Sitting of 1 May 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [Lords] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are' applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—
  Rhymney Iron Company Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the London County Council

  405
  (Money) Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, viz.:—
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER HILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Heading thereof the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.. —
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS [Lords] (NO STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO APPLICABLE).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders not previously inquired into are applicable, viz.:—
  Leith Burgh Provisional Order Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
    ELECTRONIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
    Read a second time, and committed.

  PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP B).
  Mr. OLDROYD reported from the Committee on Group B of Private Bills, That the parties opposing the Gas Light and Coke, and Commercial Gas, and South Metropolitan Gas Companies Bill had stated that the evidence of Mr. Corbet Woodall, M.I.C.E., of Palace Chambers, Westminster, 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 Mr. Corbet Woodall do attend the said Committee To-day, at Three of the clock.
  Ordered, That Mr. Corbet Woodall do attend the Committee on Group B of Private Bills To-day, at Three of the clock.

  BAKER STREET AND WATERLOO RAILWAY BILL.
  Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings given before the Committees on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Bill, 1899, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway Bill, 1897, and the City and West End Railway Bill, 1897, be referred to the Select Committee oil Group No. 6 on the above-named Bill.—(Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth.)
  DUBLIN CORPORATION BILL AND CLONTARF URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had nominated the following Four Members to serve on the Joint Committee of Lords and Commons on the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill:—Mr. Whitmore, Sir Robert Mowbray, Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth, and Mr. Harwood.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolutions reported from the Committee:—

  1. "That in the case of the London County Tramways (No. 1) Petition the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, provided that the powers to construct Tramways No. 7, No. 13, and No. 6 (Vauxhall and Camberwell Tramway), and 1 chain double line of Tramway No. 8 (Black-

  407
  friars and Kennington Tramway), be struck out of the Bill:—That the Committee on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."

  2. "That, in the case of the Alexandra Park, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."

  3. "That, in the case of the Cumberland County Council (Bridges), Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."

  4. "That, in the case of the Shoeburyness Urban District Council Gas, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."

  5. "That, in the case of the Blackpool, St. Anne's, and Lytham Tramways Petition, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."

  6. "That, in the case of the Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to introduce their additional Provision, if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

  7. "That, in the case of the Glasgow District Tramways Bill [Lords], the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, provided that the powers to construct Tramways Nos. 1, 2, and so much of No. 3 as lies outside the burgh of Dumbarton, be struck out of the Bill:—That the Committee on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."

  8. "That, in the case of the Higham Ferrers Water Bill [Lords], Petition of the 'British Electric Traction Company 'for dispensing with Standing Order 129 in the case of their Petition against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought not to be dispensed with."

  First Seven Resolutions agreed to.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  LONDON COUNTY TRAMWAYS (No. 1).
  Report [1st May] from the Select Committee on Standing Orders read.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. James Stuart and Mr. John Burns.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to the Rugeley Gas Bill, with Amendments; and the Amendments to the Universal Life Assurance Society Bill [Lords], without amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to empower the Glyncorrwg Urban District Council to supply gas, and to provide for the transfer to them of the part of the undertaking of the Llynvi Valley Gas Company situate in their district; and for other purposes." Glyncorrwg Urban District Council Gas Bill [Lords].
  And also a Bill intituled, "An Act to make further provision for the purchase of the Hemel Hempstead Water-words Undertaking by the Corporation of Hemel Hempstead; and for other purposes." Hemel Hempstead Corporation (Water) Bill [Lords].
  Railways (Ireland) Amalgamation Bills. —That they have appointed a Committee of four Lords, to join with a Committee of this House, to consider the Great Southern and Western and Waterford and Central Ireland Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill, the Great Southern and Western and Waterford, Limerick, and Western Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill, and the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland Bill; and request this House to appoint an equal number of its Members to be joined with the said Lords.

  GLYNCORRWG URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL GAS BILL [Lords].
    HEMEL HEMPSTEAD CORPORATION (WATER) BILL [Lords].
    Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
PETITIONS.
  BAKEHOUSES (HOURS OF LABOUR) BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, against; to lie upon the Table.
  COMPANIES BILL.
  Petition from Leith, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Lerwick, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (NEW CODE).
  Petition from Hove, against adoption; to lie upon the Table.
  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOP BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACT (1890) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, against; to lie upon the Table.
  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES (RURAL DISTRICTS) BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ISOLATION HOSPITALS (AMENDMENT) BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND REGISTRY (NEW BUILDINGS) BILL.
  Petition from Hammersmith, against; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING ACTS AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Dunfermline, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Elgin; and Glasgow; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petitions against, from Haltwhistle; and Amble; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Cheslyn Hay: and Southport; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT (1894) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Monifieth, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LUNACY BILL.
  Petitions for alteration, from Brighton and Guisborough; to lie upon the Table.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING (LIABILITY OF SHIPOWNERS AND OTHERS) BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC HEALTH BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, against; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC HEALTH BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, in favour; to. lie upon the Table.
  RIVERS POLLUTION PREVENTION BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Lydiard Millicent: Purton; Purton Stoke; Brighton (two); South London; Bide-ford (two); Northam (two); Abbotsham;. Torridge; and Leeds (three); to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Leeds; Lambeth; Newington; Exeter; Stanway; Preston; Maldon; Tulse Hill; New Mills; New Hirst; Hayfield:. Thornsett; Lincoln; Blyth; and Penzance; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Allendale; South Tyne; Henshaw: Rothbury; Slough; Scholes; Leicester; Horsham; Sheffield (six); Truro (two); Brighton; Raunds; Haslemere; Houghton-le- Spring; Little Hayfield: Seghill; Tottenham; Bingley: Stapleford; Gateshead; Stocksfield; Bury; Cramlington; Penarth; Grangetown: and; Cardiff' (thirty-eight): to lie upon the Table.
  SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS (LONDON) BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOPS BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, against: to lie upon the Table.
  SOLDIERS AND SAILORS ON ACTIVE SERVICE.
  Petitions for legislation, from Hunslet; Derby; and Guisborough: to lie upon the Table.
  SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Truro; Leeds; Kelvedon; and Exeter: to lie upon the Table.
  TEMPERANCE REFORM THREEFOLD OPTION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Stanley, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Lerwick, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  WATER SUPPLY BILL.
  Petition of the Sanitary Institute, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  WINES IMPORTED.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 27th April; Mr. Gold]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 155.]
  UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877 (CAMBRIDGE).
  Copy presented, of Statutes made by the Governing Body of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 25th November, 1899, amending Statutes 12, 49, 52, and 54 of the Statutes of that College [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 156.]
  UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877 (OXFORD).
  Copy presented, of Statute made by the Governing Body of Brasenose College, Oxford, on 20th October, 1899, amending Clause 13 of Statute 3 of the Statutes of that College [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 157.]
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copies presented, of Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, (1) dated 30th April, 1900, amending the terms of paragraph 10 of the Minute of 10th June, 1897, providing for the distribution of the sum available for Secondary Education under section 2 (1) (b) of The Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1892, and (2), dated 1st May, 1900, providing for the distribution of the sum available for Secondary or Technical (including Agricultural) Education under section 2, subsection 4, of the Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1898 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA) (PUBLICATION OF DESPATCHES).
  Copy presented, of telegrams relating to the publication of Despatches by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (MEMBERS OF EITHER HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT SERVING IN SOUTH AFRICA).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 22nd February; Colonel Mil-ward]; to lie upon the Table.
  AGRARIAN OUTRAGES (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Return for the quarter ended 31st March, 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1877.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council, dated 27th April, 1900, giving effect to Rules of Court under section 5 of The

  413
  Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Richmond Bridge.—Cash Account for the year 1898 [by Act].
  BURIAL GROUNDS [REMUNERATION].
  Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any remuneration and allowance which may become payable under any Act of the present session to amend the Law relating to Burial Grounds (Queen's recommendation signified), upon Thursday.—(Mr. Ritchie.)

  STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).
  Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR reported from the Chairmen's Panel, that they had appointed Mr. John Edward Ellis to act -as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect to the Railways (Prevention of Accidents) Bill; and that they had appointed Sir James Fergusson to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Law and Courts of Justice and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Ecclesiastical Assessments (Scotland) Bill and of the Town Councils (Scotland) Bill.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had added to the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Railways (Prevention of Accidents) Bill: —Colonel Blundell, Mr. Bryce. Mr. Butcher, Mr. Fellowes, Sir Fortescue Flannery, Mr. Ernest Gray, Mr. Brodie Hoare, Mr. Johnson-Ferguson, Mr. Maddison, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, Sir Joseph Pease, Mr. Purvis, Mr. Edmund Robertson, Mr. Solicitor General, and Mr. Woods.
  Mr. HALSEY further reported from the Committee, That they had added to the Standing Committee on Law and Courts
  414
  of Justice, and Legal Procedure, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Ecclesiastical Assessments (Scotland) Bill:—Mr. Anstruther, Mr. Birrell, Sir Charles Cameron, Mr. Colville, Mr. Crombie, Earl of Dalkeith, Sir Charles Dalrymple, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Nicol, Mr. Renshaw, Mr. Thomas Shaw, Mr. Shaw-Stewart, Captain Sinclair, Mr. Carvell Williams, and Mr. Wylie.
  MR. HALSEY further reported from the Committee, That they had added to the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Town Councils (Scotland) Bill:—Mr. Asher, Sir Charles Cameron, Dr. Clark, Mr. Crombie, Mr. Alexander Cross, Colonel Denny, Mr. Dewar, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Gordon, Sir Herbert Maxwell, Sir Lewis M'Iver, Mr. Orr-Ewing, Mr. Thomas Shaw, Sir Walter Thorburn, and Mr. Wylie.

  MUNICIPAL TRADING.
  MR. HALSEY further reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had nominated the following five Members to serve on the Joint Committee of Lords and Commons on Municipal Trading:—Mr. Grant Lawson, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Samuel Hoare, Sir Walter Foster, and Sir Leonard Lyell.
  Ordered, That the Reports do lie upon the Table.

oral answers to questions
  QUESTIONS.

    SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—SPION KOP DESPATCHES.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, whether Lord Roberts' Report on the Spion Kop despatches, dated 13th February, was originally meant for immediate publication or was regarded by him as a confidential document; what was the difference, with reference to the responsibility of publication, between Lord Roberts and the War Office, the settlement of which involved delay from the 9th March, the day after receipt by the War Office of the report of Lord Roberts, and the 17th of April, the date of the publication of that report; and whether, having regard to the public interest in this matter, the

    415
    telegraphic correspondence between Lord Roberts and the Secretary of State and correspondence and communications between Lord Roberts and Sir Redvers Buller with reference to the publication of the Spion Kop reports, will be laid upon the Table of the House before the discussion of the War Office Vote on Friday next.
    The UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): Under the exceptional circumstances of the case I propose to lay upon the Table of the House the telegraphic correspondence between the Secretary of State and Lord Roberts with reference to the publication of the Spion Kop reports. That being so, I must ask the hon. Member to allow me to postpone my replies to his other questions until Friday next.

    DESTRUCTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE FREE STATE.
    MR. SCOTT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the statement in a telegram from Bloemfontein, of Sunday last, to the effect that it has been decided for military reasons to destroy the crops and remove the cattle of all persons in the southern district of the Free State, recently over-run by the Boers; and whether he will state what measures will be taken to supply the means of subsistence to the families of the persons whose whole food supply has thus been destroyed, and to enable them to till the ground and sow their crops when all the farm animals have been removed.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I have to thank the hon. Gentleman for sending me a copy of the telegraphic despatch in the Manchester Guardian on which the question is based. Nothing is known officially of the matter. The Secretary of State has the fullest confidence that Lord Roberts will properly exercise the discretion vested in him.

    CIVIL SERVICE VOLUNTEERS.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, if he is aware that certain employers in the Metropolis have undertaken not only to keep open the situations but also to pay the salaries of Volunteers in their employ during absence on active
    416
    service; and whether similar treatment has been extended in all the Departments of the State to civil servants and writers employed therein, now serving in South Africa.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY, Preston): I understand that the practice of private employers has varied considerably. The rule which Her Majesty's Government have adopted is that, where Civil servants now on service in South Africa are married, half of their civil pay is paid to their wives and families, and that, where they are unmarried, the difference between their civil pay and the cost of providing substitutes for them is reserved for them until their return.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: And their situations are kept open?
    MR. HANBURY: Oh, certainly.

    COST OF THE WAR.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what the total cost of the war in South Africa was to the National Exchequer up to 31st March.
    MR. HANBURY: My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to this question. The latest figures which are-yet available of the war expenditure up to the 31st March are given on page 6 of the House of Commons Paper, No. 124,. namely, about 23¼ millions.

    MILITIA RESERVE.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what is the number of men of the Militia Reserve who have been examined during hostilities with the view to discover fitness for service with their line units, and what the number who have been found unfit or discovered to be absentees.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The point raised by the hon. Baronet is one of interest and importance. I therefore regret that I cannot give him the information for which he has asked. To obtain these figures it would be necessary in many cases to refer to the regiments in South Africa, who have taken all their documents with them. It is not considered expedient to impose the compilation of such a Return

    417
    on either the officer's at the front or in the regimental districts at the present time.

    DUTCH SUSPECTS — CASE OF THE REV. G. A. SCHOLTZ.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that about the end of February the Rev. G. A..Scholtz, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, at Colesberg, was arrested on suspicion of being in sympathy with the Boors; and whether the reverend gentleman has been kept in gaol without trial since that time; if so, will he arrange for him to be either liberated or brought to trial at an early date.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): I have received the following telegram from Sir Alfred Milner in reply to an inquiry which I made—
    "18th April.—Referring to your telegram of 17th April (No. 1), Reverend Scholtz was admitted to Naauwport civil prison from Colesberg 13th March, and released on bail 2nd April. Preliminary examination held by magistrate was postponed for further evidence."

    OATH OF ALLEGIANCE BY FREE STATERS.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House of the terms of the oath of allegiance enforced by the proclamation of Lord Roberts on Free Staters willing to remain in those portions of the Republic in occupation of the British forces.
    MR. WYNDHAM: There is no knowledge at the War Office of any oath of allegiance having been imposed. I am informed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that Lord Roberts has issued a proclamation proscribing to those who remain under our protection an oath that they will not again take arms against us; its exact terms have not been reported.

    CAPE RAILWAYS—CONTRACTS.
    SIR J. W. MACLURE: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office, considering the importance of obtaining deliveries of rolling stock of 3ft. 6in. gauge for the Cape Railways at the earliest
    418
    possible period, whether all the large builders employed by the leading railway companies in this country have been invited to tender, or have the inquiries been limited to certain companies, whilst other English manufacturers are building at the present time for the new Cape Central Company and other African companies for systems whose gauge is 3ft. 6in., the same as the lines for which orders have now to be given, and why such preference is shown, and who nominates the firms invited to tender.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS, Birmingham, S.): Tenders for locomotives were invited from firms who were known to possess the necessary information as to the pattern required, and the order has been entrusted to a Glasgow firm. The wagons have not yet been ordered; but as soon as the drawings and specifications, which are being prepared by Messrs. Gregory and Eyles, the engineers of the Cape railways, are ready, tenders will be invited from firms who are considered capable of doing the work satisfactorily.

    PURCHASE OF ARMY HORSES IN SCOTLAND.
    MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can state on how many horses belonging to tramway companies, livery stablemen, and others in Scotland the Government have been paying a subsidy for the power of compulsory purchase, how many of those horses have already been so purchased, and what is the average price per head paid in subsidy and the average price at which they may be purchased.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The number of horses in Scotland on which the Government has been paying a subsidy is 685; the number of those purchased is 148. The subsidy is ten shillings a horse. The average price at which these horses may be purchased is £51 12s. 8d.

    VOLUNTEER CAMPS.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if it will be possible to organise Volunteer camps under the Order of 29th March, 1900, in the vicinity of large

    419
    towns, so that employers may be put to a minimum of inconvenience and the men enabled to attend business between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.; and if it is found impossible for a corps, owing to its composition or local conditions, to give the full time required to camp on the new scale, the allowance for an ordinary camp can be drawn, and the proportionate attendance of 50 per cent. be somewhat reduced in the case of large corps.
    MR. WYNDHAM: In fixing the situation of camps the convenience of Volunteer corps will be consulted as far as possible, but the first consideration must be proximity to a rifle range. With regard to the latter part of the hon. Member's question, I beg to refer him to paragraph 12 of the Army Order of April, 1900, which provides for the case of corps who are unable to fulfil the conditions upon which the higher grant can be earned. The rule that 50 per cent. of a corps must be present in camp in order to earn the higher grunts cannot be modified.

    WAR CHARITABLE FUNDS.
    MR. GALLOWAY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Commander-in-Chief has a fund at his disposal made up of £10,000 given by Mr. Woodman, £8,000 subscribed by the public, and £64,000 received from the profits of the Military Tournament: to what use this fund is put; and whether there is any objection to a Parliamentary Return showing the amount distributed, the persons to whom the various amounts have been distributed, and the amount in hand at the present date.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The funds are as follow:—1. The Woodman trust of £10,000, which is controlled and audited by the Court of Chancery. 2. The Cambridge Fund, composed of (a) about £7,700, received from public subscriptions and legacies; (b) £28,000, profits from the Military Tournaments while H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge was Commander-in-Chief. The total is invested in the names of three trustees. 3. The Wolseley Fund, derived from the profits of the Military Tournament since Lord Wolseley became Commander-in-Chief, which have during that time amounted to £32,500. The interest from the first
    420
    two funds is devoted to relieving old and disabled soldiers. In regard to the Wolseley Fund the whole amounts annually received from the Military Tournament are given partly to charities and partly for the relief of soldiers and their widows. These accounts are all fully audited, and will be published. I have no objection to giving a Return if moved for.
    MR. BAYLEY: Will the hon. Gentleman kindly do so?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I have said I would if moved for.

    IRISH REGIMENT OF GUARDS.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to. ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether a bounty of £2 per head is given to men in other regiments of Foot Guards as an inducement to join the new regiment of Irish Guards.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, Sir. A gratuity of £2 is usually given to soldiers volunteering to be transferred from one corps to another and will be granted in this case.

    AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH HILL.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay on the Table of the House before introducing; the Australian Commonwealth Bill any written communications that may have passed between himself and the Australian delegates in London.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir; it is the desire and intention of the Government to lay another Blue-book on the Table before the discussion takes place on the introduction of the Bill, and that will contain anything in the nature of written memoranda that have passed between the delegates and Her Majesty's Government and a good deal of other matter. But I think I ought to say that it is possible that, inasmuch as in presenting Papers of this kind it is absolutely necessary for us to have the consent of all parties concerned, this may lead to some delay, and therefore some postponement of the introduction of the Bill. I do not know that there is any urgency in the matter, and I do not

    421
    suppose that there will be any lengthened discussion of the details of such a measure.

    MAURITIUS CANE SUGAR INDUSTRY.
    MR. MACLEAN: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the imports of cane sugar from the British of Mauritius, which the Countervailing Duties Act passed last year was specially framed to protect, fell off in 1899–1900, while those from the foreign states of China and Java rose considerably; whether the cultivation of sugar; in India has been stimulated by the Act; and what is the object of maintaining an Act which yields so little revenue.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Ealing): For the eleven months ending February the imports of Mauritius sugar into India were below those of the preceding year, but above those of the year 1898. The importation from China and Java into India in the aggregate for the same periods showed a considerable increase over both preceding years. I am unable to say what the acreage of sugar cultivation for 1899 in India was, as the drought has greatly disturbed the normal conditions of agriculture. The object of the Act was to establish equality of conditions between the Indian cultivator of sugar and the bounty-fed foreign importer, so far as competition ill India was concerned. This has been secured, and I have no intention of reverting to the old and inequitable state of things.

    HYDROGRAPHICAL CONFERENCES.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to give the House some information in regard to the deliberations of the Hydrographical Conference which assembled last summer for the purpose of considering, amongst other matters, questions affecting the fishing industry.
    MR. HANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman wishes me to say that communications are at present passing between the British and Swedish Governments with regard to the participation of Great Britain in certain investigations concerning the fishing industry which were recommended by the Conference. He is not able to make a more definite
    422
    statement until these communications are completed.

    EUROPEAN FORCES IN INDIA.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what was the strength in non-commissioned officers and men of the European forces on the Indian establishment in India on 1st January, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, and 1900.
    LORD G. HAMILTON: The effective strength of non-commissioned officers and men of the British forces in India on the dates mentioned was as follows:—1st January, 1896, 70,615; 1st January,, 1897, 70,400; 1st January, 1898, 67,808;; 1st January, 1899, 68,578; and 1st January, 1900, 62,220.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: Have any steps been taken to make up the deficiency?
    LORD G. HAMILTON: No steps have been taken to replace the regiments sent to South Africa.

    INDIAN FINANCE—PROPOSED IMPERIAL GRANT TO THE INDIA OFFICE.
    MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if Her Majesty's Government propose to give effect this session to the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations of England and India, that the Treasury should make a grant of £50,000 a year to the India Office.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): In answer to the question, I have to say that it is impossible for the Government to arrive in the course of the present session at any detailed conclusion of policy in the direction recommended, by the Royal Commission. The Royal Commissioners took five years to come to a conclusion, and we have only had that conclusion in our hands a very few days.

    CENTRAL TELEGRAPH OFFICE.
    MR. WOODS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General,. whether he will state how many male temporary clerks and substitutes are now employed in the Central Telegraph Office,. London, and what proportion they bear

    423
    to the male operating staff; whether he will state what is the average wage of temporary telegraphists and the average wage of season substitutes in this office, and the number of temporary clerks and season substitutes employed continuously for twelve months and upwards; and whether he will direct that all temporary telegraphists and season substitutes who have performed twelve months' service and upwards shall be placed on the permanent establishment.
    MR. HANBURY: The number of male temporary telegraphists at the Central Telegraph Office is thirty-six, and the number of male substitutes is twenty-one. They boar the proportion of 1·7 and TO per cent., respectively, to the total established male operating staff. The average weekly wages of the temporary men is 36s. a week, and of the substitutes 22s. 9d. a week. All the thirty-six temporary men and fourteen of the substitutes have been employed continuously for over twelve months. As many as are eligible are invited to compete for appointments on the permanent establishment, but in most eases the men are ineligible.

    INLAND REVENUE—TAXES BRANCH.
    MR. HEYWOOD JOHNSTONE (Sussex, Horsham): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state how many persons are at present employed in the Taxes Branch (Out-door Department) of the Inland Revenue who come within the terms of the Board's retirement order of June 1897; and how many assistant surveyors are there of over twelve months service who have not been examined for commissions as surveyors, and how many of over two years service.
    MR. HANBURY: The number of persons at present employed in the Taxes Branch (Out-door Department) of the Inland Revenue who would have retired under the General Order of June, 1897, if it had not been considered desirable to retain them in the interests of the public service, is nine. There are thirty-four Assistant surveyors of between one and two years service, and twenty-one of over two years service, who have not yet been examined for commissions as surveyors. None of these entered the service earlier than March, 1898.

    CATTLE DISEASES — COMPENSATION FOR COMPULSORY SLAUGHTER.
    MR. PRICE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he will confer with the Treasury as to providing a fairer system of compensation in cases in which the necessary restrictions to prevent spread of cattle diseases cause great loss to individuals for the benefit of the community.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. LONG, Liverpool, West Derby): I fully recognise the hardship and loss which are from time to time occasioned by the restrictions on the movement of stock which we find it necessary to impose with a view to prevent the spread of contagious disease amongst animals. It would be useless, however, for me to hold out any hope that it would be practicable to devise any scheme whereby compensation could in such circumstances be paid out of public funds. The hon. Member will remember that considerable relief to local funds has been given in recent years by reason of the transfer to the Exchequer of much of the cost of administration and of the slaughter of animals previously borne by local authorities.

    FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE— NORFOLK OUTBREAK.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has any information to show that the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Norfolk is traceable to the former outbreak, and what is approximately the number of animals affected, and the nature of the disease; and whether the usual precautions to prevent infection have been adopted.
    MR. LONG: So far as my inquiries have at present proceeded I am unable to say what is the connection, if any, between the present outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Norfolk and those which occurred earlier in the year. Two herds of twenty-one and forty head of cattle are involved in the outbreak, but the disease has actually appeared in the former only. Every possible precaution is being taken to prevent the spread of infection.

    TRAFFIC IN ADVOWSONS.
    LORD HUGH CECIL: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General whether

    425
    his attention has been called to an advertisement appearing in The Times of the 17th inst., which offers an advowson for exchange in a pretty agricultural village, about £250 with early possession, for more valuable one deferred, or nominee whose friends will increase endowment; and whether the attention of the Public Prosecutor will be called to the advertisement with a view to taking such proceedings as may be lawful, in the event of the publication of an advertisement suggesting such transaction being proved to be illegal.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER, Isle of Wight): Since the question of my noble friend appeared upon the Paper I have obtained a copy of the advertisement referred to. It is not possible from a mere perusal of the advertisement to say whether an illegal transaction was contemplated. The case is not one in which I should be justified in directing the Public Prosecutor to take any action.
    LORD HUGH CECIL: Could you not direct the Criminal Investigation Department to look into the matter?
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTERwas understood to reply in the negative.

    COUNTY COURT ADMINISTRATION.
    MR. NUSSEY: I beg to ask the Attorney General whether Her Majesty's Government, in deference to the repeated requests of chambers of commerce, trade protection societies, and the mercantile community, will undertake on an early date to deal with the subject of the extension of jurisdiction of county courts.
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTER: I regret it is not possible for me to say more than that the subject of the extension of county court jurisdiction is engaging the most careful attention of the Lord Chancellor.

    CIVIL SERVANTS AND POLITICS.
    MR. CALDWELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if his attention has been called to a series of letters of a political character which have lately appeared in The Times newspaper under the signature of W. J. Courthope, who is the permanent head of
    426
    the Civil Service Commission, and whether it is in accordance with the rules and practice of the Civil Service for officers in such a position to take part in public controversies of a political character.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Treasury Minutes respecting the acts of Civil servants in regard to political matters do not expressly forbid writing letters to the public press. They do, however, unquestionably suggest that reserve in political discussion which is one of the main causes of confidence in the impartial administration of the public service. I am strongly of opinion that the Treasury Minutes should be observed by public servants not merely in the letter but in the spirit.

    TIUMPAN HEAD LIGHTHOUSE.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, having regard to the fact that the lighthouse at Tiumpan Head (Lewis) is practically finished, and that it is in telephonic communication with Stornoway, will the Secretary for Scotland now consider the expediency of stationing a look-out man at the lighthouse, so that the Fishery Officer may be readily warned of the presence of illegal trawlers in Broad Bay.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire): The Secretary for Scotland has no jurisdiction over the internal arrangements of lighthouses, but he does not consider that there would be any material advantage derived from the special arrangement suggested by the hon. Member.
    MR. WEIR: Did not the Secretary for Scotland a few years ago distinctly promise that this arrangement should be carried out?
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am not aware of it.

    SCOTTISH CONGESTED DISTRICTS— ROADS IN LEWIS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will explain why the work of constructing roads in the Park District of the island of Lewis has not yet been proceeded with, although money was allocated for the purpose two years ago.
    MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed by the Congested Districts

    427
    Board that local difficulties as to the exact line of the "Cromore to Gravir" road have been the main cause of the delay. A line has now been pegged out by their engineer to which the District Committee have agreed, and the Congested Districts Board only await certain information from the District Committee for the road to go on.

    CHARITABLE LOAN SOCIETIES (IRELAND) ACT, 1843.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when the Government propose to introduce a Bill to amend the Charitable Loan Societies (Ireland) Act, 1843, in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry which reported in 1897, and with the repeated recommendations of the Loan Fund; Board; and why no such Bill has been introduced by the Government since the Committee reported in 1897.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. G. W. BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): The general policy to be adopted in connection with the Loan Fund system is a matter requiring very careful consideration, and I am not prepared to say when, or on what lines, it may eventually be dealt with by the Government. In the meantime, the new rules issued by the Loan Fund Board embody many of the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry. A Bill was also introduced last year, and has been re-introduced this year, for the purpose of meeting the most pressing of the difficulties and hardships of the present position so far as legislation is required, and I trust we may have the assistance of the hon. Member in passing it speedily into law.
    MR. DILLON: Is it not the fact that the Loan Fund Commissioners have repeatedly reported for years that it is not possible to remedy these abuses without legislation?
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Some of these abuses are dealt with in the Bill.
    MR. DILLON: I shall prove it.

    MITCHELSTOWN AND FERMOY RAILWAY DIRECTORATE.
    MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
    428
    when will the Local Government Board issue an Order for appointment of directors on the board of the Mitchelstown and Fermoy Railway Company who will represent the ratepayers of the baronies of Condons and Clongibbons and Fermoy, during the progress of the negotiations for sale of the line to the Great Southern and Western Railway Company.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The Mitchelstown and Fermoy Light Railway Act of 1885 provided for the appointment at presentment sessions of a director for each of the two baronies liable to be charged. The Local Government Act, however, did away with presentment sessions and substituted therefor the quarterly meetings of the district councils. There are also changes of boundaries made by the Act, which in many cases do not coincide with the old baronial boundaries. Thus it has come about that there are now three rural district councils concerned in the appointment of directors, and as three directors cannot be appointed, it will be necessary for the Board to issue an Order to provide for this, by fixing a joint committee of the three rural district councils to appoint two directors. The Order is in course of preparation, and the Board hope to have it issued in the course of ten days or a fortnight.

    PROCLAIMED MEETING AT NEWMARKET, CO. CORK.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: On behalf of the Member for Mid Cork I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why a meeting at Newmarket, co. Cork, was proclaimed when called together by the Member for the Division at his constituents' desire.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The meeting referred to was not called by the Member for the Division at his constituents' desire, but was convened by placard under the auspices of the United Irish League. It was proclaimed because the Government had reason to believe that it was intended to denounce and intimidate a particular individual who is in occupation of an evicted farm in the immediate neighbourhood.
    MR. DILLON: By whom was the information sworn on which the meeting was proclaimed?
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The district inspector.

    MAYO LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.
    MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: On behalf of the hon. Member for West Mayo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has his attention been called to the action of the Irish Local Government Board in increasing the salaries of the county and assistant county surveyors of Mayo without consulting the Mayo County Council, and what are the extra duties imposed on those officials which warrant such increase of salaries against the decision of the Mayo County Council.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: It is not correct to say that the salaries of the county and assistant surveyors in the County Mayo were fixed by the Local Government Board without consulting the county council. In August last the Board invited the views of the county; council on the subject, and on the 18th September last the matter was considered by the council. They failed, however, to come to any decision and postponed the matter until December. In December they again postponed the question till March. Meanwhile the county officers pressed the Local Government Board to fulfil their obligations under Section 115 (18) of the Act, which the Board proceeded to do. The extra duties imposed on these officers are an increased number of attendances at meetings, and an increased number of complete inspections of county works, all of which involve additional out-of-pocket expenses to the officers concerned.

    BELFAST AND NORTHERN COUNTIES RAILAVAY.
    MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, seeing that the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway Company, by an Act of 8 and 9 Vic. c. 81, s. 26, were prohibited from encroaching on the slob or strand to the seaward of their line further than may be necessary and proper for a double line of railway, and for the outside slope of the embankment of such railway, will he explain why they have recently enclosed by a wooden fence at Skeigoniel over 30 feet to the seaward
    430
    of their embankment of the slob or strand, being land acquired by the Belfast Corporation under their Act of 50 and 51 Vic. c. 127, s. 8, which has been done by the railway company without the consent of the Belfast Corporation and under colour of a local map, and will he advise an investigation by a competent person into the facts, so that the citizens of Belfast may be protected in the enjoyment of their property as against this railway company.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): I have no means of ascertaining whether the facts are as stated in the question; but, assuming that they are, the matter is one entirely between the railway company and the corporation, in which the Executive Government have no right to interfere.

    LABOURERS' COTTAGES IN BALLINASLOE UNION.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a decision of the Local Government Board refusing to allow the erection of certain labourers' cottages in the Union of Ballinasloe, upon the ground that unmarried labourers are not eligible as tenants; if there is any section in the Labourers Acts which empowers the Local Government Board to make such an order; and will he cause | inquiry to be made into this matter, with a view to its reconsideration.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The Board do not raise any objection to the erection of cottages for unmarried men, provided they have someone dependent on them who would live with them and take care of the cottage while they are absent at work. In the present case they informed the rural district council that Section 4 of the Act of 1883 contemplated that cottages should be provided for the accommodation of "agricultural labourers and their families," and that unless the persons referred to in the council's resolution had other persons dependent on them for whom house accommodation would be required the Board considered that the council should not incur the expense of including such cases in their proposed improvement scheme.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. ALFRED HUTTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury what opportunity he proposes to give the House for the discussion of the Code and Minute of the Education Department; and whether the Secondary Education Bill is likely to be introduced at an early date.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have already answered these questions. The code will be discussed next Thursday.
SIR H. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, as the Vote for the War Office is being taken for a specific purpose on Friday, he will withdraw the Vote when that purpose has been effected. There are many other points to be raised on that Vote, and it would be convenient to keep some Vote of this sort alive to give an opportunity of discussion towards the end of the session.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the right hon. Gentleman is quite right in what he has said, and I had already arrived at the same conclusion. I hope the discussion of Friday on the War Office Vote will be restricted to the one point of the publication of the Spion Kop despatches. It was in view of the controversy to which that publication has given rise that I proposed to put the Vote first. As soon as that discussion has run for a sufficient time I should hope the House would consent to the Vote being withdrawn.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: Are the Government going to let us discuss the Koorn Spruit and other similar incidents on Friday?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There is no published despatch on the Koorn Spruit incident. I rather hoped that we should confine our discussion to the Spion Kop despatches and to the general principle which governed the action of the War Office in publishing the despatches.

NEW BILL.
  MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH AND SANITARY INSPECTORS.
  Bill to amend the Law relating to Medical Officers of Health, Inspectors of Nuisances, and Sanitary Inspectors, and to provide for superannuation allowances to such officers and inspectors, and for contribution towards such allowances by such officers and inspectors, and make other relative provisions, ordered to be brought in by Dr. Farquharson, Sir Walter Foster, Sir Francis Powell, Mr. Wason, and Sir George Pilkington.
  MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH AND SANITARY INSPECTORS BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Medical Officers of Health, Inspectors of Nuisances, and Sanitary Inspectors, and to provide for superannuation allowances to such officers and inspectors, and for contribution towards such allowances by such officers and inspectors, and make other relative provisions," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 10th May, and to be printed. [Bill 181.]

  LOCAL TAXATION.
  [RESOLUTION.]
  MR. NUSSEY: It is with a feeling of some diffidence that I rise to propose a resolution on such an extremely complex and difficult question as that of Local Taxation, for I am fully conscious that I am quite unable to do justice to a subject of this magnitude. Still I hope the House will bear with mo while I put forward what I think are some extremely salient points. It is a wonder to me that the country should remain silent while our expenditure for Imperial purposes is increasing so rapidly. It is quite true that some people grumble at the increase of Imperial taxation; but, on the other hand, no one seriously complains when the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes, year after Year, with demands for more money for National services both existing and fresh. The country, to a great extent, observes a quiet acquiescence in this great and growing expenditure. The cry of retrenchment is practically unheard on the part of the Government of to-day. The Chancellor of the
  434
  Exchequer comes down at Budget time with his customary lecture on economy, although he fails to put into practice the precepts which he preaches. This acquiescence affords some proof that there is no very serious strain on the pockets of the people, so far as Imperial taxation is concerned. But while this indifference prevails with regard to Imperial expenditure, I maintain there is no such indifference respecting local expenditure. The complaint of local rates is that they have increased, are increasing, and ought to be diminished. I think there could be no more popular platform upon which a candidate for a county council or town council, or board of guardians, could make his appeal to the electors than that of retrenchment in local expenditure. It is extremely difficult for us to appreciate the real growth of that local expenditure. The rateable value of the United Kingdom has increased threefold during the last fifty years, and I find from an excellent memorandum by Sir William Hamilton, that whereas that in 1842–43 the rateable value of the United Kingdom was something like £85,000,000, it had by 1894–5 increased to £200,000,000. The local rates had also increased in an even greater proportion. In 1842 the Imperial Grants for local expenditure amounted to £650,000, and now they totalled something like £15,000,000 a year. It was estimated by Sir William Hamilton that in 1842 the grants in aid represented 2d. in the pound, whereas the assistance now given by the Imperial Exchequer is-equal to 1s. 3d. in the pound. While we are proud of the fact that we have been able to decrease our National Debt we must not forget that we have been in the same period more than corresponded by our various local debts; these amount to over £237,000,000 for the United Kingdom, or more than £6 per head of the population. I maintain, therefore, that the argument is an accumulative one. Local taxation is likely to increase rather than to diminish in the future, and the evidence which was laid before the Royal Commission points to this fact. We have also to consider that the drifting of large populations into our large towns is one of the most remarkable features of the problem which we have to consider. In London we have now to deal with the question of the housing of the poor, which must involve an increased burden of rates.

  435
  In the West Riding of Yorkshire we have another problem which will have to be solved, in connection with the demand made upon various localities by the Rivers Board for the better disposal of sewage. This also means an increase in local rates, and I think we must look forward to the time when those rates will have to be much higher than they are today. I do not say that the local expenditure is necessarily extravagant, but new obligations are being constantly imposed upon local authorities which entail increased outlay. Hence it is that local expenditure is likely to increase rather than to diminish in the future. The urban ratepayers have constantly urgently demanded some relief or some readjustment of their burdens, and I think that Parliament by its action in the past has admitted the justice of their claim. The House has given more and more from the Imperial Exchequer in aid of local rates, and up to recent years these grants in aid have been distributed broadcast all over the country. Of late years the Government have thought fit to make some distinction between special classes of ratepayers, especially in agricultural districts, and the Agricultural Eating Act of 1896 is an illustration of that. Before that was passed the rates on agricultural land amounted to something like 2s. 4d. in the pound; I suppose they are now 1s. 2d. in the pound. I maintain that at the very time when the House was engaged in passing the Bill for the relief of agricultural ratepayers in this country the rates in towns were far higher and heavier than in the country. I am afraid they are not less heavy to-day, and that in a great many cases they are still more oppressive on the town ratepayer. It can hardly be disputed that, given an hereditament of a fixed rateable value in the country and comparing it with a similar one in the town, the rates in the town are far higher than those in the country. There has been published by the Royal Commission an excellent table showing the rates in 160 boroughs in England and Wales, and this gives an average rate for these places of 6s. in the £. Mr. Swainson has also prepared a table of rates of sixty-four boroughs in the United Kingdom, and in twenty-eight of these sixty-four the rates are over 6s. in the £. At Dewsbury and Norwich they total 8s. 6d.
  436
  in the £, while in London we find the amount for Bow is 8s. 10d. in the.£, for Rotherhithe 8s. 9d., for Poplar 8s. 8d., and for Bromley 8s. 6d. It is only just to admit that the ratepayers in the towns have certain advantages over those in the country. They enjoy better drainage and water supply. They get improved lighting and policeing, etc. All these may be just and equitable advantages, and the money may be well spent, but these considerations do not in any way lessen the burden on the ratepayer, or reduce the demand of the rate collector. The general effect of these figures is well known. The evidence given before the Royal Commission confirms the impression made upon those who have studied the question for years From the time the present First Lord of the Admiralty made a report in 1870, down to the time when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton reported on the question in 1894, it has been admitted and repeatedly shown that the rates in towns are excessively heavy, and that some practical relief ought to be given to the unfortunate ratepayers who are called upon to pay such extremely high rates as those I have quoted. In my opinion what is wanted is a reform of the existing system rather than any relief in the shape of the additional Imperial grants. I have endeavoured to show how these grants in aid of local administration have increased, and I venture to maintain that this relief is largely fallacious, because a large portion of the money is, after all, taken out of the pockets of poor taxpayers in order to be paid in relief of rates on immovable property. It has been the Imperial fiscal policy of this country to relieve taxation on industry and on articles of consumption. But I must say that the taxes we have taken off with one hand have been more than put on with the other hand. We have taken them off with regard to Imperial expenditure, but we have devoted money largely raised by taxes on industry and articles of consumption for the relief of immovable property. I maintain that this relief is not only fallacious, but that it is also mischievous, in that it tends to extravagance on the part of local administration, and is contrary to the best spirit of local government. To begin with, the local authorities have no control over the collection of the money granted for Imperial funds, nor have they any power

  437
  to say how the money shall be applied. It seems to me, therefore, to do nothing to foster that independent spirit of local self-government which is so valuable if we are to have our local affairs successfully administered. As it is the taxpayer has little or no control over these Imperial grants. By the reforms of 1888 these grants were to a large extent removed from the control of Parliament, without, however, at the same time giving any control whatsoever to the local taxpayer. I am strongly of opinion that these grants are against the true interests of local and economical administration. I should be very glad if this system could be done away with. At any rate I hope that under no circumstances will it be extended. What is required is that there should be a uniform basis of valuation of property. I have been told that nothing can be done in this or any other direction because of the Royal Commission, but I would point out that that body more than a year ago issued a Report in favour of a uniform basis of valuation of property in this country, and the Government have, therefore, no excuse for delaying the introduction of legislation upon this question. Let me point out the objections to the present system. It has neither uniformity, equality, simplicity, nor economy, although all these conditions should be obtained. At the present moment there may be five different valuations for the same projerty— for the Poor Rate, for the County Rate, for the Borough Rate, for the Income Tax, and for the Land Tax. Surely it did not need a Royal Commission to find out that if these five valuations were arrived at by the same means, there would be a saving of expense, and that one valuation would secure equality. The Royal Commission has recommended there should be one valuation authority in each county for all purposes. Whether the County Authority would be the best body to undertake this duty, or whether it would be better to entrust the work to an Imperial authority, I am not prepared to say to-day. But I do submit that there ought to be some uniform basis of valuation for all property on which all rates and taxes should be levied. I think I have shown that the rates have increased to a greater extent even than the rateable value, while no fresh sources of taxation have been thrown open. I observe that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer
  438
  presented his Budget statement exception was taken because he had not thrown open new avenues by which taxation could be raised. We have been constantly reforming and extending local expenditure in this country, but during the last fifty years the sources from which the rates have been drawn have neither been reformed nor extended. It has been suggested that it would be a good thing to transfer certain burdens from the local to the Imperial authorities, and the transfer of the control of the prisons has been cited as an example of what may be successfully done in this respect. It has also been better suggested that certain Imperial taxes might be transferred to the local authorities, and one idea has been that the inhabited house duty should be so handed over. But that, I believe, only produces about one and a half million sterling per annum, and that amount would not be nearly sufficient to meet the increased local expenditure or to ensure an equitable adjustment of local burdens. No member of the Government has hitherto suggested the idea of tapping some new field from which rates can be raised. No one has suggested any new source from which revenue for local purposes can be derived. But I venture to think that whenever this subject comes up to be solved there is one factor which will have to be taken into consideration, and that is the increased value of freeholds in our large towns. It seems to me that the increase in that value has been even more surprising than the increase in local expenditure. It has been estimated that the rateable value of London in 1899 was thirty-seven millions, and that of this total no less than sixteen millions represents site values. Practically one-third of the rateable value of London is the value of the freeholds, and how this growing increase of value of building estate has benefited individuals can be plainly seen in cases where towns are practically owned by one man, as at Bootle, Devonport, and Huddersfield. It is equally true of all prosperous towns, as is shown by the prices obtained at recent sales of freehold property. The sites have realised high values, while the buildings have fetched practically nothing. Only the other day the Leeds Post Office was sold for a sum equal to £75 per square yard, a price which had been hitherto unheard of in Leeds. The same thing has occurred in London. 1,550

  439
  square feet at the corner of Fleet Street and Fetter Lane let for 12s. per square foot, the rent realised being £930. It is not difficult to account for this rise in the value of freeholds. We have seen the massing of population in our large towns creating the demand for house room and it is their enterprise and industry which has largely created this increased value. They must have house room and they have other wants and requirements which must be supplied, and I believe that everything in the shape of the creation of roads, of the provision of open spaces, and of the improved drainage of the district, everything which goes to make a place better, more healthy, more habitable, and more attractive to the people, enhances the value of the freehold. This increased value has been created, not by the expenditure of capital or by enterprise on the part of the owner of the land, but, with the exception of a few cases, it is due to the massing of the population in large centres and to the consequent growth of local expenditure. It is extremely difficult to determine upon whom the incidence of rates ultimately falls. I do not intend to say anything upon that this afternoon, but if the rates fall on the landlord I cannot see that there is any particular grievance or injustice in asking that the landlord should pay the rates directly instead of indirectly. If, on the other hand, the rates fall upon the occupier—and the majority of the occupiers believe they do so fall. Certainly any increase of rate or new rate which may be levied during the tenancy does fall upon the occupier. Rates have some tendency to stick where they first fall. The fact remains that, at any rate, the demand for the rates is made upon him, and his strong objection to any increase is some evidence that he believes he does pay them. The occupier believes he pays, and hence there is a very strong protest against any increase. If dwellers in towns generally owned their freeholds I quite admit that upon that heading the present system of taxation would not be wholly unfair. But it is quite the exception for the occupier to be the owner of the freehold. The ordinary occupier is a tenant —weekly, monthly, or yearly—or he may be a leaseholder. In London and other large towns, on the other hand, we have long building leases, the tenant undertaking to erect and maintain the
  440
  buildings and pay all the rates and local taxes. At the end of the lease the landlord finds himself master of the buildings and the land—not the land as originally let, but greatly enhanced in value. The landlord, however, has not contributed to that increase of value by anything he has done. Therefore, the interest of the occupier differs from the interest of the landlord. In the case of leaseholders, as the lease runs out the interest of the occupier gets less and less while that of the landlord increases in an; almost corresponding degree. I suggest that we ought to have a separate valuation and assessment made of the owner's interest in such property. It seems to me that this proposition of the site valued separately and a rate charged upon it is a practical proposition, and one which would do much to afford equitable and just relief to occupiers in our towns. The objection has been raised that it would be impossible to value a site apart from the buildings, or, if not impossible, that the expense would be so vast that no local authority would undertake it. I think the evidence of the Royal Commission, disposes of those two fallacies. The evidence points out that there would be no insuperable difficulty in valuing the sites without the buildings, and that there would be no large increase of expense after the first valuation.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. CHAPLIN, Lincolnshire, Sleaford): Whose evidence?
  MR. NUSSEY: I will read a question put to the valuer of the London County Council and his answer thereto. The question is—
  "In forming the value of a site would you have to do anything more difficult than has to be done just now in forming rateable value?"
  The answer was—
  "On the contrary, I should have to do something simpler. For myself, if I had to value London I would much prefer to value it in sites than in hereditaments. I could do it more quickly, more cheaply, and more accurately, and obtain greater uniformity."
  And Mr. Costelloe, who certainly knew something about London rating, when asked if he agreed with this view, said he did.
  "From my knowledge of London valuation I think it is entirely true."

  441
  if the right hon. Gentleman reads the evidence given before the Royal Commission he must see that in the opinion of a great many experts this valuation of the site, apart from the buildings, can be done and without any vast increase of local expenditure. But after all, we sec it done every day in all our large towns. Property is bought and sold not for the buildings, but for the value of the site alone, and I think I am right in saying that in some cases the site value apart from the buildings is taken for the purposes of the death duties. I have endeavoured to establish that the occupiers of houses in towns and industrial centres cannot be made to take willingly a much heavier burden than they bear at the present time, that there is no likelihood of the burdens decreasing, the tendency being for them to increase, and that there is an interest and a fund visible in the property of urban landowners which may be made to contribute separately from that of the occupier. From these two sources, of the occupiers on the one hand, and the owners on the other, taken together, you would have a wider and more equitable field for taxation. In all probability the poundage charged would differ as between the two interests, but I maintain that we in this House ought to give the local authorities without delay power to tap these two sources simultaneously in order that they may more easily undertake new works, new expenditure, and new burdens, which this House is ever ready to impose, and make more widely spread those burdens. Above all, the feeling that the rates are in a great many cases unjustly levied will be removed. I believe that if this were done it would be in the long run not harmful but really beneficial to what I conceive to be the true interests of the landowners of this country. I beg to move the resolution standing on the Paper in my name.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon, etc.): I rise to second the motion which has been moved by my hon. friend, and the comprehensive and lucid statement he has given of the case renders my task very easy indeed. I simply wish to make one or two points in addition to those he has already so well laid before the House. The motion states a fact which I do not think it is possible for the Government to controvert—namely, that the rates in
  442
  the urban districts are heavy, and that they are growing, and the motion then calls upon the Government to deal immediately with this crying necessity. My hon. friend has already pointed out how heavy the rates are in the towns. As a matter of fact, when the Government came to deal with the question of local taxation, they dealt with the lighter burden first, and, in doing so, increased the heavier burden. In the towns the average rate is 6s. 6d. in the £; in the country the rates are 2s. 3d. in the £. What did the Government do.? Five years ago they paid half the rates of the 2s. 3d. ratepayer, and they went to the 6s. 6d. ratepayer and said, "Although you are already paying three times as much as the country ratepayer, not only will we not give you any relief whatever, but we will call upon you to contribute towards paying half the rates of the 2s. 3d. ratepayer." I do not think it requires much argument to prove that the 6s. 6d. rate is the heavier, and after five years experience it is about time the Government dealt with this grievance as well. As my hon. friend has already pointed out, this is not only a heavy burden, but it is a growing burden. It is growing for two reasons, the one legislative, and the other administrative. In the course of the evidence given before the If Royal Commission, I find it stated by a Treasury official that during the course of the last twenty-five years there were 119 purposes for which It new or additional local taxation had been authorised by Parliament. Those purposes have, of course, increased the burden of local taxation enormously, and I would point out to the House that most of those purposes have increased the burden of the urban districts rather than of the rural districts. Even the present Government, after having paid half the rural rates and given the magnificent grant to the landowners, have imposed additional burdens mostly upon the urban taxpayer by two or three Acts of Parliament which they have passed. I am not complaining of those Acts of Parliament; one or two of them were beneficial. Still, the Government have increased the burden, and it is time they did something to give relief. The second reason is an administrative one. There is greater stringency of administration in local districts than ever before. Take one ease. The "Worthing and Maidstone epidemics cost

  443
  millions of money to this country, in this way. It suddenly dawned on the Local Government officials that possibly the administration had been too lax in the matter of water supply. I have a case in my own constituency which I will give as an illustration of scores more throughout the country. There was a, water supply which cost £30,000 or £40,000 to the town; it had gone on for a generation, and there had never been an epidemic. Then came the Maidstone epidemic, and the Local Government officials naturally got uneasy. They sent an official down to this place, and he condemned this water supply which had been working admirably for a whole generation. They insisted upon the town finding another water supply which would have cost another £40,000. It was found impossible to do that, and by way of a compromise the Local Government officials insist upon filtration and all sorts of things. All this means additional burdens upon the town. I am not criticising that action at all; I am simply showing that owing to the increased efficiency of administrative stringency the burden of the urban taxpayer has grown year by year until it has become almost intolerable. I will just give one or two figures to the House, which I think are rather striking, in order to show how the burdens of the town ratepayer are increasing, and certainly increasing as compared with the rural ratepayer. I will not deal with the poor law, for the simple reason that the burden of the poor law is very much the same whether in town or country. Take the burden of the School Board. The education rate is twice as high in the urban as in the rural districts, and for a very good reason. Voluntary effort is generally confined to those places where land is cheap and where there is a wealthy population who will contribute. When you come to the poorer districts, where there is a congestion of population, and sites are consequently dear, and it is difficult to raise contributions, the burden of education falls entirely upon the taxpayer, with the result that the education rate in towns is twice, if not three times, as heavy as in the rural districts. I come now to water, gas lighting, and street improvements, and what do I find? In the urban districts the whole amount for this purpose in 1897–8 was £30,500,000 in one year, while in the
  444
  rural districts the amount was £822,000. [An HON. MEMBER: That does not include gas.] I am not referring to gas, but to the burden of local taxation. I will now turn to the indebtedness of these districts. I find that the total indebtedness in the urban districts in 1897–8 amounted to £143,700,000, while in the rural districts the total was £2,500,000. Of course this is outside the Poor Law. The rates increased in the urban districts from £25,500,000 to £30,000,000 or an actual increase of £4,600,000 in the course of four years. I come now to the indebtedness of these districts. The loans outstanding have increased from £121,000,000 to £143,000,000 in the course of four years. The total assessable value of the boroughs is £148,000,000, while the total rateable value of the rural districts is £51,000,000. That is to say, in the urban districts the indebtedness amounts to three times the total rateable value of the boroughs. The indebtedness in respect of some things in the rural districts is only one-twentieth of the whole rateable value, I want to make this point first of all, and I wish the House to confine itself to one point at a time. If you try to make six points at once you generally fail to make any point at all, so I hope that hon. Members opposite will bear with me. My first point is this: That from one cause or another the burden of the rates is increasing by leaps and bounds in the towns, while it is not increasing appreciably in the rural districts. The indebted ness is increasing at the rate of £5,000,000 a year in the urban districts, while it is increasing at a, very small rate in the rural districts. I cannot see the point made by hon. Members opposite who argue that we have something in return for this money in the shape of waterworks, gasworks, well-paved streets, and all sorts of modern conveniences. I do not see how that affects the argument. These things are the necessities of any town, and are essential to its existence. It would be impossible to keep the inhabitants of a town together without proper sanitation, lighting, a good water-supply, and all those other conveniences which now form part of the essentials of the age. You may say that you want police and lighting in rural districts, and it is equally true that they are essential there. But does the hon. Member mean

  445
  to suggest that you should go without your water supply, sanitation, and gas in the towns, and that that really is the proper remedy? Any hon. Member who would venture to suggest that to the House as the only possible answer is really beyond argument altogether. We have to accept the situation as it is, and say that, partly owing to the laws passed by a Liberal Government and partly owing to those passed by a Conservative Government, a large portion of the taxation has been cast upon the urban ratepayers, and this House has got to deal with it. I now come to the individual ratepayer in the two districts, and I will consider how the Government deal with the urban and the rural ratepayers—or with one class of the rural ratepayers, because the shopkeeper is in a worse position, and so is the little factory owner. One witness before the Royal Commission said that about forty factories in the West of England had been closed within a certain period of years, very largely owing to the burden of local taxation upon them. I want the House to consider how the Government have dealt with these two classes of ratepayers. In the towns a man pays 6s. 6d. in the pound rates and in the country 2s. 3d. Relief is extended to the 2s. 3d. man at the expense of the 6s. 6d. man. Let us take a particular instance. Last year the Government paid half the rates of the clergymen of this kingdom. [An HON. MEMBER: On the tithes]. Yes, and that is exactly what we are making out. It was said that their total income consisted of tithes, and the proposition was laid down that you should impose your rates according to the ability of the clergymen to pay. [An HON. MEMBER: No, no!] I beg the hon. Member's pardon, but that is so; and I will refer him to the evidence of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. What has been done in regard to local clergymen is that half their rates have been paid. Let us consider the case of the clergyman as contrasted with the case of the shopkeeper. Take the case of a clergyman receiving £200 in tithes and a shopkeeper paying £100 rent in an urban district. I will assume for a moment that the shopkeeper is clearing twice his rent in profits upon his shop, and I should like to know how many shopkeepers are doing that. Let us assume that he is making £200 out of his shop. He has to pay in rates
  446
  £24. Now the clergyman used to pay upon his £200 the sum of £12 in rates, but what did the Government do? They gave £6 to the clergyman, and enacted that in future the clergyman should only pay £6 in rates instead of £12. Now what do they do for the shopkeeper who has to pay twice as much? They say to him, "Not only shall we not extend any relief to you, but you will have to help to pay the £6 of the clergyman as well." That is what the Government have got to face. The usual case is that of a struggling tradesman with a rent of about £75 a year, working from eight o'clock in the morning to eight, nine, ten, and often twelve o'clock at night, with every member of his family assisting him under very unhealthy conditions, barely making a living, and paying £18 to £20 in rates, while the clergyman who is getting £500 or £600 in tithes gets half his rates paid. The struggling tradesman has still to go on as before, and the Government only offer him a Royal Commission. When we come to the case of the landowner it is very much worse. Go down to a district in Buckinghamshire or Berkshire, and you will find an American millionaire receiving £50 or £100 a year out of the Bill which was supposed to relieve agricultural distress. In the same district you will find the artisan, with his workshop or factory, paying his rates in full, while relief is extender i to his millionaire neighbour. I think it is time that the Government should look after the urban ratepayer, who is now so heavily burdened. Those are the figures as far as the urban and other districts are concerned. All we ask is that you should give the same fair treatment to every class of the community. Two classes at the present moment have received relief at the hands of Her Majesty's Government. All we ask for is that you should extend the same equal rights is in this country as you are fighting to secure for the people in South Africa. I was alluding to the case of the landowner. My hon. friend has.; suggested a remedy, and I agree with him cordially that this is not a case for further grants in aid. I think the principle of doles is a perfectly vicious one. I do not know that it is a principle at all, but it is a form of almsgiving which is inconsistent with sound finance. There is a method of lightening the burden of the urban ratepayer, and that is by making

  447
  all those who are interested in the community, and who benefit by the expenditure upon municipal undertakings, bear their fair share of the burdens. Take the case of the landowner. Most of these landowners who are receiving relief in respect of the rates on their property, because of the depression in agriculture and reduction in rents, are receiving increased rents in respect of their urban properties. This brings us straight to the remedy. Take the case of Bootle. A generation ago Bootle was a perfect wilderness, but during the last thirty or forty years there has been an enormous expenditure of money there upon docks and quays, and upon the development of property, and all that expenditure has been incurred on the part of the municipal authorities there. What is the result? Why, that the property there has increased enormously in value. Now nearly the whole of the property belongs to one landowner; and what does he receive by way of rents from that property? He receives no less than £150,000 a year for ground rents out of that one municipality. He has several vacant spaces there which used to be worth about £5 an acre, but they are now worth £5,000 an acre, and every inch of ground there has now got a considerable value. What does he contribute towards the rates? Not a penny; and yet those rates have been expended upon developing his property and increasing its value, and if it had not been for all this expenditure his property would not have been worth anything except the agricultural value. That is not all. This landowner has got agricultural property outside in Lancashire and Cheshire, and in respect of that agricultural property he is receiving under the Agricultural Eating Act a large grant annually because of agricultural depression. He was one of those who suffered, and he is receiving that large amount of money in respect of his agricultural land, paid very largely by the very men who are paying the £150,000 in respect of the town property which they have developed by their own skill and industry, and the investment of their capital. I say it is a monstrous injustice, and the Government ought to deal with it. I think it is opportune to address myself to the interruption made to one of my observations at the start. The objection made by the hon. Member opposite was that if they
  448
  spend money for sanitary purposes, waterworks, and so forth, that is their own business. Is that an objection to imposing a fair share of the burden on the very people who benefit by these improvements? It may be an answer as between the town and the country; it may be an answer against imposing any further share of the burden on the rural taxpayer, and the hon. Member naturally thought that I was going to propose an additional burden on the urban taxpayer. My contention is that the people who benefit largely by all this expenditure should contribute a fair share of it. I think the hon. Member will now perceive that his interruptions were perfectly irrelevant. Let me give another case. In Harrogate a short time ago the burial authority wanted an additional cemetery, and applied to a landowner in the neighbourhood. He does not reside in the town; he resides outside, and therefore does not contribute towards the rates. He has got some very poor agricultural land outside the town, and he demands £1,200 an acre for that land. The gentleman who applied to him immediately looked up the assessment of that property, and he found that in respect of the land for which he was demanding £1,200 an acre, he was assessed for the local rates 5s. an acre. I ask whether it is fair. Who has given the value to this land? As agricultural land it is only worth 5s. an acre for assessment purposes. It is simply the energy and the organised effort of the people of Harrogate themselves which give value to the land; and I say all those waterworks and sanitation and gas, which excited the ridicule of hon. Members opposite, have given the improved value to the property, and therefore the owner of the land ought to contribute towards the rates. I could multiply instances. There is the very well-known case of Devonport. In the case of Devonport not long ago the whole of the freehold of the town was purchased for £12,000, and it is now yielding to the ground landlord £80,000 a year. [" No!"] What figure does the hon. Member suggest? [AN HON. MEMBER: I think it is given in evidence. It is about £14,000.] The hon.. Member is absolutely mistaken. [An HON. MEMBER: I think the landlord's agent knows more than a member of the town council.] If the landlord's agent

  449
  has said he only gets £14,000 a year I am perfectly willing to accept that. Let us take it at that figure. The freehold, as I have stated, was only worth £12,000 a few generations ago. The landlord has not a house there, and he does not contribute anything towards the rates. On the whole of this property the rates are very high, and there is considerable overcrowding there owing to the difficulty of getting sites and the prices demanded by this agent. Then there is the well-known case of Fraserburgh in Scotland. The property belongs to Lord Saltoun. The corporation spent £150,000 in improving the harbour, and £36,000 on other improvements. This has increased Lord Saltoun's rental, but he does not contribute anything at all towards the rates of his own town. He is one of the noblemen who are receiving alms at the hands of the Government as a distressed agriculturist. Without multiplying these instances I think it is about time that the burden of the urban ratepayers should be fairly distributed among all those who have an interest and. whose property is increased in value by means of this expenditure on improvements. Of course, the Government may say that we have got a Royal Commission. Probably that will be the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, but really I do not think it is possible that the right hon. Gentleman can seriously advance that as a real and bona fide answer to this motion. "What has happened in regard to this Royal Commission? Just what has happened in regard to most of the Commissions appointed by the Government. They gave endless pledges at the last election. Old age pensions, for instance, was one of the questions they would deal with. What have they done? They have appointed two or three Committees to investigate the matter, and while they have been fighting we have to wait. They are experts in Boer tactics, and probably that is due to their great political mobility. That is what the Government have been doing with respect to old age pensions, and the same thing has happened as regards this question of urban rating. They promised to deal with that. In 1896 they found that something ought to be done to meet this grievance, and they promised to appoint a Commission. Of course, they managed to get an interim Report in order to make a grant of £3,000,000 to the landowners
  450
  but how did they manage this Rates Commission? It was promised in 1896, and it was not appointed until August in that year. It was too late to do anything that year. In 1897 a few witnesses were examined, and a good many of them were parsons. In 1898 a few more witnesses were examined, and more of them were parsons still. In 1899 they examined no witnesses; they considered this Report. I suppose that was as much as you could expect in 1899. They forgot all about the urban ratepayers. Not one shopkeeper was examined, but there were fourteen or fifteen clergymen. I don't know that they have sat at all this year. They have given up the farce of meeting. It is a perfect farce. The right hon. Gentleman knows it perfectly well. A most significant thing about it is that there is a member of the Government at the head of the Commission. If the Government were really in earnest in dealing with this grievance they would have examined it and dealt with it long ago. Take the liquor question. There was a nobleman at the head of the Commission on that question who was in earnest on the matter he had in hand. It was appointed in the same year to deal with a much more complicated and a much more difficult subject— a subject which excited much more controversy. I find that they examined over three times as many witnesses, they held three times as many sittings, and re ported last year. This Rates Commission has not reported yet. Does anyone doubt that the Commission has been deliberately permitted to drag along in order not to frame a Report because the Government does not intend to deal with the question of the urban taxpayer? Anything which gives effective relief to the urban ratepayers they have shown no disposition to pass. I think this is a very urgent and very important matter. It is not only that the rates are increasing, but the efficiency of the municipal authorities is crippled. Take all the enormous new interests that have got to be dealt with. Take the new ideas as to the kind of work they are expected to do with regard to overcrowding and the condition of the people. The worst of all these burdens upon the shoulders of the urban ratepayers is that they have not got the means adequately to perform their functions. Look at their indebtedness respecting artisans' dwellings. The total

  451
  amounts only to £2,000,000. Does anyone believe that they can adequately cope with this question on an expenditure of £2,000,000 over the whole kingdom? The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies has tried to do something for the housing of the working classes. He has brought in one or two miserable little Bills which he knows will have absolutely no effect. He knows perfectly well that it is not legislation that is needed, it is not so much more power to the municipal authorities, but what you want is to equip them with more means to deal with the question. We have got a Royal Commission to deal with this subject, but it is very significant that the Royal Commission which dealt with this subject was the Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes. One of the recommendations was that there should be a rate on land values. The rector of Suffolk the other day said that in his own parish the condition of the working classes was perfectly deplorable. There you have families crowded into one room. That is the state of things in most of the great towns of this kingdom at this moment. There has never been so much insisting upon the fame and glory and prestige of the Empire, but I say there is a hollow note in it altogether and an insincerity when you reflect that in the greatest towns of this Empire you have people crowded in misery simply because they cannot deal adequately with the circumstances of the case. Hundreds and thousands of people——
  MR. SPEAKER: The housing of the working classes is outside the scope of this motion.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have only spoken one sentence upon it, and I submit it has everything in the world to do with the question. I submit that my case is a case of urgency, and that this matter ought to be dealt with forthwith. My reasons are twofold. First of all, the burden is growing; and secondly, it is crippling the powers of the municipal! authorities to deal with some of the I greatest problems in the towns, and these authorities declare that the Government ought to deal with the question forth with.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled, under this resolution, to discuss the housing of the working classes.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I had no intention of doing anything of the kind, and if I have transgressed in the slightest degree your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. All I will say is that it is absolutely impossible for the municipal authorities to deal with the subject in small towns where the rates have run up to 8s. and even 10s. in the £. You cannot go to these people and say, "Look at the slums and misery there; put on another 2s. in the £, and deal with them." They reply, "We cannot; we cannot afford it; it is as much as we can do to pay our present high rates and retain a bare subsistence." I maintain that the Government should compel these huge landowners, who are making their hundreds of thousands of pounds a year out of these poor towns, to pay their share of the burden. Within the last few weeks hundreds of thousands of people were watching our troops going to South Africa, and then returning to habitations which, I venture to say, are a greater stain on the honour and glory of this Empire than anything that our troops are going to wipe out in South Africa. Under these conditions, therefore, it is not too much to ask in the interests of the urban taxpayers that something should be done to lighten their burdens, and to distribute them more fairly.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, having regard to the heavy and increasing burden of local taxation in urban and certain other districts, the House urges upon the Government the necessity of forthwith redressing the undoubted grievances from which many ratepayers suffer."—(Mr. Nussey.)
  MR. CRIPPS: I do not propose to follow the seconder of this resolution through the great many subjects which he has treated, and which are not very germane to the main proposition brought forward—namely, the question of heavy local taxation in urban districts. I wish to say at the outset, and I speak for many Members on this side of the House, that so far as regards equalising the burdens of local taxation in country and urban districts, and bringing about relief to what is undoubtedly heavy

  453
  taxation at the present moment, we on this side of the House have shown as earnest a desire as any Member opposite to accomplish these reforms. One or two matters have been referred to by the mover and seconder of the resolution which I think tend rather to divert the mind from what are the true points we ought to consider if we are to bring about reform of the system of urban taxation. A great deal has been said by the mover and seconder as to the difference between rural and urban taxation. It was said by both speakers that so far as the rural burdens are concerned they are less heavy than the burdens of urban ratepayers, and yet a measure of relief had been given to the rural taxpayers which had not been given to the urban taxpayers. I differ from that entirely. I maintain it is quite a fallacy to take the amount of the rates and say 2s. 3d. is paid in the rural districts and 6s. 6d. in the urban districts, and that therefore the urban districts are more heavily rated than the rural. It is an absolute fallacy, for two reasons. First of all, certain advantages are obtained for the 6s. 6d. in the urban districts which the rural ratepayers do not get. [An HON. MEMBER: What are they?] I will deal with that in the course of the argument, although I should have thought they were very obvious to anyone. And secondly, what you have to consider in all matters of taxation is the ability to bear. A 2s. 3d. rate in a rural district may be more oppressive than a 6s. 6d. rate in an urban district. That is the true test, and the true comparison to make. That was the basis of the reform in the Agricultural Rating Act which my hon. friend has misrepresented more than once in this House and elsewhere, although not intentionally of course. The principle was that the farmer was really paying on his business, on the raw materials which had afterwards to be manufactured, and that he was the only ratepayer so paying, and all this resuscitation of an old calumny——
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Surely the tithe is not raw material.
  MR. CRIPPS: I am dealing with one matter at a time. The resuscitation of these old calumnies of the landowners is out of date at the present moment. Whatever we have to do for the reform of urban taxation, no hon. Member believes for a single instant in the argu-
  454
  ment of the hon. Member for Carnarvon. Let me say one word in regard to tithes. This question of the rating of tithes is only incidental, and the hon. Member for Carnarvon, at any rate, mistakes entirely the spirit in which that great reform of local taxation was brought about. He may differ from hon. Members on the subject, but he should not misrepresent our objects or our motives. What he said was that on historical grounds the owner of the tithes paid the rates, and the occupier got the benefit. What we said was that the occupier was also paying the rates, and that when that long standing injustice was removed by the beneficial Act brought in by the Unionist Government they were not giving anything in the nature of a dole to the tithe owners. Let me deal with another fallacy in what was said by the mover and seconder of the resolution in regard to loans. Now, if we take the aggregate of these loans they are no real test of the burdens which have been thrown on the urban districts of recent years. A large number of these loans represent profitable investments. For instance, if an urban district obtained a loan of a million in order to buy up gas and water companies, a large additional income to that necessary to pay the interest on the loan is obtained, which goes to help the rates. So that a comparison of loans in rural and urban districts is no true criterion of the burdens on the ratepayers in the two districts. I admit that the burden of taxation in the urban districts is very heavy. We all feel that, and we shall do our best to obtain a reform consistent with true economic principles. I cannot, however, consent to the proposition as regards the rate of increase of the rates in the urban districts. A large amount of evidence was brought before the Royal Commission, and still more important evidence before the Towns Holdings Committee on the subject. The Committee said that the idea of a very large increase in the urban rates is not true, although, of course, the burden is very heavy. Statistics go to show, in fact, that in some cases there has been an increase, and in other cases a decrease. It is no test to say that the aggregate amount of the rates has increased by a million. You have got to consider in such a case how far the rateable value of the property has increased, and until

  455
  that is done you cannot fix the true ratio of the local burden. Let us take the case of London itself. The London County Council rate, which is often used for purposes of prejudice in discussions of this kind, is not an increasing but a decreasing burden, and there is everything to show that, so far as increase is concerned, we have got to the top. The London County Council is receiving from year to year larger and new sources of income which they had not before, and the tendency is that these new sources of income will more than counterbalance the increase of rating. For instance, the London County Council last year got £80,000 from the tramway system in relief of local rates, and evidence was given the other day that they hope to get as much as a million a year in the future for the relief of the rates. This question, which is a very difficult one, cannot be argued without all the conditions are taken into consideration, because all the conditions must be weighed before the matter can be dealt with. I should like to say a few words as to the importance of the principles involved in this resolution. Both the mover and seconder repudiated on every ground what they call grants-in-aid from the Treasury. I submit that under the existing conditions of local taxation it is only by means of grants-in -aid that we can get anything approaching an equitable system at all. So far as local rates are concerned, they are all raised from one class of property, whereas the benefit arising is extended, at any rate as concerns a large number of matters, over the local community at large. Is it right as regards the police, for instance, which is rather Imperial than local, that only one class of property should bear the whole weight of the burden? And unless we have these grants-in-aid from the Treasury, how can we bring in the other sources which ought to bear their fair share of the burden—those sources classed under the head of personal property? You cannot do it. I invite the hon. Gentleman to go down to any local district and propose that the burden should be borne locally. Unless you have a local income tax or some other system by which you can bring property other than real property under taxation in a particular district, you cannot in any way relieve the burden borne by a particular class of property except by means of these grants in aid.
  456
  The hon. Gentleman the seconder of the resolution also maintained that the grants from the Treasury led to extravagance. I have searched for evidence of that in every Committee which has sat on the question of local taxation, and there is not the slightest evidence that such grants have led to extravagance. In every case sufficient burden is left to guard against any temptation to extravagance.
  SIR HENRY FOWLER: They have enormously increased the expenditure.
  MR. CRIPPS: The increased expenditure has arisen from different sources altogether, not from the grants in aid from the Treasury. That is shown by the fact that there are greater increases where there are no subventions at all. The hon. Gentleman said that these Treasury grants interfered with local control and the principle of local self-government. I should like to ask what evidence he has of that. What interference is there with the police, for instance, or the main roads, in regard to both of which there is this subvention of the Treasury? Such statements are current fallacies, and no one who really desires that the urban districts should be less heavily taxed locally than they are at present could at the same time wish that the Treasury subventions should be withdrawn. Respecting the question of site values, when, in the first instance, the question of local taxation was raised, the question of site values was not raised at all. It was raised in the form of ground rent, but it so happened that, so far as ground rent was concerned, it was charged both on the land and the building, and when Mr. Costello was giving evidence before the Committee he made the statement that the idea of rating ground rents was an intricate idea which had never been properly thought out, and that when it was thought out it was objected to altogether. It is on crude ideas of this kind that we are now asked to deal with the local taxation of this country. This question of site values was referred to a Committee, and the two answers with regard to it appear to be unanswerable. In the first place, there would be extreme difficulty in assessing property if we separated the site from the building. That was the finding of

  457
  the Town Holdings Committee, and the opinion of everyone who has practical experience in the matter. It is quite true that in some places, such as Bootle and Devonport, there has been a great rise in the value of property, but then that rise contributes its fair proportion to the rates of the district. Is there any reason why a particular kind of property should be rated twice over?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: My suggestion was that the landowner should be taxed on the income he receives.
  MR. CRIPPS: The landowner is taxed on the income he receives. The property is assessed at its full value, but the occupier is rated. That is the principle adopted in this country, so that whether you rate the property or the person the property is assessed at its full value. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that if you separated the site value from the building you would get some additional source of taxation. If that were so you would have to rate site values twice over. If a site has gone up very much in value it is the occupier who gets the immediate advantage, and he is the right person to be assessed. The whole value is rated now, and the rate is paid by the person who receives the benefit—that is the person in occupation. There are various matters of Imperial concern—such as elementary education, police, and pauper lunatics—which for reasons of convenience are thrown on local taxation, and I do not think either the mover or seconder of this resolution took cognisance of the fact that one of the reasons why local taxation is so heavy is because of these really Imperial matters having been thrown on to it, because it is a convenient method to deal with them in order to obtain local administration. The greatest part of the burden which is thrown upon the urban districts is caused by the School Board. Take for instance the School Board rate. Except for the convenience of local ad-ministration, does anyone suggest that education ought to be thrown on a particular class of property and on one locality? It is an Imperial concern in which the whole country is interested, and from the point of view of principle it is a matter which ought to be dealt with out of Imperial resources and not by local expenditure at all. Let me take the case of the police or of pauper lunatics. If there
  458
  is one thing more than another that the central Government ought to be responsible for, it is the management of the police, in order that there should be proper security in all parts of the country. I admit that the administration of the police locally is of enormous importance, but my argument is that you should only leave just sufficient of these services on the local rates in order to secure economy and efficiency as regards local administration. The remainder should be paid out of. Imperial resources, because these charges are properly Imperial, and all classes of property ought to pay their proportion of them. That, in my opinion, is one of the main directions in which we ought to look for reform. Let the whole sum be paid locally in matters that are properly local, but in matters which are really Imperial, but are for the purposes of administration managed locally, the charge should be paid out of Imperial resources, leaving only a sufficient margin to secure efficient administration. That, to my mind, is one of the chief directions in which we may hope for reform as regards the question. But what a will-o'-the-wisp it would be to follow the suggestion of the mover and the seconder of this motion. They would take away the whole of these Imperial subventions, whereas I would increase them where we have really Imperial matters dealt with locally. This undoubtedly is a complex and difficult subject, and should not be judged by isolated statistics taken away from their surroundings, or approached without the fullest consideration. Much as we on this side of the House desire that the burden of local taxation should be relieved both in urban and rural districts, without raising the question of prejudice as between town and country, I hope the Government will feel that as this matter has been committed to a Royal Commission we ought, at any rate, to await the Report of that Commission before proceeding with legislation.
  MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: After the eloquent and exhaustive speeches of the mover and seconder of this motion, no additional light is needed to support our contention. The seconder of the resolution referred to the Royal Commission which was appointed in 1896 to consider the whole

  459
  question of the rating of real and personal property. I am in entire agreement with him in saying that the Rating Commission was the gilding which enabled many hon. Members opposite to swallow the pill of the Agricultural Rating Act. The Commission has proved itself a farce and almost a delusion and a snare. No progress has been made with its deliberations, and there is no prospect whatever of legislation resulting from it. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman who supervises the Local Government Board to say that during the life of the present Parliament there is any prospect of legislation on the subject. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Stroud to confine his argument to the question of rating as between the town and the country. There is no fact more ascertainable and certain than that for years past there has been in towns an increasing assessment and an increasing rate, whereas in the country, unfortunately, there is a decreasing assessment, and, for the last twenty or thirty years, a decreasing rate also. The average rate in towns is from 6s. to 7s., and yet the towns are asked to contribute to the reduction of the county rates. I maintain that the unfortunate ratepayers in towns are much injured by the legislation and will continue to be injured until it is repealed. I do not think that the President of the Local Government Board will say that the urban ratepayers have received justice at the hands of the present Government. The hon. Member for Stroud referred to the earnest desire of many hon. Members opposite representing county divisions to do something to rectify the existing inequalities between urban and rural districts. What evidence have we of that desire? I see no evidence of it. The hon. Member also referred to the advantages which towns are supposed to enjoy, and for which they pay largely increased rates. All these advantages are visionary. What advantage is it to a man to walk on a paved granite road instead of on a country lane? What degree of merriment or jocosity is there in a sewage farm or a system of sanitation? All these matters are forced on the towns by the Local Government Board. They are the direct result of the aggregation of large masses of people in a circumscribed area, and if the towns did not provide all these luxuries, as they are regarded by
  460
  hon. Members opposite, the Local Government Board would compel them to carry them out. The hon. Member has furbished up the old doctrine that the burden of rates ought to be in proportion to ability to pay rates. That has been furbished up "to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." If you are going to inquire into the question of ability to pay rates, you will upset the whole of your rating system. The hon. Gentleman urged that the landed interest and the clerical tithe receivers were in a desperate position. I venture to say that the class of property which suffers most from the burden of rates is not to be found in the country, but in the towns. It is the shopkeepers in the towns who have to pay heavy rates on large assessments, with probably a decreasing turnover—especially shopkeepers in the outskirts, who find that their trade is going towards the centre—who suffer most. They have a heavier burden to bear than either the landlord or the clerical tithe receiver. But if ability to pay rates is the principle to be adopted for assessment, you must classify the ratepayers, and say that this shopkeeper has a good business and can pay a heavy rate, and that another shopkeeper has only a small business and cannot pay as much. The hon. Gentleman said that the clerical tithe receivers suffered a great grievance. The House knows very well that when the Commutation Act was passed, in 1836, an amount was added to the clerical tithe, and the whole was then calculated at 4s. in the £, making the tithe receiver practically free from rates on tithe. The hon. Member also referred to the subject of grants in aid. I am in entire agreement with him in thinking that it will be impossible ever to do away with the system of grants in aid. But we have argued and we will continue to argue that if you have any doles to give they ought to be distributed fairly and equally. You have no right whatever and never will have the right to select one or two particular kinds of rateable property in which you are particularly interested, and say that relief shall be given to them, leaving all other classes unrelieved. The hon. Member mentioned the question of sites. I will put a case to him. Take two adjoining sites, each representing a value of £50 a year. On one is erected a braiding, also of the value of

  461
  £50 a year, and the occupier of that building is assessed at £100. The adjacent site is covered by an exceedingly poor class of property, and the owner of the site is waiting until the time comes when, in all probability, he will be able to sell to great advantage. Although that adjacent site may be worth £50 a a year in the open market, it is covered by buildings which are bringing in only £30 a year, and the owner is assessed at only £30. If that man is assessed, as we argue he should be, and had to pay on the £50—the site value—and subsequently on the value of his buildings, which might be £20 a year, he would pay on £70 instead of on £30. If the scheme suggested by my hon. friend were adopted, and that man rated, as he ought to be, on the £70, the result would be that he would immediately say, "If I am to pay rates on an assessment of £70 when I am receiving only £30 from the property, I must either sell my land for what it will fetch or cover it with buildings similar to those on the adjacent plot." Let me give another case. We know of land on the outskirts of boroughs which is let at agricultural value—land which would be worth, perhaps, 1d. a yard in the open market—and its real value is what it will fetch in the open market. The owner of that land is a rich man, and he is holding that land in order to get 3d., 6d., or even 1s. per yard ground rent for it. He is by that means "doing," if I may so describe it, the ordinary ratepayer, who is paying rates upon property assessed at its proper value. We say that if you rectified some of these grievances you would have other revenues upon which you could lay your hands, and you would not be limited to the very few excisable and taxable commodities to which at present you are. The Agricultural Eating Bill was a bad Bill, and the Clerical Tithes Bill was, if anything, worse. The money you have expended to give relief to those two particular classes of ratepayers you very much want now. If you could lay your hands upon those doles and repossess yourselves of those £3,000,000 a year, you would not have been obliged during this session of Parliament to increase the taxation on tea by 2d. per pound or the duty upon tobacco by 4d. per pound. You are practically taxing the whole community in order to continue these doles to the landed interest and the clerical tithes owner.
  462
  I ask the Government: Are you going to deal with this question? Is there any prospect of dealing with it? Are we in the boroughs in the populous areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire to pay increased rates and increased taxation in order that your landowners and clerical tithe owners in Norfolk, Hampshire, Suffolk, and other districts where clerical tithe is paid should be relieved of half their rates? It is a growing injustice; it is a scandal that no hon. Member can justify; and until it is removed there will be experienced by all urban ratepayers a very great grievance —a grievance which, I am sure, when the next election comes round, if it comes at a time when the judgment of the people can be taken upon the ordinary legislation of the present Parliament, will have a very great effect in the constituences. I did not intend to address the House this afternoon, because, after all is said and done, these questions have been debated time after time, and they will be debated and pressed home upon the Government on every occasion which offers, not only in this House but in the country likewise, until we have some distinct declaration of the intention of the Government towards the towns and urban localities of the country—an intention of which we have no indication at the present moment.
  MR. CHAPLIN: Whatever may be the fate in store for this motion, I think the House cannot have failed to come to the conclusion by this time that the discussion in which we are engaged can be nothing more than purely academic, and that it cannot possibly lead to anything like a practical result. Under these circum-stances, perhaps the House will permit me to intervene thus early in the debate. I frankly own that when I first saw the motion of the hon. Member, having regard to all the circumstances under which it was to be moved, I thought that anything more unusual or more ill-timed had not very often been placed upon the Paper. As far as I can recollect, with a considerable number of years experience, it is really without precedent in this House, ["Oh, oh! "] Perhaps the hon. Members who say "Oh, oh!" will allow me to remind them of what the circumstances are to which I refer. I think it is desirable, if there is any forgetfulness upon that point, as I think there must be, that I should bring the circumstances

  463
  back to the minds of hon. Members. Early in the present Parliament Her Majesty's Government, in fulfilment of pledges which almost every Member of the Government had given before the General Election, introduced a measure dealing with the rating of agricultural land. That was a measure which gave effect not only to those pledges which had been given generally by the Conservative party when they went to the country, but also to the recommendations of a Royal Commission which had been appointed by the last Radical Government, of which the late lamented leader of that party, Mr. Gladstone himself, was the head. That measure became law, and, so far as I know, by all impartial and capable students of the question the equity, justice, and expediency of its provisions have been very widely recognised, and, I think I may say, very generally admitted. [Opposition laughter.] I am perfectly aware that that is not the view of hon. Gentlemen who laugh, but perhaps they will forgive me for saying that I was referring to impartial and capable students of the question, and I am not aware that the hon. Gentleman on the back bench, whose hilarity is so much excited, has ever given us much reason to believe that he is either the one or the other. I am able, at all events, to support the view which I bold, and which I have just put before the House, by testimony which even hon. Gentlemen opposite will be very slow to dispute. We have had already a good deal of the results of the Royal Commission laid before the House, and among other items hon. Gentlemen will find a Memorandum of questions on various points which were considered of great importance, and which I believe was drawn up by Sir Edward Hamilton and addressed to certain well-known financial and economic experts—I think sixteen in number. The fourth question in the Memorandum related to the equity of any tax or system of taxation, and in his answer to that question, one of those experts, no less an authority than Professor Sidgwick, who was the only one who referred specifically to the Agricultural Rating Act and its bearing on this particular question, argued the matter most closely. I need not say that he argued it with great ability, but I regret to say it was at too great length to justify me in quoting it in full to the House. Hon.
  464
  Gentlemen would do well to read and consider it, and I will take the liberty of submitting to the House the general con elusions at which Professor Sidgwick arrived. What he said was this—
  " I conclude, therefore, that the principle on which partial relief from rates was granted to the owners of agricultural land in 1896 is sound from the point of view of equity. This conclusion is independent of the economic objection to special onerous rates on agricultural land as discouraging the investment of capital in agriculture. The force of this objection would remain unaltered even if the question of equity were otherwise decided."
  I commend that statement to the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and, coming from the quarter it does, I do not think it deserves to be received with laughter. When I remember the attacks which have been made upon that Bill and the unscrupulous misrepresentations which over and over again have been showered upon it throughout the country by a good many hon. Gentlemen who sit on the other side of the House, it is gratifying to me to be able to turn to the verdict of a witness so able, impartial, and thoroughly independent, especially when that witness is such an acknowledged authority as a political and economic expert as the gentleman whom I have named.
  MR. BIRRELL (Fifeshire, W.): Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us what was the verdict of Professor Sidgwick?
  MR. CHAPLIN: I have just read it.
  MR. BIRRELL: What is it?
  MR. CHAPLIN: I have just read it —that it is a most equitable Act, that it is perfectly sound from the point of view of equity—and I have made that statement in reply to the burst of derision which greeted the remark I commenced by making, namely, that by impartial and capable students of the question that was the conclusion arrived at. Passing from this interruption, I will go on with the statement I was making as to the circumstances under which this motion is brought forward. The House will remember that it was during the passage of that Act that a demand arose and was made upon Her Majesty's Government that as there had been an inquiry into the claims of rural districts with regard to

  465
  local taxation, so also another inquiry should be made and a Commission appointed into the grievances of the town ratepayer. That request was at once acceded to by Her Majesty's Government, and a Royal Commission immediately appointed. Some of the results of the labours of that Commission are before us at this moment, and, as I am advised, the Commission are now engaged in the consideration of their Report.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: And have been.
  MR. CHAPLIN: With the vast mass of evidence and material which has been collected and upon which their judgment is required, I do not think it is anything to be disappointed with or cavilled at that some months should be required for the elaboration of their Report. Those being the circumstances, the hon. Member comes forward with his proposition, which is practically a motion to supersede altogether the labours and work of that Commission, and demands from the Government "immediate legislation," which I suppose is legislation in this present session, to deal with the question. If the House will bear in mind who those Commissioners are who have voluntarily undertaken this work, they will universally admit that there is hardly a gentleman amongst them who is not known and recognised as a consummate expert upon the subject, and it is not too much to say that they comprise much of the best intellect of the country which has been devoted to the study of this question. Out of respect for the members of that Commission, if for no other reason, I do not believe the House of Commons will for a moment listen to the motion of the hon. Member.
  MR. NUSSEY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman——
  MR. CHAPLIN: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me, as I am making my speech, to make it in my own way. I did not interfere with the hon. Gentleman; I allowed him that privilege to himself, and perhaps he will extend the same privilege to me. What does the hon. Gentleman say in support of his proposition? I thought that at least, after the exceptional course he had taken on this occasion, he had probably devised and
  466
  was about to submit some carefully considered scheme of his own. Even then, if he will permit me to say so, he would have done more wisely if, instead of submitting his proposals to the House of Commons, he had laid them before the Royal Commission for careful examination and investigation. But the hon. Gentleman was certainly very sparing in the definite proposals he submitted to the House. He does not want doles; he does not want any more grants-in-aid from the Imperial Exchequer, as that is a most mischievous and immoral proceeding, and one which leads to additional extravagance and waste in regard to rates. What he does want is a complete and general reform of the whole existing system, and that reform, as I understand him, is to be found mainly in a uniform system of valuation and also in a now system, which is to be the taxation of ground values. In this view he was supported generally by the hon. Member for Carnarvon. But this question of the taxation of ground values, as everybody who has studied the question knows, is a most complicated subject, and full of difficulties on almost every side; and I am bound to say, though I listened as closely as I could to all that they said, neither of those hon. Gentlemen appeared to me to say much, if they said anything whatever, calculated in the slightest degree to contribute to the solution of the difficulties. I was not at all surprised, and I do not wonder in the least, at the way in which they slurred over this part of the question, for the hon. Member for Stroud —who has had a great deal of experience as one of the members of the Royal Commission—stated in his speech that this question was coming to be considered more and more as one of those questions which were not the least sufficiently understood when they were first mooted, that the difficulties were becoming more and more apparent every day, and that it was one of those questions which in the end he felt would be universally thrown over. ["Oh, oh!"] I am merely quoting the statement of the hon. Gentleman behind me; I am expressing no opinion myself upon the question. As the member of the Government chiefly responsible for the appointment of that Commission, it would be disrespectful on my part to pronounce an opinion in a debate such as this upon subjects of the very greatest

  467
  difficulty, which I have expressly asked that body to investigate and report upon. The hon. Member for Carnarvon complained of the different treatment which he says we have awarded in this matter to the two different interests—the rural interest on the one hand, and the urban interest on the other. All that he asks, with the modesty which invariably characterises him, is that we should extend the same treatment to both. He says we have helped those who are the more lightly rated, and that the time has come when we should do something for the more heavily rated interest, namely, the urban interest. In the state of fervour to which he was moved by our iniquities on this point, the hon. Gentleman referred to old age pensions and the housing of the working classes, and in doing so he made some very remarkable statements. In fact, he attributed all the difficulties in the way of doing everything that was desired to be done to improve the condition of the working classes to the present iniquitous system of local taxation; he said that the system made it impossible to carry out these improvements. The hon. Gentleman must know that he was guilty of a very grave exaggeration when he said this. A complete and conclusive answer to this statement is the fact that, although it may not be nearly as much as we should desire—certainly not as much as anyone desires who wants to see the poorer classes housed properly and their needs attended to as they ought to be—although, as I say, everything is not being done, undoubtedly a great deal is being done at the present moment——
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I actually said that £2,000,000 had been spent.
  MR. CHAPLIN: And the work is being carried on without any of those insuperable difficulties which he supposes surround the question. Then, too, the hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the mere statement of the facts as to the rates being higher in towns than in the country is quite sufficient to establish the claim to immediate relief. No one denies for a moment that the rates in towns are infinitely higher at the present moment than in the country, and still less does any one deny that during past years they have risen in the towns, while at the same time they have fallen in the country. But there is this great distinction between
  468
  them which I must press upon the House. The expenditure in rural districts is chiefly expenditure from which little or no return of a beneficial character comes to the ratepayers themselves. In urban districts, on the other hand, the chief part of the expenditure to which the increase of rates is due is expenditure from which there is a return which is direct and admittedly beneficial to the ratepayers of the particular locality. Where that is not so, where there are no such returns, hon. Gentlemen will find that there is by no means the same disparity between the rates in town and country, and in some instances, indeed, if there is any disparity at all it is in favour of the town. I will give the House an instance of what I mean. One of the principal rates which is common to both urban and rural districts, and from which but few benefits accrue to the ratepayers, is the rate levied for the expenses of boards of guardians. How do urban and rural districts compare in regard to this particular rate? I am not referring to the poor rate as a whole, but to the expenses of the guardians alone. In rural parishes in 1897–98 the average of this rate was 12·7d., while in parishes in urban districts it was ll·9d.; so that this most important rate was higher in rural than in urban districts. It is the same in non-county boroughs, where the rate was 12d. as against 12·7d. in the rural districts.
  MR. JONATHAN SAMUELrose to make a statement.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I will not give way. I have been in the House a good many more years than the hon. Gentleman, and really these perpetual interruptions are quite a new feature in the proceedings of the House; they used seldom if ever to occur.
  MR. JONATHAN SAMUEL: I have not interrupted before.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I am not saying my-thing in the nature of a retort to the hon. Gentleman, but rather to vindicate myself from any charge of want of courtesy. As I was pointing out, this most important rate was higher in the rural than in the urban districts. If I may turn for a moment to urban rates apart from rates

  469
  in London, the most important rate of all is the general district rate. This averages about 2s. 11d., and undoubtedly is a very high rate. But it is very largely spent on purposes which confer direct benefits upon, and give a direct return to the ratepayers in the particular locality. For instance, it is spent on such purposes as paving, cleaning, lighting, baths, washhouses, the maintenance of sewers, of parks, recreation grounds, tramways, and matters of that kind. In regard to all these things which I have quoted, surely it will not be contended by anyone that the Government ought to come forward and contribute in matters like these, which are purely of a local character. But that is not all. It is the fact at present, whatever it may have been in the past—and of late years there has been some change in this respect—the burden of rates in rural districts is increasing at this moment in proportion more rapidly than the rates in the urban districts. I learn this from a calculation which has been made for me, and it shows these results. I want to show the House the rate in London county boroughs and other urban districts and in rural districts, and then show how much those rates have increased in the last five years. In London the rate was 4s. 9·3d., the increase during the five years being 3·8d., showing an increase of 7·1 per cent. In the county boroughs the average rates amounted to 4s. 11d., the increase was 5·5d., or a percentage of 10·2 increase. In other boroughs the rate was 4s. 10·7d., the increase was 5·ld., showing an increase percentage of 9·5. In other urban districts it was 4s. 4·3d. The increase was 5·8d., the percentage of increase being. 12·4. In the rural districts the average rates were 2s. 3·7d., the increase was 5·ld., and the percentage of increase was 22·5 per cent. Therefore these statements made this afternoon in regard to the constant and perpetual increase in the rates in towns which are held to be so much greater than in the country are susceptible of considerable modification. I pass from that point, and with the permission of the House I will say a few words upon the remedy suggested by the hon. Member. I believe every speaker on the opposite side of the House has repudiated what they have been pleased to term the remedy known as doles. At the same time they are most desirous of relieving the burden of taxation in the towns. I
  470
  hope I shall not be misunderstood in regard to what I have said about taxation in towns. I wish to guard myself against that, for I do not wish it to be supposed that I hold the opinion that there is no claim for relief whatever in the towns. If that was the opinion of Her Majesty's Government they would not have appointed this Commission. I shall await with the greatest interest the Report of this Commission, and I think it is extremely probable that when that Report is presented the claims of the towns will be made good; and that being so hon. Gentlemen may rely upon it that, sooner or later, the matter will have to be dealt with. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, although they repudiate doles and assistance from the Imperial Treasury, are most desirous that there should be considerable relief from taxation in towns. The main proposition, so far as I understand it, is that this object is to be accomplished by a new system of taxation which is to be imposed on what are called ground values. I see at once, with regard to that proposition, quite apart from its merits or demerits, one difficulty in particular connected with this proposal which it seems to me it is almost impossible to get over. To give effect to this proposition there must be at once, or at all events before it is attempted, a complete valuation of all the land in the country apart from the buildings upon it. This is an absolute necessity without which it cannot be done. The hon. Member who introduced this motion was good enough to say that evidence has been given before the Commission which showed that there was no difficulty at all in doing this, and that it would not be a very great cost. It is quite possible that one or two witnesses may have given very exceptional evidence with regard to this question, but the evidence of all the witnesses on this subject has not yet been published, and I am not yet able to say what it is. I have, however, a very shrewd suspicion that when the whole of the evidence is published, and we have no longer to rely only upon the evidence of the experts of the London County Council and of a gentleman who adopts precisely the same view, I shall be very much surprised if we do not find that the great mass of the evidence is overwhelmingly opposed to the views which the hon. Member has submitted to us just now. Has the hon. Member ever considered the magnitude

  471
  of this operation? What is the rateable value of the properties which are concerned, and which have to be valued? From the latest figures I can find I learn that the statistics given with regard to urban districts, including London and the boroughs, show a rateable value of over £145,000,000 sterling. If we take off £25,000,000 sterling for agricultural land within urban districts, that leaves £120,000,000. If we capitalise that £120,000,000 at twenty years purchase, the value of the property which is to be dealt with under the proposal of the hon. Member would amount to something between £2,000,000,000 and £3,000,000,000 worth of property. What would be the cost of carefully valuing this enormous property? The cost of valuation varies no doubt very greatly, and if we waited until we heard the whole of the evidence given or about to be given before the Royal Commission, I daresay we might hear a good deal more upon that subject. In the absence of this evidence, I consulted, not long ago, a well-known valuer connected with a firm of very high standing in London upon this particular question, and I asked what would be the charge made for valuations of this kind. I was told that in the case of leading valuers business was seldom done under a loss charge than 1 per cent., and that charge was by no means unusual. But taking it at 50 per cent. less than that charge, the cost of making this valuation, which the hon. Gentleman thinks is exceedingly simple, would be over £10,000,000 sterling. Who is going to pay that sum? Are you going to get it out of the rates which it is your object to relieve? or are you going to throw that charge upon the owner? But quite apart from the question of cost altogether, the difficulty of separating the land from the buildings in regard to valuation would be enormous, because we have no experience and no data whatever to go upon. There has been some evidence given upon that subject which was remarkable, although it was not quoted by my hon. friend behind me. That evidence was given by Lord Farrer, who was certainly not an unfriendly witness to the views being put forward to-night. What did Lord Farrer say? He said—
  "Valuers will no doubt put a valuation on anything whether they know anything about it or not; but the question is what real basis they have for their valuation. The only
  472
  ultimate basis of a valuer's knowledge is his experience of actual market values; and as the land and the houses upon it are sold and let together, no such. basis can exist for a separate value of the two things. A valuer's judgment is limited by his experience, and, where there is no experience his judgment is untrustworthy."
  I am disposed to concur in the main with Lord Farrer, and to believe that the scheme which has been proposed is impracticable, and if practicable the cost would be absolutely ruinous. But supposing it turned out to be a workable scheme, why is this special tax to be imposed upon land? What is the justification? The justification given by the hon. Member for Carnarvon was this. He said this was the unearned increment with which the landlord has had nothing; whatever to do, and that it is something to which the owner has no right at all. I submit to the hon. Member that land is not the only rateable property the value of which is affected by circumstances entirely beyond the control or influence of the owner, and the value of which is enhanced by circumstances to which the owner did not in any way contribute. The value of almost everything is affected in this way, and why is land to be the only thing taken in consequence of this? Take railway shares, Consols, furniture, pictures, works of art, jewellery, and almost everything you like to name; all these things are subjects of unearned increments at times. Why is land alone to be taxed and everything else allowed to go free? The argument is, because the owner has done nothing to contribute to that enhanced value; but this argument applies to hundreds of other things in addition to land, and no reason has been given to-night by any one of the speakers who have taken part in this debate why land should be saddled with this new and additional burden for a particular purpose which is of interest to all parties in the community, and from which all other kinds of property equally subject to the same increase of value are to be allowed to go free. There may be no answer to this question —there may be many answers, for anything I know, which can be adduced in support of this proposition—but what I do say is that no answer whatever has been given to these objections to-night. I cannot say that I think either the hon. Gentleman who moved or the hon.

  473
  Member who seconded his proposal have thrown much light on this problem which is before us, or have contributed much towards its solution by the speeches which they have made to-night. If I may say so again, I think they would have been wiser if they had reserved their proposition until the House of Commons and the country had had the full advantage of hearing the views and opinions of that great and important Commission which is now sitting on the question. I think it would be a most unusual and an almost unheard of proceeding in this House to consent to a resolution which calls on the Government to take immediate steps to promote legislation upon the very subject which they have referred to a Commission before they have had an opportunity of hearing their views. For these reasons I shall most certainly oppose the motion of the hon. Member.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with a sense of growing disappointment. At the commencement of that speech he did not do even bare justice to the mover and seconder of the resolution. The mover of the resolution delivered a speech which was admirable in its tone, and which did not deserve the somewhat unmeasured strictures which the right hon. Gentleman has made upon it. I think for a senior Member of the House, occupying the position of the right hon. Gentleman, he has shown in these strictures a want of consideration for a younger Member of the House which is unworthy of him and his position. The right hon. Gentleman throughout his speech, at the commencement, and also at the end, adopted a method of defence which is hardly worthy of the Government. He complained that the mover and seconder of the resolution have thrown no light upon this great question of the taxation of ground values. I should like to know what light the right hon. Gentleman himself has thrown upon taxation at all. A more jejune or barren speech I have seldom heard. The right hon. Gentleman has indulged in a form of defence which is not uncommon in Cabinet Ministers on the opposite side of the House, and that is the entrenchment of a Royal Commission. Fighting under cover of that Commission,
  474
  the right hon. Gentleman has been very valiant, but not very effective. In arguing and considering this question of the incidence of taxation the right hon. Gentleman referred, in his defence of the Agricultural Rating Act, to the fact that that measure was the result of the Report of another Royal Commission. I wish to point out that that was the result of an Interim Report, and he was so anxious to adopt that Interim Report and to bring about legislation in connection, with it that he did not wait for the completion of the work of that Commission, but he at once introduced into the House a measure by which he might give some benefit, I will not say to the landlords, but to the agricultural interest. He admits that all the time, and yet he has defended himself behind a Commission which has also issued an Interim Report which suggests that one of the best things to be done with reference to rating is that there should be one valuation authority for each county, and one valuation list to form the basis of all rates and taxes. If the right hon. Gentleman were equally in earnest in favour of the town ratepayer as he is about the agricultural interest, why has he not introduced a Bill to carry out the Interim Report of the Royal Commission? That would have given a beginning for reform, and would have shown a desire on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and the Government to meet the difficulties, dangers, and troubles which now afflict the community in regard to the rating of towns. This question of rating and assessment is at the bottom of all reform, and if the right hon. Gentleman had brought in a measure to carry out the interim recommendations of the Royal Commission he would have shown a sincerity of purpose which his present action does not justify us in attributing to him. The right hon. Gentleman told us that some ratepayers had a direct return for a rate of 2s. l1d. in the £ because that rate was used for the purpose of adding to the general amenities of the locality in giving better roads, drainage, lighting, and other conveniences for the public who dwell in the locality. But every one of these things given to the occupier adds to the capital value of the land where the money is being spent; and while that expenditure contributes a little to the benefit of the occupier, it brings untold wealth to the pockets of the owner

  475
  of the site value. So in that case his argument is not a sound one, but recoils upon him, and tells in our favour.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I adduced that argument merely to show the difference between the state of things in the country and the towns.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: The argument that this money is a direct advantage to the occupier is an equally fair argument with reference to the increased value which is given to the land. This expenditure goes to increase the wealth of the man who "toils not, neither does he spin," whose land acquires increased value, not by the expenditure of his own money—for he does not contribute a penny of it—but by the expenditure which other people make by improving the surroundings of the land which he owns. With reference to another point, the increased percentage of the rates in town and country, the right hon. Gentleman arrives at the extraordinary conclusion that, because there was a general increase of about 5d. all round, the ratepayer in the country who is paying 2s. 3d. in the £1 in rates, and who suffers about 22 per cent. of an increase, is a much greater object of commiseration than the unfortunate ratepayers in the town, who are paying 6s. 6d., and have had 5d. put on, which is a less percentage of increase. He gave this as an illustration of the increased percentage of rates in the country as compared with the towns, but that is a kind of argument which I do not understand.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I said in reply to the statement made that the rates wore increasing in proportion in the towns much faster than they were in the country.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is becoming an exponent of the new manners of which he has just complained. He has taken the opportunity of appearing in the character which he is unwilling to allow to others. I object to being interrupted by the right hon. Gentleman, who will not allow others to interrupt him. The whole question is so largo that I think these recriminations from one side of the House to the other, and especially the tone which the right hon. Gentleman
  476
  adopted in criticising my hon. friend behind me who moved this resolution, are scarcely worthy of the occasion. This is really a question of great and growing importance, and when we consider the figures we shall see how large a question it is. We are raising in this country for local purposes about £37,500,000 a year by rating in. That total is an increase of about 130 per cent. upon what it was thirty years ago. Under these circumstances we can easily understand why, while the population has only increased some 26 per cent. and the rates have gone up 130 per cent., there should be a general groan from the ratepayers all over the country. In addition to that we have a debt at the present time of some £262,000,000 which the local authorities of this country have raised to carry out their works, and when that is considered one can understand how great and severe the burden of the rates is everywhere. Every Member of this House knows it personally and feels it, but it is felt to a much more painful extent by persons not so well off in the social scale. The pressure comes not only upon the working classes, but with excessive cruelty upon the small trader and shopkeeper. They have been crushed out of their callings in some cases by the burden of these heavy rates. It is in the town districts especially that we on this side of the House feel that the case is one which demands early consideration, and has acquired an urgency which demands such a motion as my hon. friend has moved. In these cases it is a question of the increased population bringing about these results. Wherever the population moves the whole tendency is in the direction of crowding into the towns, and wherever the population grows in this way, in very self defence, the community is obliged to expend money freely, and even lavishly, in order to keep up the conditions of life which are necessary for a healthy population congregated together in a limited area. And so we have all this expenditure carried out for the benefit of the population, and the population not only finds the money out of its own. rates, but at the same time it contributes to increase the value of the land on which it dwells. This burden falling in this way upon these localities is one which cannot be borne much longer, without legislation. The right hon.

  477
  Gentleman should know, and I think he does know, that upon this question of finding some source of revenue to meet this growing burden of the rates, nearly; all the great municipalities, or at least a large number of them, have expressed their views. No fewer than 300 local authorities have passed resolutions in favour of the taxation of ground values, and I think that expression of opinion alone is sufficient to justify my hon. friend behind me in bringing forward this resolution. When you have 300 local authorities in this country expressing such an opinion, surely it is right and just that we should discuss some reform of rating in the House of Commons. If the right hon. Gentleman had looked at the Report of the Committee on Petitions which reported last year, he would have seen a very long list of petitions from some of the most important municipalities of the country. No less than 175 petitions were presented last session to this House in favour of the rating of ground values for relieving the burden of the rates in these urban districts. Those petitions express a growing demand outside for some reform in the direction which I have indicated. The right hon. Gentleman and some of his supporters on the opposite side of the House have pointed to subventions as a means of lessening the injustice of rating. We object to these subventions on several grounds, but more particularly because they are not the most economical way of bringing about a reform in the administration. The hon. and learned Member for Stroud said just now that we could give no examples of extravagance caused by these subventions. If the hon. Member had ever sat on a Watch Committee and listened to a debate upon the expenditure he would often have heard the remark made, "That will cost £100, but we shall get half of it back from the Government." That kind of argument is continually brought up, and it is an argument which tends not to economical administration, but rather to extravagance. Such a state of things lessens the regard which the local authority has for the expenditure of the ratepayers' money, and in doing that it does harm to the general administration of the district. I think these subventions have gone far enough already, and I hope they will not be extended. With reference to the position we are working for, I shall say a few words about it before I sit
  478
  down. There are certain injustices connected with our rating system which need to be; remedied. We see, for instance, that in a town like Huddersfield, or in any other-town where a great part of the land is owned by one owner, under the existing law that owner may use or not use that land as he likes, and except in certain cases the local authorities have no power to force him to use the land for the public benefit. He may refuse to allow his land to be used for building purposes, and he may keep it vacant for a considerable time until he gets a higher price for it, and all the time the community is being injured and retarded as regards enterprise and extension. The community has no power to force the owner to sell, and he may keep the land vacant to the detriment of the surrounding people, while the surrounding people are adding to the value of his land. I remember hearing from a personal friend of mine an instance in which an estate was increased in value in this particular way. About twenty-three years ago a station was built in the metropolis. The land was bought from a relative of my friend, and after the station was built a small portion of land was left over worth a few hundred pounds. A few weeks after the completion of the station a would-be-purchaser went to the owner and said he would like to buy the plot of land, naming a certain sum. "Oh, no," said the owner, "I want £30,000 for that plot." This was looked upon as an absurdly excessive price, but the owner kept the land vacant for a number of years in the midst of a very busy and active population. He paid no rates on it, though it is true that he received no rent, though even if he had, the rent would have been a comparatively small sum. The land gradually increased in value as a result of the industry and enterprise of the people living around, and in the course of time the owner sold that plot for £30,000, having done nothing to increase its value. All that time he had injured the community by keeping it out of the market and by not letting it be used for useful purposes. That dog-in-the-manger policy of not using property in the midst of a populous community is a wrong policy, and we ought to be able to prevent it by some method of taxation, and to see that the in creased value of the land bears its share of local rates for the benefit of the community. If vacant land were rated on

  479
  its capital value, it would not be kept long unused. We have in this case a splendid illustration of the manner in which land is increased by the industry and enterprise of the community, and it is this injustice which makes ratepayers in the great towns cry out against the system, The Corporation of Birmingham, over their improvement scheme, spent some two millions in acquiring a large property, which they let out, with the wisdom of the serpent if you like, on seventy-five years' leases, and when those leases fall in Birmingham will become one of the richest corporations in the country. But every landowner in Birmingham will also be benefited, in conjunction with the corporation, by the enrichment of the city by an investment to which he has not contributed a penny. That system is unjust and iniquitous as regards the people, because the present generation will receive no benefit from it, and it shows how the system can be used by an enterprising corporation for the benefit of future generations. With reference to the increase in the value of land in towns brought about by the expenditure of the ratepayers' money, that increased value ought to bear its share of the local rates, and I think myself, while there may be difficulty in applying that principle generally by taxing site values, I think at all events a beginning might be made by taxing heavily land which is not used. This proposal was made some fifteen years ago by a Royal Commission—one of the most important Commissions that ever sat—the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes. It recommended that a 4 per cent. tax should be placed upon all unoccupied land, and yet for all these years we have done nothing in the direction of bringing about legislation for this beneficent purpose, which would relieve the struggling ratepayers of the large towns and take away that sense of rankling injustice which the present system perpetuates in the minds of people. Ratepayers in towns never will be satisfied until some Government grapples with this question and endeavours to find a new source of revenue from unoccupied land and land values which will enable communities to undertake those great public works which are necessary for the health of the locality and the progress of the nation.
  MR. GRANT LAWSON: Until I heard the speeches in favour of this resolution I was inclined to agree with it with the exception of the one word "forthwith." I objected to that word, because it suggests that the wise thing to do is to legislate first and hear evidence afterwards, and not wait for the Report of the Royal Commission. You have asked several eminent gentlemen to sit on that Commission, and it is only common sense and courtesy to wait until it has given its decision. They have sat for many days and pondered many things, and surely we might now wait until they have decided the questions submitted to them. I should have supported the motion with the exception of the word "forthwith" if it had not been for the speeches made in its favour. In every Parliament that has sat for the last thirty years a resolution somewhat in these terms has been carried, and it has always been admitted that a grievance does exist. Hon. Gentlemen opposite propose to remedy this grievance by putting another tax on ground values which are already rated. When you rate a house you do not rate it as a castle in the air, but you rate it as standing on a certain spot, and a great part of its value depends upon where it stands. A house in Belgrave Square and a house in Bethnal Green, each costing the same amount of money to build, would be of very different values indeed, because the site is included in the value at which a house is rated. The hon. Member for Carnarvon referred to the Agricultural Rating Act. Hon. Members will remember the sleepless untiring interest the hon. Gentleman took in that Bill as it wended its slow way through the House. The hon. Member brought forward once again the argument that all the money given under that Act was given to the landlords, but the effect of that argument in this case is that if you relieve the burden you relieve the landlord, and surely the clients of the hon. Member are the occupiers, who are numerous, and whose votes are valuable. The hon. Member also referred to the increase of the debts of localities. That is an extraordinary argument in my mind. In the first place the loans raised have in many eases been for the purposes of municipal trading, and we have been assured only recently that municipal trading has been so successful that there is no need to

  481
  appoint a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into it. Again, these loans are only partly raised at the expense of the present occupiers, and some part of them must fall on the occupiers of the future. A great deal has been said during this debate to endeavour to prove that the farming interest has a great advantage over every other interest in the matter of rating. I should like to give a concrete case to illustrate the actual position. Take the case of a farmer owning and occupying house, land, and premises of the rateable value of £300 per annum. He pays an average rate of 2s. 3d., and in the old days paid £33 15s. a year, which the Agricultural Rating Act has now brought down to £18 11s. 3d. But what happens to a tradesman in the same district living in a house valued at £30, which would be about the value of the farmer's house? He pays only £3 7s. 6d. That is to say, that in the old days the unfortunate farmer had to pay eleven times as much, and now pays six times as much, as a tradesman occupying a house of the same value in the same locality, but even if the tradesman lived in a town and paid the average urban rate, which is not, as has been stated, 6s. 6d., but 4s., he would only pay £6, as against £18 11s. 3d. paid by the former. Then it must be remembered that the farmer is rated on three times his income, whereas the tradesman only pays on the actual amount of his income. The farmers are my clients and constituents, and it is in their interest that I have intervened in this debate.
  MR. JONATHAN SAMUEL: When I interjected a remark during the speech of the President of the Local Government Board I had no intention whatever of being offensive to the right hon. Gentleman. I knew that it was customary for Members on both sides to interject remarks, and the reason I interjected a remark was this. The right hon. Gentleman was giving a comparison between the rates in rural districts and the rates in urban districts, and he was pointing out that for poor law administration rural rates were higher than urban rates. What I wished to state was that this was entirely due to the assessment or valuation being lower in rural districts than in urban districts. Let me give two striking instances from the evidence which was given before the
  482
  present Royal Commission. In the case of East Sussex it was pointed out that in fourteen poor law unions the rateable value was £1,617,000, and that that for county purposes was increased to £1,758,000, or an increase of 8 per cent. In Norfolk the case is stronger, the increase being 15 per cent., and the difference ranged in some unions from 10 to 34 per cent. It is, therefore, impossible for anyone to draw any true comparison between rural and urban rating. There appears a general impression that it is because municipalities trade in gas, water, and tramways that the rates amount to 6s. 6d. That is an entire mistake. When municipalities have waterworks or gasworks they appoint a committee to manage them. That management is entirely separate from any other department in the Corporation, and the accounts are also kept separate. If there is a profit it is handed over to the borough fund for the purposes of reduction of the rates, and the average rate is arrived at after this contribution. I agree with the last speaker that the complaint made with reference to the indebtedness of the municipalities does not hold water, for the simple reason that the bulk of that indebtedness is in connection with gas, water, and other similar concerns. Of a total indebtedness of 120,000,000, over 80,000,000 is in connection with remunerative works, and I, therefore, do not hold that this is a very strong argument in favour of relief being given. What I do say is that the large towns have a responsibility placed upon them which is not placed upon rural districts, and it is an injustice that a man living in a town should have to pay an average rate of 6s. 6d. in the £1 on a high assessment, whereas a man living in the country only pays 2s. 3d. on a low one. The hon. Member for Stroud said that subventions did not lead to extravagance. I entirely disagree with that view. I have had experience as a member of a highway committee in a town where we levied a rate of 14d. for the maintenance of the highways. I have then gone to a county council meeting, where found that the whole cost of the maintenance of the main roads in the county came from grants which were spent in a most extravagant manner. These subventions are levied in a very unfair manner. According to a recent return, there was no less a sum than £9,175,000

  483
  intercepted last year and handed over to the Local Taxation Fund. If that amount is analysed it will be found that the bulk of it comes from our large towns and urban districts in the shape of beer licences, spirit licences, pawnbrokers' licences, and the like, and it is handed over to the county council to spend. The same applies to the death duties. If there is going to be a tax levied for local purposes on the personal property of the men who have made wealth in our large towns, then, in my opinion, it should be handed over to the localities where the wealth was made. It is unfair that the bulk of the money should be handed over to the county councils. If this resolution proposed to increase these subventions or doles, I should vote against it, because I believe that the system is a most extravagant one, and that we have no right to tax people and extravagantly spend the money without that responsibility which is essential to economy. The resolution does not propose that. It proposes to widen the means by which we collect our revenue for local purposes, and it is because I believe that it will result in increased revenues to our large towns that I heartily support it.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I desire to say a few words on this matter, because the large towns are greatly interested in it. Only the other (lay the Association of Municipal Corporations passed a resolution affirming the principle of the resolution before the House. It is difficult to deny the force of that resolution. It appears to me to be a truism, because it asserts that there is an increasing burden on ratepayers in towns, and that is beyond question. It also asserts that undoubted grievances ought to be redressed. Of course they ought. The only question that appears to arise is as to the use of the word "forthwith" in the resolution. The fact has, however, been overlooked that two Committees have already reported on this subject, one of them, presided over by that able economist the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, recommending the direct rating of ground landlords, and it even went so far as to suggest interference with existing contract between landlords and tenants. Let me ask first whether it is a fact that the rating burden in our
  484
  large towns is increasing. The smaller tradesmen undoubtedly have to bear a very considerable burden. I am not going to question for one moment the advantage of increasing the debt and levying rates for public works which are remunerative and reproductive. It seems to me that that is not a matter between town and country. My hon. friend the Member for Stroud said that ability to pay was the true criterion of taxation; but that is too wide. It is a question of the amount of the services rendered, and how far these services are beneficial. I am not, however, going to enlarge on that subject. I voted against the Agricultural Rating Act, which is now the law of the land. Having made my protest I say no more on the matter. At the same time, some feeling still exists, and the strongest part of that feeling is as to the differential character of the principle of rating between urban and rural districts; that the one is a higher rating than the other. No doubt if you take the burden off one shoulder you put it on the other; and, so far as you relieve one portion of the community of a burden, the other portion must bear an increased burden, and the urban ratepayers think that is unjust. It is not only the question of rating that is a grievance; there are exemptions from rating. I think the ratepayers in the towns have a great grievance against the Government' because Government property is exempt. Although owing to long-continued efforts in the House that grievance has been somewhat abated, yet the Government put on their own valuation. Now, how would the principle act if every man was made his own assessor of the value of his own property for taxation purposes? As to grants-in-aid, I would say they are necessary, and that we could not surrender them. On the other hand, there is in them a tendency to a want of economy in administration. Of course, I acknowledge that the House did something to remedy injustice when they passed the Equalization of Rates Act for London. That Act recognised the principle that the whole community should share in bearing the burdens, and I would hope that that principle might be extended. I come to the question of taxation of ground rents, which has been a substantial item in the discussion this afternoon. Some striking illustrations were given of this great grievance. I

  485
  know Huddersfield well, where one landlord of the whole borough has drawn immense revenues for a very long period of time without contributing in the slightest degree to the municipal development of that community. I admit at once that the taxation of ground rents is a complex question, and practically is not without great difficulty in its application. We have heard from both sides of the House several theories as to the ultimate incidence of the taxation of ground values, but I do not accept any of these positive theories. I think the exact incidence is determined by economic friction, and how far it is possible, having regard to the demand for houses, the length of the lease, and other circumstances, the burden can be shifted. For my part I think no argument can be based on any absolute statement as to the incidence in any particular case. I point out that whatever the burden may be there are certain cases in which the ground landlord derives a positive advantage from the contributions of his tenants to the rates. Where a loan is obtained for a great public improvement, and that loan is repaid out of the rates, the tenant never receives the benefit of his contribution, and the reversion of the great benefit goes to the landlord, who never makes any contribution to the rates whatever. That is one of the reasons which justifies to my mind leasehold enfranchisement. In Scotland and Ireland the division of the rates between occupiers and owners is an expedient for meeting this question, but it raises the point of incidence, and I think it is answered in the way I have ventured to suggest. It seems to me to be a very fair deduction from this discussion, what
  ever the result may be, that there is a very strong feeling that everyone living in a developing community, living upon its resources and deriving benefit and wealth from it, ought to make a direct contribution to the taxation which makes these things possible. When that is not the case, you have an unwholesome and undesirable feeling in the public mind that benefits are derived without taxation. In this way you alienate in a very large degree the relations between landlord and tenant, and you may do irreparable injury not only to the tenant, but to the community, and oven to the landlords themselves. I have a book here issued by the Conservative party on the eve of the General Election of 1894, and published at a central Conservative office in London. I do not intend to road the book, but it commends the Report of the right hon. the First Lord of the Admiralty's Committee and its recommendation. It suggests, in the interest of the landlord and of the community, that the ground landlords should directly contribute to the rates. On the face of this recommendation, and as an authoritative account of the intention of the Conservative party, I gave certain promises to my constituents, which I have not been able to fulfil; and the responsibility, whatever it may be, of my position, rests between the Government Report of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty and his Committee and this declaration of the party intentions.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 98; Noes, 140. (Division List No. 107.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)

  Harwood, George

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale-

  Allan, William (Gateshead)

  Dillon, John

  Hedderwick, Thos, Chas. H.

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.

  Doogan, P. C.

  Holland, William Henry

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C

  Bainbridge, Emerson

  Duckworth, James

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Dunn, Sir William

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Billson, Alfred

  Fenwick, Charles

  Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez Edw.

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Burt, Thomas

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

  Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt. Hn. Sir U

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Langley, Batty

  Caldwell, James

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumberland)

  Cameron, Sir Chas. (Glasgow)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert. J.

  Leese, Sir J. F. (Accrington)

  Cameron, Robert (Durham)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Leng, Sir John

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Colville, John

  Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Crombie, John William

  Gurdon, Sir Wm. Brampton

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  M'Crae, George

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Tennant, Harold John

  M'Kenna, Reginald

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

  Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Maddison, Fred.

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Ure, Alexander

  Molloy, Bernard Charles

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Wallace, Robert

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Runciman, Walter

  Walton, John Lawson (Leeds, S)

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Norton, Captain Cecil Wm.

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Weir, James Galloway

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Whiteley, George (Stockport)

  O'Malley, William

  Sinclair, Capt John (Forfarshire)

  Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)

  Palmer, George Wm. (Reading)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Woods, Samuel

  Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)

  Souttar, Robinson

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip J.

  Price, Robert John

  Steadman, William Charles

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Nussey and Mr. Lloyd George.

  Priestley, Briggs

  Strachey, Edward

  Randell, David

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  NOES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Mount, William George

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Goschen, Rt. Hn. G. J. (St. Geor's)

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Goschen, George J. (Sussex)

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A Graham (Bure)

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

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

  Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord George

  Myers, William Henry

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

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert W.

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Bethell, Commander

  Heath, James

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlingt'n)

  Bill, Charles

  Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

  Penn, John

  Bond, Edward

  Houston, R. P.

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Bowles, Capt. H. F.(Middlesex)

  Howard, Joseph

  Pilkington, Sir G. A. (Lancs SW)

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Howarth, Sir Henry Hoyle

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Plunkett, Rt. Hon. H. Curzon

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Edward

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. W. Lawies

  Pretyman, Ernest George

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

  Jebb, Richard Claverhouse

  Purvis, Robert

  Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire)

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Pym, C. Guy

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew W.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm)

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H.

  Ritchie Rt. Hon Charles T.

  Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r)

  Kenyon, James

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Keswick William

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Kimber, Henry

  Ryder, John Herbert Dudley

  Coddington, Sir William

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H.(Renfrew)

  Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth)

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning- (Corn)

  Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Cornwallis, Fiennes Stanley W.

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks)

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Lea, Sir Thomas (Londonderry)

  Smith, Abel H. (Christchurch)

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lecky, Rt. Hon. William E. H.

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

  Curzon, Viscount

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Stanley, Sir Henry M. (Lambeth)

  Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn- (Swansea)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham)

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Liverpool)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Lowe, Francis William

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

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

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph D.

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm)

  Finch, George H.

  MacIver, David (Liverploo)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maclure, Sir John William

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Killop, James

  Wilson-Todd Wm. H. (Yorks.)

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

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

  Foster, Sir M. (London Univ.)

  Mellor, Col. (Lancashire)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Wyndham, George

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Monckton, Edward Philip

  Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

  Garfit, William

  Monk, Charles James

  Gibbs, Hn. A. GH (City of Lond.)

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Giles, Charles Tyrrell

  More, R. J. (Shropshire)

  Godson, Sir A. Frederick

  Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.— EXTENSION TO NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVANTS.
  [RESOLUTION.]
  MR. McKENNA: I do not propose to do much more than formally move the motion which stands in my name. The principle of the motion is exceedingly simple. It is to extend the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, with appropriate modifications, to soldiers and sailors who may he killed or injured in the course of their employment. The operation of the Workmen's Compensation Act is now thoroughly understood. Under that Act it is recognised that if a workman is incapacitated by accident from continuing his employment, he should be compensated, and that if he is killed his widow and children should receive a benefit. There is, in principle, not the very least reason why the same measure should not be extended to soldiers and sailors. The principle, indeed, is admitted under the system of pensions, but these pensions do not compensate the soldier or sailor in anything like the same degree, or to the same amount, as that by which the injured workman is now compensated. What this House has done in imposing liability on employers in regard to their workmen it should be equally willing to impose on itself, as representing the taxpayers, in regard to our soldiers and sailors. The real question, so far as I can see, is, whether our soldiers and sailors, their widows and children, should be compensated by the State, or whether we should allow them to become a charge on the ratepayers. I submit that on a motion of such extreme simplicity as this there is very little indeed to be said, and I trust the House will agree with me that there is an immediate necessity for the legislation indicated.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs): I beg to second the motion, which I think is one that commends itself to the common sense, spirit of fairness, and the justice of the House. The State ought to be the model employer, and I think that what the State has imposed on other employers it ought to accept for itself.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That there is urgent need to extend the Provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, with appropriate modifications, to the Naval and Military servants of the State who may be killed or injured in the course of their employment."—(Mr. M'Kenna.)
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (MR. MACARTNEY, Antrim, S.): The hon. Gentleman who moved the resolution said that if there is no provision for the naval and military servants of the Crown the burden was laid upon this House to rectify the omission. As a matter of fact, however, apart altogether from the pensions which are earned in respect of service, provision is made in respect of injuries of as satisfactory a character as that provided for civilians under the scheme of compensation in the Workmen's Compensation Act. In order to justify that statement let me give a few examples of the compensation granted in a few recent cases in which both sailors and civilians have derived benefit after injury in Her Majesty's service under these regulations. A civilian, aged fifty-five, service eight years, wages 36s. per week, or £93 17s. a year, got jammed in a lathe; effect, a severe wound on the left thigh. He received a pension of 7s. 2d. a week. Another civilian, shipwright, age fifty-six, service thirty-five years, wages 38s. 6d. per week, or £101 per annum; fell and fractured his right femur; compensation 11s. 9d. per week. Now take the case of a sailor: first-class petty officer, age thirty-two, service thirteen years, pay 17s. per week; injury caused by diving at a depth of 180 feet resulting in vertigo and general paralysis. He got a pension of 10s. 6d. a week. I would also point, out that these men have this advantage, that their cases are subject to re-survey, when, if it is proved that their condition has become worse, their pensions are increased. I would point out that if the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act were to be applied to the sailors and marines in the Naval service they would be deprived of the privilege of drawing their whole pay without deductions while in hospital. Then compensation is provided for the widows and children of soldiers and sailors who are killed on duty. The widows of such able seamen and others on the lower deck

  491
  receive pensions varying from 3s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. a week, and, in addition, 1s. 6d. to 2s. a week is paid for each child dependent on them.
  MR. MCKENNA: That is not true, surely, in every case of a widow?
  MR. MACARTNEY: It is in every case where the injury has been received not due to the man himself—according to; the regulations.
  MR. MCKENNA: The regulations say "may."
  MR. MACARTNEY: Yes, but I have gone back many years and I find that, it is the invariable practice of the Admiralty to use their power in this direction, Take the case of a widow with two children. She would receive a pension something like £16 a year, which would compare more than favourably with what she would receive under the Workmen's Compensation Act. I trust that the House will agree, after what I have said, that no action such as is proposed is necessary, and that due provision is made both for the men themselves and their widows and children.
  COMMANDER BETHELL: I think it would be wrong that a resolution of the character of that which we are now discussing should be taken without some comment upon the position. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty has met the case of the hon. Gentleman by saying that the provisions of the service give remuneration in all cases out of the same fund to the widows and children; but surely he has a little overstated the case. I think I am right in saying that in cases of accidents the widows and children have only received a gratuity of the amount of the man's wages, and that after that they have been entirely dependent on the bounty of their friends. In the case of men killed in action the Admiralty may give a pension to the widow, but in cases of accident they frequently do not give pensions at all. I do not think the resolution of the hon. Gentleman meets the case, though I am not now going to argue that. I desire to
  492
  take this opportunity of drawing attention to the many widows who will suffer from the war in which we are at present engaged, and the endeavours made in this House and by representations made to the Treasury on behalf of the widows of seamen, soldiers, and marines. I think the Government of this country ought undoubtedly to see that the widows of persons slain in the service of the country, whether in action or by accident, should receive such a pension as would enable them to live under the same conditions as they did in the lifetime of their husbands. It is surprising that this question has not come before the House before, and if there is any advantage in the war in which we are now engaged, it is that it has brought this question before the Government, and that the widows will receive such a pension as they are entitled to. Then there are the men disabled in the service, who do very often receive a gratuity but not a pension, and if they do receive a pension it is a very small one.
  MR. MACAETNEY: I can assure my hon. friend that that is not a correct representation of the facts. There are cases in which the service has been very slight, and the injury has not resulted from the service, where gratuities have been given. But, where the accident has actually resulted from the service, I have never known a case where the fullest pension has not been given.
  COMMANDER BETHELL: What I say is that I do not think in every case where a man is compelled to leave the service through disablement he should receive a pension for life, but in cases where a man is seriously injured, to the extent of losing a limb or a hand, and has, in consequence, been dismissed from the service and is unable to earn his livelihood, he should not be dismissed with a gratuity, but he should be granted a pension. He is entitled to be taken care of.
  MR. MCKENNA: As the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War has not seen fit to offer an explanation so far as the War Office is concerned, and as the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty has made an answer which I can only, I am sorry to say, characterise

  493
  as disingenuous, my only course is to press this resolution to a division.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member, but I gathered that he addressed himself chiefly to the Admiralty. The hon. Member made his speech short, and so, apparently, expects a short reply. The matter is one which deserves consideration, and it is receiving that consideration. The resolution proposes that the War Office should adopt the procedure of the Workmen's Compensation Act with modifications, but in respect of soldiers who are injured a good deal has already been done. A man who is injured is entitled to from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a day, and where the injury resulted in total incapacitation I have never known anything less than the highest award being given. A man incapacitated in battle receives 2s. 6d. a day. When the accident occurs in time of peace 2s. is given in order to leave a higher margin, because we prefer to give something more in the case of an injury received in action. Under the Act the widow of a man killed receives £150, or three years wages, whichever is the greater; but under the War Office Regulations the maximum that can be given is one year's wage, and even that is not given when provision is made by the Commissioners of the Patriotic Fund. The War Office is now waiting the Report of Lord Justice Collins's Committee on the various funds, and the Government do not wish to commit themselves to any statement on the subject until they have had the benefit of that Report. I, however, quite admit that the plea put forward by the hon. Member is one which must command the earnest consideration of the House, especially having regard to the events through which we are now passing.

  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS.— MISCONDUCT OF CONTRACTORS.
  Motion made and Question proposed— "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon the allegation of fraud and irregularity in connection with War Office contracts during the last twelve months; that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers,
  494
  and records; that five be the quorum' that Colonel Denny, Captain Donelan' Mr. Elliot, Mr. Firbank, Mr. Houston, Mr. Howell, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Herbert Lewis, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Loyd, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, Mr. Paulton, Major Rasch, and Sir Robert Reid be members of the Committee.'—(Sir William Walrond.)
  MR. McKENNA MR. McKENNA (Monmouthshire, N.) moved to amend the motion by substituting the words, "any circumstances of fraud or irregularity" for "the allegations of fraud and irregularity." He thought the words of the motion would confine the Committee to the allegations which had been made in that House, and would prevent them from inquiring into circumstances of fraud unconnected with allegations previously made. He pointed out that if the Amendment which he proposed were accepted it would not put that limit upon the inquiry which at present there appeared to be in the motion of the right hon. Gentleman. If the Government saw their way to accept the alteration the words would run: "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon any allegations of fraud and irregularity," etc. He hoped the alteration would be accepted.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the words 'the allegations,' in order to insert the words 'any circumstances, instead thereof."—(Mr. McKenna.)
  Question proposed, "That the words 'the allegations' stand part of the Question."
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire)pointed out that it was obviously a question of drafting. The words suggested by the hon. Member seemed to him to prejudge the question and to assume that it was an undoubted fact already that there was fraud and irregularity. He could not see that any harm was done by leaving the motion as it stood. The Government desired to give every satisfaction to hon. Members. He recognised that the hon. Member had only the same object in view as the Government, but at the same time he could not help thinking that the words of the motion were conceived in a more judicial spirit than those of the Amendment.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he supposed the House might understand that there was no intention on the part of the Government to confine the Committee to the particular cases which had been named in the House, but that they would have the power to take a reasonable amount of evidence upon circumstances of suspicion which might have come to the knowledge of the Committee. Although not strictly in order, he might, to save time, ask whether it was the intention of the Government to accept no alteration in the time limit of twelve months. He mentioned this because it might be found necessary to go further back than the twelve months mentioned in the motion.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): My own view is that there should be no limitations as regards the allegations, but to prevent a roving inquiry it was found convenient to have a time limit such as that in the motion. If anything came out in the course of the inquiry suggesting that a farther, a more far-reaching, investigation, going further back than the twelve months, was expedient, or if there was the least justification for it, the Government would never resist it. The Government has no desire to place any limit whatever on the Committee as regards what has occurred within the twelve months.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. CALDWELLsaid there was just one word that might be altered, and that was the word "the." "The allegations" would give rise to the presumption that allegations had already been made. He suggested that the word "the" should be omitted and the word "any" inserted in its place.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think there is any difference of meaning between the two words, but I have no objection to the omission of the word "the."
  The Amendment was agreed to.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEthought the expression "last twelve months" imposed a rigid limitation on the Committee, but he assumed that what the Government said was that, if there seemed reason to go back for a short time before the twelve months, there would be no objection to extend the terms of reference.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Most certainly.
  Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon allegations of fraud and irregularity in connection with War Office Contracts during the last twelve months.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum.
  Committee nominated of:—Colonel: Denny, Captain Donelan, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Firbank, Mr. Houston, Mr. Howell, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Herbert Lewis, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Loyd, Mr. M'Kenna, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, Mr. Paulton, Major Rasch, and Sir Robert Reid.—(Sir William Walrond.)

  WATER SUPPLY BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. CORN WALLISrose to move the Second Reading of this Bill; his remarks were inaudible in the Gallery.
  Notice taken that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members not being present.
  The House was adjourned at half-past Eight of the clock till To-morrow.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:
Education Board Provisional Order's Confirmation (Brighton and Preston United Districts, etc.) [H.L.].
Gas and Water Order's Confirmation [H.L.].
And also the Certificates that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:
Morecambe Urban District Council (Gas).
Airdrie and Coatbridge Tramways.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
Petition for additional provision, of the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company, together with proposed clauses and amendments annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.
SALFORD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Petition for additional provision, of the Corporation of Salford, together with proposed clauses and amendments annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.

AIRDRIE, COATBRIDGE, AND DISTRICT WATER TRUST BILL.
A petition of Messrs. Martin and Leslie, of No. 27, Abingdon Street, Westminster, parliamentary agents, praying for leave to present a petition of Ironmasters and Traders in Coatbridge, praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, although the time limited by Standing Order No. 93 for presenting such petition has expired; read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and Standing Order No. 93 to be considered on Thursday next in order to
394
its being dispensed with in respect of the said petition.

LONDON AND SAN FRANCISCO BANK (PETITION FOR BILL).
  LONDON COUNTY TRAMWAYS (No. 1) BILL.
    BLACKPOOL, ST. ANNE'S, AND LYTHAM TRAMWAYS BILL.
    Examiner's Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Monday next.
  NORTH WARWICKSHIRE WATER BILL.
    BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL.
    Read 2a, and committed. The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
    IPSWICH CORPORATION TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
    Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY BILL.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.

    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (SPITALFIELDS MARKET) BILL.
    LONDON COUNTY TRAMWAYS (No. 2) BILL.
    ST. DAVID'S RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL.
    Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6) BILL [H.L.] (No. 61.)
    A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Barmouth, Brecon, Clacton, Cleckheaton, Hythe, Liversedge, Llandilo, Ramsgate, Romford, and Sandgate.

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL [H.L.] (No. 62.)
    A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Malton, the extension of the area of supply of the Midland Electric Corporation for Power

    395
    Distribution (Limited), Newhaven, Sea-ford, Thirsk, Totnes, Witney, and Woking.

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL [H.L.] (NO. 63.)
    A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, and the Electric Lighting (Scotland) Act, 1890, relating to Broughty Ferry, Dunblane and Wormit, and Woodhaven.
    GAS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (NO. 2) BILL [H.L.] (No. 64.)
    A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade under the authority of the Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870, relating to Dungannon Gas.
    TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 3) BILL [H.L.] (No. 65.)
    A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Tramways Act, 1870, relating to Batley Corporation Tramways. Cam-borne and Redruth Tramway, East Ham Urban District Council Tramways, Hull Corporation Tramways, Mideleton Corporation Tramways,.Portobello and Musselburgh Tramways, and Southampton Corporation Tramways.

    TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 4) BILL [H.L.] (No. 66)
    A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Tramways Act, 1870, relating to Ashton-under-Lyne Corporation Tram-ways, Garston Tramways, Gorton Urban District Council Tramways, Plymouth Corporation Tramways, Taunton Tram-ways, and Warrington Corporation Tramways.
    Were presented by the Lord Balfour; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY (WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA).
  Telegrams relating to the publication of despatches.
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1887 (EVICTION NOTICES).
  Return of the number of eviction notices filed during the quarter ended 31st March, 1900.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  I. Minute of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, dated 30th April, 1900, amending the terms of paragraph 10 of the Minute of 10th June, 1897, providing for the distribution of the sum available for secondary education; under Section 2 (1) (b) of the Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1892.
  II. Minute of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, dated 1st May, 1900, providing for the distribution of the sum available for secondary or technical (including agricultural) education under Section 2, Sub-section 4, of the Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1898.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to He on the table.

  UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877.
  1. Statutes made by the Governing. Body of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 25th November, 1899, amending Statutes XII., XLIX., LII., and LIV. of the Statutes of that College.
  2. Statute made by the Governing Body of Brasenose College, Oxford, on 20th October, 1899, amending clause 13 of Statute III. of the Statutes of that College.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 60.)

  RICHMOND BRIDGE.
  Account for the year 1898: delivered (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—WARM CLOTHING FOR THE TROOPS.
  THE EARL OF ARRAN: I beg to ask the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War a question of which I have given him private notice—namely,, whether he can give the House any information as to the extent to which warm clothing has been supplied to the troops in South Africa in view of the coming winter.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AVAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I think the best answer I can give to the question of my noble friend is to read the following telegram, which I have received from Lord Roberts—
  "From Lord Roberts to Secretary of State for War.—Bloemfontein, April 28th.—There is no necessity for appeal for warm clothing. Some corps have received more than they require, and all will be amply provided as soon as the numerous cases containing clothing and [here conies an undeciphered word] various description can be brought here from the base."
  I think that shows conclusively that the large demand which has been made for clothing of this description is in a fair way of being overtaken.

  BRITISH MUSEUM BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, I rise to ask your Lordships to read a second time a Bill promoted by the Trustees of the British Museum in the interests, I hope, of that great institution. Its object is twofold. The first is to enable the Trustees to deposit copies of local newspapers with local authorities, and the second object is to enable them to destroy matter which is practically of no value and absolutely useless. I may say that the pressure on space in the British Museum has long been a source of great anxiety to the Trustees and authorities of the Museum. In 1882 it was calculated that the space available would be sufficient for thirty-three years, but since then there has been such an enormous accumulation of what are called copyright newspapers that the pressure on the space is becoming extremely inconvenient. Some time ago a great addition was made to the accommodation by the provision of space in the basement and new buildings, but that is being rapidly filled up. Such is the increase in copyright newspapers—those which the British Museum is obliged to receive under the Copyright Acts—that since 1882 they have doubled in number, reducing therefore the estimated period of thirty-throe years by half. In 1882 the number of copyright newspapers upon which the calculation of space was made was 1,673; in 1896–7 that number was double—namely, 3,343. The Bill asks
  398
  that all newspapers issued since 1837 may be deposited with local authorities. It has been asked outside this House why the year 1837 has been chosen. That limit was fixed because up to 1837 the accumulation of newspapers was almost insignificant. The great and rapid increase has taken place from the year 1837 down to the present day, In 1837 the British newspapers occupied only about forty presses, as they are called—receptacles for books—whereas now the lineal measurement of British newspapers sent in under the Copyright Acts, taking three rows of volumes, extends to two and a quarter miles. The newspapers, therefore, issued before 1837 may practically be disregarded. Besides the newspapers which the Trustees are obliged to receive, a large number of colonial, foreign, and American newspapers also come in. These the Trustees do not propose to deal with. They will be kept in the same way as heretofore. Some objection has been taken to the British Museum parting with newspapers which may in course of time contain a vast amount of available historical and antiquarian data; but it is proposed in the Bill that the British Museum should retain possession of the newspapers deposited with the local authorities, and not part with its property in them. The newspapers, when they reach a certain number, will be very strongly and handsomely bound, and will be deposited with such local authorities as choose to receive them, but the British Museum will retain the right of inspecting them and of seeing that provision is made for their care and proper preservation. If such provision is not made the Museum will reclaim their property. The proposal to deposit them with local authorities arose, I believe, out of a suggestion made in 1880 or 1881 by Lord Lingen, the then Secretary to the Treasury. The idea has long been in the minds of the Trustees, and has been adopted by them as the best solution of the difficulty. I need not remind your Lordships that since that suggestion was made great local institutions have been set up. County councils have been established in every county, and these bodies are exceedingly anxious to have preserved under their own care and in their own locality the papers which refer to their own districts. British newspapers alone are now increasing in lineal measurement at the rate of over one hun-

  399
  dred yards a year, and if this rate of increase continues the prospect of clogging the space available at the British Museum becomes positively alarming. The second object of the Bill is to enable the Trustees to destroy matter which is practically of no value. I have myself seen the kind of matter which it is proposed to destroy, and I need hardly say that this is a power which requires to be jealously guarded on behalf of the public, so as to see that nothing is destroyed which possesses any value whatever. I will give your Lordships an idea of the class of matter to which the power to destroy would apply, and it will be seen that it is such matter as can be of no conceivable value to anybody or to any institution. The following is a description of the classes of useless printed matter which it is proposed to destroy—

  1. Wall diaries and books of blank forms, such as washing books, household and trade account books, etc.

  2. Wall-sheets of texts, alphabets, or elementary instruction, and blank register and other forms for use in elementary schools.

  3. Trade advertisements (excepting those which are well illustrated or which may be useful as showing the progress of manufactures, machinery, etc.).

  4. Christmas, birthday, and similar cards and coloured texts. (Some publishers supply these mounted in bound volumes, which will sufficiently show the nature of these cards and the progress of printing in colours, etc.)

  5. Children's toy books, packets of games, boxes of alphabets, etc. (The larger and better coloured children's books are catalogued and placed on the shelves.)

  6. Single sheet and small miscellaneous religious tracts. (All tracts issued in series which can be catalogued together and bound in volumes are kept.)

  7. Single sheet songs, ballads and hymns. (All those by known writers or of any interest, historical, political, or literary, are catalogued and placed on the shelves.)

  8. Duplicates of single volumes, odd parts of periodicals or broken sets, together with duplicates of books complete but so valueless that no library would accept them as a gift.

  Some trade advertisements would illustrate the trade of the day, and be a valuable record, perhaps, for some future historian in dealing with that particular item of history. Of course, those advertisements would be preserved. The Bill provides that in the case of matter to be destroyed the same rule and process should be followed as is followed in the Public Record Office Act, 1877, as amended by the Public Record Office Act, 1898. It is proposed that the rules should be laid before Parliament for nine weeks; and
  400
  when the schedules of printed matter proposed to be destroyed have been pre- pared they are to be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for another four weeks. With that precaution I cannot conceive that there can be much danger of the destruction of any printed matter. The question will not be left to any single authority in the British Museum. The chief librarian will not be able from time to time to destroy any printed matter. It will all be done methodically and regularly, say once a year. The chief librarian would schedule in a list the matter which it was proposed to destroy, and if the sanction of the Trustees was obtained to this destruction the schedule of these papers would have to be laid on the Table of Parliament for four weeks. I have explained the two objects of this Bill, and if it is passed into law Parliament will be doing three very good deeds—it will be encouraging local antiquarian and historical research, it will be paying a proper compliment to those great institutions the county councils and the municipal corporations, and it will, at the same time, prevent the British Museum from being suffocated by the accumulation of its own material.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Viscount Peel.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): Some two or three years ago, in my capacity as a Trustee of the British Museum, I was asked to introduce a similar Bill. I thought that the measure then proposed would rather rashly imperil some things which might be of great historical importance hereafter, but I am happy to say that I think every one of the objections which I then made have been met by the present Bill, which has my entire concurrence.
  LORD ALDENHAM: I had intended saying a few words in respect to this Bill, of which I highly approve, but my noble friend has put the matter so lucidly before the House, and has so clearly shown the advantages to be found in the Bill, that I am sure your Lordships will at once see the necessity of passing it into law. In depositing copies of local newspapers with local authorities we shall be placing them where they are most wanted, and not only will the space of the British Museum

  401
  be relieved by the transfer, but the time will also be saved of persons who desire to search for any particular matter of importance, and who now have to wade through a mass of rubbish.
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.

  POLICE RESERVISTS (ALLOWANCES) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD BELPER: My Lords, this Bill deals with the case of those Reservists who have been called out and who were members of the different police forces in the country. The Bill proposes to authorise the authorities to grant out of the police funds certain allowances and gratuities to those Reservists and their families. The discretion with regard to this is left to the police authorities, but there are certain limits which the Bill imposes with regard to the amounts that may be given. With regard to a married man, it is laid down that the total sum which shall be granted to his family should be a sum which, together with the weekly amount of any separation or other allowance required to be paid out of military funds in pursuance of any Royal Warrant, and the weekly amount of any compulsory deductions from the man's pay as a soldier, shall not exceed the total weekly amount which he was receiving from police funds when called out. In the case of a man who is not married it is laid down that the allowance granted shall not exceed in the aggregate 8s. a week. There is also a power given to the police authorities to grant a gratuity in the case of a man who dies or is disabled while employed on Army service, in the same way as they would be able to do if he were still a member of the police force. I do not think it is at all necessary to adduce any argument in favour of this proposal. The obligation to support the wives and families of Reservists has been so generally admitted all over the country that I feel confident your Lordships will readily assent to this Bill. It is, of course, understood that this is merely permissive. There are, no
  402
  doubt, certain police authorities who will not find it necessary to put the provisions of this Bill into force. In certain counties, one of which I am aware of, provision has been made by voluntary contributions not only for Reservists in the employment of private individuals, but also for Reservists who are employed by the police and by large companies. At the same time there are a considerable number of authorities who have asked the Home Office to give them this power, and who are, in fact, already giving gratuities which will be legalised by this Bill. It is in conformity with a promise which has been given by the Home Secretary that this Bill, which has passed through the other House of Parliament, has been introduced.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Belper.)
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.

  ELECTORAL DISABILITIES (MILITARY SERVICE) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD BELPER: My Lords, this is another small Bill which, if not necessary, is at all events desirable in consequence of the war in South Africa. The Bill is for the purpose of removing the electoral disabilities which may arise in the case of those who have volunteered to go to the front. It deals with the case of members of the Reserve who have been called out with members of the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteer force, and also with any other Volunteers who may have been accepted for active service; and it lays down that they shall not be deprived of their qualification merely by reason of the fact that they are absent from home. I think your Lordships will agree that it is only fair that men who have shown such public spirit and patriotism as to volunteer for service in South Africa in this emergency should be protected, as far as possible, in their civil rights, and that their absence from home on active service should not deprive them of the qualification to vote which they

  403
  would otherwise possess. The Bill only refers to the period of the present war in South Africa, and, as was pointed out in the other House, does not deal with the case of the Regular forces. That would be a much larger matter. The Regular forces of the Crown are enlisted for the purpose of service in different parts of the world when they are so called upon. This Bill only deals with those who in the natural course of their profession would not be called out of the country, and, as was pointed out by the Home Secretary in the other House, it would be quite outside the scope of the Bill to include in it the Regular forces. I have explained to your Lordships the provisions of the Bill, and I beg to move that it be read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Helper.)
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.

  COUNTY COURTS (INVESTMENT OF DEPOSITS) BELL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: The object of this Bill is to remove the existing restrictions in the way of the investment in the Post Office Savings Bank of moneys temporarily deposited in the County Court, especially for compensation to widows and infants under the Employers' Liability Act. The Bill enacts that the provisions of Section 39 of the County Officers and Courts (Ireland) Act, 1877, and of Section 71 of the County Courts Act, 1888 (which relate to the investment in the Post Office Savings Bank of money paid into court in equitable proceedings), shall respectively extend to all money paid into a County Court (whether before or after the passing of this Act) in any proceeding and ordered by the Judge to be invested. Whatever may have been the reason why the limitation was originally made, it is obvious that the power ought not to be so confined for the future.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.

  MUNICIPAL TRADING.
  Moved, That the Message of the House of Commons of the 6th instant be taken into consideration (The Chairman of Committees); agreed to. The said Message considered accordingly. Then it was moved, That a Committee of Five Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider and report as to the principles which should govern powers given by Bills and Provisional Orders to municipal and other local authorities for industrial enterprise within or without the area of their jurisdiction as mentioned in the said Message; agreed to.
  House adjourned at live minutes before Five of the clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten of the clock.