. What he has never been able to forgive us is that we did not bring forward a Bill founded on the resolution which he was fortunate enough to pass in, I think, 1884. I believe I can satisfy him that there is no real difficulty in the working out of the provisions of the Bill. The matter to which he rather took exception was that the assessment is not actually imposed, but only proposed to be imposed. The object of Section 2 is that the scheme shall be law before the parochial kirk session. In many cases we believe that will be an end of the whole matter, and that in many instances the entire sum, if it is not large, will be subscribed. Even if that is not so, when a proposal for assessment is made there is an opportunity for the kirk session to come forward and produce the sum which is necessary in order to get the exemption. But after all is said and done there is something else underlying the opposition to this Bill, and hitherto the most frank advocate of that "something" has been the hon. Member for West Fife. He was pretty explicit this year, but he was even more so last year. I should like to remind the House of one sentence which he uttered last year, because he then put in a shorter and more concrete form what he said this year. These were his words‗
  "The real object of the Bill was to get rid of arguments against the existence of an Established Church, and he was entitled as a supporter of disestablishment to object to the principle being whittled away in this manner, so that eventually when they were face to face with the great question of the Establishment there would be practically no Establishment at all."*
  That is the argument of Demetrius. The hon. Member for West Fife says, "My craft is in danger." He cannot look
  * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxx., page 649.
  994
  forward with equanimity to the idea of having to fight a General Election in which he would no longer have a sore to rub in against the Establishment. I only hope that in the changed circumstances which we know are going to greet the hon. Member when he, alas! takes his energies and abilities, of which we are all so proud, to another kingdom, he may find the necessity of a grievance of the Scotch Church not so poignant as it has been hitherto. But really, when we come to discuss the argument underlying the opposition to this Bill, I can only ask the House whether the hon. Member's own description of the Bill as contemptible and small is not more rightly applied to the feeling which generates the opposition to an honest attempt to remove friction, simply because, in so doing, you would do away with a certain grievance.
  MR. BIRRELL: I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but if there is one thing I detest more than another, it is keeping alive a grievance against a religious body simply for the purpose of using it as an argument against that body. The point I made last, and which I attempted, apparently unsuccessfully, to make this year, was that the principle of the Establishment is that the people who own the land in Scotland should pay for it, and I maintain that the principle should not be whittled away in order to remove objections which otherwise obtain to it. If they have an Establishment, let them pay for it.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The hon. Member must, I think, entirely appreciate that the whole point of our Bill has been to leave the principle as it is, and that the legal rights and liabilities after this Bill is passed will be exactly the same as they were before. In making that remark I may, perhaps, answer the hon. Baronet as to a matter which puzzled him. There is no intention in this Bill of taking away any right which a cure or a parishioner may possess, such as a right to a seat in the church. With respect to the hon. Member for West Fife, he has been, as he said, unsuccessful in making this point clear to the House both last year and this, because I honestly think he is trying to make a distinction where there is no difference at all. I do not think the principle of the Establishment consists in

  995
  the necessity of exacting a tax which is legally due, even when the exaction of that tax may cause friction and heartburning, and I cannot see that the taking away of that in any way hurts the principle of the Establishment. But I do understand the phrase which the hon. Member made use of when he said that he was entitled as a supporter of disestablishment to object to the principle being whittled away, so that eventually when we were face to face with the great question there would be no Establishment to deal with. I think this measure is one of a useful character, and I hope the House will agree to the Second Reading.
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: There are two remarks in the speech to which we have just listened which certainly struck me as worthy of attention. In the first place, my right hon. and learned friend said that the passing of this Bill will remove a practical grievance. He was well aware that if he stopped there his argument would completely fail, and therefore he said it was to remove a practical grievance as the Church is administered. That is the whole thing. If the Church were to administer its affairs upon voluntary lines the practical grievance would disappear. But when the right hon. Gentleman proceeded he made a further most damaging observation in regard to his own plan, namely, that the legal situation of the parties will not be altered in any respect whatever by this Bill. If that be the case, I fail to see why the ratepayers of Scotland and the owners of land should be left to the will of the Kirk Session in the midst of their respective communities to know whether or not they are to be subject to the tax which by law is resolved to be laid upon them. The fact is, I oppose and object to this Bill for the simple and cardinal reason that it recognises and reaffirms the continuance of the assessment with which it deals, whereas I am in principle in favour of the total and immediate abolition of this assessment. It is futile to speak of the hon. Member for Durham as the patron of a nostrum. It is a nostrum which has been well known with reference to the whole doctrine as to civic establishment of religion and endowments. To promote religion by levying rates is not in my opinion any part of the duty of the State, and it is not a service, but a disservice, to
  996
  religion itself. The same observation applies to a levy of rates for the purpose of promoting the convenience or saving the pockets of those who profess a particular style of religion or particular views as to Church government. We are being troubled with Bills of this kind simply because the Government, with this large majority at its back, is in power, and if we are to be troubled year after year by this kind of infatuation, by a Bill of this description, we cannot be complained against, and we must be forgiven if we feel ourselves forced to affirm and reaffirm the strong proposition which experience in Scotland proves, that wherever you find religion vital and sincere it can pay its own way. You may call this Bill what you like, but in the end you will find that it is this crucial consideration which comes into play. The fact is that this Bill is a Bill for the readjustment and the reaffirmation of a principle which is unsound and erroneous in itself. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Durham that the right and only way to deal with the question is that that unsound and erroneous principle should go at once and for ever from the Establishment of Scotland and the membership within it. The mystery attending this Bill has not been at all cleared up by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. He says that they are the enemies of the Establishment who oppose this Bill. If I mistake not, they are the very poor and the very unwise friends of the Establishment who have promoted the measure. Every man in Scotland must admire the efforts of the Church of Scotland on voluntary lines within recent years, but I very much doubt whether the rank and file of the membership of that Church would care to suffer the imputation of meanness which follows the proposition underlying this Bill, namely, that they are unable to pay their own religious way and to provide for their own religious duties as their fellow Christians and neighbours in Scotland do. I do not desire to examine in anything like detail the provisions of the Bill. It is a very short measure, and its two main provisions are wholly bad and unjustifiable. No such measure as this will ever be of the slightest avail. The only method of dealing with the question properly is the cardinal and radical method of going to the root of the

  997
  injustice. I agree that there is only odium and discredit attaching to the imposition of this assessment, and I desire equally with hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House to abolish that odium and discredit, but you can do that only by abolishing the injustice. When one looks at the details of the Bill one is instantly struck by the strangeness of the device which Her Majesty's Government have permitted themselves to use in Section 1. If there is one thing more than another in regard to the burdens on landed property that ought to be always kept in view it is that they should be fairly and carefully calculable from year to year, and that they should be imposed and varied, not by a private, but only by public authority. The first section of this Bill is in flat contradiction of that elementary rule. It is proposed that two-thirds of the valued rent heritors in Scotland may resolve to levy Church and manse rates according, not to the real rents, but to what are known as the valued rents. What is valued rent? At the present day valued rent does not represent value, and it in no way whatever represents rent. It is not a truth, but a fiction. It is a complete delusion and an anachronism. It does not represent, but misrepresents, the state of affairs as regards the lands, and the proposal of this Bill is to permit that at the will of certain of your parishioners in Scotland your property should be assessed, not in accordance with fact, but in accordance with fiction, not upon its present day value, but upon the value at which it and other property stood at the time of Oliver Cromwell. A more ridiculous and absurd proposal has seldom been placed before Parliament. The fact is that it is just typical of the struggle which has been going on in the minds of the Government. They desire to retain the assessment upon lands, but to conceal and hide it by manipulations of these valued rent provisions in Sections 1 and 2. Why do they not come boldly forward and say, "This grievance exists; it depends wholly and solely upon the power to raise these funds for religious buildings by means of rates levied upon all, whether they use or do not use the buildings"? Why do not Her Majesty's Government come forward and frankly say that the time for that state of things has come to an end, and that they must abolish the
  998
  whole of this system and be done with it for ever? The uncertainty attaching to this assessment becomes even more marked under Section 3 of the Bill. That section no doubt marks an advance upon the provisions of the Bill of last year. The scheme of voluntaryism is much widened in this Bill, because the limit of value has risen from £20 to £50. But I ask this simple question: If there is to be any rate attaching to the land of the parish why should you give preferential treatment to certain of the owners of land in the parish? Why should you propose to make difference between ratepayers? According to the provision of Section 1 the resolution upon this subject is to be taken by the valued rent heritors. There are many parishes in Scotland in which the majority of the value is held by one landowner, and therefore we would have introduced into the parishes of Scotland the principle of "please the landowner," because if you please him he may vote that you, the real rent owner, should not be assessed, while if you displease him he will leave the law to take its course. You will be assessed according to the pleasure or displeasure of the largest landowner in the parish. If that be the way in which it is proposed to remove a grievance, I am quite sure you will remove the existing grievance; but you will only replace it by another of far deeper social effect. If you are going to address yourself to this doctrine at all, the House would do better to abolish the whole system under which it is possible to cause payment for these objects to be made by any other persons than those who share the benefits of the buildings, whether the manse or the ecclesiastical edifice itself. I would conclude by saying that I totally disagree with the view that the Church of Scotland or the people of Scotland are in favour of this proposal. It has been suggested in the course of this debate that the majority of the people of Scotland do favour this ridiculous proposal. We can judge of that only by the votes of this House. A similar measure to this was voted on last year, and in favour of it were eighteen Scotch Members, while against it there were twenty-nine.* Who, under these circum-
  * For debate on Second Reading of the Ecclesiastical Assessments (Scotland) Bill, 26th April, 1899, see The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxx., page 605. (Division List No. 102, page 659.)

  999
  stances, can claim that the opinion of Scotland is favourable to a measure of this kind? This is peculiarly a Scotch affair. In England the remedy has been applied. In Ireland the grievance is entirely unknown. Why then will you not permit Scotland to be governed in this particular in accordance with the voices of her representatives? If that were done I have little doubt of the result. The result would be the rejection of this measure and the total abolition and repeal of these duties. If these rates and duties were abolished I make free to say that the Church of Scotland would not be weakened, but would be greatly strengthened in the performance of its proper work, namely, its spiritual work.
  MR. CROMBIE: Although I intend to oppose this Bill I offer it a hearty welcome, because, whatever it may or may not do, it is certainly a Disendowment Bill. The hon. Member for Durham says it marks a step in the direction of disestablishment. It should at least, however, mark the disappearance of the old argument levelled against us from pulpits and platforms, in which we were told that if we dared to lay a finger upon the property of the Church we were guilty not only of robbery, but of sacrilege. I hope such arguments are gone for ever. I see on the back of this Bill the name of the hon. Member for St. Andrews Burghs. I wonder what the fishermen of St. Andrews Burghs will think when they see the name of their Member of Parliament upon this Bill. I remember an election there in 1885 in which the hon. Member's father, whose memory we so highly respect, took part. That election was memorable in many ways. The polling day was on a Monday, and on the Saturday the Disestablishment candidate was told that a victory was sure. But between Saturday and Monday in Scotland there comes Sunday, and on that Sunday there came an eloquent minister down to St. Andrews Burghs from Edinburgh, and he preached a sermon upon the text "Will a man rob God?" He told those fishermen that if they voted for disestablishment they would share the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, and probably their judgment as well. Those fishermen fled from the wrath to come and also from the poll, and the Disestablishment candi-
  1000
  date lost the election. Echoes of that sermon still disturb the equanimity of the fishermen on dark nights; and I wonder what they will say when they see their Member's name on the back of a Bill for robbing God. But it is not on those grounds that I oppose this Bill. I may comfort hon. Gentlemen opposite who are only trying their 'prentice hands at this wickedness that, although I have been cursed for the action I have taken, I am not any the worse for it. I am a member of the Established Church, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite produce any Bill which will benefit that Church, and which will do so without injuring the public I shall give it a hearty support. But I consider it my first duty to look to the public welfare. This is a Bill which, whether it benefits the Church or not, at any rate it does not benefit the public, for it not only robs the Church, but also the public, of part of its property. I maintain that the teinds and the ecclesiastical rates are not only public property, but they are public taxes. Those taxes are being applied according to the law of the country to the established Church of Scotland; they have been changed five times in their purpose, and many of us may live to see them changed a sixth time, but as long as they remain they are public property, and we should not allow them to be alienated or destroyed. In one of its clauses this Bill destroys them, and the rates on Dissenting churches and manses are to go. And why do you do this? It is not the rates that are unjust. It is perfectly fair that a Dissenting church or a Dissenting manse should continue to pay these taxes, but have you not the courage to say that the purpose to which they are applied is unjust and should be altered? And because it suits the temporary convenience of the Church you are obliged to forego these rates altogether. That is the first ground on which I oppose this Bill. But it is a measure which proceeds to its purpose in a disingenuous fashion. Why is it that you have picked out these manses and churches, and why are you going to take the rates off them? Why not take the rates off all Dissenters? You tell us that we are opposing this Bill in a mean way, to retain a disestablishment argument, but you are mean enough to remove these rates because you are trying to remove a disestablishment argument. Why do you

  1001
  pick out those particular rates? I remember reading an essay by Leigh Hunt, in which he says that fishing would be perfectly impossible if the fish caught were to make a series of squeaks, because they would call down upon them the attention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. You are now going to take the rates off those who squeak, but fill your basket with those that are silent. If you had a preamble, it would be, "Whereas it is now generally admitted that in principle it is unjust to put a tax upon a Dissenter to support the Established Church, and whereas the Church of Scotland gets a good revenue, and it is necessary to stop the mouths of those who make this a scandal, be it enacted." I will look at this Bill as a Churchman. Suppose I am capable of overlooking the defects I have mentioned, and I ask myself as a member of the Church‗Will it do good to the Church? Not only will this Bill do no good to the Church, and fail to remove the scandal yon wish to remove, but it will perpetuate and advertise it. If you want to put an end to the scandal of collecting these rates you can do it very easily without any Act at all. Why not raise a voluntary subscription? I never knew before that we required an Act of Parliament to allow us to raise subscriptions. If the right hon. Member will introduce an Act to put down public subscriptions I am sure it will be supported from both sides of this House. Under the present system, without any Bill at all, public subscription will work much better than this measure. In the first place, you are more likely to get it; and in the second place, you can apply it more cheaply, and you can deal with Dissenters according to the circumstances of the case. You may pick out one man who is noisy, and you may avoid another who pays quietly. I wonder if any hon. Gentlemen opposite ever attempted to collect subscriptions. If you attempt to collect money from your friends the first thing they do is to find an excuse for not giving anything. I have known friends of mine whose intellect I have held in contempt; when they have been asked for a subscription they develop a logical genius which entirely overwhelms me. That is what will happen in this case. Some Member will go among the congregation and ask, "Will you subscribe to pay off the feuars?" and the answer will be: "I understand you
  1002
  are going to relieve every man, great or small, rich or poor. I would have been willing to relieve small feuars, but not the rich." What will be the consequence? You are not forced by the Act of Parliament to raise this subscription, but you have to deal with people who do not read Acts of Parliament and who will say you have failed in your legal duty. For these reasons, as a Churchman and as a representative of the public, I shall offer a strenuous opposition to this Bill.
  MR. WYLIEsaid he would have preferred if the Lord Advocate had brought in a Bill to relieve entirely the real rent heritors, who are mainly feuars from Ecclesiastical assessment, for though the feuars were in the eyes of the law landlords, because they had a perpetual occupancy, yet they were tenants, because they paid a perpetual rent, and if they were relieved it would be a measure of equity. The proposal of hon. Members opposite was to relieve the landlords altogether and make them a present of a very large sum of money. The old Scottish legislators, who framed the Acts for maintaining the churches and manses and schools by assessment on the rent of land, were wise in their generation, and they did a great work for Scotland. If those who had framed the Acts originally had known that Scotland was going to make such remarkable progress, and that the rent of land in Scotland was going to increase by such enormous bounds, and that the population was destined to increase in the same way, they would have framed their enactment accordingly so as to keep pace with the prosperity of the country and the increase of the population, and this question would have automatically solved itself. Taking things as they were, they found that the landlords, the value of whose properties had been most increased by feu duties, had been very much relieved of their assessments by bringing their feuars into the same assessable clause, whilst those who had not reaped so much benefit had to bear the burdens unassisted. For those reasons he believed a more comprehensive measure would have been accepted not only by the Scottish Members, but also by the people of Scotland. He would strongly urge upon the consideration of the Lord Advocate the necessity of altering the Bill in this respect, because he

  1003
  believed if this were done the measure would meet with general acceptance upon both sides of the House. He thought hon. Scottish Members opposite could not show their sympathy and good feeling to the Church of Scotland subject in a better way than by giving their cordial support to this Bill, and accepting it at least as a large measure of justice.
  MR. CARVELL WILLIAMSsaid that he knew it was somewhat perilous for an English Member to intervene in the discussion of a purely Scottish subject; but the exaction dealt with by the Bill was analogous to another exaction with which we were painfully familiar some years ago. English Church rates and Scottish Church rates appeared to him to differ only in this respect, that whereas in England the rates were appropriated to the maintenance of the churches and services, in Scotland they were applied to the erection and maintenance of churches, and also of manses, but not to the maintenance of services. Both systems, however, were bad, because they involved two things‗one the employment of coercion for the maintenance of religion, and the other the taxing of one set of people for the support of the religion of another set of people. Considering the different ecclesiastical circumstances of Scotland from those of England, he was surprised that Church rates should exist there so long after they had been abolished both in England and Ireland. The history of the exaction in
  1004
  Scotland seemed as though it would resemble that of England. All sorts of compromises were proposed in England, but the result was that it was enacted that, while Church rates might continue to be made, nobody was to be compelled to pay them, and as a consequence Church rates, whether compulsory or voluntary, had ceased to be made. The Bill they were discussing was less absurd than that of last year, but still contained some absurd provisions. The abatement in the case of those heritors who were not assessed at more than £50 was to be dependent on the goodwill, or ability, of two-thirds of the heritors, and on the liberality, or want of liberality, on the part of members of the Church of Scotland; so that it depended on the collections on Sunday whether the full amount or not was to be paid on the Monday! The result would be a difference in different parishes, and even in the same parish; since what was voluntarily subscribed one year might not be subscribed the next. This Bill was an attempt to perpetuate an odious tax by making it a little less intolerable. Some of its opponents were to be bought off. The saddle was still to be on the wrong horse, but it was to be made a little less galling. He hoped that, if the Bill passed, it would increase the determination of the Liberals of Scotland to get rid of the exaction by abolishing the Establishment.
  Question put.
  The House divided:‗Ayes, 125; Noes, 83. (Division List No. 93.)

  AYES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Gibbs, Hn AGH (City of Lond.

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth)

  Giles, Charles Tyrrell

  Arnold, Alfred

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Gl'sg'w)

  Godson, Sir A. Frederick

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Cornwallis, Fiennes Stanley W.

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

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

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Curzon, Viscount

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord George

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Dalbiac, Colonel Philip Hugh

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn Robert Wm.

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

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hanson, Sir Reginald

  Bethell, Commander

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Bill, Charles

  Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham)

  Heath, James

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Denny, Colonel

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Henderson, Alexander

  Butcher, John George

  Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

  Hoare, Edw Brodie (Hampst'd)

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin)

  Elliot, Hon. A. R. Douglas

  Hozier, Hon. Jas. Henry Cecil

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbys.)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

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

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Finch, George H.

  Keswick, William

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. (Birm.

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Knowles, Lees

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lafone, Alfred

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Lawrence, Sir E. D.- (Corn.)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Forster, Henry William

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

  1005

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlin'ton

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Liverpool)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Lowe, Francis William

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Tomlinson, Wm Edw. Murray

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Purvis, Robert

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Webster, Sir Richard E.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Maxwell, Rt. Hon. Sir H. E.

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Mellor, Colonel (Lancashire)

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Williams, J. Powell- (Birm.)

  Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton

  Round, James

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Milward, Colonel Victor

  Russell, Gen. F. S. (Cheltenham

  Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  More, R. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Rutherford, John

  Wylie, Alexander

  Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Wyndham, George

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H (Redfrew)

  Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

  Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Smith, James P. (Lanarks.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES‗Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Spencer, Ernest

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  NOES.

  Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

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

  Asher, Alexander

  Fenwick, Charles

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. Henry

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

  Palmer, George W. (Reading)

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Richardson, J. (Durham, S. E.

  Baker, Sir John

  Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Gurdon, Sir Wm. Brampton

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Billson, Alfred

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Birrell, Augustine

  Harwood, George

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Hedderwick, Thomas C. H.

  Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Souttar, Robinson

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Holland, William Henry

  Steadman, William Charles

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Burns, John

  Jones, William Carnarvonsh.

  Tanner, Charles Kearns

  Burt, Thomas

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Tennant, Harold John

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Kilbride, Denis

  Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Caldwell, James

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumberland)

  Thomas, D. A. (Merthyr)

  Cameron, Sir Charles (Glasgow)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Ure, Alexander

  Carmichael, Sir T. D. Gibson-

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Wallace, Robert

  Channing, Francis Allston

  MacDonnell, Dr. M. A. (Q.'sC.)

  Wason, Eugene

  Clough, Walter Owen

  MacNeill, John Cordon Swift

  Weir, James Galloway

  Colville, John

  M'Crae, George

  Whiteley, George (Stockport)

  Crilly, Daniel

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts

  Crombie, John William

  M'Ewan, William

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

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Dewar, Arthur

  Maddison, Fred.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Morley, Rt. Hon. J. (Montrose)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES‗Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Munro Ferguson.

  Doogan, P. C.

  Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport)

  Dunn, Sir William

  O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal)

  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc."‗(The Lord Advocate.)
  MR. CALDWELL: I object to this Bill being sent to the Standing Committee on Law. It is a matter of public policy which does not require any expert legal knowledge, and we ought to have the matter discussed in Committee of the House. Very few
  1006
  Scotch Members are on the Standing Committee on Law; I myself, for instance, am not on that Committee, and would not be appointed to it except by some kind of favour. There is this peculiarity about the Standing Committee on Law. Its members cannot possibly attend; they are Government officials and lawyers in practice, and the result is that the Committee must go hunting about for a quorum. What is the use of sending a Bill of this kind to a Committee which practically consists of English lawyers who do not understand the law relating to Scotland? There is not any great amount of business before the House;

  1007
  we have nothing else of great importance to discuss. I do not think the Government can complain of the time taken up by the Second Reading, as every hon. Member was anxious to state his views shortly, and I do not think they have any reason to anticipate a long discussion in Committee of the House. If the Bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Law it will have to come back to the House on Report, and it may then be found that more time will have to be occupied on the Report stage than if the Bill were committed to the Committee of the whole House in the first instance. There are Members from Scotland on both sides of the House who understand the whole of this matter, and it should not be referred to a Committee of legal experts who know nothing about it.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I think it only right to explain the reasons which have induced the Government to suggest that this Bill should be referred to the Grand Committee on Law. It is quite true that the general principle of the Bill is such that it ought to be discussed in this House, but the general principle having been once decided, the details of the measure seem to me eminently of a kind which fit them for proper discussion in a Grand Committee, and which are more fitted for discussion in a Grand Committee than for a discussion in Committee of the whole House. The hon. Gentleman has stated that there are not many Scotch Members on the Grand Committee, and among other omissions that he himself is not a member. I believe there is a provision in our Standing Orders by which omissions of that kind can be remedied, and I have no doubt the Committee of Selection will take care that Scotch opinion shall be fully and adequately represented on the Grand Committee. Under these circumstances I would ask the House not to resist this Motion. The hon. Gentleman
  1008
  tells us that the business of the session is not of such an onerous character that we should send a Bill upstairs which ought to be discussed here. I have two answers to that; in the first place, it may turn out that the business may take more time than the hon. Gentleman thinks, and, in the second place, this is clearly a Bill for the Grand Committee. Its details are not of a kind which are interesting to the whole House, and I hope, therefore, the House will agree to the motion.
  MR. COLVILLE: I join in the protest of my hon. friend against this Bill being referred to the Grand Committee on Law. It must be remembered that only a short time was occupied on the Second Reading.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Second Reading having been now discussed, it cannot be re-opened even in Committee of the whole House.
  MR. COLVILLE: If the Bill is committed to the Standing Committee on Law, only a few Scotch Members can take part in the discussion of its details. I strongly object to this proposal because it would debar the majority of the Scotch Members from discussing this Bill.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: I remember in the case of a Scotch Bill which was recently sent to a Grand Committee, fifteen Scotch Members were added to the Committee on the ground that it was a purely Scotch measure. This is also a purely Scotch measure.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should look with great favour on any such course, but the composition of the Committee does, not rest with me.
  Question put.
  The House divided:‗Ayes, 100; Noes, 65. (Division List No. 94.)

  AYES.

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Bethell, Commander

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Arnold, Alfred

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Cook, Fred Lucas (Lambeth)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin)

  Cornwallis, Fiennes Stanley W.

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

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

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.)

  Curzon, Viscount

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Dalbiac, Colonel Philip Hugh

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Dalkeith, Karl of

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

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  1009

  Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chath'm

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Liverpool

  Round, James

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lowe, Francis William

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn E.

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Rutherford, John

  Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J (Manch'r

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Finch, George H.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maxwell, Rt. Hn. Sir Herbert E.

  Sidebottom, William (Derbysh

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Middlemore, J. Throgmorton

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks)

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Spencer, Ernest

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. (City of L.)

  More, R. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptfrd

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir J. Eldon

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord George

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert Wm.

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Hanson, Sir Reginald

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Webster, Sir Richard E.

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Heath, James

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington)

  Williams, Joseph P. (Birm.)

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Henderson, Alexander

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wylie, Alexander

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Powell, Sir Frances Sharp

  Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

  Keswick, William

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Knowles, Lees

  Purvis, Robert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES‗Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Lafone, Alfred

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  1010

  NOES.

  Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Richardson, J. (Durham, S. E.)

  Asher, Alexander

  Flavin, Michael Josph

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Gurdon, Sir Wm. Brampton

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Baker, Sir John

  Harwood, George

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Billson, Alfred

  Hedderwick, Thomas C. H.

  Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh.)

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. C. H.

  Souttar, Robinson

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Jones, David B. (Swansea)

  Steadman, William Charles

  Burns, John

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Burt, Thomas

  Kilbride, Denis

  Tanner, Charles Kearns

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumberland)

  Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.)

  Cameron, Sir C. (Glasgow)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Carmichael, Sir T. D. Gibson-

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Ure, Alexander

  Clough, Walter Owen

  MacDonald, Dr M. A. (Queen'sC

  Wallace, Robert

  Crilly, Daniel

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Weir, James Galloway

  Crombie, John William

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.)

  Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)

  M'Ewan, William

  Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Ghee, Richard

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

  Denny, Colonel

  Maddison, Fred.

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Dewar, Arthur

  Morley, Rt. Hn. J. (Montrose)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES‗Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Colville.

  Doogan, P. C.

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

  Dunn, Sir William

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Bill committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc.

  LUNACY BOARD (SCOTLAND) (SALARIES, ETC.) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. I certainly would have thought that a Bill which is of so purely a Departmental character, and dealing with a matter upon which necessarily the Scotch Office and
  1010>
  the Treasury have what I may call semi-antagonistic interests, might have been allowed to pass without very much discussion. I believe that the Treasury, whose action in controlling other Departments we have heard so much of lately, would not have lightly lent themselves to a contribution to another Department, unless they felt the justice of the demand. But owing to the remarks that were made at the time when the resolution upon which the Bill necessarily proceeds was passed by the Mouse, I feel that I should allow the possibility of the policy and motives of the Scotch Office to be misunderstood if I did not, what cer-

  1011
  tainly would have been otherwise an unusual practice on such a Bill as this, make a speech in moving the Second Reading. The Lunacy Board of Scotland was constituted so long ago as the year 1857. Its duties were at once onerous and multifarious. In fact, the Board has the direction and regulation of all matters relating to lunatics and lunatic asylums in Scotland. Now, the constitution of the Board with its multifarious duties is as follows:‗There are two paid Commissioners, who are both members of the medical profession; two Sub-Commissioners also members of the medical profession; and there are three unpaid members‗one a lay member, who is the chairman, and two legal members. Besides these, of course, there is the secretary and a clerical staff. It is pretty clear as to what were the ideas of the Legislature in 1857, when the Board was constituted, as to what was the amount of work which would fall on the Board. The Act provides that there are to be two meetings during the year—one to be held in March and the other in November. With the amount of work necessary at that time probably these two meetings were sufficient. I may contrast that state of affairs with the state of affairs now, by dealing with the figures which I gave to the House already to-day in answer to a question of the hon. Member for Loss and Cromarty. In 1899, instead of two meetings of the Board, twenty-seven were held. There was a notion at the institution of the Board that perhaps after building the various asylums, and when the lunacy system had been put on a regular footing, there might be a possibility of economy by abolishing one of the paid Commissioners. Very soon, however, after the Board came into working order it was felt that that was quite impossible; and so long ago as 1870 a statement was made in the House of Lords in behalf of the Government of that day, which I may remind the House was not the predecessor of this Government. The Duke of Argyll said on 20th May, 1870—
  "A vacancy happened the other day on the Board of Lunacy, and the Government, after full consideration of all the circumstances of the case, found it essential to fill it up. The work of the office could not have been done without its being filled up."
  Now, when I say that the staff of the Board and the constitution of the
  1012
  Board are precisely the same now as in 1858, then I think the House will begin to see how enormously heavy the duties placed upon the Board are as compared with the duties at the time of its original constitution. Originally the salary of the Commissioners was £1,000 each, but in 1878 one of them had his salary raised to £1,100. That £100 was not an extra amount provided by the Treasury; it was docked from the salary of one of the Sub-Commissioners. Since then the salary of the Commissioners has been £1,000, as before, but rising by increments to £1,200. With regard to the way in which the work is done I give the figures for the three periods—1858, 1878, and 1898. The number of lunatics in asylums in 1858 was 4,028, and in private dwellings 1804; total, 5,824. In 1878, in the asylums 7,604, in private dwellings 1493; total, 9,097. In 1898, in the asylums 12,139, in private dwellings 2,767; total, 14,906. Those figures show that at the present time there are nearly three times as many lunatics to be attended to, and the staff now is the same as in 1858. Not only are the medical Commissioners bound by statute to inspect thoroughly every lunatic asylum twice a year—and in connection with this point I may say there are seven royal, fifteen district, and five private lunatic asylums—but it is their practice also to make a visit to every single patient in private dwellings, That is done twice a year, which means that over 29,000 visits are made by the Medical Commissioners, or, taking the asylums separately, over 24,000 visits. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark called attention the other day to what he called the disparity between the work done by the Commissioners of England and those of Scotland. He said there were six Commissioners in England and 100,000 lunatics, and in Scotland 12,000 odd lunatics and four Commissioners. That is not the fact'; there are only two, and two Deputy Commissioners. The Deputy Commissioners have to visit the lunatics in private dwellings, to do which they have to travel through the length and breadth of Scotland. In 1858 their visits numbered 763; in 1878, 1,615; and in 1898, 3,690. Those visits take up the whole of their time, and it is impossible for them to do more than they do at present. They never have, and never will do any of the regular work of the

  1013
  Medical Commissioners. It is a system which has no analogy in England, and therefore it is futile to compare the number of men engaged in the two countries. It may be a question which of the two systems is the better, but so long as the Scotch system is the system, it is absolutely necessary to have perfect inspection, and so long as you require to have that it is physically impossible to have less than two men. The time of the Commissioners is fully employed, and it is necessary to have more medical time, and the problem presented to us is how to get it. You may appoint another Medical Commission, but that would not be a more economical plan, because you could not get a Medical Commissioner for less than £1,000 a year. Then there is another objection, and that is the professional feeling of the medical profession, which is quite as strong as the professional feeling in the legal profession. No hon. Member who had an insane relative would like the relative to be entirely in the hands of a professional class. You would feel that you would derive some strength from what is called a lay element in the inspection. If a medical man were to be appointed the medical element would preponderate over all. The Medical Commissioners at the present, besides the visiting, attend once a month at the offices of the Board, where they are occupied in routine and administrative duties. If they could be relieved of those they would have more medical time available which could be occupied with these increasing demands. Now the lay element consists of a chairman and two legal members. So far as the chairman is concerned—the present chairman has occupied the position since 1888—he has attended meetings once a fortnight, and in 1889 he attended twenty meetings out of twenty-three. But his duties do not stop there; he is frequently at the office and has to deal with plans and sites of asylums and matters of that kind. In the same way the legal members have given excellent attendances at the board meetings, and if you are going to take away the attendance of the medical members the secretary must have somebody whom he can consult on matters of a quasi-legal nature. The hon. Member for Ross-shire suggested that the Law Officers of the Crown should do this, and suggested the raising of my salary
  1014
  for giving opinions to the Lunacy Board. But the Law Officers of the Crown are not meant to give advice of that kind. Their advice is available in matters of importance, but it is absurd to come to the Lord Advocate, who has to reside so many months in London, and expect him to act on the Lunacy Board in Edinburgh. That is the reason for this Bill. It is absolutely necessary that a greater provision of medical time should be made for this greatly increasing work, whether it is done one way or the other, and I personally and on behalf of my noble friend should be perfectly willing to throw that question on the floor of this House but for one circumstance. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark on the occasion when this question was last debated took upon himself to make a most offensive charge against my noble friend. I do not mince my words, because I think the charge was most offensive, and in order to show that I do not exaggerate I shall quote what he said—
  "The hon. Member said he altogether differed from the Lord Advocate. The great object of the resolution was to provide salaries, not for the officials, but for certain of the Commissioners, who at the present moment by Act of Parliament were declared to be unpaid. Up to the present the work had been done gratuitously, and only now, when the chairman of the Board was a nephew of the Secretary for Scotland, did they propose to give a salary. This was the object of the resolution. He would not trouble the House with a division, but at every stage of this Bill it would be denounced as a job on the part of the Secretary for Scotland to give a salary to his own nephew, in a case in which public work had hitherto been done gratuitously."*
  So far as public opinion is concerned I have not much fear, because a charge of that sort is easily settled by comparing it with the character of my hon. friend. If the accusation were put in one scale and the character of my hon. friend in the other, I have no doubt as to which would kick the beam. But such a charge ought never to have been made unless the hon. Gentleman had been certain of his facts. Had the hon. Gentleman said, "This is a bad policy, and I object to give a salary to a person called an unpaid Commissioner; I would sooner have a paid man and have done with it," it would have been one thing, but that was not the charge. He said this was a
  * See speech of Mr. Caldwell, as reported in this volume, at page 142.

  1015
  job to provide for a relative. It is just as well, when a charge of this kind is made against a gentleman, to see what the incentive is for which he is supposed to have sacrificed his honour. The provision in the Bill is that a sum might be paid by the Treasury, not to the Chairman alone, but to the whole three unpaid Commissioners, provided that in any year it does not amount to more than £500. Personally, I should have thought that a very inadequate sum to sell one's honour for in respect to a wife's nephew. But the point is, what right had the hon. Member to make any charge of that sort? It is all the more unfortunate when made by one who knows so well the forms of this House, that it was made on the Report, when the hon. Member knew that I had no right of reply. I am sorry to find myself obliged to make use of these expressions, because I recognise on many occasions the use that the patient industry of the hon. Member has been to the House. Why the hon. Member should have gone out of his way to make this personal imputation against the Secretary for Scotland, whose public life is as clear as anyone's possibly could be, I am at a loss to determine; but as it is, I put this Bill as a necessary measure before the House—necessary if we are to have a proper working of a very useful and efficient department.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read now a second time."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  MR. CALDWELL: I shall deal with the last point of the right hon. Gentleman first. I daresay that what the right hon. Gentleman quoted as the expression on that occasion used by me is correct, and I quite felt at the time that it was a pity in a matter of this kind that a change of policy should take place when a nephew of the Secretary of Scotland was chairman. At the same time, if there is anything offensive in the expression I used I shall be happy to withdraw it, because the learned Advocate will bear me out when I say there is no animus between me and the Secretary for Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman has alluded to the great amount of work that has been done by the Board of Lunacy in Scotland, and he read the Act of Parliament pointing out that two meetings should be held during
  1016
  the year. Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously mean to say that because the statute says two meetings shall be held in the year there shall not be more? I am surprised that the learned Advocate should have suggested such a thing. I think he overstepped the contention altogether when he compared the two meetings of the unpaid Commissioners in 1858 with the twenty-seven in 1898. When the two Commissioners were paid £1,200 you will find it was not contemplated that the work would increase after the five years, and the Commissioners' salaries were reduced to £1,000 when the Act got into working order. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the amount of work which had been done; all these things were done in England except the one small point of the visits to the individual patients. That is the only difference between the two Acts. Very well, suppose we knock out the two Sub-Commissioners altogether, what is the result? In England, with more than seven times the number of patients, you have six Commissioners; in Scotland you have two. In Scotland you have one-third of the Commissioners and one-seventh of the work to do. In Ireland, which is a little larger than Scotland, you have two Commissioners, and the net result is this. Scotland has proportionately more paid Commissioners for her lunatics than either England or Ireland. If, as the figures quoted by the Lord Advocate show, during a certain period lunacy has doubled, does it not show that you should, if necessary, have one paid Commissioner to do the work? Would anyone say that a layman could be of any service whatever in making these visits? And of what earthly use is his general knowledge of matters, compared with the technical knowledge that is required on visiting patients in asylums and in their own homes? The argument of the right hon. Gentleman is, you want more paid Commissioners, but employ people to do the work who have no qualifications whatever for the work. Then with regard to the proposals of the Bill. In Scotland there has never been any lack of men willing to perform public duties without seeking any consideration for so doing, and there is no comparison between the work done on the Lunacy Board and the work done by these gentlemen in other public services. The statute says there are to be

  1017
  two Commissioners at £1,200, and two Deputy-Commissioners at £600, and the rest are to be unpaid; but now the right hon. Gentleman appears to think that it would be more economical to give those persons £500 a year than to have another paid Commissioner at £1,000. It is a question not of economy but of efficiency, and the Lord Advocate has not shown that we can dispense with the two head Commissioners. Does not the right hon. Gentleman know that every hour questions arise which require the Commissioner to be at his office in Edinburgh to answer? It is absolutely necessary that he should be at his office to advise the Board. Instead of these Commissioners you are going to have three unpaid men who are under no compulsion to attend. When Parliament fixes the salary of a man to perform a duty, the principle is that he is getting his salary and must devote his whole time to the work. With regard to the chairman, if the question had been ventilated in Edinburgh, I venture to say there would have been no difficulty in getting a gentleman to fill that office and that of the Commissioners. There never was such a body of men as the Scotch to rise to the occasion of the performance of public service, and when they stand and take an interest in matters connected with the country, they retain the interest of the people by whose votes they are elected. It has not been shown that it is necessary to make a new departure of this kind, and I maintain that public duty is better performed by the man who acts from a sense of public duty than by the man who always looks for his fee for his attendance at the meeting. This Bill is not to give a salary to men to devote their whole time to these duties; they are to get a fee for their attendance, and they all go to the office and put their names down more for the purpose of securing the fee than from a desire to do the work. Now who are these Commissioners? One is Sir John Cheyne, a man who obtained his knighthood from the Tory party; he is Procurator to the Church of Scotland, and a man who gets every appointment going where there is any money attached to it. He is Sheriff of Renfrewshire, for which he gets £1,000 from the Consolidated Fund. Do you expect a man like that, an advocate in practice, a sheriff with £1,000 a year, and plenty of work for which he is highly
  1018
  paid, to give his services for nothing. The other Commissioner is Mr. Cowan, the county agent of the Liberal party, another one of the mercenary gang who, in the hope of getting into office again, makes no charge for his services to the Board. These are the men appointed to this Board, the chairmanship of which is to be brought down to the level of those of public and bogus companies. I object to this proposal on this ground, that it is not right where you have, as in the case of Scotland, two paid Commissioners and two Deputy-Commissioners, and a secretary at £600 a year, and a clerk at £320, to pay anybody else for advisory work. Lawyers are not needed there, because if the Lord Advocate is in London he is not the only Crown officer, and the Solicitor General is at Edinburgh at the Crown Office, and he is much better qualified to give advice than an advocate like Sir John Cheyne or a county agent. If you come with a new Commissioner and ask for the money for his salary we will support you, but we will not establish such a precedent as this. Such a system once established will not end with this Board; once you give effect to this principle you cannot prevent it extending to everybody in the county councils, and so forth. If a crofter, for instance, has to travel many miles to attend a meeting—assume that he has to spend £1 and travel for three days—ought you to give that poor man, who is glad to do his duty without seeking support from the State or ratepayers, something for his expenses? The First Lord of the Treasury was asked the other day whether he intended to extend the principle to the county councils, and he said no; but once it is begun you will have it creeping into every part of Scotland. How could the Lord Advocate come here and ask for this without touching the question of the secretary's salary? For shame's sake he could not have done so, and he sweeps away by his action the old-standing clause that the salary shall not exceed so much, and leaves it to the Scotch Office to give as much or as little as it pleases. The secretary of the English Board gets £1,000, and the secretary of the Scotch Board £600; but in England the secretary has seven times the work to do, and he must be a barrister of seven years' standing, and is qualified to take the position of law adviser. In Scotland you have

  1019
  a man who is not a barrister at all, but who has risen in the Civil Service, and £600 is ample salary for him. If you made it compulsory that he should have legal training and be qualified to take the position of legal adviser, I would not object to your raising his salary; as it is he is overpaid, and ought to be satisfied. But we should never have heard of the increase in his salary had it not been for the fact that this £500 is to be divided amongst this mercenary crowd. I think the House should say let them go. Let the Board be filled with men of public spirit, and let Sir John Cheyne and the whole gang go. I beg to move as an Amendment that the Bill be read a second time this day six months.
  MR. WEIR, in seconding the Amendment, said the House had been invited to accept the Bill as a Bill of a departmental character without discussion, but it should be one of the duties of Scottish Members in this House to watch and if necessary criticise the work of the Scottish Office. They were sent by their constituents for that purpose, and not to please the Lord Advocate, however much they desired to do so. Compared with the work of a county councillor, the work of the paid Commissioners was very light. The House was informed that the paid Commissioners had to attend to complaints and listen to grievances, but members of the county councils had to do the same, yet they asked for no remuneration whatever. He would be sorry for Scotland if she had sunk so low that she could produce no patriotic man to fill the position of chairman to this Board without what was termed by the right hon. Gentleman payment by fees, but which he preferred to call tips. He did not believe Scotland had fallen so low as that, and he would be glad to know what means had been taken to obtain a chairman. Plenty of men would have come forward if proper announcements had been made in the press. The two unpaid Commissioners were lawyers, and if their tips came to £200 each, only a miserable £100 was left for the chairman, who was expected to devote much of his time to the business. If the work had so much increased then another man should be found, who should be paid a salary for the work he was expected to do. If this proposal were once adopted
  1020
  it would have to be extended until in the end all the members of every public body in Scotland would have to be paid. An objection to the scheme was the amount of other work which these proposed Commissioners already had to do. Sir John Cheyne is a sheriff, and it is said he is also Procurator of the Church of Scotland. He might be engaged in connection with either of these positions at the very time when his assistance was required on the Board. The principle was entirely wrong, and if work was required to be properly done, the only system was to pay a salary to a suitable man to do it. He opposed the Bill, which in its present form he contended ought to be scouted by every Scottish Member.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL: This is not a very important measure, but I rise to say that I shall not be able to vote for it. The Bill has been denounced as a job, and it has been pointed out that if anything in the nature of a job were contemplated something more heroic than the present proposals should have been brought forward. But no one who knows the Secretary for Scotland would for one moment suspect him of jobbery. Unfortunately, however, there are people who do not know the Secretary for Scotland personally, and to them this Bill must wear something of the aspect of a job. But it is not on that ground that I oppose it, but on the ground that the provision which is made for a change in the department concerned does not seem to me to be of a thorough character. Officials holding the important posts mentioned in the Bill should be either paid or unpaid, but this measure proposes to create an official who is neither the one nor the other. If, as the Lord Advocate pointed out, and I think he made out his case, there has been a great increase in the amount of work with which the Department has to deal, that is a strong ground for creating another paid post in the Department, and I, for one, should have been very glad to vote a sufficient salary

  1021
  for the purpose. But the present proposal to give some £300 to the Chairman and £100 to each of the unpaid Commissioners seems to me to be giving £500 where it is not wanted, and so far as I can see is not likely to bring any adequate return.
  SIR T. GIBSON-CARMICHAEL: I did not have the pleasure of hearing the Lord Advocate's defence of this Bill, but I have gathered from subsequent speeches the line he took. I listened with delight to the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Mid Lanark. He elaborated certain points which pleased me very much. He said he did not know very much about Scotch affairs, but he proceeded to show that he knew a great deal about the affairs of the Lunacy Board. I was Chairman of that Board for some years, and although I may know as much as, or more than, the hon. Member claims to know of Scotch affairs, I will not claim to know so much of the affairs of the Lunacy Board. What knowledge I have, however, comes from personal experience, whereas his knowledge, as far as I can make out, comes from hearsay. With regard to this Bill I may say at once that I differ from the hon. Member for Mid Lanark in one matter. He said that what this Bill is intended to carry into effect was never desired until the present Government came into power. I was not appointed Chairman of the Lunacy Board by a Tory Government, and certainly there was no idea that any part of my composition was Tory, but I may say that at that time it was the feeling of members of the Board that something in the nature of the first clause of this Bill was most desirable. I think the clerical staff might be improved, although I do not believe the individual members of that staff could be bettered. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark suggests that an advocate would be better as Secretary of the Board. Perhaps I do not know so much about advocates as he does, but my own opinion is that we are very much better off with a man who is not an advocate. Our secretary has always discharged his duties most efficiently, but it always struck me
  1022
  that the clerical staff were very much I over-burdened in the way of work. The Act under which the Board was formed was passed in 1864, and the work has increased very much since then. At the time of my chairmanship there was a report wanted with regard to the increase of lunacy in Scotland. Apparently the Members of this House wanted to know whether the increase of lunacy was due, as was said in the case of England, to the increased consumption of whisky, or whether, as was said in the case of Ireland, to the increased consumption of tea. It was not long before the members of the Lunacy Board made up their minds that it was due to neither the one nor the other, but in consequence of the clerical pressure it was some time before we could supply the report in the form in which this House required it. I believe that the Government by passing the first clause of this Bill, at any rate, would be doing a good thing for Scotland. But why is that clause, together with the third, confined to the secretary and the clerks? There are other persons belonging to the Lunacy Board, such as the paid Commissioners and the Deputy Commissioners. They may be adequately remunerated—possibly they are; if the Government tell me so I shall believe it. But their work has increased quite as much as that of anyone else. In the year 1864, when the present system began, these Commissioners had to visit the lunacy establishments of Scotland as they do now. They then paid 4,930 visits in the year. That was the work remunerated as Parliament thought fit in 1864. In 1898 these men for the same remuneration had to pay 15,671 visits. If you make a change at all, one class should be treated the same as the other, and, perhaps, it would be better to leave them to the tender mercies of the Treasury to provide whatever remuneration was thought proper. As to the second clause, which, perhaps, is, after all, the important clause, as it is not proposed to be retrospective, I do not feel very much affected by it. I believe the lawyers, the sheriffs, and the Crown Agent are extremely useful. They used to turn up at the meetings and give advice on technical matters, which I certainly could not have given to the medical members of the Board. There was no compulsion on them to attend the meetings; but I, as chairman, I should have been very sorry if they had

  1023
  not come. I cannot say, however, that I ever heard them complain about not getting a salary. It has been asked why they should be paid, seeing that the legal members of the Prisons Board are not paid. The position is quite different. The legal members of the Prisons Board are ex officio members of that Board, and therefore it is part of their duties as sheriff or Crown Agent. If the Lord Advocate assures us that the lawyers of Scotland are not willing to discharge these duties without payment, I suppose we must swallow the clause. You must have lawyers on the Board, because matters arise which only a lawyer can deal with. But with regard to the chairman, I confess I do not feel so happy. I mean to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, but I am not convinced that the chairman should be paid. When I was invited to occupy that position the motive which actuated me in accepting the office was that I thought it an honour to be connected with the administration of Scotland. I think it would be a pity if that tradition were broken, and I therefore hope the Government will reconsider the point so far as the chairman is concerned. You can hardly give these lawyers less than £250 apiece, or if you cut them down to £200 you have only £100 left to be given, as has been said, in occasional "tips" to the chairman. I do not think you will obtain a better chairman by that means. On the contrary, it is my firm belief that on either side of politics you will always be able to get men to do work of that sort without pay.
  MR. RENSHAW: I rise for the purpose of expressing the hope that the Government before this debate is brought to a conclusion will give us some further light upon the proposal in the second clause of the Bill. The speeches which have been delivered to-night have been principally addressed to the provision in the second clause. There is almost unanimity in regard to the first clause. We all wish to see the paid officials of the Lunacy Board, whether they are paid Commissioners or Deputy Commissioners or clerks, given adequate remuneration, and I am quite sure
  1024
  that all who represent Scotland in this House will feel that there is much to be urged in favour of the first clause of this Bill. It is only when we come to discuss the provision of the second clause that there seems to be ground for difference of opinion. What I regard as the unfortunate feature of the measure is that it seems for the first time to propose the partial payment of those connected with public offices in Scotland. It is unfortunate, not only in regard to the specific proposal in the second clause, but also because of the effect it will have upon the whole of our representative system in Scotland. What we want to secure for public offices throughout Scotland—a large proportion of which are unpaid—are the very best services that can be obtained in the country. Even in regard to the proposal itself, the £500 is so inadequate, having regard to the duties to be performed, that in place of being a benefit to even the three gentlemen who have been alluded to to-night, it will be absolute injury, and especially will it be a great injury having regard to the manner in which it will affect the whole question throughout Scotland. I hope some member of the Government will tell us, before a division is taken, that in Committee some proposal will be made, either to change the form of the proposal and to appoint another assistant Commissioner—because that seems to be what really is needed—or else to get rid of one of the legal advisers. I have no doubt that two legal advisers to a public board of this kind are rather a stumbling block than otherwise. Doctors differ, and no doubt legal gentlemen differ as well. If you removed one of the legal officers from this Board and put another medical officer upon it you would make a desirable change. I enter my protest, so far as this clause is concerned, against this proposal for partial payment. I think it is the most serious feature of the Bill, and on that ground I would urge the Government to reconsider this portion of their measure.
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: I venture to say that this proposal has placed the whole of the Scotch Members in a very difficult position. As

  1025
  the hon. Member has just remarked, there seems to be very little difference of opinion with regard to the first clause. There is practical unanimity in regard to the increased payment for the overworked clerical staff at present engaged. It certainly puts us in a somewhat ungracious position that we should feel ourselves forced to vote against the measure, because such a course of action may be interpreted as being in a sense adverse to those officers whose services we desire heartily to commend. But I cannot help thinking that the second clause is the whole point of the Bill. The proposal is a great administrative change. It proposes to introduce into Scotland a new system, but we have had no proof whatever from the Government that such a change is required. The statement which has more than any other affected me with regard to the course I should take in the division is the statement of the hon. Member for Midlothian, who was, as we know, a most able, industrious, and efficient chairman of a Lunacy Board in Scotland. No one more able ever occupied that position. We have his testimony on the floor of the House of Commons that a salary for that office is not required, and that you can get public men who will gladly devote themselves to to that sphere of usefulness without fee or reward, and that he sees no distinction between serving the State in that capacity and serving the State as chairman of a county council. This Bill proposes to make this great administrative change, but I am bound to say that I think his testimony was completely against the suggestion. I desire to add one remark with reference to another officer on that staff—namely, the sheriff. He at present holds the position, practically, of constant or occasional adviser in administrative matters. The point I desire to make is that the sheriff is a fairly highly paid official already, and I look with some apprehension upon a proposal to make offices of this kind, which at present are subsidiary to the administrative functions thrown upon the sheriffs, a ground and occasion for adding to their salaries as sheriffs of counties. The chairman does not require this salary; the sheriffs are paid already; and with regard to the third officer I do not know the grounds upon which the change is proposed.
  1026
  Therefore, while I have every sympathy with the officers mentioned in the first clause of the Bill, I feel myself bound, in face of this large administrative change, to vote against the measure.
  MR. PARKER SMITH: I am very glad that on the occasion of the discussion of this important matter we have the presence of the First Lord of the Treasury. It seems to me that a large question of principle is involved. I need hardly say that I entirely repudiate all the suggestions of jobbery or of improper motives which have been made. I am certain there is nothing whatever of the kind. But it is an entirely new principle which is being introduced in this proposal for the partial payment of a man who takes an honourable position connected with the public service. For many of the affairs of life this system of partial payment is doubtless an admirable system. In regard to companies, where the directors are only expected to give a small amount of attention to the concern, I think the payment of a reasonable amount of remuneration ensures that attention being given. I do not know any precedent for this system either in Scotland or in England of paying such salaries to men who only give a certain amount of time to the work. I hope the Government will pay some attention to this matter on larger grounds than merely Departmental considerations. I do not want to vote against the Second Reading, but I hope the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give this point their careful attention when the Bill comes on for discussion in Committee, because the second clause raises an important point to which I am not prepared to assent.
  MR. BUCHANAN: The hon. Member for Partick has called attention to the unusual character of the payment proposed to be made to these men. I should like to know from a representative of the Treasury whether there is any precedent in the public service for payments of this character. There is the sum of £500 a year to be

  1027
  distributed amongst three gentlemen in accordance with rules to be laid down by the Treasury, and it is to be distributed in any proportion which the Treasury may choose. They may fix upon the custom prevailing amongst public companies if they like, or they may distribute it as they please. As far as my knowledge goes there is no precedent for any such mode of payment in the public service, and I do not think that this is a desirable innovation to introduce into the public service. I agree with hon. Members who have spoke in favour of Clause 1. If it is the case that the Departmental work has considerably increased in recent years, then I think there should be more clerks employed. Since the Lunacy Board was instituted in Scotland in 1864 it has had only four chairmen. The first chairman was Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, who held office for about six years; he was followed by Sir John Don Wauchope, who was succeeded by the hon. Member for Midlothian; and then came the present chairman. All those gentlemen who held office down to the present time discharged their duties most ably and without any remuneration, and without ever making any demand for remuneration. I remember that when the administration of this Board was inquired into in 1870 Sir John Don Wauchope stated in evidence that when he was invited to become the chairman he was told that there was no remuneration, and that he might attend to the duties just as he pleased. He discharged the duties of chairman very ably for a great number of years, absolutely without any remuneration whatever. Is there any reason whatever why a chairman should now be paid, when during all these years this Board has discharged its work so admirably—for it has been one of the most admirably managed Boards in Scotland for administrative purposes? I do not know the gentleman who has been offered this appointment, and I have no doubt he will discharge his duties well. But there is no demand that he shall do more than his predecessors, and the same argument applies to the other unpaid members of the Board. My hon. friend has stated that we are introducing a substantial alteration into the constitution of this Board, and the Prisons Board has been alluded to. The Fishery Board contains one paid member, a sheriff, and a scientific
  1028
  member, and also one or two others to represent the local fishing interest. The sheriff, who has as much legal work as is proposed to be given to legal members under this Bill, does his work free, and no demand has been made either by the present holder or any of his predecessors for remuneration for legal work. I understand that the Lord Advocate stated that the two legal members of the Lunacy Board said they could not continue to discharge their work unless they were paid.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: No, no!
  MR. BUCHANAN: Upon that subject I am left somewhat in the dark, for I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that there would be great difficulty in getting these legal duties discharged unless they were paid for.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I explained that a very great increase of work had been cast upon certain members of the Board, and the only way to meet it was to rearrange the work. This rearrangement will cast an increased amount of work upon the legal members, and it is for that increase that we propose to make this payment.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for that explanation, for it makes the alteration proposed on the Bill greater than I anticipated. I understood that there was a difficulty in getting efficient legal members to discharge the duties of the Board, and I do not believe, as a matter of fact, that there are not members of the bar in Edinburgh eminently capable of discharging these duties who would be willing to discharge them, like their predecessors, entirely free of remuneration. The Lord Advocate now says there is going to be an alteration in the distribution of the duties and the administrative functions of this Board; the duties discharged by Assistant Commissioners in future are to be discharged by the legal members of

  1029
  the Board, and for that they are to be paid. I venture to say that this does not appear to me to be an improvement of the distribution in the administrative functions of the Board. If the ordinary work of the Board has increased the proper way to deal with it would be to appoint a new Assistant Commissioner or a Commissioner. These are the men who really do the work, and if the work has increased why not appoint another man of the same calibre and qualifications to do the increased work and not throw that work upon legal gentlemen and pay them a very inadequate salary? The First Lord of the Treasury might possibly be able to respond to the appeals made from his own side of the House and from all quarters. Whilst we are all in favour of taking any steps and voting any money to increase the efficiency of this Board, we are not prepared to commit ourselves to a Bill framed in this way which will give remuneration to gentlemen who, in past times, have discharged those duties without salary, and we are not prepared to agree, without further inquiry, to the suggestion of the Lord Advocate that increased administrative duties are to be put upon the shoulders of men who are not specially qualified to discharge them. I think we ought to have some intimation from the First Lord of the Treasury, or from some member of the Government, that they do not intend to proceed with Clause 2 as it stands, and that they are willing to modify it to meet the general views which have been expressed.
  COLONEL DENNYsaid he desired to associate himself with the objections which had been raised in regard to Clause 2. If this Bill was carried out in its entirety it would initiate a new method of paying officials which would be unsound finance. They were perfectly willing to pay well for services which they got, but they had also taken a pride in Scotland in doing their public business in an economical way. He hoped the First Lord of the Treasury would state exactly what he intended to do to meet the objections which had been raised, and spare them what was always a disagreeable task,
  1030
  namely, that of voting against the Government.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: I am sorry that no member of the Government has found it necessary to respond to the appeals which have been made from their own side of the House. I should like to pay a tribute to the Scottish lunacy administration, which is not excelled by the lunacy administration either in England or Ireland. Both in England and Ireland they have followed Scotland in the many improvements which the Scotch Lunacy Commissioners have carried out. Experts have come over from America to see our Scotch lunacy administration, and they have testified to its success. If this administration is to be strengthened, it should be done in a proper manner. I feel sure that if the first clause of the Bill were to be put to the vote it would be agreed to unanimously. The Lord Advocate, on behalf of the Scotch Office, has said that it is necessary for the efficient administration of this Board that the salaries should be increased, and that if we wish further to strengthen the administration we ought to do it in the way suggested by the hon. Baronet opposite and others, by increasing the expert branch of the Board. The Lord Advocate said the number of private patients had doubled within the last few years, but it is not the slightest good sending these patients anything but experts who can give evidence and report upon the condition of these patients. The Board ought to be strengthened in its administrative capacity, and the money should be paid to secure the best men that can be got. In Scotland we are under a considerable disadvantage as compared with England in the way our medical officers are paid. In Scotland the salaries of medical officers were limited by statute in 1864, but so recently as 1890 the medical officers under the Lunancy Commissioners in England were placed in a different position by statute, and there is now no restriction to their salaries in England. Though the grievance is not touched and does not arise specially under this second clause, we are in Scotland under considerable disad-

  1031
  vantage in respect to payment given to the medical officers who are employed by the Lunacy Commissioners. Exception has been taken to the second clause on the ground that it introduces the principles of payment for public work. My objection does not take quite the same form as that which has been expressed by some hon. Members who have spoken in this debate. My view is that if you cannot get men without paying them you ought to pay them well. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that we should be doing a useful public service by introducing this system of payment by a far greater degree. The payment proposed under this clause is entirely inadequate, for the proper payment of gentlemen who are to discharge the duties of Commissioners is certainly not £500 a year. No one can contend that this is either adequate or proper payment, and on the ground that it is too small there is a valid objection to the proposal made in this clause. If the Lord Advocate had come to us and said the administration had broken down, and that there should be a radical change of system approximating to a Government department, it would have been a different matter. If you once depart from the principle hitherto adopted with regard to the Lunacy Commission, you will have to go a good deal further than is now proposed, and you will have to pay the members of the Fishery Board and other Boards in Scotland. In my humble judgment this proposal is not warranted by the facts, and I hope the Government will not insist upon passing the Bill with this very objectionable clause in it. After the appeals which have been made to the First Lord of the Treasury and the Government by hon. Members opposite—to which there has hardly been a dissentient voice—I think it is a very great pity that more respect is not paid to the experience and to the opinions expressed on both sides of the House.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: When I made my statement in support of this Bill there were very few Members in the House. I explained that an enormous amount of increased work had devolved upon the Board. I said that I thought my noble friend the Secretary for Scotland would have been perfectly willing to
  1032
  leave it to the House of Commons to determine whether there was a case for having a new official in some form or other, or whether we might not pursue what would be a more economical plan, by so rearranging the duties as would fix more work upon the unpaid members. I also explained that really our hands had been tied by the attacks which had been made upon my noble friend. I was glad to see that the hon. Member for Mid Lanark expressed some regret that he did make use of the words he used in attacking my noble friend, and I am glad to notice that any charge of that kind has been conspicuously absent from this debate. Of course, that puts the matter on a very different footing. If I understand that the views to which I have alluded do not in any way prevail, then I am quite sure that I am not doing too much when I say that I will take upon myself the responsibility of bringing before my noble friend the views which have been generally expressed upon this question as a matter of principle. I am perfectly willing to do that, and in the light of the remarks which have been made, my noble friend will consider the situation, and see if it might not be more prudent to provide for the extra assistance in another way. Upon that understanding I hope the House will grant the Second Reading, because, whatever the ultimate decision of the Secretary for Scotland may be, hon. Members will have another opportunity of challenging it. Undoubtedly there is much in this Bill upon which we are absolutely unanimous, and I hope the House will now agree to the Second Reading.
  MR. CALDWELL: After what the Lord Advocate has said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main question put, and agreed to; Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. GRANT LAWSON (Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk) in the Chair.]
  MR. WARNER: I have put down a small Amendment to this Bill on Clause 5, which I hope will be accepted. The clause applies to deserters who come back into the service, and by their good conduct have their desertion overlooked. I think any person who really knows the character of a soldier will agree with me that the commanding officer ought to recommend the case before the Secretary of State gives the man back his pay. I do not want to stop the man getting his pay, but I think the commanding officer is the right man to make the recommendation, and I beg to move.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 3, line 18, after the word 'may,' to insert the words 'on the recommendation of the man's commanding' officer.'"—(Mr. Warner.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I am afraid that I cannot accept the hon. Member's Amendment, but I may point out that under the clause as it stands at present it is quite impossible that the view of the commanding officer can be overlooked. I think it is most important that this power should lie in the hands of the Secretary of State, and I think this view will be accepted by the Committee. I may point out to the hon. Member that his Amendment would place a restriction upon the exercising of the prerogative of mercy by the Secretary of State of an invidious character, because this clause refers also to fraudulent enlistment, which he will have full power to forgive. Nothing has been more gratifying to me during the present war than the
  1034
  way in which the men who have deserted have come forward. I hope the hon. Member will not insist upon this Amendment. Under Section 79 the Secretary of State has power to forgive; and how illogical it would be if this Committee were now to lay down less merciful treatment.
  MR. WARNERsaid he thought there was a difference between fraudulent enlistment and simple desertion and coming back, because a man sometimes got something by fraudulent enlistment. On the understanding that the commanding officer would be consulted, he begged to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. CALDWELLsaid that the clause only referred to Section 161 of the Army Act, and that section had only reference to cases of fraudulent enlistment, and to only one kind of fraudulent enlistment, namely, where a man had three years good conduct service; and the section said that such a man should not be tried for the offence, but it also said that his prior service should be forfeited. That referred to fraudulent enlistment of a limited kind. It was perfectly true that under Section 79 there was power both as to desertion and fraudulent enlistment, but as the matter was presented by the Under Secretary of State for War he was perfectly correct in saying that the clause did not do what the Under Secretary said it did.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am prepared to recognise anything, now that the hon. Gentleman recognises that this Amendment is properly drawn by the legal advisers of the War Office.
  MR. KEARLEYhad upon the Paper the following Amendment—
  "In page 3, after Clause 2, to insert the following Clause: 'The provisions of the Army Act, enabling marine officers to sit on courts martial ashore, shall in future be extended to courts martial on marines afloat.'"
  THE CHAIRMAN: The new clause standing in the name of the hon. Member for Devonport is out of order.
  MR. KEARLEY: On a point of order, may I state that my Amendment has been already moved in Committee on this Bill. I do not wish to argue with the Chairman, but on the occasion to which I refer a distinct pledge was given that this particular Amendment would be accepted at a later stage. It was in 1891, and the Amendment was moved by Mr. Pope Hennessey in the identical terms in which it now appears on the Paper, and the First Lord of the Admiralty of that day gave a pledge that the Amendment would be accepted in some form. The present Speaker of the House on another occasion, when a similar Amendment was moved on the Second Reading, said that it could not be discussed then, but that it could be dealt with when the Bill was in Committee, and the First Lord of the Treasury rather supported my contention. I merely wish to justify myself for having put the Amendment on the Paper on the present occasion.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I have very carefully considered this question. I do not think because an Amendment escaped the notice of a Chairman in one year, that therefore it is in order for all time. On the occasion to which the hon. Member refers, the First Lord of the Admiralty pointed out that the Amendment could only be received as an Amendment to the Naval Discipline Act. I have examined the other precedent referred to by the hon. Member, and I cannot find that it supports his contention.
  Clause agreed to.
  Schedule:—
  MR. WEIRasked whether any provision would be made for better sleeping accommodation for soldiers when billeted. He would also like to know what sort of breakfast an innkeeper would provide for 1½d.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The question is hardly one to be raised on the Schedule of the Army (Annual) Bill. The schedule places upon innkeepers an obligation as to prices, and it would be most inconvenient and almost impossible to discuss now so large a question as whether the British soldier is or is not fed as well as he might be.
  MR. STEADMANsaid he did not know what breakfast an innkeeper could provide for 1½d. per head. He did know that Lockhart's would only provide a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter for that sum, and it seemed to him that soldiers on the march required something more substantial than that. The Government were now asking the working classes to join the Army, and when that was the case Tommy Atkins should be treated more liberally than he had been in the past. The British soldier was only paid 1s. 3d. per day, whereas the colonial soldier received 6s. 3d. a day. That was no encouragement for an Englishman to join Her Majesty's service.
  Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported without Amendment.
  Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  MR. CALDWELLsaid he desired to take the opportunity of impressing once more on the Under Secretary of State for War the necessity for having the Army Acts consolidated. The original Act was passed in 1881, and since then it had been more or less amended almost every year. There was a peculiarity with regard to the Act. In 1885 it was provided that in all future printings of the Army Act the Amendments should be incorporated. The result was that the copy which was printed as the Act of 1881 was not the Act as it stood in the Statute-book, but as it appeared in the Queen's printer's copy with

  1037
  the Amendments inserted by later statutes, which was very inconvenient. Suppose the War Office supplied a copy of the Army Act two years ago; that would appear to be the Army Act of 1881, and if it happened to get into the hands of an officer on a court martial he might read it as the Act of 1881. Some Amendments had, however, been made on certain clauses and it was no longer the Act of 1881. The printer's copy contained the alterations which successive Parliaments had made, and it was exceedingly inconvenient to have a printer's copy purporting to be the Act of 1881, which really was not the Act passed in 1881, but an Act passed in that year which had been amended by subsequent Acts. It was almost impossible to put down an Amendment to the Army Bill without going through every Act passed since 1881 to see whether a particular section had been already amended. He himself had had to go over every Act since 1881 in order to make sure that Section 161 had not been amended. That was very inconvenient, and he thought the time had come when the Act should be put on the Statute-book as it now existed. There was no difficulty whatever in having the statutes consolidated, and if that were done it would be a great advantage.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member has put two different proposals before the House without distinguishing between them so clearly as to convey to hon. Members not familiar with the facts that they are different. He has suggested the consolidation of the Army Acts, but in another portion of his speech he seemed to point to the re-printing of the Act from time to time, so that no officer might act on a copy of the Act of 1881 in ignorance of the fact that it had been amended. Dealing first with the question of re-printing, the hon. Member said that he himself had some difficulty in following up the various Amendments, and he threw out the suggestion that some officer of the Army administering this Act might perhaps be guilty of a miscarriage of justice. I do not think that would be the case, because every officer on a court martial is bound to be guided by the Manual of Military Law, which
  1038
  gives the Act as amended, and also indicates the purport or effect of the Amendments, so that any such miscarriage of justice is impossible. I am quite ready to admit that the case for the consolidation of the Army Acts is a very strong one. It is a case which of necessity grows stronger year by year, and is now very strong indeed, and I am prepared to join with the hon. Member in a pious aspiration that the Acts may soon be consolidated.
  MR. BAYLEYasked if the 430,000 troops mentioned in the Bill included the colonial and Volunteer forces in South Africa as well as the Volunteer forces in England.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have already given the details four or five times. The number mentioned includes the troops borrowed from India, the colonial forces, the Volunteers and the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, but it does not include the Volunteers in this country.
  Question put, and agreed to; Bill read the third time, and passed.

  PALATINE COURT OF DURHAM BILL [Lords].
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,)said the Bill was the same as that introduced last year. It proposed that instead of the judge of the Palatine Court being in receipt of fees his salary should be fixed by the Lord Chancellor with the concurrence of the Treasury, and that the jurisdiction of the Court should be fixed by Her Majesty in Council. The practice of the Court would also be assimilated to the practice in other Courts. The fees now amounted to about £2,000.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a second time."—(The Attorney General.)
  MR. WARNERasked, was it usual to fix the salary

  1039
  of a judge before the office was created. Under Clause 6 Her Majesty in Council would have power to extend the jurisdiction of the Court, and he believed that it was the intention that that jurisdiction should be considerably extended. He thought both the salary of the judge and the jurisdiction of the Court ought to be fixed in the Bill.
  MR. CALDWELL: This is one of those English Bills the full effect of which is not apparent from merely reading it. The Attorney General has not given the House very much enlightenment. He did not state, for instance, that the first clause took away from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners all responsibility with reference to the Court of Palatine. It is important that we should know if the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are to be relieved of the arrangements which, at present, obtain, because they got the property in Palatinate for the purpose of paying the salary, and they have, as a matter of fact, paid that salary down to the present time out of the funds which they received. Will the Ecclesiastical Commissioners be able to appropriate these funds for the general purposes of the Commission or otherwise? No doubt, some bargain has been struck between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the Treasury, and the House is entitled to know what that bargain is, in regard to this judge's salary. The House of Commons is asked to pass a Bill leaving it to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Treasury to fix the salary. That is the confidence trick; and it is asking too much of the House. I may say I had not the remotest idea that this Bill was going to be run on to-night. It is very unfair that we should be started on a Bill of this kind when nobody expected it to come on. I know something generally of the matter, however, and I am hardly ever taken much at a disadvantage. Now, we come to Clause 3, which is the most extraordinary that could be put into a Bill. It says that the salary of the judge shall be of such an amount as the Lord Chancellor may,
  1040
  with the consent of the Treasury, direct. Now the Court of the Palatinate is equal to the Common Law Courts, and is therefore a Supreme Court; and yet the salary of this Supreme Court judge is not fixed by this House as are the salaries of other Supreme Court judges. That is a most extraordinary thing. The next section provides that at the expiry of any period of five years the Lord Chancellor, with the like concurrence of the Treasury, may vary the said salary with reference to any variance in the amount of the business of the Palatinate Court. It is an extraordinary thing to say that the salary of a Supreme Court judge may be varied. I always thought that the salaries of judges were fixed by statute, and that they could not be reduced, so that the judges might hold their office without fear or favour. But no; this judge is to be paid according to his work, and his salary may be either increased or reduced according to the variation in the amount of business in his court. In that way if a judge wants to keep up his salary, he must keep up the business of his court. If he lets down the business of his court by dispensing justice in half an hour instead of lingering over it for two hours, he will find his salary reduced at the end of five years. I think that is an extraordinary thing to put into an Act of Parliament. These two clauses are quite sufficient to justify us in saying that a Bill of this importance should not be sprung upon the House at twenty-five minutes to twelve, and read a second time. But the Bill goes further. It is a Bill to extend the jurisdiction of the Court. The jurisdiction may be extended, it says, by the Queen in Council. I think it is not a very usual, and not a very appropriate thing that the jurisdiction of the Law Courts should be left to the haphazard Orders in Council. The jurisdiction should be fixed by Act of Parliament. Who knows about Orders in Council? Where can you get them if you go to search for them? Everyone knows about an Act of Parliament, and nobody can be excused of ignorance of an Act of Parliament. Nobody but an expert lawyer knows anything about Orders in Council, and if you ask an expert lawyer he would charge a fee for it. I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday.

  POLICE RESERVISTS (ALLOWANCES) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. GRANT LAWSON (Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk) in the Chair.]
  MR. BILLmoved to leave out Sub-section 2. This sub-section raised a very important question. It provided that the local authority, such as the Standing Joint Committee in Counties, was to be liable to give compensation to police Reservists who were wounded in the war. His own council had passed a resolution to the effect that, inasmuch as the constable could not be regarded at the time he joined the colours as in their service, the gratuity should be provided out of the military funds and not out of the police funds. Now the position of a police Reservist who was severely wounded would be worse under this sub-section than if he had been injured at home while on duty as a policeman. He wanted to know whether the gratuity under the sub-section would be in addition to what would be granted by the War Office, or in substitution for it. If the gratuity was the only sum that was to be awarded in compensation for disablement or death, then it ought to be very much increased. He did not think when a policeman gave up his position at home and went abroad to fight for his country, he should be put in any worse position in case of injury than if he had remained in the police force. Then if the money was to be paid wholly out of local funds municipal corporations would refuse to employ Reservists, and that would be a great disadvantage to both the Reservists and corporations.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, line 4, to leave out Sub-section (2)."—(Mr. Bill.)
  Question proposed, "That Sub-section (2) stand part of the clause."
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. JESSE COLLINGS,): I hope my hon. friend will not press this Amendment. I would point out to him in regard to the burden that is to be thrown on the municipalities, that it is quite permissive. Some local authorities have already granted the gratuities, and unless we pass this clause, these grants would be illegal. The grant of the local authorities is quite independent of what comes from the War Office.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. PARKER SMITHsaid, on behalf of his hon. friend the Member for West Renfrew, he begged to move the Amendment standing on the Paper. The clause as it at present stood was, he thought, liable to doubt.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, line 8, to leave out the words 'if he returns to' in order to insert the words 'in the event of his reinstatement in.'"—(Mr. Parker Smith.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I hope my hon. friend will not press this Amendment. No doubt there may be a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of these words; but in framing this Bill we adopted the words of the Act of 1890. There is a question of sentiment in the matter. It is said that when you reinstate a man there is a feeling that he has done something that was not quite right; but that if you speak of him as returning to the force, it takes away from the idea of reflection upon him.
  MR. PARKER SMITHsaid he was satisfied that the matter had been brought before the attention of the Home Office.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill reported. As amended, to be considered on Thursday.

  ELECTORAL DISABILITIES (MILITARY SERVICE) BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  Amendments made.
  Another Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 24, after the word 'of,' to insert the words 'or arising out of.'"—(Mr. Tomlinson.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  NAVAL RESERVE (MOBILISATION) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. CALDWELLsaid he confessed he was extremely surprised that the Second Reading of a Bill of this great importance should be moved at about three minutes from twelve o'clock. As no explanation of the Bill had been given from the Government side of the House, it would be necessary for him to give some explanation of it.
  It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Thursday.

SUPPLY [30TH MARCH].
Resolutions reported:—
SUPPLY [30TH MARCH].
  CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES, 1900–1901.

    CLASS I.
    1. "That a sum, not exceeding £29,000, 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, 1901, for expenditure in
    1044
    respect of Royal Palaces and Marlborough House."

    2. "That a sum, not exceeding £73,000, 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, 1901, for the Royal Parks, and Pleasure Gardens."

    Resolutions agreed to.

    COAL MINES (PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOUR UNDERGROUND) BILL.
    Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time and passed.
    ANCIENT MONUMENTS PROTECTION BILL.
    Considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered to-morrow.
    TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    Read a second time, and committed to the Standing Committee on Law, &c.
    BOILERS' REGISTRATION AND INSPECTION.
    The Select Committee was nominated of—Sir William Arrol, Mr. Crombie, Mr. Emmott, Mr. Fenwick, Sir Fortescue Flannery, Mr. Galloway, Sir Edward Gourley, Mr. Hazell, Mr. Heath, Sir Alfred Hickman, Sir William Houldsworth, Mr. M'Ghee, Mr. Penn, Colonel Pilkington, and Mr. Renshaw.—(Sir William Walrond.)
NEW BILL.
  EXECUTORS (SCOTLAND).
  Bill to amend the Law of Executors in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Thomas Shaw, Mr. Renshaw, Mr. Ure, Mr. Orr-Ewing, Mr. Caldwell, and Mr. Dewar.

  EXECUTORS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law of Executors in Scotland, presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Friday, 27th April, and to be printed. [Bill 166.]
  House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve of the clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiner's that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—

Hamilton Burgh.

Redhill Gas.

Grantham Gas.

And also the Certificate that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have not been complied with:—
Bray Urban District Council.
The same were ordered to lie on Table.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  EXMOUTH URBAN DISTRICT WATER BILL [H.L.]
  MOUNTAIN ASH WATER BILL [H.L.].
  Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.

  EDINBURGH CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  The Queen's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
  BURNLEY CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
  COLONIAL BANK BILL
  Reported without Amendment.

  COWES PIER BILL [H.L.]
  SOUTHAMPTON HARBOUR BILL [H.L.].
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  GREAT BERKHAMPSTEAD WATER BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3a; Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  NEW RUSSIA COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
  ARMY AND NAVY INVESTMENT TRUST BILL [H.L.].
  BARRY RAILWAY (STEAM VESSELS). BILL [H.L.].
  CLEETHORPES GAS BILL [H.L.].
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  EDINBURGH DISTRICT LUNACY BOARD BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3a; Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
  SCOTTISH AMERICAN INVESTMENT COMPANY, LIMITED, BILL [H.L.]
  Standing Order No. 91 considered (according to order), and dispensed with, with respect to the said Bill; and Bill read 2a.

  CHESHIRE, LINES COMMITTEE BILL.
  GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
  SPALDING URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (WATER) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.

  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  DEARNE VALLEY RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
  NEATH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.].
  TAFF VALE RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
  FISHGUARD AND ROSSLARE RAILWAYS AND HARBOURS BILL [H.L.].
  RHYMNEY RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
  CORK ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.].
  SOUTH ESSEX WATER BOARD BILL [H.L.].
  SOUTH ESSEX WATER BILL [H.L.].
  Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills, viz.—

  E. Lauderdale (Chairman),

  E. Carnwath,

  L. Barnard,

  L. Smiley (E. Arran),

  L. Farquhar;

  agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly. The Committee to meet on Wednesday the 2nd of May next, at

  919
  eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 2393. France (Trade of La Rochelle and District for the year 1899).

  CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Forty-seventh Report of the Charity Commissioners.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN ENGLAND).
  Return of all loans raised in England under the provisions of any Acts of Parliaments chargeable on the revenues of India outstanding at the commencement of the half year ended on the 31st March, 1900, with the rates of interest and total amount payable thereon, etc.; laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
PETITION.
  EDUCATION (REVISED CODE).
  Petition for postponement of the proposals recommended with regard to the assessment of the grants; of the Barrow-in-Furness School Board; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

  PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN: My Lords, this is practically the Bill which I introduced last year, and which, after some discussion, passed the Second Reading and through Committee of the whole House, with the exception that in its present form it gives effect to some suggestions made by, amongst others, the
  920
  noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. The object of the Bill is to check, by making them criminal, a large number of inequitable and illegal secret payments. I do not propose, at this stage, to do more than formally move the Second Reading.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Russell of Killowen.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): I am sure none of us have any doubt that the object aimed at by this Bill is one which all must desire to see attained. The difficulty in such legislation, however, has always been that you might either do too much or too little. But if the noble and learned Lord should succeed in carrying the present Bill, he will suppress a practice which we must all recognise is injurious to society and the State, and he will be entitled to the gratitude of the country. So far as I am concerned, I will do all I can to help the noble and learned Lord in the matter, and I earnestly hope that he may succeed in solving a problem which, for many years, has sought a solution, but has never yet found it.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: My Lords, although this Bill will, I am sure, pass with unanimity in your Lordships' House, I wish to say a few words in support of it. Some twenty-five years ago, in conjunction with the late Mr. Russell Gurney, I tried my hand at a Bill for the purpose of stopping the practice of giving illicit commissions. I must confess that our efforts were not successful, for it was pointed out to us that we had framed our Bill in such a way that anyone who gave a small sum to a railway porter was liable to imprisonment. I am pleased to observe that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice has surmounted those difficulties, and it seems to me that the Bill as framed will be sufficient and efficient for the purpose aimed at. Though my noble and learned friend, on the introduction of the Bill last year, made a full statement of the evils he sought to deal with, I am not quite sure that even now your Lordships, and, still less, the public, are aware of the great extent to which this evil system has been carried, or of its far-reaching effects. Some years ago a suit was instituted before the late Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, by a large firm of merchants at Bombay, who com-

  921
  plained that their shipping agent in Lancashire had systematically charged them with a very large amount of commission which he had no right to charge. The merchants, for instance, would order certain printed calico. The white calico had to be bought, bleached, dyed, printed, packed in boxes, and shipped, and in every one of those processes, representing so many trades, the commission agent had received two invoices, one for the merchant abroad and the other, the real invoice, for the commission agent; and investigation showed that the transactions were so conducted as to make, in respect of one process, a difference of 70 per cent. in favour of the commission agent. With good consistency the commission agent also charged commission on the sum he had pocketed. In the course of the hearing Sir George Jessel inquired of the eminent counsel who appeared for the commission agent what was the answer to the charge; and the reply was that the practice was universal throughout the whole shipping trade in Lancashire, and was prevalent elsewhere. Sir George Jessel asked, "Are you about to prove that?" and counsel replied, "Yes, I have a mass of evidence. There are a large number of most respectable people in court to give evidence in proof that the practice is universal." Sir George Jessel said, "You can send those respectable people home; they have come to prove an iniquitous practice, and the sooner they leave the court the better." Judgment went in favour of the firm of merchants, but I have no doubt the practice was universal. There was another case in connection with a very large industrial and manufacturing business in the Midland counties, in which the cashier was charged with the embezzlement of several thousands of pounds. He admitted that he had not accounted for the money, but pleaded he had paid it away in commissions on behalf of the firm. When this was mentioned to the directors, who were prosecuting, they said it was nonsense, and that they had already allowed for the commissions. Books were produced showing that thousands upon thousands a year were paid away in commissions, and it was stated that the firm could seldom get contracts and could never secure the passing of their goods unless they paid these commissions to the people behind the scenes. This surely is a matter of great importance. The evil of the
  922
  system is not only that the money goes out of the pockets of persons who ought not to pay it into the pockets of those who ought not to receive it. That is not the extent of the evil. The whole practice is demoralising, and one of the consequences is that the person purchasing generally gets an inferior article. I will give your Lordships a concrete case. A submarine cable had to be laid. Tenders were advertised for, obtained, and opened, and the contractors whose tender was about to be accepted, and the amount of whose tender approximated to the real value of a good cable which would answer the requirements contained in the advertisement, were told by those behind the scenes that before the contract would be given to them they would have to pay commission amounting to some £100,000. What was the result? The contracting company were compelled to consider their shareholders. They could not make a profit if they paid this large sum of money in commissions, and so were compelled to deliver an inferior cable, which, in the course of a few months, frayed away, and when lifted was found to be so badly constructed that it could not properly be repaired, and the whole of the £600,000 which had been spent upon the undertaking was entirely lost. Surely evils like these are worthy of the attention of the Legislature. I do not know anyone more capable of dealing with this phase of commercial dishonesty than one who administers justice, and who constantly sees the evils that arise from the system. I sincerely congratulate the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, on the introduction of this Bill, and I trust that with the good aid of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack he may be able to carry into law this measure, which will tend to the destruction of an evil and disgraceful system.
  LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWER: My Lords, I am glad that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the noble and learned Lord who has just addressed the House find themselves able to give such cordial support to this Bill. The evils of the system of illicit secret commissions have been pointed out so frequently that I do not propose to trouble your Lordships now with any observations upon them. The matter could not have been more pithily stated than it was some time ago in the columns

  923
  of The Times newspaper. The Times published an article in reference to the correspondence on the matter which had appeared in its columns, in the course of which it said—
  "First came solicitors accused of betraying the trust of their employers, and leaguing with third parties to divide fees to which they had no sort of just claim. Then followed bankers, auctioneers, architects, insurance agents, and accountants. There does not seem, in short, to be any end to the ramification of this canker, which has grown to such a height as to threaten the extinction of honest plain-dealing altogether, It may be traced, indeed, through a much wider ramification than the correspondence we have published has as yet disclosed, and through all shades of questionableness, from direct bribery of the most corrupt kind, such as that of the architect or engineer who receives douceurs from the contractors and tradesmen whom he is bound to overlook, to the more venial, but still not justifiable, gifts or 'discounts' or 'half commissions' which nominally unpaid agents, such as bankers, may receive from a broker."
  I am glad to be able to say that the public discussion of this question has already worked for the public advantage. I have received a great many communications from firms, notably from some in the printing trade, which was the theatre of some of the most pernicious of these practices, to the effect that they are binding themselves together so as by co-operation on their part to do away with the system. This Bill comes before your Lordships and before the public under circumstances which I venture to think are unique. It has been circulated more widely and has received a larger amount of what I may call representative support than any Bill I know of. I will only trouble your Lordships with two or three of the more important instances. The Association of Trade Protection Societies, representing seventy-four societies and comprising 34,000 members, passed a resolution unanimously expressing—
  "the necessity for a great effort being made to attack, expose, and eradicate the pernicious system of illicit secret commissions."
  Another even more important resolution is the one passed by the Congress of Co-operative Societies, including a membership of one million and a half, representing a capital exceeding £20,000,000, and with a yearly turn-over in trade of nearly £70,000,000. The resolution was as follows—
  "That this Congress expresses its strong approval of the principle of the Bill promoted by the Lord Chief Justice with the object of
  924
  bringing the practice of giving and taking secret and illicit commissions in trade and commerce under the Criminal Law, believing that such practices are seriously demoralising to individual character, injurious to industrial and commercial enterprise of every kind, and especially destructive and harmful to all forms of co-operation and to municipal and public bodies generally, and we trust that the means of putting the principle of the Bill in operation will be unrestricted."
  A similar resolution was passed by the Manchester Society of Chartered Accountants and by a public meeting held in Birmingham to consider the Bill; and those resolutions were passed not upon the general principle of the measure, but after they had had the opportunity of seeing and fully considering the Bill itself. The Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, representing ninety-three Chambers of Commerce, passed the following resolution during the last month—
  "That this Association approves in principle of the Prevention of Corruption Bill introduced in the Session of 1899 by Lord Russell of Killowen, and trusts that, with such amendments as may be necessary on points of detail, the measure may pass into law during the present session."
  Only this morning, as I was coming down to your Lordships' House, I received a letter from a gentleman who does not wish his name to be made public, but whom I personally know, which I think is worth reading to your Lordships because it justifies the remark of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that the ramifications of this system are almost infinite. My correspondent is in a large way of business as a carriage maker and seller, and is also a large buyer of horses. He writes—
  "The custom of coach builders giving commissions to the servants of their customers is universal, and I know of no exceptions. The rate varies from 2½ to 5 per cent. on new carriages, and as much as 10 per cent. on repairs. It would be impossible for a coach-builder to continue his business in the present state of the law if he did not give commissions, owing to the fact that carriages require extraordinary care taken of them in the way of washing off the mud, etc., and if a coachman did not receive his commission he would not take that extra care of his carriage, and in six months the carriage would have suffered very greatly, and yet nothing could be proved against the coachman. The result would be a customer would have a damaged carriage and the coach builder's reputation would have suffered. With regard to horses, I have bought several hundreds and know something of the trade, and it is the usual practice for the coachman to receive 'the shillings' (as the

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  shilling in each guinea is called in the trade), and though I think in many cases the coachman does not ask for it, it is hard for him to refuse if the dealer offers it on condition of his master buying the horse. In the building trade commissions are paid to servants for repairs and decorations to houses, but not on a serious scale. It is within my own knowledge that the general practice amongst provision dealers is to give commissions to the servants; and I know of a cook who was approached by a provision dealer with a bribe to actually spoil in the cooking the provisions supplied by a rival firm, and when the cook refused she was approached a second time, and then she informed her master of the circumstances."
  I hope I shall have the benefit of the advice of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack as to the best way of dealing with this Bill, in order to secure its passing into law at as early a period as possible.
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.

  PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL [H.L.]
  Amendments reported (according to order).
  LORD WINDSOR: In consequence of the insertion of Clause 4 in the Standing Committee the Irish Office have drawn my attention to a consequential Amendment. The Libraries Offences Act, 1898, does not apply to Ireland, and therefore it will be necessary to move an Amendment in Clause 11. I will submit that Amendment on the Third Reading.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL: I have to say, on behalf of the Local Government Board, that they entirely accept the Bill as it stands.
  Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.
  Home adjourned at ten minutes before Five of the clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten of the clock.