Sitting of 21 June 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  SHANNON WATER AND ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  Order [22nd March], That the Shannon Water and Electric Power Bill be committed to the Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection for the consideration of other Private Bills relating to electric power, read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the order be discharged."—(The Chairman of Ways end Means.)
  *MR, JOHN ELLISremarked that he quite understood the reasons for removing this Bill from the Special Committee mentioned, but thought that it was important it should be referred to a Committee of no inferior status.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,)replied that the Bill was not affected in any way by the questions which the Special Committee had been appointed to consider in connection with the Electric Lighting Bills. The only question involved in it was one relating to fisheries, and he really could not understand how it came to be put in the group of Electric Lighting Bills. The Special Committee which had been sitting since the beginning of May had still a heavy Bill to deal with, and under the circumstances he hoped that the House would accept this resolution and allow this particular Bill to go to another Committee.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  GREAT INDIAN PENINSULA RAILWAY COMPANY BILL [ANNUITIES] (BY ORDER).
  Resolution reported:—" That it is expedient to authorise the creation of Annuities to be charged on and payable out of the Revenues of India in lieu of the sum of money amounting to £34,859,217 17s. 6d. agreed upon for the purchase by the Secretary of State in
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  Council of India of the undertaking of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, and the payment of any costs and expenses incurred by the said Secretary of State under any Act of the present session for vesting the said undertaking in the said Secretary of State in Council of India; and also any costs, charges, and expenses of obtaining and passing the said Act not provided by the surplus profits arising from the said undertaking for the half-year ending the 30th day of June, 1900."
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  *MR. JOHN ELLISsaid that he yesterday took the somewhat unusual course of objecting to this stage being passed. In view of the fact that it was merely a Report from the House in Committee, he would not enter into the matter at length; but he would, like again to emphasise his opinion that this matter should have been dealt with in a public instead of a private Bill, and he proposed to raise that point when the Bill itself came before the House.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he understood it would not be competent for anyone at this stage to raise the point alluded to by his hon. friend, but he would like to recall to the memory of the noble Lord a strong Report signed by himself on a similar occasion, protesting against dealing with matters of this character in private Bills. He would further like to ask what the noble Lord anticipated would be the future history of the Bill. Would it go to the Unopposed Private Bill Committee, or would it be sent to a Select Committee? He held that in a matter of this magnitude the House should be afforded an opportunity, through a Select Committee, of examining the provisions of a Bill which imposed a charge of 35 millions on the Indian revenues, and he believed that if the noble Lord would only suggest that the Bill be sent to a Select Committee that would at once be done.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I think there is still some misunderstanding with regard to the Bill.

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  As a matter of fact, it was not necessary to apply to Parliament in order to acquire possession of this railway. Contracts were made and sanctioned by Acts of Parliament passed many years ago, which enabled the East India Company to enter into negotiations with certain railway companies, for guaranteeing the interest on their capital and for an option of purchase. I was informed by my legal advisers that that option of purchase could be exercised, and that all the arrangements could be made so far as the purchase is concerned. But the stock of this railway is largely held by trustees, and I am told that unless some special arrangement is made in connection with annuities it may be very difficult for trustees to hold their stock hereafter. The transaction is quite simple and above board, and I am ready to agree to any procedure that may be desired, provided it will not delay the conclusion of the business. But I am bound by the form and practice of the House. It is a private Bill, and I understand that it will go to the Chairman of Ways and Means. I assume that it is not opposed, and that it will in the ordinary course come back to this House without going to a Committee.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company Bill, that they have power to make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution. —(Secretary Lord George Hamilton.)

  BLACKPOOL, ST. ANNE'S, AND LYTHAM TRAMWAYS BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  COWES PIER BILL [Lords].
  Queen's consent signified; read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL [Lords],
    MOTHERWELL WATER BILL [Lords.]
    Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.

  DUBLIN CORPORATION BILL AND CLONTARF URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL (JOINT COMMITTEE).
  Sir UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH reported from the Joint Committee on the
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  Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill, That the parties promoting the Dublin Corporation Bill had stated that the evidence of Frederick C. Pilkington, D.L., J.P., of Westbury, Stillorgan, county Dublin, was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said Frederick C. Pilkington do attend the said Committee on Monday next, 25th June, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
  Ordered, That Frederick C. Pilkington do attend the Joint Committee on the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill on Monday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

  WEST HAM CORPORATION BILL.
  Reported from the Select Committee on Police and Sanitary Regulations Bills (Section B), with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Central London Railway Bill, without Amendment.
  That they have agreed to—Stockpor Corporation Tramways Bill, Wakefield Corporation Market Bill, Ossett Corporation Gas Bill, Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Bill, with Amendments.
  That they have agreed to Amendments to—Lancashire Inebriates Acts Board Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under The Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870, relating to Abergele Gas, Irthlingborough Gas, Littlehampton Gas, Lymington Gas, Mablethorpe and Sutton Gas, and Romford Gas." Gas Orders. Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [Lords].

  GAS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 1) BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 263.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
  Reported, without Amendment [Pro-

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  visional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

PETITIONS.
  COAL MINES (PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOUR UNDERGROUND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmarnock, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COUNTY COUNCILLORS (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmarnock, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmarnock, against; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions against, from Cullen, Fraser-burgh, Banff, and Royal, Parliamentary, and Police Burghs of Scotland; to lie upon the Table.
  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS BILL
  Petitions against, from Shoreditch, and Enfield; to lie upon the Table.
  INEBRIATES AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Dunfermline, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LANDS VALUATION (SCOTLAND) ACT (1854) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND VALUES TAXATION (SCOT-LAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Kilmarnock; and Dundee; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS OF SALE) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmarnock, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING ACTS AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmarnock, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petition from Erith, in favour; to lie, upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT (1894) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LUNACY BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.

  PETTY CUSTOMS ABOLITION. (SCOT LAND) BILL.
  Petition from Linlithgow, against; to lie upon the Table.
  Petition from Dunfermline, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  RATING OF WOODLANDS.
  Petition from West Ham, for alteration, of law; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Romford; Swindon; Walsingham; Ploughfield; Sandbach; Norwich; Morpeth; Kempston; Bampton; Caerphilly; Boston; Houghton - le - Spring; Broadwindsor; Stourbridge; Brighton; Wolverhampton; Ruckhall; Dorstone; Shenmore; Cage-brook; and Powchurch; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions against, from Torquay; and Darlington; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour, from Watchet; Tettenhall Wood; Winchester (five); Ossett; Stockport; Rochester; King's Lynn; Clungunford; Croydon; Swindon (two); Hebden Bridge; Porthleven; Llorney; Lewisham; Withnell Fold; Caerphilly; Salford (two); South Hiendley; Royston; Shivemoor; Portishead; Hersham; Jarrow; Sutton; Bedford (two); Andover; Macclesfield; Bampton; Pontypridd; Chelmsford; Nailsea; Exmouth; Morley; Ampthill; Kempston; Maulden; Biggleswade; Shillington;, Bratton Fleming; Morley; Land Key; Langridgeford; Leicester; Wigston Magna; Loddiswell; Tiverton; Llandrindod Wells; Llangunllo; Mirfield; Bradford (three); Pontnewynydd; Penybont;

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  Bideford; Abbotsham; Longridge; Walsall; Newchurch; Morpeth (two); Cranborne; Langton; Heckington Fen; Sleaford; Cornsay (three); South Moor; Dulwich; Walsall; Penge; Hull (eight); Blackburn; Edinburgh; Walsingham; Aspatria; Mary-port; Folkestone (three); Norwich; Bristol; Mansfield Woodhouse; Upper Parkstone; Walton (three); Atherstone; Longford; Hampstead Road; Warring-ton; Ore; Tolmer Square; Stonefeny; Aldeburgh; Clayton le Moors; Rishton; Little Hulton; Moseley Road; Ferndale; Hythe; Littlehampton; Bridgwater; Bedwellty (two); Brixham; Jarrow; Rugeley; Sutton-in-Ashfield; Houghton-le-Spring; Worthing; Dulverton; Ringley; Greenhithe; Dartford; Monmouth; Collingham; Llanbadarn Lower; Rad-clifte; Sheerness; Pontywain; Little Lever; Maidstone (five); Pontypridd; Thorne Branch; Kimpton; Bristol (eleven); East Kirkby (two); Weston-super - Mare; Minehead; Belvedere; Mansfield (four); Pleaseley; Pleaseley Hill (two); Liverpool; Isle of Wight; Atherstone; Hull (four); Small Heath; Guilden Morden; Nuncargate; Norwich; Platt Bridge; Lamberhead Green; Ba-cup (three); Winfarthing; Ince; Fersfield; Hindley; Abram; Fareham; East Bridgford; Liverpool; Ashley Down; Moses Gate; Little Hulton; Upton; Rawtenstall (two); Levenshulme; Rastrick; Blairgowrie; St. Pancras; Brighouse; Truro; Chapel Ashton; Audlem; Chester; Clotton; Whitegate; Bedminster; Wellington; Swanwick; Belper; St. Kikla; Jarrow-on-Tyne (five); Farnworth; Nuneaton; Radeliffe-on-Trent; Blackwood; Stow; Freshwater (three); Aughton; Great Lever; Sheffield (fifteen); Bingham; Newcastle-under-Lyne (two); Llwynadda; Aberyst-with; Bath; Nunney; Westfield; Fulham; Totterdown (six); Ryndwycly-dach; Llansamlet Higher (two); Llansainleb Lower; Gowerton; Llanguicke; St. Albans (two); Willington; Cheltenham; Waterfoot; Stroud; Threeburrows; North West Ham; Murton Colliery; Liscard; Branksome; Marylebone (two); Clapham Junction; Newent; Kingswood (three); Stratford; Market Harboro'; Baddesley; Atherstone (throe); Bistre; Buckley; Woodborough; Old Basford (four); Bulwell; Ryhope (two); Pet-worth: Marshland; Faringdon; East Hagbourne; Irby; Rossendale; Mount,
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  Tabor; New Feary; New Brighton; Heswall; Great Saughall; Birkenhead; Seacombe; Liscard; Egremont (two); Reading (three); Aylsham; Notting (three); Appledore; Oldbury; Darwen; Ilfracombe; Barnstaple; Prenton; East-ham; Beeston; Arnold; Daybrooke; Rushcliffe; Finchley Road; Ipswich; St. Thomas; Exeter (two); Hatfield; Bristol (four); Repton; Mickleover; Littleover; Middlesborough Langtoft; Bridlington: Ashby-de-la-Zouch; Plymouth; Buckfast-leigh (four); Bawell; Markham; Bury; Bulmer; St. Leonards (two); Cofncoedycymer; Merthyr Tydfil (twelve); St. Helens; Holywell Green; Burslem; Hampstead; Okehampton; Wilby; Single Hill; Streatham; Llandoxery; Burry Port; Llandilo; Slingsby; Coneystorpe; Silverhill; Amotherby; Kirkheaton; Women's Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Society; Bolton (two); Caerphilly; Treforest (two); Abercynon;. Pontypridd (three); Rhydfelen; Enfield; Llanwonno; Darwen; Westburn: Hampstead; Bressingham; Gateley; Little Ryburgh; Appleby; Troutbeck Bridge; Kentish Town (three); North Lopham; Weston-super-Mare; Bath; Hemington (two); Frome; Wellow; Single Hill; Tiverton-on-Avon; Radstock; North Petherton; Tryddyn (two); Ffynnongroew; Ystradyfodwg (two); Williams Town; Llwynypia; Birkenhead; New Brompton (two); Bolton; Rawmarsh; Rotherham; Gwyrsyllst; Fulham (two); London; Sleaford; Mexborough; Okeford Fitzpane; Luton; Romford; Hull (two); Honley; Houghton-le-Spring;. Tewkesbury Abbey; Rumbold; Hastings; Sturminster Newton; Boston; Brixham; Wolverhampton; Sharpness; Pembroke Dock; Leeds; Child's Hill; Southampton; New Brompton (two); Camberwell; Dunstable; Herne Hill; Widnes (four); Sleaford; Huddersfield; Nottingham (nine); Halo Bank; St. Day (two); Hayle; Goonbell; Camborne (two); Wil-lesden (three); Piddletrenthide; Llanedy;, Harlesden; Portesham (two); Abbotsbury (two); Whitby; Ilford; Sawbridge-worth; Rotherham; East Ham; Bland-ford; Sherborne; Great Stanmore; Stalbridge; Marnhull; Harlesden; Hendon; Winterborne Kingston; Sturrminster Newton; Okeford Fitzpaine; Ibberton; Birmingham (three); Dodworth; Romford (three); Broadwindsor; Skipton; Yetminster; Derby (two); Ambleside; Peterborough; Brighton (five); Kirkby

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  Lonsdale; Casterton; Hove; Toddington (two); Kendal; Leighton Buzzard; Kilbirnie; Cricklewood; Worcester; Little Ilford; Hull; Harold Wood; Crane Moor; Ruabon; York (five); Birdwell; Worsboro' Bridge; Worsboro' Common; Silkstone Common; Sharpenhoe; Thur-goland; Cullen; Whitby (two); Hornchurch; Finchley Lane; Luton; Wychbold; Birdwell; New Barnet (seven); Burtle; Bridgwater (three); Minehead; Stourbridge; Barlborough; Aspley Guise; Calverley; Stratton St. Margarets; Dronfiold; Beighton; Lydiard Tregooze; Sheffield (two); Preston; Staveley; Shaw; Dewsbury; Leek (four); Bradley Green; Lancaster and Cheshire Working People; Camden Road; Manchester; Cheetham Hill; Heath Town; Wolverhampton (two); Nottingham (five); Cotgrave; Hockley two); Cheadle; Devonport; Stonehonse; (two); Stoke; Boston (seven); Sutterton; Leek; Butterwick; Aspley Guise (two); Wadebridgc; Leeds; Luton; Barton; Toddington; Romford (sixteen); Newquay; Cheetham Hill Road; Chester (four); Palin Street; Baruton; Norley; Shurlack; Rathy; Mevagissey; Kingstone; Vowchurch; Ploughfield; Didley; Ruckhall; Dorstone; Shenmore; Coventry (two); Walsall; Chasetown; Burntwood; Stockport (two); Morley; Newbattle; New Invention; Knighton; Wakefield; New Lambton; Upper Park-stone; Poole; Wareham; Carlisle: Southsea; Cagebrook; East Dulwich; Troedyraur; Great Grimsby (two); Pudsey; Egremont; Cheshire; Sulcoates; Clay Cross; Great Driffield; Wimborne; Filey (two); and Kingswood; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions against, from Kirkcaldy; and Kilsyth; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour, from Bothwell; Lesmahagow; Kircaldy; Dysart; Cavsphairn; Swinton; Kingarth; Peebles; Elgin (two); Callendar; Dunnichan; Dundee (five); Glasgow; Kelvinside; Lochee; Dalziel; and Govan; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (No. 2) BILL, AND SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Bath; and Maidstone; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (NO. 2) BILL; SUN- DAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BELL; AND SALE OF INTOXICAT-; ING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Worcester, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Rotherham; Rawmarsh; Llwynypia; Gwersyllt; Drighlington; Sleaford; Okeford Fitzpaine (two); Luton (four); Ibberton; Hull; Upton Park; Tewkesbury Abbey; Sturminster Newton (two); Honley; Hastings; Rumbold; Boston (two); Evesham; Sharness; New Brompton; Dunstable; Poole; Sleaford (two) Widnes (three); Nottingham; St. Day (two); Hayle; Goonbell; Childs Hill, N.W.; Willesden (two); Llancdy: Portesham (two); East Ham; Birmingham (two); Teddington (three); St. Pauls; Broadwindsor; Kildwick; Abbotsbury (two); Kendal; Brighton (two); Hove; Kinning Park; Brentwood; Southampton; York (three); Cricklewood; Wade-bridge; Mount Charles; St. Austell (two); Charlestown; Wolverhampton (five); Hook; Stratton St. Margarets; Manchester (five); Shaw; Purton; Buckland Newton; Piddletrenthido; Whitby (five); Blandford; Sherborne; Stalbridge; Marnhull; Winterbourne; Derby; Tobay; Ambloside; Peterborough; Casterton; Kirkby Lonsdale; Romford; Ruabon; Little Ilford; Burtle; Puriton; Minehead; Stourbridge; Bridgwater; Barlborough; Sheffield (three); Staveley; Dewsbury; Aspley Guise; Biddulph; Bradley Green; Cheadle; Stoke; Sharpenhoe; Packmoor; Oldbury; Darwen; Sutterton; Boston; Butterwick; Swineshead Bridge; Polgooth; Newquay; St. Blazey; Fowey; Carlisle; Edinburgh; Croydon; Ibstock; Withnell Fold; Swindon; Tiverton; Porihleven; Llanquicke; Knighton; Lloiney; Nailsea; Fenton; Sutton; Pontnewynydd; Talymain; Arlesey; Portishead; Chelmsford; Bedford (two); Loddiswell; Biggleswado; Shillington; Maulden; Langridgeford; Barnstaple; Kempston; Leicester; Wigston Magna; Llandegley; Ampthill; Wakefield; Tettenhall Wood; Newchurch; Morpeth; Langton Maltravers; Poole; Wareham; Cranborne; Heckington Fen; Hulme; Eastwood; Great Driffield; Blackburn; Bradford (three); Norwich; Shaldon; Ratby; Chesterton;

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  Maryport; Southwark; Filey; Aldeburgh; Walton; Chester (three); Radford; Nottingham; Shurlach; Barnton; Statmingley; Pudsey; Bewdley; Calverley; Nelson (three); Bradley; Rough-lee; Clayton-le-Moors; Southfield Barley; Reedyford; Egromont; Sandbach; New Invention; Chasetown; Bumtwood; Now Lambton; Morley; Stockport: Hylton; Teignmouth; Garndiffaith; Bath; Mevagissey; Kingstone; and Didley; to lie upon the Table.

  SUNDAY CLOSING (WALES) ACT (1881) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Llwynypia; Llanedy; Bridgend; Troedyrawr; Llandegley; and Caerphilly; to lie upon the Table.
  TEINDS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Dunfermline, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  TEMPERANCE REFORM THREEFOLD OPTION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Longringgend, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  VIVISECTION.
  petition from Hull, for prohibition; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  GOVERNMENT PROPERTY IN THE PROVINCES (CONTRIBUTIONS IN LIEU OF LOCAL RATES).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 23rd February; Sir Albert Albert]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 221.]
  GOVERNMENT PROPERTY (COUNTY OF LONDON).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 23rd February; Sir Albert Rollit]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 222.]
  COUNTY OFFICERS AND COURTS (IRELAND) ACT, 1877.
  Account presented, of the Receipts and Payments under the Act during the year ended the 31st March, 1900 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 223.]
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (TRAINING COLLEGES).
  Copy presented, of Reports relating to Training Colleges for the year 1899 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVAL WORKS.
  Copy presented, of Statement showing the total estimated cost of each work, the estimated expenditure thereon to 31st March, 1900, and the amount available to meet expenditure in 1900-1901, together with the expected date of completion [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND TRAVERS' FOUNDATION.
  Copy presented, of Statement of the estimated Income and Expenditure of Greenwich Hospital and of Travers' Foundation for the year 1900-1901 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 224.]
  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 AND 1890.
  Copy presented, of Two Orders, Nos. 6,092 and 6,106, dated respectively the 16th May and 16th June, 1900, revoking certain Orders of the Board relating to the Landing of Foreign Animals [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (FINANCIAL STATEMENT, 1900–1901).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address, 28th May; Sir Henry Fowler]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 225.]
  TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 527 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6) BILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the proposals con-

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  tained in the Provisional Orders included in the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 8) Bill."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

  LOCAL TAXATION (ENGLAND) ACCOUNT 1899–1900.
  Return ordered, "showing, in respect of the financial year ended the 31st day of March, 1900, the distribution of the proceeds of the Local Taxation, Licences, Estate Duty, and Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Duties paid into the Local Taxation (England) Account in pursuance of the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1888, the Finance Act, 1894, and the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 301, of Session 1899)."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)
QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR — LORD ROBERTAS PROCLAMATION ANNEXING THE ORANGE FREE STATE.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can say what has been the effect of Lord Roberts's proclamation of annexation of the Orange Free State on the status of the inhabitants; and whether any such inhabitants found fighting with arms in their possession will be treated as prisoners of war or as rebels.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): The effect of Lord Roberts's proclamation of annexation was that the inhabitants of the Orange Free State became British subjects. Lord Roberts had undertaken by his proclamations to the burghers of the Orange Free State that those desisting from hostility and found staying in their homes and quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations would not be made to suffer in their persons or property on account of their having taken up arms in obedience to the order of their Government. The treatment of all other persons, may, I think, be safely left to Lord Roberts.

  MARTIAL LAW—TREATMENT OF CAPE REBELS.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies
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  whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Minutes of the late Ministry of Cape Colony as to the treatment of rebels in Cape Colony.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think it would be desirable that these Papers should be laid upon the Table at present, but I am communicating with the present Cape Government on the subject.

  MEDICAL TREATMENT OF SOLDIERS ON FURLOUGH—CASE OF PRIVATE MITCHELL.
  SIR EDWARD GOURLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of Private Mitchell, of the Wiltshire Regiment, who was shot in both ankles at the battle of Modder River, and is now an inmate of the Lambeth workhouse; and will he state why Mitchell was turned out of Woolwich Hospital and compelled to seek shelter at a friend's house in Lambeth; and will he inform the House what arrangements have been made by the War Office for the reception, housing, and maintenance of private soldiers invalided home from South Africa, whether in consequence of being wounded or from other causes; and whether any definite system of pensions has yet been fixed by the War Office for the widows of officers and men losing their lives during the South African campaign.
  MR. MARKS: I beg at the same time to ask the Under Secretary of State for War j whether his attention has been called to the case of Private Mitchell, of the Wiltshire Regiment, who was wounded in both legs at the battle of Modder River, and was recently discharged from Woolwich Hospital because the hospital authorities wanted room, and subsequently! admitted into the Lambeth workhouse | infirmary in a weak state of health; whether the case has been reported to the War Office by the Lambeth guardians; and what action, if any, the War Office intends to take in the case.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM,: There are over 7,000 beds reserved in the various military hospitals for private soldiers invalided from South

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  Africa. On reaching convalescence the soldier is transferred to a convalescent home. We have ample accommodation for the first stage of recovery in hospitals and for the second in homes. But many soldiers prefer to proceed on sick furlough to their friends. This is allowed when their health justifies it. They are, in that case, provided with sufficient funds and with a printed statement for their guidance which contains this paragraph—
  "Soldiers on furlough who require medical aid shall apply for it to the nearest military station. When this is impracticable they may apply to a civil practitioner, to whom they will -show this furlough paper, and who will be allowed to charge for attendance at the rate laid down on Army Form O, 1667."
  Arrangements had been made to send Private Mitchell to a convalescent home, but, at his own request, he was allowed to go on furlough to Croydon. On leaving hospital he received £7 17s. 6d.pay. Private Mitchell states that the people with whom he intended to stay had left Croydon. He accordingly proceeded to London, and, feeling ill, went to the Morley Hotel, 112, Lambeth Road. His health did not improve, and, when he had spent two days and two nights in bed, the manager sent for a doctor, who ordered Ms removal to the infirmary. A gentleman at the hotel applied to the commanding officer, St. George's Barracks, for his removal to a military hospital. The reply did not arrive before his removal. He was accordingly visited in the infirmary and removed in a military ambulance to the Station Hospital in Rochester Row. I beg to thank the hon. Members who, by raising this question, have given me an opportunity of stating the facts at a length which will not, I hope, be considered excessive in view of its importance. There has been much comment on this case, and I shall be obliged if the press will give equal publicity to the fact that civilians who find a soldier left stranded on their hands should apply to the nearest military authority, and not despatch him incontinently to a pauper institution.

  2ND BATTALION WILTSHIRE VOLUNTEERS—CASK OF JOHN KING.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for "War if he can inform the House of the reasons
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  which led on the 25th of May to the reduction of Sergeant John King, of the 2hd battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment of Volunteers, to the ranks, and his discharge on the same day from the force on account of his reduction to the ranks, and if he can inform the House by whose authority he was dismissed; if there is any appeal to the War Office from the above dismissal; and if he is aware that Sergeant John King has been a member of his corps for twenty-five years and a non-commissioned officer for twenty years, and that he has on several occasions shot for England in rifle competitions and holds Her Majesty's decoration for long service and good conduct.
  The following question on the same subject also appeared on the Paper:—
  DR. FARQUHARSON: To ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to the recent reduction to the ranks and eventual dismissal of Sergeant John King from the Devizes detachment of the 2nd Wilts Rifle Volunteers in consequence of a speech made by him at the South Wroxall Liberal Club, in which he adversely criticised the policy of the Government in South Africa; whether he is aware that Sergeant King was a member of the English twenty at Bisley and an alderman of the Wilts County Council; and, whether the Secretary of State for War will consider the revision of the sentence.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Sergeant King, whose service is correctly stated in the question, was reduced to the ranks for inefficiency, and was consequently discharged by the commanding officer of the battalion, both proceedings being in accordance with the Regulations and the Volunteer Act, which give such officer full powers both to reduce and discharge a Volunteer, subject only to the Queen's pleasure. The case has been carefully considered, and the Secretary of State sees no reason for interfering with the lawful award of the commanding officer.

  VOLUNTEER CAMPS OF INSTRUCTION —OFFICERS' COMMAND PAY.
  MR. LEES KNOWLES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of officers commanding

  619
  regimental districts, under Army Order 119 of this year, who when in command of Volunteer brigades at camps of instruction have their command pay as officers commanding such districts deducted from their field allowance, or acting staff pay, of one guinea, granted in accordance with such Order during the time they are in camp with their Volunteer brigades, and whether he can see his way to bring about the alteration of such Order so as at least to avoid such, deduction.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Command pay is given for one duty and acting staff pay for another. The same officer cannot receive both rates of pay, because he does not perform both duties. The command pay is given to the officer who takes command of the district during the colonel's absence.

  PROMOTIONS FROM THE RANKS.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether commanding officers of units serving in South Africa have been asked to recommend for commissions two non-commissioned officers from each battalion who shall be not over twenty-five years of age and unmarried; and whether, seeing that these conditions may debar non-commissioned officers otherwise meritorious, including some who have commanded companies in action and have been mentioned in despatches for distinguished service, they may not be made subject to exceptions, and commissions be granted in special cases at least with a view to departmental employment.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: We know nothing of any such instructions. Lord Roberts was asked to recommend for commissions a few non-commissioned officers who had performed good and meritorious service as apart from distinguished service in the field; these were to be under thirty years of age and unmarried. No restrictions are imposed on recommendations for distinguished service in the field.

  BRIGADE SIGNALLING OFFICERS' PAY.
  MR. HUDSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary
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  of State for War whether, as the Divisional Signalling Officers in South Africa are drawing extra or Staff Captain's pay, he will also increase the pay of the Brigade Signalling Officers on the Staff of the Brigade, especially those who have been engaged in Natal, where, owing to the nature of the country, signalling has been of such importance, any other method of communication, having been impossible.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: It has not been hitherto considered necessary to appoint more than one staff officer for signalling in each division. It is possible that the experience of the war may lead to a modification of this rule; we shall await the reports of the generals in the field.

  IMPERIAL PENNY POSTAGE—EXTENSION TO ORANGE RIVER COLONY AND THE TRANSVAAL.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he has extended, the Imperial penny postage system to the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, South Africa.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,): The question of extending penny postage to the Orange River Colony was taken up by the Postmaster General immediately on the announcement of the annexation, and is now under consideration by Her Majesty's Government. The question as to the South African. Republic is scarcely yet ripe for discussion.

  DECEASED OFFICERS' WAR MEDALS.
  GENERAL RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, seeing that it is the custom to send to relatives of officers who have died on service in the field the medals to which these officers have become entitled by that service, he will explain why the Sudan Queen's medal has been refused to an officer who lost his life in the 1896 campaign on the Nile.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: My hon. and gallant friend probably refers to the case of Captain Fenwick, of the Royal Sussex

  621
  Regiment, who died in the Dongola Expedition of 1896. For that expedition no Queen's medal was granted.

  SALISBURY PLAIN MANŒUVRES— COMMISSARIAT BREAKDOWN.
  MR. HOLLAND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the breakdown of the commissariat of the Manchester Volunteers on the occasion of their recent encampment on Salisbury Plain, whereby the men were practically without bread for two days, receiving in substitution hard biscuits which required a hammer to break them; and whether, in consequence of the general dissatisfaction of the men with their food arrangements, supplies were subsequently obtained from their friends at home; and, if so, whether he can give the name of the officer responsible for this state of things, and undertake that steps shall be taken in future to avoid its recurrence.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Three of the four battalions of the Manchester Volunteer Brigade at Salisbury Plain did not employ the Government bread contractors, but made their own arrangements. The private contractors partly failed to carry out the supply, and 6401b. of the biscuit ordinarily issued to the troops was supplied from the Government stores to make up the deficiency. Nothing is known of any supply from friends at home, some 250 miles distant.
  LORD BALCARRES: Does the hon. Gentleman wish the House to understand that the regiments which had to get their food through the War Office made no complaint? That certainly is not the case.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I did not mean the House to understand that. It is not in my power to give any such information. The deficiency arose out of private contracts entered into by Volunteer brigades this year as hitherto, and not through any default on the part of the authorities.
  LORD BALCARRES: Is it not the fact that the quartermasters of many of the regiments were directed by the War Office as to whom they were to apply to for food, and that they were really not given a free hand?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Another question raises that issue. In respect to bread and meat the Volunteers were allowed to exercise the discretion they enjoyed before, but in respect of canteen stores that was not always the case.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether it has been brought to his notice that some of the Volunteer battalions encamped on Salisbury Plain are not permitted to make their own contracts and arrangements with reference to. canteens, as in former years, and that some are even compelled to deal exclusively with the Canteen and Mess Cooperative Society, Limited; and whether he will take steps to give to Volunteer battalions the same freedom of choice in connection with this matter as heretofore.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: For military reasons it was considered expedient to form a district contract for all units encamping on Salisbury Plain. The board to select the tenders was composed of one Regular, four Militia and four Volunteer officers; and two contractors, viz., Messrs. Dickeson and Sons and the Canteen and Mess Co-operative Society, were selected.

  POST OFFICE VOLUNTEERS—CAMP LEAVE.
  COLONEL DALBIAC: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the same privileges can be extended to the assistant postmen as. to the other classes of Post Office employees in regard to leave, to enable them to attend Volunteer camps during the present year.
  MR. HANBURY: The privilege of leave on full pay to attend Volunteer camps is confined to those officers whose whole time is at the disposal of the Department, and the Postmaster General, I am informed, sees no reason for extending it to assistant postmen and others who give only a. portion of their time and are not required to do a full day's work.

  ALDERSHOT MANŒUVRES—HEAT CASUALTIES.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he

  623
  can state what action will be taken, by court-martial, by reprimand, or otherwise, to determine the responsibility for the Aldershot casualties, and to impose upon those found responsible any appropriate penalties; and whether the contractors, if any, who failed to supply the troops with food will be struck oft' the lists in future, or otherwise dealt with in respect of their breach of contract.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: As I have already explained to the House in the debate on Army Estimates of the 19th inst.,† the steps taken by the Commander-in-Chief are deemed sufficient. The civilians employed had no contract with the Government. The question of their continued employment rests with the officer commanding the corps concerned, who will no doubt take proper notice of what occurred.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the men sent to hospital at Aldershot on account of illness caused by the heat on the 11th inst. are subjected to hospital stoppages, and whether the allotments to the families of such as are married will therefore cease; and whether any pensions will be payable to the widows, if any, of those who died on that day.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The regulations admit of the full remission of the stoppage in such cases, the discretion rests entirely with the general officer in command. The separation allowance to the families will not cease. The question of pension will be referred to the Commissioners of the Patriotic Fund, who have control of the funds available for this purpose.

  GENERAL STAFF AT ALDERSHOT.
  MR. JEFFREYS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he can now state when the General commanding the troops at Aldershot was appointed, and whether this general officer, who entered the Army in the year 1850, has been able to transact any business or be present at any field days lately at Aldershot; and if he will give the number of troops now stationed at Aldershot.
  † See debate commencing at page 480 of this volume.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: This officer was appointed on the 15th December, 1899, to command the Aldershot district. On the 22nd May he proceeded on sick leave, but he expects shortly to return to Aldershot. The number of troops stationed there is 29,400.
  MR. JEFFREYS: Is the same staff which had been considered sufficient for a division of 15,000 men now considered sufficient for 29,000?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: That question hardly arises out of my answer. We have a sufficient staff. As my hon. friend knows, a great number of our general officers are in South Africa.

  VOLUNTEER CAMPS—MEDICAL OFFICERS.
  MR. BILLSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if the Army Order relating to the payment of Volunteers in camp will limit the payment to medical officers to one such officer for each corps, so that when a corps is entitled to two or more medical officers all but one will have to pay their own expenses; and, if so, why medical officers should be placed in such a position.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The Order allows pay for one medical officer in each unit, one additional for each brigade, and three for each bearer company. This is considered sufficient.

  MACHYNLLETH RIFLE RANGE.
  COLONEL PRYCE-JONES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he is aware that work on the Machynlleth Rifle Range was suspended on 12th May last when near completion, although the range is urgently required; and if he can say when sanction will be given for the range to be completed.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Sanction has been given for the completion of the range.

  ROYAL COMMISSION ON INDIAN EXPENDITURE.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, looking to the

  625
  use that is being made of Indian troops for Imperial purposes in South Africa and China, and looking also to the distressed condition of India, the Government will take into early consideration the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure as to the apportionment of charge between India and the Imperial Exchequer.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I agree with the hon. Baronet that no time should be lost in coming to a decision on the recommendations of this Commission. I am already in communication with the Departments concerned, and I hope shortly to be able to conclude the whole matter.

  INDIAN FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he will state at what date the explanatory memorandum of the Indian Financial Statement will be issued to Members; and will the total figures be expressed in tens of rupees, so as to allow of comparison with previous statements.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The explanatory memorandum is in the press, and will be issued to members as early as possible. The total figures will be ex-pressed in pounds, so as to allow of a comparison of the figures in the Estimates with those in the accounts. The figures in the return of not income and expenditure from 1888–9 to the present time, which has just been presented, have been re-cast, and shown in pounds, in order to facilitate a comparison of the accounts during that period.

  AFGHANISTAN-PROHIBITION OF TRADE WITH INDIA.
  MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Ameer of Cabul has forbidden the export of horses to and the import of salt from India; and whether the Government of India has any means of checking such action on the part of a Prince who receives a subsidy from the Indian Treasury.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The Government of India has received reports from its agents which seem to confirm the action imputed to the Ameer in the hon.
  626
  Member's question. As regards the second question, the hon. Member is aware that the Ameer is a sovereign who is independent in the conduct 'of his internal administration.

  INDIAN MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT.
  MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can say what is now the total strength of the British and native troops withdrawn from the Indian establishment for service elsewhere, including the troops under orders for China: and whether the Government of India is taking any steps to supply the places of these troops.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The total strength of the British and native troops withdrawn from the Indian establishment for service elsewhere, including the troops under orders for China, is approximately 16,000. We hope that the British troops now serving in South Africa will shortly return to India, but so far no steps have been taken to replace the native troops serving abroad.

  INDIAN BUDGET.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, looking to the Viceroy's statement that the famine in India exceeds in intensity any previously recorded visitation, he will arrange for the Indian Budget to be brought forward at an early date.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: The Indian Budget, I suppose, will be taken at the ordinary time.
  MR. MACLEAN: Is there any special reason why the Indian Budget should be delayed until the last days of the session?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, there is no special reason.

  TURKISH GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS —ENGLISH TENDERERS.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the tenders of an English firm for the repair and re armament of the Turkish fleet are

  627
  below those of the German firm of Krupp and Co.; whether the contract is likely to be given to the German firm in consequence of political pressure; and whether Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople will be instructed to give support to the desire of the Turkish Government to decide this question on its financial and technical merits.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. BROD-RICK,): Her Majesty's Government have no information to confirm the statement in the first paragraph. They are informed that a contract has been signed for the repair of eight Turkish ironclads by a firm at Genoa. It is stated that the armament is to be supplied by Messrs. Krupp. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople has already brought the claim of a British firm to the notice of the Sultan, and His Excellency has since been authorised to express the hope that British firms may receive a fair share in the orders for war material given by the Turkish Government.

  RAILWAYS IN ASIA MINOR—RUSSIAN CONCESSIONS.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an Imperial Iradé has been issued by the Sultan giving to Russian subjects the sole right of constructing railways in a large portion of Asia Minor fronting she Black Sea; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government have made any protest against this monopoly and new sphere of interest, the practical effect of which will be to prevent the industrial development of Asia Minor.
  *MR. BRODRICK: Her Majesty's Government understand that an arrangement sanctioned by Imperial Iradé has been arrived at between Turkey and Russia by which the Turkish Government reserve to themselves the right to construct railways in the North of Asia Minor, and in case they do not make the railways themselves they undertake to grant the exclusive right of construction to Russian subjects on the same terms as the concession of the Anatolian Railways to the Germans. Her Majesty's Government have no official cognisance of this arrangement, and no protest has been made against it.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Will the Government protest when they get the official information?
  [No answer was returned.]

  CHINA — ANTI - FOREIGN DISTURBANCES — RECENT OPERATIONS-TIENTSIN AND PEKING.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any further information relating to the safety of British subjects in Peking and the progress of the relieving force.
  *MR. BRODRICK: I regret to say we have no authentic information. Our last communication from Sir Claude Mac-Donald is nine days old. The Admiral's force when last heard of seven days ago was between thirty and forty miles northwest of Tientsin and the same distance from Peking. Tientsin, which is thirty miles from Ta-ku, is now cut off from Ta-ku, and telegraphic messages from the latter place have to be conveyed by steamer to Chefu, a distance of about 250 miles. The latest news we have is a despatch from Rear-Admiral Bruce, which is as follows—
  "Ta-ku, viâ Chefoo, 21st June.—There has been no communication from the Commander-in-Chief for seven days nor with Tientsin for five days. Allies hold Ta-ku forts and Tong-ku securely, and they will advance for the relief of Tientsin when in sufficient strength. Troops. are expected from Hong Kong to-morrow, and 300 from Wei-hai-wei the day after to-morrow. It is believed that fighting is constantly go in, on round Tientsin. Our garrison there should be about 3,000 men. Following proclamation was agreed to this morning to be issued at once: 'The admirals and senior naval officers-of the allied Powers in China desire to make known to all Viceroys and authorities of the coasts and rivers, cities, and provinces of China that they intend to use armed force only against Boxers and people who oppose them on their march to Peking for the rescue of their fellow-countrymen.'"

  COMMAND OF THE BRITISH FORCES IN CHINA— CO-OPERATION OF JAPAN WITH THE EUROPEAN POWERS.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury the following question, of which I have given private notice:—Whether Her Majesty's Government propose to appoint; a general officer to command Her

  629
  Majesty's forces on land in China, and whether the alleged accord between the European Powers as regards the disturbances in China also includes Japan.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Admiral on the station has been given full powers to act in the existing difficulty. It is not possible at present to state what; future arrangements will be made. The reply to the second part of my hon. friends question is in the affirmative.
  *SIR. J. COLOMB: As it has just been announced that military forces are going out to China, is it proposed to place them under the command of the Admiral?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is not possible to answer that question at present.

  FRENCH CONCESSION AT SHANGHAI.
  MR. HEDDERWICK: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether all the correspondence relative to the concession to France at Shanghai has been published.
  *MR. BRODRICK: The Papers presented included all the correspondence which was material to the issue, and which could properly be published.

  LEAD POISONING—RETURNS.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if a Return can be granted showing the number of cases of lead poisoning in the different branches of china and earthenware manufacture, so as to distinguish between the decorative branches and those concerned with dipping, ware cleaning, etc., and a Return showing for recent months the number of temporary suspensions of workers in china and earthenware, and the number of permanent suspensions.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,: I think it will be possible to grant a Return giving most of the information asked for by the right hon. Baronet in the first part of his question. As regards
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  the distinction between temporary and permanent suspensions, no hard and fast line can be drawn between the cases in which exclusion from the dangerous processes will in the end be permanent, and those in which it will not. But on this point also I hope to be able to give some details. My right hon. friend the Under Secretary of State will give notice of the Return this afternoon.

  CLERK OF THE PEACE FOR STAFFORDSHIRE.
  MR. COGHILL: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the salary of the Clerk of the Peace of the County of Stafford has been increased from £1,500 a year to £2,500 a year, with an allowance of £1,500 a year for clerks, although certain areas of the county have been removed from the county council by the creation of county boroughs, and whether such increased salary and allowance have received the sanction of the Local Government Board.
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer that in 1896, under the special circumstances of this case, I sanctioned a salary of £2,000, with £1,500 allowance for office expenses, the amount to be reconsidered on the occasion of a vacancy. Since then no recommendation has been made to me.
  MR. COGHILL: Is the holder of the office allowed to continue his private practice?
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I do not remember as to that. I only know that under the special circumstances of this case I sanctioned this office allowance.

  TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS AND THE ISLE OF MAN.
  MR. YOXALL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Homo Department if he is now in a position, consequent upon negotiations with the authorities in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, to introduce a Bill to extend the superannuation of teachers to the teachers in those islands; and, if so, at what date he hopes to introduce the Bill.
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I have a draft of a Bill in this direction very nearly settled. It will be, I have every reason to believe, a non-controversial Bill, and I will consult my right hon. friend the Leader of the House with a view to seeing when it can be introduced.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT— MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS.
  MR. WOODS:I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, under Clause 11 of the First Schedule of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, a workman is entitled to submit himself for examination by the qualified medical practitioner appointed for the district in which he resides by the Secretary of State, when the medical practitioner appointed by his employer has given a certificate upon his condition with which he is not satisfied, although the case has not been before a committee, arbitrator or judge, in consequence of the employer and the workman having previously agreed to pay and receive a fixed weekly sum as compensation.
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: The provisions of paragraph 11 of the First Schedule to the Workmen's Compensation Act apply to any workman "receiving weekly payments under the Act." Whether any particular case—of agreement is "under the Act" is a question which can only be decided authoritatively on the facts of the case by a court of law, and I am unable to express an opinion on it in general terms.

  SCOTTISH TRAINING COLLEGES.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the attention of the Education Department has been called to the inadequacy of the number of students in the training colleges (especially in the western division) to meet the increasing demand for teachers owing to the growth of the number of children attending schools, and the reduction of the size of classes enjoined by the Code; and whether the Department will consider the necessity of taking measures to increase the number of adequately trained teachers.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,: In reply
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  to the question of the hon. Member, I have to state that the Department has, from time to time, received representations to the effect that the supply of trained teachers is not sufficient. The relation between supply and demand is at all times a difficult one, influenced as it must be by various circumstances. It must be remembered that the training, colleges are not the only source from which the supply of trained teachers may be recruited; but the Department is prepared to consider any proposals for maintaining the adequacy of that supply.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the attention of the Education Department has been called to the dissatisfaction felt by Queen's Scholarship candidates who duly qualify but are refused admission to the training colleges in order to give place to candidates entering without examination under Article 70 (d) 6, and 95 (a) 2; and whether the Department will either give a preference to Queen's Scholar candidates or impose some further competitive test on the other classes of candidates referred to.
  *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: Candidates for admission to training colleges may qualify either by the Queen's Scholarship examination or by the Leaving Certificate examination. The question as to which examination produces the most promising class of student is one which can be settled only by experience, and the Department is not prepared to interfere with the discretion of the training college authorities in this respect, or to impose any further competitive test upon either class.

  SLOUGH RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWKAGGREE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received any official information regarding the railway accident which took place at Slough Station on Saturday last; whether the information tends to show that the accident resulted from an unusually large number of trains being put upon the lines for the convenience of visitors to the Windsor races and whether he will give instructions for this point being thoroughly sifted in the course of the Board of Trade inquiry into the causes of the accident.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. RITCHIE,): Yes, Sir; the Board of Trade received an official report of the accident, and an inspecting officer is engaged in holding an inquiry. I understand from that officer that it is unlikely that the number of trains had anything to do with the accident, but he will no doubt bear the hon. Member's point in mind during the investigation.

  LIVERPOOL CENSUS RETURNS.
  Sir JOHN WILLOX: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the last report of the medical officer of health for the city of Liverpool, in which allegations are made of the inaccuracy and unreliability of the census returns of the last census, and the consequent errors in the calculation of the mortality averages for the decennial period; and, whether measures will be adopted to ensure greater correctness in taking the next census by the employment of more competent enumerators or otherwise.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. CHAPLIN,): The question of my hon. friend appears to be founded on a misapprehension. No allegations are made in the report referred to of the inaccuracy and unreliability of the Census returns. The medical officer appeared to have been referring to the estimates of population in the years between 1881 and 1891. These estimates were based on the increase in population in the ten years between 1871 and 1881, and the result of the last Census showed that in the case of Liverpool the rate of increase had not been maintained. There appears, however, to be no reason to suppose that the Census returns themselves were inaccurate.

  G. P. O.— TRANSFER TO MOUNT PLEASANT—POSTAL RE-ARRANGEMENTS, DELAYS, ETC.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state who is responsible for the delay caused to the merchants and business men of great towns and cities in this country, notably
  634
  Sheffield and Newcastle, through the misdirection and delay in forwarding numbers of London letters, and will he consult some leading men of business in. commercial circles before he deprives the public of posting, facilities hitherto enjoyed.
  MR. MADDISON: I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he is aware that many letters posted in London before 6 p.m. on Monday, 18th June, were not delivered in Sheffield on the following day, and will he explain the delay, and whether the causes of it were foreseen at the Post Office, and why no intimation of possible delay was given to the public beforehand.
  MR. HANBURY: As the hon. Member is no doubt aware, owing to the want of space at St. Martin's-le-Grand, the provincial despatching work formerly done there has had to be transferred to a new office in the Farringdon Road, part of the site of the Coldbath Fields Prison. The transfer of a force of 2,500 men to new surroundings was naturally attended with some temporary disadvantage to the work, and on this account the correspondence could not be dealt with altogether as expeditiously as under normal conditions. The Postmaster General regrets that any inconvenience should have been caused to the public in carrying out this change, and he begs to assure the hon. Member that every effort is being used to restore the regular working of the service at the earliest possible time.
  MR. MADDISON: Can you answer the latter part of my question?
  MR. HANBURY:I cannot answer that.

  BRITISH MUSEUM—ANNUAL RETURN.
  SIR HENRY HOWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can expedite the printing of the Annual Return of the British Museum, which was laid upon the Table of the House early in the session, and has not yet been delivered to Members.
  MR. HANBURY: The Annual Return for 1899, finally revised for press by the authorities of the British Museum, was

  635
  sent to the Treasury on 12th June, and forwarded to the printers on 14th June. The Report will be delivered on Monday next, the 25th.

  IRISH GOLD ORNAMENTS—TREASURE TROVE.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, having regard to the announcement to the Trustees of the British Museum by the Government of their intention to take proceedings with a view to a judicial decision on the title of the Museum to the recently acquired Irish gold ornaments, whether he will lay upon the Table the correspondence on the subject between the Treasury and the Trustees of the Museum, as well as the Report of the Departmental Committee presided over by Lord Rathmore.
  MR. HANBURY (for Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The correspondence is voluminous, and contains moreover the Law Officers' opinions, which it would be contrary to established practice to lay before Parliament. I propose, however, to present a summary in some detail of what has passed between the Treasury and the Trustees, but before doing so I shall submit such summary to the Trustees in order to ascertain whether it is in their judgment a fair representation of the case. The report of the Departmental Committee was presented to Parliament last year.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman add to the Return a copy of any regulations or minutes issued by the Treasury in respect of treasure trove since the passing of the Act of 1837, and also a note of legal proceedings, if any, which have since been instituted for the recovery of treasure trove.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must see the documents before I can promise to lay them on the Table. Perhaps my hon. friend will put his question on the Paper.

  KILLYLEA NATIONAL SCHOOL.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why the teaching staff of the Killylea National School, county Armagh,
  636
  which has been connected with the Board of National Education in Ireland for a period of seventeen years ending March 31st, 1900, have only received results fees for sixteen years; and whether any arrangement is being made to pay the one year's fees yet due.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,): Results fees, as such, are not payable after the 1st of April, 1900; but teachers who taught under the results system up to the end of last financial year will receive an equivalent for such fees, based on the average payments for the last three years. The mode of payment is at present under consideration.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what will be the course of business next week?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The first business on Monday will be the Report stage of the Australian Commonwealth Bill, and this will be followed by the Housing of the Working Classes Bill in Committee. I am not so sanguine as to suppose that we shall finish the latter Bill on Monday, and if we do not the proceedings on it will be continued on Tuesday. The Companies Bill will be introduced on Tuesday if the Housing of the Working Classes Bill is finished.
*MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: And when will the Irish Tithe Rent-Charge Bill be taken?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: On Thursday.
MR. BROADHURST: When will you take the Second Reading of the Factories and Workshops Bill?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am afraid I have given all the information in my power about business.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON TRADE, ETC.
Ordered, That the Standing Committee on Trade, etc., have leave to sit this day

637
till Four o'clock during the Sitting of the House.—(Mr. Laurence Hardy.)

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
Reported from the Standing Committee on Trade, etc., with Amendments.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 226.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 226.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 258.]

NEW BILLS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND).
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,): The object of the Bill I have to introduce is to amend certain details in the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, in respect of which difficulties of working have cropped up. No useful purpose would be served by my going into those details, but I hope and believe the Bill will be found to be non-contentious.
  Bill to amend Sections 42, 51, 54, 56, 57, 69, 103, 115, and 121 of The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, and Articles 19, 24, and 36 of the Schedule to The Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order, 1898, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend Sections 42, 51, 54, 56, 57, 69,103, 115, and 121 of The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, and Articles 19, 24, and 36 of the Schedule to The Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order, 1898," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 259.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT IRELAND (No. 2).
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: At the present time the procedure of Councils in
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  Ireland cannot be altered except by Act of Parliament. We think it desirable to introduce an easier process and to provide for greater elasticity, and this Bill consequently proposes to enable it to be done by Provisional Order instead of by Act of Parliament.
  Bill to provide for the alteration of the Local Government (Procedure of Councils) Order, 1899, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL.
  "To provide for the alteration of the Local Government (Procedure of Councils) Order, 1899," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 260.]

  POOR RELIEF (IRELAND).
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: This, my third Bill, is intended to enable guardians or unions in Ireland to send children to schools or institutions not situated in those unions, and also to enable them in certain cases to exceed the limit of land now allowed to be set apart for the erection of labourers' cottages.
  Bill to amend the Poor Relief (Ireland) Acts, 1838 to 1892, with respect to relief given by the maintenance of lunatics and children, and with respect to the quantity of land which may be acquired under those Acts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.

  POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Poor Relief (Ireland) Acts, 1838 to 1892, with respect to relief given by the maintenance of lunatics and children, and with respect to the quantity of land which may be acquired under those Acts," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 261.]

  COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
  Clause 5:—
  Amendment again proposed—
  "In page 2, line 14, to leave out from the word 'Notwithstanding,' to the word 'State,' in line 18, both inclusive."—(Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.)
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN,: I have to ask the permission of the House to make a correction of a statement which I made on Monday last in dealing with this Amendment. I then said, or I am reported to have said, that I had received no official communication from the Government of the four States of Australia in reference to the proceedings which had taken place since the introduction of this Bill, and that, up to the present, I was not officially made aware of the opinions of the Governments of the four States. I find that that was a mistake. It would have been more correct to say that I had no public official statement, but I have been reminded by my hon. friend Mr. Barton of a matter which escaped my memory at the time—namely, that after the first arrangement was come to with the delegates I received on 25th May from the Government of New South Wales a telegram, which I thought then was confidential but which I am now told was not intended to be confidential, to the effect that the Prime Ministers of the four States of Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, and South Australia agreed to the arrangement which had been come to between the delegates and myself. I desire to state this, because the previous statement might have led to a misunderstanding and to the supposition that the delegates were acting without the authority of their Governments. Of course, I did not in the least intend to convey that; but I admit that my words were open to that construction, and I have to apologise to the Committee and to the delegates for the slip. It has, however, no particular relevance to the present Amendment. When we adjourned on the last occasion I had informed the Committee that I had communicated with the Governments of the different colonies in order to ascertain, if possible, what their views were with
  640
  regard to the new arrangement which had been come to. At that time I had no complete account of their opinions. I have since received telegrams which' I think I had better read to the Committee. The first is from Lord Beauchamp, New South Wales, received 20th June:—
  "The Premier informs me that Victoria, Tasmania, and Queensland agree to the com-promise in connection with Clause 74. New South Wales Parliament, now sitting, has-expressed wish that altered clause should be submitted to it."
  The next is a telegram from Lord Tennyson, South Australia, dated 20th June—
  "Ministers reply as follows to your telegram 19th June:—They do not think that any difficulty will be caused if Imperial Parliament resolves to amend Bill as now proposed."
  Lord Gormanston sent a telegram on 19th June as follows—
  "Your telegram of 16th June received. My Government are quite satisfied with the clause set forth therein as the best under all the circumstances of the case."
  With regard to Queensland, I have received a letter from Mr. Dickson, dated 19th June, in which he says—
  "Sir,—Referring to my letter of the 15th inst. and to our later interview of Saturday afternoon, I now beg to inform you that I have since received from my Government the following cablegram:—Full text of new Clause 74 sent through. Tennyson to Australian Governors received. Consider it great. improvement on previous Amendment, and request you will not offer any objection to it.' Consequently I will now accept on behalf of the Government of Queensland the new Clause 74 as presented to the House of Commons yesterday, and trust it may be passed unaltered. I desire, however, to record on behalf of my Government and of myself that we should have greatly preferred to have had the Bill as introduced by you passed without Amendment. May I suggest that further consideration be directed to the bearing of the words 'final and conclusive' in Clause 73, page 16, lines 27-28, in connection with new Clause 74? I cannot conclude without expressing to you my gratitude for the clear, straightforward manner in which you placed my attitude: before Parliament in your speech of yesterday evening, and tendering you, on behalf of the Government of, Queensland, our fullest appreciation of the great patience, care, and courtesy with which you have endeavoured successfully to reconcile views at first sight-irreconcilable; trusting also that these long negotiations may now be considered as satisfactorily concluded."
  Lastly, I received from the officer concerned in administering the government.

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  of Victoria a telegram dated the 21st of June, as follows—
  "Ministers entirely approve clause now offered, and I am desired by them to convey their cordial thanks to you for your great trouble and kindly interest in our Australian matters, and to express our congratulations to you on having arrived at a successful settlement."
  Now I think I may say that I have very great satisfaction in once more pressing for the Amendment which has been laid before the Committee. I do not myself regret in the least the time that has been spent in what I have heard described in some quarters as "muddling negotiations," but which have resulted in bringing absolutely into line the colony of Queensland, which was in favour of plenary appeal, and the colony of South Australia as representing the extreme views with regard to the restriction of the right of appeal. So far as four out of five of the federated States are concerned, the proposed arrangement has been accepted by all the delegates, thoroughly and cordially accepted. So far as New South Wales is concerned, we have still to wait for an expression of opinion on behalf of that colony, but in any case four out of five of the colonies have expressed their opinion, and, if I may venture to advise the Committee on the subject, I should say that, looking at the reports we have received from non-official sources, there can be very little doubt that they are equally acceptable to the vast majority of the people of New South Wales. They are equally acceptable to Her Majesty's Government. By this arrangement we have obtained everything for which we thought it our duty to contend, speaking on behalf of Imperial interests that are non-Australian. I have to repeat, after the most careful consideration, that we have secured in connection with the Australian federation precisely the same powers and rights of appeal which exist in the case of the great Dominion of Canada, with this trifling exception, which I am almost inclined to think is an improvement, that in certain rare cases the leave to appeal will be granted by the High Court in Australia, and not by the Privy Council. I have said that I think that that may possibly be an improvement, for this reason—that where the leave to appeal is to be given by the Privy Council it involves two applications
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  to that body, which necessitates two sets of costs. The appellant has first to ask for leave; and, leave having been given, the merits of the case have to be tried. In this case leave will be settled by the local Court without the necessity of appealing. This Court, I imagine, will be considerably less expensive, and only the merits of the case will be tried by the Privy Council. I do not think I need refer to anything else except to say this—that my hon. and learned friend the Member for Haddingtonshire took me by surprise, in fact he astounded me, when he endeavoured to put forward the argument that either of these arrangements which we have recommended to the Committee as distinct from the original proposals of the Bill was really more restrictive of the right of appeal than the original Bill. I do not intend to argue with my hon. and learned friend, but what I have to say perfectly clearly is that the whole of Australia differs from him. Queensland— which, as I have said, was in favour of the plenary right of appeal—and the other colonies are in favour of a restricted right of appeal, but all of them have accepted the arrangement with the understanding that it very much enlarges the right of appeal which was conceded by the original Bill, and apparently they are now satisfied to accept the arrangement proposed by Her Majesty's Government as being in the interest of Australia as well as in the interests of this country.
  *MR. HALDANE: I wish to make one or two observations in reference to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite true, as he said, that the Australian colonies have accepted this arrangement, but our contention was not in relation to anything which the Australian colonies were fighting for; our contention was that that should be preserved which the Australian colonies had already conceded. Our point was made in the interests of the Queen's dominions outside Australia, including those of New Zealand. The right hon. Gentleman was no doubt correct when he said that he had satisfied the Australian colonies with this clause. He has done so; but these colonies have been willing to concede something more than the right hon. Gentleman has got— namely, that where the interests of someone else outside themselves were in ques-

  643
  tion the validity of those interests should be subject to appeal to the Privy Council. The right hon. Gentleman has said he has obtained everything which the Canadian Constitution gives with a trifling exception. What is that trifling exception? It is that there can be no appeal whatever to the Privy Council, except with the leave of the new High Court of Australia. Something like that question arose when the Canadian Constitution was under consideration, and the Canadian Supreme Court showed a tendency to take the view that it was the proper court to dispose of all questions of constitutional controversy, and that the Privy Council was not the place to appeal to. The Supreme Court of Canada conceived that its decisions should lay down the law finally as to questions arising between the Dominion and the provinces. What would have been the position of the provinces to-day if it had been left to the Supreme Court of Canada to say whether or not there should be an appeal? Does anyone imagine they would over have got leave to appeal? I take it the Supreme Court, taking the view that it was properly the final court of appeal, would have refused leave. We do not want to run that risk here. The right ton. Gentleman talks of having settled with the Australian colonies, but there are other places to be dealt with besides the Australian colonies; New Zealand, for instance, which has large interests in this matter. The following letter, dated 19th June, 1900, deals with this matter. It was addressed to the Under Secretary for the Colonies by the Agent General of New Zealand.
  "Sir,—I have the honour to further address you on the subject of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act.
  "I have not had the opportunity of perusing any authenticated copy of the Amendment of Clause 74 which it is now proposed to insert in the Bill. Assuming, however, that the version published in The Times newspaper of this morning is correct, it appears to me that under it the position of outside States which may become involved in litigation with the Commonwealth or one of its provinces is open to doubt, I have read with attention the speech of the Attorney General, Sir Robert Finlay, but there seems to be at least a difference of opinion as to whether the right of appeal to the Privy Council may not be taken away in cases which involve at once the constitutional position of the Commonwealth in regard to its provinces and also the interests of some outside community. It is the earnest desire and request of the New Zealand Government that the present rights which our colony and colonists enjoy of appealing to the Privy
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  Council may not be taken away, diminished, or left in any doubt whatever.
  "I have, therefore, the honour to ask that her Majesty's Government may be pleased—if the point before referred to seems, on reflection, to admit of doubt—to insert in the clause such language as may put the matter beyond the possibility of controversy.
  "My Government confidently believes that it is not the intention of the right hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies to allow the existing rights of any of Her Majesty's subjects outside the proposd Commonwealth to be impaired or abridged.
  "The Australians themselves have never set up any claim to do this, and the request of the New Zealand Government would, therefore, seem to be in accordance with the manifest wishes of all parties.
  "I am, etc.,
  "W. P. REEVES."
  That seems to represent the exact position, and reference to the Bill will show that in many respects the interests of New Zealand are likely to be vitally affected in the matter of trade, commerce, fisheries, etc. What objection can there possibly be to introducing this safeguard? Why not add words to the end of Clause 74—words which will restore the position of things before the unfortunate Amendment was made? To make the position of New Zealand clear I propose, when we come to Clause 74, to move to add words to provide that with respect to any question affecting the public interest of any part of the Queen's dominions outside the Commonwealth, the Privy Council may give leave to appeal. That seems to me to be most important, because New Zealand will not have any representative in the first instance at all in the High Court, certainly not before federation, and it would undoubtedly prevent the friction which did arise in the case of Canada. I can see no possible reason why the right hon. Gentleman should not, at any rate, consider these words, thereby giving that reasonable satisfaction to the people of New Zealand to which they are entitled.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Western Australia has been considered?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir, I have communicated with Western Australia. It must be borne in mind that in the first instance we can only recognise directly the federating States. The

  645
  opinion of others interested is important, but we cannot guide our decision by those outside the Commonwealth. I have received the following communication from the officer administrating the government of Western Australia (received June 20th)—
  "Ministers of opinion last proposal as to appeal of Privy Council preferable to proposal to allow Executive Government decide question. But Ministers strongly of opinion appeal from High Court should be by right and not by permission. Ministers think Federal Parliament should not have power to limit matters of appeal and that it should be made quite clear that existing right of appeal to Privy Council is maintained."
  That is to say, Western Australia, like Queensland, and perhaps others who have not been communicated with in this matter, is in favour of my original proposal; but the arrangement which we have come to, and by which all are brought into line, is accepted.
  MR. MACLEAN: I am sure both sides of the House will receive with a great deal of satisfaction the announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman that this prolonged quarrel has been now brought to a close, and that we may pass the Bill with the assurance that it will be satisfactory to the people of Australia. The right hon. Gentleman says that the delegates are satisfied with his latest arrangement, and he also says that it is perfectly satisfactory to Her Majesty's Government. I am rather surprised about that latter statement, because it seems to me that the right of appeal with the restrictions imposed by the present Act will become quite illusory. The appeals to this country have been very few, and not on matters of public interest to Australia. They will become fewer and more rare in the future, and in the natural course of things they will disappear altogether. There are very few eases at all likely to come to this country which are of interest to the public of Australia. It is said that certain questions affecting foreign affairs may be brought up and referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — appeals, for instance, in regard to New Caledonia and the islands possessed by Germany—but questions of that kind would never come into court. They would be brought to the notice of the Executive Government of the day. For instance, we have heard
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  of cases with regard to the French shore of Newfoundland. No one would suggest that a question of that sort should be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It is always a matter for negotiations between the French and British Governments. I think that this right of appeal will very soon, under the Act, fall into disuse, and I am perfectly convinced that that is the best thing which can happen to it.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I have very great diffidence in rising to attempt to controvert the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Haddingtonshire. I think, however, that the hon. and learned Gentleman has not sufficiently distinguished between the character of the constitution proposed in this Bill and the Canadian constitution. In the latter the Dominion and Provincial Legislatures have mutually exclusive powers of legislation. Here each State in the Commonwealth will have the fullest powers of legislation, affected only by the Colonial Laws Validity Act and the power of reservation and the ultimate power of disallowance. The Commonwealth will have limited powers of legislation, and therefore there can be no question of difficulty as to the limits inter se of the constitutional powers of the Commonwealth and the States.
  MR. HALDANE: Will the hon. Gentleman permit me? He has over looked Clause 109, which states that when the law of the State is inconsistent with the law of the Commonwealth, the latter should prevail.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I have not overlooked that clause. As long as the Commonwealth Parliament does not exceed its powers its legislation would countervail any legislation of a State; if it exceeds those powers the question becomes an Imperial one. I venture to think that difficulties are not likely to arise in matters of legislation, but rather in matters of executive action, and it is in that direction we have to look mainly, if not entirely, for the questions which may come to be decided, as between the Commonwealth and the States, by the High Court. If that is so I venture to think the hon. and learned Gentleman's fears are unfounded, and that the com-

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  promise, or the arrangement, or whatever else it may be, may be accepted by this House without any fear of trenching on Imperial interests or the interests of the colonies.
  MR. ASQUITH: I express no opinion on the controversy between my hon. and learned friend and the hon. Gentleman opposite. I rise for the purpose of saying that we are in a much more favourable position for dealing with this question now than we were on Monday last. In the interval the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies has had an opportunity of ascertaining the views of the colonies concerned, and even if this clause were open to more criticism than is the case, I think the general opinion of the Committee now is that having received the assent and approval of the colonies concerned, it ought to be carried into effect.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): I desire to say a very few words in explanation of the effect of this clause, by way of removing the apprehensions expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Haddingtonshire. I cannot but feel that these apprehensions are based on some failure to appreciate the true effect of the clause as it now stands. The first thing I wish to make perfectly clear to all concerned is this—that it will rest with the Privy Council to determine whether or not a particular matter falls within the restriction of this particular clause. The High Court will have no power to settle whether a particular matter falls within the restriction. On application to the Queen in Council the Judicial Committee would look into the whole matter, and if they were of opinion that it did not fall within the restriction, leave to appeal would be given whatever the opinion of the High Court might be. I cannot help thinking that the apprehensions expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman with reference to New Zealand are based on some misapprehension as to the essential differences between the Australian Bill and the British North America Act. It is perfectly true that Article 51 of this Constitution confers many powers on the Parliament of the Commonwealth which are almost identical in terms with those enumerated in
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  Section 91 of the British North America Act. But in addition to the powers there enumerated there are certain most important powers not now enjoyed at all by any of the Australian colonies, such as powers with reference to foreign affairs, to fisheries beyond the territorial limits, and other matters of that kind. These powers are newly conferred on the Commonwealth, and with regard to them it will not be a question as between the Commonwealth and the States as to their distribution, because the States will possess, at all events, the most important of these new powers, including those in respect to which controversy is likely to arise. It will be a question not of distribution, but as to whether certain powers in respect to these matters have or have not been delegated to the Parliament and Government of the Commonwealth. So that there is absolutely no restriction by this clause as to an appeal to the Privy Council as to whether or not these powers have been so delegated. As the Bill came from Australia it might exclude absolutely any appeal whatever to Her Majesty in Council in these matters. The peculiar condition contained in the clause as it came from Australia—namely, if "the public interest in any other part of Her Majesty's dominions" was concerned—is now set at rest by the settlement arrived at, and the right of appeal to Her Majesty in Council is introduced as regards these new powers not hitherto enjoyed by any of the colonies. Now we come to another aspect of the case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred—that is, where a State has enjoyed certain powers, and where powers in respect of those matters have been conferred by this Bill upon the Parliament and the Government of the Commonwealth. Now, what I would direct the attention of my hon. and learned friend to is this: the scheme of this Bill is essentially different from the Canadian Bill. The Canadian Bill conferred, in respect of certain matters, exclusive powers upon the Parliament of the Dominion; in respect of certain other matters, exclusive powers upon the Legislatures of the Provinces; so that the form of the question which arose was this—whether or not the one or the other Parliament would be acting ultra vires if it meddled with a matter exclusively assigned to the other. That is not the scheme of this Bill at all.

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  What has been done is this: on the Parliament of the Commonwealth are conferred, in respect of a number of matters, concurrent powers with those which have been enjoyed, and will still be enjoyed, by the Parliaments and the Governments of the States. The States in respect of these matters will still retain their powers, and the only question which can arise is as to whether any Act of the State Legislature will be ultra vires. In regard to Article 51 no controversy can arise as to any power having been taken away from the State Legislatures, because the States will retain all the powers they have enjoyed. The question that will arise is a totally different question. In the immense majority of cases it would not be whether the Commonwealth Parliament or the State Parliament had power to legislate on the matter, because both undoubtedly had. The scheme of the Bill is different. The question that would arise is this:—Under the 109th article of the Constitution, if the law of the Commonwealth and the laws of the State were in conflict, the law of the Commonwealth prevailed. The question would not be as to the relative powers of the Commonwealth and the States inter se, for in a question of the construction of the Commonwealth statute with the State statute, if they bore on the same subject, the Commonwealth law prevails. That is not a question which will be affected by the terms of the arrangement now arrived at. An appeal on the question of the construction of a statute will be absolutely free as at present. That is to say, if Her Majesty in Council thought fit to grant leave of appeal there would be no conflict. My hon. and learned friend referred to a very interesting case affecting a Chinaman, and he asked whether the State Legislature had not acted ultra vires in legislating on that subject. In Australia that question cannot arise, because no jurisdiction is conferred on the Commonwealth Parliament to legislate with regard to aliens, yet the State Legislature would retain all its powers, because the powers are concurrent In regard to the other case mentioned by my hon. and learned friend as to rivers and lakes, the great rivers and lakes of America concern another Power than the Dominion of Canada; but no such question could, of course, arise in Australia and therefore it could not lead to complication. I would point out, moreover
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  that the Amendment as proposed does not bear on an appeal in any class of cases whatever. As the Bill came from Australia, in certain classes of cases resting on the interpretation of some doubtful and obscure words there was no authority or power to give leave to appeal from the High Court to the Privy Council. There could be no appeal from the High Court to the Privy Council on any constitutional question unless it related to the public interests of some other part of Her Majesty's dominions. Now the effect of that was that in an excepted class of cases they set up two Courts with coordinate jurisdiction, and as to that particular class of case the High Court and the Privy Council are co-ordinate with no possibility of appeal from the one to the other. It might have been argued on the Bill as it came from Australia that the High Court in these cases would not have been bound by the decision of the Privy Council. No such contention can possibly be raised under the clause as it is now settled, because there is the power of appeal to Her Majesty in Council in every case. The only difference is that while in the immense majority of cases leave to appeal is to be granted as heretofore by application to Her Majesty in Council, such special leave in one small class of cases—which affect Australian interests almost exclusively — is to be granted from the High Court, and the Privy Council is recognised as the Appellate Court. It has been asked, if this leave is to be got from the High Court, on what principles will the High Court act in granting or refusing the application? I confess that I have some confidence in the action of the High Court. It has been the glory of our race all over the world, that the Judges in every part of the United Kingdom and in every British Colony have acted absolutely independently of political considerations. As these Judges have acted in the past I believe they will act in the future, and I think it will be found that there is no ground for any distrust or apprehension as to the way in which the High Court will exercise the powers with which it is entrusted in this very small and special class of cases as to whether there shall be an appeal to the Privy Council if the interests of any other part of Her Majesty's dominions are affected. It is very difficult indeed to see how a question of the distribution of powers between two

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  Australian States could affect the interests of another part of Her Majesty's dominions. But if by any human possibility such a case should arise, that is a special reason for allowing an appeal, and it is much better to have a provision in this elastic form instead of trying to find a form which will stand for all time without any power on the part of any Court to vary it. I would suggest to the Committee, and all those interested in the matter, that it may be left in the shape which it has now assumed—a shape that has given satisfaction alike to all those in Australia who approved of a limited appeal, and those who asked for an unrestricted appeal.
  MR. BRYCE: I entirely assent to the argument addressed to the House by my right hon. and learned friend that in cases which arise as to the powers of the Commonwealth Parliament and those of the State Parliaments, the decision should be left to the Privy Council; in other words, it would be for the Privy Council to say whether the matter ought to come before it or not by way of appeal. In regard to the difference between the Canadian and this Constitution, that is not material; but I think my hon. and learned friend goes rather too far if he suggests that it is absolutely impossible that a Constitutional question involving the public interests of some other part of Her Majesty's dominions can arise, where the question is, prima facie, one between the Constitution of a State and the Constitutional powers of the Commonwealth.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I did not say absolutely impossible. I think it is extremely improbable, and that it would be dealt with by the power which the High Court has to allow appeal on cause shown.
  MR. BRYCE: I do not suggest that it is a probable case, but my hon. and learned friend the Member for Haddington was quite right in pointing out that this is a case that might arise, and that if it did it would have been better to have retained the words "public interests," which the original draft of the Australian Constitution contained, and which set of words had been used by the Privy Council itself in a famous decision. Probably it was from that
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  decision that the words "public interests" in the original draft were drawn.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: The words are "public interests in some other parts of Her Majesty's dominions."
  MR. BRYCE: It is said that these are vague words. They are wide words, and the Privy Council would have given them. a very wide interpretation. After all, there is not very much difference between us, and I pass on to enter a caveat against the last argument of my right hon. and learned friend. He suggested that under the Amendment the Committee is now discussing the High Court of the Commonwealth of Australia will not be a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction with the Privy Council, and that it will be bound to. follow the decisions of the Privy Council. I cannot feel by any means so clear as my right hon. and learned friend on that point, because we are here making a special provision for a special case. From the general right of appeal to the Privy Council to be granted we are excepting, by statute one particular class of cases, questions involving the construction of the Constitution of the Commonwealth. Surely it will not only be within the power of, but also the duty and the right of the High Court to give full effect to that provision of the Australian Constitution, and to say, "We are in this particular matter made a final Court of Appeal. In all other matters we are undoubtedly a subordinate Court, unless in a particular matter we are made a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction." They would say, "The only appeal is to lie. from us, where we are satisfied there is some special reason; we are bound to carry out the intention of the people of Australia and of the Imperial Parliament in not going beyond the express provision; they have given no appeal unless special reasons, in our opinion, exist." I think, therefore, that it will be open to the High Court in future to hold that in this matter they are a Court not of subordinate jurisdiction but of co-ordinate jurisdiction. I cannot assent to the argument that, because they are subject to appeal in other cases, they are subject to appeal in this case also.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: They are subject to appeal in. this case also; the only question is whether that appeal

  653
  should be allowed and whether a special authorisation should exist.
  MR. BRYCE: Excuse me; it is whether they have it in their power, if they so think fit, to depart from the position given to them of being the final Court of Appeal, and put themselves in the position of a subordinate Court. I think it necessary to enter a protest against the view the Attorney General has taken on this point. I do not suggest that that is a reason why the matter should be thrown into uncertainty again, and I have no desire to raise any difficulty if it can possibly be avoided, but I think it would have been a great deal better if we had passed the Bill as it came to us from Australia. If the words the Australians employed had been used, some difficulties and friction would have been avoided. As, however, we have now arrived at an arrangement which appears to be satisfactory to the great majority of the Australian colonies, I do not think there will be any general wish in the Committee to throw any impediment in the way of the final settlement of the matter.
  MR. HALDANE: I am glad that the Government have come to a satisfactory settlement with so many of the Australian colonies. I gather that Queensland would still like a wider appeal, and that Western Australia and New Zealand would like the appeal to the Privy Council to stand as at present. I do not intend to propose any Amendment, but would only suggest that between now and the Report stage it should be considered whether the words which the delegates originally proposed should not be preserved as an independent clause without in any way derogating from what has been done. In that way I think the views and wishes of New Zealand, Queensland, and Western Australia might be materially assisted. The right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General has shown the few cases in Canada which cannot arise; but he has not shown the number of cases which may arise. I quite agree that the two Acts will be materially different Acts, but the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General and the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary must remember that the cases of ultra vires under this Bill, although they will arise in a different
  654
  form, will be just like the Canadian cases of ultra vires. The first form of question that will have to be decided would be, "Is the particular statute under consideration within the legislative limits?" That would raise a common form of question under the Canadian Constitution. Then there, would be other questions. Supposing the Commonwealth legislated, under this very wide power of legislating, as to fisheries and extra-territorial waters, then, I think, New Zealand may very easily have a question on which it would be right that it should have an unfettered power of appeal. The desire of New Zealand that it should have an unfettered right of appeal seems to me to be only a reasonable desire, and I suggest to the Government, respectfully but earnestly, that they should give more consideration than they have done to the question of maintaining the original words as proposed by the delegates, if necessary in a separate and independent clause. Not one word has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman or the Attorney General to lead us to think that the delegates object to their original words. As New Zealand would not object, and Queensland and Western Australia both apparently prefer some better form of the clause, the old words should still be embodied in the Bill. If they are not, the Government must take the responsibility, and I can only say that we must congratulate the Government on getting as much assent as they have got.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not wish to prevent my hon. and learned friend from having the honours of war, but at the same time, as he has made a further appeal to the Government, I must be permitted to point out that there appears to me still to be an absolute and entire ignorance of the wishes of those he professes to represent. His appeal to us is to insert into this clause or some other part of the Bill, or to reinsert certain words; and he appears to think that if we did that we should give satisfaction to New Zealand. Queensland, and Western Australia. I beg to say he is entirely mistaken. I do not think either of those great colonies cares one row of brass pins whether we put those words in or not. What do they care about? There is something they do care about; these colonies have not got everything they want. From the very first, as I ex-

  655
  plained to the House in the introduction of this Bill, Queensland has desired that the plenary right of appeal should be maintained exactly as it exists now, and they desire that no change whatever should be made. That is the position of Western Australia; that is the position of New Zealand. But the position of four out of the five federating colonies has been different; they have desired that there should be more or less restriction of appeal, and under those circumstances we have negotiated. I find myself in a difficulty in following the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman. What has been his object in the part he has taken in this discussion? When, on the introduction of the Bill, I explained that the Government felt that Imperial interests were so seriously concerned in this matter that they could not give way altogether to the majority of the Australian federating colonies, and that, therefore, as they had been unable to arrange any agreement, they were forced to cut out the clause and to leave the right to appeal as it was before (that is to say, when we were giving to New Zealand, Queensland, and Western Australia, for whom the hon. and learned Gentleman is anxious, all that they were wanting) then the hon. and learned Gentleman got up and said that we were wrong, that he could not agree with us, and that we were in danger of incurring the displeasure of the Australian colonies. But when we come down now and say that all difficulty that existed is now disappearing, that we have amicably come to a unanimous conclusion, which Queensland is content to accept, which all the four colonies have accepted as well, which gives us all for which we ever contended in this House or elsewhere, and which gives to the colonies in Australia all which they severally think to be of importance, then the hon. and learned Gentleman is dissatisfied, and thinks that we have insufficiently considered the rights of Queens land and New Zealand. I daresay his position is clear to himself, but I am bound to say it is not clear to me. What I wish to impress on the Committee and on all parties to this controversy is that if, as I hope i will be, the decision of New South Wale is in accordance with the decision of the other colonies, we have—thanks very much indeed to the consideration which
  656
  has been given to the matter and to the friendliness of the Australian delegates, who were appointed by their Governments, thanks to the general reasonableness of all parties and the desire to secure a unanimous agreement—dealt with what undoubtedly was an extremely difficult and complicated question in a manner which, at the end, we can say was satisfactory to all the parties concerned.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 6:—
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, line 20, to leave out from the word 'Act,' to the end of line 23."—(Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I think we ought to have some explanation of why they were struck out. They were put in at the instance of the delegates, and perhaps the Attorney General or the Colonial Secretary will be able to tell us why now they should be struck out.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: My hon. and learned friend will observe that the Bill as it came from Australia contained the definition that "the colonies" should mean "the colonies of Australia." If it had not been for that definition I should have thought there would be no doubt that the Colonial Laws Validity Act would apply to Australia as it applied to the laws of the Dominion of Canada. It must be remembered that we are dealing not with one colony, but with the legislation of an assemblage of colonies; and we found, on conferring with the delegates, that it would be more acceptable to strike out the words containing the definition, which they thought were unnecessary.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  Schedule:—
  Amendments made.
  MR. MACLEAN,who had the following Amendment on the Notice Paper—
  "In page 19, line 30, after 'exclusive,' to insert, 'Provided that any proposed laws for the granting of any such bounties shall be reserved by the Governor General for Her Majesty's pleasure,'"
  said: I put this Amendment on the Paper not with the intention of carrying it to a division, but merely for the purpose of calling public attention to the very great change which the clause makes in the commercial policy of the Empire. Hitherto it has been accepted as the commercial policy of the Empire to have free trade in all these matters; but power is reserved to the Australian Commonwealth to grant bounties on the production and export of Australian goods. I am aware that the whole Bill must be subject to the veto of the Queen in Council; but a veto of that kind is very seldom exercised. I am aware that it would be utterly useless for us to attempt to impose any restraint upon the Australian Commonwealth in these matters. We have given to the Commonwealth everywhere perfect freedom to tax themselves and to govern themselves, and even to enter into treaties with foreign Powers, and we cannot, therefore draw a line at a matter of this kind. Personally, I have sufficient faith in the principles of free trade to leave the matter to be settled by the Australians themselves. They will go their own course rejoicing in their own freedom and strength, and we can only hope that, as in the United States, whom we have seen adopt an economic blunder and still remain a prosperous country, a similar fate may be reserved for the Australian Commonwealth. Under the circumstances I do not propose to move the Amendment of which I had given notice.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. This does not introduce any new principle whatever. Any single colony in Australia has already power to grant bounties, and as a matter of fact some of them have exercised it.
  Schedule and Preamble agreed to.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and printed. [Bill 262.]
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN; Perhaps I may be allowed to ask the right hon. Gentleman when he proposes to introduce the complementary measure which we were told of more than a month ago as being ready to be introduced in a few days—I mean the measure adding certain Gentlemen to the Privy Council, and which was considered essential to the scheme.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: It was not said to be essential—certainly not—but it was the desire of Her Majesty's Government, if such an arrangement could be made agreeable to the colonies, to make the arrangement I referred to on a previous occasion. But what I have to state now is that we are in communication with the Australian colonies through the Australian delegates, and we have not at present received information as to their desire on the subject. Therefore, I am really unable to give any further information. I think it is fair to say that I am led to understand that some further conference will be required in regard to this. It may be that the delay will make it impossible to bring in the Bill this session; but, at all events, the delay will not be with us. It will only be because the colonies desire a conference on the subject.

  RAILAWAYS (PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTS) BILL.
  [THIRD READING.]
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. CALDWELL: I beg to move that this Bill be recommitted in respect of Clause 19, which applies the Bill to Scotland. This clause was practically introduced by the Lord Advocate when the Bill was being considered by the House. Under Clause 10 of the Bill there may be a prosecution of a railway company in respect of any non-compliance with the rules which have been made under the Act, and in the case

  659
  of prosecutions for breaches of those rules the clause provides that the same shall be tried in a summary manner under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, the object being that the trial should be a speedy and as far as possible an inexpensive one. In the case of England and Ireland the summary tribunal is the justices of the peace, with an appeal to Quarter Sessions. Where an appeal is made to the Quarter Sessions, that Court may review the matter both in regard to questions of law, and fact, but there is a further appeal to the High Court on questions of law only. In Scotland the procedure of the English Act is not followed, because the Scotch Summary Procedure Act is somewhat different. At one time in Scotland we had a court consisting of justices of the peace and Quarter Sessions, but the law now in regard to these actions is that the case should be tried before the sheriff. The sheriff represents a status higher even in Scotland than that of the Quarter Sessions, so that in Scotland, instead of beginning with the justices and having an appeal to the Quarter Sessions analogous to the case of England, the prosecution is taken before the sheriff. Where-ever any prosecution is taken before the sheriff his judgment as regards matters of fact is final, and an appeal to the High Court is only possible on a question of law. We are placed in this position— that in England you have two tribunals, the justices and the Quarter Sessions, and in Scotland the sheriff is superior to the English Quarter Sessions. As the Bill was brought in by the Government there would have been no appeal to the Quarter Sessions on matters of fact, and strangely enough the Amendment introduced by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire on behalf of the railway companies did provide for an appeal, but it was upon matters of law only. The Amendment of my hon. friend was not necessary at all, because, as the prosecution was to take place under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, they could appeal to the Quarter Sessions in any case. When the Report stage was reached the Lord Advocate put in a most unusual Amendment, and carried the right of appeal by the railway companies up to the High Court in regard to matters of fact as well as matters of law, and, in order to make a foundation for such an appeal to the High Court, he has had to alter what is the usual procedure in a summary case by the sheriff. In Clause 19
  660
  the Lord Advocate introduces a change by which the sheriff at the request of either party is to take notes of evidence. How is the summary character of the case to proceed if the sheriff, at the request of either party—and the railway companies may be relied upon to ask for notes—has to take notes of the evidence, and then those notes are to be laid before the Court of Session. They will have to be printed, and the Court of Session will, in the case of a breach of the rules, be able to review the case not only on matters of law, but also upon questions of fact. Look at the position of matters. If it be an offence in Scotland the railway companies have the right of review both on questions of law and of fact; but if the offence be-in England or Ireland the railway companies have a right of review on questions of law only. Is there any reason why this Bill should prescribe that the prosecution is to be summary, while in the case of Scotland you deprive it altogether of its summary character? The Lord Advocate is depriving this clause of its summary character by introducing this new procedure, that in the case of the prosecution under the Summary Procedure Act the sheriff is to take notes of evidence, and the Court of Session is to have power to review on questions of fact as well as of law. I know the only thing that it is possible: to say on the other side in regard to this proposal. It will be said that in the case of England there is an appeal from the justices to the Quarter Sessions, and you are going to say "We want an appeal also in Scotland." But it is a very different thing to. give an appeal from the justices to the Quarter Sessions in England, because the Justices' Court is an inferior tribunal to begin with. It is a different thing, to give an appeal from one legal body of that kind to another by giving an appeal to the High Court in a summary case on matters of fact. In the case of England you begin with the justices, and according to English procedure there is necessarily an appeal to the Quarter Sessions. That is a procedure which is quite applicable to England, but when you come to deal with Scotland you deal in a different way, because you make it compulsory that the sheriff shall be the only party entitled to try the case. If the law is wrong in one case, why not

  661
  alter it in every other case? You have an appeal in England, because you begin with the justices, and you get an appeal to the Quarter Sessions, but in Scotland you begin with the sheriff, who is equal to the Quarter Sessions, and, therefore, the Summary Jurisdiction Act represents not an appeal from the sheriff on matters of fact but only on questions of law. The result is that in Scotland the prosecution practically ceases to be summary. It is provided that the sheriff has now to take notes of evidence, and those who have been in practice in the Sheriff's Court know the length of time taken by cases in which the sheriff has to take notes in his own handwriting. I have known a case of this kind spread over weeks and months, and the result of this provision will be that the summary character of the prosecution will be entirely done away with. Why should those who are prosecuting for a breach of the rule under this Bill in Scotland be handicapped by a sheriff being required to take these notes of evidence, and why should the parties be put to the expense of having to fight the case in the High Court in Scotland, while in the ease of Prosecutions in England and Ireland an appeal can only be made on questions of law. without reference to any review of the facts? I have put down an Amendment on the Paper to clause 19, page 6, line 39, to leave out from "1864," to the end of the sub-section, and the effect of the Amendment would be that it would leave an appeal to the High Court in Scotland the very same as an appeal to the High Court in England and Ireland. It would then be an appeal on questions of law merely and not on questions of fact. Certainly no sufficient reason has been given for this extraordinary change of the law, which is inconsistent with any procedure under the Summary Jurisdiction Act in Scotland, and which is also a great injustice to railway servants in Scotland.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to second the proposition of my hon. friend below me. I believe this alteration was introduced by the Lord Advocate on the Report stage in this House. It is well known to Scotch Members that the Sheriffs' Court in Scotland corresponds more to the Quarter Sessions than to the Justices' Court, and
  662
  it is a Court with which the Scotch suitors are entirely satisfied. The Lord Advocate's Amendment introduces a somewhat new method of procedure. It gives an appeal in Scotch cases only on questions of fact as well as law. We object to this on the ground that it takes away the summary character of the jurisdiction laid down by this Bill. It increases the right of appeal in Scotch cases as compared with English and Irish cases, and it may very materially increase the expenses in favour of the rich railway companies as against poor individuals. I hope the Lord Advocate will be able to offer some satisfactory explanation on the subject.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the words 'now read the third time,' in order to add the words 're-committed in respect of Clause 19.'"—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): With regard to the motion I made introducing this change, I wish to say that it stood on the Paper in the ordinary way, and I can assure my hon. friends opposite that my only reason for introducing this Amendment was to provide that the procedure in Scotland should be precisely the same in its true character as in England and Ireland. It has already been decided that for England there should be a right of appeal upon the facts as well as upon law, and I felt that to translate this into Scotch it was necessary to take the course I suggested. It is not a question of status or dignity, but the point is, shall we have in Scotland an appeal on the facts alone, or on both the facts and the law? If you are going to have an appeal on both, the only way it can be done, otherwise than by the course I have suggested, would have been much more cumbersome. Let me venture to correct the hon. Member for Mid Lanark, for he is not correct in saying that in all cases under the Summary Procedure Act there is no appeal. The hon. Member has evidently forgotten the provision made under the Summary Procedure Act of 1864. There are many instances of statutes creating offences allowing a right of appeal on matters of fact, and for

  663
  which proceedings might be commenced under the Summary Procedure Act. You would not need the Summary Procedure Act for the purposes of an appeal, for you would present your appeal by virtue of the provision in the statute creating the offence. If you do give an appeal upon matters of fact it is necessary to make provision for taking the evidence. This taking of the evidence has been spoken of as a novelty, but it is not so, for there are many instances in which notes of the evidence have to be taken. May I be allowed to say that I think the system proposed is very much better than the English plan. The English plan is that, having examined the witnesses before the justices, on taking an appeal to the Quarter Sessions you do not present notes of the evidence, but you examine the witnesses all over again. I think that is a much more expensive process than the process of taking notes of the evidence and having an adjudication upon that. Accordingly, if you are going to have an appeal upon that in a summary manner the method I have put down is the correct way, and the same method obtains already in many statutes of the realm. From the starting point of the English Bill this is the only way to deal with it, unless I had taken the much more cumbersome method of giving a right of appeal on points of fact and another appeal on points of law. That would possibly have been more analogous to the English position, because under this Bill there is a possibility of two appeals—one on the facts and another to the High Court upon the law alone. I think it is very much simpler and better to do as we have done, and it is no novelty at all to provide for the taking of notes of evidence and thus have an appeal to the High Court upon points of law at once. I want to make it perfectly clear to the Committee that the right of appeal given in this proposal is in substance precisely the same appeal, although the particular tribunals used are different, because they cannot exactly correspond in Scotland.
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: The point which has been put forward by my right hon. friend the Lord Advocate is not exactly that which we have put forward in this discussion. We desire, so far as we can, to make the state of things in the three countries
  664
  analogous. The strong distinction which this Bill draws between Scotland and England and Ireland is this—that in the Bill as drawn in this clause we shall now have an appeal to the High Court in Scotland upon questions of fact and law, while in England and Ireland such a course will be absolutely impossible. In our procedure in Scotland I should say that in ninety-nine hundredths of the cases tried the sheriff is made the final judge of the facts. I do hope that my right hon. friend will take care to see that this clause is amended, and I will suggest to him that the Bill should be so recast upon this head as to take advantage of that most excellent statute which is. known as the Summary Prosecutions Act of 1875. That Act applies in all prosecutions of a summary nature in every inferior Court in Scotland, and I observe in this clause that the Lord Advocate suggests that this prosecution is to be of the nature of a civil prosecution. The advantage of the reference which I respectfully give him is that, whereas criminal prosecutions would have to go to the High Court, civil prosecutions may go to either of the divisions of the Quarter Sessions, granted only that these superior Courts shall not be troubled with the details of the facts, but they will have to address themselves to questions of law-alone. I venture to say that the calling of this proposal a summary prosecution is very contradictory. There will be an appeal upon such questions as whether a railway company can be fined or not for some delinquency discovered probably by a railway servant. The whole idea of summary jurisdiction is in the present instance particularly applicable, because what we want in reference to this Bill is that those delinquencies of railway companies shall be promptly and finally dealt with by the sheriff who considers the facts. I think it is a great public misfortune in Scotland that when these delinquencies are discovered we have to go through such a protracted procedure, which is detrimental to the public interest, and which in the case of railway servants, might be of a most disastrous character.
  MR. COLVILLE: As this Bill now stands it establishes a very serious barrier in the way of getting these appeals speedily settled. The Lord Advocate has not made it clear to the House that in the case of Scotland there

  665
  would be no greater hardship for a railway servant than in the case of England, where the appeal is made from the justices to the Quarter Sessions. If the Lord Advocate could assure the House that the cost of such an appeal would be restricted we should be quite satisfied, but I am afraid that railway servants will find themselves mulcted in serious costs. Of course if we are assured on this point our objection to
  this clause would be removed. I take it that the Lord Advocate does not purposely intend to penalise Scotch railway servants so that they would find it more: costly to proceed under the Act than English railway servants.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 214;. Noes, 109. (Division List No. 151.)

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Lecky, Rt. Hon. Wm. E. H.

  Aird, John

  Doughty, George

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Alters-

  Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn- (Sw'ns'a)

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Doxford, Sir William T.

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Drage, Geoffrey

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Liverpool.)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Finch, George H.

  Lowles, John

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manc'r)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

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

  Fitz Wygram, General Sir F.

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Barnes, Frederic Gore

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  Macdona, John Gumming

  Barry, Rt. Hn. A. H. S. (Hunts)

  Flower, Ernest

  MacIver, David Liverpool)

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Forster, Henry William

  Maclean, James Mackenzie

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

  Foster, Harry S. (Suffolk)

  Maclure, Sir John William

  Beach, Rt. Hn. W.W.B.(Hants.)

  Fry, Lewis

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Bethell, Commander

  Garfit, William

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'gh, W.)

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Gedge, Sydney

  M'Killop, James

  Biddulph, Michael

  Gibbons, J. Lloyd

  Malcolm, Ian

  Bill, Charles

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

  Manners, Lord Edw. Wm. J.

  Blakiston-Houston, John

  Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Bonsor, Henry Cosmo Orme

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fred.

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Middlemore, John Throgmort'n

  Bousfield, William Robert

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward

  Milbank, Sir Powlett Chas. Jno.

  Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn)

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Monckton, Edward Philip

  Brassey, Albert

  Colliding, Edward Alfred

  Monk, Charles James

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Green, W. D. (Wednesbury)

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Gretton, John

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropsh.)

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Gl'sg'w)

  Gull, Sir Cameron

  Morgan, Hon. F. (Monm'thsh.)

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

  Gunter, Colonel

  Morrell, George Herbert

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

  Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord George

  Morton, Arthur H. A.(Deptford)

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

  Hardy, Laurence

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

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

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

  Heath, James

  Myers, William Henry

  Chamberlain, J Austin (Worc'r)

  Helder, Augustus

  Newdigate, Francis Alex.

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Henderson, Alexander

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Charrington, Spencer

  Hermon Hodge, Robert T.

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington.)

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Hoare, Edw. B. (Hampstead)

  Pender, Sir James

  Coddington, Sir William

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Percy, Earl

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Howard, Joseph

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Pilkington, R. (Lancs, Newton)

  Colomb, Sir John Charles R.

  Jackson, Rt. Hn. W. Lawies

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Jebb, Richard Claverhouse

  Plunkett, Rt. Hon. H. Curzon

  Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth)

  Jenkins, Sir John Jones

  Pollock, Harry Fredk.

  Cooke, C. W. Radcliffe (Heref'd)

  Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Cotton-Jodrell, Col. E. T. D.

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Cox, Irwin Edw. Bainbridge

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Purvis, Robert

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William

  Rankin, Sir James

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Knowles, Lees

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Curzon, Viscount

  Lafone, Alfred

  Remnant, James Farquharson.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Cornn)

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham)

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Ridley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W.

  Denny, Colonel

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. Thomson

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Lea, Sir T. (Londonderry)

  Rothschild, Hn. Lionel Walter

  Round, James

  Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Stock, James Henry

  Williams Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Rutherford, John

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Williams, Jos. Powell-(Birm.)

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry N.

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

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

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Thornton, Percy M.

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

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

  Tomlinson, W. E. Murray

  Wyndham, George

  Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Smith, J. Parker (Lanarks.)

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Sir William Walrond and

  Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taun'n)

  Mr. Anstruther.

  Stanley, Sir H. M. (Lambeth)

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Morley, Rt. Hon. J. (Montrose)

  Allan, William (Gateshead)

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport)

  Allison, Robert Andrew

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Asher, Alexander

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Murnaghan, George

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Gourley, Sir Edw. Temperley

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Gurdon, Sir William B.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Harwood, George

  Oldroyd, Mark

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Seale-

  Pilkington, Sir G. A. (Lancs S. W.)

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Hedderwick, Thos. Chas. H.

  Price, Robert John

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Holden, Sir Angus

  Priestley, Briggs

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Holland, William Henry

  Provand, Andrew Dryburgh

  Billson, Alfred

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Reid, Sir Robert Threshie

  Birrell, Augustine

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

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

  Bramsdon, Thomas Arthur

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez E.

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Burt, Thomas

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.,)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt. Hn. Sir U.

  Souttar, Robinson

  Cameron, Sir Chas. (Glasgow)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Spicer, Albert

  Campbeil-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Labouchere, Henry

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip J.

  Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

  Langley, Batty

  Steadman, William Charles

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cumb'l'nd)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Cawley, Frederick

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington)

  Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.)

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Colville, John

  Lloyd-George, David

  Wallace, Robert

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lough, Thomas

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Crombie, John William

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Wason, Eugene

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)

  M'Crae, George

  Wills, Sir William Henry

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Ewan, William

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Dewar, Arthur

  M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Maddison, Fred.

  Woods, Samuel

  Duckworth, James

  Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Dunn, Sir William

  Mather, William

  Emmott, Alfred

  Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Evans, Samuel T.(Glamorgan)

  Moore, Arthur (Londonderry)

  Mr. Caldwell and Mr.

  Evans, Sir F. H.(Southampton)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Buchanan.

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Morgan, W. Pritchard (Merthyr)

  Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned"—(Mr. Marks) —put, and agreed to.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. ALFRED HUTTON: The House might have expected that the right hon. Gentleman in moving the Second Reading of this Bill would have vouchsafed some kind of explanation of the provisions it contains. On the First Reading the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman was of the most perfunctory character, and he did not attempt more than to casually state one or two provisions of the measure, and did not in any way

  669
  refer to some of its most important proposals. I certainly think the right hon. Gentleman has not treated either the House or the subject with which this Bill deals with the respect he ought. The Bill is certainly one which may be perfectly well described as a Bill without any principle whatever. It is an omnium gatherum. The right hon. Gentleman has gathered a large number of scraps together, and has thrown them into the Bill. I do not think there are any two clauses in it which have any connection with each other, and there is no general principle running through it. So far, however, as I can gather, the majority of the clauses, with the exception of Clause 2, are of a fairly reasonable character, and tend in the right direction. These clauses, however, are merely the coating and the sugar with which to administer the medicinal pill contained in Clause 2. I am quite sure that the proposal contained in Clause 2 is the main object of the Bill; that the other clauses are merely set out in order to make it more agreeable. The proposal in Clause 2 is of a novel character, and being of a novel character I think the right hon. Gentleman should have vouchsafed us some kind of explanation as to the policy of his Department in connection with it. When I say the proposal is novel, I mean that it is novel to this generation. It re-establishes in this country grants of public money for the building of denominational schools not in the hands of public bodies or under responsible control. I quite understood, and I think the country understood, that building grants were abolished once and for ever, and that they were never to be heard of again. Now we have a revival of the old custom condemned many years ago, the only difference being that the money is to be taken not out of the National Exchequer but out of the rates levied by boards of guardians. However, it is public money all the same, find we ought to have the same restrictions and the same principles applied to it. These grants are for the purpose of enlarging or building schools of a denominational character, in order to enable boards of guardians to have poor-law children educated in them. I acknowledge that the education of poor-law children is a problem of very considerable difficulty, but if I may be allowed to say so, I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has taken a very wise course
  670
  to secure its solution. Different boards of guardians adopt different policies with regard to poor-law children. Some boards keep them in the workhouses, others board them out in large numbers of thirty or forty in one place, while others again board them out in ones or twos. It is obvious that some boards of guardians will adopt this clause while others will not, and you will have as a result most unequal action all over the country. Some schools will be able to get public money granted them, while others with just as good a claim will be unable to persuade boards of guardians to apply money for this particular purpose. Again, suppose a board of guardians decides to enlarge a school to accommodate twenty children who require places, the Board of Education authorises the board of guardians to pro-vide money for that purpose and they proceed to do so. That accommodation may be necessary to-day, but in five years time there may not be a single poor-law child attending that school. I certainly think that we may have a most reckless addition to our schools as a result of this clause, and we have no guarantee that boards of guardians will continue to carry out the same policy from year to year, or that even if they do it will produce the same effect in each village. Then we have another extraordinary novelty. Boards of guardians are asked to adopt a policy of contributing to the building or enlarging of schools in which poor-law children are to be educated. In the case of London we have the anomaly that money collected in the metropolis would be spent in Surrey, Kent, or Middlesex, where the schools may be situated. I think that is what is likely to occur, and if I am wrong it is because the right hon. Gentleman has not taken any means to secure that we should have any correct information as to the principle upon which this clause is based. Then there is another anomaly — another violation of a principle which is recognised as proper. If boards of guardians are asked to make these grants they should have some control over the schools which receive them. I think it will be a most iniquitous proceeding if the thin end of the wedge is now to be inserted by authorising grants-in-aid taken from the local rates without any control being given over the schools. I see in this proposal the beginning of a

  671
  policy of using the rates of this country for the assistance of denominational schools, and using it without any quid pro quo, or without giving any control over the schools which receive these grants. I think this clause runs counter very seriously indeed to what we considered the policy of the Government and the Education Department was. I think we ought to have some explanation, and I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentle-man will be able to give us a satisfactory explanation, or a promise that proper safe- guards will be provided. I will not now refer to the other clauses of the Bill. Most of them are of a satisfactory kind, but I believe that Clause 12 is the main proposal, and that if it is left as it stands it will very seriously affect the principle we thought animated the Education Department of this country, and will inflict very serious injury. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time on this day three months.
  MR. GODDARDformally seconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'"—(Mr. Alfred Hutton.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. MIDDLEMORE: Speaking generally, I view with the deepest satisfaction every clause in this Bill. I believe it is an admirable Bill from first to last, and I would wish to say one or two words in reply to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who moved its rejection. The Bill enables boards of guardians to send poor-law children to public elementary schools of all kinds. I happen to be the first man in England who sent any number of pauper children to public elementary schools. That was in June, 1872, and after twenty-eight years experience of this form of educating poor-law children, I can say it has been a most complete and absolute success. First of all, it gives the officers in the workhouses a period of quiet and peace, and it secures a certain amount of complete order during several hours of the day. It provides outside
  672
  assistance for training these boys and girls, who get another form of discipline, which is altogether admirable. It gives the children a variety of life, and destroys that inertness — I might say almost soddenness—to which they are liable. It associates them with ordinary children in every-day life; they are no longer labelled as paupers, and their lives are made much happier and more natural. In these schools thus conducted I have found no absconding when the opportunity has been offered, and, therefore, if I was as much opposed to Voluntary schools as the hon. Gentleman opposite, I should feel bound to support this Bill, because of the great advantage it will confer upon pauper children by introducing a variety of life and discipline into their training. I will not refer to the other clauses. I think they are in every way satisfactory, and that the necessities of the situation have called forth every one of them.
  *MR. YOXALL: This Bill is full of technical points which will require explanation before it obtains a second reading. There are one or two criticisms which I desire respectfully to offer. The clause to which my hon. friend the Member for Morley referred appears to me to be an admirable clause in regard to certain classes of schools. The tendency of boards of guardians seems to be to disband their pauper schools and to board their children out. One can conceive of a board of guardians of a great city boarding out their pauper children in a village a few miles out, and sending these children to the public elementary school. The accommodation in the village school will thereby be swamped, and additional accommodation and additional expense will become necessary. In fact in some villages a new school, or at least a new department, will have to be built. I take it that the object of the clause is to make it lawful for the hoard of guardians to provide or contribute towards the cost of the additional accommodation. That is a perfectly proper thing when it applies to village board schools, because in these there is every guarantee, by public audit and public management, that the money voted by the board of guardians will be spent on the school, and nothing but the school. But in an indirect way this raises the question of rate-aid to voluntary schools. I should be out of order if I were

  673
  to discuss that principle, as a principle; but I may be allowed to say that I should not look with hostility upon the extension of rate-aid to voluntary schools, under certain proper and essential conditions—namely, that the board of guardians or whatever the rating authority may be—should have the right to appoint on the committee of management of the school to be so aided from the rates a representative or representatives, and that they should have the right of auditing or requiring the Local Government auditor to audit the accounts of the school. If that were done, the risk of determined opposition to the clause in question would be withdrawn. I will not say many words in regard to the provisions which extend the powers of compulsory school attendance, which widen the net to bring in truant boys, increase the attendances under what are known asdunce certificates, and raise the penalties which may be inflicted on parents for neglecting to send their children to school. The school board of the city which I have the honour to represent has already communicated with the Board of Education on Clause 4, Sub-section 1. By Clause 4 the local authority—that is, the school board —is empowered to pay the expense of the conveyance of children who are sent, under the Education Acts, to a certified industrial school. That is a very proper thing, but I would point out that hitherto where that has been done it has usually Been done my means of a policeman. That is to say, that children sent to an industrial school, not necessarily as the result of crime or misdemeanour, but of truancy or a comparatively trifling offence, have been so sent in the charge of the police. I wish that there could be added to this Bill, in respect of the attendance clause, a proviso that all school attendance cases and punishments arising from these should be heard and determined in another than the ordinary police court. The present practice has, I feel, a bad moral effect on the children. I hope the Government will accept in Committee an amendment in the direction I have indicated, so that the boys who are sent to an industrial school and conveyed there at the expense of the board of guardians may be sent in charge of the board's own visiting officer. With these remarks I extend to this Bill my support, and give my thanks to the Government for having introduced it.
  *MR. CHANNING: I agree with the hon. Member for West Nottingham that many of the pro- visions of this Bill will be of great advantage to education, and will be welcomed by all those who are anxious to strengthen the law with reference to attendance. But it is a point of some importance to know where we are going, and to understand more fully what will be the actual result of these proposals. Now, in the first place, I am quite sure that all those who are acquainted with the present state of educational administration would deprecate the introduction of fresh authorities, and the opening up of fresh conflicts of jurisdiction, by conferring new functions on new authorities in any direction conflicting with existing authorities. If any useful result is to be expected from the Board of Education Act of last year, it ought to be in the direction of unifying the authorities and the machinery in order to get the best possible results. The objection I take to Clause 2 is that it pretty much places on the boards of guardians, indirectly it is true, the right and the duty to provide further accommodation when deficiency of places arises in educational districts. Well, that seems to be a new departure which I much deprecate. It would be very undesirable to interfere, in my opinion, with the existing powers of school boards to provide accommodation, or to thus extend the action of boards of guardians in making the necessary provision for sending the children to ordinary elementary schools. If that most desirable policy is to be fully carried out the proper course would be to adhere to the principle of the Act of 1870, that where there is a deficiency of accommodation the school board should afford the provision of buildings as the authority representing the ratepayers of the district, and that they alone should have the power to deal with the question. The clause as it stands is open to the very serious objection that it enables the board of guardians to subsidise denominational schools, and to provide money out of the rates for an increase of accommodation in denominational schools without any consultation with the ratepayers, or recognising in any way the principle of control by the ratepayers, or without providing any modification whatever of the conditions under which these schools are carried on. It would mitigate the objection on this

  675
  side of the House to some extent if the boards of guardians were entitled to elect representatives to serve upon the committee of management of such schools. I must at once say, however, to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President that that would not meet the whole of my objections to this clause. Unless the clause can be explained in a different sense from that in which its effect has been interpreted I think it will meet with very considerable opposition in Committee.
  MR. STUART: While I entirely approve of facilities being afforded to poor-law children for attending ordinary public elementary schools, where that is possible, as provided for in Clause 2, I feel that there might have been included in the Bill the other side of the picture in which both sides of the House are very considerably interested—namely, the permission to the placing of poor-law schools under the Elementary Education Act, where the board of guardians desires it, and the Local Government Board approves it. I have no doubt the two right hon. Gentlemen responsible for the Local Government Board and for the Board of Education are very well able to arrange a clause by which that could be carried out. I have brought before the House, on a very recent occasion, this very question, and I know that many Members on both sides are interested in it. It is not a party question. The children in poor-law schools do not receive any of the advantages of being under the Board of Education. They are, as we all know, examined and inspected by inspectors under the Poor Law Board and the Local Government Board, and their education is extremely inferior. Many of us are of opinion that the education of these children will never be satisfactorily dealt with unless they are brought under the general educational scheme of the country, and they and their masters are placed under the inspection of the Board of Education itself. Clause 2 goes a certain way in that direction, but only a small way. Even if those poor-law schools were to be broken up, it would take many years to bring them under the ordinary educational system of the country. I do not intend to traverse all the arguments brought forward in Committee of this House in a previous
  676
  debate, but I would remind the House that these children are at present under a great disadvantage as compared with the other children from an educational point of view. The Local Government Board has no facility for inspecting or managing the education of these children. It has no accumulated experience; but the Board of Education has that accumulated experience. I would be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman who is in charge of this Bill or from some; other Member of the Government an expression of their willingness to introduce into the Bill a clause to accomplish that which the guardians and the Local Government Board are willing and desirous to do, namely, to declare that the schools under the poor-law authorities are public elementary schools as far as the teachers are concerned, and also as far as the examination and inspection of the children are concerned. This is a very important point, and affects many-thousands of children under the care of the 600 unions in the country. It has-been said that these are merely barrack: schools, contaminatory in their character and accompanied by the workhouse taint; but, on the contrary, the boards of guardians who are most forward in the matter; such as those of Birmingham and some of the districts of London, are most anxious that they should be placed under the Board of Education for inspection and control, instead of under the Local Government Board. Those boards which have devoted a great deal of money and attention to the creation of schools, such as that at Hornchurch in the neighbourhood of London, where colonies have been founded for the separate home system, are doing their best to train the children in a. manner which will enable them in the future to best meet the circumstances of life. But they find that they cannot get the children taught up to the standard of other children unless they are brought under the ordinary educational system of the country. I trust the Government may see their way to expand the scope of Clause 2.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Speaking in regard to this Bill as a whole, I do not think that anybody, on whatever side of the House he may sit, will deny that

  677
  nearly all its provisions are good and valuable, with, perhaps, one exception. I regret, myself, that the Bill has been complicated by the introduction of the rather unfortunate clause to which not unnaturally a considerable amount of attention and suspicion has been given. The right hon. Gentleman would have facilitated this discussion if he had made some slight explanation of the Bill in moving the Second Reading. As it is, it has been flung down without any guidance from him as to the course of the discussion. My right hon. friend might have foreseen, being familiar with the history of education in this House, that any proposals to enable public bodies to vote money to Voluntary schools are certain to be very closely watched, not merely on this but on the other side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman must recollect the controversy that was aroused by the proposal to enable boards of guardians to pay fees of children under the 25th Clause of the Education Act of 1870. The provision in this Bill may go a great deal further than that proposal of former years, and the only way to mitigate or avoid the not unnatural suspicion which animates Members on this side of the House would be to adopt the suggestion made by two of my hon. friends—namely, that some representation should be given to the boards of guardians, or some other public representative authority—the rural council, or the school board, as the case may be—so that the board of guardians who vote the money might feel that they have some control over the establishments to which their money is given. Where in a case of this kind you are going to draw upon a fresh fund for Voluntary schools, surely we are entitled to ask that some form of representative control should be introduced into the poor-law schools. When the Bill gets to Committee Amendments will be placed upon the Paper. Nobody complains of the procedure of my hon. friend in moving the rejection of the Second Reading in order to raise a full discussion, but I hope my hon. friend will be satisfied with the discussion he has raised, and having regard to the other propositions in the Bill, will not press the rejection; and I hope the Vice-President of the Council will understand that when the Bill gets into Committee the second clause will be closely examined.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: This Bill contains some excellent provisions, but there is one aspect of Clause 2 which I do not think has received sufficient attention in this House. I allude to the effect that it will probably have all through the country, and the change, to a great extent, under which guardians and rural district councilors will be elected. This clause will probably have the effect of making these elections bitterly contested on sectarian and non-sectarian lines. It is true that Clause 2 is partial in its character, but that very fact will cause opinion to divide, and the bitterest feelings will be raised. It is practically a recommencement of the old system of building grants, which we thought had been entirely and absolutely got rid of. I am afraid the effect upon the elections of local governing bodies all over the country will be extremely prejudicial. I hope, however, that my hon. friend, having regard to other proposals in the Bill, will not press his motion to a division.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,): I did not abstain from making a speech in moving the Second Reading of the Bill from any disrespect to the House, but because, the measure being a Departmental one and containing a number of what I had fondly imagined to be purely non-controversial amendments to the law, I thought that, on the whole, it would be more respectful to the House to await the observations which hon. Members might wish to make before thrusting myself upon their notice. Unless I had heard the speeches delivered by hon. Members opposite, I should never have dreamt that it was possible to conceive that there was such a diabolical plan underlying so innocent a clause. Perhaps I might explain to the Committee exactly the reason of this perfectly innocent clause. The clause originated in the conviction of the Education Department of the enormous advantage of poor-law children going to the ordinary elementary schools of the country and mixing with other children. The hon. Member for North Birmingham, who has had great experience, said the best system for the education of pauper children was to divest them as far as possible of their pauper surroundings, and give them the

  679
  same education as the children of the village. In carrying out that principle experience proved that great injustice might be done to certain parishes. As an instance, I might mention a case which came long ago within my own experience. A poor-law union in the county of Essex, with a very small work- house and very few children, had the children taught within the walls of that institution by the best of teachers. The parish, however, became a school board district, and the school board built a school which was attended by the children from the workhouse, and is attended by them, so far as I know, to this day. But why should the ratepayers of the parish have to bear the expense, which ought to be borne by the union? That is, I think, a very great injustice to a small rural parish. The same state of things exists in a number of rural parishes in this country, and the object of the clause is to enable the guardians to do what they have no legal power to do at present —namely, to contribute both to the building and the maintenance of the school. A great number of metropolitan unions now adopt the laudable practice of boarding out their children in country parishes. Where only one or two children are boarded out in a particular parish, no burden is imposed on the inhabitants of that parish, but when a considerable number of children are boarded out in a small parish, increased expense is entailed on the managers of the school. If it is for the interest of the ratepayers to send their children out into the country, it is only reasonable that they should subscribe to the country schools where the children are educated. Nobody ever dreamt of subsidising voluntary schools or reviving building grants or introducing into the election of guardians strong sectarian elements. I do not think the clause would have any such effect. It is a permissive clause. I think boards of guardians may be trusted to take precautions to prevent the use of their money for sectarian purposes. Suggestions have been made that provisions should be put into the Bill requiring boards of guardians to be represented on the committee of the school, and requiring some sort of public audit of the accounts. Let the House imagine one of the great London unions—Poplar or Shoreditch, for instance—having children boarded out in Essex, Kent, or
  680
  Surrey, and being directed to appoint somebody to represent them on the management of the school, and provision having to be made for the audit of a school account amounting, perhaps, to only £100. What a burden would be thrown upon boards of guardians.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: What I suggested with regard to auditing was that the accounts of the school should be subjected to the ordinary audit by the official auditors.
  SIR J. GORST: It is all very well for the Local Government Board auditor to audit the accounts of great schools, but to require a small parish school to have its accounts audited every year by a Local Government Board auditor would put on the managers of the school an additional burden which they are quite unable to bear. The whole matter is optional, and if a board of guardians is not satisfied that every security is afforded for the proper expenditure of their contribution they can withhold that contribution. I will consider any Amendment proposed in Committee, and the House will have further opportunities of considering this clause, but I hope they will not be induced by these vain and unreasonable fears to omit from the Bill this most important and salutary clause. As to sending children to industrial schools, I think that everything that can be done ought to be done to detach children altogether from the ordinary administration of the criminal law in this country. If I was one of a bench of magistrates, I would not like to send a child to an industrial school in charge of the police; I agree with the view that the attendance officer is a far fitter person to be entrusted with such a task; but it is another matter to prevent by Act of Parliament the police-under any circumstances taking a child to an industrial school. If the House will read the Bill a second time, I propose that it should be referred to the Standing Committee on Law, where there will be an opportunity of discussing in detail technical clauses. Of course, the House will have the opportunity on Report of reconsidering any matter of principle, and giving its final decision on the clauses.
  MR. BROADHURSTsaid he should not have intervened in the debate had it not been for the reference

  681
  made to the Essex parish which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded to. If the whole of the education of the country was administered in the wise, liberal and statesmanlike manner that it was by the vicar of the parish in question, there would be no word of suspicion as to what was being done. But all parishes are not so fortunate, and he feared that in some cases advantage might be taken of this measure for sectarian purposes.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MONEY-LENDING BILL [Lords].
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
*THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, and in so doing perhaps I ought to explain how it is that I come to be in charge of such a measure. It has nothing to do with local government, and I move the Second Reading because for two sessions I presided over the Select Committee which inquired into the whole matter. Apart from that inquiry and the light thrown by it, I have no special knowledge of the subject. I took Shakespeare's advice: I have never been a borrower or a lender. But when I went to preside at that Committee, I went believing as a free trader, that there should be free trade in money as in everything else, and that if a man chose to be a fool it was impossible to save him from his own folly. I entered the Committee holding those views very strongly, but I must confess that two sessions upstairs of rather exciting work cured me entirely of these heresies. I found instead of representing free trade in money it frequently represented free trade in rascality and fraud. The provisions of this Bill are not aimed at legitimate money-lending, with which no one desires to interfere. I will give the House two illustrations that came before the Committee of the system against which the Bill is directed. An unfortunate Irish landowner named Finlay
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borrowed a sum of £300 from a money-lender, for which he gave a promissory note for £456, the money being repayable in monthly instalments. Mr. Finlay paid several instalments regularly, and then for a subsequent instalment the cheque was sent a single day late. The cheque was returned and the whole amount claimed. Default interest was charged, and when Mr. Finlay came before the Court he had been compelled to pay, besides £114 in instalments, a sum of £600—£714 in all—for the loan of £300 from 13th November, 1890, to 20th February, 1892. All that was done within the four corners of the law. This was not one of the Gordon cases, but the second case was. In the other case an English farmer named Adams borrowed £50 from Isaac Gordon in November, 1892, and signed a promissory note for £200. Further advances were made of £50 in February, 1893, of £20 in June, and of £50 in November, 1893. Between November, 1892, and September, 1894, Mr. Adams paid £461, and in October, 1894, Gordon claimed that £500 was still owing in respect to an advance of £220. This shows what is possible under the present law. Gordon took proceedings in the County Court at Birmingham on one promissory note. Whilst these were pending a bailiff came and took possession of Mr. Adams's property, Gordon, who had an office in Glasgow, having proceeded against Mr. Adams there without his knowledge in connection with a second promissory note. By a proceeding which, I believe, is called "summary diligence," Mr. Adams was sold up and ruined. The Committee listened to many other cases of a similar character to these. It has been made a matter of complaint that they had not heard cases of legitimate money- lending, but that was because they were only commissioned to inquire into these cases of hardship. After hearing the evidence the Committee came to the following conclusion—
"After carefully considering the evidence which has been given in regard to particular transactions and the general expressions of opinion of persons so well qualified to form a judgment as Sir Henry Hawkins, Sir James Charles Mathew, Sir George Lewis, the Inspector General in Bankruptcy, and the County Court Judges, your Committee have unhesitatingly come to the conclusion that the system of money lending by professional money-lenders at high rates of interest is productive of crime, bankruptcy, unfair advantage over other creditors of the borrower,

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extortion from the borrower's family and friends, and other serious injuries to the community.
"And although your Committee are satisfied that the system is sometimes honestly conducted, they are of the opinion that only in rare cases is a person benefited by a loan obtained from a professional money-lender, and that the evil attendant upon the system far outweighs the good.
"They therefore consider that there is urgent need for the interposition of the legislature with a view to removing the evil."
That being the view of the Committee, and the Government as well, the question arises is the Bill adequate, and does it proceed on proper lines? There are clauses to which, I believe, no objection can be taken. There are clauses dealing with the registration of money-lenders, which seek to enact that a money-lender must be registered and must trade under one name only, as it was proved that a favourite mode was to carry on business under different names in different towns. But the real issue is not in these clauses at all. The first question is, should there be legislative interference? I say the Bill answers that. The second question is, ought the principle which is embodied in the Bill in Clause 1—the principle which enables the Judges of the country to review and revise certain contracts— to prevail? The Committee came to a very clear pronouncement upon that. The Committee consisted, I think, of fifteen members, and there was one dissentient to the paragraph I am about to read. They state—
"After considering the whole of the evidence your Committee have arrived at the conclusion that the only effective remedy for the evils attendant on the system of money-lending by professional money-lenders is to give to the Courts absolute and unfettered discretion in dealing with these transactions."
Section 1 of the Bill carries out this recommendation. It is important to bear in mind exactly what Section 1 proposes to do. There is an idea that Section 1 provides that if a money-lender lends money at a rate of interest exceeding that which is in the schedule of the Bill he will break the law, and that it will be impossible for him to recover. This is not the case. First of all, no case can come up for review unless the rate of interest set out in the schedule of the Bill has been exceeded; but that is not all. No case can come up for review and revision unless, in addition to the interest being in excess of the scheduled rate, the Court has reason
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to believe that the transaction in itself is harsh and unconscionable. The House will bear in mind that there are two conditions; first, the rate of interest must be beyond the rate provided in the schedule, and secondly the court must come to the conclusion that the transaction is a harsh and unconscionable transaction. I believe these terms are known to the law, although I am not a lawyer. If these two conditions are fulfilled, and only in such case, the court may set aside, vary, or cancel the contract. I am aware that there are hon. Members in the House who deny that there ought to be interference, and who have the same view to-day as that with which I started on the inquiry, but if there is to be interference at all, and if we are to be saved from the scandal under the present law— because it is a scandal—I do not think any Bill could be more rigidly and more closely safeguarded than this Bill is. The outstanding question, and I admit it is a fair one to argue, is—Is this power of revision and review a power which ought to be conferred on the 'Judges of the country? The Committee at all events practically decided with one dissentient that it was a power which ought to be given. It was strongly recommended and supported by Lord Brampton, then Sir Henry Hawkins, who was examined before the Committee, by Sir George Lewis, who, perhaps, has had more experience in matters of this kind than any living man, and who gave the strongest and clearest evidence that this was the only principle which would at all touch the evil. It was recommended by Judge Lumley Smith, a most experienced county court judge, Sir Frederick Falkiner, Recorder of the City of Dublin, the Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy of Ireland, and by Mr. Roxburgh, assistant judge at the Lord Mayor's Court in London. The Committee quite recognised that this was a serious power to confer, but they were greatly strengthened in recommending it by the fact which was proved in evidence by every lawyer who was examined, that this very power is now exercised in the Court of Chancery in regard to expectant heirs, and I believe, at least the evidence stated, that the principle has been carried very much further in the courts than that. It is not a new principle that is introduced by the Bill for the first time, and I am bound to say that in the Courts where these cases are principally

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heard there is the widest discretion already existing and which is sometimes used in a way that is open to question. I refer to the County Courts. The County Courts are largely in those matters courts of arbitration, and what is happening every day in these places? These hard bargains come before the County Court Judges. They see and feel the hardship of the bargain, and they endeavour to do their best with such powers as they have to save the people from utter ruin and destruction. What do they do? Why, anyone reading the newspapers can see what is done in many of these courts. The Judge sees the hardship and fixes the period of the payment of the instalments for a long time. He orders the debtor to pay one shilling a week, in some cases sixpence a week, and discretion of that kind is really more serious for the money-lender than the discretion which the Bill will confer. There is an idea current also which ought to be corrected—that this Bill fixes the rate of interest and practically re-enacts the old usury law. It does nothing of the kind. That proposal was made by Mr. Justice Mathew, and he argued the case most strongly before the Committee that it would be infinitely better to fix the rate at 10 per cent. than to vest any such discretion in the Judges. Probably if we had fixed the rate of interest in the Bill, there would have been considerable objection to it, and the Committee, at all events, declined to adopt that suggestion, and reported in favour of the discretion which is to be found in the Bill. This ought also to be borne in mind. There is another idea current, and I am bound to say money-lenders themselves hold that the money-lender is confined to the rate of interest set out in the Bill. Nothing of the kind. If he charges a rate of interest in excess of that in the schedule, and a case is brought into court, there must, in addition to that, be a harsh and unconscionable case made out, and I think that is a very great safeguard. I have tried to explain the Bill. It is not a complicated measure, and I think it deals very effectively with a great evil. I have no desire, and I am sure no one who sat on the Committee has any desire, to deny the difficulties that surround the question. If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, there will be abundant room for legitimate Amendments in Committee,
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and I am perfectly certain that those in charge of the Bill are ready in all matters of detail to keep an open mind, I am sure that anything short of giving the Court absolute and unfettered discretion in such cases would not be a remedy worth the paper the Bill is printed on, and it is because I believe this that I confidently move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)
MR. BIRRELL: I am sorry that the duty of moving the rejection of the Bill should devolve on me. A few months ago I had much brighter hopes. That distinguished man, Sir Edward Clarke, would have moved the rejection of the Bill; but he has thought fit to resign his seat, and he has thereby impoverished our debates, and without, so far as I can see, either strengthening or weakening the position of Lord Roberts in the field of action. Failing Sir Edward Clarke, I had hopes that the rejection of the Bill would be moved by a distinguished lawyer who sat opposite me, but he also is gone, although I am told that somebody very like him may still be seen in another part of the House. For my purpose he is worse than dead. He would have moved the rejection of the Bill, but now he will be most infallibly bound to vote in favour of it. However, conscious of my many shortcomings and infirmities, I am going to ask the House to bear with me while I risk becoming a pedant or a. bore. I shall ask hon. Members to do what they never like doing, and that is, to keep separate and distinct two things which have nothing whatever to do with one another, and which I think are muddled and mixed up in this measure. These two things are, the rate of interest which people may charge for the use of money, and fraud, deception, oppression, concealment of material facts, or any other term which may be used to describe fraud and deceit. I hope the Members of the House will endeavour to keep these two things separate and distinct in their minds. The price you charge for the use of money is, of course, known as usury. I quite agree that there is an enormous amount

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of literature existing on the subject of usury, and a great many people of the utmost wisdom have an objection to usury altogether. The greatest lawyer that ever lived—Moses—I cannot tell the Attorney General what his emoluments were—forbade usury altogether among the chosen people; but he also did what the Bill does not do. Moses forbade pawnbroking, because he distinctly told them that if any of the people took a pledge from his neighbour, his blanket or his clothing, as soon as the sun went down he should return it to him, so that he might be covered during the night. For centuries the Christian Church forbade access to the Mass to all usurers, even though they disguised themselves under the name of bankers. Bankers did not "lend money" within the meaning of this Bill, but the Christian Church knew of no such subterfuge. After the Reformation, many of the Protestant Churches adopted the same rule. Learned treatises on the subject may still be found which it is well worth while to read. Strong views were entertained against usury by Mr. John Ruskin, who advocated all the doctrines that were most unpopular to the spirit of the time, and in regard to whom, therefore, I need scarcely say a very strong feeling indeed found utterance in The Times on the proposal that so great a man should be buried in Westminster Abbey. However that may be, experience proves that usury continued and interest was still charged on money, and so the subject came to be investigated by thinkers and philosophers. The idea very soon sprang up that you should adopt a limit of legal interest, and that was the practice for a long time. First, prohibition was tried, then regulation; but in this country thinkers, among whom were Hume and Adam Smith, demonstrated in a most convincing manner that any attempt to interfere by law directly or indirectly with the rate which one man was to charge another for the use of his money was not only absurd but was injurious to the borrower, the person who most stands in need of it. I must confess I had thought that Jeremy Bentham, in his celebrated "Defence of Usury," published in 1816, had given the coup de grâce to the notion which is found in this Bill. A Select Committee of this House in 1818 sat upon this question, and, although I have no desire to say a
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word against reform in Parliament, the Report of that Committee of the old unreformed Parliament contrasts very favourably with the more democratic procedure of the present day. That Committee directly recommended the abolition of the usury laws. That, change took a considerable time in this country; but in 1854 every appearance of them disappeared altogether, and there has been nothing in this country since in any way suggesting what interest should be charged for the use of money. But the abolition of the usury laws in no way affected the doctrines of our Courts as to the effect of fraud or deception upon any transaction in which it might be proved by proper evidence that fraud or deception had appeared. I always like, when. I can, to clothe my own crude ideas in judicial language, because it imparts dignity to debate which it would not otherwise possess. I should like to read the observations made by a distinguished judge, Sir John Stuart, in the case of Barratt v. Hartley, shortly after the repeal of the usury laws—
"It is an observation of some importance, now that the usury laws are repealed, that one effect of such repeal was to bring into operation, to a. greater extent than formerly another branch of the jurisdiction of the Court which existed long before—I mean that principle of the Court which prevented any oppressive bargain, or any advantage, exacted from a man under grievous necessity and want of money from prevailing against him. Whoever has attended to the subject must have seen that the moment the usury laws were repealed the lender of money became enabled to exact anything he pleased in the name of interest—from, that moment the jurisdiction of the Court was likely to be called into active operation."
That is the point I wish to call the attention of the House to. We are asked to amend the law, but what is the law at the present time? I am the more emboldened to ask this question because this wonderful Committee over which my hon. friend presided did not know, and many of its members remained from beginning to end in complete ignorance of, what the law of England is at the present. moment on this subject. For centuries the common law of England has vitiated every transaction in which it was found that fraud had entered or had contributed to the making of the transaction. It is an insult to the common law of this country to suggest that anybody can practise fraud or deceit and come into

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Court and get the benefit of the bargain. Our rude ancestors, however, held that it was not enough for a man to come into Court snivelling and whining and saying that he had been cheated; he was required to prove it. That is one of the reasons why I to-day offer the greatest possible objection to the Bill. If you can prove fraud or deception, suppression of material facts, or show in any way that the lender is taking advantage of the borrower, or that he has forced the contract upon him, the lender cannot make good his claim in any Court of the country. Consider what you have already done in this House by statute. So long ago as 1874 this House passed a law whereby a contract for the loan of money to any infant whatever was declared ab initio void, and was incapable of ratification or confirmation on the infant attaining full age. Indeed, in 1892, inspired by that hysteria which seems to be the characteristic of the closing years of the century, we passed another Act declaring that anyone who sends a circular offering to lend money to an infant may be sent to prison as a felon for three months, although the person offering money may have reason to suppose that the infant is of full age. This Bill seeks to make the punishment even more severe. Infants have already received the most complete protection that it is possible to give I quite admit that it is a babyish age, and if people think that the age ought to be extended I would offer no objection to the period of infancy being twenty-five years. As one having considerable experience in drawing up wills, I know that is now the age almost invariably selected by testators with large estates or property as that at which their offspring should attain their majority. I knew a case of a man who fixed fifty-two as the age, and the son when he reached that age gave a party to celebrate the occasion, at which everyone was present except the trustees, of whom, he frankly said, he had seen quite enough. It is within the power of testators, if they think proper, to extend the age beyond twenty-one, but the protection of infants does not stop there The doctrines of our Courts of equity, which are now the doctrines of our Courts of law, have been stretched to their furthest limits for the protection of borrowers. Therefore I am prepared to assert that if you can prove fraud or
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oppression, if you can prove a harsh or unconscionable bargain amounting to evidence of fraud, the laws of this country are not in the lamentable position which this excited Committee would have us believe they are in. If a person is in a position to show that he has been cheated or got the better of in an unfair manner, he has no difficulty whatever in getting rid of his bargain. If we come to the Bill itself we find a very inflammatory preamble. There was a time when this House objected to a preamble; I never object to the preamble of a Bill; it is often the only interesting part of a measure. That very distinguished historian, Mr. Froude, has written a History of England in twelve volumes, chiefly from the preambles of Acts of Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII. I ask the House to look at the preamble of this Bill, in order to judge of the spirit in which the Committee upstairs approached the consideration of this subject. The words are—
"Whereas certain persons trading as, and known by the name of, money-lenders"
—well, anyone who lends money is a. money-lender—
"carry on their business of lending money by deceptive methods, and inflict by harsh and unconscionable bargains great injury upon those who borrow money from them; and it is expedient that such money-lenders and their methods of carrying on such business of money-lending should be subject to control," etc.
I do not hesitate to say that you could have a Bill with respect to borrowers in the preamble of which every word I have just read might be said of them.
"Whereas certain persons trading as, and known by the name of, money borrowers carry on their business of borrowing money by deceptive methods, and inflict by harsh and unconscionable bargains great injury upon those who lend money to them."
That is not the way in which a question of this sort should be approached. This Committee had a very great deal of very good evidence and sound sense put before them in the course of their proceedings, but they would not listen to it. There was his Honour, Judge Collier, a man who had been County Court judge in Liverpool for twenty-four years. His evidence was that the people of Liverpool knew perfectly well what they were

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about when they borrowed money from these people. He says—
"They borrow money at the beginning of the week; they pay it with the interest, which, is hardly ever less than a penny in the shilling a week, on the Saturday, and then on the Monday they borrow it again."
In reference to the discretion this Bill proposes to vest in County Court Judges, he says—
"I think it would lead to enormous litigation, because there would not be a case in the County Court in which the people would not try to get the order set aside on the ground that the charge was unconscionable."
This evidence of Judge Collier as to the character of the people of Liverpool seemed to be rather too much for some members of the Committee, and they put it down to the extraordinary intelligence of Liverpool. A member puts it to him in this way—
"The population of Liverpool is an artisan population, rubbing their wits together, and you would describe them as decidedly a sharp population, would you not?—Oh, I should think so, certainly."
As a native of Liverpool I have no objection to Liverpool being regarded as radiating with wisdom, so that people twenty miles away are able to get the better of a money-lender, but I hardly think that is the true explanation. My own opinion is that if I were a moneylender I would far rather carry on my business in a large city than in a country district. I do not think the quiet intelligence of the country people is so apt to be deceived as the quick-witted artisan population of Liverpool. But that is an example of how the Committee seemed bent not only not to hear evidence showing the legitimacy of a great deal of money-lending, but to put almost a kind of pressure upon every witness who came before them to speak of the horrors of the practice. I must confess that they got one witness, at least, who fooled them to the top of their bent. There was a distinguished man, Sir Henry Hawkins, now Lord Brampton, who told them a story. I could really hardly believe, if I had not road it in a Blue-book, that a Judge of his great distinction, who has been a member of the Bench for I do not know how many years, who has presided over I do not know how many assizes, who has condemned I do not know how
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many human beings to death, should have thought so little of a Parliamentary Committee as to tell them this story—
"I will give you one instance that occurred to my own knowledge. I was placed in a very painful position to know what to do with the man, and ultimately I did deal him out as light a sentence as I could conscientiously do under the circumstances. He was a man who was in a very respectable position; he had married a wife, a very nice woman, who was very much attached to him and he to her; his income was very small, that is to say, £200 a year—some very small income at all events; he tried to do the best he could to make a good home for her; the result was that the first year he a little exceeded his income—not much (£40 or £50); he had recourse to a money-lender (these transactions came before me) at a large rate of interest. Naturally, as anybody who knew his circumstances and position would expect (he never thought of it), at the end of the year he was worse off than at the beginning, because he owed more interest than the loan amounted to. Under those circumstances he thought he would avail himself of the chances of the turf, and he backed a horse or horses at very large odds—I think it was 100 to 1, or something of that sort. Well, anybody who thought of the matter would think it was really a 100 to 1 chance whether he ever made anything out of it; but he looked upon it as a dead certainty. When the race was run he not only lost his few pounds that he had put on the horses, but was worse off still; there was his debt to the money-lender still due; he had hoped to pay it off with his turf winnings. The result was that he was put to his wits' end. I have no doubt he was in tending to be honest, that is to say in the result, but unfortunately he had the means of forging names which gave him the opportunity of realising a sum of money sufficient to satisfy his then immediate wants. He explained to me (and I believed him, and I believe everybody else did, for he had a most estimable character) that his intention was not to steal the money absolutely, but to save and repay the debt, but he was overtaken before he had the opportunity of doing it. Well, that is forgery. It places the Judge in a very painful position to know what punishment to award to a man of that sort; but under the circumstances I met the difficulty as best I could, and gave him that amount of punishment which I thought was lenient under the circumstances, as it ought to be; but that is the mischief. That, to my mind, is a strong instance of the misery which is brought about by these extortionate money-lenders."
The Chairman said—
"In the case you have mentioned this young man first went to the money-lender?
"The learned Judge: He innocently, and with a view of making his little home comfortable for his wife, a little exceeded his income.
"He went to the money-lender; then he took to betting. Would you say that it was the case that men take to betting and resort

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to the money-lender's office to pay the bets?— I think very often.
"That was Sir George Lewis's evidence?— That is my opinion.
"So [says the Chairman] it encourages gambling and leads to crime? — It does."
All I can say is that I am surprised that no member of the Committee was bold enough to tell the learned Judge, with the utmost deference, that the Strand Magazine was a better vehicle for telling a story of that sort than a Blue-book published at the expense of the country. We will come now to the Bill itself. I will say at once that I have two objections to this measure; it strikes a blow at those pillars of every rational system of modern jurisprudence—first, the stability of contracts, and secondly, the necessity for preserving accurately what you mean by strict legal proof. Consider the effect of this Bill. Clause 1 says—
"Where proceedings are taken in any court by a money-lender for the recovery of any money lent after the passing of this Act, or the enforcement of any agreement or security made or taken after the passing of this Act, in respect of money lent either before or after the passing of this Act, and the court has reason to believe that the interest charged in respect of the sum actually lent exceeds the rate of interest mentioned in the schedule to this Act, or that the amounts charged for expenses, inquiries, fines, bonus, premium, renewals, or any other charges, are excessive, and that, in either case, the transaction is harsh and unconscionable, the court may re-open the transaction, and take an account between the money-lender and the person sued, and may, notwithstanding any statement or settlement of account or any agreement purporting to close previous dealings and create a new obligation, re-open any account already taken between them, and relieve the person sued from payment of any sum in excess of the sum adjudged by the court to be fairly due in respect of such principal, interest and charges as the court, having regard to the risk and all the circumstances, may adjudge to be reasonable; and if any such excess has been paid, or allowed in account, by the debtor, may order the creditor to repay it; and may set aside, either wholly or in part, or revise, or alter, any security given or agreement made in respect of money lent by the money-lender, and if the money-lender has parted with the security may order him to indemnify the borrower or other person sued."
I have no desire to speak otherwise than most respectfully of all the Judges in the land, but it is quite impossible not to consider this question of judicial discretion and to consider what effect we ought to give to the very powerful observations of Mr. Justice Mathew before this Committee
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itself. There are seventy-nine gentlemen—twenty-three High Court Judges and fifty-six County Court Judges —who will have this discretion of upsetting any contract whatsoever if the interest is more than 15 per cent. per-annum, and if in their opinion there is reason to believe that the bargain is harsh and unconscionable. I know that, as a great French critic said it is very difficult to speak of chastity chastely, so it is difficult to speak of discretion discreetly, and it is not less difficult if the discretion of which you speak is that peculiar kind called "judicial." Everybody knows that so long as a judge is confined to his proper duty—namely, the ascertainment of the law as it is at the moment, or the proper weight and effect to be given to the evidence which has been submitted to him and to the ordinary test of cross-examination, so powerful are the traditions of a lifetime, so strong are the habits of legal training, that, enormous as is the difference between one Judge and another in capacity, learning, astuteness, and acumen, yet nevertheless the difference between the decisions of various judges will be comparatively small. But the moment you say to a Judge, "It is for you, independently of evidence, independently of strict proof, but exercising your own fancies and idiosyncrasies, to say practically what is a proper rate of interest for a man in Bradford or Leeds to charge another man for the loan of £4," the moment you say that, you throw open the door to every kind and variety of personal opinion in the Judges themselves. I am absolutely certain that were this Bill to become law, and were three moneylenders to be pursuing what you are pleased to call their remedies in three Courts of the Queen's Bench Division, whether they got 5 per cent., 15 per cent., or the percentage provided in their agreement would depend entirely upon the personal idiosyncrasy of the particular Judge who might happen to come into that particular Court at half-past ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. Many Judges have been heard to say in the County Courts that they will never give more than 5 per cent. interest to a moneylender; they think it is wrong to do so; they are animated by that spirit of hatred of the whole class of money-lenders which, breathes through the spirited preamble which I ventured to read to the House. Other Judges are inclined to hold men

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strictly to their contracts, and they say that a man ought to pay what his contract says he should pay, unless he can prove fraud or deception, or something of that kind. This question of judicial discretion is one of the utmost importance. I quite, agree with what was said by Lord Penzance on a celebrated occasion; I will not quote the whole of his remarks, but he wound up by saying, "Speaking generally, when discretion begins, the proper administration of the law, as such, comes to an end." I venture to say that that is a sound and incontrovertible proposition. We do not want seventy-nine gentlemen to be constituted censors of what is a fair bargain between two parties. We want our Judges to be confined to considering whether it is proved to their satisfaction that a transaction is harsh and unconscionable. I do not particularly object to the phrase "harsh and unconscionable"; but in the Courts of Equity from time immemorial proof has been required, and that does not depend upon the whim or fancy of any individual Judge. During the last few months I have done my best to ascertain whether there is not likely to be inflicted upon the poor of this country a very great hardship if this Bill is passed, and I have come to the conclusion that that is so. In the north of England, and I dare say in other parts where there are poor men—it may be a hawker, who wishes to get a stock for his wallet or his bag to go to a fair or a race-meeting where he is likely to get a good return for his money—there are countless transactions where a man wants a loan of £4 or £5. Who is going to let him have it? Will the members of this Committee lend every poor man who wants it £5? Not at all; it would not fall within the scope of their avocations. But the business is carried on in a perfectly legitimate fashion. The poor man who wants a loan goes to the lender, carrying with him his credentials. They are not gilt-edged securities. Hon. Members when they want to borrow £50,000 or £60,000 or a smaller sum for their election expenses go to their bankers with gilt-edged securities or the nearest approach they have thereto, but such a man as I am referring to takes his rent-book to show that at least he is not in arrear with his rent, while inquiries show that he is not a defaulter in the County Court, and if he bears an
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ordinarily good character he obtains his small loan without security and without sureties. And what else does he obtain? He obtains what is to him the inestimable privilege of repaying the money in driblets. That is of the very essence of poverty. Notwithstanding all the statements of this excited Committee, I believe it is a very great service to a great number of poor men all over the country to be able to obtain, if their characters are anything like reasonable, these small loans. One half of the world does not know how the other half lives, and it will be an act of cruelty to a great number of poor people in this country if you place such an obstacle as this in the way of their obtaining such loans. Look at the scale in this Bill. The scale allowed for £50 for a month is 12s. 6d. Is it unreasonable if a man charges 15s. for the loan of £50 for a mouth? I do not think many men in this House would do it. In fact, this business cannot be carried on without very considerable office expenditure, so as to be able to ascertain particulars of the character of the would-be borrower, and you must in a great many instances make bad debts. People usually look upon this matter as if each transaction was absolutely isolated, and that the lender got 50 per cent., or whatever it is, clear. How unreasonable! You have to consider the average of the transactions throughout the year. I do not believe it will be found in any well-conducted loan society or company of this kind, if a proper inquiry is made, that the average rate of interest is more than 10 per cent. or 12 per cent. on the whole capital involved. I therefore say that by inserting in this Bill the provision that a County Court Judge or a Judge of the High Court should be at liberty to set aside every solemn contract, however long it may have been in operation or whatever cash payments have been made under it, whenever the interest is more than 15 per cent. per annum, you are practically saying that in the opinion of this House 15 per cent. is enough to charge for every transaction of this sort. I have no hesitation in saying that any Judge who has an aversion to moneylenders, who is animated by something of the spirit of the hon. Member who moved the Second Heading of this Bill, will consider himself at liberty, whenever the interest is more than this 15 per cent.,

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to decide that he has reason to believe that the transaction is harsh and unconscionable, and to act in any way his discretion may suggest to him. I say that 15 per cent. on a small loan, repaid in driblets extending over many months, is an absurdly small sum. Look at pawnbrokers. A pawnbroker gets your watch or something which is more than ample security, and the law allows him to charge 25 per cent. But yon say that in the case of a poor man who obtains a loan without any security, the interest is to be calculated at so much per annum instead of per week (because the repayments are so much per week), and I contend that 15 per cent. is an absurdly small and unreasonable charge to be made for the loan. I must apologise to the House for detaining it at such length, but I really do want this to be considered as a serious question. I believe that by passing this Bill you will inflict a very grave hardship on the very people whose condition you want to make better. Their lot is hard enough now, heaven knows. The poor man has to pay heavily for everything. He has to pay heavily for his house and for his food, and now you are going to make him pay more heavily for his money when he has to borrow, because, by putting difficulties in the way of such transactions, you will very likely throw him into the hands of the rogues and impostors. As Jeremy Bentham said years ago, "If a man cannot borrow he will sell," and there is nothing in your precious law to prevent a man realising at a miserable sacrifice the small belongings of his house. He may sell for next to nothing things which cost him a great deal, but he must not borrow. There is supposed to be something peculiarly sanctified about a contract of borrowing, but there is nothing of the kind. A contract of selling should be invested with exactly the same sanctity if there is any—but it is not. You will not let a man borrow, you condemn him to sell, and that is a very grave and serious disaster. I ask the House most carefully to consider whether it is worth while, just because there are a few rogues and impostors in the country, with whom I honestly believe the present law is quite strong enough to deal, to inflict, through this Bill, a grave injury upon the very poor. Isaac Gordon has gone to his account, but before he went a court of this country discharged a man from his
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obligation because he did not know he was dealing with Isaac Gordon. I confess I thought it was strong law, but it was the law of Lord Justice Vaughan Williams, Lord Justice Rigby, and Lord Justice Smith, and, as Isaac Gordon is not in a position to carry the case to the House of Lords, I expect the law of England it will always remain. Do not think so meanly of the law of your country as to suppose that this Bill is necessary. It is nothing of the kind, and I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time this day six months.
MR. MACLEAN: I think the House has no reason to complain that the task of moving the rejection of this Bill fell into the hands of the hon. and learned Member opposite, who has delighted us with the skill and vigour with which he has spoken. The first thing I would say with regard to the Bill is that the House ought not to suppose that it deals merely with the case of a few money-lenders. The great objection to it is that it runs counter to the principles which have governed the commercial legislation of this country during the century. Our commercial legislation has been entirely in favour of freedom and of removing all shackles from industry and commerce. The present Bill goes entirely in the opposite direction. It is important to look at its object. The hon. Gentleman who introduced it was the Chairman of the Committee on whose Report the Bill is founded. He took credit to himself in his speech to-night that he had always followed the advice of Polonius— "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." I cannot help thinking that that shows the weakness of his present position in taking charge of a Bill of this kind. It would be much better if the Government had placed it in the hands of some hon. Member who was familiar with commercial affairs and had been in the habit of dealing with money all his life. The Bill is of a sentimental character, and such as we arc; accustomed to see brought forward on Wednesday afternoons. It is a curious circumstance that the member of the Government who is generally in charge of such measures on Wednesday is the hon. Gentleman himself. I suppose other members of the Government do not care to take them in hand. At all events, they studiously absent themselves from the House on such occasions.

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This is a fair specimen of the kind of legislation to which we are accustomed on Wednesday afternoons, and perhaps that is the reason why it has been entrusted to the hon. Member. I have seen a great many gentlemen connected with the money-lending business, and I was perfectly astonished to find what a arge body of respectable people they are. Their frequent complaint to me was that they had not had a fair hearing before the Money-lending Committee. One can understand that was so from the admission made by the hon. Member to-night. He said it did not come within the terms of reference to the Committee to hear all the people who wished to be heard in defence of money-lenders. The Committee heard a great deal of evidence about some very notorious money-lenders, and my chief objection to this Bill is that it is a thoroughly vindictive Bill, founded on the misdeeds of one particular individual, it is impossible to choose any worse principle as a guide in initiating legislation than to take some singular case of oppression or wrong and found a general Bill upon it. We had the case of thenotorious Isaac Gordon, which was dwelt upon with some reiteration in the Committee, and so much prejudice was raised throughout the country by the way the Committee dealt with that man that I venture to say that any money-lender at the present time would have less chance of justice at the hands of a British jury than he would have had in the time of the Plantagenets. A British jury does not allow any borrower to be ill-treated by the person from whom he has borrowed money; on the contrary, a jury is likely to treat the lender with the greatest severity. It is said that this Bill is founded on principles well known to the law, and that pawnbrokers, for instance, have their rates of interest limited; but, as my hon. and learned friend opposite has pointed out, there is all the difference in the world between a pawnbroker and a money-lender. A pawnbroker lends on certain definite security, a certain fixed amount. The security is brought to him generally in the form of articles, of which the borrower is sorely in need, and the Legislature naturally deals with tenderness with such matters. But the money-lender lends money on a promissory note, as a rule, and gets no security. He lends on the credit and good faith of the borrower, and he is therefore entitled to charge a
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much greater rate of interest than a pawnbroker, who lends on a definite security. Great complaint is made as to the high rate of interest charged by the money-lender, but in dealing with transactions of this kind we should not take a. few individual examples only; we should survey a wide field, and see what interest is charged over all the transactions in which money-lenders are engaged. I have seen the books of a money-lending; firm which has a very large business in. the country, amounting to £150,000 or £200,000 a year, all lent in small sums I have seen from these books that the average rate of profit made by the firm does not exceed from 16 per cent. to 18 per cent. per annum. The firm has very large expenses and runs great risks, and it frequently happens that the borrower cheats the firm instead of the firm cheating the borrower. Does it do any harm. to the country that money should be lent in this way? On the contrary, it is of the greatest benefit indeed to vast multitudes of the people who are greatly in need from time to time of money to carry on their business. A very large proportion of the money lent by moneylenders is lent to tradesmen in a small way of business and to professional men. It very often happens that a man of that class gets into difficulties in which his. credit is at stake, and he would be willing to pay not 10 per cent. nor 20 per cent. but 100 per cent. for money to tide him over his difficulties, and to save his good name, and to allow him to carry on business again in a fair way. That happens. very frequently. No doubt many hon. Members who have never wanted a guinea in their lives do not understand the position of these poor people, but every man who is engaged in business, and who has had ups and downs in his life, and has had to fight his way in the world, must know that over and over again there is no rate of interest which he would not pay for money to keep his head above water. This is done every day not only by money-lenders but by institutions in the City of London which lend money at a usurious rate of interest. I have in my recollection a case which happened a few years ago in which persons introducing a valuable invention were pressed to such an extent that they had to pledge all the credit of their directors, and were then at their wits' ends to get money. They borrowed money at a usurious rate of interest

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which removed their difficulties, and at the present time the concern is one of the most prosperous in the City of London; the directors are very wealthy men, and the shareholders are now reaping the benefit of the money borrowed at that time. If that money had not been forthcoming the invention itself would have been lost to the world and the directors would have been plunged into the Bankruptcy Court. That is an example of the good that is done by lending money in this way. I daresay there are some hon. Members in this House who, though they have never borrowed money for their own business, know what it is to borrow money for little speculations on the Stock Exchange. I ask them if they have not often paid a much higher rate of interest than is mentioned in the schedule in order to carry their speculations over from one settlement to another? It is perfectly useless to attempt by Act of Parliament to limit the interest that should be paid on loans of this kind. It is said that the rate of interest is not fixed by this Bill, but under the first clause it is possible for any Judge in any Court in the land to reopen any money-lending transaction and fix any rate of interest he likes. He is not even bound by the rate of interest mentioned in the schedule. If he thinks the bargain is not just, he may reopen it, and absolute discretion is left to him to fix any rate of interest he thinks sufficient payment for the money that has been borrowed. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite has pointed out the incalculable mischief which will be produced if such an absolute discretion is left to every Judge in every Court in the land. I am sure many Judges on the Bench are men of the highest character and men to whom I should gladly leave the decision of any matter of this kind, but many of them would shrink from the responsibility which the hon. Gentleman without any hesitation wants to give them. So far, objection has been taken to the first clause in the Bill. There are many other clauses about registration, etc., which are good, and money-lenders as a body do not object to them. But this Bill proceeds on the principle laid down for making an admirable cucumber salad. You cut the cucumber, delicately mix the oil and vinegar, and then when complete you throw it out of the window. In this Bill you are taking most admirable pre-
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cautions to ensure that the money-lending business should be carried on respectably, and then in the first clause you say that the business is not to be carried on at all. No doubt if this Bill passes it will be a serious blow to the freedom with which money is now lent throughout the country—money which is absolutely needed in many instances, and without which it will be very difficult for many small people to carry on business. That is the main objection which we take to this Bill. I second the motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite with the greatest pleasure, because I think the Bill is one which is bound to fail in its intended effect, and one which is mischievous and reactionary in its design.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave oat the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'"—(Mr. Birrell.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
*MR. WARR: The hon. Gentleman has given us as an illustration a case where an invention was saved by borrowing money at a very high rate of interest. I care not if in such a case the rate was 50 per cent. or 75 per cent. This Bill would not in any way interfere with a transaction of that kind. Take the case of a ship in a foreign port. The owner has no money. He tries to get it from the ordinary sources, but does not succeed. He goes to a money-lender and borrows money at 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. He then brings the ship home and handles the freight and pays his disbursements. There would be no relief for him from that bargain under this Bill, because it only applies to cases in which a court of law finds that the rate of interest was excessive and also that the bargain was harsh and unconscionable. In the two cases I have mentioned there would be no evidence of anything harsh or unconscionable. The whole transaction would be perfectly understood and would be entirely above board. The two contracting parties would have been equally free agents. On the other hand, supposing the loan is made to a Bank of England clerk, or to a clergyman, or to a Government official, and that, relying on the ruin that publicity would

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bring, the money-lender if the instalment is not paid to the day and to the very hour makes the application for renewal of the loan the occasion first of getting an admission of his account for principal, interest, and charges, and then taking a new promissory note for what is due upon the account so stated, including fines and charges and interest at an inconsiderable rate, with a huge rate of interest for the further advances. I think it is not improbable, under such circumstances, the lender having relied on the ruin which would be involved by publicity, that the unfortunate borrower might look for some relief under this Bill. It is not so much to the initial transaction as to the subsequent transactions that the Bill would apply. Can anyone say that under such circumstances the bargain is between two free agents? The lender is free, the borrower has a pistol at his head. Unless he agrees to the terms, whatever they are, he must be a ruined man. This Bill will enable poor people to get justice done. No one who sat in the Committee, as I had the honour of doing, and heard the evidence can have the least doubt that some legislation of this kind is needed. It is very significant that the first reference to this Committee — which was established on the initiation of my hon. friend the Member for Chester, to whom we owe so much in the matter—was confined to an inquiry into the evils of money-lending between the poorer classes and professional moneylenders. It will be felt that it is more important that the poor should be relieved from oppression than that the law should aid persons who have less excuse or no excuse for finding themselves in the hands of moneylenders, although it was subsequently extended to a general inquiry. My hon. and learned friend the Member for Fife says that the law as it stands affords a sufficient remedy. If so, I should like to know why it is that the Courts are not resorted to in such cases. I do not dispute the fact that relief can be granted under the equitable jurisdiction of the Courts against harsh and unconscionable bargains, but I think it will be admitted, and that the hon. and learned Member for West Fife will admit, that the cases are rare in which relief has been extended except to heirs, expectants, and reversioners. The money-lenders of the class who bring this business into dis-
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repute—I am quite willing to believe that there are money-lenders who conduct their business honestly — know far too well how to make any relief on the part of the borrower as the law now stands an absolute impossibility. I venture to doubt whether, apart from cases in which heirs and reversioners have been concerned, there have been a dozen cases reported in the authorised reports in which relief has been given during the last thirty years. No doubt most of these cases come before County Courts; but according to Judge Owen, who gave valuable evidence before the Committee, the County Courts have no power to set aside or cancel any agreements except agreements of sale. I venture to think that no one reading the valuable evidence of Mr. Justice Mathew and Sir George Lewis can maintain that it is in the power of the Courts to give the relief that ought to be given in cases of this kind. The money-lender makes it absolutely impossible for the debtor to make out a case for relief as the law now stands. Nothing is more significant than the dread the money-lenders themselves feel of legislation on the lines of this Bill. That is the best proof of the need of legislation. It may be suggested that we have the security of the criminal law. The hon. and learned Member for West Fife did not refer to that remedy, but in criminal prosecutions there is very great difficulty, because practically a course of dealing with intent to defraud must be proved, and it is obvious that witnesses would be adverse to coming forward to state their personal experience. What we require is power to enable the courts to reopen money-lending transactions if they are unjust, and to reopen them notwithstanding any settlement of account, and to force the money-lender to repay any amount unfairly taken by him. That is the effect of this Bill. I believe this Bill will not affect any honest dealing. If there were no definition of a money-lender in the Bill, and if it were to apply to every transaction, I do not believe that the honest trader would have anything to fear from its operation. The Committee thought that Mr. Justice Mathew was right when he said that there should be no definition of a money-lender in the Bill, as there is not the slightest danger of its interfering with any legitimate business. I never heard that any objection

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had been raised by any banker to the Committee's proposals. Bankers know very well that there would not be the slightest danger of interference with any legitimate business under proposals such as are embodied in the clause giving discretion to the Courts. The hon. and learned Member for West Fife seems to think that it is monstrous to confer discretion upon Judges to review agreements which have been made. In the first place, the power of the Courts will rarely be invoked unless the interest exceeds the rate of interest in the Bill. Why should there be any doubt as to the capacity of the Judges to exercise their discretion? I myself can remember the time when bonds were constantly given upon the security of ships in foreign ports. They are very rare now because the cable has made it quite easy to pass money at almost a moment's notice. The rate of interest on bonds of that kind was oftentimes very high, and the Courts always claimed the right to reopen the agreement and to cut down the rate of interest if in their discretion it was too high. I myself was acquainted with a case between a shipowner and a lender, which was referred by agreement to a Judge of the High Court, and the Judge awarded interest at the rate of 20 per cent. That may seem excessive, but, taking into account all the circumstances, the Judge considered it was fair. I see no reason to fear that any more difficulty will arise out of the discretion of the Judge as to what is reasonable, than presents itself when juries are asked every day in the week to take into account all the circumstances of the case, and say what was a reasonable amount to award. It would be better upon strict principle to leave the amount to be fixed by the juries, but money-lenders might reasonably think that they would not get even-handed justice from them. Therefore to leave it in the discretion of the Judge is in the interest of the money-lenders. I have no doubt that this Bill will do something to prevent dishonest money-lending. I do not think it will be found to stand in the way of any honest transaction. If it to any extent prevents dishonest money-lending, if, as was predicted by money-lenders, it makes their business as some of them have carried it on useless and unprofitable, then this Bill will not have been passed in vain.
MR. VICARY GIBBS: Really when I read this Bill I feel quite confused about the days of the week, and cannot say whether this is a Thursday, or a Wednesday, when Private Members' Bills are introduced. Private Members, with the best possible intention in the world, on that day intro-duce Bills likely to produce the worst possible results. I cannot help thinking that the Government do not intend to persist with this Bill, and that it is only "out for an airing," and that it is not in-tended to "gallop or go" after the punishing disclosures of the hon. and learned Member for West Fife. The hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Liverpool pointed out to us some cases which the Bill would affect; but I want be know what cases it will affect, which it ought to affect, which are not already affected by the law as it now stands? The hon. Member gave us one instance. He spoke of a Bank of England clerk. I suppose Bank of England clerks are not allowed to borrow money, under the penalty of dismissal, and he referred to one case of such a clerk borrowing money, and somehow or other he seems to think that this Bill would have protected that clerk. I do not see it. He says that the plan of the money-lender is to get exorbitant rates of interest from the clerk under the threats of exposure, but certainly that money-lender could, under the present law, be convicted of obtaining money by threats—whether in the form of interest or cash-down payments. But be that as it may, you will not be able to relieve the clerk from exposure under this Bill. It is said that only the dishonest moneylender will be affected by the Bill. I cannot see that at all. I had a letter from a money-lender, whom I believe to be a perfectly honest man, in my constituency, who tells me that he does a very large business in lending money to working men from week to week, and that his rate of interest is from 20 to 25 per cent. He asks me to inspect his books, which shows that he only makes a decent livelihood and no more. Nothing can be more retrograde than to speak of one rate of interest as just under all conditions. It all depends on the security. When a man comes to mo and deposits certain securities I may advance him money at 7 per cent., but is 20 per cent. too much to charge on a note of hand?

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In the City such business as lending on note of hand would not be done; it would be looked upon as far too dangerous. The hon. Member spoke of the rate of interest of 20 or 25 per cent. as nett. It is nothing of the kind. It is saddled with all the expenses of inquiry and with bad debts. Do not let anyone run away with the idea that the moneylenders are all rogues and the borrowers all honest men. My experience leads me to the opposite conclusion. No protection or assistance is given to money-lenders when they are cheated, as has been shown already. There is no necessity for protecting the borrower; even a black-mailing Bill would not protect him from that. But let us take another point. A man's business must be that of money-lending if he is to come within the compass of the Bill; but what about the tailors? How are those young men, who run into debt with their tailors, to be protected from extortion; and, if not, why not? Does anyone suppose that money-lenders would not start tailoring or other similar businesses with the view of keeping their money-lending transactions outside this Bill? Of course not. As to the power of revising contracts, the objection is not that any particular judge is not likely to do his duty, but that each would be free to develop his idiosyncrasies, and you might have cases of gross injustice. One case might be dealt with from one point of view one month, and another from another point of view next week. Already divergencies in criminal cases are sufficiently large according to the different idiosyncrasies of the different judges. One Judge will send a man to fourteen days imprisonment for half killing his wife, and another Judge would send a wretch to a year's imprisonment for a petty larceny. One Judge, starting with the presumption that 5 per cent. is a proper rate of interest, whatever the circumstances of the loan may be, would at once decide that 25 per cent. is in itself evidence that that rate of interest is "harsh and unconscionable." We have already seen cases in which a Judge said that 5 per cent. is a sufficient rate of interest in any circumstances, and that that is the maximum rate of interest which ought to be charged. Now that is a question of opinion, and it is too risky to give such power to any individual, whether he is a Judge or a Member on the front bench. Then, the
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Judges are not to be guided by any law at all, and they are not even obliged to take evidence. They can, according to. this Bill, upset contracts which have been entered into by two grown-up men, each of them possibly trying to cheat the other—if that is not equal terms I do. not know what is. They know every circumstance of the case that is material to be known—not to both of them, but to the borrower. If anything is kept back from him that ought to be disclosed the Court, under the present law, will set. aside the contract on the ground of fraud. When these two men meet they make a. bargain agreeable to both of them. Why does the borrower take the money? Because, in his deliberate judgment, he considers it more to his interest than to go without it. You let him make the bargain, but are you going to help him to cheat the money-lender? Can anything be more unjust? I cannot conceive it. Most of these money-lenders are honest traders, and the effect will be that these men will have to calculate the risk of having their rates reduced, and they will inevitably "take it out of" other men who will not come into court. You cannot fight against natural laws; and if you read Adam, Smith, Ricardo, Bentham, you will find that if you pass this Bill into law, you are knocking against these natural laws, and that you had better have loft the subject alone.
MR. BAYLEY: I can say that three or four years ago the speech of the hon. and learned. Member for West Fife would have expressed correctly the opinion of the whole of the Committee which sat on this inquiry. But what did we find when we began to take evidence? We found that the money-lending business was a sore eating into the very life of the working classes of the country, leading to poverty, to increase of the rates, and to habits of drunkenness and betting. We also found' that the rich people in this country who had extravagant relations and who were prepared to find a fair and reasonable amount of interest when these relations got into the hands of the money-lenders, could make advantageous terms with the money-lenders, who were willing to take 5 per cent. interest, no matter how unconscionable the original contract had been. Certain solicitors had that power with the

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money-lending fraternity. But the poor man or woman had no protection from paying from 60 to 300 or 400 per cent. for their advances. What was the trap set for these poor people? In the local newspapers in every town in the country, and in some in London, there was sandwiched between advertisements about some excellent building society, with an excellent board of directors whom everybody knew, another advertisement that some Union Bank had £250,000 to lend on note of hand. Of course that was not the Union Bank which we know is one of the finest banks in the country. The poor people were caught by that plausible advertisement, and once in the hands of these money-lenders they were bled to death, and their furniture and home sold up. After sitting for two years and hearing all that evidence, the Committee were unanimous in recommending what is the principle of this Bill. Of course the Bill can be improved. The object of the Bill is, in the first place, to Jet a man know exactly with whom he is dealing — that he is not dealing with a Union Bank, or a Provincial Union Bank, but at the bottom with a Mr. Isaac Gordon. We must have these money-lending gentlemen registered. We are agreed on that. Now there comes a very serious question. My hon. friend is against giving the Judges the right or privilege to say what is an unconscionable bargain or a fair bargain between man and man, taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case. We do that already. In a case of bigamy the judges have the power to say whether a man should go to prison for one day or for ten years. Has that power ever been abused? On the same principle, we wish to give the Judges power to say what is a proper and fair rate of interest. We had cases before us of family after family being ruined completely by getting into the hands of these money-lenders. An extraordinary case went to the Court; of Appeal the other day, and the judgment was in favour of the man who borrowed the money from Mr. Gordon because he had been trading under somebody else's name. But what could a poor man have done in such a case? In fact, we would not have had that decision in the Court of Appeal but for the evidence which had been produced before the Committee. I hope that the Government, because some of their friends are
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wavering on this question, and some of our friends on this side of the House have not the knowledge that we have who sat two years on that Committee, will not be dismayed or down-hearted, but that they will put their back into this great social reform and determine to carry it through this session. If they do that, they will save a great many families, whom it is their duty and that of the House of Commons to protect, from the snares of the money-lenders.
*SIR WILLIAM ANSON: Although I cannot regard this Bill with the unqualified condemnation lavished upon it by the hon. and learned Member for West Fife, I find very great difficulty in supporting it as it stands. The Bill is very curiously framed. Practically the serious part of it deals with two things—the transactions of the money-lender and the regulation of the trade. Of the latter part I have very little to complain. If we can locate the money-lender, register him, and regulate him so much the better. But the Bill creates a new kind of offence—a misdemeanour punishable by two years imprisonment or a fine not exceeding £500. One of the provisions is rather startling. The offence is that—
"Any money-lender, or manager, or agent, or clerk of a money-lender who, by any false or misleading statement, attempts to induce any person to borrow money, or agree to terms on which money is to be borrowed," etc.
Now, there is no suggestion that the person who has been induced to borrow the money has been injured by the transaction. The offence is merely a deceptive statement, and it suggests to me a new and satisfactory way of paying old debts. If a man borrows money and is unwilling to pay when the lender demands it, he may say, "There is a misleading statement in the correspondence between us prior to the loan. I do not propose to repay the money, but I propose to indict you for misdemeanour." That clause requires very careful reconsideration. Then the whole efficacy of the Bill turns upon the definition of a moneylender. But what is a money-lender? We are told that a money-lender is a person who lends money, which is fairly obvious, and further that he is not a pawnbroker, a friendly society, a body corporate, an insurance company, or a banker. I

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should be surprised if such astute persons as money-lenders have proved themselves to be do not evade this somewhat precarious definition. The Bill begins with a preamble of an unusual character. It is like the preamble to the Statute of Uses, which Lord Bacon called a persuading and inducing preamble. I cannot help thinking that it would have been much better if, instead of going to old statutes for his preamble, the draughtsman had gone to the old cookery books, and had started with the phrase, "First catch your money - lender." The first thing we have to consider is whether there is a grievance, and, if so, how it is to be remedied. I must confess that the great bulk of the evidence taken before the Committee does not suggest to me a grievance requiring a drastic remedy. There are incidents brought up which affect people's minds and which give notoriety to the work of the Committee, but which do not call for interference. If I recollect rightly there was the case of a young man who escaped from a home for inebriates and fell into the clutches of a money-lender, and died whilst engaged in evading the demands of that money-lender. But the Chancery Division would have been amply capable of dealing with difficulties of that sort. Then there was the mysterious adventure of a lady who communicated a forged note to a money lender. This would be dealt with by the ordinary process of criminal law. But then, apart from the stories told to the Committee, which might be interesting for the purposes of passing this Bill, there does appear to be a mass of evidence which suggests that there are cases of oppression of the poor through the agency of money-lenders which require to be dealt with in some way or other. But if a grievance exists there is the question of how far this Bill proposes to deal with it. In the Committee there were three remedies suggested: first, the limitation of the rate of interest, making it illegal to recover more than 10 per cent.; the power of reopening a transaction where the Court had reason to believe that an unfair advantage had been taken by one of the parties; and the registration of securities given to money-lenders. A promissory note given to a money-lender was to be made distinct from one given in an ordinary business transaction. Registration of securities appeared in the Bill
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of last year, but doubtless for good reason has disappeared from this. This Bill applies in a half-hearted way two out of the three suggested remedies—an extension of the power of reopening a transaction and a mild suggestion of a usury law. I agree with Mr. Justice Mathew that the great value of any assistance which we could give to the poor men who are oppressed in transactions of this kind consists in its rapidity and in its cheapness. But if the House looks at the remedy offered in the Bill it is neither simple nor clear. In the first place, a man must prove that he was dealing with a money-lender, that the percentage charged for the loan was a certain percentage in the schedule, and he must induce the Judge to form a general impression that the transaction was unconscionable, and after this the Judge would re-open the transaction. That does not seem to me to be a very prompt or valuable assistance to a poor man in the clutches of a moneylender. I think it would be as well to consider how this matter is dealt with elsewhere. By the Indian Contract Act as amended last year Judges in India are given power to re-open transactions in all cases where a contract was made with a person whose fitness to enter into it might be questioned by reason of age, illness, or mental or bodily distress. That is a very wide power to give, no doubt. The German Civil Code provides that where one man takes advantage of another who is in necessitous circumstances, who is ignorant, or had shown insufficient experience or care, so that the parties were on unequal terms, the transaction is to be null and void; and by the Penal Code for such exploitation such a person is liable to severe penalties. These remedies are at any rate clear and comprehensive, but the remedy offered by this Bill is a mild extension of an equitable doctrine, hampered with an insufficient definition of money-lender, and haunted by the uneasy ghost of the usury laws. If this measure is to be pursued, if the House acknowledges that there is a grievance, that grievance ought to be dealt with in a masterful way. Either we ought to offer a substantial remedy or do what is. possibly the best thing to do in the circumstances—namely, leave the grievance alone.
MR. STEADMAN: It was not my intention to intervene in this debate, and I should not have done so but for the concluding remark of the hon. Member for West Fife. At the conclusion of his speech he said that this Bill would confer a great hardship on the working classes of this country. It will do nothing of the sort. The working classes are not in the habit of looking up the advertisements in the newspapers to see where they can secure a loan, and the money -lender of the type this Bill attacks is not of that class who would make a working man a loan. First of all, very good security is required, which working men are not likely to have, besides which, working men have their own way of dealing with the matter. In London there are hundreds of loan clubs managed by working men themselves. A man for a £1 share pays 6d. a week to the society, and if he wants a loan he has only to get one of his mates to stand security for him, and he can borrow his £2 or £3 and pay it back at so much a week. Many men belong to these clubs for the purpose of borrowing a few pounds in the summer to take their families to the seaside. In my constituency has also been formed a co-operative bank, and the object of the formation of this bank is to enable the very man that the hon. Member for West Fife has been speaking of to borrow £3 or £4 when he was hard pressed without going to these extortionate money-lenders. The right hon. Member for Fife, has not, perhaps, had any experience of loan clubs, but I may say that the money of these loan clubs is shared between the members at Christmas, when it comes in very handy. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but I speak from a practical and not a theoretical point of view, and if any hon. Member here was the son of a father who had been out of work for a few weeks before Christmas, and had nothing in his pocket, he would be very glad to receive in this way a few shillings to put upon his table. Pawnbrokers have been referred to, and to the working man they are sometimes a very useful class; for the working man, though poor, is proud, and rather than go to his friends will pawn what little jewellery he possesses, say, a watch or a chain, and when that pledge is redeemed the pawnbroker is bound to return it in as good a condition as he received it. I am glad on this occasion I am able to support the
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Government. It has been stated that the Bill will enable the borrower to cheat the money-lender, but I deny that that will be the case. The Bill does not in any way affect the honest man. Perhaps the Member for West Fife will not object to lending a hand to protect the working classes from unscrupulous landlords, as he takes so much interest in them as appears by his speech. I hope the Government will stick to their Bill, which will inflict no hardship upon working men.
*MR. GEDGEsaid the hon. Member for Stepney had told the House that so far from creating a hardship the passing of this Bill would confer a boon upon the working man; and the boon conferred was that it would not affect the working man at all. He wished it would confer the same boon upon other people. Both reason and experience were against any attempt to interfere in free contracts between persons of ripe years, and he believed that any interference such as was contemplated by the Bill before the House was bound in the long run to injure not the money-lender but the man who borrows the money. The Bill proposed to allow a particular interest in particular cases, but in arriving at the interest to be allowed the Judge must consider the circumstances of the transaction and the value of money at the time the transaction was entered into. For instance, when the Bank rate was 10 per cent. then 25 per cent. might be a fair rate of interest to be allowed, but if the Bank rate was 2 per cent. it would be quite a different matter. A rate to be usurious must be either more than the law permits or more than is usual. This may be so, but what is meant by usual? One rate may be fair when the Bank rate is low, the borrower a substantial man, and the security good, but when dealing with a man who could give no security whatever, and has no character to lose, they must put out of consideration all such things as these, and endeavour to fix what the rate should be in the case of a man who could offer no security whatever, and that would be found an extremely difficult task. It was quite certain that the rate paid for the use of anything, even of money, as in everything else, depended mainly upon the law of supply and demand. If the supply of money was ample the rate went down; if it was short the rate went up, By

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making a stringent law they would make it more difficult for the lender to lend money, and therefore it would be more difficult to borrow it. The Bill was opposed to every principle of political economy, and moreover it was proposed to enact that the poor man might be charged 25 per cent. interest, and the rich man only 15 per cent. The man who was determined to have money would have it at all hazards, as a drunkard would have drink, and having no security he would be compelled to pay a high rate of interest. This was a mere departmental Bill, and its introduction was due to the fact that we have no Prime Minister—Lord Salisbury, as a Foreign Minister, was beyond all praise, but his duties and anxieties as Foreign Secretary precluded him from paying attention to the sentimental nonsense of his colleagues, or he would have put his foot down on such a Bill as this. | Although at one time he had hoped that he would be able to vote for the Second Heading, and that Clause 1 would be struck out in Committee, he felt now that he could not do so, having regard to the imminent approach of the end of the session, and to the little probability that the Bill would find its way through Committee. Those who voted for the Second Reading would be supposed to have accepted the principle of the Bill. It was said that the Bill is in favour of the poor. Poor people borrow small sums and rich people large sums; the poor might be charged 25 per cent. per annum, but if a man borrowed more than £10 he might be charged 15 per cent. The poorer the man the higher the rate of interest to be charged. Why should a law not be made to interfere with bargains made between man and man for the temporary use and return afterwards in good condition, not of money, but of a house? It was of a great deal more importance that a man should be housed respectably and decently. Why is a man allowed to build houses and get the highest rent he can for them? If the principle of this Bill were applied to matters of that kind it would only have the effect of preventing being built. He had read nearly all the evidence which was given before the Committee, and all he could say was that in coming to their decision their hearts must have had more power over the result than the reasoning power of their heads. If they had just studied the political economists and then applied
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their reasoning to the evidence before them they would not have come to this decision. He would not take up the Bill clause by clause to show the absurdity of the drafting, and to show how ridiculous it was altogether from beginning to end with one or two exceptions. It would only be an injury to those who were accustomed to seek the benefit of loans.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,: I do not propose to follow the arguments of my hon. friend the Member for Walsall in this discussion. As a matter of fact he has summarised in a very convenient way all the misconceptions that have been formed with regard to this Bill. My hon. friend is under a delusion in supposing that this Bill is intended to fix the rate of interest. One feature that must have struck everyone in regard to this question is that everyone is agreed that there is a great grievance to be remedied in some way. [Cries of "Not at all."] My hon. friend says "Not at all." I am aware of my hon. friend's hardihood in dissent.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: There has been no such expression of universal agreement.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I have listened to the greater part of the debate, and I have not heard any question made of the fact that very great abuses exist in the system of money-lending. If my hon. friend asserts that there are no such abuses he will find very few supporters.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I never asserted anything of the sort.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: The second point that has struck me is that two-thirds of this Bill have really not been objected to at all, or, if so, it has only been by way of criticism more suitable for the Committee stage. The only clause which has been attacked on principle is the first clause of the Bill, the most important some people may say, but there are other clauses which are also very important indeed, and which no one has ventured to attack. I think everyone who has inquired into the subject of money-lending must have been struck with the very great mischief that ensues from the practice of persons carrying on a business

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of this kind under some name which is not their own as a bank, for instance. One is familiar with advertisements such as this:—"Why go to money-lenders when a private gentleman is prepared to lend money at 5 per cent?" That advertisement is inserted by a professional money-lender, and the dupes who go to him and get involved find that the interest is 5 per cent. per month, and not per year. Surely it is highly desirable that some steps should be taken to ensure that a business of this kind, which is liable to very grave abuses, should be carried on under the real name of the person who is behind the scenes. That is provided for by the second and third clauses of this Bill, and I have heard no attack whatever from any quarter either on the principle or the drafting of the clauses which are intended to suggest a remedy for that evil. And yet the House is being asked not to read the Bill a second time. There is another very important section of the Bill which I have not heard attacked, and which I do not think can be attacked. Every-one must be aware of the mischief that attends the sending of circulars to boys and young men under the age of twenty-one inviting them to gamble or borrow money. Everyone is desirous that a practice of that kind should be put down, but the existing Act is to a great extent inoperative owing to the difficulty of proving that the person sending the circular knew that the person receiving it was a minor. Surely, when circulars of that kind are sent out, it is only right and reasonable that unless the person who issues the circulars can prove that he had reason to suppose that the persons who received them were above age, he should be liable to the penalty which the law imposes. That is the provision contained in the fifth clause, a clause to which, so far, I have heard no objection put forward. There are two other portions of the Bill which have been criticised on questions of detail; one of them is the fourth clause, which provides penalties for false statements and false representations made by money-lenders. It surely is right that in a business so capable of being abused as that of money-lending there should be some sharpening of the remedy for misleading circulars and statements, with which all who have followed the subject are familiar. My hon. friend the Member for the University of Oxford made some
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criticisms on the definition of moneylender. The whole object of the definition is to ensure that the Bill shall apply only to those whom we all know as being money-lenders in the popular sense of the term. The Bill does not apply to those who genuinely carry on the business of bankers. Bankers lend money, but no one ever talks of a banker as a moneylender; he is not what is popularly known as a money-lender. The Bill is not to apply "to any body corporate, incorporated or empowered (before the passing of this Act) by a special Act of Parliament to lend money, in accordance with such special Act." In like manner, friendly societies and pawnbrokers are exempted. The stress of the attack has been directed at the first section of the Bill, which is the one that provides for strengthening the hands of the Court in setting aside harsh and unconscionable bargains. I think I can satisfy the House that the attack on the clause has proceeded on a radical misconception of its meaning. The hon. and learned Member for West Fife has obviously been refreshing his knowledge of the Pentateuch. He quoted to the House, and he designated me by name, the authority of Moses on the subject. I wish my hon. and learned friend had given a little more time to the reading of the Bill than to the reading of the Pentateuch. There was one passage in the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman to which I listened with a little regret. He made very great fun of a story told to the Committee by Lord Brampton, but I think that everyone who heard the story must have realised that behind it were all the elements of tragedy. It is all very well to make fun of a particular case, but if I possessed the literary talent of my hon. and learned friend, I think I could move the House by drawing a picture of some humble householder who, having fallen into the meshes of some unscrupulous money-lender, is led on from one step to another until total ruin and crime result. The hon. and learned Member for West Fife, referring to the first clause, spoke of the Bill as one to put proof altogether aside. The Bill is not one to do anything of the kind. The words of the clause are that if—
"the Court has reason to believe that the interest charged in respect of the sum actually lent exceeds the rate of interest mentioned in

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the schedule of this Act, or that the amounts charged … are excessive, and that in either case the transaction is harsh and unconscionable."
That does not mean if the Judge on some speculation of his own came to that conclusion; it means if the Judge upon the evidence before him came to that conclusion.
MR.BIRRELL: Why don't you say so?
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: The language can be made clear in Committee if my hon. and learned friend thinks it is open to objection, but that is a pure question of drafting. There is no intention whatever on the part of the framers of the Bill to say that a Judge is to arrive at a conclusion on a matter of fact without any evidence.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: There is no verdict.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: There is no verdict because there is no jury. I do not know what the money-lenders would say to the suggestion that there should be a jury. I am strongly of opinion that they would find the little finger of the jury thicker than the loins of the Judge. The hon. and learned Member for West Fife entirely misunderstood the first clause when he asserted that it fixes the rate of interest. It is not solely because the rate of interest is beyond the scheduled amount that the Judge can interfere with the bargain. It must also be proved that the bargain is "harsh and unconscionable." I submit to the House that the Bill, in point of principle, is not open to objection, and, as matters of drafting can best be considered in Committee, I confidently ask the House to assent to the Second Reading.
MR. MURNAGHAN: The hon. and learned Member for West Fife seemed to shed tears at the moral lapse of those who on this occasion support this measure. I think, on the other hand, that the Government deserve words of praise for trying to step in and save those people whose necessities compel them to seek the use of money from unscrupulous men, who prey upon their
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necessities and entrap them in meshes from which it is impossible to escape. The custom of money-lenders is to circulate throughout the country statements offering certain inducements. They state-that they are ready to lend money and desire no security, that no questions are asked, and so on. Then when they get the people into their meshes, they place very severe conditions on them. I think 15 per cent. for a small sum of money is reasonable, and I am sure some of the hon. Gentlemen who have protested against this Bill would hesitate long, before they paid that rate. I notice that the opposition to the Bill comes altogether from the professional element. I do not see anyone representing the honest workman opposing the Bill. The opposition crimes from professional men, and they object to it on account of the encroachment on the personal liberty of the subject. I do not think that any person who has had dealings with a money-lender will believe there can be safeguards too strong to protect the public against these men. I have known instances where people have paid 100 per cent. for a loan, and the weaker the individual the greater are the demands made upon him. The State interferes and says a man should not drink too much whiskey, that he should not get drunk, and it is the duty of the State to interfere in this matter and protect people from these dangerous men. I therefore rise for the purpose simply of saying how glad I am the Government have brought in this measure, and of expressing the hope that they will carry it into law.
MR. H. S. FOSTER: I am sure that anyone who listened to the speech of the learned. Attorney General must have felt that he himself realised the difficult task he had undertaken in defending on behalf of the Government the main provisions of this Bill. The Attorney General very ingeniously argued that because we object to one clause that is no reason whatever for objecting to the Second Reading. He told us there were six or seven clauses, and that so far he had heard very little criticism of any clause except the first. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading told us that he anticipated very little objection to any part of the Bill other than the first

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clause, but that, so far as he was concerned, he valued the first clause as more important than any other part of the measure. That being so it does not seem to be quite frank for the Attorney General to say later on that the discussion has justified the House in reading the Bill a second time because there has been so little said about any clause except the first. Clause 1 is for all purposes that which the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has described as the essence of the measure, and it is on that ground and that alone that the discussion has waged to-night around the extraordinary provisions of this clause. When I first road this Bill I confess I found it difficult to believe that a responsible Government would make itself responsible for putting such a clause before the House of Commons. If such a proposal were put before a debating society I believe it would be laughed out of discussion, but as it comes from a responsible Government, we are bound to deal with it with some measure of apparent respect. The whole case for this clause is based on appeals to prejudice. In the absence of logical argument to prove there was a weakness in the present law which this proposal was required to make good, all those who have supported the Bill have appealed to the prejudice of the House. Hard cases have been cited, and the hon. Member in charge of the Bill gave us two, one of which was so extraordinary that I marvelled he was not cross examined upon it. It was a Scotch case, and I was curious to see whether the Attorney General would have an opportunity of explaining the peculiar intricacies of Scotch law as suggested by that case. It was said that some moneylender—I think it was Isaac Gordon— had lent a man two sums of money at two different times—one sum from an office in England and the other from an office in Scotland.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Both sums were lent in England.
MR. H. S. FOSTER: But one of the promissory notes was dated from Glasgow, and the hon. Gentleman told the House the money-lender had an office in Glasgow. I assume, therefore, the money was lent from the Glasgow office; the hon. Gentleman told us nothing to the contrary.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: That is not so. It was expressly stated by the witness himself that although he had an office in Glasgow for this particular purpose, he carried on no business in Glasgow. He had an office in Glasgow for the express purpose of taking bills, but the money was lent from England.
MR. H. S. FOSTER: But it was a Scotch loan unquestionably. The lender was domiciled in Scotland for the purpose of the transaction, or the Scotch Courts could have had nothing whatever to do with it. The hon. Member told us that proceedings were taken against the defaulting debtor. I like to call things by their proper names; my hon. friend would probably say the man got into the meshes of the money-lender, but I say he was a defaulting debtor, and while proceedings were going on in the English Courts with respect to the English loan the bill dated from Glasgow also fell due and was also dishonoured. Thereupon, by some extraordinary process of law, which I should like to hear explained, the money-lender was able to commence an action in Scotland, and continue that process to a judgment without any sort of communication being made to the defendant; and without the defendant being even conscious that proceedings had been initiated, a bailiff was found at his door somewhere in Herefordshire. Is that an accurate statement of what really happened? If so, there is a much more serious grievance for this House to deal with than any question raised by this Bill, namely, that Her Majesty's Courts may be grossly abused for the purpose of oppressing Her Majesty's subjects at the suit of anybody who chooses to go to the Scotch Courts without notice to the defendant, and to say that a transaction which did not take place in Scotland did take place in Scotland—that judgment may be obtained against a person who has had no opportunity of defending himself, that that judgment may be transferred from the Scotch Courts to the English Courts, and in order to enforce a Scotch judgment of that kind an English baliff may be put in possession of the man's goods. The statement is so-incredible and extraordinary that until we have further proof I shall venture to believe that the hon. Gentleman's credulity has been imposed upon. Such a case

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is not sufficient to justify this House in making such an inroad upon the principle of freedom of contract. It may be that there is not the same respect for freedom of contract to-day as there used to be. It may be a very old-fashioned thing for anybody to get up and say that if people of mature age and in possession of their faculties make a bargain, whatever the terms of the bargain may be, the bargain ought, under ordinary circumstances, to be respected. At any rate, I am old-fashioned enough to believe that the principle is a sound one to go upon, and certainly this House ought not to be influenced by such improbable and incredible stories as that to which I have alluded. My hon. friend says that three or four years ago he should have been the last man to support legislation of that kind, but he comes to the House to-day with the usual zeal of the convert—or, I should say, the pervert. He told us that he used to believe in the heresies which he now dismisses. I should rather say that his present view is a very heretical one, and is founded upon having given an undue and abnormal amount of study to the hardships which have been brought before him in a certain number of hard cases. It is a truism that hard cases make bad law, but the hon. Gentleman in this instance is founding his desire for law upon hard cases. The hon. Member for Stepney, in supporting this Bill, cited as a ground for doing so the practice of the workpeople to resort rather to the pawnbrokers than to the money-lenders. Does not the hon. Member know that not only does the pawnbroker obtain ample security for the sum he advances, but he is allowed by law to charge something like 25 per cent., and that as a matter of practice, where the poor are in the habit of redeeming their goods on the Saturday night and pledging them again on Monday morning, the rate of interest he is entitled to charge works out to something nearer 40 per cent. than 20 per cent.? The hon. Gentleman does not consider that to be a hardship, but he cites it as a very desirable instance of the right which ought to be given to poor people to raise small sums of money. I cannot help thinking that a great deal of the prejudice to which appeal is made arises from the confusion in people's minds as to that which a money-lender really does. The money-lender, after all, deals in a commodity the same as any other person.
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If a man carries on a business for the purpose of lending money, the article in which he has to deal, and upon which he has to make his profit, is money, and he is entitled like any other trader, so long as he resorts to honourable and fair methods, to make the best use he can of the commodity with which he has to deal. Why is it not suggested that every harsh and unconscionable bargain in any other branch of trade should be revised and re-opened? Why should it be said that if a man has money to lend, and lends that money at what a Judge may consider to be an unduly high rate of interest, the debtor is to have the privilege of having that rate revised, while in the case of any other article of commerce, no matter what the bargain maybe, no matter how hard it was or how much the debtor needed the goods that were supplied, or how much the profit was, the debtor is not to have the opportunity of re-opening the transaction? If we passed this Bill— although I do not think there is much chance of it—we should not be able to stop here. Once having established the precedent of re-opening a transaction because in the opinion of one of Her Majesty's Judges the terms were unreasonable—for that is all that "unconscionable" means, according to the dictionary—every kind of bargain will have to be liable to revision on the same ground. Another point the Attorney General endeavoured to make was that there were two precautions: first, that the Judge must be satisfied that the rate of interest was more than 15 per cent., and, secondly, that the transaction was harsh and unconscionable, and he seemed to treat those points as two independent propositions. Is it not conceivable that, if we set down here 15 per cent. as the limit above which a Judge may re- open a transaction, if the charge for interest is 20 per cent., that in the opinion of the Judge may be an un- conscionable bargain—that the more fact of the rate of interest being higher than 15 per cent. may be sufficient to indicate to the Judge that the bargain is a harsh and unconscionable one? It is easy, because it is taking the popular side, to abuse the money-lender and to couple with his name the term "unscrupulous." But this Bill is not limited to the unscrupulous. The preamble of the Bill says that many money-lenders have resorted to deceptive methods, and one would

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have thought that the Bill would have gone on to deal with the money-lenders who "have resorted to deceptive methods." Not at all. As my hon. and learned friend who moved the rejection of the Bill pointed out, if this first clause is passed the Judge is to have thrown upon him the onus of saying what, under all the circumstances, was a fair bargain, and to say what sum is fairly due in respect of principal and interest. I cannot imagine a more irksome or difficult task. The Judge has got to endeavour to put himself into the circumstances of the person carrying out the transaction; he has to appreciate the risk which the lender had to incur, he has to fix the rate quite apart from the circumstances and the actual terms of the agreement entered into between debtor and creditor. The result must depend upon the Court in which the case may happen to be tried and the idiosyncrasies of the Judge who happens to preside. The risk which the money-lender will run of having his bargains upset will have to be paid for by those who borrow; in other words, instead of lightening the burden of the borrower the money-lender will require to exact a higher rate of interest for the money he lends in order to cover this additional risk. I have made it my business to inquire into one or two of these cases. I had a case presented to me of a money-lending company carrying on business at four or five places, and I found that the average charge they made was 35 per cent., but notwithstanding that they were able to pay to their shareholders a dividend of only 11 per cent. Their working expenses were from 15 to 20 per cent. of their profits, they were obliged to keep up a staff for making inquiries and so on and to keep the books of account, and where money was received by instalments a great deal of expense was incurred in keeping people up to date in their payments. In addition to that, they incurred a loss of something like 10 per cent. of the total amount of their loans through bad debts. The House must remember that the class of people who go to moneylenders are those who cannot go to their hankers to borrow on good security; they have not any good securities, and their credit at the bank is exhausted. The result is that the money-lender is carrying on an exceedingly risky business; everybody knows that a high rate of interest always means a heavy risk. The
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experience of money-lenders seems to be that although a man may charge 25 or 30 per cent. for short periods he does not make much more than a decent living, and if you are going to introduce provisions into the law whereby you are going in effect to make it impossible to carry on that business and at the same time to make a living you are going to make it impossible to lend money unless a man has a banker's security. The learned Attorney General rather complained that we had not criticised other portions of the Bill. If he is going to interpret silence or absence of criticism as approval of the Bill I have no doubt that from every part of the House criticisms will come with regard to the other clauses. Clause 4 seems to. be a most unfair clause, rendering a. money-lender liable to prosecution on the mere ipse dixit of a borrower who does not wish to repay his debt. If legislation, of this kind is to be introduced against the money-lender, I would ask whether it is not equitable that the money borrower should be liable to exactly the same penalties for making similar misrepresentations. In the case of the lender he-has been induced to part with his money, but in the case of the borrower it is not until after he has obtained the money, and is called upon to repay, that the difficulty arises, and I certainly think similar penalties should apply to the borrower as to the lender. I trust the House will not accept the second reading of this Bill. If the second reading is carried I hope the Government will make some announcement which will disarm much of the hostility to this first clause. If that clause ever was placed in an Act of Parliament it would not only transgress all those principles of political economy in which we have been taught to believe, but it would open up a vista. of future legislation which would be fraught with very great danger to the country. The Times newspaper, which might have some influence with Members of the Government, in a leading article on this subject not long ago said—
"Lord James expressed the hope that the Bill would become law before the close of the present session. We are not sure that this will be or ought to be the case, unless the clause giving the courts authority to reopen contracts is withdrawn. Under the existing; law there is power to deal with cases of fraud and misrepresentation, and to allow public Judges to interfere in bargains between man

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and man however hard they may appear to be, where no fraud or misrepresentation can be alleged, is a step back to the Dark Ages."
We are all in favour of strengthening the law if required in any case of fraud or misrepresentation with regard to money-lending. If my hon. friend's case is that these money-lenders do resort to fraud, misrepresentations, or deceptive methods, which are not covered by the law as it at present stands, by all means let us strengthen the law. But this Bill goes much further than any proposal of that kind, and for that reason I support the motion for its rejection.
MR. LYTTELTON: I did not intend to trouble the House, but inasmuch as there appear to be a considerable number of speakers on this side objecting to this Bill I desire to say in a few sentences the reasons I have for upholding it. No candid man can dispute that there are difficulties in and objections to submitting bargains made between adults of full mental capacity to the revision of Judges, many of whom differ widely as regards the principle which should be applied to such cases. Nobody can dispute that different minds would probably take different views of such cases, and it is quite likely that Judges in one place would give decisions widely conflicting with the decisions of Judges in other parts of the country. But that is not a difficulty which exists for the first time. For my part I think the present is a far greater scandal than would exist if this proposed legislation were carried into effect. I take it as beyond controversy in this matter that there are constantly scandalous cases of hardship by which the poor suffer at the hands of money-lenders. That has been established beyond all doubt. What is the result? Cases are brought before the Courts by money-lenders, and can anything be more disastrous to the administration of the law in this country than that the Judges appointed and sworn to administer the law are, by the very hardship of the cases brought before them, almost compelled to evade their duty, and not to administer the law as they
728
swore to do? If the hon. and learned Member opposite ever visited a County Court he would see the stress in which the Judge is placed if he has before him this dilemma: "Am I to administer the law of the land which I am sworn to administer, or am I to give the wretched rascal who comes before me the very life-blood of his victim?" That is what it really comes to. What is the answer? The answer is, "I will take any course I can to avoid ruining this unfortunate man who is brought before me." I respectfully submit to the House that that brings upon the community at large, and especially upon those who admire and respect and believe in the law, a most serious scandal and difficulty, for it places those who have been sworn to administer the law in the position of struggling to evade it. Further, it is most disastrous for a Judge, for there is a great temptation to extend it to subsequent cases. Once a Judge has been shown the way, with the approval of others, not to administer but to evade the law, and to follow his own opinion, the House may easily judge how tempting it is for him to set up his own opinion against the law of the land, and to administer what he calls right and equity in other cases contrary to the law of the country. Stress has been laid upon the onerous task which is laid upon the Judge in deciding not questions of law, but questions which no doubt are of economics. But that is no new thing. For centuries the Judges have had to decide upon the legality of covenants in restraint of trade, which is an economic matter. But nothing disastrous has ever happened to the community by reason of the Judges having to decide upon that most important matter. I may take another illustration. For many year's the law of conspiracy—a far more delicate and a most difficult matter—was in the hands of the Judges; it was within their discretion to say whether a combination of two or more people was likely to effect something contra bonos mores, and in many other matters with regard to trade the law of conspiracy frequently placed the Judges in a position of the greatest possible difficulty and delicacy. They have had for many generations to decide upon questions of custom—a custom which prevails in a trade—whether that custom is reasonable or unreasonable. The Judge is asked in these cases to say whether a bargain is or is not harsh and

729
unconscionable. That the task is difficult no candid man will deny, but it is a task they have set themselves to perform already, as moneylenders appearing before the Courts have found. How much better it is in the interests of all concerned that that proceeding which has already begun should be legalised and made part of the law of the land. For these reasons, though I do not dispute for a moment the soundness of many of the objections which have been made against the Bill, some of which no doubt will prevail in the Committee stage, I shall support the Second Reading, as the state of things which this Bill will bring about is merely that of regulating and ordering that which already obtains.
*MR. HAZELL, as a member of the Committee of whose labours this Bill was the result, congratulated the Government on bringing in the measure, and expressed the hope that it would be carried into law, although he was not in love with all its details, some of which would have to be modified in Committee. To those who heard the witnesses give their evidence many of the arguments advanced against the Bill appeared illogical and unsound. It was assumed by many that these bargains were made between two persons meeting on equal terms and with their eyes open. The eyes of the lenders were very clearly open, but that could not always be said of the borrowers. The Committee heard of cases without number in which astute money lenders, learned in the law of debtor and creditor, dealt with people who were absolutely unlearned in the law, and who had no conception of the nature of the bargain into which they had entered until they found themselves practically ruined. No doubt there were many reasonable moneylenders and many unreasonable borrowers, and an effective Bill of this kind would strengthen the hands and improve the business of men who were bona fide lending small sums of money at rates of interest which might appear high, but which under the circumstances were not extortionate, and it would squeeze out of
730
the business those who used oppression as a means of livelihood. Their circulars were often so misleading that when they were not absolutely untrue, they required a very expert person to understand exactly what they meant. No doubt the people who were victimised were foolish and blameworthy, but there were a great number of people whose knowledge of business affairs was so small that it was not fair to face them with people who were extremely acute in one branch of the law, and perhaps one only. The Committee took the evidence of over forty witnesses, and with the exception of one hon. Member the Report was absolutely unanimous. There could be no doubt whatever that registration of these lenders was very desirable. It was the duty of the Government to carry the Bill through, and he was sure that with proper handling in Committee it would be a very useful and important measure.
MAJOR RASCH: I do hope that the House will pass the second Reading of this Bill. I should like to say half-a-dozen words with reference to one class of persons in particular who are peculiarly the victims of these thieves—I have been through the mill myself—I mean with reference to the position of the British officer, or rather the British subaltern, who is peculiarly their victim. That ineffable Department, the War Office, has provided that certain regiments should be so hopelessly and ridiculously expensive that it is absolutely impossible for the son of a country gentleman to live in them. The War Office seem to prefer to fill the commissioned ranks with South African Jews and American millionaires rather than with Englishmen. The result is that, in certain cases, a son of an English country gentleman gets into one of these expensive cavalry regiments. Either the regiment give a ball or a mess dinner, or his brother officers buy polo ponies at £200 apiece, or the War Office alter the whole of his kit from blue to red, or they put the regiment on pie-bald horses instead of brown horses. The result is that the young officer does not do what he should do, and he finds him-

731
self unable to get on and to pay his mess bill. The boy does not go to his father for help, but he invokes the aid of "the man round the corner'," and pays 50 or 60 per cent. for a loan. This goes on until the money-lender gets him fairly on his hooks. The money lender then writes to the War Office, and the War Office writes to the boy's parents, and the boy has to retire. The result is that the boy is ruined, and he becomes a club loafer, or drives a hansom, or even becomes a lawyer, and his career is absolutely ruined. What I say is that the only way to stamp out this pernicious breed is to pass some such Bill as the Government have now placed before the House, in order that the boy, like the Prodigal Son in the parable, can go to his father in the first instance instead of having that association with the swine. I hope the House will not pay too much attention to the false sentiment so admirably expressed by my hon. friend the Member for West Fife. It is the duty of the House to extend its protection to other people besides the class to which my hon. friend has alluded.
MR. MADDISON: I have listened to a large part of this debate, and the most peculiar thing about it has been an attempt to show that the money-lender is a blessing to the working classes. I have not a keen sense of humour, but I do certainly appreciate that joke. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife in his brilliant speech entirely marred it when he attempted to indulge in that special pleading about the poor people who had to go to the money-lender in their time of dire necessity. I quite agree that there are many respectable money-lenders, but I do not like very much this first clause. I think myself that there is a tendency in our just zeal against excesses to do injury to those who may be respectable members of that particular class. I have been very much interested in the somewhat frequent quotations from Jeremy Bentham, and I am bound to say that when those quotations came from the mouth of the hon. Member for Walsall I began to have a somewhat serious regard for that great philosopher. But, after
732
all, are the hon. Gentlemen who have quoted Jeremy Bentham so freely prepared to follow him in his philosophy"? Very likely the hon. Member for West Fife; would, but the hon. Member for Walsall is a living contradiction of Bentham's philosophy from beginning to end. I have a profound respect for that brilliant group of utilitarians of which Bentham and the elder Mill formed such a prominent part, but are hon. Members who have quoted from them not aware that, like most doctrinaires, they made no exceptions to their rule, and thus you have John Stuart Mill, in his love of liberty, actually opposing any attempt to deal with the sale of poisons, for he believed in freedom to poison yourself or other people. I think in all these matters of freedom our experience has shown that you must in a civilised community regulate it, for it is regulation which, after all, has given us the best results. So far as I am concerned, I believe that if you were to deprive the poor amongst the working classes of all moneylenders good and bad, the net result to the working classes would be distinctly good. It was really amusing to hear the hon. Member for Walsall discoursing upon this point in such a fluent way, that one-could hardly keep pace with him as he gave us those high economics as to how the value of money was regulated by the law of supply and demand. I had my mind upon some poor wretched man who has gone wrong with his accounts, some miserable clerk who has got wrong to the extent of £20 or £30 with his accounts. He goes to one of these money-lenders,. and in his extremity and dire necessity he becomes a hopeless victim in the hands of these unscrupulous men. The result is that this poor man becomes absolutely helpless and hopeless in the hands of the money-lender. That is only one type. There can be no freedom of contract or any real contract between a man who possesses money and another man who does not possess it and must have-it. In that dire necessity the borrower is prepared to enter into a contract which, I venture to say, would not be considered fair, and should not be considered fair, by any civilised community. Although I agree in principle with this Bill, I wish to say that I shall support any Amendment which gives it more effect in the direction I have indicated, for it is an attempt to interfere not with what I would call

733
the regular forces of commerce, but with the brigands of commerce, and just as you would treat a regular army very different from what you would treat a band of brigands, so I think this House is justified in adopting the same policy with respect to money-lenders. It has been said that this Bill really fixes a certain rate of interest. It is needless to say that I am not a lawyer, but in reading this Bill through I must say that I could not get that meaning out of the measure. I admit that the scheduled rates of interest establish an indication to the Judges, but the clause distinctly says that if the scheduled rate of interest has been exceeded the court may reopen the trans-action, and I take it that in the reopening duo regard would be had even where the scheduled rate of interest had been exceeded to the peculiar circumstances of the case. Without wishing to occupy the time of the House any further, I do give to this Bill my support, not because I agree with every detail of it, but lie-cause, first of all, I think a real evil has been made out, and no one has attempted to deny it. The evil exists, and hon. Members who are opposing this Bill are evidently prepared to allow that evil to go on until it reaches almost the open form of fraud. I take that to be the case. I think we can very rightly, without encroaching upon the freedom of trade, take this step. I wish to say before I sit down, in support of my hon. friend the Member for Stepney, that the real truth is that we have already in some parts of the country—and I am glad to hear that we have them in Stepney—banks and other places where this difficulty has been solved completely. The hon. Member for Leicester could tell us of the good work that co-operative banks are doing at the present time, and there is no need for the working classes to depend on these money-lenders either bad or good. But whatever may be said against this Bill, do not let it be said that it would, in any sort of way, injure the best interests of the working classes. Money-lending is a great curse, and it does an enormous amount of injury to the working classes, for it gets them into habits which affect them for a lifetime.
Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

INEBRIATES AMENDMENT (SCOTLAN) BILL, [Lords].
Order read, for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [18th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
And which Amendment was—
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months'"—(Mr. Caldwell.)
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
Debate resumed.
It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

POST OFFICE SITES [EXPENSES].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of all sums payable by the Postmaster General under any Act of the present session to enable Her Majesty's Postmaster General to acquire lands for the Public Service, and of all expenses incurred in carrying into effect the Provisions of such Act.—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

COUNTY COURTS (INVESTMENT OF DEPOSITS) BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause I:—
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

DISTRICT COUNCILLORS AND GUARDIANS (TERM OF OFFICE) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported, without amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
EDUCATION OF THE BLIND (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

REGISTRATION OF FTRMS BILL (SELECT COMMITTEE.)
Ordered, That Mr. Hazell be discharged from the Select Committee on the Registration of Firms Bill.
Ordered, That Mr. Mendl be a Member of the Committee. — (Mr. William M'Arthur.)

G.P.O.— TRANSFER TO MOUNT PLEASANT— POSTAL RE-ARRANGEMENTS, DELAYS, ETC.
On the motion for adjournment,
MR. EGERTON: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury a question of which I have given him private notice. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will take immediate steps to remedy the delays in the delivery of letters due to the absence of an adequate staff at the new offices at Mount Pleasant.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,): I am aware that there is considerable difficulty in connection with the transfer of certain duties to Mount Pleasant, but I thought they were confined to the newspaper post and the book post. I am sorry to hear that those difficulties apply to the letter post also. I think my hon. friend is wrong in saying that even if those difficulties have arisen they are due to an inadequate staff. I
736
have heard nothing of that, and no representations have been made to me on the subject. What has happened is this. Although the staff is adequate, they have been working at considerable inconvenience and under considerable difficulties owing to the fact that some 2,500 men have been transferred to the new office. Of course, it will take some short time for them to accommodate themselves to their new surroundings, and although they are working under difficulties which did not exist in the old office, I am assured that within a very few days those difficulties will be removed, and I hope my hon. friend will then have no cause to complain. I will communicate with the Postmaster-General to-morrow morning, and urge the Post Office officials to remove the difficulties as soon as possible.
MR. EGERTON: I am advised that a bag of letters was sent to the North in mistake and was returned.
MR. LOUGH: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was absolutely necessary to change the hours of posting. The change has caused the very greatest inconvenience to all classes of persons engaged in business not only in London but in every part of the country. I certainly think that if the change was not absolutely necessary, it was a very strong step to take to alter the hours of departure of the mails, which I believe have hardly been changed for a generation. If the right hon. Gentleman would extend his inquiries so far as to see whether it would be possible to resume the old hours, either by some arrangement in the office, or by some arrangement in connection with the railway companies, I am sure it would give the greatest satisfaction.
MR. HANBURY: I will also make inquiries into that matter.
Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve of the clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—
St. Albans Water,
London and North Western Railway (Wales).
Devonport Corporation.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

DORKING WATER BILL [H.L.]
  FISHGUARD WATER AND GAS BILL [H.L.]

    MENSTONE WATER (TRANSFER) BILL [H.L.]
    NEWPORT CORPORATION BILL [H.L].
    NEWTOWN AND LLANLLWCHAIARN URBAN DISTRICT GAS BILL [H.L.].
    Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.

BUENOS AYRES AND ROSARIO RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  COSTA RICA RAILWAY COMPANY, LIMITED, BILL [H.L.]
  Read 2a.
BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL.
  BAKER STREET AND WATERLOO RAILWAY BILL.
  Read 2a, and committed. The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
GREAT GRIMSBY STREET TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a; Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
RAMSGATE CORPORATION IMPROVEMENTS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
CHARING CROSS AND STRAND ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL.
Standing Order No. 93 considered (according to Order), and dispensed with, with respect to a petition of the Corporation of London. Leave given to present the said petition.
SOUTH EASTERN AND LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAYS BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
MORECAMBE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (GAS) BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee without amendment.
MARKET WEIGHTON DRAINAGE AND NAVIGATION BILL.
Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The Orders made on the 18th and 25th of May last discharged; and Bill committed.
CHRISTCHURCH AND BOURNEMOUTH TRAMWAYS BILL.
  BLACKPOOL, ST. ANNE'S, AND LYTHAM TRAMWAYS BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 116.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 1) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
    Read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL [H.L.]
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL [H.L.]

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL [H.L.]
    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL [H.L.].
    House in Committee (according to Order). Bills reported without amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bills to be read 3a To-morrow.

METROPOLITAN COMMON SCHEME (PETERSHAM) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House To-morrow.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRAINING COLLEGES.
  Reports on training colleges for the year 1899, by W. Scott Coward, Esq., the Hon. Mrs. Colborne, and Sir John Stainer; list of training colleges under inspection.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Twenty-seventh Annual Report by the Accountant for Scotland to the Scotch Education Department.
  FISHERIES (SCOTLAND).
  Eighteenth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1899: Part III. Scientific investigations.
  CRIMINAL AND JUDICIAL STATISTICS (IRELAND).
  Part I. Criminal Statistics for the year 1898.
  FISHERIES (IRELAND).
  Annual Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries, for the year 1899.
  NAVY (HYDROGRAPHER'S REPORT).
  Report on Admiralty Surveys for the year 1899, by the Hydrographer.

  CAPE OF GOOD HOPE OBSERVATORY.
  Report of the Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope Observatory to the Lords
  576
  Commissioners of the Admiralty, for the year 1899.

  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP.
  Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, for the year 1899.

  TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
  No. 527. Agricultural and other natural resources of Tripoli.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered; to lie on the Table.

  GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND TRAVERS' FOUNDATION.
  Statement of the estimated income and expenditure of Greenwich Hospital and. of Travers' Foundation for 1900–1901.
  COUNTY OFFICERS AND COURTS (IRELAND) ACT, 1877.
  Account of receipts and payments under the Act during the year ended 31st March, 1900.

  INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION (IRE LAND).
  1. Rules and programme of examinations for the year 1901;
  2. Rules made by the Intermediate Education Board for Ireland appointing. Bangor, county Down, an additional place of examination for boys in 1900.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to-Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  ARUNDEL PORT.
  Account and Report for 1899–1900. Delivered (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
PETITIONS.
  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition in favour of; of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  STATUE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, AT WESTMINSTER.
  Petition for the removal of; of persons singing; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.
Message from the Commons for leave for the Clerk of the Parliaments to attend to be examined as a witness before the Select Committee of that House. Leave given accordingly, and a message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.
BEER RETAILERS AND SPIRIT GROCERS' LICENCES (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL. (No. 114.)
  CRUELTY TO WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY BILL. (No. 115.)
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.

VOLUNTEERS BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order).
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:—
LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I was under the impression that the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War did not intend taking the Committee stage of this Bill until Friday, and therefore I have not put down the Amend-mend which it was my intention to move. I will, however, move it in the Standing Committee. The effect of my Amendment will be to leave out Sub-section (b) of Clause 2, and, of course, to consequentially amend the former part of the section. The noble Marquess explained to the House on a former occasion that he considered it desirable that Volunteers should be called out for active service within the limits of the United Kingdom. I do not object to that, but, for the reasons I gave on a recent occasion, I think it very undesirable that Volunteers should be called upon to give an undertaking to serve outside the United Kingdom before circumstances arise which justify a special call for their services.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE):
578
I understand that the noble Lord does not intend to press his Amendment on this occasion, and therefore I scarcely feel justified in taking up your Lordships' time in commenting upon it. In our view it is desirable that we should place it within the power of Volunteers to assume, if they so desire, a liability for service beyond the limits of the United Kingdom. They have done so lately with great distinction to themselves, and in our view it is not likely that they will consent to deprive themselves of the power of rendering similar services should the opportunity hereafter arise. If that be so, it is clearly our opinion that we should be put in a position to make the necessary arrangements with such Volunteers, not at the last moment and in a hurried fashion, but deliberately and beforehand. That is the reason we have inserted this provision in the Bill, and I confess I should be very sorry indeed if your Lordships decided to get rid of it.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I adhere to the opinion I have already expressed, and I should have preferred to see both (a) and (b) omitted from the clause. I object to them on general grounds—as altering the character of the Volunteer force, as likely to give rise to embarrassment hereafter, and as totally unnecessary, in my opinion, for the purpose which the noble Marquess has in view.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Other clauses agreed to; Bill reported without amendment; and recommitted to the Standing Committee.

MILITARY LANDS BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order).
Clause 1:—
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The clause as it now stands would render it impossible to set in motion the machinery of the clause on behalf of a rifle club. It is felt that this restriction would be undesirable, and my Amendment removes it.
Moved—
"In Clause 1, page 1, line 8, to leave out 'by or on behalf of a Volunteer corps.' "—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: This clause, as at present worded, obliges a Volunteer corps, as well as a county council or any other local authority, to apply to the Local Government Board for leave to borrow. That is a very proper condition in the case of a local authority, but I do not think that it should apply in the case of a Volunteer corps. Under the Military Lands Act of 1892 Volunteer corps must apply to the War Office for permission to borrow, and in our opinion the War Office would be a better judge in cases of that kind than the Local Government Board.
Amendment moved—
"In Clause 1, page 1, line 9, to leave out from 'and' to 'may' in line 11, and to insert 'for this purpose.'"—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Consequential Amendments agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 amended, and agreed to.
Clause 3:—
LORD MONKSWELL: To this clause I have to move a drafting Amendment of very considerable importance. It is not my own, but Lord Thring's. Lord Thring would have moved it himself had he been able to be present to-day. On looking through Clause 3, Lord Thring was quite unable to satisfy himself of the effect of the clause as it at present stands. Your Lordships will see that it is a case of legislation by reference run mad. In the first place, certain provisions of Section 9 of the Local Government Act, 1894, are to apply; but they are to apply with certain modifications. Those modifications refer to other Acts, and if those Acts are looked at it will be found that they in their turn refer to previous Acts. The consequence is that anyone who reads this section will have considerable difficulty in understanding what the procedure is. Lord Thring suggests that it is exceedingly desirable that Her Majesty's Government should lay down in the schedule the rules of procedure which they consider are applicable to this case. They will have no difficulty in
580
doing so if they understand Clause 3, which Lord Thring is unable to do. I would suggest that before the next stage of the Bill, or in the Standing Committee, the noble Marquess should produce a schedule describing in detail the procedure he proposes.
Moved—
"In Clause 3, page 2, line 4, after 'purposes' to leave out to the end of the clause and insert 'the regulations contained in the Schedule hereto as to the continuation and otherwise of the resolution mentioned in this section shall apply in the same manner as if they were re- enacted in the Act.' "—(Lord Monkswell.)
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: No one has more respect for the high authority cited by the noble Lord than I have, and it is quite true that we all occasionally complain of the abuse of what is generally described as legislation by reference. I am afraid the offence, if it be one, is committed rather indiscriminately by all of us, and for very obvious reasons. The noble Lord has moved to insert the words—
"The regulations contained- in the Schedule hereto as to the confirmation and otherwise of the resolution mentioned in this section shall apply in the same manner as if they were re-enacted in the Act."
But he has left it to us to provide the necessary schedule. I have made some inquiries as to the probable character of that schedule, and I am told that it would be one of considerable length, covering four or five pages of printed matter. That would greatly add to the bulk of the Statute-book, and I submit that in this case it is scarcely necessary. I am told that the procedure to be followed under these two Acts—the Local Government | Act, 1894, and the Allotments Acts, 1887 —is very 'well understood, and that an exhaustive recapitulation of all the clauses would be superfluous. I have an Amendment to the same clause which will perhaps deprive it of some of the ambiguity to which the noble Lord has referred, and I certainly prefer my Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): The noble Lord is setting a very bad precedent. In order to render the Amendment intelligible, anyone voting on it must have the schedule before him; but we are asked to vote on the Amendment without in the least

581
knowing what the schedule is to be. I hope the Amendment will not be adopted.
LORD MONKSWELL: My proposition is that at the next stage of the Bill the schedule should be set out, and the House given an opportunity of considering its provisions. Surely the four or five pages of printed matter to which the noble Marquess has referred might be lessened by some modified and perfectly intelligible reference to statutes that are easily accessible. But if it is the case that the Government cannot make the meaning of the clause clear to the ordinary mind under four or five pages, then that is an additional reason why those pages should be set out. I may mention that Lord Thring placed this Bill before the Parliamentary Committee of the County Councils Association yesterday, and that the committee passed a resolution recommending that the procedure clauses should be set out in full in the schedule.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I agree strongly with the Amendment of my noble friend. This is the most outrageous case I have heard of. It is most extraordinary that a Bill of this kind, involving very considerable dealings with land, should be passed through Parliament without the procedure being clearly set out. And why, forsooth, is this to be done? Because it is so complicated that it will take the War Office a long time to make it clear. How, I ask, is the ordinary reader to understand it without the assistance of those gentlemen in the War Office who, whatever may be their qualifications on military matters, are perfectly able to prepare a schedule of this kind? I hope the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, who has frequently spoken against the practice of legislating by reference, will persuade his colleagues to give the public some assistance in understanding this Bill.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: May I ask whether it is likely to add to the value of the precedent you are endeavouring to set up, to enact that there shall be a schedule of some sort or other without describing it?
LORD MONKSWELL: I suggest that the noble Marquess should withdraw these words from the clause with a view of producing a schedule at some future time.
On Question, their Lordships proceeded to a division.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am very anxious not to keep back from persons interested in this Bill any information with regard to the manner in which it will operate, and I suggest, as a possible solution of the difficulty, that we might print and lay upon the Table of the House.—
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I am afraid the noble Marquess is out of order in speaking now.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY): The noble Earl is quite right. There can be no speaking after a division has been called.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): All we have to do is to withdraw the division and proceed.
On the Question being again put, the Amendment was negatived.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is now no reason why the noble Earl should not allow my noble friend to make his statement.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: We refrained from dividing in order to enable him to have an opportunity of making it.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The suggestion I was going to throw out was that we might make the position perfectly clear, without encumbering the Statute-book with a schedule of inordinate length, if the clauses of the two Acts which affect the clause in this Bill were printed and laid upon the Table of the House for your Lordships' consideration. It would then be for your Lordships to judge whether it was necessary to do anything more or not.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I think that suggestion perfectly reasonable.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 4, 5, and 6 agreed to.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The new clause standing in my name after Clause 6 has been introduced at the instance of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and is designed to render the Act applicable to Scotland. I must take it from him that the Amendment is sufficient for the purpose. I cannot pretend to be sufficiently conversant with the mysteries of Scottish law to affirm that it is so from my own knowledge.
Moved—
"To insert as a new clause, after Clause 6:—' (1.) In the application of this Act to Scotland the following provision shall have effect—(a) The expressions "council of any urban district" and "council of any urban district other than a borough" shall mean the commissioners of a police burgh; (b) the expression "Public Health Acts" shall mean the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, provided that the limit of rate imposed by that Act shall not apply to any rate authorised by this Act; (c) the expression "hire" shall mean "take on lease"; (d) references to the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1894, and to Section 25 and Sub-sections (2) to (4) and (7) to (9) of Section 26 thereof shall be substituted for references to the Local Government Act, 1894, and to Section 9 and Sub-sections (2) to (5) and (8) to (10) thereof respectively; (e) a reference to Subsection (8) of Section 25 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1894, shall be substituted for a reference to Sub-sections (1) and (5) of the Local Government Act, 1888; (f) in Section 6 of this Act the expression "Local Government Board" shall mean the Local Government Board for Scotland. (2.) In Subsection (9) of Section 25 of the Military Lands Act, 1892, "twenty-one" shall be substituted for "twenty-two."' "—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
On Question, new Clause agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to; Bill recommitted to the Standing Committee; and to be reprinted as amended. (No. 117.)

UGANDA RAILWAY BILL.
[SECOND HEADING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, this is a Bill to increase the sum provided for the construction of the Uganda railway, the expense of the work having exceeded the estimates which we made for it. But this is so common a failure with respect to the prophecies of
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surveyors, architects, and engineers that it has almost come to be regarded as a matter of right that their estimates should in some degree fall short of their ultimate expenditure. I am not, however, going to plead any right of that kind in the present instance, though I hold that the universal practice for many generations has established the fact that surveyors and engineers may exceed the estimates they have laid down. There is no need for me to appeal to that unhappy experience. The first Bill was passed under very peculiar circumstances. It was deliberately passed by Parliament without there being that survey which is invariably undertaken before any railway is begun. There was a survey executed under circumstances of great difficulty, and with great ability, by Major Macdonald, but it was not a survey such as is generally made in such a case. Most of the ground was not even travelled over, and some of the circumstances necessary to be known in carrying through the work were not even ascertained. But Parliament were perfectly well aware of what it was doing. They perfectly well know that it was a railway undertaken without such a survey as is usually carried through before a work of such magnitude, or, indeed, any railway work at all, is undertaken. For instance, the character of the labour market, the opportunities that there were for obtaining the requisite number of workmen, the cost at which they could be obtained, the nature of the soil with reference both to its operation upon steel sleepers and its action under the pressure of tropical rains and hurricanes, and many other matters, which a more elaborate survey would have cleared up, were left without being fully or even considerably investigated. Anyone who reads the report of Sir Guilford Molesworth will see that this statement is fully borne out by him. Then it may be asked why we undertook a railway without a preliminary survey. My answer is that we did so with a perfect consciousness of what we were doing, and for the sake of speed. There is no doubt that if we had gone through the usual process many more years would have passed before there was any chance of completing the work; and anybody who remembers the political condition of the country at that time will not find it difficult to realise that there

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were considerations of a very cogent character which induced us to desire to finish, at the earliest period possible, what was practically our only access to these regions. At that time the battle of Omdurman had not been fought, the occupation of Fashoda had not taken place, the very wide-reaching agreements which we have since made with the French Government had not then been discussed, and our position was one which I will not say was critical, but our position was one of very considerable difficulty if any serious embarrassments with any European Power had arisen before we had done anything to make our military access to the place easier than it naturally was. I doubt whether anyone will challenge the soundness of that reasoning, and I will not pursue it, because it leads into many matters which are not precisely suitable for discussion. If the railway was to be made, one of the great objects why it should be made was to give us military access to the country; and therefore it was important that it should be made with as much speed as possible. On these grounds we undoubtedly entered on the railway without that complete and exhaustive survey which under other circumstances would have been proper and suitable; but I do not think that any great harm was done. There is no doubt that the sanguine views which were entertained have not been carried out, but many things have happened which we had no reason to anticipate. The native labour market to a very great extent proved useless, and we were compelled to go to the Indian labour market, which was itself enormously embarrassed by the famine and pestilence with which that country has been visited. The use of cattle in the country was very seriously impeded by the outbreak of rinderpest, which raged with such fury over all those territories. One of the first necessities in constructing a railway is to have an adequate supply of machinery, and when that necessity was pressing upon us the most strongly there come the engineers' strike in England, which arrested the supply of machinery for a considerable time. There were many other difficulties which it may be said we might have foreseen, but which we could not have altogether foreseen, and which had the effect of considerably raising the price. I observe that in another place a railway
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was cited for our example—namely, the Beira Railway—which had been completed at a somewhat cheaper rate; but the citation was an unfortunate one, for the Beira Railway has turned out so supremely ill-made that it has had to be almost entirely recast, and I doubt very much whether in the end it will be found to have been constructed at a cheaper rate than we propose to assign to the Uganda Railway. Although there is good ground for the speed at which we constructed the railway and the comparative absence of precaution, there has been no financial disaster. The railway is now advancing rapidly, and as soon as the great work of the Man escarpment has been overcome—it requires engineering arrangements of a peculiar character, but the difficulties, I believe, are now very nearly overcome—the line will reach the lake with great rapidity; whether in the course of next year or not I do not know. The expert evidence seems to show that that will probably be the case; but, at all events, we are very near the end, and I am sure that when the railway is completed it will be an enormous engine for the civilisation of the country. On these grounds, my Lords, I hope there will be no objection on the part of this House to give its assent to the measure which the House of Commons has passed, by which the amount assigned shall be raised from three millions to nearly five millions.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My Lords, no doubt at first sight the amount demanded by this Bill appears extremely startling. It is very rare that an estimate is exceeded to so large an extent, and, on the face of it, it appears to be a very serious matter. I agree, however, with the noble Marquess that it was highly desirable, as we were in possession of Uganda—a question which is now beyond discussion altogether—that without loss of time railway communication with the coast should be established, and that there were many reasons—some of which it is not desirable to enter into—which made it extremely unsafe that we should have no means of communicating with that distant possession. I think that it was not without justification that this project was set on foot without that detailed survey which undoubtedly would have

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been made under other circumstances. What I would like to know is whether the Government are of opinion that they are now in possession of such complete information that they can with confidence say that the present estimate is not likely to be exceeded. I gathered, from reading some time ago that very able Report to which the noble Marquess referred, that there had been a very large change in the whole direction of the railway towards the Lake, and that that had involved a great increase in the cost. I suppose those who projected the railway and framed the estimates hardly took into consideration the presence of a considerable number of lions, who ate up a number of the coolies employed. Looking at the cost of the railways in India during the time I was connected with the administration of that country, and considering the difficulties of the country through which this line had to pass, I do not think that the amount is very excessive. In ordinary circumstances I would be inclined to say that it was, of course, a scandalous thing to ask Parliament for a sum of three millions and then to add two millions, or nearly two millions, to that figure. But, as I have already remarked, this case must be judged in a different way, and only those who are well aware of the very peculiar conditions under which we held the country can rightly estimate the matter, and I will not say the excuses but the reasons why it cannot be regarded as a subject for censure. All I wish to do, therefore, is to ask whether the Government are now in possession of satisfactory information enabling them to say that the sum at present fixed will be sufficient.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am afraid I can only tell the noble Earl that I am told so. I cannot pledge my own knowledge of engineering as a ground for believing that it will be so, but those with whom I have been in communication are quite of opinion that the sum named will cover the expense. Of course, the unknown plays a considerable part in this matter. It is the part of the railway which is furthest from the coast that is less known, and there may be embarrassments and difficulties which we cannot foresee. But, speaking my own conviction, I have little doubt that what we are now asking for will be enough. With respect to the lions, I feel bound to say
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something in their behalf. They are not so aristocratic that they will only feed on coolies; they took a medical man the other day, and I expect it will be found that they have taken many other people. The noble Earl indicated that in consequence of our not having had a survey we were compelled to take a longer route than we otherwise would have done. That is not so.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I did not mean to imply that. I do not know that the answer of the noble Marquess exactly gives me the information for which I asked. What I wished to know was not so much whether the noble-Marquess himself was of opinion that the estimate was sufficient, as whether there had been such an examination of the country, especially the difficult new country which has to be passed through, as would make the estimate formed probably a correct one.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not think I would be doing right if I pledged myself. Undoubtedly, the part of the country referred to has been very little investigated yet; but, according to the opinion of competent persons, the estimate ought to be sufficient.
On Question agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House to-morrow, and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.

THE CROMWELL STATUE.
*THE EARL OF HARDWICKE: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the erection of a statue of Oliver Cromwell within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster without the consent of Parliament; and to ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a speech of the First Commissioner of Works in the House of Commons, on 23rd February, †in which he laid down as a doctrine of Constitutional Law, that in the case of the erection of a statue upon which no public-money is spent, the First Commissioner of Works is under no obligation to consult Parliament as to the acceptance of the gift or as to a site; and, if so, does
† See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxix., p. 956.

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the doctrine hold good even when the opinion of Parliament has been expressed against the proposed statue or site. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for bringing to your notice a matter which I know is considered by many people to be past and done with. But there are circumstances resulting from it which, in my opinion, are very far from being past and done with. Your Lordships will observe that I have prefaced my question by asking to be allowed to call attention to the erection of a statue of Oliver Cromwell within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster without the consent of Parliament. I have done so for the following reasons:—First, it is only the facts in connection with this statue which render intelligible the point on which I am going to ask the Prime Minister for enlightenment; and second, I am anxious to take this opportunity of explaining why I have not followed up the Motion I carried in your Lordships' House in October last by a further Motion.* I am aware that the effect of the division I took on that occasion was discounted by the press and only too plainly by Her Majesty's Government, and, perhaps, with your Lordships' permission, while I am referring to this point I may be allowed to allude to what may be considered a personal matter. I have a painful recollection that on the occasion referred to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack characterised the Motion I brought forward as not calculated to add to the dignity of your Lordships' House; but I hope your Lordships will believe that it was very far from my intention to do anything disrespectful. The circumstances were peculiar. It was only when the pedestal on which the Cromwell statue now stands reared itself into view that any one realised the intention of Her Majesty's Government, and petitions came in from all parts of the country. I have a list in my hand of 274 petitions which, I believe, have been presented to Her Majesty's Government protesting against the erection of this statue. The only opportunity I had of protesting was by putting down a motion. Parliament was about to adjourn, and I put down my motion with the sole object of getting Her Majesty's Government to consent to defer the putting up of the statue
* See Vol. lxxvii., page 749.
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until the re-assembling of Parliament in the coming year, when both Houses of Parliament would have an opportunity of expressing their feelings and their opinion on the matter. Her Majesty's Government decided to ignore the division that was taken in this House, and on a dark November morning the statue of the great Protector was stealthily unveiled by a workman representing, I presume, the First Commissioner of Works, and without one word of panegyric. It is true that on the same evening a demonstration was held to celebrate this unique and interesting ceremony. I am informed that the anonymous donor of the statue addressed the meeting, but, of course, I have no authority to say so. I eagerly scanned the names of those present on the platform in the expectation of finding the name of the First Commissioner of Works, if not that of the Prime Minister himself. It is strange that not one single member of Her Majesty's Government was present, and I think it is a significant fact that of the party that supports Her Majesty's Government the names of only two members were on the list—one a Unionist Peer, and the other a Conservative Member of the House of Commons who himself had signed a petition protesting against the erection of this statue without the previous consent of Parliament. I fully intended to have drawn your Lordships' attention to this singular proceeding before, but at the time I thought of doing so the very serious aspect of affairs in South Africa led me to think that it would not be convenient to raise the question. Unfortunately, Mr. Swift MacNeill did not share that opinion, and he brought the matter forward in the House of Commons by moving an Amendment on the Vote for the maintenance of the Royal Palaces.* I regret very much that episode, but I think it is worthy of note that the matter was brought forward wholly unexpectedly, with the result that Her Majesty's Government got a very large majority, but in the minority were many Members of the House of Commons who usually support the Government. Thereupon I put down the question on the Paper, which I should have asked the Prime Minister some weeks ago had I not unfortunately been
* 23rd February, 1900. See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxix., page 949.

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laid up, and unable to attend your Lordships' House. On the occasion of the debate referred to, the First Commissioner of Works stated that it had never been the practice of his Department, when a statue was paid for by public or private subscription and not out of public funds, to consult Parliament. That claim, my Lords, does not square with the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Churchill, who represented Her Majesty's Government when I brought my motion before the House in October last. Lord Churchill said:—
"The understanding on which the work [the statue] was to be executed was that a suitable site, satisfactory to the donor and to Parliament, should be given by the Government."
I was astonished at that statement, and I asked the noble Lord why Her Majesty's Government, in face of that understanding, did not think it necessary to consult Parliament, and the noble Lord replied that the terms were arranged by the late First Commissioner of Works and not by Mr. Akers-Douglas. The fact that Mr. Herbert Gladstone arranged and Mr. Akers-Douglas accepted those terms distinctly negatives his claim that the First Commissioner can deal with all such matters proprio motu without consulting Parliament. The claim of the First Commissioner of Works, reduced to its logical conclusion, amounts to this— that the First Commissioner of Works has the right to give a site and erect a statue in any of the Royal palaces, without consulting Parliament, to any obscure or undeserving person which some generous person might be willing to give. Suppose some enthusiastic pro-Boer offered a statue of Mr. Kruger—the First Commissioner of Works, according to this doctrine, is perfectly entitled to give a site, and your Lordships would not be allowed to say a word. Suppose that somebody presented a statue of Guy Fawkes—in the same way Parliament would have no voice in the matter. There is one further point upon which I desire the opinion of the Prime Minister. Assuming that it is no part of the duties of the First Commissioner of Works to consult Parliament in these matters, but that, as a fact, Parliament has expressed an opinion, is the First Commissioner of Works entitled to disregard that opinion, for that is exactly what the First Commissioner has done in this case? On June 17th, 1895, the House of Commons
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decided, by a majority of 137, that they would not erect a statue to Oliver Cromwell.* This was during Lord Rosebery's Administration. It is true that, technically speaking, the decision of the House was against a reduction of £500, but the tenor of the debate, and, more especially, the tenor of the speech of Mr. Balfour, who led the Opposition, shows conclusively that the House voted against any statue at all to Oliver Cromwell; and I cannot believe that anyone who has read or who heard that debate can seriously attempt to put aside the decision of the House on the plea of so trumpery a technicality. Four days after the 17th of June, Lord Rosebery's Government fell. During those four days the anonymous donor came forward and offered to Lord Rosebery, as head of the Government, a statue which Lord Rosebery, as head of the Government, accepted. He did that in the teeth of the division in the House of Commons against a statue of Cromwell, and it seems to me that this action was a cynical defiance of the wishes of Parliament without parallel, probably, since the days of Cromwell himself. I hope I have not detained your Lordships too long, but I feel strongly on this subject. I believe that the question which I now put to the Prime Minister is one involving a constitutional point of considerable importance. If the noble Marquess holds that the doctrine which the First Commissioner of Works has laid down is correct, that the First Commissioner is legally clothed with this almost papal authority, then, I submit, the sooner his powers are reduced to the level of those of other members of the Government the better for the appearance of the Palace of Westminster and the dignity of our monarchical Constitution.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, my noble friend has led us so deep into the mysteries of constitutional law that I feel considerable misgiving in addressing myself to a matter which really ought to be dealt with by the legal Members of the House. But if I may be allowed to confine myself to answering the question put to me, I will try to do it to the best of my ability. I am asked whether my attention has been called to a speech of the First Commissioner of
* See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. xxxiv., page 1341.

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Works, in which he laid down, as a doctrine of constitutional law, that in the case of the erection of a statue upon which no public money is spent the First Commissioner of Works is under no obligation to consult Parliament as to the acceptance of the gift or the character of the site. Well, my Lords, suppose the converse were laid down, that the First Commissioner of Works must consult Parliament as to every statue which is to be erected throughout the country upon any site over which he has control. I think that is a proposition which will not be found in any of those works on Constitutional law to which I have no doubt my noble friend has referred himself. When I was taught constitutional law, I imagined that the relations of the Executive to Parliament were to be these—not that the Executive had to come to Parliament for leave to act under its executive powers, but that, when the Executive Government had acted in the discharge of its executive powers and had in the view of Parliament committed an error in so doing, the remedy of Parliament was to censure the Minister and to turn him and his colleagues out of office. I believe that to be the sound constitutional doctrine, and I think that the already over-burdened House of Commons would be still more terribly burdened if everything a Minister proposed to do in his executive capacity was subject to debate by Parliament before he exercised his power. I do not think Oliver Cromwell himself would have had any hesitation on this point, and I think even less violent politicians than Cromwell would have protested very strongly against the idea that the powers of the Executive Government are to be exercised by Parliament. Those powers are to be exercised subject to the judgment of and exposed to the review of Parliament. Turning from these grave matters to the smaller details, I will proceed to the next part of the question. I am asked, does this doctrine hold good even when the opinion of Parliament has been expressed against the proposed statue or site? The opinion of Parliament was not expressed against the proposed statue; it was expressed in support of the much more commonplace view, that Parliament declined to vote the money—an attitude which Parliament very frequently takes up, and an attitude which is obviously within its most primary and elementary constitutional powers. My noble friend
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talks of this as, I think, a piece of trumpery pettifogging. The Vote was refused by a large majority, and therefore my noble friend says Parliament has pledged itself to the doctrine that the statue is not to be erected, even though no public money is required. There, again, I think my noble friend will find it very difficult to summon to the support of that doctrine those lights of learning of which this House is proud. The matter for us is very simple. It is not so much as a matter of constitutional law that the matter appeals to me; what appeals more to my sympathy is the doctrine of continuity of policy. The late First Commissioner of Works undertook to give a site and to accept a statue, and on the faith of that undertaking certain monies were expended by a private individual whose name we shall never know. It seems to me not a matter of constitutional law but of common honesty that when the First Commissioner of Works was changed, his successor should hold himself bound by the promise which his predecessor had given, and should not take advantage of the change, especially when money had been expended by the person to whom the promise was given. It would be impossible to conduct business with the vast number of persons who have to consent to contracts with Her Majesty's Government on matters of very much more importance than this, if the doctrine was once laid down that a change of Government released the incoming Government from all that the former Government had promised. I do not think you can possibly accept such a doctrine as that. I understand that there are three questions at issue. First, ought the money of Parliament to be spent on the matter at all? Secondly, if not, ought Oliver Cromwell to have had a statue at all? And, thirdly, if he ought to have had a statue, ought it to have been placed in the sunken garden to which it has now been banished? I am no adorer of Oliver Cromwell, but if I wished to hand down an unfavourable view of his policy and history I could devise no more outward and visible sign of it than to put him at the bottom of a hole. So long as the anonymous donor, whose political opinions I cannot even guess, is content with that way of honouring the particular hero whom he delights to praise, I do not see that those who belong to what I may call

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the side of the question to which my noble friend and I belong—to the party which is not supposed to be enthusiastically or extravagantly desirous of honouring Oliver Cromwell—need complain of the arrangement, because I do not see how any arrangement could be devised which would suit our views so satisfactorily. Having a statue, they can hardly have another. No one can lift him out of the depths to which he has been relegated, and I think foreigners will go away from the site, after studying the Statesmen whom we have honoured in the surrounding land, with the observation, "Behold the banishment that a just monarchical Government inflicts upon a rebel and a regicide!"
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I would remind the House that the division against the site was taken on the morning or the prorogation, in a very thin House composed of ten Peers, and was only carried by a majority of two. No discourtesy to the noble Lord was intended by me when I pointed out that a division taken in such circumstances was not calculated to add to the dignity of this House or to the respect with which people would regard its decisions.
*LORD MORRIS: My Lords, I had hoped that some Peer of more importance than I can pretend to be would have intervened in this discussion. The noble Earl who opened it I think satisfied the House that a transaction had taken place that ought not to have taken place. That is the point. I quite agree, if I may take the liberty of saying so, with the noble Marquess that it is not a proper description of the matter to say it is unconstitutional. That is entirely too vague and too large a phrase to describe what occurred; but I do say, and I think everybody who has heard the temperate, concise, and effective statement of the noble Earl will have come to the conclusion, that what occurred ought not to have taken place. I cannot understand how any First Commissioner of Works can find it consistent with his duty to arrogate to himself the right to set up a statue within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster if he knew that the presence of that statue would be objectionable to the great majority of the Members of both Houses of Parliament. If the First Commissioner had such a right why was
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the statue unveiled in a surreptitious manner on a November night, and why was it accepted from an anonymous donor? I think it is an indignity to both Houses to accept such a statue in such a manner. Is the donor ashamed of his action? Is that the reason he wishes to preserve his anonymity? It is childish to continue to talk of the donor being anonymous when everyone knows in this House and in the street—a favourite place now to appeal to—who the anonymous donor is. He was the Prime Minister of the Crown, and his First Commissioner of Works accepted his statue. What made him so urgent? Was it because Oliver Cromwell disposed in a summary way of the House of Lords, or was it because he was enabled to quote Oliver Cromwell as a great instance to save him from that unpleasant thing, the Nonconformist conscience which objects to racing? The noble Earl—I decline to speak of him as the anonymous donor, for in the Courts of Justice we are in the habit of calling a. spade a spade—with reference to the objection of Irish representatives, said that they should not object to a statue in London when Englishmen did not object to statues in Dublin. To this I reply that I would not raise any protest against a statue of Cromwell in the streets of London provided I was not expected to subscribe to it, but it is quite a different matter to erect such a statue within the precincts of the Houses of Parliament, in which Irishmen have an interest in common with representatives of other parts of the kingdom. The point is not that a statue of Oliver Cromwell was to be put up, but that it was put up within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster upon the promise of the First Commissioner of Works, who knew at that very time it was contrary to the wish of both Houses of Parliament. I do not think that point has been met. It is not a question of its being unconstitutional; it is a question of a thing having been done which ought not to have been done, and which was done to a certain extent defiantly. The doctrine of continuity of policy which has been referred to is seldom carried out in things that are right. If Mr. Herbert Gladstone did wrong, why was Mr. Akers-Douglas. to persevere in that wrong, particularly when he could shield himself under not only the fact that this House did not approve of it, but that the House of

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Commons substantially disapproved of it? Anybody who reads the debate will see that the £500 was a mere bagatelle. The question discussed was, was Oliver Cromwell a person to whom a statue should be erected within the precincts of the House of Commons? Continuity of policy did not justify the First Commissioner of Works in carrying out the mistaken intention of his predecessor to erect a statue to the man who ended, not mended, the House of Lords, and ignominiously drove the Members of the House of Commons from their place of meeting. If the noble Earl who raised this question had concluded with a motion, I think he would have received considerable support in this House. I would certainly have voted for his motion.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I do not think that anyone in this House would desire to go into a discussion as to the merits of Oliver Cromwell; no doubt there are great differences of opinion as to that great historical character. A very considerable time has elapsed since the events in which Cromwell too part occurred, and, for my part, I consider that he was one of the greatest men this country ever produced, and any honour done to him is an honour to the country to which he belonged. Further than that I will not go, nor will I say anything as to the attack made by the opponents of Cromwell. The anonymous donor is a donor whom, undoubtedly, we all know, and that being the case I feel myself justified in saying that I think the anonymous donor, even if he be a member of this House, has done nothing whatever of which he has any reason to be ashamed, but on the contrary I think that everyone who has any respect for the great men of the country ought to be obliged to him for what he has presented to the nation. The only other observation I wish to make is as to the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down. He seems to have entirely forgotten that there is a bust of Oliver Cromwell at this moment placed on a very conspicuous site within the very walls and precincts of the House of Commons, and that it was placed there since the present Government came into office. If it became a question for discussion, which is the more offensive to the opponents of Oliver Cromwell—the statue in what the noble
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Marquess called a "hole" outside, or the bust in a central position where it must come under the notice of every Member of the House of Commons? Upon the whole, I think that discussions of this kind about one of our greatest men do no honour to the House, and will not meet with the approbation of right thinking men in the country.
*THE EARL OF HARDWICKE: I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for the full way in which he has dealt with my question. I disagree with the noble Marquess when he says that the statue is in a hole. Though he is technically correct, it must be borne in mind that it is on a pedestal which makes it one of the most conspicuous statues in London. As to the bust in the House of Commons, to which Lord Kimberley referred, it is a question of degree. The bust inside the House is small and not conspicuous. The statue outside is conspicuously before the public; everyone can see it and everyone who sees it knows that it was placed there by a Conservative Government and will infer that it was placed there to do honour to the memory of one who no doubt was a great man. I regret, after the very strong feeling which I observe exists in your Lordships' House on this question, that I did not move a motion instead of asking a question.

G.P.O.—TRANSFER TO MOUNT PLEASANT—POSTAL REARRANGEMENTS, DELAYS, ETC.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will explain under what circumstances and in what cases the hours of posting for the provincial mails have been curtailed, in consequence of the transfer of a portion of the work of the General Post Office to Mount Pleasant. It will be within your Lordships' knowledge that certain complaints have arisen owing to the curtailment of the hours to which I have referred. This alteration is a source of great inconvenience in the West End and in the City, and it is with the object of getting an explanation from the noble Marquess the Postmaster General that I have put down this question.
*THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY): My Lords, the question which has been put to me by my noble friend is, if I may venture to say

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so, a very pertinent and practical one, and I do not in the least regret that it has been asked. The matter is creating certain doubts — I might almost say misapprehensions— in the minds of the public at large, but if it had been possible the Post Office would gladly have avoided the transfer referred to. But they had no other course open to them owing to the pressure of business and the likelihood of that pressure being increased. The Post Office building at St. Martin's-le-Grand, which had hitherto been devoted to sorting purposes, was found to be absolutely inadequate for the work, and as regards the employees there was danger that the sanitary arrangements would be insufficient. To give an idea of the increase in the work during the last few years, I may state that from a return taken in November, 1895, the number of articles posted in the E.G. district weekly was 8,300,000 and the number delivered in the E.G. district was 4,221,000, making a total of 12,500,000. From the latest return of November, 1899, the numbers had risen to 9,536,000 (an increase of nearly 15 per cent.) and 4,761,000 (an increase of nearly 13 per cent.) respectively, or a total of 14,290,000. The number of articles despatched from St. Martin's-le-Grand to places abroad was in May, 1896, 2,033,000. The number is now 2,842,000 (an increase of nearly 40 per cent.), but this is temporarily swollen by the large amount of correspondence which is now sent weekly to the troops in South Africa. Owing also to the reduction of rates of the inland letter postage in 1897 the bulk of the articles sent through the post has materially increased, and this is a serious factor as regards the space available in the sorting office. I think I have shown your Lordships by these figures that some movement was necessary, and it was absolutely impossible to continue the whole of the work in the old building. Consequently my predecessor decided to transfer, roughly speaking, one-half of the duties of St. Martin's-le-Grand to what is now known as Mount Pleasant, a building one mile off on the site of what was formerly the Coldbath Fields prison. For some years a large portion of the business of the parcel post has been carried on there, and on Monday last it was opened for its new work. I do not deny that there has been a certain amount of inconvenience to the public in connection with the transfer, and I do not attempt to
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shirk any responsibility, but I can only ask your Lordships, and through you the public, to exercise the leniency which is called for when there is a transfer of such a large number of employés and plant. The site of the new building is on the extreme edge of the E.C. district, but it was the only site available for a building of the dimensions necessary, and, as your Lordships know, it belonged to the Government. The duties transferred to Mount Pleasant were those relating to the postal arrangements connected with the provinces. The foreign mails and all the postal arrangements connected with London will remain at St. Martin's-le-Grand. I wish particularly to impress upon your Lordships that practically there is no alteration in the hours of posting in any district in London as a result of the change, except in the E.C. district. There may be certain delay in connection with letters posted in London in the middle or early part of the day. Letters posted in the south or east of London and intended for the south and east provinces will have further to go to Mount Pleasant than they had to the old Post Office. But there will be a corresponding gain in point of time with regard to letters posted in the north and west for the north and west provinces, for the reason that those districts are nearer to Mount Pleasant. Except as regards the E.C. district there will be no alteration in the hours of posting for the night mails to the provinces. At Mount Pleasant the hours of posting will be the same now as they have hitherto been at St. Martin's-le-Grand, and the hours of posting for the general night mails will be maintained all over the district. But letters intended for despatch to the provinces by mails other than the general night mails should as a rule, if posted elsewhere than at Mount Pleasant, be posted about half an hour earlier. I may mention that in the E.C. district letters will no longer be able to be posted in pillar and wall boxes with an extra halfpenny stamp up to seven p.m. It has been found that of the 50,000 letters per night so posted an average of only 700 bear the extra stamp, and it is not practicable to examine 50,000 letters for the sake of 700. It has therefore been decided to abolish the wall and pillar boxes for late-fee letters. I wish it to be understood that although that facility is taken away the facilities offered are satisfactory, because at every post-

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office in the east-central district the facilities for late-fee posting will exist as before, and no one will have to walk more than 200 yards in the east central district in order to reach a post-office. The main point to which exception has been taken is that late-post letters must be posted at St. Martin's-le-Grand at 7.30 instead of at 7.45, as hitherto. The pressure at the General Post Office has been so great that it has been found absolutely necessary to remove a certain portion of the work to another building. It takes a quarter of an hour to get from St. Martin's-le-Grand to the new building, and that quarter of an hour has to be made up in some way, otherwise the mails would not catch the trains. After considering the matter very carefully my predecessor arrived at the conclusion, in which I concur, that that quarter of an hour should be taken off the time allowed at St. Martin's-le-Grand. I believe the inconvenience has been greatly exaggerated. I can only say, on behalf of myself and the Department over which I preside, that we do not think we are asking too much of the public, having regard to the convenience of every part of the country, and that we believe we shall be able to carry on our enormous and daily increasing task in a manner which will give satisfaction to She country.

HOURS OF LABOUR IN SHOPS.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I rise to ask the Prime Minister whether he would consent to the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the long hours of labour in shops. In a recent debate on the Early Closing Bill the noble Marquess, while admitting the length of hours of labour in shops, objected to the Bill, on the ground, mainly, or at any rate among other reasons, that though it was drawn in accordance with a unanimous resolution of the House of Commons, and had passed through two Committees of that House, it did not, in his judgment, sufficiently protect the interests of the consumer. The loss of the Bill has caused great disappointment to the shopkeeping community, and I beg to ask the noble Marquess whether he will consent to the appointment of a Committee to consider the subject.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not think that this
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matter is at all an unfit one for the consideration of this House, but I should demur to the appointment of a Committee so late in the session, when it would hardly be possible to obtain the attendance of Peers who would be adequately fitted for examining into a question of such complexity. The great novelty of the proposal made by the noble Lord imposes upon us the duty of examining very carefully what the effect will be of limiting the hours of labour in shops, and how far the interest of various classes of the community would be injuriously touched by it. In some recent debates we have had the doctrine laid down, which, I confess, very much alarmed me, that whenever a Commission or Committee which was appointed by the Government was unanimous on a. subject, the Government was thereupon bound to accept the conclusions to which they had arrived. I entirely demur to any such suggestion. I have no belief in the infallibility of Commissions or Committees, though they may be of great assistance to Parliament in the investigations of social phenomena which it is their duty to make. I will not pledge myself as to the course we shall pursue with respect to the recommendations which may be made, but I entirely concur with the noble Lord that this is a suitable matter for Parliament to investigate. It is a matter of extreme difficulty, and I hope that some care will be taken to appoint an impartial Committee.
LORD AVEBURY: I am very much obliged to the noble Marquess for consenting to the appointment of a Select Committee. I quite concur that it should not be a partisan Committee, and I am sure the advocates of early closing would be desirous that it should be a Committee which would inspire the confidence of your Lordships' House. I beg to give notice that I will move for the appointment of a Committee at the commencement of next session.

COLONIAL MARRIAGES (DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER) BILL [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.
House adjourned at Twenty-five minutes past Six of the clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten of the clock.